[3.28] GUARDIAN HOLY STRIKE MINIONS

[3.28] – Holy Strike Guardian

Stack minion damage, abuse Doryani’s Prototype, and flood the screen with Holy Armaments while enemies melt in negative lightning res.

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Build Overview

What is this build?

This is a lightning-based Holy Strike Guardian that abuses Doryani’s Prototype to push enemies deep into negative resistance and scales damage through un-targetable Holy Armaments.

The interesting bit, is: YOU DON'T NEED TO HIT AN ENEMY TO TRIGGER THE MINION ATTACKS.

You can be whiffing and still attacking via the minion. This is both a blessing and curse, more below.

Pros:

• New interesting skill
• Decent AOE which = decent speed
• Can do all content
• Decently tanky

Cons:

• Max DPS requires ramp time
• Active playstyle (we are hitting 4 DPS buttons on boss burst)
• Strike skill (all the jankiness that brings)

Gameplay:

• Beach T16

How the Build Works

Through the tree, we stack as much minion damage and minion attack speed as we can. Because these minions cannot be targeted, and because we ONLY use Holy Armaments, you can completely ignore minion life stats.

For defenses, we are Life based, and invest in block. It is difficult to max block with this build, but we hover around the 50-60% range, depending on your shield.

To deal with the negative lightning resistance, we convert 70% to other types. This conversion means you actually take less Lightning damage than any other damage type. This completely negates the Doryani's Prototype downside.

Defensive Summary

• 5.5k Life
• ~70k Armour
• 55% Attack Block | 45% Spell Block
• 1k max leech, 1k regen on average
• 70% lightning damage converted (50% to chaos, 20% to fire)
• 50% of elemental damage converted to chaos
• 88% Fire res, 83% chaos

For gear, we use several Uniques:

• The Dark Monarch - Double the amount of Holy Armaments (double your DPS)
• Doryani's Prototype - Main scaling engine for the build
• Glorious Vanity - Main conversion of Lightning Damage (50%)
• Watcher's Eye - Purity of Fire node: Cold and Lightning damage taken as Fire (up to 20%)

*Main scaling: Minion Damage, Minion attack speed and negative resists for enemies through Doryani's.

*Doryani's Prototype: Doryani's Prototype overrides enemy Lightning resistance, and replaces it with your own. You are incentivized to get your lightning resistance as low as possible. High end gear will get you to -200%. We generally stay around -180% until high end. Holy Strike converts minion damage to Lightning. Minions deal large amounts of lightning damage, and enemies have negative Lightning resistance. This cuts the need for penetration.

*The Dark Monarch: The Dark Monarch doubles the amount of a certain minion type, but locks you in to only being able to use that minion type. Holy armaments are the only minions we run. Because they cannot be targeted, we do need to shore up defenses, as we have nothing to hide behind.

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Class and Ascendancy

Class: Templar
Ascendancy: Guardian

Ascendancy Order:

1. Marshal of Divinity
2. Radiant Faith
3. Unwavering Faith
4. Time of Need

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Path of Building (PoB)

Full Build PoB:

https://pobb.in/of6VgeEUR2zz

The PoB contains:
- Leveling trees
- Gear + Description (in notes)
- Full gem setups

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Gearing:

Gear Priority:

• Core Uniques: The Dark Monarch | Doryani's Prototype | Glorious Vanity
• No Lightning Resistance on gear (Yes, passive tree has small increases to all, but they also provide block)
• Attack speed scaling (both player and minion is important)
• Life + Armour + Regen where possible

Gem Setup

More explanation for Gems is within the PoB. This is for endgame league.

**If you play Standard, the gem setup changes, see the PoB for details**

Main Skill – Holy Strike:

• Holy Strike Lvl. 21
• Greater Multistrike
• Minion Damage
• Volatility
• Elemental Damage with Attacks
• Ruthless

Helmet - Auras:

• Wrath
• Determination
• Purity of Fire
• Enlighten lvl.4

Gloves - Aura + Buffs:

• Vitality lvl.20
• Arcanist Brand
• Flesh Offering
• Conductivity

Boots - Aura + Guard:

• Flesh and Stone
• Automation
• Molten Shell
• More Duration

Weapon 1 - Minion Auras:

• Vaal Haste
• Vaal Smite
• Generosity

Weapon 2 - Movement Skills:

• Shield Charge
• Faster Attacks
• Frostblink
or
• Flame Dash

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Defense & Survivability

This is going to differ for everyone, especially with the nature of the Misted rings. These are baseline values, what you should aim for before going to Pinnacle content.

• Life/ES: 5k minimum. ES is useless due to Divine Shield. Ignore it.
• Mitigation: Armour/Block. Minimum armour to feel decent is 20k. This value is tough to get until Mageblood.
• Recovery: 1k Max leech | Time of need will throw regen off a bit, but in PoB, the best way to identify it is to flip the regen config to "Average". If you are over 1k, that will do.

Leveling Guide

Early Game: You can use Holy Strike directly after the tutorial, but it doesn't feel great until Doryani's Prototype. Feel free to run any templar skill you want. If you are short on gold or Orbs of Regret, just run a generic minion build. You will want to switch to Doryani's Prototype after these conditions have been met:

• 3rd Lab is completed
• You have both Doryani's Prototype in 5 link and a Glorious Vanity
• *Optional* You can get your Lightning Resistance to around -100%. This step isn't required, but will help push DPS enough to mitigate some of the squishiness that Doryani's brings.

How do I get negative Lightning resistance?

• Early on (Heavily RNG dependent) Ventor's Gamble
• The real way: Rare Reflecting Mist Rings. These are ring that have either been created through Reflecting Mists found in t16s or, Reflecting Mist the currency item.

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Playstyle Tips

Mapping:

• Use Shield Charge to move around, Frostblink/Flame Dash for re-positioning.
• Most of the time, you only need to use Holy Strike. Once you get 8 minions up, charge through the map and try to keep them up as long as possible. If you run into rares, use base Smite, and Holy Strike to death. With the really chunky ones, pop Vaal Smite, Arcanist Brand and Holy Strike to death. You want to try to keep 1 charge of Vaal Smite and 1 charge of Vaal Haste for the boss.
• You will realize after playing the build for a bit that Multistrike allows you to hit once, cancel the animation, and the minions will continue to hit for you.
• **One small issue this skill has, occasionally the Holy Armaments will not follow you.

Bossing:

• *Positioning*: Unfortunately, this build requires that you maintain melee range, as we do not invest in melee strike range. Your minions have far better range then you do and this is where the trick comes in. You can keep more distance by simply missing your attacks. Holy Strike attacks when you do and vastly out-ranges you. The problem is mana. Minions do not leech mana for you. So, you will need to weave in and out, keep mana topped, and stay as far away from the boss as possible. Takes a bit of practice, but it is better than staying directly on top of the boss.
• *Burst*: Strike enough to get to 8 minions. Drop Arcanist Brand, Pop Vaal Smite and Vaal Haste. Then, spam Holy Strike to keep minions attacking.

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Weaknesses:

• Semi-Weak to Phys, especially bit hits
• In between Time of Need, you have to be leeching, otherwise you lose lots of survivalbility
• Strike skill with no melee strike range, splash or extra targets hit
• Definitely not S+ tier speed
• Active playstyle (this could be a pro or a con)

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Min-Maxing
Checklist:

• Is your Lightning Resistance -200%?
• Is your APS above 5.0?
• Do you have Mageblood?
• Do you have the Forbidden Flesh/Flame Set?
• Do you have a >= +2 Lightning Skill gem Amulet?
• Do your misted rings have any impactful negative mods?

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FAQ

To be filled out.

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Final Thoughts

Final Thoughts

This build ended up being a lot more fun and capable than I initially expected. Holy Strike has some quirks, but once you get used to the playstyle, it feels very rewarding—especially when you start scaling into negative resistances and see bosses melt.

It is not a “plug and play” build. It requires some understanding of positioning, ramp time, and managing your uptime on minions. That said, if you enjoy active gameplay and a build that scales well with investment, this has a lot to offer.

The PoB contains most of the detailed information (gear progression, gem setups, and notes), so I highly recommend checking that out if you want to push the build further.

If you have any suggestions, optimizations, or questions, feel free to share—I’d love to see how others take this concept even further.

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Thanks for checking out the build! Feedback and questions are welcome.