Proof of Concept: Bleed Herald of Agony Raider (Yes, really)

So, I basically exclusively play self-made builds that are usually at least somewhat off-meta. Those builds vary widely in their success and often end up failing. However, every once in a while an idea works out.

This is looking to be one of those ideas. Non-Reaper bleed minions have been a bit of a "white whale" of mine. I've probably crammed out dozens of PoBs with good enough damage numbers, but they mostly just ended up feeling pretty bad in real gameplay. This one felt pretty nice however.

I present to you: Frenzy Stacking - Charge Sharing - Rupture - Crit - Bleed - Herald of Agony - Raider

The build is by no means complete, but I wanted to share the concept before I go deeper into optimization and spend a bunch of currency, as I don't want this to come across as a "this meme idea only works because currency = yes".

Showcase

• Quick T16 Minotaur map with Destructive Play showcase: https://youtu.be/ehsH_PB8kIk
• Single target demonstration on a white Infinite Hunger: https://youtu.be/SalA3dEzL1w
• PoB of the character as it is in the videos: https://pobb.in/L8BfmMiJjsX3

Concepts

This build combines a couple of rather rarely used mechanics that end up working decently well in this case. Herald of Agony for Bleed: At first glance HoAg looks very anti-synergistic with bleed as it converts 40% of its damage to chaos, but it has very unique scaling compared to other minions.

• HoAg Big Hit: It gains very significant amounts of flat physical damage and increased physical damage per Virulence. At gem lvl 30 it is 136 to 252 added phys and 11% increased. The character in the video has 66 max Virulence so that comes out to 8976 - 16632 * 726%. Even when losing 40% to chaos conversion it's a really big hit.
• Bleed: Bleed is generally considered to be in a bad place and minion bleed is virtually non-existent in the current meta, but it has certain advantages in this case. Virulence stacks on HoAg expire extremely quickly so that in reality you're likely not permanently at maximum stacks unless you're standing there facetanking. Putting the focus of the damage on Bleed means that the damage can keep ticking even during Virulence downtime. On top of that the addition of The Tempest Rising means I don't have to mess with Ensnaring mechanics. The crawler and I both hit often and crit often so that a tiny bit of fire damage on either is enough to cause reliable ignites.
• Critical Strike Affliction: In addition to the size of the hit, the Crawler also hits very quickly because it gains attack speed per Virulence. That means that with just a little bit of crit chance, it can reliably apply crit ailments. Critical Strike Affliction support is usually terrible for players because we have easy access to other sources of DoT multi. However, for most minions the only source of DoT multi is Amanamu's Gaze at 30%, which is typically 30% more damage. Meanwhile Critical Strike Affliction at 20/20 provides 108% DoT multi and therefore more than doubles the damage
• Charge Sharing: Because HoAg gets so much inherent flat, %dmg, and % attack speed, most conventional avenues of minion scaling are rather inefficient. The 3 main remaining ones are Auras, enemy debuffs (curses, inc. dmg taken), and generic more multipliers. In this case I'm using Devourer of Minds to share Frenzy charges for more damage and Power charges for easy minion crit. increases.
• Raider: As Ascendancy based scaling of HoAg damage is rather limited, Raider provides nice options for QoL. Stacking Frenzy charges provides not only more damage for the crawler, but also movement speed, attack speed for faster Virulence stacking, and defense through %inc. evasion, which I'm turning into Armour via Iron Reflexes. Onslaught provides even more speed and Quartz Infusion gives much needed Phasing and easy access to Spell Suppression on a Unique-heavy build.
• Rupturing: This is probably one the least used Ascendancy Notables in the game, which is why I was able to get the FF jewels for just a couple of chaos each. Normally it's hard to fit crit into most player bleed builds, then you have to deal with the shortened duration as most builds want to scale % faster ailments, and finally Deadeye (and Ranger in general) just really offers nothing else for Bleed that makes it worth not going Duelist or Scion. But since scaling vectors for minion bleed are so rare and HoAg reapplies so quickly, the 75% more damage taken becomes really attractive. Since I have to hit often for the Virulence anyways, it's also very easy for me to keep up the Rupture stacks without having to cap bleed or crit chance.
• Lancing Steel: Lancing Steel of Spraying is probably the final puzzle piece that makes this build finally feel good. With the quality bonus from Ashes of the Stars and return projectiles I can very easily keep up Virulence stacks without having to go the usual Golden Rule route. As an added bonus I get very significant amounts of recovery from life gain on hit

Pros

• Very hipster :) (which also means some gear is cheap)
• Pretty good clear for a HoAg build, especially when running chain
• Bleed pops
• Relatively active playstyle for a minion build
• Somewhat zoomy speed from going Raider + Frenzies
• Relatively good visibility for a minion build
• ~40k Armour without Molten Shell or Flasks
• High active life recovery from life gain on hit
• Still a lot of untapped potential both offensively and defensively

Con

• Still very squishy in current iteration, especially against elemental attacks. Maybe less squishy than the 3K life make it seem and I managed to level this build to 98 without issues, but very large hits just lead to one shots.
• No passive recovery
• Unique heavy build means it's hard to balance resistances and attributes
• Really needs Ashes and/or Pure Agony medium clusters, as well as minion bleed chance jewels to get going
• Spectres & Golem are probably not the way to go as they still die relatively frequently in certain scenarios due to lack of minion defense investment
• Not good for T17 with the current setup. I have cleared some, but it's not pleasant.
• Not SSF or HC viable

Conclusion

This build just turned out to be way more fun to play than I expected tbh. I leveled bleed Spectres until A9, which was quite painful, but as soon as the build came online it felt great to level with. I even ran my first T16 at lvl 75 with uncapped resists just to test it out. It wasn't deathless, but the damage potential is there. I'm fairly sure that equally powerful or stronger versions are possible on Champion, Jugg, Ascendant, and Necromancer. For now though I will try to pour a bit of currency into this one and make it properly T17 viable. The plan is to go for Divine Flesh + Fourth Vow, drop the extra minions and improve my cluster setup and passives.

Any feedback and ideas for improvement are welcome. I'm convinced that there is a lot of untapped potential in the bleed (and ignite) minion space simply because the scaling is so different than it is for players.