[2.1] TyroneJackson's Cheap Naked Marauder Build - 7.8k+ dps - MF - no support gems required!

Tree is not yet up, but note our main damage source (searing bond) got a major buff! We can now put down three searing bond totems (with ancestral bond) for maximum area coverage and damage.

The basic concept behind the naked marauder build is simple. We can boil down the gist of the build to four tenets.

1. Spend as little cash as possible
2. Have an acceptable dps
3. Don't die too much*
4. Scare enemies with the pure manliness of a naked marauder**

The first and fourth tenets have a surprising amount of synergy together. By not buying helmets, weapons, body armour, boots, or gloves, we can significantly cut down on total expenses while upholding our fourth tenet.

* If you do not play your party wisely, you will die A LOT. So always stay behind your minions (will be explained later) / party members. If you came here looking for a solo build... it's definitely possible but you might need a lot of these:

** Technically speaking, we will be wearing accessories such as belts, rings, and amulets, but these don't actually affect the in-game look of the marauder, so we're fine.

1.2.0 brought a significant nerf to our main damage dealing source, but all in all the build should still be viable. Our dps revolves around one gem:



Yep, the notorious searing bond. There are a few reasons this gem is mandatory for this build:

1. It has a lot of base dps (1.2 brought the value down a little, but it's still pretty good)
2. It scales decently from the tree (Holy Fire, any elemental damage node, etc)
3. It doesn't need support gems to be viable
4. It scales very well with level

In other words, searing bond is fairly gear-independent - we won't be needing any uniques to get this build up and running. In fact, we don't even need weapons.

Because we do not wear any armour, we need to look elsewhere for defense. Belts can provide a decent bit of armour for early levels, and all of your pieces of gear can provide elemental resistances. If you are diligent about gearing, you will have positive resistances even in merciless, which will help you survive some of the hard hitting elemental bosses.

Having a large life pool is essential - when played properly, this build rarely gets damaged, but when it does, you will get hit hard. The need for life is compounded by the fact that our elemental resistances are nowhere near the 75% cap by merciless and we will have at best around 500-600 armour. Stacking life nodes helps alleviate this issue by allowing you to take 1 or even 2 hard hits straight in the face before you either portal out or pop your life flasks and run.

The crux of our defense relies upon two things:

1. Other players
2. Zombies

Other players
Other players are immensely helpful for this build. For one, they can be utilized as a projectile shields to prevent damage. Secondly, they can help compensate for your relatively low dps in the late game. Lastly, they can provide helpful auras (grace, purity of elements, discipline, etc) which can help bolster your survivability even further.

Zombies
We can add on to our survivability (and solo potential, though soloing with this build is NOT recommended) by raising meat shields of our own - zombies. With a

we can initially create up to 3 zombies which will draw enemy fire and help prevent us from getting damaged. Passive tree nodes can further increase this number for even more defense. Rich folks can even opt for a 20q raise zombie gem for 20% additional zombie life.

Searing bond
Totems actually do a pretty decent job themselves of drawing fire. This also has the added benefit that melee monsters will target your totems and die to their insane dps!

You may be wondering how we use skills if we only wear bling all the time.



Problem solved.

As you should know by this point, this build is hardly gear reliant at all. There is, however, one item that can substantially improve your dps:



Voideye gives +5 to level of gems in this item. Combined with a high level searing bond, this ring alone can provide end-game worthy dps. However, since they were made legacy recently, these little suckers can cost roughly an exalt to obtain, so they are no longer on the cheap side.

On the rest of your gear you should aim for, in order of importance:

1. Resistances
2. Life
3. Armour (on your belt)
4. Rarity (if you want to earn some more money)
5. Fire damage
6. Energy shield (not bad at all, but you will have very little scaling on it)

My current gear:

As you can see, my gear is FAR from great, but it's good enough and all self found. You can no longer find Voideyes, so feel free to sub in a second unset ring instead of it.

Flask selection is not critical, but I would recommend at least one health and one mana flask. If you are entering a map known to have a certain dangerous element, pack a resistance flask of that kind. Granite flasks are also cool. I usually use some combination of these flasks (also far from great):

Normal: Oak - more life is always good
Cruel: Passive - we don't really benefit from anything else
Merciless: Passive - we don't use charges (at least not usually)

There are two variants of the build. One is the optimized dps build that also grabs a few minion nodes to help make your zombies even tankier. The other, the variant that I run, relies on a high health pool an high life regen to help it deal with dangerous high level map content.

Optimized dps variant:


Explanation:
The only keystone we really need is ancestral bond - this lets us place not one, but two totems for increased area coverage and increased distraction. Note that searing bond does not stack, so you do not get double damage from placing hitting an enemy with two beams.

We grab some minion life nodes and +1 to maximum zombie nodes to improve upon our base meat shield. If you are playing with a party you trust, you can forgo these nodes for more dps or survivability.

Totem nodes are also generally helpful, further increasing your dps and also adding excellent stats that benefit your totems, improving their durability and also your cast speed.

The last thing to note is that we take several elemental resistance nodes on the tree. We can use the tree in this way to compensate for the limited resistances we obtain from gear.

My spec (recommended only for experienced players):
104 points (level 86)


Explanation:
I opted for a higher life and life regeneration variant that allows me to tank extremely large hits in high level maps and regenerate my health without the use of life flasks. This opens up the possibility of using more utility flasks, such as quicksilvers and granites, which allow me to better evade enemy attacks and also mitigate damage in tight situations (if you get stuck in a bear trap, for example). The life regeneration is very helpful because of the low frequency of your damage - you can usually regenerate to full health before you take another hit).

Some of the nodes on this tree may not make sense at first glance. Why, for example, would I grab endurance charges or the additional curse node? The answer is simple - party play.

In the higher levels, partying with a conduit character can be extremely helpful. This will give you a method of gaining endurance charges, which by themselves provide 20% physical damage mitigation (very good!).

In the late game (level 80+), your searing bond will not be dealing comparable damage to the skills of most of your party members, so you can switch your role to become more of a support role. The additional curse node allows you to stack two high level (potentially voideye buffed) curses on an enemy, providing maximum party effectiveness. The Amplify node increases the radius of your curses even further. Occasionally I swap in my searing bond gem to provide some added dps.

I also took an additional frenzy charge from Kraityn to increase totem placement speed (this can help a lot later on). I found it more helpful than an additional node on the passive tree.

Once you get rich with this build, it's easy to convert it into a more independent, fully clothed marauder... but running around naked is still the coolest option.

Keep in mind that the tree I am using is optimized for tankiness and map survivability. If you mainly plan on farming lower level maps and zones, you can take all the totem clusters from the tree and obtain significantly higher dps than me. These screenshots are only a guideline for what your final build will look like.

From my calculations (and a conservative estimate of higher level searing bond dps), you can obtain over 7.8k dps on searing bond using just a voideye, although I'd strongly suggest picking up some defense / utility over the last 800 or so dps.

Searing bond:


Raise zombie:


Defensive stats:


Notice that I have over 4.5k health and 550 health regeneration per second. These, when combined with smart party play, will make you nearly immortal.

Note: If you are new and take Unwavering Stance like I did, I highly recommend that you take Iron Reflexes to benefit from Grace from party members. Personally, I prefer to spend the points used to get to Iron Reflexes to bolster my own life pool for high level maps.

Leveling this build is quite difficult until you reach level 45, as you cannot use unset rings before then. Still, as long as you are diligent about finding parties, you won't have to spend a cent to get all the way to 45. Focus on defense early on and try to avoid all mobs if possible. A few uniques may help improve the leveling experience somewhat:


Makes you do significantly more unarmed damage, comparable to an excellent weapon like:


Lets you move faster, allowing you to better dodge projectiles and keep up with your party members.


High dps items.


No. Just no.

Strength in general is also helpful for increasing your melee physical damage.

Once you hit level 45 and obtain your unset rings, you can swap over to the full build.

Stay behind your party members and zombies. Drop two searing bonds far apart from each other to form a triangle that covers a large area. Run around in small circles to dodge projectiles.

It's pretty easy to play the spec, even relaxing once you get the hang of it. A good party goes a long way to making your experience with the naked marauder an enjoyable one.

The build can reliably solo farm both Dominus and Piety quickly and efficiently. Dominus (both stages) and his minions drop in around one minute of bondage, and Piety drops in around 3 seconds.

If you're only looking to gain some exp, I'd suggest that you join public parties farming various regions throughout Wraeclast. Most of these parties have high damage builds grinding exp, so you will efficiently level up and possibly pick up a few nice amulets / belts.

Boss farming parties are ideal if you are looking to upgrade your gear. Note, however, that farming bosses can be fairly dangerous if you do not have a high life pool or high regen like me, so you need to make sure you fully utilize other party members to supplement your zombies for maximum damage avoidance.

Once you are comfortable with the naked marauder playstyle, you should have no problem at all partying maps. Most parties will have at least one melee character who will usually be on the front lines soaking up most of the damage, so as long as you stay behind the rest of your party and your minions you should rarely get hurt. There are, however, a few map mods you should watch out for:

Area has patches of desecrated/burning ground: This mod requires more attention to the movement of your naked marauder, as not only do you have to position yourself to avoid damage, but you also must avoid the dangerous patches of ground. Do not underestimate the damage of burning ground. While most builds can attain 75% fire resistance, you will likely be hovering around the low 10-15s at best, causing you to take roughly 3 times as much damage as regular characters.

Monsters' skills chain X additional times: Probably the bane of your existence. Even if you let your zombies / other players tank the initial projectiles, the projectiles inevitably fly around and end up hitting you. Proceed with caution, and remain even farther behind your party than usual. Zombies can help provide additional meat for skills to chain onto, but they will die very quickly, so constant attention is necessary.

+X% monster fire resistance: Never attempt in a solo setting. You won't do damage. Then again, you should never solo a map.

Area is inhabited by goatmen: Very party dependent, but many ranged characters will attempt to kite these guys as they leap around. You will have to back up according to prevent goatmen from targeting you. These guys will hit hard if several of them manage to hit you at once.

Players are cursed with Vulnerability / Elemental Weakness: You might get one shotted.

-X% maximum Player Resistances: This mod doesn't usually affect you because your resistances are probably too low to feel the effect. Your party members, however, will not be able to soak up as much damage and may end up playing more defensively. If they are faster than you, you might even end up in the line of fire.

This build works pretty well at doing Dominus / Piety runs and can even do them solo once you have enough life. Here are some of the pricier pieces of gear I've obtained using this build:



Nothing extraordinary, but each of these (besides the Maligaro's, which I ripped) is probably sellable for at least one exalted orb. Don't expect immediately to find all this good stuff, though. This build comes nowhere close to a high end magic find build, so items will come a bit slower. With a bit of diligence, however, it is possible to farm massive amounts of wealth with this build.

If you decide to go for the late game route and build heavy on life like I did, you can run higher level maps and find better uniques such as:



Good stuff.

8/31/14 5:36 PM PST - Added more depth to leveling section.
8/31/14 7:41 PM PST - Title and dps information updated.
8/31/14 9:25 PM PST - Added self found section, title update
9/1/14 7:43 AM PST - Cropped the top banner
9/1/14 10:41 AM PST - Added farming and map sections
9/3/14 9:01 PM PST - Updated title to reflect recent MF findings
1/2/15 4:30 PM PST - Title reformatting