POEGuy's Herald of Agony Champion Gearing (Poe Keepers of the Flame)

Summary

This build is very easy to set up because it uses many unique items. Relying on uniques allows you to put the build together faster and saves you a lot of hassle when it comes to character optimization.
Since this is an late-endgame build designed for difficult content, keep in mind that it’s not cheap. You should have a good amount of Divine Orbs and a character around level 94 before starting this setup. I’m mentioning these two requirements to help players transition smoothly into the build without any issues.

If you need an in-depth explanation of the gear, click here

The setup should look something like this:

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity	Notes
Head	Helmet with +2 Minion Skills and Good Life	Rare	Check the crafting section to learn how to make and avoid overpaying!
Amulet	Ashes of the Stars	Unique	Try to buy one with “30% to Quality of All Skill Gems”
Chest	Dialla's Malefaction	Unique	Ideal corruptions: “+2 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems” OR “+1 to Level of Socketed Gems”
Gloves	The Celestial Brace	Unique
Boots	Boots with “Unaffected by Poison”	Rare	Check the crafting section to learn how to make and avoid overpaying!
Belt	4 Flask Mageblood	Unique
Ring#1	Circle of Nostalgia	Unique	with Agony Crawler Damage & 40% Mana Reservation; Apply 20x Fertile Catalyst at the end
Ring#2	Crafted “Onslaught on Hit” ring	Rare	Check the crafting section to learn how to make and avoid overpaying!
Weapon	The Dark Seer	Unique	With “Maximum Life per Level”
Shield	The Squire	Unique

Before we begin, I need to remind you that we scale our damage primarily by stacking Maximum Virulence and increasing Gem Levels for our Herald of Agony.

Armour Pieces

Helmet

For the helmet, we use a rare armour-based helmet with “+2 to Level of all Minion Skill Gems” and some life. The ideal helmet would also have some Chaos Resistance and Intelligence/
Finally, apply Greater Eldritch Ichor to roll for a physical-to-elemental conversion modifier (Cold, or Lightning – all are great choices since we have a Topaz and Sapphire Flask with Increased Effect).
Here is an example:

You also have a step-by-step video guide on how to craft your helmet here.

Body Armour

For the body armour, we use Dialla's Malefaction. This unique armour allows you to socket gems without worrying about color restrictions.
It is very important to socket the Herald of Agony gem into a green socket and the Empower Support gem into a red socket! This is because gems in red sockets gain +2 gem levels, and gems in green sockets gain +30% quality. We do not want any blue sockets!
AVOID WHITE SOCKETS! (they will disable the bonuses)

[NEW!] In Patch 3.27, new Foulborn uniques were added. To gain additional damage, we will use a Dialla's Malefaction with the “+1 to Level of Socketed Gems” Foulborn modifier (see the image below).

Gloves

For the gloves, we use The Celestial Brace. Try to buy ones with 9 or 10 to Maximum Fortification (You can also buy low-rolled ones and use Divine Orbs on them). These Gloves also have synergy with the Runegraft of the Bound and can provide up to +12 Maximum Fortification!

Boots

For the boots, we use rare armour-based boots with the “Unaffected by Poison” modifier. We need this modifier because of the The Golden Rule jewel, which helps us keep our virulence stacks high during boss encounters.
You also have a step-by-step video guide on how to craft your boots here.

Weapon

For the weapon, we use The Dark Seer with a “Maximum Life per Level” modifier. This Sceptre will grant us “+2 to Level of all Spell Skill Gems”, will Blind the enemies, will apply Malediction, and will raise your Life.

Shield

For the shield, we use The Squire. This special item allows us to support our Sceptre skill gems with essential support gems.

Jewellery

Amulet

For the amulet, we use Ashes of the Stars. This is a very powerful amulet that grants all our Skill Gems +1 level and additional Quality. Try to find one with at least 28% Quality so we can gain more Maximum Virulence for our Herald of Agony.
For the anoint it is mandatory to use: Charisma (Opalescent, Golden, Golden)

Rings

Ring#1

A Circle of Nostalgia ring with the following modifiers: “Agony Crawler deals #% increased Damage” and “Herald of Agony has 40% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency.” It’s important to get a 40% roll on the Mana Reservation (use Divine Orbs if needed). Afterward, apply 20× Fertile Catalyst to raise the Mana Reservation Efficiency to 48%. The synthesised implicits are very flexible; choose whatever is useful and affordable for you.

Ring#2

For the second ring we will use a rare Synthesised ring with “You gain Onslaught for # seconds on Hit”. Roll Deafening Essence of Spite on it to guarantee T1 Intelligence and stop when you get some decent Life on top. End the craft with some Chaos Resistance via the Crafting Bench.
You also have a step-by-step video guide on how to craft this ring here.

Belt

For the belt, we use a 4-Flask Mageblood. This belt makes capping our resistances much easier, helps us achieve Elemental Ailment Immunity via the Stormshroud jewel, and greatly increases our movement speed.

Jewels

To avoid mistakes, try to place the jewels exactly where the Skill Tree in Path of Building (PoB) indicates.

1. Unnatural Instinct (Grants us a lot of benefits like: Movement Speed, Block Chance, Elemental Resistances, Skill Effect Duration)
2. The Golden Rule This will allow us to self-poison (giving us more virulence stacks). Remember to buy boots with the “Unaffected by Poison” modifier.
3. Reckless Defence With 6% to both block attack damage and spell damage. Our build is immune to critical strikes, so we do not care about its downside.
4. Lethal Pride with 3 or 4 to Maximum Fortification. You have a mini-guide on how to buy one here: How to buy the timeless jewel
5. Voices with 5 passives (3 or 1 passives if you are rich; it will save you Skill points)
6. 4x Medium Cluster Jewel with the notable “Pure Agony” (Gives us +5 Maximum Virulence; Big DPS boost) with 4 or 5 Passives (Do not buy with 6 passives because you will waste a Skill Point!) // The ideal jewel would have for the second passive: “Cult-Leader”
7. Calamitous Visions This jewel will give us access to the Lone Messenger Keystone that will make our Agony Crawler do 25% more damage and will raise our Chance to Poison too.
8. Stormshroud will grant us Elemental Ailment Immunity via our Mageblood Flask (Chance to Avoid being Shocked)
9. The Balance of Terror With the following modifier: “Inflict Withered for 2 seconds on Hit if you’ve cast Despair in the past 10 seconds.” Wither causes enemies to take increased damage. You will apply Wither for free each time you manually curse with Despair.
10. For the last jewel we will use a random rare jewel with corrupted blood immunity and 7% maximum life. The other modifiers are flexible here

Grafts

In Patch 3.27 – Keepers of the Flame – they introduced special items called Grafts. Since we’re a minion build, we’ll be using one Grafts with “Minions deal 55% increased damage” (buy with a lower roll if expensive) and another with “20% chance to gain an Endurance Charge when you are Hit” (will help us get our Endurance Charges faster).

[VERY IMPORTANT!] Do not buy the graft with the “Overcharged Sinews” passive skill. This skill will cause you to take increased damage for free, which we do not want! Pick any other skill instead.

Flasks

Slot	Flask	Notes
1	Divine Life Flask	*Recover an additional #% of Flask’s Life Recovery Amount over 10 seconds if used while not on Full Life” modifier and “#% Increased Life Recovered”
2	Topaz Flask	Roll for 70% increased effect enchant (use Enkindling Orb)
3	Sapphire Flask	Roll for 70% increased effect enchant (use Enkindling Orb)
4	Quicksilver Flask	Roll for 70% increased effect enchant (use Enkindling Orb)
5	Granite Flask	Roll for 70% increased effect enchant (use Enkindling Orb)

Suffixes and Prefixes on the flasks are fixed! You will buy them with these specific modifiers:
For the Suffixes, you need to have all 4 of the following: // Chance to avoid Being Shocked During Effect” // % Increased Armour During Effect // % reduced Effect of Curses on you during Effect // Regenerate 3 of Life During Effect (this one can be crafted with the crafting bench!)
For the Prefixes, look for: “25% Increased Effect”.

Crafting

You have an easy-to-follow visual crafting guide for all the rares here .
In it, I not only show you how to buy your bases properly, but also how to craft them efficiently with minimal investment. (When it comes to rare items, new players tend to overpay significantly.)