[3.9] Herald of Agony (Melee!) Necro--Get in Monsters' Faces Safely (5M Shaper DPS/8.4kLife+Fortify)

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_TM_ escreveu:

Question regarding reserved Mana: just started playing the build and realized I'll "need" 60~ mana unreserved for the Stone Golem to be casted. My cuirrent workaround is spending 2 points and my annointment on mana nodes. Do I actually need to have the available mana for the golem/relic to be casted on frenzy or does it work without?

Just my thoughts...

Relic is fine to cast with basic/sensible reserved mana. Golem may be a bit much, but it's a Stone Golem. Very tough to kill. If it's dead, you're probably dead too. (It is Frenzied, though, which does get it into more trouble.)

Note: This League, with it's Metamorph Challenge AND the newer Conqueror's mechanics has a ton more ground-spawn (Pools of nasty doo-doo, both on the ground and falling from the sky... Much doo-doo.) than some. Minions are stoopid... So, if you're in high-tiers and finding your Minions dying, planning on recasting them isn't a great work-around, IMO. Try to protect them in other ways. +Resits/etc, AG with the right gear, ways to mitigate any incoming damage (+hp Jewel) etc. Whenever I've been in a situatino where Zombies were dying to effects/spells/environmental it was never one in which I wanted to have to run around recasting. Just my two-coppers. :)

Spending Passives or <Gulp> Annointings on +Mana for a Witch is ungood. Add mana, mana regen, etc to elective gear and Jewel if you really need it. -2 Mana cost on a Ring will take care of Cyclone**. +mana leech, +mana per hit, %phys damage as mana.. That's easy to get sustain for Cyclone when fighting. Even Mana Regen can handle a lot/all. But, don't waste passives or your Annointment on mana unless you're truly sorely pressed. And, plan on those things being temporary.

** It's showing as a 4pt cost for me, so -2 Elreon on both rings for completely free? But, with +mana leech/hit/%dmg and decent regen, I'm fine on mana for Flamedash, etc, as long as I'm playing like a Cyclone character and not spamming it while there's nothing to hit. :))

I wasted a point on picking up a +30 Dex Passive node just so I didn't have to worry about Dex very much. I'll make it up, later, with some higher Tier roll gear and the snatch that point back.

Yes, animate guardian should work fine in this build for most of our purposes... but again, since we don't stack minion life or resists I just haven't really tried to build around it because I'm a coward. I like bossing, I did uber elder and aul last league, I didn't want to suddenly have a Kingmaker Animated Guardian die.

Anyway, if a frenzied stone golem is dying too easily to metamorphs, you can very easily swap links around. You can put your zombies in a 4-link with stone golem (+ minion life + meatshield) and put Feeding Frenzy in a weapon with just your Relic. You're going to get the feeding frenzy buff as soon as you smack anything (because as soon as you do, your relic will output a pulse that gives you feeding frenzy).

This should make your stone golem even more survivable. At gem level 29.

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codetaku escreveu:

Yes, animate guardian should work fine in this build for most of our purposes... but again, since we don't stack minion life or resists I just haven't really tried to build around it because I'm a coward. I like bossing, I did uber elder and aul last league, I didn't want to suddenly have a Kingmaker Animated Guardian die.

Understandable, but a Kingmaker AG is great, but a cheap AG survives just fine. And, is cheap. :) It's just something "extra." And, if he dies? A handful of chaos is all that is lost.

It's hard to get "sure" reads on XBox, but as far as I can tell I'm getting endurance charges from him and that's 15% Damage Reduction at max if he gets wailed on in packs wearing Ambu's. I've never used a Bloodbond AG.

Stormheart has a 50% Shock chance on Chilled enemies which would seem to mesh nicely with the Hatred cold damage for minions. Dying Breath is one I haven't used as well, but it's got a flat 18% + damage for allies and curse/aura boost against nearby enemies. (Never used it on an AG.)

And... I have a nicely empty socket for an aG so.. :) ("Fun" is the focus after all. Just had a Metamorph Vaal Skeleton Army vs my Vaal Skeleton Army... Love me some Vaal Skeletons. :))

Fun build, thanks!

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Anyway, if a frenzied stone golem is dying too easily to metamorphs, you can very easily swap links around. You can put your zombies in a 4-link with stone golem (+ minion life + meatshield) and put Feeding Frenzy in a weapon with just your Relic. You're going to get the feeding frenzy buff as soon as you smack anything (because as soon as you do, your relic will output a pulse that gives you feeding frenzy).

This should make your stone golem even more survivable. At gem level 29.

My Stone Golem seems happy. Zombies, on the other hand, can get wiped in tough fights with lots of AOE/Rain/Groundspawn. Am going to work on better resits Jewels for them.

Is the CWDT setup with Spirit Offering and Desecrate most optimal at the highest levels? Or would it be better keeping it a bit lower? I don't seem to notice it popping off that much, but it would totally be my fault.

Hi,
i really enjoy your build so far.
Got my hands on Elder Gloves today, so i switch to 6l Cyclone.

Question, why it is recommend to use "Wither Touch" as does literally nothing but to boost the Cyclone damage from 5k to 6k, or do i miss something ?

How about the Maim Support Gem, it give -14% increased damage on maimend enemys. As our Crawler does only phys dmg, isnt it worth it ?



Also great for Bossleague : Culling Strike (10% HP Execute + 10% Attackspeed)

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Painstorix escreveu:

Hi,
i really enjoy your build so far.
Got my hands on Elder Gloves today, so i switch to 6l Cyclone.

Question, why it is recommend to use "Wither Touch" as does literally nothing but to boost the Cyclone damage from 5k to 6k, or do i miss something ?

How about the Maim Support Gem, it give -14% increased damage on maimend enemys. As our Crawler does only phys dmg, isnt it worth it ?

Also great for Bossleague : Culling Strike (10% HP Execute + 10% Attackspeed)

it provides the "withered" ailement on the target which causes targets take increased chaos damage.

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Ledbetter escreveu:

Is the CWDT setup with Spirit Offering and Desecrate most optimal at the highest levels? Or would it be better keeping it a bit lower? I don't seem to notice it popping off that much, but it would totally be my fault.

I designed it to provide a more significant benefit in real danger, rather than providing a minor benefit more often. You can change it as you please.

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Painstorix escreveu:

Hi,
i really enjoy your build so far.
Got my hands on Elder Gloves today, so i switch to 6l Cyclone.

Question, why it is recommend to use "Wither Touch" as does literally nothing but to boost the Cyclone damage from 5k to 6k, or do i miss something ?

How about the Maim Support Gem, it give -14% increased damage on maimend enemys. As our Crawler does only phys dmg, isnt it worth it ?

Also great for Bossleague : Culling Strike (10% HP Execute + 10% Attackspeed)

What you seem to be missing is that the agony crawler has an implicit, hidden 40% physical damage converted to chaos damage. When combined with spirit offering, it actually deals more base chaos damage than physical.

But even when spirit offering isn't up, withering touch still increases damage much more than maim does. Maim is 60% damage * .15 = 9% more damage in total, worse than even culling strike. Meanwhile, withering touch at a 0.07 attack rate with no duration modifiers gets you an average of 2 / 0.07 * .25 (chance of applying wither) * .06 (damage multiplier of chaos damage) * .4 (percentage of original damage that is chaos) = 0.17142857142, or just over 17% more damage in total, better than both Maim and Culling Strike.

And when spirit offering is up, the effect is even greater.

The one upside of culling strike over withering touch is that quality also grants you more attack speed. However, Maim on your own cyclone setup is absolutely not the right call. If maim were good on the agony crawler, we'd actually be using it as one of our main links (to replace Vicious Projectiles, which is our weakest link for single target). But thanks to the 40% chaos conversion, it's actually quite mediocre.

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Painstorix escreveu:

Hi,
i really enjoy your build so far.
Got my hands on Elder Gloves today, so i switch to 6l Cyclone.

Question, why it is recommend to use "Wither Touch" as does literally nothing but to boost the Cyclone damage from 5k to 6k, or do i miss something ?

How about the Maim Support Gem, it give -14% increased damage on maimend enemys. As our Crawler does only phys dmg, isnt it worth it ?

Also great for Bossleague : Culling Strike (10% HP Execute + 10% Attackspeed)

this gloves look nice but you lose curse on hit? And what's cyclone mana cost at 6 link?

Thank you for this indepth explanation, i actually wasn't aware of the chaos conversion.

6l Cyclone with Culling Strike = 6 Mana
6l Cyclone with Withering Touch = 7 Mana

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Painstorix escreveu:

6l Cyclone with Culling Strike = 6 Mana
6l Cyclone with Withering Touch = 7 Mana

Okay, I guess that's reason #2 to use culling strike over withering touch, besides just the attack speed ;P

I never used anything but a 4-link setup so I never had to deal with extremely costly cyclones.