PoE 3.9 Templar Herald of Agony Spectre Guardian Cheap Build (PC,PS4,Xbox,Mobile)

You get to cast balls of lightning from long range to poison your enemies, hide behind your four indestructible Spectre tanks, and your crawler kill everything on the screen. You have much more defense than a Necromancer or even Occultist, you can pop Vaal Molten Shell and face tank better than just about all other classes in the game if you feel like it.

Quick Jump

Pros & Cons

Pros

1) Cheap to start with a very basic set of unique items, scales well with end game gear if you want to spend more currencies, but not ultra expensive as we use very few rares. High mana no life items are also niche so we don't have much competition for gear.

2) As tanky as any deep delve build, if not tankier, an Occultist with similar energy shield is glass cannon by comparison: 

• 17-18K energy shield, 30-35K armor (50K when we flask)

• 7K molten shell / 20K vaal molten shell (10K and 30K when we flask)

• High block chance, OR an extra 6000 energy shield regenerated every 5 seconds.

• Four tanks with 175,000 health each as your indestructible front line!

• 500 energy shield regeneration per second, 800 when standing still, 1500 when standing still and block a hit last 4 seconds

• Immunity to chaos damage thanks to CI

It is as good of a defensive resume as it gets outside of maybe self-curse Juggernaut. Best of all? You use ball of lightning so you can cast from full screen range so you don't need to face check things like corpse explosion from a strongbox on a map with huge damage mods.

3) Full screen clear with Herald of Agony pierce and 2 million shaper damage and you clear really fast for such a defensive build! Herald of Agony is also invulnerable, so you don't ever worry about things like damage reflect or zombie dying in deep delve. I am not even counting the frenzy charges you can get if it is not a single target boss fight which brings you to 2.5 million Shaper damage when mapping/delving.

4) Low button press, no clunky mechanisms, no preparation needed.

Cons

1) At 1500, Juggernaut self curse temporal chains is tankier with their insane reduction. At 2000+ delve level, defense no longer matters. Builds like raider scourge arrow perform well with "kill them before they touch you" mentality and RNG based defense. However these are also a lot more expensive builds. 

2) Unblockable attacks, such as heavy ground damage can still kill you. Your reflex will go down from playing this build so you may die from standing on too many ground effects.

3) You may get bored of the game if you literally can not die, and it is a mindless playing style without aiming, and low number of active skills to press and maintain.

4）You are playing an old bald man, perhaps this is why guardian has never been super popular compared to cooler classes.

Skill Tree

Ascendancy

Radiant Faith => Radiant Crusade => Unwavering Crusade => Bastion of Hope vs Time of Need

Pantheon

Soul of Lunaris, as you need to protect yourself against chain damage.

Soul of Tukohama if you enjoy stationary face tanking like I do.

Bandit: Kill all, we need the two skill points.

Passive Tree & PoB

Level 68 POB: https://pastebin.com/69RCDBnK

Level 68 Talent Tree: http://poeurl.com/cEmq

8000 energy shield, 1 million Shaper damage, 15K armor, not bad for a level 68! You will only be able to use Hatred if you have either Circle of Nostalgia, Enlighten Level 4, or Shaper +1 Gem Gloves. With the +1 to minion skill wand being much more difficult to acquire than before, cold iron point dagger is a great substitute at this level.

Level 94 POB: https://pastebin.com/j0z4r70Q

Level 94 Talent Tree http://poeurl.com/cEmE

Once you buy Circle of Nostalgia, you can at least use Flesh and Stone's blind aura. You can switch to Skitter Bot later once you have +1 Gloves and Enlighten 4, which takes you over 2 million single target Shaper damage, 2.6 million in mapping/delving situations when you can give your crawler consistent frenzy charges thanks to Poacher's Mark.

Ultra Luxury POB: https://pastebin.com/S0Y0XTjN

Gems Setup

Body Armour: Herald of Agony | Minion Damage | Damage on Full Life | Empower | Pierce | Maim

Change pierce for vile toxin for single target boss fights. Although very few boss fights don't come with adds, so I just use pierce for everything. To use something like Vicious Projectiles instead of Maim, you will need 36% or more mana reduction on your Circle of Nostalgia if you want to use Hatred plus a second 35% mana reduction aura. With Maim you only need 34%.

Glove: Hatred - Generosity - Enlighten - Flesh and Stone OR Skitter Bot

Glove needs to come with +1 to gem level OR enlighten needs to be level 4, otherwise you will not be able to use Hatred even with full mana reservation skill points until you get Circle of Nostalgia. Once you have all three, you can use Skitter Bot. 

Skitterbot (or Discipline) + Dread Banner is a great substitute during leveling before you can turn Hatred on. 

Weapon: Poacher's Mark - Desecrate - Spirit Offering

You can use another curse like Projectile Weakness, or a defensive curse like Enfeeble & Temporal Chains. However frenzy charges will add another 25% MORE damage for your crawler so I prefer to use that instead. Since I am now using Spectres and have Onslaught all the times, I use spirit offering as it is a little more damage and provides elemental resistance. 

Offhand - Whakatutuki o Matua: Raise Spectres - Meat Shield - Feeding Frenzy

What makes this build special, try it and you will never go back to any other flavor of Herald of Agony!

Helmet: Convocation - Vaal Molten Shell - Increased Duration - Clarity

Add levels to clarity as needed to reserve all except maybe 50 points of your mana, you don't need it until Watcher's Eye. 

Boots: Ball of Lightning - Poison Support - Faster Casting - Flame Dash

Herald of Agony itself is 20% poison chance, combined with Poison Support it is already 80% poison chance, with Golden Rule it is enough to keep stacks up. Notice you will need lesser poison support instead of poison support until you can add chaos damage to your spells, Circle of Nostalgia provides this. During leveling you will likely want to have both Poison Support and Lesser Poison Support. Faster Casting is great as it benefits both Ball of Lightning and Flame Dash.

Gear Setup

Starter Gear

Level 68 will get you 8000+ energy shield, 15000 armor, and over 1 million shaper damage. It is as strong a level 68 as you can get with cheap gear listed below.

Helmet - Memory Vault

Fundamental to all mana guardian builds as we reserve huge amount of mana, this allows us to have 80% physical damage reduction and the huge molten shell / vaal molten shell.

Gloves - Shaper's Touch

Fundamental to all mana guardian builds, converts our strength to mana and energy shield, great synergy. You can get started with a basic pair for super cheap during leveling with discipline and dread banner, upgrade to a corrupted pair with +1 gem level to use Hatred. Buy the cheapest one with +1 level and you can easily re-color with vaal orbs at your work bench, this is the cheapest way to activate Hatred with Herald of Agony. This is where we keep Hatred, Enlighten and Generosity.

Once you get your Circle of Nostalgia, the final socket can be either blue for Skitter Bot in late game or red for Flesh and Stone . Please be aware you will need either a Circle of Nostalgia or +1 gloves or +4 enlighten to activate Hatred. And you will need all three of these to use Skitter Bot.

Body Armour - Skin of the Loyal

"100% increased global defense" basically doubles the armor we get from our helmet which is well over 10K in this build, which translates into bigger molten shell as well. +1 gem level is basically +2 to Herald of Agony skill gem level because we use empower. Buy a super cheap vanilla one with 3 Red 2 Green 1 Blue. When you have money you can upgrade to a corrupted one with another +1 level to gem levels which is 25% MORE damage overall.

If you can't find the perfect color, 2 Red 3 Green 1 Blue will allow you to use vicious projectile instead of maim, but it will cost more mana and you will not be able to use Hatred + 35% aura like skitterbot or discipline unless you can get 36% mana reduction on your Circle of Nostalgia. For Maim you only need 34% mana reduction so keep that in mind.

Amulet - Astramentis

Perfect pairing with all attribute based builds. Very hard to beat for the price. Strength and intelligence are great for mana guardian. We also need to meet Herald of Agony's 159 dexterity requirement so that 100+ dexterity allows us to not worry about it. Price varies a lot depends on total number of stat points. +100 to all three stats is a lot cheaper than +115 for example so you can start with a budget one and upgrade later.

Weapon - Cold Iron Point Dagger or Rare Wand

Cold Iron Point dagger is a great starter weapon, as it is a whopping +3 levels to Herald of Agony. You will also be able to play Cyclone with poison/fortify/blind support (see skills section) if you hate ball of lightning. It also saves you a skill point in elemental equilibrium. 

A minion wand with +1 minion skill gem and triggers socketed gems on skill use, and minion damage/attack speed. You can actually do better than me and pick up something with +150 mana on top of this. Auto cast curse, desecrate and spirit offering just makes the build so smooth and lazy to play.

Shield - Whakatutuki o Matua

2500 energy shield, 10% MORE damage thanks to aura buffs. You also get 5% energy shield per second for 4 seconds after you block which is good sustain as well for both you and your minions. Best in slot for your Spectres.

Boots - Rainbowstride

Really great boots as 6% chance to block spells is 12% with Lethal Pride, and excellent resistance. Great value for the money. You can also get a rare boots with more resistance, intelligence and mana, and even can not be chilled/frozen, but you will lose 12% spell block.

Rings & Belts

You will want rings and belts with high resistance, mana, intelligence, strength and energy shield. Because you don't want life, you can get these for really cheap. This is where you cap your resistance. Remember later on you will upgrade one of the two rings to Circle of Nostalgia which does not come with any elemental resistance, so having extra resistance well above 75 to the point you can hit 75%/80%/76% with only one ring is not a bad idea.

Lethal Pride

Doubles our block chance which makes our sustain and damage reduction much more consistent against all contents. Half damage off with heal trigger makes our defense much more stable.

High Priority Upgrades

Circle of Nostalgia

Allows you to activate a second aura like Flesh and Stone, or Skitterbot with +1 glove gem level and +4 enlighten. Please see the mana reservation section later. You should aim for 34% mana reduction or higher if you use maim, 36% mana reduction or higher for vicious projectiles, but do play around with POB to see how much you can squeeze in.

Level 21 Herald of Agony and Level 4 Empower are must have damage upgrades.

You will also need a Watcher's Eye with "+16-18% of your maximum mana as extra maximum energy shield when affected by clarity", a fundamental item for all energy shield based builds.

Enlighten 4 and Shaper Glove +1 Socketed Gems to turn on Skitter Bot in addition to Hatred.

For Oil, Utmost Might (huge strength increase) is the most popular choice, Soul of Steel (huge armor and +1 maximum resistance) is a good secondary choice. Diamond Skin if you need resistance.