Best Quarterstaff Ascendancy for 0.4 Hardcore?

Hey folks, I'm planning my next Hardcore run for 0.4 and want to build around a quarterstaff. I love the weapon's aesthetic and hybrid potential, but I'm stuck on the best Ascendancy choice.

Invoker is clearly the most popular pick, and I get that it's the"quarterstaff class" thematically. But looking at the nodes, the main benefit seems to be more Spirit from lead me through grace, which is universally good—but is there a special synergy with staves that I'm missing? Or is the popularity mostly about flavor?

I'm also seeing Titan and Pathfinder builds popping up in poe ninja. For those who've played them:

What makes these work so well with a staff?
For Hardcore, which one feels the most well-rounded and tanky? I'm looking for a safe, reliable package that can push content without being a glass cannon.

Thanks for any insights or experiences you can share!

TL;DR: Hardcore 0.4 staff build. Best Ascendancy, why? Why is Invoker really popular?

Comments

atheistunicycle•5 months ago•1

I felt REALLY tanky with "...and protect me from harm", but chayula's chaos leech and Essentia Sanguis gloves also sounds good. Invoker has better physical damage reduction (reducing 1-hits), and chayula has better recovery through leech.

Duckthehobo•5 months ago•1

Titan has been a popular pick for scaling size and damage of AOE attacks, most notably whirling assault this patch.

You could probably do fire spell on hit SOK as a safer alternative.

Amazon’s stalking panther node alongside ghost shroud provides good defense (see connerconvers’s Amazon bow build from 0.3 for a demo) Amazon also gives easier access to elemental leech, but that may be largely irrelevant if you’re building around a physical skill

Degen_MMO_Enjoyer•5 months ago•1

My mind goes back to my 0.3 flicker lich. Low life stops some of the annoying things and gives a lot of damage. You start pathing through all the es stuff in mage tree before getting to monk. Probs lots of good def tech there but i wanted more speed and rolled off it.

Mission-Grand-5578•5 months ago•1

I would just go blood mage tbh. Get 10k plus energy shield and get super high damage

CryptoKarnich•5 months ago•1

Alright so I got like 1600 hours in HC. Do note that 80%+ is on warrior/titan mostly. But this league I’ve gone into both bow and quarterstaff builds.

So currently I have an invoker monk with 2k life and 9300 ES and 16000 evasion at lvl 80. Most likely my endgame gear. I don’t have any life/es leech but that’s because I don’t feel like I need it? Now I’ve only run t10 yet but basically blasting with whirling slash and with my new upgrades I’m ready for t15 tomorrow. So what I personally really like about invoker is spirit from body armour. You really want a lot of spirit imo and you get it without any hassle. Also that side of the tree is just so good . Easy access to +3 power charges and in general a really fitting area

I think I don’t feel like I need ES leech is because of my evasion 63% at l80. My oracle ice shot I feel need it way more because it doesnt have any evasion.

If I feel like I need it at some point I can easily get the gloves or switch out headhunter for soul tether…

I could see myself doing it on titan but man the spirit is hard to come by on titan. I play a lot of shield/mage titan where I don’t need spirit so I get by fine there but on monk I want a lot of stuff.. I even run unset ring for an additional skill

(Edit: spelling error)

nfurno•5 months ago•1

I built the titan whirlwind build and constantly died to bosses:

https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/NFurno-8780/character/MachoManRandyMarsh

then i build the witch hunter because of the ability of sorcery ward to let you stack evasion while building up a giant 'energy shield' like bubble that kept me from getting one shot:

https://poe.ninja/poe2/profile/NFurno-8780/character/WhirlyBirdBaby

the witch hunter has been vastly superior.

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I decided to try stacking energy shield - at minimum level.

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