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

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Mentalmike wrote:

I think I have hit a complete brick wall.

I can not kill any of the bosses with sentinel active. Can not do any maps with any altars active as the DOT effects or the stupid 'projectils are retards' mod just cause instant deaths.

Can not do anything about it due to no currency and in 36 maps I have only made 37c (as I have to buy T16 to sustain). DOT is the problem here I have burn immunity but chaos/poison dot kills instantly.

Since league start I have only received 4 Shaper maps and 2 Elder maps.
I have run 53 T16s and have not got a single T16/15 map drop - map sustain is in the gutter. I ran 25 maps with all map nodes in atlas tree, saw no difference, so unspecked them.

To get this build capable of doing most content I need 50 exalted orbs. Economy this league is broken and only serves the rich/6-player group play.

Can not get new rings to help with ailment avoidance/chaos res due to no currency.

Only saving grace is the fact I 6-linked my own bow, 5-linked my own chest and through a miricle crafted my own boots. Everyone else was bought based on found/farmed currency but this was 2 weeks ago. Nothing since then.

Really stuck with progression and have no idea what to do. Which is ironic as last league I managed to max this character beyond belief. This league cant even get a map to continue playing the game. Spend more time trading than mapping because nothing drops.

Did polaric invitation, yes boss was sentinel boosted, but 6 portals and only took 10% of his life.

Think this league is over for me.

I can suggest two very easy options to get back on track for you this league.

1. Run yellow maps with Sentinels. Only use sentinels with chance to give XYZ reward types. Recombinate them with others when you're done. You can blast like t9 maps or something very quickly and safely and make a couple of exa per hour from the sentinel drops alone.

2. Run any t14 maps (scoured/white) with influence and portal out as soon as you proc influence. You can do this in <30 seconds per map. Kill the boss of every 28th map (or slightly less if you have the 10% chance for double progress atlas node) for your invitations. Invitations are 1.2exa each and you can get one every 10 minutes using this method. You'll probably have to buy maps to keep this strat up but you can run any random white t14s, so even if you have to spend 3c each in bulk you're still making 4exa per hour.

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cdnza wrote:

2. Run any t14 maps (scoured/white) with influence and portal out as soon as you proc influence. You can do this in <30 seconds per map. Kill the boss of every 28th map (or slightly less if you have the 10% chance for double progress atlas node) for your invitations. Invitations are 1.2exa each and you can get one every 10 minutes using this method. You'll probably have to buy maps to keep this strat up but you can run any random white t14s, so even if you have to spend 3c each in bulk you're still making 4exa per hour.

This is actually a pretty pog strategy, haven't thought about that at all.

"

rikailp wrote:

Hey folks, I was wondering if someone might take a look at my build (the only character I have in this league) and give me some advice on what I should focus on.

I managed to drop the card that gives you 5ex, so I have ~1200 chaos to work with. I've been enjoying the gameplay of the build a lot, but now that I'm getting into t14+ maps, I'm definitely getting a oneshot a lot more.

I definitely need to shore up my defenses more and figure out how to reduce chaos/poison damage, but from what I understand reading through the thread, the real survivability of this build is through the massive damage killing things too quickly to hurt you, so I'm a bit split on what to spend my currency on.

I am really enjoying this build and want to scale it into some of the endgame bossing if possible, so any direction/guidance from those of you more familiar with it would be amazing :)

One thing I will note is that I know that my flasks, while not the worst, also aren't perfect since they trigger through me getting hit. I enjoy autoflask setups because my reaction time is terrible with flasks, and I'll probably transition them over to triggering of crit (assuming they can trigger off totem crits? I haven't looked into that yet.)

Some simple things you can do that take practically no currency -
1) If you don't like manually pressing flasks; at least change the ones that give immunity to 'trigger on receiving immunity', ie. for freeze immunity craft ' trigger on frozen' etc
2) Pick up every jewel socket you can on the tree - you can either socket brawn in them or put jewels with 20+ dex and 7% life. The scion one in particular is exceptional since it gives you nice resists to work with so you can greed for dex and life on your rings/gloves. Split personality dex/life is a cheap way to scale both if you aren't already using them
3) Pick up life masteries if you haven't - 50 flat life and 10% max life are quite nice
4) Mandatory to have hypothermia if mapping t14+. Our build is not tanky so we need hypothermia.
5) Maybe i'm not seeing it properly but is frenzy even linked to the skills it's supposed to be triggering?
6) Your CWDT set up is probably wrong; I don't think molten shell is even being triggered properly. Grab yourself a Vaal Molten Shell that's linked properly to a lvl 1 CWDT support and make sure it's being triggered.
7) 1 point from skills summon 2 totems mastery to just crit chance after totem placed.


Some fairly cheap upgrades -
1) Better rings - I'm sure you're way overcapped on resistances now which is pointless. At this point in the league you should be able to find one with good life and dex rolls and rez to cap you off. Ideally an open prefix too so you can craft mana cost reduction giving you a lot of QOL and more flexibility with gem set up.
2) Either catalyst slam or else search for one with %dex corruption on it that gives you like 20% bonus dex. This shouldn't cost much more than 20c either way probably. You can also catalyst slam your rings once you get good ones that will last until you can afford synthesizd ones (those cost me about 8-10ex per ring).
3) Pick up dying sun ruby flask and anomalous siege ballista - flask should run about 10c and ballista about 20-30c. Make sure you get exactly 20% qual on ballista.

The more expensive stuff -
1) Minimum of 1 6-link set up for siege ballista: I suggest iron commander since later on you may want to swap btwn Hyrri's, Wildwrap, or a Rare with %dex, %increased damage/dex, and gem levels (this is the most expensive choice).
2) Enlighten Support - This lets you fit bonechill or defiance banner.
3) Corrupted or Enchanted Helm - You can pick up a helm with corrupted implicit of reduced mana reservation if you don't want enlighten support. Alternatively siege ballista %atk speed is a solid enchant for more damage.
4) 2nd 6 link for your Frenzy set up - this adds a lot of consistency to your debuff up time on harder content.
5) Watcher's Eye - You're looking for either flat cold damage which is pretty cheap and generally your highest mapping damage increase or crit chance if you want to transition inspiration support into increased crit dmg support.
6) Hyrri's demise with point blank corruption - nifty for saving a point on the tree. Although with your level at 89 I'd say you're better off just joining some free rotations and getting up to lvl 93 to 94.
7) pay someone to run a lab that gives you pen enchant on boots. I did this for 1ex last night.
8) Awakened Gems - Added Cold is really cheap and pretty much just a free damage boost, ele dmg with attacks is more of a luxury but is also nice QOL

Luxuries to aim for

1) Synthesized rings/belt or perfect rolled Coil with %dex corruption and 20% quality.
2) Cold to the Core + Blanketed Snow/Prismatic Heart Large cluster. This also offers an extra jewel socket.

if you want a good time to do end game stuff with this build, bare min is 1400 dex and awaken gems. Everything is dirt cheap except for dex% rings and hatred watcher eyes.

i would also suggest removing codt on molten shell and just put it on your left click for self moving cast with increased duration.

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

Some simple things you can do that take practically no currency -
1) If you don't like manually pressing flasks; at least change the ones that give immunity to 'trigger on receiving immunity', ie. for freeze immunity craft ' trigger on frozen' etc
2) Pick up every jewel socket you can on the tree - you can either socket brawn in them or put jewels with 20+ dex and 7% life. The scion one in particular is exceptional since it gives you nice resists to work with so you can greed for dex and life on your rings/gloves. Split personality dex/life is a cheap way to scale both if you aren't already using them
3) Pick up life masteries if you haven't - 50 flat life and 10% max life are quite nice
4) Mandatory to have hypothermia if mapping t14+. Our build is not tanky so we need hypothermia.
5) Maybe i'm not seeing it properly but is frenzy even linked to the skills it's supposed to be triggering?
6) Your CWDT set up is probably wrong; I don't think molten shell is even being triggered properly. Grab yourself a Vaal Molten Shell that's linked properly to a lvl 1 CWDT support and make sure it's being triggered.
7) 1 point from skills summon 2 totems mastery to just crit chance after totem placed.

Hypothermia added in
Frenzy fixed (I actually missed that it wasn't linked as well, thought I was using a 5l there)
CWDT fixed (not sure how I missed that, lmao)
Crit chance totem placement swapped
Jewel sockets are my focus after picking up life mastery, though I've been trying to decide which are the most important.

That leaves the flasks, I understand the reasoning behind swapping the flasks over to "use on bleed/burn/freeze/etc", the main reason I hadn't done so is that I enjoy the playstyle of having the flasks continuing to cycle and have uptime throughout maps and bosses rather than only being proceed when certain effects are cast. Since I can still manually use them if needed, I find this to feel better overall for me, even if it's maybe not totally optimal.

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

Some fairly cheap upgrades -
1) Better rings - I'm sure you're way overcapped on resistances now which is pointless. At this point in the league you should be able to find one with good life and dex rolls and rez to cap you off. Ideally an open prefix too so you can craft mana cost reduction giving you a lot of QOL and more flexibility with gem set up.
2) Either catalyst slam or else search for one with %dex corruption on it that gives you like 20% bonus dex. This shouldn't cost much more than 20c either way probably. You can also catalyst slam your rings once you get good ones that will last until you can afford synthesizd ones (those cost me about 8-10ex per ring).
3) Pick up dying sun ruby flask and anomalous siege ballista - flask should run about 10c and ballista about 20-30c. Make sure you get exactly 20% qual on ballista.

Definitely agree on the first point.

To the second point, is this in regards to rings still, or a belt? IF it's rings, can you speak a bit to the the % dex corruption, because i wasn't aware of any that give anything anywhere near 20% and couldn't find anything similar to this from poking around. Once I understand this, I'll be swapping my rings out.

Picked up dying sun and anom baillista, just need to decide what to cycle out for the dying sun.

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

The more expensive stuff -
1) Minimum of 1 6-link set up for siege ballista: I suggest iron commander since later on you may want to swap btwn Hyrri's, Wildwrap, or a Rare with %dex, %increased damage/dex, and gem levels (this is the most expensive choice).
2) Enlighten Support - This lets you fit bonechill or defiance banner.
3) Corrupted or Enchanted Helm - You can pick up a helm with corrupted implicit of reduced mana reservation if you don't want enlighten support. Alternatively siege ballista %atk speed is a solid enchant for more damage.
4) 2nd 6 link for your Frenzy set up - this adds a lot of consistency to your debuff up time on harder content.
5) Watcher's Eye - You're looking for either flat cold damage which is pretty cheap and generally your highest mapping damage increase or crit chance if you want to transition inspiration support into increased crit dmg support.
6) Hyrri's demise with point blank corruption - nifty for saving a point on the tree. Although with your level at 89 I'd say you're better off just joining some free rotations and getting up to lvl 93 to 94.
7) pay someone to run a lab that gives you pen enchant on boots. I did this for 1ex last night.
8) Awakened Gems - Added Cold is really cheap and pretty much just a free damage boost, ele dmg with attacks is more of a luxury but is also nice QOL

Took care of both of my 6l setups, decided to go for a wildwrap for now.

I think I'll grab the enlighten support for the mana and the boot enchant/helm enchants with the remainder of my ex for further damage boosting and focus the rest later with the watcher's eye as my next priority.

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

Luxuries to aim for

1) Synthesized rings/belt or perfect rolled Coil with %dex corruption and 20% quality.
2) Cold to the Core + Blanketed Snow/Prismatic Heart Large cluster. This also offers an extra jewel socket.

Someday... :')

Thank you so much for this, I can't believe the number of simple fixes I was missing, guess I'm even more casual than i thought!

"

rikailp wrote:

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

Some simple things you can do that take practically no currency -
1) If you don't like manually pressing flasks; at least change the ones that give immunity to 'trigger on receiving immunity', ie. for freeze immunity craft ' trigger on frozen' etc
2) Pick up every jewel socket you can on the tree - you can either socket brawn in them or put jewels with 20+ dex and 7% life. The scion one in particular is exceptional since it gives you nice resists to work with so you can greed for dex and life on your rings/gloves. Split personality dex/life is a cheap way to scale both if you aren't already using them
3) Pick up life masteries if you haven't - 50 flat life and 10% max life are quite nice
4) Mandatory to have hypothermia if mapping t14+. Our build is not tanky so we need hypothermia.
5) Maybe i'm not seeing it properly but is frenzy even linked to the skills it's supposed to be triggering?
6) Your CWDT set up is probably wrong; I don't think molten shell is even being triggered properly. Grab yourself a Vaal Molten Shell that's linked properly to a lvl 1 CWDT support and make sure it's being triggered.
7) 1 point from skills summon 2 totems mastery to just crit chance after totem placed.

Hypothermia added in
Frenzy fixed (I actually missed that it wasn't linked as well, thought I was using a 5l there)
CWDT fixed (not sure how I missed that, lmao)
Crit chance totem placement swapped
Jewel sockets are my focus after picking up life mastery, though I've been trying to decide which are the most important.

That leaves the flasks, I understand the reasoning behind swapping the flasks over to "use on bleed/burn/freeze/etc", the main reason I hadn't done so is that I enjoy the playstyle of having the flasks continuing to cycle and have uptime throughout maps and bosses rather than only being proceed when certain effects are cast. Since I can still manually use them if needed, I find this to feel better overall for me, even if it's maybe not totally optimal.

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

Some fairly cheap upgrades -
1) Better rings - I'm sure you're way overcapped on resistances now which is pointless. At this point in the league you should be able to find one with good life and dex rolls and rez to cap you off. Ideally an open prefix too so you can craft mana cost reduction giving you a lot of QOL and more flexibility with gem set up.
2) Either catalyst slam or else search for one with %dex corruption on it that gives you like 20% bonus dex. This shouldn't cost much more than 20c either way probably. You can also catalyst slam your rings once you get good ones that will last until you can afford synthesizd ones (those cost me about 8-10ex per ring).
3) Pick up dying sun ruby flask and anomalous siege ballista - flask should run about 10c and ballista about 20-30c. Make sure you get exactly 20% qual on ballista.

Definitely agree on the first point.

To the second point, is this in regards to rings still, or a belt? IF it's rings, can you speak a bit to the the % dex corruption, because i wasn't aware of any that give anything anywhere near 20% and couldn't find anything similar to this from poking around. Once I understand this, I'll be swapping my rings out.

Picked up dying sun and anom baillista, just need to decide what to cycle out for the dying sun.

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

The more expensive stuff -
1) Minimum of 1 6-link set up for siege ballista: I suggest iron commander since later on you may want to swap btwn Hyrri's, Wildwrap, or a Rare with %dex, %increased damage/dex, and gem levels (this is the most expensive choice).
2) Enlighten Support - This lets you fit bonechill or defiance banner.
3) Corrupted or Enchanted Helm - You can pick up a helm with corrupted implicit of reduced mana reservation if you don't want enlighten support. Alternatively siege ballista %atk speed is a solid enchant for more damage.
4) 2nd 6 link for your Frenzy set up - this adds a lot of consistency to your debuff up time on harder content.
5) Watcher's Eye - You're looking for either flat cold damage which is pretty cheap and generally your highest mapping damage increase or crit chance if you want to transition inspiration support into increased crit dmg support.
6) Hyrri's demise with point blank corruption - nifty for saving a point on the tree. Although with your level at 89 I'd say you're better off just joining some free rotations and getting up to lvl 93 to 94.
7) pay someone to run a lab that gives you pen enchant on boots. I did this for 1ex last night.
8) Awakened Gems - Added Cold is really cheap and pretty much just a free damage boost, ele dmg with attacks is more of a luxury but is also nice QOL

Took care of both of my 6l setups, decided to go for a wildwrap for now.

I think I'll grab the enlighten support for the mana and the boot enchant/helm enchants with the remainder of my ex for further damage boosting and focus the rest later with the watcher's eye as my next priority.

"

Nihilum12345 wrote:

Luxuries to aim for

1) Synthesized rings/belt or perfect rolled Coil with %dex corruption and 20% quality.
2) Cold to the Core + Blanketed Snow/Prismatic Heart Large cluster. This also offers an extra jewel socket.

Someday... :')

Thank you so much for this, I can't believe the number of simple fixes I was missing, guess I'm even more casual than i thought!

With regard to life mastery vs jewel socket; I think the easiest compromise is take the 10% hp mastery and then path to the socket which takes 2 points. We have a decent amount of flat base hp from Garukhan's once we stack dex, so getting %hp scaling is pretty nice.

With regard to corruption; I meant that for Cyclopean Coil. Imo it's possible to beat a corrupted coil, but you have to invest multiple exalts on a synth base and then spam deafening sorrows till you get 80+ life on a roll with good rez/open prefix to feel better than coil.

I'm honestly getting bored how the build just doesn't feel most of the game content. All these uber duper boses are a joke, 300% quantity feared is a joke. Get in, spam your ballistas and just start running circles like a headless chicken. All phases skipped, listen to the loot explosion, repeat. Atm I have 270 Mill sirus DPS (with Barrage, and 150 Mill without) that does not rely on flasks. And the build is far beyond being min maxed. I spent 50 exalts this morning trying to craft a better chest, and recombinators ate all of my cyrrency. Should've just gotten a better Watcher's eye.

The main difference from my last league char is that right from the beginning I went for temple gloves instead of hunter %dex ones. I feel it is not only cheaper, but also more efficient. You lose 10% dex (12% if elevated), but get very nice eldrich implicits and 48% ele res, which is huge for this build. Not a single point on the tree is wasted for ele res.

By the way, I think this is the first league when one can relatively easy get both stun and ailment immune using siege ballista without sacrificing damage output. That frees up pantheon slots quite a bit. Kudos to the new boot implicit once again!

What would you consider to be the minimum requirements in order to challenge Uber bosses? I'm currently rocking 1200+ dex and 4.6k life (w/ 100% spell suppression) but the DPS feels a bit weak. It is my first time playing a build like this so it might just be a matter of me not feeling just how strong I am but I'm seriously considering starting to cannibalize defensive nodes to invest into more damage.

https://pastebin.com/xMHvLsHP

This is what I'm at currently. I know I need to work on the potions/catalysts and I'm trying to roll a "cold to the core" large cluster. Not to mention general XP for the gems themselves. Other than that do you see any easy fixes or problems I can correct?

Thanks!

"

Ashikar wrote:

What would you consider to be the minimum requirements in order to challenge Uber bosses? I'm currently rocking 1200+ dex and 4.6k life (w/ 100% spell suppression) but the DPS feels a bit weak. It is my first time playing a build like this so it might just be a matter of me not feeling just how strong I am but I'm seriously considering starting to cannibalize defensive nodes to invest into more damage.

https://pastebin.com/xMHvLsHP

This is what I'm at currently. I know I need to work on the potions/catalysts and I'm trying to roll a "cold to the core" large cluster. Not to mention general XP for the gems themselves. Other than that do you see any easy fixes or problems I can correct?

Thanks!

Very nice ehp, just about twice as much as I have. Didn't stop me from finishing last simulacrum waves and delving past depth 600. Just a note to raise your tankiness concerns.

Your crit chance is too low for CoC Frenzy setup, try Arcanist brand instead. And you simply need more dex. You've got enlighten, so your budget shouldn't be that low. Level up, you do need these precious skill points. Set up your flasks properly.