[3.25]💥Lahkesis Queen of Chaos"Essence Drain/Bane"[LowLife] 💥💥

Well, I guess you mean Flesh and Stone, when talking about Sand Stance Aura. I'll lvl it up and check how it works. But.. its better for full-geared? Or partly-geared may use it too? :D

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Yatori90 escribió:

Well, I guess you mean Flesh and Stone, when talking about Sand Stance Aura. I'll lvl it up and check how it works. But.. its better for full-geared? Or partly-geared may use it too? :D

I'm not entire sure. There's multiple reasons as to why it sounds very unorthodox.

1. It has 10% less mana reservation than Temporal Chain + Blasphemy. So if you can slot it in now but not Temporal Chain aura then by all means go for it.

2. An occultist without Temporal Chain is as "weird" as ever, Temporal Chain has for the very most part been the best friend with her. She doesn't have high cast speed like Elementalists or certain attack builds, so it has been more like slowing things down and allowing you room to react to things and kill things as they crawl to you. (I keep Poacher's Mark btw, to generate 3 frenzy charges).

3. There are a few things in the game that prevent Temporal Chain from slowing things down to moot (map mods, delve mods, big bosses). So yes, quite a couple times it won't be effective, and aside from action speed reduction it doesn't provide any other benefits. I've been playing Temporal Chain since 3.7 and only made the switch yesterday. The reason is that I no longer have to fear these map mods or bosses, as their action speed is still relatively fast, with or without temporal chain.

4. But now with Sand Stance, things are not slowed by Temporal Chain but in return they are blinded as the pack approach you and try to melee/projectile you and whatever. This is also another layer of defense against monsters that shoot a massive load of spikes on death. As they're blinded usually their chance to hit you will be cut by 50%. However, there are also map mods and delve mods that prevent Blind from being as effective - monsters have x% chance to avoid blind for instance, so need to watch out for this.

5. These 2 gem setups have different socket color, so unless you have white sockets on gear to swap between these 2, it's highly discouraged to alternate between both these setups too often. Usually our gear favors green/blue sockets, and probably 1 or 2 red sockets, but that's about it.

6. Sand Stance is also problematic when spell users get to you within the blind radius. Spell users cannot be blinded and in this case you won't receive the less dmg taken for enemies outside the radius. However, with all the increased non-curse aura effects passives, you can reach -17% less dmg taken from ranged mobs from Sand Stance lv 20 by the very end of leveling (usually pretty high level, like 95 at least).

7. Usually if your ES isn't high enough to tackle red tier maps and rippy maps, Sand Stance seems to be at a disadvantage, because your ability to take heavy hits will be much less than when your ES is higher (around 9000 is safe, and depends on how fast your recharge/regen is). Using Sand Stance means you'll have to accept that you're taking hits more often than before, but you're also doing very great with a layer of blind in maps that boost monsters' action speed/cast speed while Temporal Chain setup doesn't provide this.You'll have to get used to the faster playstyle by playing more aggressive.

So you'll have to play with it and see, each has pros and cons and takes some time to get used to this pretty big change. Now my approach is to focus on as many layers of defense/mitigation as possible, damage reduction is always valuable.

IMPORTANT NOTE for Queens of Chaos going forward in the current and next patches:

Ok I made it, folks. Finally able to get the 7th aura for the build. Instead of Temporal Chain aura now I have Purity of Ice and Sand Stance (Flesh and Stone). The idea is to get an Unset Ring Elder base for another gem socket, and link Enlighten lv 4 to Malevolence, Clarity and Purity of Ice. After tinkering with resists I need Purity of Ice to cap cold resist, and by getting another Enlighten lv 4 I can finally have enough mana to reserve these auras (still have 120 mana left to cast things).

Big shoutouts to those who suggested getting an Unset Ring Elder Base rather than just using the regular Elder base ring alongside Mark of the Shaper, for an extra gem slot!

A couple game-changing notes for the current Queen of Chaos:

1. A lot of contents in this game do cold damage, like Uber Elder, Shaper, deep Delve, black porcupines, (Monsters deal x% extra damage as cold mod), etc, so Purity of Ice is a great choice (my max cold resistance is now 81% thanks to buffed non-curse aura's effects, rather than 79%).

2. If your fire/lightning resistances are low, you can run Purity of Fire/Lightning and their vaal version if necessary, to significant handle elemental damage of that element. I am not sure about this one, but you can try it out and I just find it satisfying being able to tank cold damage much better than ever, along with the given 76% max Lightning resistance from tree.

3. With the Temporal Chain aura gone, if you prefer safety you can socket this gem back to Bane setup, replacing Poacher's Mark. However this will lose 3 frenzy charges at the cost of gaining action speed reduction from Temporal Chain (which I believe might not be worth it).

4. If you only manage to have 6 auras total and a regular Elder base ring, you can keep the Temporal Chain aura, or switch to Vaal Grace + Sand Stance. This blind aura coupled with pantheon and quartz flask bring our melee/projectile attack damage prevention up to 81% when Vaal Grace is active. This is a powerful layer of dodge to simply avoid damage.

5. If you only manage to have 6 auras but have an Elder base Unset Ring, you can socket Contagion (if playing ED/Bane setup) for better clear.

6. Other aura choices for 7th slot/ 6th slot (replacing Temporal Chain aura?

- Arctic Armor: This is probably great if you use it in tandem with Purity of Ice. Arctic Armor mitigates fire damage, another source of elemental damage, and with 76% max lightning resistance from tree and Purity of Ice covering cold damage and even some extra physical damage mitigation, your queen of chaos will be a lot tankier IF YOU STAND STILL. It also gives chill ground as another source of slow and reduces action speed by 30% for anything that hits us for ~2 seconds (this number has not taken into account of increased non-curse aura effects, meaning the numbers will be higher when you actually equip it). Never tested with Arctic Armor, but I think it's not as reliable as Sand Stance and we often move and kite things rather than standing still and taking damage and relying on these buffs.

- Dread Banner: Niche option, give Fortify once placed but Fortify will only last about 0.08 seconds, and clunkier to play with. It's like a much weaker version of a guard skill with pitiful duration. Mana reservation is very small.

- Summon Skitterbots: Reserves mana as much as a Purity aura, but it looks pretty tempting. If you have capped resists elsewhere, this aura might be fun to tinker with. The bots cannot be targeted or damaged, and gives chills for another source of slow and shocks nearby enemies to boost our damage by another 20%. However like Temporal Chain certain things in the game have their base action speed protected, like Shaper, and they won't be slowed down very much. So this aura is more about the offensive side rather than defense.

- Grace/Vaal Grace: 50% mana reservation normally so you'd need enlighten lv 4, but Grace alone cannot outperform Temporal Chain aura, and doesn't protect against spells. Plus evasion total will still be low even with this aura. This is if you wonder whether this aura can outdo Temporal Chain aura.

- Vitality: Not worth it unless you somehow get at least 155 Strength to be able to equip this at lv 20. It does give an extra 1.65% of ES regenerated per second so it's not that bad at all. Coupled with Sand Stance as a 7th aura, it gives a pretty decent amount of ES regen per second (not including increased non-curse aura effect from passive tree). I think about 2.3k ES regen per second for me if I equip this aura at lv 20. However, no regen maps will nullify this, and less ES recovery map mod will also decrease its value by a wide margin.

7. Vaal skills used by me now: Vaal Impurity of Ice for extra 25% less cold damage taken, Vaal Clarity and Vaal Discipline. Coupled with Sapphire flask for deep delve, cold damage becomes cake to take on, Vaal Clarity mainly to spam Essence Drain with Lesser Multiple Projectiles Support (GMP costs too much mana for ED and more damage penalty for ED).


Bottom line is, ideally 7 auras you can run are: Malevolence, Zealotry, Purity of X/Y/Z, Clarity (lv 10 is enough), Flesh and Stone (Sand Stance), Discipline and Aspect of the Spider. This is for Low Life setup, not CI. The amount of mitigation from elemental and physical damage is absurd for the build now, and Purity aura + Sand Stance definitely outperforms Temporal Chain aura. Until then, if you're comfortable with Temporal Chain aura classic, no need to change. This is only for min-maxing.


UPDATE: Tested with Arctic Armor today, it was pretty good. Had to stand still a couple times, but facetanking certain red tier map bosses is possible. We stop to cast Bane to move from pack to pack so during that brief moment Arctic Armor does give defensive effects.

UPDATE 2: Tested with Delve (~300) and more map mods and contents, Sand Stance still outperforms Arctic Armor.

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Hologram_o escribió:

IMPORTANT NOTE for Queens of Chaos going forward in the current and next patches:

Big shoutouts to those who suggested getting an Unset Ring Elder Base rather than just using the regular Elder base ring alongside Mark of the Shaper, for an extra gem slot!

Feel so honored!

If Purity of Ice aura is preferable now, maybe some Watcher's Eye modifiers for it are good? "(6-10)% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Cold Damage while affected by Purity of Ice" maybe? Immunity to freeze? It is yet another layer of physical damage mitigation or some kind of immunity.

I think you could suggest some strong Watcher's Eye modes for Queen of Chaos, since high-end malevolence aura gem is very expensive.

Personally I use immunity to bleeding for malevolence, since it's cheap :P

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MrKossa escribió:

Feel so honored!

If Purity of Ice aura is preferable now, maybe some Watcher's Eye modifiers for it are good? "(6-10)% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Cold Damage while affected by Purity of Ice" maybe? Immunity to freeze? It is yet another layer of physical damage mitigation or some kind of immunity.

I think you could suggest some strong Watcher's Eye modes for Queen of Chaos, since high-end malevolence aura gem is very expensive.

Personally I use immunity to bleeding for malevolence, since it's cheap :P

I think any Purity aura is match-up dependent. Ice means Uber Elder, Shaper, Elder, Aul, Crystal King in delve, cold porcupines are even safer to beat now. Fire covers enemies dealing fire dmg, and even though they're not as powerful (aside from Mastermind Syndicate maybe?) there's still a lot of sources of fire damage. For lightning perhaps, but I think Purity of Lightning is the worst out of the 3, I can't think of anything dealing significant lightning damage outside from Atziri, whose hits you'd want to avoid at all costs anyway. One hit and we're toast, they hit for insane amount of damage. Sure it does help quite a bit against Eradicator, but this elder guardian is still pretty easy to handle with proper gear anyway, with or without Purity of Lightning. Shaper's beam does have lightning damage combined with fire and cold, but the beam is DoT and it doesn't hit, and we wouldn't really stand in the beam in the first place anyway...

Purity of Ice's best mod I think is phys taken as cold, and immunity to freeze comes to second but you can still be chilled, which sucks either way. You'll have to craft move speed and cannot be chilled or something on boots to save yourself a flask suffix but that's about it. But given that we also have a lot of physical mitigation (Malediction, 3 endurance charges, Immortal Call giving up to 66% less dmg taken, Basalt Flask AND the super-buffed Enfeeble!) taking cold dmg from attacks is also cake now.

Malevolence mod on Watcher's Eye has chaos DoT multiplier as the most expensive mod without a doubt, it gives a lot of damage, but the one with increasing life/ES recovery isn't expensive at all if it's just that mod alone and no other mod is valuable for that item. I got this mod + ES recovery for discipline for only about 3.5 exalts mid-Legion. Immunity to bleeding is probably good, no need a flask suffix so you could turn maybe Basalt flask into a unique flask, like Cinderswallow Urn for both offense and defense? This is the only flask I think I'd use if I have an extra slot for flask use.

Must ask, because dont know, Im doing something wrong: How do you rolling murderous eye jewel for stygian vise, with bonuses like in low life ES+bane gear description? Spent over 300 alts and dont saw even one of those, which are needed o.O

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Yatori90 escribió:

Must ask, because dont know, Im doing something wrong: How do you rolling murderous eye jewel for stygian vise, with bonuses like in low life ES+bane gear description? Spent over 300 alts and dont saw even one of those, which are needed o.O

I think it is Hypnotic Eye, not Murderous. That sucks for you though :(. Try to hit ES flat and maybe resistance if you need them. Or Strength and dmg over time works.

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Hologram_o escribió:

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Yatori90 escribió:

Must ask, because dont know, Im doing something wrong: How do you rolling murderous eye jewel for stygian vise, with bonuses like in low life ES+bane gear description? Spent over 300 alts and dont saw even one of those, which are needed o.O

I think it is Hypnotic Eye, not Murderous. That sucks for you though :(. Try to hit ES flat and maybe resistance if you need them. Or Strength and dmg over time works.

Daaamn.. I've been trolled xD

I've tried Hologram's Sand Stance Aura, now I don't need to be scared of maps that reduce curse effect, enemy rarely hit me when inside the aura. Although that spiky things still annoying.

I tried the Betrayal boss, and get this baby.



Onslaught for more cast speed, movespeed for speed through map, 50% negate Stun which is juicy because we don't take the Ascendancy with resist to Stun when have ES, and 3% ES refill for every kill. I've been using this for mapping, and I can go Leeroy Jenkins. :D

Keeping Poacher's Mark is necessary to keep this flask filled.

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alteisen612 escribió:

I've tried Hologram's Sand Stance Aura, now I don't need to be scared of maps that reduce curse effect, enemy rarely hit me when inside the aura. Although that spiky things still annoying.

I tried the Betrayal boss, and get this baby.

Onslaught for more cast speed, movespeed for speed through map, 50% negate Stun which is juicy because we don't take the Ascendancy with resist to Stun when have ES, and 3% ES refill for every kill. I've been using this for mapping, and I can go Leeroy Jenkins. :D

Keeping Poacher's Mark is necessary to keep this flask filled.

Glad to see you enjoy Sand Stance :D

However, the veiled mod you got isn't good imo. Should've been life regen when hit recently or something like that. Presence of Chayula amulet gives stun immunity, so you wouldn't need any stun avoidance or stun recovery sources elsewhere. This amulet also converts a hefty amount of life to ES, buffing our ES further. I don't think this amulet can be changed anytime soon. This flask only allows one use however, so I find it pretty niche and needs monsters to be killed to be used reliably more often. Onslaught is there mostly for 20% increased move speed and extra move speed mod you got there are nice.


For porcupine monsters aside from all the provided defenses, you need the panicked life flask, and probably Purity of Ice to completely own them annoying porkies.


Don't forget that Arctic Armor is pretty decent too. For me now it's the second choice to Sand Stance whenever monsters have the mod that give them like 65% chance to avoid Blind. I've been debating whether I should ditch Basalt Flask, given how much physical mitigation is already taken care of. Purity of Ice (cold mitigation), Arctic Armor (fire mitigation) and Topaz Flask in place of Basalt Flask, and maybe Sapphire/Ruby Flasks if needed for alternation will cover up all kinds of elemental damage. That and Enfeeble, Immortal Call and Malediction on top :p