"Drink deeply from God's chalice, for the faithful will never find it empty"

The Hierophant offers a mixture of non-conventional sources of damage, defenses, and overall utility aimed towards spell and totem users. They have access to additional totem limit, with totem enhancements and bonuses that scale with additional totems to accompany it.

This build can reach 1.5 million Shaper DPS (300k DPS per totem) and very safe because we freeze all minions except bosses instantly, the most important is no gear requirements (except 2 threshold jewels), so cheap and SSF viable.

Quick Jump

• Gameplay style
• Pros & Cons
• Skill Tree 
• Gems Setup
• Gear Setup
• Leveling and skilltrees
• Expectations & POB

Gameplay style

You run around (or shield charge) and place totems preemptively. You don't wanna shield charge directly into a large pack of mobs before freezing them. When we need more DPS we can cast Frostbomb (linked to Arcane Surge) and Projectile Weakness for a huge damage increase.

Pros & Cons 

Pros

• + NO gear requirements (except 2 threshold jewels), so cheap and SSF viable
• + Transitions nicely from levelling to mapping without any problems and big investments
• + Easy to cap resists
• + Easy to reach 7k+8k EHP with 40% MoM
• + Able to clear maps up to T15 comfortly
• + Very safe because we freeze all minions except bosses instantly
• + Can go Magic Find
• + Can run all map mods (I would reroll Ele+Reflect since your totems 1 or 2+shot themselves, but clearing the map is possible)
• + Can reach 1.5 million Shaper DPS (300k DPS per totem) + this is specific damage gear, 80+100k DPS is enough for mapping
• + Possible to kill guardians and shaper with some investments

Cons

• - No leech
• - Totems

Skill Tree

Ascendancy

Pursuit of Faith - Ritual of Awakening - Conviction of Power - Divine Guidance

Don't be scared of labs. You can do every lab as soon as you reach the required level. If you have a 6link and Freezing Pulse lvl18, you should be fine to solo Uberlab (on SC).

Bandits

This quest is given to you by Eramir in the Forest Encampment after you complete Through Sacred Ground or talk with any of the bandit leaders. There are three different bandit leaders. You can either side with one of them (and kill the other two) to get the respective reward or you can kill all of them to get the reward from Erami - from Gamepedia

Alira, since both CritMulti and ManaRegen are very good for us and resists are never bad.

Pantheon

The Pantheon List

• Major: Brine King, if no Kaom's Roots, else probably Solaris
• Minor: Gruthkul

Gems Setup

Mandatory Links

Get those as soon as you start mapping. Don't complain about your damage if you don't use a Curse, Frost Bomb and Arcane Surge.

Main skill: Spell Totem - Freezing Pulse - Faster Casting - Controlled Destruction - Hypothermia - Cold Penetration
- If you want your projectiles to travel farther, you can use Faster Projectiles, it also means the damage doesn't fall off that fast.

Frostbomb + Arcane Surge + Phase Run + Increased Duration

(pay attention that your Arcane Surge is low level so that it procs with one cast, for this combination it's level 4)

Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call + Enfeeble + (Increased Duration)

(Cast When Damage Taken should be lvl1, Immortal Call lvl3, Enfeeble lvl5)

Shield Charge + Faster Attacks + Fortify

(if you use wands: Flame Dash/Faster Casting/Arcane Surge or Lightning Warp/Faster Casting/Less Duration/Swift Affliction)

Projectile Weakness + Flame Dash + (Faster Casting)

(We need 155 Dex for level 20 on Projectile Weakness which is hard to get for us. But it's totally fine to leave the gem at a lower level, since we only lose a little bit of DPS against bosses)

Summon Lightning Golem

Optional

Decoy Totem for Bosses

Vaal Haste / Vaal Grace + (Increased Duration)

Gear

Weapon

Start out with a regular dagger or sceptre with

• Spell Damage, Elemental Damage
• Critchance for Spells
• Critmulti
• Added Damage to Spells

Helmet/Boots/Gloves

Look for

• 30% movement speed (on boots)
• +Life
• +Mana
• +Resists
• +Dex (we need a little bit of Dex somewhere)

Shield

• +Life
• Critchance for Spells
• +Mana
• +Resists
• Spell Damage (expensive to get with the other stats)

Belts

Look for

• +Life
• +Flask effect duration (very nice to get on a belt)
• +Resists

Rings/Amulet

Stats on rings/amulet

• Life
• Mana
• Critmulti, Spell Damage (only amulet)
• Resists
• Mana Regen
• Castspeed
• Increased Cold Damage
• Crit Chance
• +Dex (we need a little bit of Dex somewhere)

Jewels

Of course 2 Threshold jewels and a Clear Mind.

Flasks

Flasks are very powerful and often underestimated by new players. Make sure you get these flasks soon and when you start doing maps craft new flask with 20% quality and needed affixes. (Bleed, Freeze and Curse immunity are important, as is more movement speed)

While leveling you wanna use a mana flask instead of Basalt. As well as in No-Regen maps.

Leveling and skilltrees

Note: If you are ever in need of dexterity, just pick one of the +30 dex nodes which are available to us.

- Start out with Freezing Pulse + Arcane Surge + Onslaught (just one of those supports is fine of course). We need a BBG wand (also pickup one BBR wand for later). If you can get your hand on an Explosive Trap (Templar doesn't get it, you could mule it), that would be helpful in Act1 Boss Fights. You should keep Arcane Surge at level 1 for now, we want it to proc as often as possible.

- At lvl4 switch to Frostbomb + Arcane Surge + Onslaught and enjoy the speedy levelling with Frostbomb. You will still need Freezing Pulse (or Explosive Trap) for bosses.

- Get Clarity and Flame Dash at level 10. (we drop Clarity when we get a Clear Mind jewel). Also get Added Lightning as a support against bosses.

- With level 12 we start using Arc Totems. Until you get Ancestral Bond you should still use Frostbomb as well. Craft a +1 Lightning BBR Wand (topaz ring + magic wand/sceptre 3-linked BBR + Alteration Orb). Links: Arc + Spell Totem + Added Lightning

- You can take any Herald gem to boost your damage a bit. Drop them later when you spec into Mind over Matter.

- Replace Added Lightning with Controlled Destruction once you get it

Skill tree around level 20

- When you get Ancestral Bond, you get 2 Totems, but can no longer use Frost Bomb. Link Flame Dash to Faster Casting and Arcane Surge.

- You can start looking for BBBR 4link. The 4th link will be Faster Casting.

Skill tree when you reach level 43

- Around level 43 we should finish the quest in act5 which gives us a Freezing Pulse threshold jewel. Invest your first chaos/alchemy to buy a second jewel and place them in the fresh acquired slots on our skilltree. Replace Arc with Freezing Pulse. (if you are SSF you should stay Arc Totem until you find a second jewel, the skilltree is pretty much the same, levelling another character to act5 is not worth the time).

- In Act 4 we can buy Cast When Damage Taken and Immortal Call and link them. We also get a Lightning Golem.

Skill tree when you reach around level 55

- We started picking up some crit nodes and got a Diamond Flask from the Silver Locket Quest in act 7.

- If you did the Fallen from Grace quest in Act 6, you can buy all gems now from Lilly. You might wanna have a look at the "Gem links" section and see if you can add more useful gems or start levelling support gems. But don't try to get that exact setup right now. It's usually not worth to invest jeweller's or chromatics in levelling items (if you are in desperate need of gemlinks use essences on 4-links you find).

Skill tree when you reach maps (or slightly after)

- Try to get your hands on a Tabula. This should be your first big investment. You can buy single gear pieces for 1c if you are not resist capped or just have really awful gear in some slot.

- If you have found or bought decent gear pieces, color and link them. You should try to complete your gem links now and get decently rolled flasks.

- Try to get your Freezing Pulse gem up to 20% quality (or buy a 20/20 if it's not leaguestart).

Skill tree at level 90

Expectations & POB

POB Link: https://pastebin.com/Mk5kpPUZ

(If you do not know how to use it, see the instructions below, otherwise please ignore)

• Download Path of Building (link: https://github.com/Openarl/PathOfBuilding)
• Copy pastebin URL.
• Launch path of building.
• Click on Import/Export.
• Click Import from Pastebin
• Paste the URL copied in step 2.
• Done!