[3.5] Pure Uniques Molten Strike HOWA. 4 Mill Shaper DPS, Good Defences

to WaffleT
Thank u for this idea and this build!
I changed some things for yourself and built Spectral throw version.
Shaper: https://youtu.be/ZCW6CMJUYQw

Been playing around with a guardian version of this build that may beat out the scion in value. Have added info to top of front page if people are interested

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WaffleT escribió:

Been playing around with a guardian version of this build that may beat out the scion in value. Have added info to top of front page if people are interested

What about dual wield HoWA with the guardian and Sin Trek instead of Rainbowstride?

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Zindax escribió:

What about dual wield HoWA with the guardian and Sin Trek instead of Rainbowstride?

This was my original plan but eventually decided to default back to atziri's mirror as its the easier option. Since guardian has stun immunity if you've blocked in the last 10 seconds I wanted enough block to feel essentially stun immune. Changing those two items out means getting 50% all resistances from other sources which really puts a strain on finding good jewels

From my situation making that change results in

+ 10-15% more damage (assuming you get many good damage+resistance jewels)
+ 124 ES
- 23% block chance (no loss during bastion of hope)
- 12% spell block chance (19% loss during bastion of hope)
- Ability to shield charge

The most significant stat now is the spell block so I'll focus on that. Unlike the scion the guardian is actually spoiled for choice when it comes to good ES nodes but the spell block is similar to 12% less damage taken so if you wanted to make the swap without lowering your defenses you would want to increase ES total by about 10%, unfortunately if you do that then you end up with worse damage then before you started the swap making the change not worth it

TLDR: Much like scion duel claw is better damage but worse defenses

Just changing to duel claw and keeping the rainbowstride still gives you 7% spell block and gets the 19% spell block during basion. You can get 5% more ES and 30% resistances without losing that much damage so that could be a good option. The differences are not massive so I think its going to be more about personal taste

Right, the stun is an issue. Thanks for seeing and explaining that. It's not a low life Presence of Chayula character. (I just played an aurabot.) It's not an occultist. And we aren't going down the left side of the tree for iron reflexes and unwavering stance. And we aren't taking the pantheon option? Using block to create stun immunity seems very in-intuitive to me. Block doesn't prevent a stun, but I guess what you are saying is IF you block, that triggers stun immunity which overrides the stun that would have occurred (?). But you only have Bastion of Hope for 2 out of 5 seconds, so you only have 75% block 40% of the time? The other 60% of the the time, you have a 40% block chance? And that's only for attacks. And it looks like this Atziri's Mirror isn't curse immunity. So, we're taking a shield that doesn't give ES or curse immunity anymore for effectively a 54% chance to trigger a 10 second stun immunity, but only if the bad guy uses a weapon against us first and not a spell? Did I get that correct? (I'm not sure if traps still count as neither an attack or a spell) If so, is that really appreciably better than the pantheon option?

I mean, the "Faith and Steel" and "Nullification" nodes are right there.

Thanks.

P.S.: I'm rooting for you because I'd like to see this 13k ES, 4k mana guardian potential that can hit with the HoWA pretty hard, and uses molten strike (not blade flurry). Hopefully, my questions are in the right direction.

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Zindax escribió:

Right, the stun is an issue.

I mean, the "Faith and Steel" and "Nullification" nodes are right there.

I wouldn't say stun is an issue. The scion version of this build that was played quite regularly and that I played into lategame in Abyss league only had the pantheon and did just fine since it has a 78% chance to evade attacks from normal mobs and an evaded attack won't stun. I'm just saying its something in the 'pro' column of block for a guardian. I posted a video doing a minotaur map and I had the stun immune buff about 75% of the time and never got stunned, the buff continues to renew itself pack to pack maintaining continues stun immunity while as the pantheon only triggers after getting a stun. You can use both though

Faith and steel and nullification are both there and also both pretty inefficient at 120 ES per point instead of the 222 ES per point from something like dreamer. Thats how I got the comparison I posted just before, making those changes you suggested and what the result was. I prefer the advantages of the shield but i understand if you prioritise damage over block/spell block chance the double claw is the way to go

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WaffleT escribió:

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Zindax escribió:

Right, the stun is an issue.

I mean, the "Faith and Steel" and "Nullification" nodes are right there.

I wouldn't say stun is an issue. The scion version of this build that was played quite regularly and that I played into lategame in Abyss league only had the pantheon and did just fine since it has a 78% chance to evade attacks from normal mobs and an evaded attack won't stun. I'm just saying its something in the 'pro' column of block for a guardian. I posted a video doing a minotaur map and I had the stun immune buff about 75% of the time and never got stunned, the buff continues to renew itself pack to pack maintaining continues stun immunity while as the pantheon only triggers after getting a stun. You can use both though

Faith and steel and nullification are both there and also both pretty inefficient at 120 ES per point instead of the 222 ES per point from something like dreamer. Thats how I got the comparison I posted just before, making those changes you suggested and what the result was. I prefer the advantages of the shield but i understand if you prioritise damage over block/spell block chance the double claw is the way to go

I mean it's an issue, as in I didn't realize (until you told me) that a factor involved in you choosing the Atziri's Mirror was so stun immunity through Bastion of Hope would trigger more reliably, assuming I even got that math correct. I'm not implying that it makes the character weak. I'm implying that the stun immunity mechanic is not appreciably better than Soul of the Brine King, by itself. But maybe you have enough block to take Soul of Solaris, for example. I'm guessing you chose Soul of the Brine King for the guardian.

The other reason would be the lack of offensive jewels available because you would have to make up the resistances lost from the Atziri's Mirror and Rainbowstride. I calculated the dps difference for you to be slightly under 25% more damage if you switched to dual wield (after you corrected the problem of resists). The reason I mentioned those nodes, "Faith and Steel" and "Nullification", was because you hadn't taken them yet, and they give ES and resists. It's not from the ES alone. Sin Trek has no resists, but its good ES and damage for the build.

I like the potential of this build for the new league in 2-3 weeks, especially paired with a scion aurabot. It didn't look like you corrupted your gear to give it 30% quality bonuses. It's not like you had all 21/20 jewels. Fertile Mind and Wildfire could be corrupted to give +1% chaos damage per corrupted item. It looked like 13k ES and 4.5k mana was possible. And I'n not sure if PoE builder can properly calculate a dps upgrade involved in such a corrupted jewel. It didn't seem to affect it when I tried.

I'd imagine your biggest weakness is physical damage. That, and when you are not able to get health back when damage comes and no targets are there to leech from (traps, uber lab). I wonder if you were going to pair with a scion aurabot giving you grace, determination, better discipline, vitality, and with elemental purities on generosity, if going down the left side of the tree and taking iron reflexes, unwavering stance, and regen over vaal pact, and dual wield over a shield would seem like more attractive options to you. (maybe put a commandment of light on the Shaper gloves)

I mention the scion specifically because of the physical mitigation and the attack speed bonuses from their auras. Also, you got a lot of mana, and that's the one aura the scion can't give. I'm thinking Bastion of Light isn't everything, and Unwavering Faith is useful. It stacks with the scion's auras. I've seen it. Getting to 90% phys reduction with that group for both party members would be easysauce. Like I don't know if those two party members could go into uber lab, go afk on saw mills, and come back 6 hours later with their characters alive is possible, but it wouldn't surprise me.

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Zindax escribió:

I mean it's an issue, as in I didn't realize (until you told me) that a factor involved in you choosing the Atziri's Mirror was so stun immunity through Bastion of Hope would trigger more reliably, assuming I even got that math correct. I'm not implying that it makes the character weak. I'm implying that the stun immunity mechanic is not appreciably better than Soul of the Brine King, by itself. But maybe you have enough block to take Soul of Solaris, for example. I'm guessing you chose Soul of the Brine King for the guardian.

The other reason would be the lack of offensive jewels available because you would have to make up the resistances lost from the Atziri's Mirror and Rainbowstride. I calculated the dps difference for you to be slightly under 25% more damage if you switched to dual wield (after you corrected the problem of resists). The reason I mentioned those nodes, "Faith and Steel" and "Nullification", was because you hadn't taken them yet, and they give ES and resists. It's not from the ES alone. Sin Trek has no resists, but its good ES and damage for the build.

I like the potential of this build for the new league in 2-3 weeks, especially paired with a scion aurabot. It didn't look like you corrupted your gear to give it 30% quality bonuses. It's not like you had all 21/20 jewels. Fertile Mind and Wildfire could be corrupted to give +1% chaos damage per corrupted item. It looked like 13k ES and 4.5k mana was possible. And I'n not sure of PoE builder can properly calculate a dps upgrade involved in such a corrupted jewel.

I'd imagine your biggest weakness is physical damage.

I chose atziri's mirror over duel claw with the scion not just the guardian. Getting free regular stun immunity is just a bonus. I'm currently using brine king but only out of habit

Path of building calculates swapping into duel claw as 19.6% more damage but then you need to cover resistances. Even with the most efficient forms of resistance you need to cut things which loses you either ES or damage and I generally choose to cut damage instead of ES which is how I got the 10%-15% figure, the dps number I ended up with was I think 12% more then it was before but losing the block are therefore survivability

The gear in this guide is my Abyss characters gear as its the last time I played the scion HOWA, for that character Sin Trek was the more efficient choice. This guide has existed for a bit over a year now and Sin Trek has been the choice for the scion for most of that time. 30% corruption didn't exist then but yeah there is certainly obvious upgrades that can be made. I try to keep things mid budget though, anyone with any experience knows how to do obvious things like buying level 21/20 gems if they want to invest more.

Its not hard to calculate chaos damage but this build doesn't do that much of it, only an atziri flask and incandescent heart worth. +1% per corruption jewels are pretty cost ineffective. Even after the time of corrupting all your gear its only 10% chaos damage per jewel which for me is 0.4% damage. If I spend the time and cost on getting that on all 5 of my unique jewels for 50% increased chaos damage its still only 1.8% more damage. Thats significantly less damage then a skill point and the time/effort could have been spent mapping for experience

The thing about physical damage is that its almost always attacks which for the guardian needs to get through 50% block chance, 73% evade chance and then faces 3 endurance charges and a large ES pool. I didn't fear physical in the slightest on the scion and the guardian has an even easier time. Non attacks are lab traps which are trivial to get through and physical spells which is why I value the spell block from rainbowstride. Physical spells are also just super rare and not on anything threatening expect boulders in minotaur and an elder guardian. Both are not really very strong hits though

So i am leveling a scion in flash back, so far i am wearing this



And i have this ready to go once i can link them


But i am a little confused on the skill tree. what should i ibe picking up first? and has anything in this build changed for the gear? also the ascendancyis are locked in the race so what acendancy should i get?

Why are you using Multistrike and Ancestral Call at the same time?
If you're fighting a single boss, then Multistrike is going to screw up Ancestral call by making 2 of the 3 attacks target the boss and not trigger Ancestral Call. Swapping it out for Lightning Penetration or Elemental Focus would offer you a similar amount of damage, if Multistrike and Ancestral Call worked together and also make it easier to color the sockets.