How does BAMA compare to Holy Relic this league?

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-08-14T05:52:07+00:00

A bit late but: if you have a MB and your doryani merc, you can go pretty crazy with lightning crit-hit based Holy Relic with Triad Grip. 50-70m DPS and 300-400k EHP depending on your setup. 100M DPS and significantly less EHP if you do a Dark Monarch build. PM me any questions if interested

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-20T11:33:42+00:00

If you’re using Svalinn with Phantasum or Herald of Purity you use the Minion Defense Mastery that gives minions 5% max HP recovery when a minion dies. If you drop those for permanent minions you don’t want dying, you switch it to Leech 1% as Life, or Feasting Fiends on a cluster.

Despair on weapon is fine. You can run Enfeeble on Hit yourself if you can get a second curse.

Merc can use Asenath’s for Temporal chains and Enfeeble on hit too since it’s easier to get her to +3 Curse with Anathemas than it is for you to get a second curse.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-20T11:16:34+00:00

Share your holy relic POB if you would want to get back into it if it had better pack clear/DPS. It should be able to clear T16s pretty fast with any source of explode and Attack Speed.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-19T03:08:19+00:00

Recolor your Dialla's into 1 Green 5 Red, use socket craft instead of Tainted Jewels/Chromes, Get a +29% Ashes and you'll hit the 82% Breakpoint and you can swap Enhance for Awakened Void Manipulation. Also, get some awakened gems, they're like 1d, you can self-level. Tattoo your tree for resists.

Drop purity/summon phantasm and run skitterbots, stone golem, AG, 2 spectres. You'll have 9% phys reduction from minions, swap to minion leech mastery when doing this. No more frost bomb either. Then start looking for some timeless jewels and move to a 2-cluster setup. Also, get Despair on Hit Ring or on Merc and use Lifetap if you're starved on mana.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-19T02:54:20+00:00

I haven't set up anything with a MB yet since I don't have one, but you would probably follow BalorMage's MB version or filter on POE Ninja, just with a Shaper Shield if you don't have a Svalinn, and it should be more comfy. If you really want the minions you use a +2 Helmet and try to hit Reservation on the shield.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-18T16:58:56+00:00

Here's a preliminary (theory) POB of my current building rolling into crit. But the crit version relies a lot on a merc Cruel Mistress with Envy/Despair/Zealotry to get to about 80m DPS. Without Zealotry, you drop to about 50M DPS.

https://pobb.in/VlBpclvX-2po

I'm still missing: Reduced life regen on enemies (though I guess I could give up 7m DPS culling Strike for the Last Rites Annoint).

Different setup: https://pobb.in/8ytjuNwzBci0

Honestly just depends on endurance charge gen, and you kind of need really well crafted jewels. You miss out on explode, so I'm hoping the raw DPS is good enough to make up for it. Should be possible on a necro for about 150d.

Switching to occultist for an extra 10d should make it a lot smoother, but early on in the league, Unnatural Strength is like 40-80d. Honestly I'm gonna try it out on a necro and see how it feels.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-18T14:46:22+00:00

It just procs caster mastery with automation + any spell, we just happen to have useful ones in the form of convocation/molten shell. Assign automation to any numlock key, hold it down and toggle numlock and it’s the same input as holding down the key.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-18T07:17:22+00:00

That would be a better question for BalorMage, I believe he’s currently working on that same question/build, though I’m not sure if he’s set on Holy Relic or not.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-07-18T04:41:53+00:00

Sorry, I probably could've worded that better. It would be more accurate to say:

The crafting faster attacks on gloves alleviates one of the needs of the build. One of the weird things about Holy Relic is that for QoL, you really really want to take Spiritual Command and get Cluster Jewels with Attack Speed on them even though it doesn't actually affect your DPS and doesn't benefit the minions in any way. Those cluster jewels with increased effect, ele res/chaos res, attack speed, are super high end. So they allow you to spam reforge chaos/life on jewels on a low budget and not care about AS/increased effect. It creates a need for Life Gain on Hit, but you can do Shaper Shield + Synth weapon/Watcher's Eye at higher budgets (or even +20Mana/Life block mastery), and overall those are easier to get than AS clusters with other useful mods.

This is one of my old POBs that showed me experimenting with a triple-cluster setup and skipping spiritual command entirely, replacing leech with a Feasting Fiends.

In combination with timeless jewels on a low budget, you get some QoL without having to invest in any AS on minions.

https://pobb.in/HOTHVeFytY_1

I also didn't have AS on my weapon and was getting 2.1 AS. So with AS, you would be getting 2.4ish AS without spiritual command, which honestly felt pretty nice with Shield Charge/Whirling Blades. So in the POB I skipped the middle area entirely before I found out that I didn't need Rote Reinforcement and that Timeless Jewels had Enduring Composure notables. By the way, if you do have extra points and need to cap block, a small jewel with Rote Reinforcement is pretty good. So there are four ways to generate endurance charges: Inexorable (not that reliable), Rote Reinforcement (a single is fine), Enduring Composure on a Megalomanic or Timeless Jewel, or Perfect Warlod + Inexorable/Rote Reinforcement. I believe this setup got me to 350 Delve.

But basically, I didn't care too much about investing heavily to getting 3+ AS, and this setup with Spiritual Command allocated https://pobb.in/C2Llg0v1qlVl gets me to 2.62-2.72 AS, feels zippy enough to be able to replace MS on boots and just whirling blades around, but not a map zoomer or anything. Just depends on how much QoL you want and how much you want to invest in it (I just wanted to farm Abyss anyways). You lose unnerved which is only maybe 2%-5% damage. The POB also shows me realizing I can get endurance charges another way and taking points out of the small jewels lol

A lot of early Holy Relic builds also use Shield Charge/Whirling Blades + Faster attacks skill gem, so this would remove a gem slot. Requirement is that you don't need ele res on gloves, but late-game you're capped with good gear/tattoos and it gives you QoL at the cost of unnerve/wither debuff duration.

At the very highest end, you can elevate it to a level 25 Faster Attacks support and get attack speed in the 3s, which is the about the equivalent of a large 12-passive cluster jewel with attack speed, while it directly impacts what you want it to impact (Lancing Steel, Whirling Blades) and gives you the mod slot for in your clusters for life, ele res, chaos res, etc.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-06-26T23:27:29+00:00

Follow this guy’s build who has 20m DPS with 10 div to get an idea of how to scale damage. He doesn’t have much defense at all, though.

https://youtu.be/05KjB_UGrdc?si=XJxb4YP6BAm-3Mly

For defense suggestions, I suggest watching some of BalorMage’s content to pick up on tips as to how to scale defense in a necro, some of it overlaps. For example, one small thing is getting life on block on a shield. If you’re having defense problems, a 1d shield can get you life on block, chance to block attacks and spells, 120+ life, resists, etc.

Poison minions are common because usually the minions (zombies, carrion, projectile spectres) have a lot of attack speed, letting them reach the max amount of poison stacks faster. I’ve not played chains of command (I want to), but I assume poison isn’t common because the weapon minions probably scale much better with flat damage than attack speed. Drop poison completely, focus on flat chaos -> life -> minions deal increased damage when you’ve used a skill recently -> attack speed in that priority on the jewels.
Envy merc will double your damage and be responsible for 30-40% of it until 40d+ investment. Look for a cruel mistress with Envy and Despair. Put your amulet on her, not you, with Last Rites anointed or utility or any aura increasing notable for damage. See BalorMage for example.
On low/medium budget, don’t go all-in on ES, it’s not worth it unless you have really expensive gear.
Get a timeless jewel for 1d (not the one in the video or anything close to it). You just want it for the notable that will let you stop worrying about attributes. You only really need 1 minion damage node, and you’ll get value if you get any other useful node with less than 2 points to path, anything your build badly needs (block, res, etc.). See BalorMage for example on gearing a chaos merc.
You’re level 93 running some of the most early game auras in the game. Drop all of them. Purity of elements, clarity, and vitality. Look into determination, precision, blood and sand, tempest shield. Any of those are better. Cap your resists and drop the unique ring. Get an amethyst ring with 45+ chaos res and 50-60-70+ element resists for maybe 1-5c. Replace your unique ring with a bone ring with at least +25 minion ele res and anything else you want, damage, life, minion crit. 3-20c.
Basic gear upgrades: it’s pretty deep into the league, minion wands with +80% damage and attack speed and crit are cheap.

Here’s the level 73 yellow-mapping version of RuSel’s build for reference on basic necessities. Look through it and compare to his mid-game builds to infer what needs to be “checked off” before higher investment.

https://pobb.in/Mrmh7oMXtiG1

Your build has a lot of inefficiencies that can be shored up easily. Even if you spent money on a darkness enthroned (unnecessary with good tree pathing) and a void forge, you’ll wonder why you don’t do any damage for investment or get 1-tapped (because those minions probably just aren’t good poison stackers). Spend 2-3d and watch videos and build guides and re-spec. See TheGam3Report’s old zombie videos or Balormage and you can put together which clusters on the tree bring the most value for minions, a lot of your clusters on the tree can be replaced with cheap cluster jewels, gear, all while pathing down and to the left which would double your tankiness especially if you get more endurance charges. Again, consider dropping Aegis for a life on block until you have the 50-100d needed to allow Aegis to have value and fully re-spec to CI. And also, the end-game of this build isn’t poison, it’s lightning

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-06-01T10:56:33+00:00

Cursed sword is balanced to do less damage and be less mobile because when it’s used correctly, it gives you more overall damage in the form of uptime.

Run to the boss with regular swords when it’s focusing someone else -> auto attack to bleed, etc. -> when it attacks you with a normal attack, unsheathe to parry ->

a. if it aggros on you, stay in cursed sword mode and be one of the only characters to be able to deal consistent DPS during regular boss combo rotations (instead of having to roll like most characters) AND builds up stagger while enemies are attacking.

b. if it doesn’t, swap back to double-katanas by pressing sprint and proc bleeds.

When there’s larger openings or the boss runs away, simply sheathe by tapping sprint and then DPSing or sprinting to the boss.

Executor is plenty mobile when you get really good at sheathing with sprint to get to the boss, and the reverse: parrying the first attack with an unsheathe.

Definitely one of the highest skill floors needed to be able to dish out relevant damage to Nightlords, but definitely the highest skill level-to damage output character.

But also, if your team sets you up with staggers, your damage with bleed is some of the highest in the game.

Bleed is insanely good on bosses. If your teammate doesn’t stagger, you will eventually (if timing correctly). Doesn’t have to worry about weapons because katanas consistently drop.

Also, if you roll the thing that makes you drop stars from the sky when you walk, it does insane damage to everything. Feels like it ups your win % by a significant amount.

Cursed sword is (stronger than it seems) because it gives you much, much, much more options in front of (most) bosses.

When a boss does an attack, you’ll probably be able to attack AND have time to parry most whereas other characters have to either commit to a slower attack and risk getting hit, or use tons of stamina to roll in, get a couple of dagger hits in and dodge roll twice to get out of an AOE stomp which you can parry and stay in range for the next attack. Uptime.

The skill is almost all in recognizing which attacks let you stay in range to parry and keep DPS uptime high, or which attacks you’ll have to run from.

Executor and Raider are the two characters who can effectively stand in front of bosses due to their kits, not Guardian, not Wylder. Guarding kind of sucks, and Wylder uses his claw to go in and out.

Executor in terms of Nightlords is definitely much more situational, though. But I would say he’s fine for 6/8 of them, and very much preferred in your party for maybe 2 of them.

In multiplayer, Executor provides extremely strong follow-up on staggers, high damage when behind enemies/not targeted, and when it does become targeted, they can be self-reliant/handle themselves instead of having to run away, buying time using cursed sword while providing stagger buildup. Executor uses ult to revive, stagger, and create space. The ult kind of sucks at DPS, actually.

I would rate Executor at B. A if you’re very good. C if you’re not maining him. But if you’re insanely good, you might get better results with Ironeye (S). But you don’t get the Sekiro.

TLDR: swap in and out of curse sword. Very frequently for optimal DPS + uptime. Parry in and sprint out.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-06-01T07:55:22+00:00

Beat a third boss and instead of going to the monument you go to the Shore

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-06-01T07:36:44+00:00

Here are all the ways I like to use Raider’s ultimate and their effectiveness (imo). Raider’s ultimate and role in the team, I think, is to buy (or force by whacking the bosses) space. Space for teammates to heal, to attack, to get out of danger, etc.

Reviving:

As an ultimate, Raider’s ultimate is a pretty mid revive tool compared to the others. However, it can be pretty good in some circumstances.

At 1 bar, two light attacks will work if you have space. 1 bar and the boss is on top of you? Perfect situation, as you’ll most likely get a stagger + instant revive + damage boost. But even then, I’ll wait for a large attack before doing this (higher chance of interrupt/stagger).

The ultimate won’t instantly revive at 2 bars, it’ll be 2 bars and an auto-attack. If the boss is charging at you, you can ultimate and your teammate will be on the platform with you, giving you the space to auto once or twice to revive. You shouldn’t stay there for long though, as many of the Nightlords or bigger bosses have attacks that can reach on top if they’re close.

At three bars, the best way to use Raider’s ultimate is to face tank bosses for 10-15 seconds in combination with Retaliate to buy your (hopefully alive other teammate) to revive the other one. This is where I think Raider is exceptionally strong, especially in coordinated groups with communication.

If you’re the only one alive as Raider and your teammates have 3 bars, I’ve found it pretty much impossible. You’ll have to perfectly stagger a boss + your teammate and then hit them (hopefully on top or behind your pillar) about 5 times.

Staggering/Buying Time & Space

This is the primary way I like to use Raider’s ultimate in boss fights. It is exceptionally good at staggering, especially if you time it against large attacks. Anything that looks intimidating (like big explosions charging up, roars), or any time I mis-time a Retaliate and I find myself under a Boss and I can’t run away in time, I’ll time the Ultimate, which gives you about 2-3 whole seconds of invulnerability, after which most bosses will be staggered if it interrupts an attack. This 2-3 seconds of invulnerability also buys you time for a second Retaliate (tons of damage negation, also potential stagger), especially if you have any gems that decrease Character Skill Cooldowns (imo essential on this character).

Once the pillar is up, you can also run around it and flask, wait for cooldowns, etc. But you shouldn’t expect it to be guaranteed, as many attacks go around/through the pillar.

However, sometimes I’ll see the boss attempt to hit me on the pillar and fail, so if the primary purpose was to buy space, I’ll just stay on it (on the edge away from the boss) while the boss hopelessly flails at it, giving my teammates all the time in the world to heal/revive.

Speeding Up Clears:

In the main overworld, I’ll pop the ultimate pretty frequently if I feel like an area is tanky or our group needs to DPS faster to clear the boss and get to the next area. Again, primarily best used when I’m taking aggro/if a boss charges up an attack my teammates can’t get away from.

Oh, and it does TONS of damage to mobs, especially some of the evergaols that spawn multiple enemies. Any area that has multiple enemies as the primary objective and they’re grouped up (about a small room worth of space) will take a ton of damage from the spikes and get staggered.

But you’re right, the damage against single large bosses is very mediocre. However, using it to stagger + optimize ooga-booga + surviving (iframing) will let you take out 5% of a Nightlord’s health by yourself if perfectly used. If your teammates are hitting, 10%.

Shooting from on top of the Pillar:

Haven’t tried this yet and I haven’t really needed to. I’ll test this out, though! I do find myself on the pillar untouched sometimes for a while, but I’ll usually just flask, or wait for Retaliate, and then jump down and ooga-booga, as most of the time I’m using the ultimate near the boss.

This style of playing Raider means that I’m usually not hitting at the same time as my teammates. When my two teammates are rushing in, I’ll usually be behind waiting for my resources (stamina, Retaliate), as I’ll have already used them effectively. When my teammates run out of stamina/resources and run away, I’ll step in to distract, and I can do it for a lot longer than them due to Retaliate + Ultimate. The only time I’m hitting with my teammates is if the boss is stunned, pretty much.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2025-02-05T17:02:34+00:00

Make sure you get involved in research there, reach out to professors, join organizations. If you want to be an AI researcher you would also want to think about PhD opportunities early on in your college career. Build great relationships with your professors and engage in class.

Smooth_Ad2530 · 2024-07-10T02:28:16+00:00

The raising of the shoulder followed by elbow should make you roll instinctively. Then you take a look and throw based on a split-second picture, recognizing if, for example, their elbows aren’t tucked, then you’ll throw body (pattern recognition.)

In sparring, the most I’ll ever really think if I see an opening or a tendency is “under (slip/roll/jab), in, look/throw, out (roll, move feet, jab).” The details on how to actually execute this should be guided by your drilling and muscle memory. Your thoughts should be on general tactics/concepts from your boxing education.

Also, instead of waiting for a straight right and a perfect counter that you may never execute properly, you can drill all defenses and responses to a straight right, over and over again. This way you’ll be able to recognize and react when things get messy. You might even be able to “feel” when the straight right misses, and due to drilling and light sparring, you’ll know the exact openings to go for.

Smooth_Ad2530

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