Hateful Hierophant - Glacial Cascade Totems (Aura Scaling) [Dead Build in 3.16]

Hi! Loving the build, this is perhaps my favourite build I've ever played in fact! Mechanically interesting, yet simple to play without a lot of excess button spamming- powerful yet decently survivable, with great range and area but also fantastic single-target!

I have a few questions though- Sorry this will be a long post, as it's incredibly annoying to log into the PoE website through Steam, it makes me get a verification code every time.

1. One of the main issues I'm having so far with the build is the expense.
Of course, the medium cluster jewels of the right type are horribly expensive currently, but I managed to get one so far and am saving up for a second, after having tried and failed to roll one with both VC and another useful notable for weeks.

However, the main problem I have currently is the Corrupted Kikazaru rings- I've only seen two for sale the whole league, and despite indications that they'd be 10-50c, both that I've seen have been for over 1ex, which is... a lot, but I know they provide a massive boost in damage. I don't know what to really do about this. Nevermind that making up the resist-loss would need me to re-do my gear loadout again.

Is there anything I can do here, short of buying a bunch and trying to corrupt them myself? (which would likely just waste money in the end)

2. I noticed in the PoB that Shock is checked in the config.
From my understanding, shock is only applied by hits that deal damage, despite being unable to deal damage through our own spells. Crits supposedly apply a shock 100% of the time but the shock is still supposed to be based off the amount of life damaged, which would be 0, which would mean no shock? A bit confused here. Also the shock effect was set to 18% by you, but I can't seem to figure out where this number comes from either.

3. What are the most important stats on a weapon?
You list a lot of possible mods, and there are even more than that.
Cold Penetration, Cold Damage, Spell Damage, Elemental Damage, Physical as Extra Cold Damage, Cold Gems +1, Phys Gems +1, Cast Speed... Etc. All I know for sure is that the Gems+1 is a must and that Added Damage isn't that effective on GC.

4. Why don't you have life on most of your jewels?
Considering you can get up to 7% increased life per jewel and the build uses quite a few rare jewels, I'm surprised you haven't utilized that, especially considering the build's not that strong in terms of defensive layers. Is the extra damage from 1 more mod worth the loss of survivability?

Thanks for any info you can give!

"

Myuudles wrote:

Hi! Loving the build, this is perhaps my favourite build I've ever played in fact! Mechanically interesting, yet simple to play without a lot of excess button spamming- powerful yet decently survivable, with great range and area but also fantastic single-target!

I have a few questions though- Sorry this will be a long post, as it's incredibly annoying to log into the PoE website through Steam, it makes me get a verification code every time.

1. One of the main issues I'm having so far with the build is the expense.
Of course, the medium cluster jewels of the right type are horribly expensive currently, but I managed to get one so far and am saving up for a second, after having tried and failed to roll one with both VC and another useful notable for weeks.

However, the main problem I have currently is the Corrupted Kikazaru rings- I've only seen two for sale the whole league, and despite indications that they'd be 10-50c, both that I've seen have been for over 1ex, which is... a lot, but I know they provide a massive boost in damage. I don't know what to really do about this. Nevermind that making up the resist-loss would need me to re-do my gear loadout again.

Is there anything I can do here, short of buying a bunch and trying to corrupt them myself? (which would likely just waste money in the end)

2. I noticed in the PoB that Shock is checked in the config.
From my understanding, shock is only applied by hits that deal damage, despite being unable to deal damage through our own spells. Crits supposedly apply a shock 100% of the time but the shock is still supposed to be based off the amount of life damaged, which would be 0, which would mean no shock? A bit confused here. Also the shock effect was set to 18% by you, but I can't seem to figure out where this number comes from either.

3. What are the most important stats on a weapon?
You list a lot of possible mods, and there are even more than that.
Cold Penetration, Cold Damage, Spell Damage, Elemental Damage, Physical as Extra Cold Damage, Cold Gems +1, Phys Gems +1, Cast Speed... Etc. All I know for sure is that the Gems+1 is a must and that Added Damage isn't that effective on GC.

4. Why don't you have life on most of your jewels?
Considering you can get up to 7% increased life per jewel and the build uses quite a few rare jewels, I'm surprised you haven't utilized that, especially considering the build's not that strong in terms of defensive layers. Is the extra damage from 1 more mod worth the loss of survivability?

Thanks for any info you can give!

Good questions --

1. When I originally did the build, the Kikazuru rings were dirt cheap... I got mine really easily. It seems that writing the guide has driven up cost on them. Same for the medium clusters. I'll update the guide to be more accurate on the cost.

You can also look back a page, for another person who used influenced rings with -curse effect as a substitute, seems like a decent alternative.

I'm slightly surprised that it's so hard to roll Vengeful Commander plus something else, as it's a common roll for mediums - I'd expect it to be acheivable with alt/aug/regal. Just get one with ilvl > 50.

I just bought this base for 80c and crafted in about 5 minutes:



Increased effect of aura is a close substitute for extra notable, saves you a point (I'll trade that for 90c, my cost of getting it plus some alts/regals). I checked POB, and per-point it is actually more efficient...

2. Shock is checked as substitute for Bonechill effect on Cold Snap, which at the time POB didn't include (maybe it's been updated since?)

3. For most effective stats, it will depend on all the rest of your gear so there's no one-size-all. Best way is to copy a weapon into POB for your specific character, or tinker with adding/removing stats there, if you want to min-max it the best.

4. Jewels: there's a lot of increased life on the tree, so I prioritized DPS jewels (also cheaper to trade for...) If you found a higher life total was more important than damage, get HP instead.

"

ThanatoZGaming wrote:

Good questions --

1. When I originally did the build, the Kikazuru rings were dirt cheap... I got mine really easily. It seems that writing the guide has driven up cost on them. Same for the medium clusters. I'll update the guide to be more accurate on the cost.

You can also look back a page, for another person who used influenced rings with -curse effect as a substitute, seems like a decent alternative.

I'm slightly surprised that it's so hard to roll Vengeful Commander plus something else, as it's a common roll for mediums - I'd expect it to be acheivable with alt/aug/regal. Just get one with ilvl > 50.

I just bought this base for 80c and crafted in about 5 minutes:

Increased effect of aura is a close substitute for extra notable, saves you a point (I'll trade that for 90c, my cost of getting it plus some alts/regals). I checked POB, and per-point it is actually more efficient...

2. Shock is checked as substitute for Bonechill effect on Cold Snap, which at the time POB didn't include (maybe it's been updated since?)

3. For most effective stats, it will depend on all the rest of your gear so there's no one-size-all. Best way is to copy a weapon into POB for your specific character, or tinker with adding/removing stats there, if you want to min-max it the best.

4. Jewels: there's a lot of increased life on the tree, so I prioritized DPS jewels (also cheaper to trade for...) If you found a higher life total was more important than damage, get HP instead.

Thank you for the quick response!

1. I may look into the minus curse effect rings, though I did manage to buy one of the Kikazarus already- ironically, after I posted this I checked again, and suddenly there were several all for sale at once! Still around 1ex each but I can work toward that.

As for the Cluster Jewels, I'd rather wait and buy one with both mods. The extra regen specifically from Replenishing Presence is really nice. Every percent helps a bit.

2. It seems to work correctly if you have the "enemy is chilled" box selected! At least in the PoB Community Fork, anyway. Seems to be equivalent to a 15% shock. So I just switched the checkboxes around for now.

3. Fair! I was just hoping you'd know which stats would give, on average, better DPS. Currently I'm just going with EleDam/SpellDam/CastSpeed/+1ColdGems with some bonus crit to help with Elemental Overload. I may just try to upgrade the wand I'm using with harvest crafting.

4. Also fair. I found myself dying to near-oneshots even in yellow maps despite being somewhat close to the PoB in terms of defensive stats, so I may go with the extra life just for a bit more of a defense. Admittedly I'm still low on Chaos Resist but fitting it in was excessively costly given the limited room I had to work with. Tried to get as much as possible anyway.

Currently feeling a bit burnt-out from trying to farm my way through the slow middle-tiers of the Atlas, but I'll keep what you said in consideration for when I start playing more again!
Thanks again!

To help out with your item searching, here are the trade searches I used...

Weapon

2 implicit String of Servitude

DPS Jewel

Jewel with defenses and damage

Abyss jewel

boots with phys added as cold

Good luck when/if you revisit it!

I started playing PoE a few days after Harvest started. I hadn't played the game in years, I think around perandus league.

After that 25gb download, I made a frost blade marauder and absolutely hated it, my gear sucked, I was squishy, I couldn't afford anything better, my laptop couldn't really handle the game very well so melee wasn't very fun to play - and I rerolled into this glacial totem build.

Straight away, even the difference in leveling was absurd, totems feel really clean and fast to level with. I absolutely loved this build.

For a newbie returning player like myself, this build felt REALLY strong. Just to give an idea; I bought two Kikazaru rings for 1c each, a 5L 6S Soul Mantle for 15c (that was my biggest purchase on this account) and accidentally LEFT SPELL TOTEM SUPPORT inside the 5L Soul Mantle and didn't even realise it until level 89 when I happened to 6L a perfect roll Soul Mantle in about 10 fusings. I was playing basically with a 4L up to level 89, clearing T16 maps with any mods without problems.

I didn't find ele reflect to be that bad; you do have to recast the totems but only really for bosses and really tanky rares, because all magic and normal mobs are dying in one hit anyway.

Will link my gear below, maybe it will give players new to the build an idea of what you can use and still clear T16 all mods easily. The most expensive thing things I have in this build were the large cluster jewels, but I bought the bases as white with ilvl 75 for 5-10c each, and farmed Quarry seeds (which are i65 and work on i75 items!) and rerolled until I got some decent notables. Same trick for the one medium cluster I have; the totem damage one. Rolled at quarry. Every rare I paid 1-2c for, except the wand which was 5c.

Actually some recommendation here: If you want to clear faster and run through everything (get a quartz flask!) then Disorienting Display notable (on elemental Large Cluster Jewels) is an absolute must-have. It procs really often, and the blind is like a big AoE aura that follows your character. Vengeful Commander's are must-haves for higher DPS (yes, it's really MUCH MUCH better than any other notable for damage), and Corrosive Elements is a luxury that will really help you clear high resists much faster. Since I managed to get two really good large cluster jewels, (though they're still not too expensive; one's about 80c and the other 150c) I went for a slightly different route on the passive tree and greeded for two large clusters.

If you use a totem damage medium like me, because aura mediums are too expensive, I suggest staying very far away from the "Reach" one, or whatever it's called.. the one that extends the range you can place your totems. It's really buggy, and causes a lot of desynchronisation issues. I absolutely loved crafting the medium totem damage cluster jewel below; it's a really nice dps boost (+30% cast speed for 4 seconds when you summon a totem!) and wasn't much effort to craft.

About the cluster jewels, it seems that the current fotm spectre necro guide on poebuilds.cc uses aura effect jewels, which is why they are so expensive. I remember bying my first medium like 2 weeks ago for cheap, and yesterday i was lucky to find a second for 50 that i then had to craft with a few more chaos.

On a side note, i only bought string of servite with one implicit, but i got full 60% hatred so im fine on that, but holy shit those implicits can be bonkers.

Also, what i thought about: if i get my conversion not from boots, i could craft 40% damage during soul gain prevention onto my boots. Isn't that amazing considering that soul gain prevention is like 20 seconds for us?

ANother good question, why not physical damage on the caster weapon? That rolls so much higher than cold damage.

"

ANother good question, why not physical damage on the caster weapon? That rolls so much higher than cold damage.

The high %phys on weapons is a local mod; so it only applies to attacks with that weapon, not spells. I got very confused by this when i was starting also.




About the build; I love the Hatred scaling, but last time I tried to make a GC totem build I found the clear so-so at best.

I found swapping to shockwave totems with astral projector WAY better for clear, with at-least equal damage. It doesn't work with the self-curse package due to needing a ring and not needing the spell totem support, so it becomes a pretty different build gear-wise, but I think it would be worth trying with the supreme ego/tokohamas/vengeful commanders package.

Just some food for thought if anyone is playing around with something like this.

How do you know that? It does not say that anywhere on craft of exile. The wording is literally the same as for spell and cold damage.

"

With Supreme Ego and Hatred alone, we are getting 47.5% * 1.5 = 71.25% more damage from the aura.

This gets really nutty, however, when we start adding increased aura effectiveness from gear, the passive tree, and Vengeful Commander cluster jewel notables. With 100% increased aura effectiveness to Hatred (which is on the low side of what we can accomplish) the calculation becomes:

(47.5% * 2) * 1.5 = 142.5% More Damage from Hatred!

This math isn't right, but the numbers aren't far off.

Assuming no other sources of Phys as Extra Cold or flat cold (and 100% Phys to Cold conversion), Hatred scaling should look like this:
(1 + (0.25 * H)) * (1 + (0.18 * H)) where H is the total Hatred scaling multiplier.
i.e. There is a double dip for Hatred effect on both the Phys as Extra Cold and More Cold, which give it a slight quadratic scaling.

With just Supreme Ego, this is:
(1 + (0.25 * 1.5)) * (1 + (0.18 * 1.5)) = 1.375 * 1.27 = 1.746
or 74.6% more damage. (rather than 71.25% more)

With an extra 100% increased Hatred effect:
(1 + (0.25 * (1.5 * 2)) * (1 + (0.18 * (1.5 * 2)) = 1.75 * 1.54 = 2.695
or 169.5% more damage. (rather than 142.5% more)

"

CircuitousPrime wrote:

"

With Supreme Ego and Hatred alone, we are getting 47.5% * 1.5 = 71.25% more damage from the aura.

This gets really nutty, however, when we start adding increased aura effectiveness from gear, the passive tree, and Vengeful Commander cluster jewel notables. With 100% increased aura effectiveness to Hatred (which is on the low side of what we can accomplish) the calculation becomes:

(47.5% * 2) * 1.5 = 142.5% More Damage from Hatred!

This math isn't right, but the numbers aren't far off.

Assuming no other sources of Phys as Extra Cold or flat cold (and 100% Phys to Cold conversion), Hatred scaling should look like this:
(1 + (0.25 * H)) * (1 + (0.18 * H)) where H is the total Hatred scaling multiplier.
i.e. There is a double dip for Hatred effect on both the Phys as Extra Cold and More Cold, which give it a slight quadratic scaling.

With just Supreme Ego, this is:
(1 + (0.25 * 1.5)) * (1 + (0.18 * 1.5)) = 1.375 * 1.27 = 1.746
or 74.6% more damage. (rather than 71.25% more)

With an extra 100% increased Hatred effect:
(1 + (0.25 * (1.5 * 2)) * (1 + (0.18 * (1.5 * 2)) = 1.75 * 1.54 = 2.695
or 169.5% more damage. (rather than 142.5% more)

Thanks, I'll look at updating this when I do next big revision.