POEGuy's Shrapnel Ballista Hierophant Build Guide (Poe Curse of the Allflame 3.29)

Introduction

Shrapnel Ballista Hierophant is my main build in Path of Exile. It’s a versatile setup that I’ve used for multiple years to farm the hardest content the game has to offer (we’re talking about things like Simulacrums, Uber Mode boss farming, and T17 maps).
You need to understand that this is a late-endgame setup, so you’ll need to transition into it from another Templar build that you used as your league starter. For the current Patch 3.29, you’ll need to be at least level 94 and have a budget of around 150 Divine Orbs to put this build together.
If I had to sum up this build in a few words, they would be: tanky, lazy, a Swiss army knife build, and fun.

What you have here is a Ballista setup with a strong emphasis on defenses; a build that has already been tested by many players. Much like Siege Ballista Hierophant and Direct Damage Explosive Arrow Hierophant, I’ve done my best to keep it alive and updated. I should also mention that more than half of my Path of Exile 1 videos on YouTube are Ballista-related.

Video build guide and gameplay showcase

A new video build guide for Patch 3.29 will be published soon. Until then, stick with this written guide and read it thoroughly, as it contains everything you need to know.

Build Overview

In this section, I will outline the pros, cons, & the general play style.

Pros

+ Strong defenses (dodge chance, block chance, spell suppression, high %PDR, damage redirection, high life pool and can reach up to 2,000 life regeneration per second)
+ Capable of handling late endgame content
+ Lazy Play (ballistas target and kill enemies for you)
+ Can handle all map modifiers ( for T16 maps only) and all Eater of Worlds altar modifiers

Cons

– Build was not designed for new Path Of Exile players!

If you’re new to the game and still want to try this build, please make sure to read the guide very carefully, since multiple things can go wrong. New players often lack currency and general game knowledge, which can make things more difficult.

If you’re just getting started but still want to play a strong Ballista build to reach a high level and farm your initial currency, I highly recommend trying:

Explosive Arrow Hierophant

Playstyle

For this build, all you need to do is move around and place your Ballistas: the totems will do all the work for you. Unlike my Siege Ballista and Direct Explosive Arrow builds, which can off-screen monsters, Shrapnel Ballista has a shorter range, so it might take a couple of maps to get used to the playstyle. What’s interesting about this build is that when made correctly it can facetank a lot of content, making it great for relaxed, worry-free gameplay.

Damage Scaling & Defensive Layers

What you need to understand is that we are a Strength stacker. The more Strength you have, the more damage you will do and the more tanky you will become. The build revolves around the Replica Iron Commander bow that grants us +1 extra Shrapnel Ballista totem for each 200 Strength that we have. Replica Iron Commander also has a big synergy with Hierophant’s Ritual of Awakening ascendancy node (We get 3% More Damage, 1% Life Regen, and 0.5% Mana regen per totem!). We also deal Chaos Damage, which means our attacks bypass the enemy’s Energy Shields!

In terms of tankiness, this build is a beast! When fully done we achieve over 60% chance to evade attacks, over 50% block chance, 90% physical damage reduction, high spell suppression with lucky suppress, we redirect a portion of the damage we take to our spectre, immunity to elemental ailments, a large life pool, and an absurd life regeneration rate (close to 2,000 life per second). And on top of all that, it’s a ranged build.

PoB and Passive Skill Tree

Every build I release will use the community fork of Path of Building. You can find PoB’s Fork, by LocalIdentity, here.

Since players have different budgets, I will provide two versions of this build: a non- Mageblood version and a Mageblood version.

You can find an optimized Path of Building for the Non-Mageblood version HERE
You can find an optimized Path of Building for the Mageblood version HERE (Pay attention to the flasks!)
You can find an optimized Path of Building for Min-Maxing the build HERE

Passive Skill Tree, PoB & Gem Links

Gear Summary / TL;DR

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 endgame build designed for difficult content, keep in mind that it’s not cheap! You should have a good amount of Divine Orbs (minimum 150 as for Patch 3.29) and a character above level 94 before starting this setup. I’m mentioning these two requirements to help players transition smoothly into the build without any issues.

The setup should look something like this:

Item Slot	Item Name	Rarity	Notes
Head	Crown of Eyes	Unique
Amulet	Astramentis	Unique	We have several much more powerful amulet options available for min-maxing. Check the gear page for details.
Chest	The Iron Fortress	Unique
Gloves	Maligaro's Virtuosity	Unique
Boots	Replica Alberon's Warpath	Unique
Belt	Crafted Hunter influenced Heavy Belt	Rare	Check the Gear Page for details
Rings	Crafted Helical Rings	Rare	Check the Gear Page for details
Weapon	Replica Iron Commander	Unique
Quiver	Crafted Penetrating Arrow Quiver	Rare	Check the Gear Page for details

Read the gear page for details on all these items!

Gear, Jewels & Flasks

Ascendancy, Bandits, and Pantheons

The Ascendancy, Bandit, and Pantheon Power page goes into detail about all the choices you need to make in these regards.

Ascendancy, Bandit & Pantheon Power Page

Map modifiers & Eater of Worlds altars

For normal maps, know that this build can handle all modifiers, so you don’t need to worry about rolling your maps. It can also handle all Eater of Worlds altar modifiers, so there’s no need to read those either.

For Nightmare maps (old T17 maps) and Originator maps (T16.5 maps), you’ll need to use a REGEX filter to avoid the most dangerous modifiers. This is especially important if you’re using the non- Mageblood variant. Nightmare maps come with their own set of deadly modifiers, and some of them can be quite punishing.
You’ll want to use the following regex filter: CLICK ME

[Pro Tip] You can save this filter in the Awakened PoE Trade program and bind it to a hotkey!

Common Mistakes

• Not taking the IRON WILL Keystone on the skill tree. (This mistake will drastically reduce your damage.)
• Not having Split Personality with STRENGTH + ACCURACY! (Accuracy on these jewels is mandatory; it helps us cap our hit chance.)
• Not having a Large Cluster Jewel with SPELL DAMAGE. (I clearly explained in the gear section why we need Spell Damage here.)
• Not having enough Strength! You need to have a minimum of 2000. If you have lower means that you have not respected this build guide and you need to fix your setup.
• Not having at least +3 Pierce on your quiver. Without Pierce effects, your map clear speed will suffer significantly.
• Using bricked Replica Alberon's Warpath boots! Be careful, as many of them are bricked and will cause you to lose a significant amount of DPS. The last line must say at least: “Adds 1 to 80 Chaos Damage to Attacks per 80 Strength.” If the value is lower than 80, do not buy them!*
• Not using the mentioned Spectre or having the Farrul Ascendancy node “Iron Will” unlocked.
• Not having a decent elemental resist overcap! Capping elemental resistances is not enough: you want them overcapped by 40%-50%! There are influence altars, map modifiers, league-related modifiers, etc., that can stack up and greatly reduce your elemental resistances. Always maintain a surplus.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why don’t you use Arrow Nova Support?
  While Awakened Arrow Nova Support provides more damage for bossing, it significantly slows down your mapping clear speed. The projectiles are no longer instant; instead, they must travel through the air and land after a delay. This makes mapping much slower and can feel quite annoying, especially when monsters are moving quickly around you. Additionally, certain content becomes nearly impossible with Awakened Arrow Nova Support – for example, Simulacrums – since the totems often get destroyed before they can deal their damage.
  A good build needs a well-balanced mix of defenses, damage, and overall gameplay feel. We already deal more than enough damage, so we stick with direct hits and pierce for smoother and faster gameplay.
• Why don’t we use Inspiration Support & Manaforged Arrows like in your Siege Ballista build?
  This build was designed to handle all T16 map modifiers, all Altar modifiers, Gruelling Gauntlet ultimatums and all Maven invitation modifiers. By dropping Lifetap Support, you lose a major quality-of-life advantage. Not only that, but we also pretty much one-shot rare and magic monsters while mapping, so there’s no real need for a Manaforged Arrows Support + Frenzy setup. You will also need to sacrifice several passive skill points to invest in mana; points that would be far better spent stacking more Strength, increasing both your damage and defenses. During tougher boss encounters, we curse with Despair and manually shoot Frenzy instead; this takes you 1-2 seconds to do. Manaforged Arrows and Inspiration are simply not necessary for this build. Lifetap, on the other hand, provides significantly better quality of life and saves us a couple passive skill points.
• The moment I switched to the Mageblood version, I lost around 200 Strength. Is it really worth it?
  Yes! It’s normal to lose around 200 Strength, but this is more than compensated by the power that Mageblood provides. It allows us to cap (and even overcap) our resistances with ease, greatly increases our movement speed, grants higher maximum resistances, permanent phasing, and better Spell Suppression.
  This is a true “Swiss Army Knife” build; a setup that can handle virtually all content in the game. By equipping a Mageblood, you become more efficient and significantly tankier in Sanctums, mapping, 5-ways, and even Simulacrums. Additionally, if you follow the Gear Page from this guide, you’ll see that we can still reach absurd levels of Strength even with a Mageblood equipped. For example, here is my character’s PoB from Patch 3.27, “Keepers of the Flame”:

Tips and Reminders

• Always curse with Despair on tough bosses!
• Use a high-level Dash skill + Second Wind Support (with quality too!). Try to get a Cooldown Recovery Support as well, as it will drastically reduce Dash’s cooldown. Try to socket them into the correct-colored sockets for extra quality, too. Movement speed is key!
  This will allow you to use your movement skill much more often, which is extremely helpful for bossing!
• In certain scenarios, your totems will die pretty fast (e.g., the last waves of Simulacrums, juiced Harbingers, the Shaper fight, etc.).
  You’ll need to keep resummoning them until everything around you dies. (Thanks to the Hierophant ascendancy and our item setup, we can resummon totems almost instantly!)
• Try to get an elemental resistance overcap if you plan on running very juiced maps with Altars (i.e., more resistances than required – the more you have, the better).
  Why? Because map modifiers, altar modifiers, league mechanics, and monster modifiers can stack and shred your resistances down to negative! This applies to every build out there.
• If you plan on doing Uber Mode pinnacle bosses, here’s what you need to know:
  Eater of Worlds and Cortex deal a ton of Lightning damage
  The Maven, The Elder, and The Shaper deal a ton of Cold damage
  Searing Exarch and Atziri deal a ton of Fire damage
  Sirus deals Chaos damage
  If you’re playing the non- Mageblood version, make sure to equip the appropriate flask for the element each boss specializes in..
  📌 Flask tips for Uber Mode pinnacle bosses:
  Roll a Topaz Flask (25% effect) with “When you take a Savage Hit” enchant for Uber Eater of Worlds and Uber Cortex.
  Roll a Sapphire Flask (25% effect) with “When you take a Savage Hit” enchant for Uber Maven, Uber Shaper, and Uber Uber Elder.
  Roll a Ruby Flask (25% effect) with “When you take a Savage Hit” enchant for Uber Searing Exarch.

✅ Non-Uber versions of these pinnacle bosses are a joke for this build: no flask crafting is needed there! 😉