[Nemesis] HP EK Scion - Arctic Armor + EB + MoM - 5+ Auras

I've been following the "Courtesy of hokieneer" build and so far so good. lvl 47 - act2 cruel and i pretty much tear things up. Tanked Merviel, Brutus and semi-tanked Fidelitas.

I went to get most part of the huge life cluster near the scion first to get some survivability and because of that you may find lacking mana by a long shot at first. Once you get decent mana regen and 2 auras (im running clarity and Grace/hatred right now) you can start spamming EK without worries.

And this is doable from scratch, I started Domination with it do i had nothing. Just had some life troubles here and there because it took me quite some time to get a life leech gem. So i was popping red flasks like skittles.

I will give you more feedback as i level up, dont know if this helps you since you are probably running some of your builds and are way ahead of me.

Thanks for sharing. Been having a blast with this so far

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Morti666 wrote:

if u go to the ranger tree to Ballistic mastery which is highly recommended cause its the best EK node in the whole tree, then i will definetly go heart of the oak

just 2 points and its insane if u dont have Unwavering

I actually do take it in the recommended build.

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hokieneer wrote:

The fundamental flaw of my quick hybrid build last week is the lack of Armor, Evasion, Shield, or stun recovery nodes. I have been theorycrafting ideas to get some better defensive buffs, but it's hard to figure out what to sacrifice.

I agree. But as you go on to talk about there are SO many options literally right on the build path that you can take, I think that's my favorite part of it. Depending on what you have for items/gear/dps you can spec into the nodes that benefit you the most. I am probably going to end up dropping 4-5 small HP nodes to take those evasion nodes. With Grace up that would be a huge armor boost.

@liltic: That's great to hear! I actually haven't gotten as far as I'd hoped by now due to being crazy busy, also any and all input is always appreciated. I agree with the mana problems early, I am having that same issue right now, it is really only apparent when killing some bosses and I run out of mana flasks (but I can still facetank it to death). Glad it's working out for you!

Level 51 so far, Act 3 cruel (Playing domination btw, should be noted)

Using a version of the first build

my tree currently:

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAAEZYVIBbzGYoajxzcHaomPCpNLOktgy2oL28vnTGeNZI64T8nQYdGcUrITeNWLVpSZ6Buqm-ecLt_xoMJiPGTJ5cGm12btaZXqJqsWax_sZC0DLXytz631sM6xKLKStkT21ndDeGI52PyRfKX9tr56PsJ_MX-Cv6P

Using hatred/clarity at the moment

Not very high life yet, only 1700 and my defenses aren't quite there yet, though I haven't utilized arctic armor yet. I still like the tankier HC builds though because I hate dying in general :[

Only using a 3 linked EK atm - faster proj and added fire.

I kite single target mobs usually with vulnerability + bear traps. Most other mobs I mow down with EK.

Need to start working on my defenses before I head to merc though.

For you guys running Clarity already, are you running it on HP or mana right now?

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shumped wrote:

You want to run tempest shield without Blind, the only reason you're actually running tempest shield.

Shumped, will you please enlighten me for your reasoning behind running tempest shield without blind?

I can understand if you cannot afford the sockets for the extra gem but you can easily tie it into a reduced mana and clarity. Yes I do know TS (Tempest Shield) does not benefit from RM (reduced mana).

I am currently level 45. I have 50% block chance using the Crest of Perandus Unique. My survivability is through the roof having blind linked to TS. As long as I block I always have that chance to blind any monster. Once proc'ed I just smash the mob down taking NO damage because it cannot hit me.

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Cyrenus wrote:

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shumped wrote:

You want to run tempest shield without Blind, the only reason you're actually running tempest shield.

Shumped, will you please enlighten me for your reasoning behind running tempest shield without blind?

I can understand if you cannot afford the sockets for the extra gem but you can easily tie it into a reduced mana and clarity. Yes I do know TS (Tempest Shield) does not benefit from RM (reduced mana).

I am currently level 45. I have 50% block chance using the Crest of Perandus Unique. My survivability is through the roof having blind linked to TS. As long as I block I always have that chance to blind any monster. Once proc'ed I just smash the mob down taking NO damage because it cannot hit me.

He was talking about when I forgot to add Blind into the gem section linked with Tempest Shield. TS + Blind is incredibly strong and something that I would love to work into this build. However there are some pretty big passive tradeoffs you need to make to make TS + Blind an effective option. Unfortunately until I get further into the game and test some stuff out I'm not sure if it would be worth doing. I will try to do some theorycrafting this afternoon on the subject again however and see what I can come up with. Also keep running it and let us know the results!!

Edit: I added Tempest Shield + Blind back into the gem selection. With the recommended build you can support Clarity + Grace + Hatred + Discipline + Tempest Shield. In this case you would want to adjust the tree to take more shield block. Dropping HP nodes unfortunately seems to be the best option right now to accomplish this. I think overall losing 30-50% HP for more evasion+shield block would actually increase your effective HP. I will make some adjustments and post it as a separate in-progress theorycrafted build for you guys to nitpick and optimize with me.

Question I can't seem to find the answer to. Do the Increases evasion by X% work with Grace? For example assume I have 1000 base evasion and Grace adds 2000 evasion. I have +50% increased evasion from passives. Does it give me 1000 + 50% = 1500 + 2000 = 3500 evasion? Or 3000 + 50% = 4500 evasion? This is very important for calculating whether taking evasion nodes or HP nodes give more effective HP.

If you take mind over matter, the auras you would run would be hatred (for increased dps or determination on reflect maps), max clarity and tempest shield. assuming you are around 2k mana and using the build i posted, this would leave you with about 800 mana left for casting and absorbing dmg. You will have roughly 250 mana/sec regen unless running as you will have a max lvl arctic armor which means that every time you cast EK you will regen to full mana.

Add this to the 50%+ block chance from attacks (25% spell block or 38% spell block if you have stone of lahzar (sp?) unique neck), Unwavering and IR (should be over 10k armor with no movement penalty), this build is extremely tanky with dmg that should be near 10k with a 5l.

You can run a mana leech if you feel that you will be hard pressed on mana by using mind over matter, essentially providing two types of "life" leech on your attack.

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MrButterrs wrote:

If you take mind over matter, the auras you would run would be hatred (for increased dps or determination on reflect maps), max clarity and tempest shield. assuming you are around 2k mana and using the build i posted, this would leave you with about 800 mana left for casting and absorbing dmg. You will have roughly 250 mana/sec regen unless running as you will have a max lvl arctic armor which means that every time you cast EK you will regen to full mana.

That's another thing that will be interesting to test out is whether taking Mind Over Matter and running less auras or not taking it and running more will be stronger. Almost impossible to figure out without testing both.

After running some numbers today I have come to the conclusion that Tempest Shield + Blind is only worth taking over Purity if you are already resist capped without Purity. If you aren't already resist capped Purity is by far the best choice. However because of the way armor works and how huge hits make it much less useful, TS+Blind MIGHT be better than Determination.

I wouldn't spec into any shield nodes for TS as the HP is better to have IMO. However taking TS gives you 4% higher block and 12% chance to blind (75% chance they miss) for ~5.5 seconds. With 32% block total = 3.84% chance to blind. This can be either extremely powerful or basically useless. I am unsure that something that might kill you (a powerful boss for example) will ever get blinded with that low of a chance. I think it would probably be better overall to take Determination for an extra 55% more armor.

Thoughts?