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

LvL 85 here using your build and the peasants i support are really happy.
I changed one of the damage auras to Haste cause many builds cant benefit of them , i mean, the casters will not benefit of Hatred and Anger is worse than haste in their dps plus the clear speed is greater.

But is really tanky, i was facetanking Voll at lvl 65 afking , and Voll of the t12(?) at lvl 81~ .

Its a great build to make early in the leagues. I dont see the need of using a Shav and i will save the currency of buying a Shav to equip another character because being a support mean that you cant do ANYTHING without a party, no challenges, no maps, almost nothing.

Good point about haste :)
Personally I didn't use it so far because I don't get the movementspeed bonus myself, but the argument about clearspeed is really good-> I am probably going to switch Hatred to Haste myself :)

Playing this build at level 67 now (can't wait to equip the Prism Guardian!) and really enjoying the support aspects. I rolled with this build to help out my wife, who plays so YOLO it's a miracle she gets any XP at all past normal, heh.

To contribute to the discussion, I'd like to point out some leveling uniques and skills that helped both me and my party members along the way.

I used flame totem, frost bomb and freezing pulse+LMP+faster casting when I needed deeps. Understand that this build isn't really made for solo play, but it can be done. My buffed DPS with FP right now is ~1,850, but there's a lot of hidden damage in the debuffs applied, enough to easily solo late cruel/early merciless. Don't expect a lot of clearspeed, but it's not actually painful to level if you're forced to go alone.

The freeze chance from freezing pulse really complements temporal chains, and you can swap in a frostbite curse on blasphemy to make the frostbomb's resistance debuff even more effective. Synergizes really well with abyssal cry's regen debuff also.



In addition to the party boni, the extra sockets and links can help when you have to level alone and need support damage. Can equip relatively early.



In addition to the party boni, the extra dex is really useful at lower levels for pushing those green gems as far as you can level them. The added damage effect at your feet is pretty sweet looking too. If you're having trouble with ES (and you really shouldn't if you're following the guide accurately), Crown Of Thorns instead can help.

Speaking of dex, for a while I was rocking these so I could push green gems until I could cover dex with jewelry:



If you find yourself in a tight spot with mana regen early in leveling, this item is a great boost for both you and your party:



It also helps cover some early strength requirements for red gems.



These boots are much maligned, but they really shone when leveling this build. Early equip and 40% movement speed when on full ES. Cheap as all get-out to buy, and a ton of dex for pushing those green gems again.



OP recommends it, it's cheap and it's a relatively common drop. I'm still using this until I can equip the Prism Guardian, when I'll swap over to the Clayshaper. Blind is very underrated, and the light radius boost helps in dark indoor areas like the Labyrinth when you're reserving a lot of life. Socketed with FP+LMP+FC to take advantage of the crit and up my freeze chance.

Many thanks to 999/NoNoNo for this excellent build, and for promoting marital harmony at my house. :-)

Thanks alot for all the feedback and good suggestions :)
Maybe one day I will find the time and motivation to do a leveling section^^

Since you are around level 60 you could use the Unique "the broken crown" for:
1. Attributes
2. TONS of chaos res
3. Nice Es buff
4. Good armor
And luckily the cast on death support does not affect auras. Thats why you can use it like a normal 4link for auras.

Oooh, I wish I'd had a Broken Crown when leveling pre-Alpha's Howl, that would have been terrific. As it was, I'd swap in Leer Cast for party play and use a rare ES helm when solo - BC would have solved that issue PDQ.

I could be wrong, but I think the requests for a leveling guide are tending toward knowing when to take which passive nodes. For instance, "I've just gotten to 68 and can now equip Prism Guardian - what does my ideal tree look like at this point?" is a valid question.

In my case, I was able to equip all the core build uniques the instant I hit the level requirements, because I bought them all in advance, but found it necessary to take some of the +30 attribute passives to keep leveling gems throughout the leveling process. A leveling guide can show how to avoid that (or even that it's not avoidable) and the player can plan respecs around it for a smoother experience.

Another example: at 68, I've gotten all the reservation and + aura nodes, but I'm just starting to traverse the Scion ES cluster to head down toward the life lozenge. Back near the start, I haven't yet taken the endurance charge cluster. I also go back and forth between speccing in and out of Zealot's Oath, because I don't yet have chaos resist jewelry and taking chaos damage and having no life regen while leaning heavily on Blood Magic can be scary during hard leveling play and while reserving so much life. I'm pretty sure you've already thought through situations like this and have a good strategy for mitigating them that haven't occurred to me, which a leveling guide might help.

There's also some breakpoints in reservation where you might find it tough to have enough mana to operate non-Blood Magic skills. Right now I can have as much as 140 mana right down to exactly zero, depending on which auras I run and how they're placed among my gear. During leveling, linked red gem slots might be at a premium, which makes it harder to run BM, and if you do run BM on them, you're forced to pot fairly frequently if you've already specced ZO. (Understand I'm not being critical of the build in the least - it's awesome and fun as hell to play, just pointing out another place where a leveling guide can help less experienced players).

Here's a fun leveling tip I like - depending on your level/gem levels and gear, even without running Determination you can push your physical mitigation right to the 90% cap by popping both a Granite and a Basalt flask. Very useful for facetanking big bosses while your deeps buddies bring the noise.

Contributing to the discussion some more, are there any alternate skills you've found useful? One of the things I like best about this build is that it has a lot of flexibility. While I've been leveling, I found enough empty slots to be able to experiment with things like Molten Shell (works pretty well) and Fortify (FeelsBadMan - Vigilant Strike is supposed to hit 100% of the time but doesn't proc Fortify reliably?), and wondered if you had any additional insights on alternate setups for different party types beyond swapping Hatred/Wrath/Anger.

Again, thanks for sharing your build - it's really starting to feel great at level 68, and is just going to get better from here.

Nice build bro!
I was using intuitive leap to get the 15% curse effectiveness and 25% duration nodes

Just one question, would you recommend these unique items?
1. Steppan Eard
2. Shaper's Seed
3. Advancing Fortress

The Steppan Eard can be good for the high Es and specially good on desecrated ground maps, which can be annoying to run. But generlly I would say that it would be better to use the boots slot to get some resistances, specially chaos resistance.

Personally I don't like the shaper's seed because the 1% life reg will never save a teammate from dying and secondly everyone around you should have enough mana from the clarity we run. And the build itself also does not rely on mana regen. Thats why I prefer the rare amulet for Stats(dexterity is missing), resistance(chaos as allways) and some added life.

The Advancing Fortress is a really really good suggestion. The 15% block chance it provides alone is allready better than 5% additional flat reduction I think. Adding to that it is a claw. That means that we can use whirling blades, which is probably not that much faster than 200% movespeed, but it also provides fortify which is a BIG defensive buff. Adding to that it also has some nice life and es + life gained on hit. That means that we don't have to use flasks that often, because minor chaos damage will be healed up.
-> I would socket whirling blades in this item to get some life on hit and also fortify! This definitly is a way better option than clayshaper, thanks for that :)

edit: Adding to that it is also a better option than Ephemeral edge for a hybrid build and it also has more attack speed!

With 37% blockchance from gear it also blocks quite alot of attacks now^^

edit nr.2^^: I wonder why I so far haven't seen another support build using this Item.

Edit again: Just tested it: it gives me +84unreserved life(134 total life) and 130es. Even more malachai onehit proof i guess^^

By the way: This claw really needs a 3D art...

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NEINNEINNEIN wrote:

The 15% block chance it provides alone is allready better than 5% additional flat reduction I think.

Socket The Vigil unique jewel just above Devotion notable and you can share Fortify with party members. Use with Vigilant Strike (always hits, ignoring our not-so-special chance to hit).

Taken together, this probably works better than Clayshaper and the extra golem.

Hello i am using your build it is very tanky and good support build. i dont remember dying to the map bosses (i am doing t13+ twinned maps) but.. the uber lab is so hard for me.

first of all, blood magic reduced light makes the game very very dark. i cant even see the traps. so i went for the "Arcane Vision" passive. what do you think about this?

secondly, i cant seem to be able to tank the traps all day long like you said you could. i died to traps multiple times i dont even know the count. could you look at my gear and tell me whats wrong? my character is "kebab_support"

thanks

I just discovered something worth looking into or possibly mentioning. If you run enough labs and are lucky enough to get any of the enchants that lowers the mana reservation on one of our auras, it then becomes possible to fit on all 3 damage auras with blasphemy enfeeble. You need to have a 6 socket victario's influence, and make sure that a level 3 Enlighten is tied to at least 3 of your auras. You then have to pull empower off of your main weapon and replace it with flame dash. I just did this and I have 35 mana to spend, which works becuase my ball lightning costs 27 and my rejuv totem costs 32. The damage boost is quite nice, and it has the added benefit of reserving that last little bit of mana that is otherwise unused.