[3.18] Wallach's Siege Ballista Hierophant (Enjoy Consistent Character Balance)

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Mentalmike wrote:

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Nihilum12345 wrote:

Hey, anyone who has played this build in previous leagues between a 1 mod hatred watcher's eye, split personality life/dex, and brutal restraint can tell me which one is best at around 1400 dex level?

In terms of what to prioritise I would advise Brutal Restraint first then Split Personality 2nd. Although both of those are interchangable. This will give you a damage boost and life boost which enables clearing tougher maps. When you get to the bossing stage of end game (i.e. got your Voidstones) then you will want to get a Watcher's Eye.


Have a look at my last league character to see what the end game looks like. Character level is 98, cant remember the name sorry.

Thanks; your profile is very helpful to see what to aim for. I was just wondering if you ever swap out of Alira for more passive points; when you deprioritize life nodes on the tree in favor of more dex (was it after your synth gear giving you huge multiples?), and how much of a luxury was the large cluster?

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Mentalmike wrote:

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Nihilum12345 wrote:

Hey, anyone who has played this build in previous leagues between a 1 mod hatred watcher's eye, split personality life/dex, and brutal restraint can tell me which one is best at around 1400 dex level?

I played this build extensively in the last league and almost maxed it to its full potential.

I got my dex to 2500 and could have gone to 2600+ but it did not actually help as you kill so fast that tankiness becomes more of a priority.

In terms of what to prioritise I would advise Brutal Restraint first then Split Personality 2nd. Although both of those are interchangable. This will give you a damage boost and life boost which enables clearing tougher maps. When you get to the bossing stage of end game (i.e. got your Voidstones) then you will want to get a Watcher's Eye.

Without a Watcher's Eye you should still achieve 400% crit multi & 80% crit chance. Which is what I currently have in this league. Therefore all what the Watcher's Eye does is allow you to change the crit chance gem for cold pen or another gem. That is assuming you go for crit change watchers. ele pen and raw damage watchers will just add more damage.

Have a look at my last league character to see what the end game looks like. Character level is 98, cant remember the name sorry.

I wanna start the build but I always made tanky characters.Im not so good dodging things. I will have problems because of my playstyle with this build?

Compared to last league I feel like both my DPS and my survivability have about halved. I know I'm not fully geared yet but I can't remember having this much trouble last league when gearing up. Everything seems to die much sooner last league.

I'll plough through hoping to get some currency and buy upgrades but I'm getting one-shot a lot and some bosses take long to kill.

Can we use something else other than explosive arrow for leveling? its so slow.

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Thanks; your profile is very helpful to see what to aim for. I was just wondering if you ever swap out of Alira for more passive points; when you deprioritize life nodes on the tree in favor of more dex (was it after your synth gear giving you huge multiples?), and how much of a luxury was the large cluster?

I am not sure what you mean by Alira.
Since you get life with more dexterity from the mod on the unique boots, it becomes a point where you can sacrafice the life nodes. Last league I aimed to keep my life at 4,000 and therefore could lose some life nodes. I found this was enough to survive white, blue, rare mob hits (normal) which is all I needed. No matter what you do, bosses will one shot you so not point building too tanky.

The Large cluster jewel was not a luxury, it was a test for me as I was unsure how impactful it was. Turned out it was really impactful.
I always maintained the Medium Cluster jewel as permanent onslaught is amazing quality of life for this build and adds alot of damage.

The luxary was the rare amulet - fitting this in was difficult and required around 120ex worth of item upgrades/tweaks. I would never have been able to do this if it wasnt for the sheer luck of finding a 100% global defences fractured grasping mail which were 120-150ex last league.

So in terms of how I reached that end game build I did the following in the order issued below after I got the grasping mail:

(Prior to amulet)
1st bought %Dex synthesized belt & 2x rings. I saved up enough to buy all at least 2 of the 3 together so I could ensure I capped my resistances. The Rings were first as they were harder to get specific resistances on than the belt.

(After amulet)
Once that was done I looked at replacing the Amulet. This mean tweaking the tree since I had to ditch Brawn (I had multiple previously). This meant getting the Emperor jewels and then sacraficed the life nodes to get a 2nd Split Personality.

I obtained the corrupted chest (surprisingly cheap at only 18ex) and corrupted helmet (which was only 1ex!) but this enables you to run precision to get 15% attack speed from watcher's eye so the watchers eye became double benefit.

Once i reconfigured the tree with my new items, keeping life at minimum 4000, i ended up with 1 spare Passive Point and so levelled up from level 95 to 98 to get enough to fit a Large Cluster Jewel since I only wanted the two notables from the large cluster which meant an extra 3 levels.
I specifically wanted Cold to the Core as that added over 100% increased cold damage (at 2500 dex) which is then further enhanced by the near 100% MORE damage from the ascendency.

If I could have been bothered I could have got to level 100 and got another Jewel socket but all that would have done is given 5% life, 30% crit multy or around 50 dex. Did not feel the pain was worth a small increase.

Hope this helps.

Hey thanks for the detailed response; this is definitely quite helpful. If I'm understanding what you're saying about the cluster jewel correctly, it was a pretty good investment just to pick up cold to the core and prismatic heart notables? I'm thinking of grabbing it since I'm still quite passive point starved since I don't quite have the huge dex bonuses yet to start ditching life nodes; so a large cluster will give me an extra socket too. With regards to Alira I just meant the bandit choice; I league started so I took Alira to help with rez early but it probably makes more sense to spec out of it now

Ah Alira the bandit - i have never taken her in nearly 9 years of playing this game ha, hence why I was not sure what you were talking about.

Yes the extra 2 passive points are useful and so i killed all bandits.

With the large cluster jewel, yeah the 2nd jewel slot is great for adding extra dex/life like Split Personality etc. The damage benefit you will not see until you hit 2000+ dex.

Just note that Large Cluster Jewels are particularly annoying when you need specific positions/rolls.

It is best to copy the item information from the trade website and past it into Path of Building to see the layout of the large cluster jewel before buying. I did not realise this before I spent nearly 12ex on large clusters (luckily they were easy to resell).


At the end of the day, if you dont like the cluster jewel or there is a better upgrade out there just remove it, that is the best part about this build is that pretty much everything resolves around the tree and the items are only dex mods for rare items and corrupted mods for uniques and this means those items are fairly standardised and common.

Ok, so I wanted to test how good this build will handle the uber bosses and so used my character Ticklemapickle in Standard.

I am happy to say that it can do the uber bosses but you will DIE ALOT since absolutely everything one shots you.

Uber Shaper is pretty much the same but instead of 1 Shaper you have 2x copies to flood the map with beams and balls. Also his blue ball phase no longer has Zana so you have to play dodge ball extremely well.

Uber Maven is the same except you now have map bosses joined you during puzzle phase 1 and 2 but this isnt an issue for you since the totems automatically kill them so you can focus on the puzzles. Maven's final phase she has GMP on her Sun ball and 'Cascade of pain' balls...very difficult to dodge unless she has been taunted by your totems.

The Feared invitation - 269% quantity, level 85, with all bosses released at the same time. This was surprisingly easy I killed 2 bosses within the first 10s but as soon you you get hit by anything you are dead. Getting back into the fight becomes the real challenge and so, for me, the trick was to try and keep to the opposite side of where you spawn, so that all the bosses group there, this means you have a few seconds to get your totems up. Remember to let your totems run their course after you die as I managed to kill another boss, whilst dead.

I have not tried uber elder as I did not have the last fragment i needed.
Did not bother with uber cortex as I wanted to get the feared invitation and did not have the atlas passives to spec into it.
Have not tried Uber Sirus as I do not have the fragments nor the maps to be able to get to him.
CBA buying anything in standard.

So overall looks promising. At the very least the gear and items I have on my character can clear the uber bosses. Therefore it becomes a matter of being able to obtain it/farm the currency for it in Sentinel League...no easy feat.

how to work sir?

will ballista totems apply on hit effects like curse or exposure from equipped gear(gloves)?