[3.0] End Game Guardian Support! 90% phys/84% ele res. On a Budget.

Doesn't this no Pants dude look way more manly than all the others around?

Heads up: I didn't play 3.0 yet, but I have looked at the tree and I am aware of most changes, atleast the ones I head of :P
It will have a bit less ES due to the base es nerfs, but this also means that the Guardian with his base Mana will be even stronger. The Passive tree didn't change for us so I think that you will be good to go with this build for 3.0 and beyond(maps)! :D

What makes this build special?
It is the cheapest Endgame support, as far as i can tell, that laughs at high tier Bosses. It also is WAY more tanky than all the necromancer aurabots while being so much cheaper.
If you are looking for an affordable character, maybe even leaguestarter, that is super tanky and you want to play with mates, then this build is probably your best bet.

Pro:
-Cheap
-Way tankier than Necrobots! Tankiest char I have played yet.
-Insane Armor-Buff for mates
-+9 max. Res Auras
-Totally Endgame viable
-High regen for mates

Con:
-Not squezing every Aura into this build
-Necromancer simply offers way more offensive bonus
-Could get killed by Eater of Souls(core map), Uber Atziri and by third stage, fully buffed, Uber Izaro

Neutral:
You are playing a support, that means your playstyle will not be that active.

The concept of this Build is to be a tanky support on a budget.
To achieve this we need to get cheap tank stats.
The cheapest way to achieve a big effective Hp-Pool is to utilize Hybrid gear which grants Life and Energyshield. For me this means having 7k effective life.
The way i get tons of armor, to protect my life pool, is that i get life on my gear and passive tree and then reserve half of it.
How does this make me tanky, you might ask yourself.
The way we get tankyness from that is the Guardian Ascendancy Passive 'Radiant Faith'. It gives you 1,6 times your reserved life as BASE armor. In my case this means 2150life*1.6=3440armor! Twice the amount that you get from a decent armor chestpiece! And the best part about this is that Radiant Faith also gives the same benefit to your teammates, since it is a aura. This base Armor + my Determination on steroids + passive tree grants me 18k armor!
Without reserving life I only have 1k. So i guess you see the effect ;)

Currently I use 11.5 Auras:
Anger, Wrath, Hatred(only 2 active at once): All effects of these 100% buffed.
Discipline: 597 Base-Energyshield
Determination:95,3% MORE Armor
Clarity(lvl 20!): 31.3 Mana reg
Purity of Ice: 80res+9max res(Don't have a 21 Version yet, will be added soon ;) )
Purity of Fire; 80res+9max res
Purity of Lightning: 80res+9max res
Radiant Faith:+3440 Base-Armor
Radiant Faith:+144 Base-Energyshield
Vaal Haste: 38% Movespeed,67% Attackspeed,65% Castspeed
Rejuvention Totem(Counted as half because it is only a Totem):320 Life Regeneration

I socket Determination, Purity of Ice and Purity of Lightning in my Prism Guardian. This means that they get +2 Levels of Socketed gems and also that they get reserved to my Life.
I put Purity of Fire, Vaal Haste and Discipline in my Alphas Howl to also get +2 on sockted gems.

My Anger, Wrath and Hatred are in the Victarios Influence. They are supported by level 1 Generosity which means that these buffs don't affect youself, but i doesn't matter, since we don't deal damage as supporter anyway. If you have sockets left you can also support it with a level 20 Generosity support gem to get even more aura effect on these. Another big thing with this item is that the gems socketed in it reserve way less mana. Another reason to put the big 50% auras into it. I only activate 2 of these at a time to have enough mana for my blasphemy.

I personally use my level 20 Clarity with a level 1 Bloodmagic support to reserve some extra life, for even more armor. But you can obviously use lower Claritys and higher Bloodmagic gems to reserve less of your Life.

You can also look into the gear section to see how i linked all the gems i have :)

Classic setup: Two Damage Auras, One Blasphemy
https://poe.mikelat.com/#8DvQlcKd/A=fZ.5gXb/9b.dLq/9b.B5/So4c.

Curse setup: One Damage Aura, Three Blasphemy
https://poe.mikelat.com/#8DvQlcKd/CSrRc.-fXb/9b.dLq/9b.B5/So4c.

Options: For Damage Auras you have Hatred/Wrath/Anger.
Alternatively you can also use Haste.

What are our Options?



~34% spell and attack dodge-quite nice to be honest, but since this is really about being SAFE and not safe 34% of times, I don't really want evasion in this build.

TONS of Energyshield+Instant energyshield recharge is straight up OP. Why don't I like this one? Because it only has a base Duration of 3 Seconds and requires quite a lot of souls, it is not reliably possible to keep this up farming through trash packs and most importtantly it is not enough duration to be up for a whole bossfight, where the tankyness would be needed.
TL;DR: Nice to have but not reliable.

20% Movespeed alone would be enough to justify using this, but it also provides 36% attack and cast speed bonus which makes your partys movement skills and clearspeed in general go through the roof. With somewhat quick partys it's possible to have 100% uptime on this, which is why I basically allways use it.

No mana cost for skills. Really nice, but I wouldn't rely on it for everyday use. But this is definitly a good Option for no Regen maps.

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IMPORTANT NOTE for those who don't know how Vaal spells work:
Every kill gives you a Soul which is stored on only 1(!) of your socketed Vaal Skill gems. This means if you have 2 Vaal skills equiped the soul has a 50/50 chance to go to the one or to the other. Thats why it is not possible to use all 4 Vaal Auras.

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What do we get out of this section?
Personally I would allways use Vaal Haste. If you feel like a map is REALLY REALLY hard you could go for Vaal Grace. Vaal Clarity is a nice addition for no regen maps.
Don't use Vaal Discipline, unless you want to brag about how much ES you can provide ;)
If used wisely it could also save you from dying at some bosses. Still, for me not worth the gem socket atm.
And don't try to use more than 2 Vaal Skills gems at a time!

To be extra tanky we use Efeeble in a blasphemy setup, because we want this curse to allways be in effect and curse all the mobs around you, because it is such an insane defensive Curse.

Almost 50% reduced accuracy, 30% less damage, 35% reduced crit chance and -40% crit multi.

This is just too valuable to not be permanetly up. When reserving this one we loose the ability to use one of the 3 Damage Buffs, but it is a worthy trade in my opinion.
For even more defensives I allways use Temporal Chains in my Ball lighting Curse on hit setup.

The extra slot for curse gems can be used for whatever curse fits your party. Elemental Weakness, Warlord's Mark or Assasin's Mark to name a few. To reach 3 Curses we skill +1 Curse on the Passive tree and also use the Doedre's Damming Ring for +1 Curse.

Buffed stats:



For Comparision my unbuffed stats:



(Screenshots were with pretty old gear)

To reach the 84 Resistances I utilize my 21Puritys(20 would give +7, as my cold res shows at the moment^^) to get +9 max res which results in 84fire, 84cold and 85lightning(+1 from passive tree) res, which makes us pretty save to Elemental damage.

I personally play with 75% Chaos res, but is not really needed since we have a fairly big unreserved life pool of 2.4k, which would even work with -60% Chaos res. The advantage of the 75% is that you really don't have to care about chaos damage all that much when playing^^. To be save I would suggest to get to 0% chaos res in merciless. It will be enough for all bosses, except for the few chaos damage bosses. Though, I don't have problems with any boss in the game right now, when sitting at 75%.
Physical Damage is also not an Issue because we have 90% Physical Mitigation! The 18.3k Armor gives 70%, my Chaos golem lvl 22 gives 5% and the 4 Endurance Charges give 16%.

The 1.4k Energyshield regeneration works because of the Keystone Zealoth's Oath on the Passive tree, which applies Liferegeneration to your Energyshield. I allways have 270 ESregen with my Stone Golem up. When using my Rejuvention Totem the ESregen is 605. And as added regen I have Enduring Cry which grants +800 regen for 1,6 sec on use for a total of 1400 ESregeneration per second!
The Energyshield pool is big enough that our life gets not touched in most cases. Thats why it is not problem that the life is not regenerating on it's own.

The mandatory uniques are Victario's Influence to socket your Blasphemy+Hatred/Wrath/Anger with less reservation, Prism Guardian to reserve auras to your life and Alpha's Howl for less mana reservation in general.
You should also use the following unique jewels to get less mana reservation and increased effect of curses and auras:

Doedre's Damming is usefull if you want the third curse, but it can be exchanged for another defensive Ring. Especially useful if you don't cap your chaos resitance otherwise. Loosing one curse is not that big of a deal.


TL;DR: Advancing Fortress is the best choice! Otherwise use Clayshaper, Ephemeral Edge or Eclipse Solaris.

For the rest of the Gear look for high Life and Energyshield.
And obivously get your resistances capped, which should be pretty easy, because you get 80resistance from your puritys.
Since you don't need much elemental resistance on your gear, chaos resistance gear is not too expensive. My build with capped chaos resistance, like it is right now, costs around 1.5ex(excluding lvl. 21 puritys)which is easily obtainable.

Just a quick overview what you should link in my opinion, your best results my vary^^

Weapon(Advancing Fortress): Whirling Blades and Faster Attacks are mandatory and as third link you can choose Enhance for the extra bit of speed or if you don't have space in the rest of your gear simply fit the Rejuvention Totem in here.

Helmet(Alphas Howl): Put one of the Puritys(preferably purity of Ice, for the green socket. Means that you only need 3 off colors on your Helmet which is way easier to get) and Discipline in here as a 2 link! Personally I also put my max level clarity+Blood magic in the other 2 Link.For no regen maps you should switch out Clarity and Blood Magic for Vaal Clarity and Increased Duration(For thoughts on this see Vaal Auras section).


Shield(Prism Guardian): Determination is a must in this one. Adding to that put in 2 Puritys(Sockets don't have to be linked).

Armor(Victarios Influence): Hatred, Wrath and Anger belong in here(Maybe Haste if you like). Remeber socketed Auras in this Item don't affect you. You only need a 2 link for the blasphemy, the other gems don't need to be linked.

Boots/Gloves(Rares): In one 4link put the curse on hit setup(Balllighning, Curse on hit and 2 Curses of your choice(take a look at the Curse section)). In the other one put Increased Duration, Enduring Cry and Vaal Haste.


2 link Blasphemy+Enfeeble: Put it where it fits(Most likely into the chest).

So far not mentioned Skill gems: Flame Dash/Lightning Warp, Rejuvention Totem and Stone Golem. Put these where you see a free socket. Stone Golem pretty much is a must, you will find a spot for it ;) Flame Dash or Lightning Warp are nice if you want to follow your party over obstacles these are not needed but nice to have. The Rejuvention Totem is a really solid choice for Lab runs and you should allways have it in Labs. Appart from Labs you can in most cases skip over this one because your party kills all monster before you place the Totem^^
In case you don't fit the Gems you want into the setup you can allways use a Ring with an extra socket.

Movementspeed setup:



These are the flasks that I use, when I have a weapon that does not work with whirling blades.

1 Health flask is important to replenish your HP pool from occasional chaos damage.
2 Quicksilvers with added movementspeed+extra charges to keep up with your party members.
1 Mana flask basically just for quickly switchting auras^^+ the added effect.
1 Sulphur flask for the consecrated ground(4% of max Life regenerated), but this is not really necessary. I just use it for the added effect.

Effects: As with every build you should have flasks to cleanse of Burning and Bleeding. Poison cleansing would be nice too but so far I never got close to dying from Poison, so I don't really fear it. Because of our Alphas Howl we don't need an anti freeze flask.

As you can see the only neccesary flask is the one Health flask. The rest is mostly up to your preferences :) Well, with the partys I played with so far the 2 Quicksilver were a must have :D
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Whirling Blades setup:



When using Whirling Blades, which is possible to use with the Advancing fortress for example, we can fill up our flask slots with much more useful flasks than the 'ol Quicksilvers.

When using Advancing Fortress, Rumi's is top notch, simply because it grants so much block chance.
To boost the speed of Whirling blades just a bit I also like to have a Silver flask for the onslaught(20% atk speed) buff.
To almost guarantee a 100% uptime on those two flasks I also add a Overflowing Chalice into the mix, which gives twice as much charges to other flasks when it is in effect. Timing on this flask can be a bit tricky since it does not generate while it's being used. But as it does not use much charges and also stores 3 uses it is definitly doable.

Adding to those flasks I have the mandatory Life flask, because I can't regenerate Life otherwise. And I also like to keep a Mana Flask with me for the nasty no regen maps. You could fill in that flask slot with something else while not doing no regen maps, but I am just too lazy to use something else :D Taste of hate would be a possibility in this flask slot.

3.0 Version



Considering the passive tree: This is the spec at lvl 96. It allready has quite alot of tankyness, thats why, if you prefer to be less safe, you could use some points on curse effectiveness.
Specing after lvl 93: You basically have 3 options going from here: Curse effectiveness, even more health, even more energyshield.
You should grab energyshield at the witch start,
Health at the scion life 'wheel' or
curse effectiveness where you see it fitting(I would recommend the curse cluster at the scion for the curse effectiveness, since curse duration or radius does not really matter for our build).

Bandits: Kill all


Ascendancy: Guardian
In the Normal labs you want to get Radiant Faith to get your survivability.
In Cruel and Merciless you get Unwavering Faith for extra physical mitigation and regen and also Prayer of Glory which is a pretty good movement and clearspeed buff in general. In the Endgame Labs you should get time of need which is acctually quite a lot of regen. Even though it is only every 5 seconds it effectivly means 400 Es regen more!

Note: I used to get Harmony of Purpose but the Conduit Noteable on the passive tree means only one regular point spend instead of two ascendancy points, which are way better spend on time of need.
Also: Time of Need should be way better than Bastion of hope. Time of need almost doubles our regen and thus our defence, while Bastion of Hope only mitigates about 10% more hits.

Today I was in a Group Running Uber Labs. I was sceptical at first how I would manage to survive traps, since this is a Hybrid build, but my build did not disappoint me with his tankyness^^
When placing my regeneration totem I could stay in the spikes all day long and it is possible to ignore all other traps and simply rush through those -> Definitly a good support for Lab runs.
Uber Izara hits hard. But still since this build is fairly tanky the first two stages are no real threat. When going for a 4 Key Run the last Stage of Izaro can get really hard because of his double damage buff. I did not get oneshot so far, but a crit would be deadly I think. Well basically every other build except for some super tanks would also get oneshot^^

I sacrificed one aura node on the tree to get more tankyness. What does that mean for our support capabilitys? Not that much to be honest. With my build we 'loose' 3 auras: Haste, Grace and 1 of the damage auras.

I don't really miss Grace to be honest, because every glasscanon that just survived barely without you, will survive allmost everything when they are in range of you. So no real sacrifice here.

The loose of one damage aura is also something that really doesn't matter, because normally the guys you support don't profit from one of the damage auras anyway. And remeber IF we find that our teammates really want the third damage aura, we can switch off the blasphemy and use another damage aura.

I feel like the biggest sacrifice is that we can't use Haste, which would give even more clearspeed. But it is not that bad, since we allways have our Vaal Haste up anyway.

I wanted to play a support myself and was looking through guides. The best budget guide I found was the Party Jesus made by Karunga. I was following his guide, but late in the game I didn't feel tanky enough. Thats why this build was created.
Link to his thread:
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1596467