I will never be good at PoE

"

Actkqk a écrit :

This is getting rather long and useless.
The question in this case is simple. You can not use Abyssus + Tabula Rasa being melee and expect to survive confrontations with bosses if you're not good at avoiding attacks. That is all...

Well its more soo that he shouldnt be using it.

Trypanon is a fun cast on crit weapon but the one thing he did get right is using a Marylenes Fallacy for Crit Multiplier. He should be using a different helmet entirely because you get plenty of Crit multi from the Fallacy which gets no downside via Trypanon.

Ideally he should have...



Ignore gem setups because they arent technically proper, but you want atleast one 6L. You should focus on getting the 6L setup on the weapon though, or a chest that isnt tabula because youre too squishy.

Getting Repentance is also something good, though its more of a Mjolner item. Im not sure how facebreakers compares in this setup but i used Repentance when i did my luls COC build (which was literally just me throwing items and gems on and not adjusting the tree, was still able to clear high tier maps which was silly and showed me just how broken COC was).

Hes also using a Templar for it, imo, Trypanon isnt really something youd use on Templar in general, especially not a heirophant (i think).

The good thing is, hes learning himself rather than copy pasting builds and having no idea how they work or the mechanics behind them, thats the most important thing is its a learning experience and thats why these forums exist.

"

Actkqk a écrit :

This is getting rather long and useless.
The question in this case is simple. You can not use Abyssus + Tabula Rasa being melee and expect to survive confrontations with bosses if you're not good at avoiding attacks. That is all...

Well, it is not long or useless to others who are reading along and learning.

"

1453R a écrit :

First of all: you’re already defeating yourself with the entire attitude of this project. “I don’t want to use this but…”, “I’m afraid I’ll be very weak but…”, “I might not even be able to get…”, “Just tell me if this works so I can go…”

Throw those statements out right away. You should be excited for a new build. You should be “I can’t wait to try this!” If you’re looking at your new build as “this is going to be such a chore, but I suppose…”, then it’s not the build you want to run.

Second of all, going over the conceptual breakdown some:

Workable, but incomplete. You get into what else you need later though, so it’s not a big deal. These are the kinds of statements you need to be making, though.

Incinerate’s a good skill, and supporting it with GMP and FP is generally a worthwhile set-up.

Now we have a basis for your build – an Incinerate Heirophant going for reduced mana costs and MoM-style defenses. This is the sort of thesis statement you should be looking for in a build. This tells you what you’re doing, and that will in turn let you know what you need and what ends up as a want.

If you’re looking to eliminate the mana cost for Incinerate, then Mana Leech is basically only there to restore mana you’ve lost from enemy attacks due to Divine Guidance and Mind Over Matter. Now, to be fair, you’re taking 40% of incoming damage against your mana – having both life and mana leech basically amounts to “double life leeched” and would actually be very good for sustainability, but linking both the Life and Mana leech gems to Incinerate would be bad, yes. Between LL, ML, GMP, and FP, that’s too many gems used for supporting effects and not damage. We’ll get into that more later. For now, however, just follow along and try to see where the logic is here. This is how one goes about refining a thesis statement/early concept into a proper theorycraft build.

Aaaand here we have our first misstep. It’s not a bad one, but it’s a misstep regardless.

Incinerate generates a huge number of hits, and Elemental Equilibrium resets its resistance modifiers on each hit. You cannot effectively use EE with Incinerate. What this means is mostly that you shouldn’t try. You’re way overdoing it on resistance piercing – you don’t need Heirophant’s 20% pierce AND Fire Pen AND Flammability AND Elemental Weakness AND Elemental Equilibrium. That is far too much resistance penetration, and it eats a lot of your build’s resources that you could otherwise sink into better defenses or supporting options. 20% pierce from Illuminated Devotion and either Fire Penetration OR Flammability would be sufficient, while leaving you room to do other stuff.

See, the cool thing about Heirophant is that you’re not using a 4-link. You’re turning all of your normal 4-link slots into 5-links, which is one of the main reasons why a lot of players get Illuminated Devotion first, with their Normal difficult Asc. points. Kaom’s Heart fits quite well with a Heirophant build because of this – you’re not really missing those chest sockets nearly as much as you otherwise might, and it is nearly unparalleled for survivability. Plus it even boosts your fire damage, to boot! It is, however, expensive. You’ll want a backup plan for use until you get to Kaom’s Heart. Your backup plan is as follows: “any armor-based chest with at least 80 effective life and 1k or more armor”. Since your end goal is Kaom’s Heart, you don’t really care if this has any links on it or not, which means you can get such a chest for next to nothing currency-wise.

Anyways. Now we’re into skill set-ups. I’ll let you know what I recommend, and will explain why each choice is made. Hopefully it’ll make sense and give you some more insight into how to work through your own ideas in the future.

Helm: Incinerate > GMP/Faster Projectiles > Controlled Destruction > Elemental Focus
If you’re relying on Heirophant Illuminated Devotion effects to bolster your skills, you need to be ruthless with your actual supports. You only get three support gems for your skill – it gets a ‘free’ support with Illuminated Devotion, but that puts no less pressure on your actual supports. The key thing with Incinerate is that it can’t crit, at all, unless you go for Shenanigans. This isn’t a Shenanigans build, so no crits for Incinerate means you never (naturally) get elemental status effects out of it. That means Elemental Focus is a free ‘More’ damage modifier for you, since its drawback is something your build is already eating. Controlled Destruction, same way – 100% reduced chance of 0% is still 0%.

GMP is better for clearing, Faster Projectiles is better for single-target. If you had a legit 5L I’d go for both, but sadly we do not, so GMP is taken to better hose down packs. I’d keep a Faster Projectiles in your off swap to level it and switch it in for tough boss fights, though.

Gloves: Orb of Storms > Curse on Hit > Warlord’s Mark > Flammability/Enfeeble
Orb of Storms is one of the best curse-on-hit skills in the game, especially with a big fat AoE boost from Illuminated Devotion. The OoS AoE itself pulses lightning, while the chain-lightning bolts OoS generates can reach far beyond its immediate area and curse enemies completely off-screen sometimes. It sorta feels like playing Blasphemy except without having to give up all your mana reservation.

Warlord’s Mark does tons of work for you in this build. You leech both life and mana, and since you take damage against both life and mana, again – you’re basically doubling your ‘Life’ leech totals with dual leeching like this. You also get endurance charges, which stiffens up your physical mitigation. Secondary curse can be either Flammability, if you want to retain more resistance penetration, or Enfeeble for even more delicious defensive awesomeness. Both are blue gems – level both and use each where you think they’d help the most.

Boots: Cast When Damage Taken > Immortal Call > Arctic Breath > GMP
This ‘wastes’ the Illuminated Devotion life leech from your boots, but that’s unfortunately common with Heirophant. Relatively few builds get good use from both the elemental penetration and the leech. Oh well. C’est la vie. Since you have endurance charges anyways in this build, Immortal Call gets workable duration even without an Inc. Duration gem. Since you dislike Vaal skills, we don’t do the standard CWDT >IC >Inc.D. > Vaal Haste set-up (which would actually be really bitchin’ on an Incinerate build). Instead, we do Arctic Breath > GMP, which covers the area in chilled ground so enemies are slowed down, giving you time to react appropriately.

Main Hand: Leap Slam > Faster Attacks > Fortify
Use a scepter with spell damage or Fire damage rolls and you can still get Leap Slam going. Good map traversal, good mobility, great at navigating the Labyrinth, and Fortify gives more defense. Pretty standard, but standard for a reason.

Off Hand: Summon Stone Golem > Minion Life | (Something)
A stone golem with minion life in the shield is a meat(?) shield, some extra health regen for you, and otherwise mostly a luxury. You have the skill slots. Use them for whatever ends up floating your boat.

*********

Anyways. That’s the basic skill set-up I’d start with. The thing to remember is that your Tree and your Skills are things you develop concurrently. You get an idea of what your skills are (like this), then go to the tree and see what you can do to support those skills. Then see what else you can easily get on your tree, and go back to tweak your skills to better fit that. The more often you go through that tree > skills > tree > skills… cycle, the better your eventual build is.

Example:

For one, when you take bandits into account, this is a level 90 skill tree. That’s…ambitious, if doable. I generally find that planning for level 80, or possibly even 75, is a better idea if you’re shaky on a new build or working on a budget start-up for a new league. You’re also taking a number of nodes that don’t quite match your chosen skills, or which aren’t very high-return stuff and can safely be lost in exchange for more impactful nodes. You’re taking a lot of spell damage and elemental damage all over the place that you don’t really need. It’s easy to get plenty of damage scaling in your gear – some of the other things you’re foregoing in your tree are harder to get, and this build is intending to lean more defensive than offensive as it is. Try this:

www.poeurl.com/IJH

Alright 1453R, time for me to give my opinions on your feedback

I'm unfamiliar was what "MoM defences" are

I never knew elemental equilibrium reseted on each hit, that's makes me want to use that skill even less than before, thank god I have a genuine reason not to use it.

I'm not sure I agree I'm overdoing it on resistance penetration. There's monsters out there that have more than a hundred resistance of an element, it's still capped at 75%, but the point is that even if you lower that resist, it remains high, and bosses especially have reduced curse effect on them. That's a huge part of your damage being ignored if their resists remain and more so, if you can dip in in the negative, you get the same effect of a more multiplier.

It's true they're not 4-links anymore but they're not as strong as real 5-links and their effects go to waste most of the time

Gem wise, what I consider is: Fire Penetration, Faster Projectiles, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus, Faster Casting, Empower

fire penetration may or may not be better than either controlled destruction or elemental focus, it depends on how much resist the enemy has, I think I need it as a "core" gem (4-link minimum)

faster projectile is mandatory for range, it's a core gem

greater multiple projectiles is a bad gem but it's a fun gem, and I'm tired of going only for what is technically best and not fun, like using concentrated effect instead of increased area of effect in skills, I know I will lose severe DPS but fuck it, it's a core gem

faster casting may be better than either controlled destruction or elemental focus because reaching those incinerate stages quicker maybe more powerful, each stage is 50% more damage, 150% total. However this is where math fucks me in the ass, I really don't know if it really is better. Should I go faster casting + either controlled destruction or elemental focus, or controlled destruction + elemental focus, it's a question of numbers at that point, it's hard to say, I sure wish I could use all 3 but I don't want to get rid of greater multiple projectiles, this is one of those moments where the game really pains me with heart breaking decisions. (Since you said controlled destruction + elemental focus that's what I'll do)

empower is easy on the other hand, I just need to swap it with either controlled destruction or elemental focus, whatever as more DPS is better

So the gems are: [Incinerate + fire penetration + Faster Projectiles + Greater Multiple Projectiles] + Controlled Destruction + Elemental Focus

You want me to swap gems regarding whether I'm facing a crowd of enemies or a boss? That becomes a real pain in the ass. I don't want to have to choose between the two. In fact, swapping gems or equipment is a real pain, I'm already sick of it with my rise of the phoenix build that swaps avian twin talismans.

Orb of Storm + curse on hit + (curses) sounds good, I didn't know the lightning could go out of the AoE, still, it's going to be a pain casting curses manually...

So you are telling me that life and mana leech do work with incinerate? As I said, I tested it with the gems a long time ago and it seemed to have almost no effect at all.

The endurance charges portion of Warlord's Mark is a on kill effect, which means it's almost useless against bosses, sometimes they do have minions around yes, but it sounds unreliable. Still, I'll use it if the leech does work

I know you said I'm overkilling it with resistance penetration, but again, I'm not sure about that and now having only one resist lowering curse worries me a lot.

However, you're suggesting again that i swap gems based on the situation (enfeeble), that itself is a pain for me, but I don't see in what situation I could have no resist lowering curse, my damage will become garbage.

Alright, now you misunderstood me again. Yes, I said I dislike Vaal skills and that's because they're usage is very specific, and now, now, you tell me, you would have put Vaal Haste with cast when damage taken? How could that setup be reliable in any way?

-you get hurt -> CWDT activates -> vaal haste as no souls to active = useless
-you get hurt -> CWDT activates -> vaal haste activates = the effect will most likely happen when you don't need it and will be wasted, THEN, when you'll actually need it, it won't have souls

the only way to use Vaal skills is 100% manually, and for the same reason I don't like casting curses, I don't like using vaal skills. But since I know I suck and am desperately trying to get better, then yes, I guess I could use Vaal Haste but putting it with CWDT just sounds horrible to me.

Now, same thing, but Immortal call this time, instead of souls it's endurance charges, I don't need to repeat myself...

So I guess I'll go with this instead: Immortal call + Vaal haste + Increased Duration

Leap slam is good if you're melee, not a caster, because of the lack of increased attack speed passively, plus why put fortify in leap slam? I'm trying to kill things from far away, I'll "dodge" when they're close, you're telling me to jump on enemies from time to time to get fortify? doesn't sound good to me and you say that putting fortify on leap slam is standard? I wouldn't even put in with a melee build, you don't hit anything when you're jumping away from enemies.

I've tried to use golems more than once, minion life won't cut it, they'll die all the time to practically nothing, you need to be a real summoner to use them, otherwise they won't live long enough to bestow their buffs on you and you'll be resummoning them all the time

despite being fire oriented, I find flame dash to be garbage, I would use lightning warp + reduced duration + faster casting for mobility

When I build a passive tree, I always aim for maximum, then plan for progression, making a build that's less than level 100 with everything means you'll need to come back later to extend the build, that doesn't make sense

okay, now you completely lost the point of the build, it's to have no mana cost, you are showing me a tree where you don't get all the reduced mana cost nodes, which are compulsory to having no cost.

then you get elemental overload, which doesn't work since incinerate can't crit

then you get +maximum endurance charges, the charges I will generate with warlord's marks will be very inconsistent and too much of a gamble against bosses because you only have a chance to get a charge on kill, you're telling me that's worth investing in?

then you get whispers of doom, enemies can be immune to curses, curses are not something worth investing into, one ring slot (doedre's damning) is an okay sacrifice since you can swap it out but not passive points

then you don't get enough dexterity and intelligence to use gems, gettings stats on gear is too arbitrary and not worth over other suffixes

-you tell me I'm taking nodes that don't match my skills, which ones are you referring to?
-you tell me I'm getting firepower I don't need because I can have it on gear? gear is random, passive nodes aren't. The tree you showed me almost doesn't get any damage, and since it's incomplete, I don't know what nodes you would get next.

*I'm taking a break, too much to read and too much to think about, I'll finish later. Thanks again for offering your help 1453R*

*Part2

"

1453R a écrit :

Still level 87 in total, so still more ambitious for a newer character than I like, but:

-4 of those levels are jewel slots you can forego until/unless you need them. One slot for a Clear Mind jewel is all you really need, which means the build is otherwise perfectly functional at a noticeably easier to hit 84.

-You can trade your Doedre’s Damning for an Elreon ring, due to pathing up to Whispers of Doom. Depending on your final mana costs, one good Elreon ring can replace a lot of Reduced Mana Cost in the tree. Incinerate, at level 20, costs 9 mana base. GMP > Controlled Destruction > Elemental Focus is a 1.65 * 1.3 * 1.3 mana multipler, ending up at basically 25.1 mana (another benefit of Illuminated Devotion builds – since all your skills are 4-links, all your skills are cheap!). If you can get a -8 skill cost Elreon ring, you need less than 70% mana cost reduction in the tree to get to 0 mana cost for Incinerate, which is the important thing to get to 0 mana cost on. Even a -6 or -7 require only 75% reduced mana cost in the tree. That would let you spec out of a couple of your smaller reduced-mana nodes and save a few points in the tree – my version is at ~80% reduced mana cost, which should be functional with any random -5 skill cost Elreon ring you can aug/regal/mastercraft for basically free.

-You get 226% increased armor rating, 8.9% passive life regeneration, and 210% increased life. You also get 0.2% extra passive regeneration for every Endurance charge you get, and between bandit reward and passive nodes you’re up to 6 max endurance charges. That’s 24% straight physical mitigation and another 1.2% regeneration when your endurance charges are maxed out, on top of Fortify offa Leap Slam when applicable. If you can’t break 8k life with 210% life in the tree and a Kaom’s heart, you ain’t trying.

-You get Elemental Overload! Since Incinerate can’t crit anyways but Orb of Storms is actually really good at consistent-but-small crits, Elemental Overload removes the crit multiplier you don’t use/care about at all and instead gives you eight seconds of flat 40% ‘More’ elemental damage for your can’t-crit-anyways Incinerate. That’s going to be a very big damage boost for the build, and helps make up for the ‘weakness’ of an Illuminated Devotion 4-link.

-You skip Unwavering Stance, as it hurts this build more than helps it. With 210% health and a Kaom’s Heart, stuns are pretty much a nonfactor – nothing is going to stun you outside of big fat uberbosses that don’t attack fast enough to take advantage of stuns anyways. That saves you a lot of points in the tree, and also means you can use a Stibnite Flask again. Remember – Unwavering Stance removes your ability to evade altogether, which means even blinded enemies hit you 100% of the time. A solid Stibnite flask is a much bigger boost to your tank-ness than Unwavering Stance.

-Order of Ascendancy Acquisition: get Divine Guidance in Normal, Sanctuary of Thought in Cruel, and Illuminated Devotion in Merciless. Normally I always want to go for ID in Normal, but your particular build is strongly predicated on free-casting Incinerate and you can only do that with Sanctuary of Thought. You really shouldn’t need the extra oomph in your skills from ID until Merciless anyways.

As for Conviction of Power? Don’t sweat it. If you ever clear endgame Lab, fantastic, but you don’t really need those power charges and you’ve got plenty of endurance charge generation already. You don’t need Endgame Lab points at all for this build, they’re a luxury you can easily skip. All the power charges do for you is make it somewhat easier for Orb of Storms to fuel your Elemental Overload. Frankly, if I were running it I’d go for Pursuit of Faith instead for more damage and cast speed, with a Decoy Totem somewhere for extra defensive awesomeness. Heh, you don’t do totems though, so Conviction works well enough.

You should generally have a loose plan for your build’s entire gearset, or at least a plan for what mods to target. Certain builds (like this one) are less critical that way since most of your gear will be “whatever I need at this point” rares. Nevertheless, identify what your build needs and go for it.

This particular build is basically an armor build, though you’ll end up with some amount of energy shield anyways due to your Heirophant nodes. Focus on armor or armor/ES bases, trying very hard to get at least 1k armor on both your chest and your shield. I wouldn’t go below 800 armor, and even then only if the chest/shield is otherwise seriously baller. Until you get a Kaom’s Heart, of course.

Outside of the things everybody needs on their gear (life, enough resists to cap your elemental resistances, enough Strength/Dex/Int to use all your gems), you need +Maximum Mana since your mana pool is also a life pool. Mana Regeneration on gear is also really good for you for much the same reason. Getting +[X]% Spell damage, +[X]% Fire damage, +[X]% Elemental damage (NOT “Elemental Damage with Weapons”, that’s for attacks only!), or flat elemental damage added to spells on your weapon would all be great for offense. Unfortunately armor/ES shields can’t roll spell mods, but I wouldn’t use a spell shield on this build. Losing the armor from a high-armor shield compromises physical defense too much.

Shoot for the standard stuff (Life, resistances, what stats are necessary, movement speed for boots), mana, mana regen, and whatever spell damage you can find here or there. Since you don’t need crit, accuracy, or any really baroque requirements, the build should be pretty dirt cheap to gear up except for the Kaom’s Heart.

Hopefully that helps you not only get a good build rolling, but see some of the thought processes that go into building a good build in the first place. Provided this build is actually good – I’ve got a really good feeling about it, and would in fact give it a spin myself if I weren’t already trying to level a new Assassin here in the evening of Prophecy league.

Lemme know if there’s anything you’re curious about. Heh, honestly kinda fun playing build doctor like this.

Sure Elreon rings are better than reduced mana cost passives but it's not a realistic goal, you can only craft them yourself (crafting is a beginners trap, it's only for filthy rich people, I wasted too much currency crafting in the past, not going to do that mistake again) or you buy them from players and there's 2 scenarios to that, you won't find what you want, or you will but it will cost a fortune. I'll try but rng being what it is, I doubt I'll manage to obtain a good one.

I see you aim for a little bit more life and armor than me, I could do that. However I still don't find investing into endurance charges worth it, nor putting fortify in leap slam. Bandit wise I would go for +life rather than +resist in normal, resists can reach a cap, life doesn't, so it's a better choice if you find better gear.

huh, it's only 2 points I guess but without any crit chance increases, I don't know if Orb of storm will crit enough, if barely, I'll do it but I'm pessimistic, too much rng

Damn, unwavering is something I was aiming to get early, I have really bad memories of getting stunlocked and dying. However this build should get more than 3-4k life without a kaom's heart, so maybe I won't get stunned. I'll do it.

That's the Ascendancy progression I was going for, all is good here, same with armor and affix choices. One thing though, is I'll be ignoring flat damage increases that aren't fire. Tell me if you think that's bad and that I should get flat damage of any kind for spells.

Alright, time to recap on where we're divided, where I don't agree with certain choices, I want to make sure I do the right thing. There's no need to recap where we agree.

-overdoing on resistance penetration
-swapping between greater multiple projectile and faster projectiles instead of using both, also using controlled destruction or elemental focus instead of fire penetration
-still unsure about using warlord's mark
-swapping between enfeeble and flammability
-using cast when damage taken with immortal call and vaal haste
-using leap slam + fortify
-using a golem
-getting +maximum endurance charges
-getting whispers of doom
-don't know what nodes I'm taking you say don't match my skills
-overdoing on damage
-using elreon rings instead of reduced mana cost passives (I would but I don't see how I can)
-getting +resists with bandits
-still unsure about elemental overload

here's my second version of the passive tree:


Progression will be: mind over matter -> all life regen -> all reduced mana cost -> depending on how I feel about my damage and survivability, I'll jump between life and damage OR I'll go for all my life then leave damage last

finally, because I like a simplistic playstyle, even though I say I'll be using certain skills, I may get annoyed by them, I WILL try them but it's possible I scrap them or resort to a weaker but automatic setup

-using orb of storm manually to cast 2 curses at once
-using immortal call and vaal haste manually

pew, it was a pain reading and writing these mountains of text, it's not over yet but I'm getting closer to actually playing now. Glad you are at least enjoying helping me 1453R, godspeed to you

"

Coal48 a écrit :

Part 2
(trimmed for readability)

Okay. Let's go over this short list rather than both full posts, since this seems to be most of the points of contention anyways.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-overdoing on resistance penetration

This is a question of efficiency. Yes, you can devote both your curses, half your support gems, twenty points of passive tree, and several gear selections to resistance penetration, and you will penetrate a whole g'damned lot of resistance. But it's not a good use of what is a huge portion of your build. At some point, simply dealing more base damage is at least equivalent to penetration, and being able to survive long enough to land more damage is also more overall useful than being able to guarantee that all 100% of your damage goes through enemies with 170% resistance.

You specifically wanted a Heirophant Templar, using Illuminated Devotion and Sanctuary of Thought, with an emphasis on durability so you can try and avoid getting instagibbed. That means certain things in your build are going to be constrained. You have to pick your battles, man. If you want to use a Kaom's Heart and make up for the loss of slots with Illuminated Devotion, you have to accept that this means you end up with 4 3/4-links for your skills. That, in turn, means what I said earlier - you have to be ruthless with your three-and-only-three support gem choices for your skills. I get that it's really easy to get spoiled on a Tabby and feel like your skills are just worthless without that sixth link. But this is part of figuring out new, more effective ways of playing Path. Maybe your damage will be a lot lower than you like - but you'll live longer to deliver it, and hopefully learn some character-building lessons along the way.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-swapping between greater multiple projectile and faster projectiles instead of using both, also using controlled destruction or elemental focus instead of fire penetration

Something's got to give, man. You have one four-link for your Incinerate unless you go with a 5l spell staff. You can do that, but then you lose your innate penetration and are gaining remarkably little without a full-up 6L, which are, as you've noted, expensive. Switching out Elemental Focus for Fire Pen is certainly viable - you'll do better against heavily fire-resistive critters but worse against critters with low or moderate fire resistance. I'd love to run GMP, Faster Casting, and Faster Projectiles alongside CD, E.Focus, and Fire Pen in your helm slot, but that would require a 7-link helm. They don't make those.

You can try and swap gems around at need (I hate doing that too and try to avoid it where I can), or you can pick your most well-rounded set-up and go with it. But either way, you've got to make decisions. Run all the combinations you can and see which one feels punchiest to you.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-still unsure about using warlord's mark

Earlier, you mentioned not knowing what 'MoM' defenses meant. MoM defenses means Mind Over Matter, as well as Divine Guidance in this case. You're limited to leeching 20% of your life at any given time - that's the 'leech cap', and it applies to mana, as well. However, since nearly half the damage you take is shunted to your mana pool instead, Warlord's Mark's dual life/mana leech effectively doubles your leech cap to 40% of your 'life' per second, as you're restoring 20% of your 'life' pool twice at the same time. Combined with 8.9% regeneration in the tree, and this makes for incredibly awesome sustain. If you don't get instagibbed, you should be immortal.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-swapping between enfeeble and flammability

Depends on what you want and how well your non-Enfeeble defenses are working. Enfeeble is probably the single largest defensive booster in the game - it reduces enemy accuracy, so you get hit less often. It reduces enemy damage, so your armor works objectively better and also your health stretches out more and is more effective. It reduces enemy crit chance and crit multi, so you take less crits (twice over, since reduced accuracy is also reduced crit chance) and when you do get crit it hurts less.

Flammability is more resistance penetration, which you deem very important. If you'd prefer that, go for it. It's not generally incorrect, however, to state that adding Enfeeble to a build with bad defenses turns it into a build with moderate defenses. Enfeeble is that good at keeping you alive, which was the point as I recall.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-using cast when damage taken with immortal call and vaal haste

Explanation for this one. First of all, the full set-up is CWDT, IC, Increased Duration, and Vaal Haste. All four are important for different reasons. CWDT > Immortal Call is an automatic safety measure - it stops huge, nigh-instaneanous surges of damage you would otherwise be unable to react to. The usual example is porcupines - kill a big pack of porcupines all at once, they all explode into a mess-o-bone-spears, you get hit with a mess-o-bone-spears all at once, and you die. CWDT Immortal Call, however, triggers a second or so (or more, if you have endurance charges at the time) of physical invulnerability, which means any hits you take in the huge surge of damage after IC triggers are reduced to zero, and you don't die.

CWDT IC is also something of an alarm system - "Oh hey I'm taking a bunch of damage I should probably do something about that."

Anyways. You are correct - Vaal Haste cannot be triggered by CWDT, nor would you want it to be. The point, however, is that because it's incompatible with CWDT, Vaal Haste ignores CWDT and can be used normally. If it's in the same 4-link as CWDT > IC > Inc. Duration, though...well, Vaal Haste is compatible with Inc. Duration. You're effectively using a 4-link as a 5-link - you have your 3-link set-up of CWD > IC > Inc. Duration, and a 2-link set-up of Vaal Haste > Inc. Duration. You're simply using the same Inc. duration for both set-ups and compressing your gem usage down, which is important for every build everywhere.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-using leap slam + fortify

Incinerate is a relatively short-range build. You'll be fighting at point-blank melee range much of the time anyways, since you can't reposition during an Incinerate channel. Using Leap Slam as mobility works, even with just FA rather than a bunch of attack speed in the tree, and if you're using Leap Slam, throw Fortify on it and start your Incinerate channeling with Fortify up. You don't have to use it on every pack, but having Fortify available to you as an option is literally the opposite of hurting.

If you want to go with Lightning Warp instead, be my guest. Makes your gearing a little easier since you can use wands as well as scepters, but you're losing a defensive layer you could otherwise be gaining.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-using a golem

If it were me I'd use Decoy Totem instead and go for Pursuit of Faith for Endgame Lab points. You hate totems and golems both though, you're not using any reservation skills because of MoM/DG, and everything else is mostly handled. You may as well use your spare 3-link for something.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-getting +maximum endurance charges

You'll notice that a majority of celebrated Good Builds in this place get +maximum charges. Endurance, Frenzy, Power, sometimes more than one type. Charges are powerful. More of them is more powerful. If you can keep up a decent clearing cadence with Warlord's Mark, it's relatively easy to maintain endurance charges for quite some time, and relatively simple to rebuild them if they get used for CWDT or otherwise fall off. While they're up they give you more regen and reduce damage you take. What's not to like?

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-getting whispers of doom

Doedre's Damning is a bigger hit to your build than six passive points. Outside of its +1 Curse, that ring is awful. Aw. Ful. I know - I've used it myself. It's effectively wearing +1 curse. Going up to Whispers of Doom gets you +10% curse effectiveness and also allows you to not have to wear Windscreams or Doedre's Damning. Your gearing becomes more flexible and your curses are a little more powerful.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-don't know what nodes I'm taking you say don't match my skills

A bit of mis-speaking, sorry. What I mean is you are reaching far, far, far, far too hard for every last teeny tiny scrap of damage you possibly can in your tree, and often going well out of your way to take very inefficient and/or over-broad nodes to do so. "Ash, Frost, and Storm" is a bad cluster unless you're dealing all three elemental damage types; not only are you grabbing it, you're spending an extra two road nodes to get there. It's inefficient. You're taking two extra elemental damage minor nodes in the Templar start you didn't use for no earthly reason. "Explosive Impact" is more a luxury than a necessity - yes, it's fire damage, and yes, your Orb of Storms benefits from the AoE, and at least this time it's right on your way, but it's the sort of thing you pick up later, when your core build is done and you're filling out wants instead of needs. You're spending tree points badly (and also planning on a level 100 build you're NEVER going to see, but more on that later).

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-overdoing on damage

As above. Damage, generally, is what your gear and skill support gems are for, especially on a more defensively oriented character like this one. You take damage in the tree when it's efficient to do so and doesn't cost you much of anything. The more specific your damage nodes in the tree, the more powerful they are and thus the more efficient they are. "Ash, Frost, and Storm" is low damage and out of your way - it's astonishingly inefficient. Taking minor nodes that don't go anywhere useful (the "Elemental Damage" nodes from Templar start) is even worse - minors are always inefficient choices, and generally you want as few of them in your tree as possible with a small handful of exceptions (mostly life).

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-using elreon rings instead of reduced mana cost passives (I would but I don't see how I can)

Why do you seem to be operating under the assumption that you'll be wearing ass-tier blues for the entire existence of this character?

PoE Trade
PoE Currency Market

Use these. There are many, many, many guides on YouTube for how to go about getting into early, foot-in-the-door mapping gear on a 10-chaos budget. I built my Vortex Elementalist that got to level 84 without a care in the world and paid out the exalts I needed for my next two Prophecy builds on maybe twenty chaos all told.

Yes, if you absolutely insist on solo self-found then you're going to have to compensate for bad gear, but there's no reason to. You can have a solid if unremarkable piece of gear that'll get you through most non-hellish yellow maps for one chaos per gear slot, if not less. And if you're short on chaos, trade some alts or jewellers on the currency market. Alts, jewellers, fusings, and alchs all trade fairly well for chaos on the currency market.

As for an Elreon ring? Yes, crafting an amazing Elreon ring is for rich people. But you don't need an amazing Elreon ring, you mostly just need that one flat mana cost reduction bonus that saves you half a dozen tree points you can use to get to Whispers of Doom instead. Buy the base Elreon ring (or amulet, come to think of it) yourself for a handful of scrap currency from Elreon. If it's aug-able, aug it and hope. If you get a good aug, regal it and hope for a good regal. If you get a good regal (or even if you don't), mastercraft some resistance or mana/mana regen or life or whatever onto it, to fill in where your build is a little thin.

One aug. One regal. Whatever scrap currency you spend on mastercrafting (DON'T do exalt-costed mastercrafting on a bad Elreon trinket). That's all it takes. That's all it can take - you can't use alts to reroll Elreon stuff without losing the Elreon suffix, so crafting Elreon stuff is literally just 'Aug it if I can, otherwise Regal it and hope it's useable."

It will still be more usable than a Doedre's Damning.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-getting +resists with bandits

Under no circumstances.

Coal, I capped my resistances on a character with four bloody rare item slots, using a couple of scrubby jewels to fill in the last few points I needed. This is on Merciless, where I'm also compensating for the -60 resistance penalty. Go check Anguished Maiden, in my character readout. My larval AssReacher is currently borrowing her Hinekora's Sight (and her highly-visible Kintsugi is off, so I remember she's loaning out her Hinekora's Sight before I run with her for a while and go "WHERE'S ALL MY ACCURACY?!), but nevertheless - that character?

2x Touch of Anguish
Kintsugi
Blood Dance
Essence Worm
Hinekora's Sight
Unique Item Count:UNHEALTHY

I have one ring slot, one belt slot, one gloves slot, and a helm slot to make up my resistances in. My helm halfway doesn't count because I bought it for its Frost Blades enchant - it has one useful resistance and the Intelligence I needed to run my Enfeeble. I am effectively working with three and a half rare item slots and a couple of jewels to cap my resistances in Merciless.

I still did so.

Do. Not. EVER. Waste your Normal bandit quest on resistances.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

-still unsure about elemental overload

There have been cries to nerf Orb of Storms because it's so incredibly good at proccing Elemental Overload and other on-crit effects. It's one of the best PCoC skills in the game, and when I'm running around on Burninatress Trogdora (you can check her out in my character stash as well. Her gear's workable if not fantastic, but I'm a bit proud of how well her tree works), Orb of Storms keeps Overload up basically all the time if I'm keeping a good clearing cadence. Seriously, I'm not talking out of my hind end here or speaking from other people's experience. I've used curse-on-hit Orb of Storms to excellent effect on the highest-level character I currently have (who, coincidentally, is using only 4-linked skills and still wiping packs off the map), and again - there's YouTube-documented evidence of people who've leveled nutty fast and with surreal ease using Orb of Storms to proc Overload.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

Passive Tree

Coal...this is a level 101 build, if you don't take any passive points for your bandit quests. You're never going to be level 100, or at least you won't get there with this Templar. I know you want to plan out every last possible point, but Path just doesn't work that way. By the time you get to your 70s or low 80s, you'll know which clusters on the tree you should be looking to get to fill out where your gear's not holding up. Need more cast speed? Get the Mental Rapidity cluster above Overload. Damage feels a little anemic? Grab Explosive Impact. Can't find enough Dex to keep leveling Vaal Haste? Grab Agility after you need it, not before you need it.

You plan your build to, roughly, level 80. AFter that - or before that, depending on - you flex the plan to account for whatever gear you've gotten ahold of and compensate in the tree for things you have or don't have that you couldn't know you were going to have or not have before you knew what you were wearing. Sometimes that means you carry around unspent points for a little bit in later levels, trying to decide where to stick 'em. That's okay. If you're still killin' things dedd with no issues, then you don't need whatever you would've spent those points on anyways and can devote a little thinkin' time to it.

"

Coal48 a écrit :

rabble rabble

I get that you don't care for a lot of what I'm saying. Trust me, I feel ya. I get yelled at for being an ignoramus practically any time I open my mouth here, and most folks are much less politic about it than I'm trying to be. But you're having troubles running the game and getting through content with what you're doing. That means you have to change what you're doing, one way or another.

Don't care for this idea? Then don't do it. Elementalist has all the damage you keep trying to shoehorn into Heirophant, along with reduced reflect damage. It doesn't have free mana costs or the defense, but it most assuredly has all the deepz.

The biggest thing to understand is that you can't do everything. You keep trying to - you want all the deepz, massive armor, 8k+ life, heavy defenses, 105%+ reduced mana costs, all the bells and whistles. That's too much. You're either spreading yourself thin or planning on resources you won't have. Pick what you want to be good at and be really good at it. Make sure you're not cripplingly weak in other areas, but you're never going to have the best offense, the best defense, the best sustain, and the best everything-else all on one build. if you try, you end up with none of those instead of one or two of those, and you've figured already where that sort of thing leads to.

"

1453R a écrit :

so you're telling me I can deal more damage without having to pierce resists? Ok then. My point is not to remove enemy resists "just because", ultimately it's about damage and if you say I can get more firepower otherwise, then sure

So, Incinerate + GMP + faster projectiles + controlled destruction

I know, I know, elemental focus is not in there but I know for sure that I will NOT be having FUN, if i don't combine GMP + FP, I want the large spread and range I get with ethereal knives, no matter what

okay, warlord's mark is good but that plus enfeeble is not overdoing it? anyways, thinking about it a lot, it will ruin my gameplay, my enjoyment, if I have to cast orb of storms manually to curse, so I'll use CWDT + orb of storms + curse on hit + warlord mark even if it's inferior.

I actually didn't know vaal haste didn't work with CWDT, anyways, I will use CWDT + immortal call + increased duration + vaal haste like you suggested, I'll just probably never think about using vaal haste in combat

I'll aim for wands since that can have projectile speed, so I'm still going for lightning warp (I'll still use scepters and even daggers if they're good of course) so, lightning warp + reduced duration + faster casting

how does CWDT + decoy totem + Chaos Golem, sound? normally I would have portal + faster casting + enhance but since this is a fresh start, that won't happen

there is no "clearing" when you're up against a boss, again, mobs aren't a problem (though you keep telling me to remove damage, so they might actually be now). if I could have endurance charges up at all time, then yes, I would agree, they are powerful but only if you actually have some on you and you don't have charges when you go and fight bosses, what's not to like is that they're fucking temporary effects that are never there when you need them.

of course I try my hardest to squeeze every drop of damage I can take, didn't you yourself say that a good defence is a good offense? Okay, I guess it's true Ash, frost and storm sucks. Those 2 little nodes at the beginning of the templar start point, they're not 8% increased damage, they're 14% and 12%, I really think they're worth getting.

You actually have it completely backwards here, I said getting life from Oak is better than resists for Kraityn

And again, you misunderstand me completely, if I didn't care about what you had to say, then why the fuck would I have made this thread, read through mountains of fucking text, bothered to reply to almost everything, and plan for 4 fucking days straight instead of just playing?

I know I'm rude, bitter even, but consider it tough love, again, if I didn't care about what you had to say, then I wouldn't be arguing with you. This is like a negotiation between 2 countries so that they don't go to war, there's compromises to be made, I came here asking for help, so that I may bend things around but I sure as fuck won't abandon my principles, my playstyle, I'm not going to do exactly what you tell me, then discussion would have been pointless, I would have just copy and pasted something considered OP, but I don't do that shit

here's version 3 of my build


time to finally play path of shit: fortune cookie league

wait, I actually forgot about something I wanted to try a long time ago

Romira's banquet = Gain a Power Charge on non-Critical Strike
incinerate = never crit
conviction of power = 25% chance to gain a endurance charge when you get a power charge

so 25% chance to get a endurance charge on hit with incinerate fast hit rate

buid version fucking 4


ascendancy in to following order: divine guidance -> sanctuary of thoughts -> conviction of power -> illuminated devotion

That's...actually quite an interesting idea. I'm rather interested in seeing if that works sometime now. Almost Juggernaut-level endurance charge generation there in some ways, and would definitely make +max Endurance charges work hard for you. Definitely something to keep in mind the next time I need a good Templar, or if I ever get a set of Void Batteries for some unearthly reason.

Anyways.

Orb of Storms can't be triggered - you have to hard-cast it. Same with totems, they can't be triggered either. If you really, truly just do not want to deal with any secondary skills, you can link both to a CWDT gem. That does limit the curse's level and thus effectiveness, and also means the curses are not terribly reliable. You wouldn't need Warlord's Mark for Endurance charges anymore, but you also couldn't really guarantee that it'd be up when you need it.

Anyways Mk. II.

At this point, man? Just go play. If the forums are getting too frustrating, then go build the character and just learn from the school'a hard knocks. I get it. Knocking heads sucks, and that numbers-for-a-name asshole keeps saying shit nobody wants to hear. You've pretty much got what useful advice I have to offer, the rest is mostly just nitpicking. Nits never need to get picked. Go run it, see if it helps. Good luck.

"

1453R a écrit :

That's...actually quite an interesting idea. I'm rather interested in seeing if that works sometime now. Almost Juggernaut-level endurance charge generation there in some ways, and would definitely make +max Endurance charges work hard for you. Definitely something to keep in mind the next time I need a good Templar, or if I ever get a set of Void Batteries for some unearthly reason.

Anyways.

Orb of Storms can't be triggered - you have to hard-cast it. Same with totems, they can't be triggered either. If you really, truly just do not want to deal with any secondary skills, you can link both to a CWDT gem. That does limit the curse's level and thus effectiveness, and also means the curses are not terribly reliable. You wouldn't need Warlord's Mark for Endurance charges anymore, but you also couldn't really guarantee that it'd be up when you need it.

Anyways Mk. II.

At this point, man? Just go play. If the forums are getting too frustrating, then go build the character and just learn from the school'a hard knocks. I get it. Knocking heads sucks, and that numbers-for-a-name asshole keeps saying shit nobody wants to hear. You've pretty much got what useful advice I have to offer, the rest is mostly just nitpicking. Nits never need to get picked. Go run it, see if it helps. Good luck.

aw crap, then I'll use what I usually use for ranged triggering, bladefall, I used arc before but it's really limiting in its targets

right, I'll go again for what I usually use, enfeeble, but what about the life and mana leech from warlord? I guess enfeeble is better maybe. Getting charges on hit is far more reliable that charges on kill, don't know why you say that

there you go again man, I never called you an asshole, you're pretty great in fact, helping some random stranger on the internet, not getting anything back in return and having to deal with my shitty attitude. Any meaning behind your name actually?

"

ChanBalam a écrit :

Well, it is not long or useless to others who are reading along and learning.

Yes. I am a total noob here and I read the whole thread. 1453R explains things well.