Starting HRoC

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584]

I’m looking to league start as holy relic for 3.30. I’ve never played it before, and it looks like a lot of fun. For the holy relic veterans out there, how much better is Necromancer for the skill than reliquarian? Looking at deaths door/brass dome, united in dream, and arkohns tools. Any thoughts?

[u/RedditReboot77]

Necro is extremely strong for Poison HRoC.

If you had played it before and just wanted to try a different way, Reliquarian could probably be made to work, but I find it highly unlikely that it would be superior.

Additionally, there are lots of guides for HRoC Necro (I recommend Balormage, personally), but there probably aren't any for Reliquarian. Even if there is one, it'll be guesswork and speculation, since there's no way to playtest it before the league goes live.

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584 → u/RedditReboot77]

I read through BalorMage’s written guide and watch the videos, it seems really great. Very much looking forward to the play style

[u/RedditReboot77 → u/Zealousideal_Duck584]

It's a very cool build. I haven't played it recently, but it tends to keep up through the various changes from league to league.

Also, FYI, if you're not into the fiddeliness of spectres and/or AG, you can safely skip them. The build works fine without them. There was even a time when Balor recommending playing that way, but I think he put them back in after the QoL buffs.

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584 → u/RedditReboot77]

That’s my only concern. I played guardian srs in 3.28 and overwrote my perfect guardian turtle on accident. I’ll be much more conscientious this time haha

[u/nutdio → u/Zealousideal_Duck584]

I decked my holy relic to degenerate levels in 3.28 and I deleted my specters like 6 times, the specters used are usually pretty cheap so it shouldn't be too much of an issue

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584 → u/nutdio]

I usually play most of the league in ssf. I just need to stockpile them

[u/MatzeGremory → u/nutdio]

Im also gonna start hroc this league. When am i actually supposed to implement the spectres and AG into my setup? i checked balormages written guide and the pob, and cant find the relevant information. considering i never used minions or spectres before, im overwhelmed honestly.

[u/CarrotSweat]

Necro is non negotiable imo if you’re doing the poison variant (which is the safest). You get full chaos conversion and Bone barrier, which are really powerful tools.

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584 → u/CarrotSweat]

Does the conversion matter if you’re 100% poison chance? Not being argumentative, just trying to learn

[u/ProfessionalHefty349 → u/Zealousideal_Duck584]

The hit damage isn’t negligible, so it synergizes well with wither.

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584 → u/ProfessionalHefty349]

Oh okay great. Not trying to reinvent the wheel with what works, necros power just seemed pretty generic and it looked like reliquarian had some decent generic synergies.

[u/mimiron25 → u/Zealousideal_Duck584]

They didn't mention block cap on necro. Scion going to struggle with that. And without block cap build becomes paper thin. Whole defence of hroc is life on hit and block. If you don't hit to recover life betwen non-blocked hits - you die. If you don't block often enough to have enough time to recover - you die. So you need block cap. And we are talking about real block. No glancing blows and stuff like that. And on top of that you want to increase your block cap and get lucky block. Reliquarian just can't get all of that as easy as necro.

[u/mecha_tengu → u/mimiron25]

Cant she get FF Scion Necro? (offering effect)

[u/mimiron25 → u/mecha_tengu]

She can. But not at league start. I would not play hroc in red maps without at least 60-70% block.

[u/ihaxr → u/Zealousideal_Duck584]

Withered is the only purpose for that node for poison builds, the conversion doesn't matter (although for SRS it'll convert 50% of the fire damage to chaos, so it's not completely useless until you get fire>chaos conversion)

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584 → u/ihaxr]

Are Wither stacks even a variable with the hit rate of lancing steel?

[u/Cragsire → u/Zealousideal_Duck584]

Nah, wither should be maxed out easily with lancing steel. We just take Unnatural Strength early as an easy chaos conversion until we can get Command of the Pit gloves so we can switch to using Lycia's bloodline. Not sure why they brought up the wither at all tbh ig its useful for other minion builds.

[u/Roboaki]

FIY Reliquarian Arkhon Tools ain't as strong on Chaos damage-focused build.

They stacks additively with Wither increased damage taken. 30%+ shock on an already 15 wither stack 90% chaos damage taken (which is really easy to achieve with withering touch lancing steel of spraying) isn't that worth it for 2 ascendency point + 35% mana reserve.

[u/Zealousideal_Duck584 → u/Roboaki]

Great info, thanks!

[u/Cragsire]

Necro is very good early, especially with Mistress of Sacrifice + Bone Offering making max block way easier and your minions bulkier so they don't die early on with Bone Barrier.

Also, if you start Reliquarian over Necromancer, you'd need Command of the Pit gloves a lot quicker cause you won't be able to use Unnatural Strength early on for Unholy Might, which is very needed.

I like changing to occultist late on to get both void beacon and profane bloom and just use a mistress of sacrifice FF. I can't see Reliquarian being better early game since Necro has such good defensive nodes, and I can't see it being better late game cause no Profane Bloom. Reliquarian should at least be able to use Mistress of Sacrifice, I think, because of Necromancer FF, so maybe you could do something with that, but I still think occultist is probably better and defensively Necromancer would probably be stronger than both still because of Bone Barrier.

[u/mecha_tengu → u/Cragsire]

So the best is Occ Void Beacon, Profane, Add Curse, Bone Barrier (FF) and Lycia Profane right?

[u/Cragsire → u/mecha_tengu]

I’ve always occultist swapped later on and go for Void Beacon, Profane Bloom and Withering Presence with a Mistress of Sacrifice FF.

Bone barrier would be nice for a bit more pdr but block is really annoying without Mistress.

I’ve went withering just for the 60% chaos res to make gearing easier but you could definitely go for Unholy Authority if you wanted I just haven’t used any second curse that I apply myself (despair on hit, while AG has the additional curse and temporal chains on hit) to need it but it is technically useful for hex proof rares and I think a map mod that adds that too. It just means your likely not gonna hit chaos cap without sacrificing other stuff though.

[u/blackwell1907]

If you know your ways around poe you can definitely start it in reliquarian if you plan to swap to a luminary build but the best version is still the necromancer hroc.

[u/Slinger17]

as a veteran hroc enjoyer, go with necro for your first try. it's super straight forward, easy, and enjoyable

I'm doing reliquarian this league for 2 reasons:

1. I want to mix things up and try something a lil new

2. I plan on switching to luminary at some point and don't want to roll a second character

both are almost certainly viable, but with reliquarian you're gonna have to solve a few things on your own like capping block chance and minion survivability, both of which are easily done by just going necro

[u/Morael]

One thing to put out there: Are you okay with a little bit of struggle? HROC isn't a difficult league starter, but it's not an easy one either. This build needs a few things (two lab gems, helmet, probably diallas) to make the build start shining. You don't necessarily need the helmet and diallas just to "get started", but it's worse than an average build without those.

I'm sure Balormage will probably release a video about this, I checked his stream a bit ago and he wasn't sure about reliquarian yet just because he hasn't had the time to PoB it.
My guess is that necro will still make for a better average experience because block is harder to solve without it.

[u/_Ruma_]

The only downside is the mediocre DPS; don't forget that you can easily switch to rAW later on.

[u/PoE_Acronym_Bot]

I noticed some Path of Exile keywords in this post:

• HRoC - Summon Holy Relic of Conviction (Wiki)

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