Uber Ancients builds (post 3.3)

With patch 3.3 (or was it 3.2? someone please correct me if I'm wrong), most of you are aware the Uber Ancients were buffed. Buffed, arguably, by a non-insignificant margin.

My FoH smiter/zealer hybrid has been able to solo Uber Trist without a ton of difficulty many times, probably since level 83 or so. He also melted pre-patch 3.3 Uber Ancients quite easily, which some likened to fighting 3 DClones all at once (in other words, not too bad).

Post patch 3.3 changed all that. I waltzed in there all cocky and got absolutely melted. Tried a second time after the long slow process of refarming the damn statues again. Second time was not as bad but again, lost and obviously no chance in hell I'm even gonna attempt recovering my corpse (offline SP I should specify).

Third time, was able to get it done. Not without difficulty, and without having the luxury of being able to target which one to kill last. I'd like to do it again and preferably be able to target which one to jewel farm. My build is as follows:

Um'd Gface
Mara's
Fortitude Archon Plate
Um'd and upped HoZ
Grief PB w/ +397 dmg
Dracul's
TGods
Gore Rider
Raven Frost + Dwarf Star

Let me know what kind of builds youve used for Uber Ancients (post 3.3) and how it went.

What was the issue? Like, were you dying before you got Life Tap up? In that case, consider either shopping for a Life Tap Wand (the cheap option) otherwise an Exile shield would give you another chance to proc Life Tap, but obviously thats rather more expensive.

If you are dying even once Life Tap has triggered, then we gotta wonder exactly what killed you. What aura were you running, Salvation? You have a decent amount of resists on your gear, but with their -100 resist auras, it might not be enough.

They were buffed but they still stand no chance against a well-geared smiter. But compared to Uber Tristram, you must make some adjustments, especially in the body armor slot.

With the Uber Ancients, you really have to prioritise defense.

I would advise to get 95% fire, cold and lightning resistances. Guardian Angel is the Key item here. Fortitude is,doing no good here. Exile and/or Dracul's Grasp are great, too, like in Uber Tristram. Get 295 fire, cold and lightning resistances in total because each Uber Ancient has a " Conviction" aura of -100% to his element. And hell difficulty also has a -100 "debuff". Poison res does not matter at all.

The paladin's Salvation aura is great and much better here than Fanaticism.

Charms with all res help a lot.


Flat elemental damage reduction or absorb is also a good idea (fire: Dwarf Star, cold: Raven Frost, lightning: Thundergod's Vigor or Wisp Projector).

Call To Arms, ofc.

To deal damage, a smiter with Grief and Crushing Blow items ( Guillaume's Face and Goblin Toe) is still king.

As amu I use The Cat's Eye to hit the fastest attack speed breakpoint (40 it's Grief in PB, Cat's Eye, 15 it's jewel in Guillaume's)

Fire Sorc using Fireball and hydras with Battle Orders from Call To Arms, lower res Wand, Flame Rift, and a LOT of rejuves can take out the ancients individually. I like to single out one of them near the portal then go back to town and fill my inventory with resistance charms against that specific ancient.

Full Tal Rasha set socketed with fire facets with exception to the chest having a Defender's Fire. Spirt Sheild Magefist and sandstrom trek along with 2 dawrf stars. Merc has Duress and Guillaume's Face.

That said this is not a fully optimized build. A Phoenix shield would do wonders but I don't have that yet. Additionally, not a safe build either I still died 8 or so times and is best to stand directly in the ancient's face so they stop summoning minions. Which you can now see why you would need a lot of rejuves for. (estimating 150 ish). Would not recommend this for HC.
Tolic (The fire ancient) Is the most difficult to take out as he moves when he uses the fire tornados which WILL kill your merc even if you are face tanking. This will likely cause him to summon some more minions as well.

2 Dwarf stars and lower res Wand are vital against him due to your merc being unlikely to proc open wounds on him. but you can just barely do enough damage to kill him. The other two aren't so bad individually. One final note. This build defeated the uber ancients before I ever had a Defender's Fire. All four sockets were fire facets until I got the Defender's Fire. So it should be slightly easier to kill them now.

Kakumba wrote: 20 hours ago

What was the issue? Like, were you dying before you got Life Tap up? In that case, consider either shopping for a Life Tap Wand (the cheap option) otherwise an Exile shield would give you another chance to proc Life Tap, but obviously thats rather more expensive.

If you are dying even once Life Tap has triggered, then we gotta wonder exactly what killed you. What aura were you running, Salvation? You have a decent amount of resists on your gear, but with their -100 resist auras, it might not be enough.

Fanaticism Aura. Life Tap was triggered for sure. Just got overwhelmed. I had 300 all res with Treachery Fade proc enabled.

BigD wrote: 22 hours ago

[...] Post patch 3.3 changed all that. I waltzed in there all cocky and got absolutely melted. [...]

I had problems too, last time I tried them with my Fire Warlock.
Pre Patch 3.3 it was more easily to defeat them. Now I was running for my life like a headless chicken having no time to cast any Apocalypse of Flame Wave.

It wasn't a well prepared fight, it was a semi-rushed one, to get a Protector's Stone for my other merc. As @BigD done it himself, I went in being overconfident and not very prepared at all on resists, just about 200+ cold resist which were immediately erased by Uber Korlic.
I died two times, lost my nonTZ Heph and then struggled to get on track for the next 20 minutes or so, trying all the gear that I had on my shared stash.
Almost all the life pool went down in one blizzard for several times, before I was dead, two times in a row.

I managed to get Lister but he was insta-killed.
Only after equipping two Raven Frost I could stay for longer in the fight and fed my merc with rejuvs to tank the last Uber Korlic. Finally I got my stone but with some nerves.

Definitely they seemed to be stronger or my demon weaker. It was a nonTZ Heph as I died a few hours before and lost my TZ96 buddy.

BigD wrote: 17 hours ago

Fanaticism Aura. Life Tap was triggered for sure. Just got overwhelmed. I had 300 all res with Treachery Fade proc enabled.

Just replace Fortitude with Guardian Angel and you should be close to winning the fight when you are careful. The extra all res you get will work wonders.

If you want Fortitude's Chilling Armor, you can proc it before the fight like Treachery's Fade. It brings my defense from 35,000 to 40,000.

And try to separate the Uber Ancients and fight them separately not to get overwhelmed. At least until you get a feeling for the figt. Later, you will be able to fight them all at once.

To reliably proc Life Tab, wear both Exile and Dracul's.

And don't forget to use Charge since you don't have Enigma.

Sometimes, my life drops from 3000 to 2500 or 2300, but just for half a second, then Life Tap kicks in. As long as I'm hitting enemies, I'm safe.

And one last tip: Ignore the minions when possible. They do almost zero damage and are just distracting. Only kill them when they block the way, otherwise go for the three big bosses. In contrast to Uber Tristram, the minions vanish when their parents are gone.

Took less than a minute using a well-geared warlock with Miasma Chains and a good demon. Had to chug a bunch of rejuvs due to bad positioning, but with a bit of practice could probably do it without chugging more than a few. Just keep chains going.

20 Miasma Bolt
20 Miasma Chains
20 Abyss
20 Demonic Mastery
20 Bind Demon
1 Sigil Lethargy
1 Consume

Prebuff demon by starting game wearing all +demon skills/ Bind Demon/all skills gear/skillers

Swap to Chaos gear/skillers.

Add small/grand charms up to 275 res. Swap Shako/hellwardens for Kiras if needed (I did). Swap SOJ for Ravenfrost and/or Dwarf Star.

Flickering Flames on merc.

Lay down a stack of chains under Talic statue and activate. Death Mark demon to Talic. Teleport left of Talic. Spam chains blindly. Hope you end up killing the right one last.

mikelessar wrote: 10 hours ago

BigD wrote: 17 hours ago

Fanaticism Aura. Life Tap was triggered for sure. Just got overwhelmed. I had 300 all res with Treachery Fade proc enabled.

Just replace Fortitude with Guardian Angel and you should be close to winning the fight when you are careful. The extra all res you get will work wonders.

If you want Fortitude's Chilling Armor, you can proc it before the fight like Treachery's Fade. It brings my defense from 35,000 to 40,000.

And try to separate the Uber Ancients and fight them separately not to get overwhelmed. At least until you get a feeling for the figt. Later, you will be able to fight them all at once.

To reliably proc Life Tab, wear both Exile and Dracul's.

And don't forget to use Charge since you don't have Enigma.

Sometimes, my life drops from 3000 to 2500 or 2300, but just for half a second, then Life Tap kicks in. As long as I'm hitting enemies, I'm safe.

And one last tip: Ignore the minions when possible. They do almost zero damage and are just distracting. Only kill them when they block the way, otherwise go for the three big bosses. In contrast to Uber Tristram, the minions vanish when their parents are gone.

First failed attempt I used Fortitude, I shouldve specified 2nd failed attempt i did use GA, but probably too much focus on the adds was what killed me there.

Kakumba wrote: 20 hours ago

What was the issue? Like, were you dying before you got Life Tap up? In that case, consider either shopping for a Life Tap Wand (the cheap option) otherwise an Exile shield would give you another chance to proc Life Tap, but obviously thats rather more expensive.

If you are dying even once Life Tap has triggered, then we gotta wonder exactly what killed you. What aura were you running, Salvation? You have a decent amount of resists on your gear, but with their -100 resist auras, it might not be enough.

Forgot to mention, I have all the runes for Exile (in fact I have lots), but a decent base has still eluded me thus far.

BigD wrote: 1 hour ago

Kakumba wrote: 20 hours ago

What was the issue? Like, were you dying before you got Life Tap up? In that case, consider either shopping for a Life Tap Wand (the cheap option) otherwise an Exile shield would give you another chance to proc Life Tap, but obviously thats rather more expensive.

If you are dying even once Life Tap has triggered, then we gotta wonder exactly what killed you. What aura were you running, Salvation? You have a decent amount of resists on your gear, but with their -100 resist auras, it might not be enough.

Forgot to mention, I have all the runes for Exile (in fact I have lots), but a decent base has still eluded me thus far.

Exile would be a massive upgrade and also saves you 20 hard points that you don't have to put into Resist Fire and Resist Cold. Consider buying a good Eth elite base. Replace the all res from Um-ed HoZ with the Salvation Aura

why no one consider Phoenix Strike Assassin? i tried it before, it is not as easy as the Uber Tristam (very easy), but it is still manageable. Is it the easiest build to use for this scenario? never used Smiter before so cant compare..