[3.21] Vatinas' Spiders + HoP Guardian - CI, 70K armour, 1400 ES on block, millions of DPS

Why you use Herald of Purtiy? You were using Herald of Agpney before and map clearspeed was faster than it.

Vatinas - how is the hextouch+punishment working for you?
Is it worth dropping 2 gems from cyclone setup?

Been doing white maps with dominating blow with ease and after getting some ok-ish drops (5 - 15c items) I had some chaos to spend. Got the fang, the aegis, the memory vault, the shaper's touch and astramentis so good to go for the spider set up. Was a bit of a puzzle in terms of gems and colors but I have a working set up now that will be tweaked further. Next step is the 4R2B skin for the big armor/ES boost.

It will take a bit of getting used to switching from dominating blow to cyclone and I noticed I am struggling a bit to get the spiders out smoothly. If you still have 1 spider or the carrion golem they instantly kill the worm and cycloning into a pack of mobs only tickles them and doesn't really do a lot of damage (as expected). Once you have the spiderman-gang going it's fun to watch them tear up the pack of mobs :)

Few comments / questions:

1. My mana reservation is an issue at the moment. I need the rings but out of currency right now. A healthy mind jewel will also help quite a bit I expect. I should just run Determination and Discipline and then see whatever I can link to HoP in terms of mana reservation right?

2. I bought this astramentis in a bit of an impulse. My spell block is still a lot lower than my attack block but when I equipped this astramentis my spell block actually went up by 10%. I realised too late that I cannot use the catalysts on it now. Was it a good buy for 50c considering the corrupt or is missing out 20 all stats bad in the long run?


3. I bought this memory vault for 20c today. Didn't expect the seller to react but he did and I bought it. Saved a lot of hassle with the coloring and the enchant is also useful so hope I spend the 20c well. If I understand correctly, the 100% buff effect only applies to the armor granted but I didn't see the tooltip change.

For mana reserve once you have spiders run Det/Dis and as mana HoP as you can (even if just 1, the spiders kill everything anyway). Early on you get a 2% mana reserved jewel you can use if needed

2 - not a good buy, sorry. You can't annoint corrupted amulets

Whilst saving up to get the 2 rings, I've swapped my 6L to cyclone so I can run Hextouch and punishment (or vuln) and will swap back once i get my mana reserve sorted.

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1. My mana reservation is an issue at the moment. I need the rings but out of currency right now. A healthy mind jewel will also help quite a bit I expect. I should just run Determination and Discipline and then see whatever I can link to HoP in terms of mana reservation right?

The guide says we only add supports to HoP (other than Ruthless, which should already fit) after we get the rings. Healthy mind doesn't help here since everything is percent-based (at least I have it and I can't slot more supports).

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2. I bought this astramentis in a bit of an impulse. My spell block is still a lot lower than my attack block but when I equipped this astramentis my spell block actually went up by 10%. I realised too late that I cannot use the catalysts on it now. Was it a good buy for 50c considering the corrupt or is missing out 20 all stats bad in the long run?

Unfortunately it is also missing an anointment so between that and the catalysts I think you'll have to replace it eventually. The tree and Rainbowstride should give you 72% spell block.

For people without rings (like me) : you can make use of the remaining sockets (since HoP takes only 2 instead of 6) ! I have a CWDT-tempest shield to cap spell block. I also put my cyclone on a five-link with Cast while Channeling to curse. (I could also have gone for a 4 link 6s, and done CWDT + Tempest Shield + Hextouch + Vulnerability or Punishment, although I remember a post saying it didn't correctly apply curses a while ago).
Also, consider using a cheap five-link like Geoffri's sanctuary or Incandescent Heart, they give decent armor, energy shield and resists for us poor people.

Two last thoughts on possible modifications of the build :

1. I have no idea if we need minion accuracy or not on our minions. If someone knows the answer please tell me !

2. Specters can potentially do a lot for us :
Carnage Chieftain for frenzy charges
Host Chieftain for Power charges (might be less useful)
Arena Master for a massive attack and movement speed buff.
Ancient suffering for Temporal chains on hit.
The problems are that they need to stay alive, and we need to find the sockets on the finished build...

Too bad about the astramentis... thought that anointing was still possible :(
It will do for now though.

I'm currently at 52% spell block and that is with the 5% spell block (=10%) on the amu. I followed the tree so can't figure out why my spell block is so much lower. Perhaps someone can have a look at my gear and tree to see if I made a mistake somewhere? Are you all getting 75% spell block?

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JohnnyV76 wrote:

Too bad about the astramentis... thought that anointing was still possible :(
It will do for now though.

I'm currently at 52% spell block and that is with the 5% spell block (=10%) on the amu. I followed the tree so can't figure out why my spell block is so much lower. Perhaps someone can have a look at my gear and tree to see if I made a mistake somewhere? Are you all getting 75% spell block?

Hi,

You are like me, you don't have a blue nightmare jewel. That's where the missing 25% spell block come from.

A lot of the spell block comes from The Blue Nightmare to the left of the Templar starting location.

I forgot about it because it is too expensive for me for now.

You can have 1% more on your boots, and 3% more if you use tempest shield. For the rest, maybe we can get a Rumi's Concoction, although I honestly did not notice the missing spell block in yellow maps.

I would advise to keep the amulet until you buy the jewel.

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JohnnyV76 wrote:

If you still have 1 spider or the carrion golem they instantly kill the worm

If I need to spawn my spiders and there are no enemies around, I just unequip the fang and get the carrion golem gem out to despawn them, cast desecrate and use the worm flask to get them going.

Found it to be the easiest way (esp before the boss room).

Thanks for the answers all!
I thought I was missing something but indeed the blue nightmare jewel will be the way to go if one can afford it :)

I probably won't really need it in the maps I am currently running so just keep farming for the remaining items. Even with "only" 25k armor I feel so beefy already. Counting the hours for work to finish to get back into the game ;)