How can we fix Hierophant?

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tweedledee111 написал:

I'm sorry guys, but i am with Boem and Sidtherat here. Hierophant can be very strong, when you build around its strengths.

My current character is a Scorching-Ray-Totems Hp. This are the benefits from the ascendancy for my build:

- Roughly 1.5k ES from Sanctuary of thought, without stacking mana in any way, shape or form.
- Can run Arctic Armour (+ discipline + blasphemy curse), without taking a single reservation node, because 64 unreserved mana is plenty, when your 6L costs 24 mana at most (Sanctuary of thought again.)

- The character can neglect Ancestral Bond and use Elemental Equilibrium, a gigantic dps boost, wich wouldn't work with any other ascendancy.

- Having a third totem out, speeds up the Scorching-Ray-debuff-stacking as much as 33% more (not increased) castspeed would do, again not possible with any other ascendancy.

- On top Ritual of Awakening saves me 6 passive points, wich is huge above lvl 90.


You might argue, that this is a niche-build. But Hierophant offers the tools to make things like that work. That you have to build for it imo is a good thing.

Edit says: I agree though, that the other two branches (Conviction of Power, Illuminated Devotion) look unappealing and could use some love.

sorry but the worst thing you can do is play scorching ray totems. take out spelltotem and totem/minion resistance gems, replace them with some faster casting/increased burning/empower or something and enjoy your new found life among the 1%.

- scorching ray debuff stacks pretty fast - ~1sec all 8 stacks. a third totem is overkill since 2 can cap it before you can even summon a 3rd.
- the playstyle is clunky, with totems targeting whatever target they want; targeting the same target(same direction) happens more frequently than you'd like.
- scorching ray does not hit so you don't need to trigger EE for your totems, you can trigger it for yourself and scorching ray won't remove it.
- ritual of awakening is the worst asc. to take for a dot build. the less dmg multiplier is a dot killer since dots don't stack. with any other spell, you put a less modifier and it's still good; you get 3 shock novas(for example) on top of each other doing their thing and get 3x the dmg but on dots, one less multiplier kills the only dmg source you have.

the way i read your post - i wanted to some something masochistic and succeeded!.
the build you have there is not niche, is purposely gimping yourself for no reason what so ever(or maybe to feel special, i don't know).

wow... sowrong

1) dot damage from scorching ray stacks. what doesnt - is the resist debuff
2) less penalty from RoA does not matter because Scorching Ray doesnt doble dip + look pt 1
3) playstyle is fast because you thrash clear with self cast and totems are just for tougher stuff (that in most cases is limited to one instance). taht you have 3 extra totems does not mean you just HAVE to use them every encounter. think people.. think
4) self-cast + 3 totems (one of them can be decoy totem, hint hint) is most probably one of the cheeziest uber lab farm possible

note: increased burning gem is GARBAGE for SR. GAAARBAAAAGEEE. you suggesting it tells me a lot

wish hierophant was a bit more universal.


divine guidance and sanctuary of thought should be 2 diferent branches say:

life/mana branch:

small nodes = life and mana

small node --> divine guidance ---> small node --> add 1 fire damage to attacks every "x" unreserved mana


ES/mana branch:

small node: ES and mana

small node --> %of mana regen is added as ES regen ---> small node --> sanctuary



totems are somewhat ok. wish the penalty was AOE rather than damage, it would at least make single target spells more atractive


devotion looks like a filler, not a terrible skill but one generaly dosent use main skills on a 4l. wish it had some sort of scaling, something we can build around like making those bonus based on stats or items say:

Skills from your Helmet Penetrate Elemental Resistances equal to 5*amount of corrupted items equiped

Skills from your Gloves have increased AoE equal to 5*amount of uniques equiped

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sidtherat написал:

wow... sowrong

1) dot damage from scorching ray stacks. what doesnt - is the resist debuff
2) less penalty from RoA does not matter because Scorching Ray doesnt doble dip + look pt 1
3) playstyle is fast because you thrash clear with self cast and totems are just for tougher stuff (that in most cases is limited to one instance). taht you have 3 extra totems does not mean you just HAVE to use them every encounter. think people.. think
4) self-cast + 3 totems (one of them can be decoy totem, hint hint) is most probably one of the cheeziest uber lab farm possible

note: increased burning gem is GARBAGE for SR. GAAARBAAAAGEEE. you suggesting it tells me a lot

Well the thing here again is, that I don't really see huge advantages of course you can kill trash and due to how stupid SR totems sometimes are and how much smarter a player is that might be a good advantage. But that doesn't make Hierophant good.

For any skill that doesn't require the totems to essentially only have one target avaible things are a lot different.

If we would just assume that your totems would use the skill like a player does a more efficient setup would likely be to just triple curse with CwC instead of dealing damage with it. And proccing EE isn't really any great benefit my RF-Totem Chieftain did it and he used SR last league for cursing and one Shocknova Trap for EE.

I'm also not sure about that Burning Damage comment. Of course if you have double doryanis or some other high sources of spelldamage and fire damage and other things that stack with it Burning Damage loses efficiency, but you essentially want 4 damage supports on your totem and Controlled Destruction and Elemental Focus are no brainers. With so many totems you don't need Faster Casting, so there really isn't that much. Of course you get Rapid Decay and after that your options are essentially Totem and Minion Resistance or Burning Damage, and while you gear up you shift from the later to the former. And thats not rocket science, that is essentially how Searing Bond scales since forever.

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sidtherat написал:

wow... sowrong

1) dot damage from scorching ray stacks. what doesnt - is the resist debuff
2) less penalty from RoA does not matter because Scorching Ray doesnt doble dip + look pt 1
3) playstyle is fast because you thrash clear with self cast and totems are just for tougher stuff (that in most cases is limited to one instance). taht you have 3 extra totems does not mean you just HAVE to use them every encounter. think people.. think
4) self-cast + 3 totems (one of them can be decoy totem, hint hint) is most probably one of the cheeziest uber lab farm possible

note: increased burning gem is GARBAGE for SR. GAAARBAAAAGEEE. you suggesting it tells me a lot

yes it stacks, my bad. there's not a single other dot in game that stacks(poison is poison, emberwake is a cheat) and i didn't care enough about scorching ray to check. RF totems don't stack, searing bond totems don't stack, bleeds don't stack, ignites don't stack so what the hell GGG?.
again, i repeat, my bad.

your note is passive-aggressive overreaction: he had a red colour socket to fill so i said increased burning since it's red, or empower since it's way better(not all people can afford empower).

Edit: still, this:

"

Why does Scorching Ray specify that it cannot go above -24%, when that's the maximum possible from 8 stages?
This is so that if you have multiple players or totems using Scorching Ray, it can't exceed -24%. Each Scorching Ray debuff on an enemy can have 8 stages. An entity can be affected by multiple Scorching Ray debuffs at a time (from different beams). They’ll all apply their damage over time based on their individual stages, but the total Fire Resistance penalty from all of the debuffs on a particular enemy cannot exceed -24%.

does not differentiate between multiple totems from the same player/in same link and multiple totems from multiple players.

from wiki:

"

Different sources of burning damage stack cumulatively, but multiple applications from the same source do not.

and since scorching ray is burning ...

Blight stacks too.

And it is kinda stupid that you can't have two people using Essence Drain in a group.

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Emphasy написал:

I'm also not sure about that Burning Damage comment. Of course if you have double doryanis or some other high sources of spelldamage and fire damage and other things that stack with it Burning Damage loses efficiency, but you essentially want 4 damage supports on your totem and Controlled Destruction and Elemental Focus are no brainers. With so many totems you don't need Faster Casting, so there really isn't that much. Of course you get Rapid Decay and after that your options are essentially Totem and Minion Resistance or Burning Damage, and while you gear up you shift from the later to the former. And thats not rocket science, that is essentially how Searing Bond scales since forever.

searing bond - yes

Scorching Ray is completely different skill. Give Increased Duration a try (gem and passives). both blight and scorching ray benefit A LOT from duration modifiers. not on the thrash noone cares about but bosses simply MELT once you and your totems stack all 8 LONG burns. they last so long that your totems can die and stop casting because you've already at max burn stacks.

give it a try. it is one of THE easiest single boss farm setup i know of. hint: temp chains..

You do know the difference between stages and stacks, right?

Scorching Ray works like Incinerate, not like Poison or Blight. So Increased Duration does a total of nothing (well it does make your totem stay longer) and Minion and Total Elemental Resistance is my go to for such stuff, although Less Duration gives the same damage, but resistances is objectively better.

My setup would look like Spelltotem - Scorching Ray - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destruction - Rapid Decay - Minion and Totem Resistance

For selfcast you have to replace Spell Totem and the Resistance gem and good options are Less Duration (as long as your cast time is lower than the duration) and Faster Casting to increase Turn Rate. Increased Burning Damage would be another option for an already fast turn rate and of course we can't ignore Empower.

the burn you apply lasts for several seconds instead of base 1.5 if you invest in duration + temp chains. you reach max stacks and let it die. works wonders for bosses because you can run around while the burn is still doing its job at peak efficienty. no need to continously stand in place

treat is as 'increased burn/ignite duration' or 'ignited enemies burn for X longer'. it is very strong.

it is the same rampup blight does (however blight's 20 stacks is pretty damn crazy)

not all spells should be scaled the same way and some are far more complex than the first impression suggests

edit: yeah stages/stacks i use as synonyms while they technically arent in this case. but the point and effect still stands

Something that might make Divine Guidance or Sanctuary of Thought more interesting: Mana flask effects are not removed at full mana. Or perhaps make it mana leech effects?

The flask effect ties in with the Hiero's flavor text of "Drink deeply from God's chalice, for the faithful will never find it empty."