[3.4] Herald of Agony Pathfinder [Uber Elder, Uber Atziri, Shaper Down | HC Viable]

Hello! When the new Herald skill Herald of Agony was released, I got immediately interested in it as something to build a character around due to the ridiculous damage scaling from Virulence stacks. So, I set to work!

I'm happy to report that this build functions better than I ever could have expected. One week into the league playing pretty casually and I have all old content down with the exception of Uber Elder, which I haven't attempted yet. Would love to test this against Delve bosses, but... Depth ~260 and haven't seen one yet.

Path of Building link (Level 93): https://pastebin.com/jw9ia9ZY

Build Overview
This build revolves around using Herald of Agony to deal damage, with Toxic Rain as the mechanism to rapidly gain maximum Virulence stacks and maintain them throughout the fight. Toxic Rain also adds a nice bit of damage on its own, without any scaling at all. Incredible defenses are achieved via lots of life on tree, evasion, and most importantly Thief's Torment coupled with Quill Rain to reach absurd levels of Life on Hit. The beauty of this build is that Herald requires nearly no investment on the tree for damage, so you're free to stack tons of defense. I'm currently at 6000 health, 500 ES, 32000 evasion, 40% dodge, 30% spell dodge. And 135% movement speed for zoom zoom.

Due to the Herald's ridiculous built-in minion damage multiplier (800% at full Virulence stacks), increased damage is basically useless. Instead, we stack as many multipliers of MORE damage as possible. These include Damage on Full Life, Minion Damage, Vicious Projectiles, Pierce supports, the Hatred aura (with Generosity), and Poacher's Mark or Projectile Weakness curses. Optionally, Grip of the Council can be used in the glove slot for extra damage but I personally don't like the minion speed penalty attached to it.

Video Demonstration
T16 Minotaur: https://youtu.be/GNu4VBs_Kto
Shaper: https://youtu.be/5_OtrsNX7kM

This is a slower boss kill time than it should be because I didn't notice until after uploading that my herald was sitting in the lightning gate most of the fight and tanking its attack speed. Whoops.

Required Uniques
is mandatory to keep mana reservations reasonable for Herald of Agony. Six link isn't necessary but does add an additional 49% More Damage multiplier.

is mandatory for rapid Virulence stacks. It's also dirt cheap and doesn't need to be linked.

is not strictly mandatory, but heavily encouraged. That amount of life on hit WILL make your life easier.

Gem Links

Main link (in Coming Calamity): Herald of Agony + Minion Damage + Minion Speed + Pierce + Damage on Full Life (5L) + Vicious Projectiles (6L)

Virulence stacking: Toxic Rain + Poison + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Increased Area of Effect

END-GAME Virulence stacking (second 6L Required): Toxic Rain + Poison + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Curse on Hit + Poacher's Mark OR Projectile Weakness + Blood Magic

Frenzy charge generation (not used with 6L Virulence) (IMPORTANT as it also gives you crawler frenzy charges for 12% MORE damage and a lot of attack speed): Blasphemy + Poacher's Mark

With 6L Virulence: Hatred + Generosity

CWDT Setup: Cast When Damage Taken + Increased Duration + Immortal Call + Flesh Offering

Other random gems: Convocation, Blink Arrow

Bandits
Kraityn or kill all.

Possible Improvements
Aul's Uprising (Hatred variant) is insane for this build, as it lets us use Hatred for free, allowing other potential auras to be used depending on preference (Haste/Grace/a Blasphemy curse combined with +1 curse jewelry)

The other, more off-the-wall option, is to add Golem support in with the 4 Primordial jewels and a 6L Flame Golem setup. We have enough minion support in the build that this adds in a ton of damage.

My current gear

Why do you have 2 curses on your current setup? The one applies on hit and the other is self cast. I dont see any +1 curse on you. Some update to the guide in general would be nice too.

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deimudda69 escribió:

Why do you have 2 curses on your current setup? The one applies on hit and the other is self cast. I dont see any +1 curse on you. Some update to the guide in general would be nice too.

I'm currently trying out Projectile Weakness to see how I like it vs. Poacher's Mark, and I'm just continuing to level up Poacher's Mark in a spare gem slot.

Really would wanna try it.. atm too bummed out about EleHit that I made and I cant seem to get it working on bosses, cant even kill beach boss in 5minutes..

How good is the single target damage? Is it worth making this to try and go for deep delves and clear maps very fast?
Can you make a video?

I'll try to get a video up tomorrow! I can tell you the single target is not going to compare with something like ele hit, but it's definitely respectable. I recorded and checked times of a couple fights, just haven't been able to upload yet, but I did T16 Minotuar in 1:12 and also helped my friend with his Twinned T13 Core: That one took me 43 seconds for the second phase of the fight (soloing 2-player party HP)

Why damage on Full Life? Isn't that universally bad for everything?

Also, if you only have a 5L, what gem would you consider dropping on the herald?

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killerx09 escribió:

Why damage on Full Life? Isn't that universally bad for everything?

Also, if you only have a 5L, what gem would you consider dropping on the herald?

The crawler can't take damage, therefore it's always on full life. It's just a straight up 49% more damage multiplier.

And Vicious Projectiles is the one to drop in a 5L. You sacrifice some damage, but less damage than dropping DoFL or Minion Damage and Speed/Pierce are required for clear speed to be good.

So level 60 now pretty much. Working pretty well so far, just questioning on how single target dam will be..

Do you stack Chaos and Phys damage to boost the dps?

Keep your build updated please i really like it, also if you can say in which order we take the ascendance skills. Thanks

i don't have enough Mana with Agony and Poacher's mark active, what did i do wrong?