The Strongest Guardian Build Nobody is Playing

Here will by my FAQ going over specific choices and interactions! I also have a community post accompanying the guide that goes a bit more in depth on the major variations of the build if you were interested in that. HUGE NOTE - USING SPECTRES DON'T TAKE OFF YOUR PIECE OF GEAR WITH SPECTRES IN THEM ANYWHERE BUT YOUR HIDEOUT, AND BE SURE TO SUMMON THEM BACK AFTERWARDS. IF YOU DON'T YOU MIGHT LOSE THEM, FOREVER. THEY CAN BE VERY EXPENSIVE. WARNING DANGER. BURN THIS INTO YOUR BRAIN. IF YOU LOSE A SPECTRE AFTER READING THIS DON'T YELL AT ME. I will victim blame. thank you :3 First up - Spectres I spent a while deliberating on what spectres to use, and I landed on what I think is a solid setup. I'll list out what I use and at the end I'll give an addendum on adjustments or alternates should you not want to use them. Perfect Judgemental Spirit - Of the defensive Spectres you can choose this is probably my favorite of the two now. At first I thought losing a significant amount of HP when they left was a big deal, I later realized if Guardian Turtle dies or for whatever reason isn't nearby, you lose way more effective pool in a much more significant way. Eventually you'll want to run turtle again anyways as it allows more space of a Herald of Purity/Divine Sentinel setup, but for this level of investment Judgemental Spirit is probably your best bet. Blasphemer (perfect or regular) - This spectre is insane. His Smite aura is equivalent to level 40 (roughly), giving us 20 to 700 added lightning damage to attacks. Absolutely insane value. Best part, it's only 1c. I would highly recommend picking him up as he's a huge damage bump. Forest Tiger/Carnage Chieftain - The primary benefit from these is Frenzy Charges. Perfect Forest Tiger gives you haste aura. Perfect Forest Tiger is also 15d right now (probably more). It's a very slight damage bump, I run one, this POB does NOT take one into account. You can buy a regular and get frenzy gen on hit from it for 5c, or if you go to act 6 in the Riverways and find a Stygian Silverback, you can summon them and they use the Mass Frenzy ability also giving you frenzy generation. The monkey is free. Perfect Warlord - This is the most expensive spectre here. Primary benefit is Endurance Charges on Single Target. He also gives a Vitality Aura giving us a decent chunk of regen through Zealot's Oath. A budget alternative is an Enduring Composure cluster, but Warlord is very strong. I would highly recommend using him, as last I checked he was around 5d or so. Very comfy upgrade for the build. For other spectres, these are options you can use depending on your preferences. Test out the cheap ones to see if you like them, and for the expensive ones really think about your playstyle before picking them up. Once you use a spectre you can't itemize it again and resell it, so you're stuck with it unless you're ok with losing the currency. Perfect Forest Warrior - Gives permanent Onslaught and has culling strike. Our AG can get us Culling Strike, so the main value of this guy is Onslaught. You can either get that on kill with boots or through a flask. Good news is he's only 20c. He's definitely a solid option should you want to run him. Perfect Guardian Turtle - Gives Determ Aura and PDR. Super solid option, can sometimes be a bit slow and lapse your determ. Very solid option, relatively spendy though. Up to you. If you decide to run this you can run a Herald of Purity/Sentinel of Radinece setup wtih a phys Anarchic Spiritblade giving you a good chunk of damage. Primal Thunderbird - Gives lucky lightning damage. Amazing for certain setups, only 1/3rd effect with Spiritblade really. Worth running depending on your weapon. With our Spectres covered, how do we craft clusters? On an ilvl 84+ Minion Cluster that is 11 passives or more, you can do the following: Reforge Speed or Defense with the Harvest Bench until you get two good mods (t2+ speed, t2+ Energy Shield and 35% increased effect). I would prio 35% increased effect. You then fracture it. In Allflame league you can use Vesper to fracture. From there shoot for a cluster that has at least 3 stats, that being Effect, Energy Shield, and either Minion Attack/Cast Speed, Resistances, or Attributes. You can also just buy one from the site, here's a trade link: For the rest of your gear you can use Fractures to craft with Woe essences on a good base, going for t2+ Hybrid on them. You need Armour/ES to use the Armour/ES mastery giving you 100% increased Energy Shield from your chest." Tincture - Rosethorn is a one button crit solve. It allows you to be more lax on tree but still have 100% crit on single target. Very good option for early. Once you have cap crit without it, you run Prismatic with Penetration on Invert the Rules. If on Inevitable Judgement or otherwise, you'd want Attack Speed or Crit Multi as penetration is irrelevant. STRIKE RANGE - Using Greater Ancestral Call gives us a ton of strike range. This means that we can hit enemies from further away, and most of our extra strikes are solved here. You can use Damage on Full Life or Elemental Damage with Attacks as a single target swap for ubers. Truthfully, I just did most of my ubers with it still in, the damage was more than good enough. Animate Guardian - My current setup is as follows Relentless Fury - 1h Axe, gives culling strike. Nuff said. Shaper Helm/Malediction - Either the shaper Nearby Enemies take % Increased damage mod or a Malediction helm are worth. Since we have so much reduced res Bonemeld actually gives our AG our chaos res, so having the malediction helm on the Glimpse of Chaos is actually a buff to him. But it costs like 11d for the helm so up to you if that's worth. Transfer-Attuned Buckler - This gives the enemy sapped when your AG blocks. Could replace this with Brittle if you're worried about crit, Scorch is a damage loss so don't do that :3. Garb of the Ephemeral - Mostly non-negotiable at a high end of budget. It's a few div and solves enemy crit/action speed reduction. You can run Gruthkul's Pelt early, but swap into this ASAP. Windscream/Punishment on Hit Gloves - This gives us an extra curse, and punishment comes out to around 30% more damage or so. Technically this is additive with our Shock/Intimidate and whatnot, but it's still a lot of damage due to applying at a diff point in the calc from our main hand increased, so still VERY worth. Instead you could run brittle/sap boots and go with intimidate on hit, or if you're very wealthy simply corrupting them to have both is nice, but I don't got that kinda budget, and I'm assuming if you do you know how to acquire such a pair of gloves :). Notably this setup doesn't run - Kingmaker - Cause poor and wouldn't want to run it anyways as losing Sap is big, totally (*huff* *huff* copium). I'll continue to update this as I think of more things.