Dec 26, 2009 you can see the real size of wild male lion compares to humans. This is the huge full grown adult male lions. Can see the great body shape and huge mane make them the kings of all animals for.
Herald of Agony has always been a low-maintenance, high damage skill that requires very little passive tree investment to do good damage. And mana Guardian has always been one of the strongest defensive classes in the game. By reserving our mana, we get much higher energy shield numbers than Occultist
Quick Jump
Pros & Cons
Pros
1) Moderate upfront cost with a very basic set of unique items, scales extremely well with end game gear if you want to spend more currencies.
2) As tanky as any deep delve build, if not tankier, an Occultist with similar energy shield is glass cannon by comparison:
- 18K energy shield, 35K armor (50K when we flask)
- 7K molten shell / 20K vaal molten shell (10K and 30K when we flask)
- 6000 energy shield regenerated every 5 seconds, 48/20% block chance without flasking, 75%/40% block chance when we flask
- Four tanks with 175,000 health each as your indestructible front line!
- 500 energy shield regeneration per second, 800 when standing still, 1500 when standing still and block a hit last 4 seconds
- Immunity to chaos damage thanks to CI
- Immune to ignite, shock, chill and frozen effects
- Double curse if you want to do temporal chains + enfeeble
- Enemies around you are blinded thanks to sand stance
It is as good of a defensive resume as it gets outside of maybe self-curse Juggernaut. Best of all? You use ball of lightning so you can cast from full screen range so you don't need to face check things like corpse explosion from a strongbox on a map with huge damage mods.
3) Full screen clear with Herald of Agony pierce and 2 million shaper damage and you clear really fast for such a defensive build! Herald of Agony is also invulnerable, so you don't ever worry about things like damage reflect or zombie dying in deep delve. I am not even counting the frenzy charges you can get if it is not a single target boss fight which brings you to 2.5 million Shaper damage when mapping/delving.
4) Press and hold ball of lightning + molten shield + convocation and face tank to win (I have them as Q, W and E), no clunky mechanisms, no preparation needed.
Cons
1) As we get closer to 2000 delve level, defense no longer matters. Builds like raider scourge arrow perform well with 'kill them before they ever touch you' mentality and RNG based defense.
2) Unblockable attacks, such as heavy ground damage can still kill you. Your reflex will go down from playing this build so you may die from standing on too many ground effects.
3) You may get bored of the game if you literally can not die, and it is a mindless playing style without aiming, and low number of active skills to press and maintain.
4) This is not a SSF build or league starter like Necromancer Skeletons/Holy Relic. Upfront investment and specific gear pieces are needed.
Skill Tree
Ascendancy
Radiant Faith => Radiant Crusade => Unwavering Crusade => Bastion of Hope vs Time of Need
Pantheon
Soul of Brine King, protection against stunlocks
OR
Soul of Lunaris, as you need to protect yourself against chain damage.
Soul of Tukohama if you enjoy stationary face tanking like I do.
Bandit: Kill all, we need the two skill points.
Passive Tree & PoB
Level 68 POB: https://pastebin.com/QpZ5ZNJe
Level 68 Talent Tree: http://poeurl.com/cHLH
8000 energy shield, 1 million Shaper damage, 15K armor, not bad for a level 68! You will only be able to use Hatred if you have either Circle of Nostalgia, Enlighten Level 4, or Shaper +1 Gem Gloves. With the +1 to minion skill wand being much more difficult to acquire than before, cold iron point dagger is a great substitute at this level.
Level 94 POB: https://pastebin.com/y3eJ26cc
Level 94 Talent Tree http://poeurl.com/cHLJ
Once you buy Circle of Nostalgia, you can at least use Flesh and Stone's blind aura. You can switch to Skitter Bot later once you have +1 Gloves and Enlighten 4, which takes you over 2 million single target Shaper damage, 2.6 million in mapping/delving situations when you can give your crawler consistent frenzy charges thanks to Poacher's Mark.
Ultra Luxury POB: https://pastebin.com/UVXefp8c
11 million damage, double curse, level 33 Agony Crawler with hatred and aspect of the spider!
Gems Setup
Body Armour: Herald of Agony | Minion Damage | Damage on Full Life | Empower | Pierce | Maim
Change pierce for vile toxin for single target boss fights. Although very few boss fights don't come with adds, so I just use pierce for everything. To use something like Vicious Projectiles instead of Maim, you will need 36% or more mana reduction on your Circle of Nostalgia if you want to use Hatred plus a second 35% mana reduction aura. With Maim you only need 34%.
Glove: Hatred - Generosity - Enlighten - Flesh and Stone OR Skitter Bot
Glove needs to come with +1 to gem level OR enlighten needs to be level 4, otherwise you will not be able to use Hatred even with full mana reservation skill points until you get Circle of Nostalgia. Once you have all three, you can use Skitter Bot.
Skitterbot (or Discipline) + Dread Banner is a great substitute during leveling before you can turn Hatred on.
Weapon:Poacher's Mark - Desecrate - Spirit Offering
You can use another curse like Projectile Weakness, or a defensive curse like Enfeeble & Temporal Chains. However frenzy charges will add another 25% MORE damage for your crawler so I prefer to use that instead. Since I am now using Spectres and have Onslaught all the times, I use spirit offering as it is a little more damage and provides elemental resistance.
Offhand - Whakatutuki o Matua: Raise Spectres - Meat Shield - Feeding Frenzy
What makes this build special, try it and you will never go back to any other flavor of Herald of Agony!
Helmet: Convocation - Vaal Molten Shell - Increased Duration - Clarity
Add levels to clarity as needed to reserve all except maybe 50 points of your mana, you don't need it until Watcher's Eye.
Boots: Ball of Lightning - Poison Support - Faster Casting - Flame Dash
Herald of Agony itself is 20% poison chance, combined with Poison Support it is already 80% poison chance, with Golden Rule it is enough to keep stacks up. Notice you will need lesser poison support instead of poison support until you can add chaos damage to your spells, Circle of Nostalgia provides this. During leveling you will likely want to have both Poison Support and Lesser Poison Support. Faster Casting is great as it benefits both Ball of Lightning and Flame Dash.
Gear Setup
Starter Gear
Level 68 will get you 8000+ energy shield, 15000 armor, and over 1 million shaper damage. It is as strong a level 68 as you can get with cheap gear listed below.
Helmet - Memory Vault
Molten Shell has 40% increased Skill Effect Duration
+137 to maximum Energy Shield
+196 to maximum Mana
37% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
+22% to Fire Resistance
10% increased Mana Reserved
Feeding Frenzy Vs Meat Shield 2
Gain Armour equal to your Reserved Mana
Fundamental to all mana guardian builds as we reserve huge amount of mana, this allows us to have 80% physical damage reduction and the huge molten shell / vaal molten shell.
Gloves - Shaper's Touch
+1 to Level of Socketed Gems
91% increased Armour and Energy Shield
+4 Accuracy Rating per 2 Intelligence
+1 Life per 4 Dexterity
+2 Mana per 4 Strength
2% increased Energy Shield per 10 Strength
2% increased Evasion Rating per 10 Intelligence
2% increased Melee Physical Damage per 10 Dexterity
Fundamental to all mana guardian builds, converts our strength to mana and energy shield, great synergy. You can get started with a basic pair for super cheap during leveling with discipline and dread banner, upgrade to a corrupted pair with +1 gem level to use Hatred. Buy the cheapest one with +1 level and you can easily re-color with vaal orbs at your work bench, this is the cheapest way to activate Hatred with Herald of Agony. This is where we keep Hatred, Enlighten and Generosity.
Once you get your Circle of Nostalgia, the final socket can be either blue for Skitter Bot in late game or red for Flesh and Stone . Please be aware you will need either a Circle of Nostalgia or +1 gloves or +4 enlighten to activate Hatred. And you will need all three of these to use Skitter Bot.
Body Armour - Skin of the Loyal
5% reduced Cold Damage taken
Sockets cannot be modified
+1 to Level of Socketed Gems
100% increased Global Defences
'100% increased global defense' basically doubles the armor we get from our helmet which is well over 10K in this build, which translates into bigger molten shell as well. +1 gem level is basically +2 to Herald of Agony skill gem level because we use empower.
You will want at least 2 Green 2 Red for Herald of Agony, Pierce, Empower and Damage On Full Life. The last two skills are variable. While Vicious Projectile and Minion Damage provides the best damage and we will use it as baseline, especially with awakened gems, it is also most expensive both in term of mana reserved and price.
Don't be afraid to pick up a different color combination for cheap while you are starting out, or grab a corrupted +2 level to socketed gems Skin of Loyal if a different color is available. One major shopping tip is to look for Skin of Loyal with one or more white sockets and try to fit it into any of these color schemes. It provides immense flexibility in case you need to reduce mana cost to fit an extra aura, and you can snipe it for way cheaper than the proper color because people are often not searching for white sockets.
Skin of the Lords is a great alternative, specially of you are on a budget. In fact if you can grab one with one of these keystones, it is better than the normal Skin of the Loyal until you can afford a corrupted one with +2 levels to socketed gems! 20/20 corrupted support gems are cheap to get.
Amulet - Astramentis
-4 Physical Damage taken from Attack Hits
Perfect pairing with all attribute based builds. Very hard to beat for the price. Strength and intelligence are great for mana guardian. We also need to meet Herald of Agony's 159 dexterity requirement so that 100+ dexterity allows us to not worry about it. Price varies a lot depends on total number of stat points. +100 to all three stats is a lot cheaper than +115 for example so you can start with a budget one and upgrade later.
Weapon - Cold Iron Point Dagger or Rare Wand
Can roll Minion Modifiers
Adds 1 to 4 Lightning Damage to Spells
+1 to Level of all Minion Skill Gems
Can have multiple Crafted Modifiers
Trigger a Socketed Spell when you Use a Skill
Minions deal 46% increased Damage
Minions have 14% increased Attack Speed
Minions have 14% increased Cast Speed
Cold Iron Point dagger is a great starter weapon, as it is a whopping +3 levels to Herald of Agony. You will also be able to play Cyclone with poison/fortify/blind support (see skills section) if you hate ball of lightning. It also saves you a skill point in elemental equilibrium.
A minion wand with +1 minion skill gem and triggers socketed gems on skill use, and minion damage/attack speed. You can actually do better than me and pick up something with +150 mana on top of this. Auto cast curse, desecrate and spirit offering just makes the build so smooth and lazy to play.
Shield - Whakatutuki o Matua
4% increased maximum Energy Shield
+3 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems
+68 to maximum Energy Shield
79% increased Energy Shield
+19 to maximum Mana
20% increased Effect of Auras on you
20% increased Effect of Auras on your Minions
Spreads Tar when you Block
If you have Blocked Recently, you and nearby Allies Regenerate 5% of Life per second
2500 energy shield, 10% MORE damage thanks to aura buffs. You also get 5% energy shield per second for 4 seconds after you block which is good sustain as well for both you and your minions. Best in slot for your Spectres.
Boots - Rainbowstride
10% Chance to Dodge Attack Hits if you've taken a Critical Strike Recently
6% Chance to Block Spell Damage
162% increased Energy Shield
+55 to maximum Mana
+20% to all Elemental Resistances
25% increased Movement Speed
Really great boots as 6% chance to block spells is 12% with Lethal Pride, and excellent resistance. Great value for the money. You can also get a rare boots with more resistance, intelligence and mana, and even can not be chilled/frozen, but you will lose 12% spell block.
Rings & Belts
Agony Gyre Two-Stone Ring
+12% to Cold and Lightning Resistances
+34 to Intelligence
+166 to Evasion Rating
+38 to maximum Energy Shield
+52 to maximum Mana
+10% to all Elemental Resistances
+14% to Fire Resistance
Rift Cord Crystal Belt
+76 to maximum Energy Shield
+33 to maximum Energy Shield
+28% to Fire Resistance
+36% to Cold Resistance
+31% to Lightning Resistance
+45 to maximum Mana
You will want rings and belts with high resistance, mana, intelligence, strength and energy shield. Because you don't want life, you can get these for really cheap. This is where you cap your resistance. Remember later on you will upgrade one of the two rings to Circle of Nostalgia which does not come with any elemental resistance, so having extra resistance well above 75 to the point you can hit 75%/80%/76% with only one ring is not a bad idea.
Lethal Pride
Poison caused by Melee Hits
Doubles our block chance which makes our sustain and damage reduction much more consistent against all contents. Half damage off with heal trigger makes our defense much more stable.
High Priority Upgrades
Circle of Nostalgia
15% increased Damage
12% increased Fire Damage
+14 to all Attributes
Adds 18 to 29 Chaos Damage
+22% to Chaos Resistance
Agony Crawler deals 100% increased Damage
Herald of Agony has 35% reduced Mana Reservation
Allows you to activate a second aura like Flesh and Stone, or Skitterbot with +1 glove gem level and +4 enlighten. Please see the mana reservation section later. You should aim for 34% mana reduction or higher if you use maim, 36% mana reduction or higher for vicious projectiles, but do play around with POB to see how much you can squeeze in.
Level 21 Herald of Agony and Level 4 Empower are must have damage upgrades.
You will also need a Watcher's Eye with '+16-18% of your maximum mana as extra maximum energy shield when affected by clarity', a fundamental item for all energy shield based builds.
Enlighten 4 and Shaper Glove +1 Socketed Gems to turn on Skitter Bot in addition to Hatred.
For Oil, Utmost Might (huge strength increase) is the most popular choice, Soul of Steel (huge armor and +1 maximum resistance) is a good secondary choice. Diamond Skin if you need resistance.
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From the Necromancer gem reveals, referring to Meat Shield + Feeding Frenzy: ' This is not the case. Minions supported by both of these gems are ONLY defensive. They do not go where you cast, nor do they attack anything that isn't close to you. Tested with both Animate Guardian and Zombies. Removing both returns them to their default AI. (actually not sure if I prefer it like this or not, honestly...) Current IGN: twitchtvTheuberelite http://twitch.tv/theuberelite - I stream sometimes. Last edited by TheuberClips on Sep 12, 2019, 7:41:54 AM | Posted by TheuberClips on Sep 12, 2019, 6:31:35 AM |
I was curious as to how exactly this worked, I did a little (non-empirical) testing, attempting to figure out why these two do not cancel out exactly. Warning for wall of text: ->Minions follow your cursor when you attack, move, or cast a spell. Instant spells and warcries do not work. Moving your cursor while not issuing a command will not cause the minions to move, hanging around where you last issued a command. Almost like an invisible beacon where you last clicked. ->Minions will attack enemies within an area around this beacon. This area seems to increase with feeding frenzy, and decrease with meat shield support. This range is probably the aggro range talked about. Having both returns the aggro range to original. ->If the minions find themselves outside the beacon radius, they will move to be inside the beacon radius. This is how you get minions to move with you. If there is an enemy along the path to the beacon, they will not attack it unless it is inside the aggro radius of the beacon. -> If there is an enemy inside the beacon aggro range and the minion is outside it, the minion will attack straightaway, rather than running to the beacon and then attacking (needs further testing). ->SRS and summon skeletons probably work without these beacons in mind, as when spawned they either aggro enemies or end up just standing there. This is probably the reason as to why the aggro range of skeletons is larger than the feeding frenzy aggro range; because, if it wasn't, they would literally just stand there once anything nearby was dead. -> If minions are really far away from you, they will do either one of two things. Regular minions will teleport to your position. SRS and Skeletons will despawn. ->The big thing that meat shield does is that this beacon is placed at your feet for attacks or spells, and your cursor for move only. Meat shield minions will still run toward this beacon for move commands, and potentially run in front of you if they are much faster than you. However, they will no longer move for anything else. If you run and then attack, this movement beacon is placed at your feet and your meat shield minions return to you. -> beside altering the aggro range, Feeding Frenzy does not change anything regarding minion behavior. -> thus, if you use both meat shield and feeding frenzy, the aggro range is returned to normal, but the beacon is at your feet for any attacks or spells. The wording about this in https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2623295 makes it seem as if these effects cancel each other out perfectly, but they don't. I used meat shield support with my zombies while using cyclone in my current build. The zombies, supported by meat shield, will just be following my feet. Since the zombies only moved once they got out of radius, it results in the minions always trailing behind me. Without meat shield, however, the minions just followed the cursor while I was using cyclone. While I was testing, I figured out that there is a way to have the effects cancel out. The game seems to always keep track of where you are standing and where you are attacking while using an attack or spell. Using some simple vector mathematics, you can calculate a point between where you are standing and attacking, and send minions there instead. They will literally stand between you and where you are attacking, as a meat shield. Hell, with feeding frenzy support, you can have the minions overshoot where you are attacking. If you then equip both of these, you can have the changes to minions locations cancel out, and return their behavior to normal. | Posted by wazzupdj on Sep 15, 2019, 8:49:20 PM |
' Hey there, Thank you for the report. This is indeed bugged, it has been fixed and will be included in a future patch. Sorry for the trouble! | Posted by YOLANDI_GGG on Sep 16, 2019, 12:20:23 AM |