[1.3.1] Budget Helicopter Marauder. Super Fun To Play, High DPS, High Survivability

Helicopter Marauder Guide.

Hey guys I want to showcase my build that is made on a pretty tight budget and is extremely fun to play. This build is centered around the Sweep skill, while using Glacial Hammer for single target. With this build, I hit around 20K Sweep DPS with a 5L and 33K Glacial Hammer DPS with a 4L. This build is capable of clearing most map mods, although I would still steer clear of half-regen, blood magic and reflect maps because they are very inconvenient to play.

Video




Skill Tree



Explanation Of Skill Tree

This is the skill build at around level 85. I optimised this build for maximum efficiency, so I skipped the scion life wheel completely. I grab 182% bonus life with this build, 10% additional block chance, 134% bonus armour, 7 Endurance Charges, 5.2% life regen (including the regen from endurance charges) and some other valuable bonuses.

Offensively, this build obtains 313% bonus physical damage, 315% increased critical strike chance, 45% increased crit multiplier, 36% bonus attack speed and 78% bonus accuracy.

This tree obtains 27% reduced mana cost of skills, this combined with the aura nodes allows us to run 3 auras simultaneously, namely; Determination, Hatred and Herald Of Ash.

Gear



Explanation of Gear

This gear is quite cheap to obtain, the purpose of 6 socketing the staff was me hoping to get a 5 link to no avail, this is completely unnecessary and my staff wasn't 6 socketed in the video shown above. I'm not sure if the links are showing properly, but for reference, the staff has a 2L and a 4L, Chest is a 5L and the rest of my gear is 4L.


All in all this build costs around 1-1.5 Ex to put together. I only run 1 unique atm, which is Abyssus. This is optional and I suggest foregoing it if you heavily value survivability. This abyssus has a 46% damage taken roll which is currently worth around 5-10c. The abyssus's side effect is almost entirely mitigated by running Determination and having 7 Endurance Charges. My staff is my most expensive item and cost me around 15 Chaos. The rest of the gear are valued at around 2-3 chaos each. Both rings were self-found and I value them at around 5-10c each.


For gear, I suggest capping resists, getting life and having high armour. For jewelry, I suggest going for +Accuracy, +Life, 1% Mana Leech as well as resists. Crit chance, flat damage and life leech are also nice bonuses too. You may also need to get around 10-20 more intelligence on gear to wield a primordial staff. I suggest running Abyssus since its drawback is almost mitigated and it provides an insane damage bonus. For the staff, search for high DPS and high Attack Speed. Crit chance is also really good too. Since Sweep has its own base attack time, ignore any high BATs on staves but focus on the local attack speed modifier (try to get above 20%).

I would suggest grabbing high armour gear, because this is then multiplied by determination. You should be able to get 10-15K armour this way. Try to get some dexterity as well (around 30 on gear) to run a high level faster attacks gem.


For flasks, I run 2 seething flasks, a granite flask, a quicksilver and Doedre's Elixir. Doedre's Elixir is fairly important (and cheap!) because it allows us to maintain the cooldown of our endurance charges. This flask is useful when my endurance charges are almost running out. I pop the flask and I reset the cooldown of my endurance charges back to 12 seconds.

If you have more currency, you can consider grabbing a +1 endurance charge belt, a nicely rolled abyssus or a 5L/6L Staff as well as a unique 5L like Belly of the Beast.

Links



Explanation of Links

Notice in the video that my endurance charges are up nearly all the time. I have: Leap Slam - Endurance charge on melee stun - Faster Attacks - Blood magic. This will allow me to always have max endurance charges through just leaping around.

I also have Vengeance - Vengeance - Curse On hit - Warlord's mark as my insurance plan, this means that whenever I get hit, I have a 50% chance of applying the curse to my surroundings, this is improved by the master of the arena node that gives me +2 weapon range. This is much better than CWDT in my opinion since you can use a high level curse and it procs way more often, however if you have a 6 socketed staff, you can also run an addiional 2L with CWDT (level 1) and Enduring Cry (level 5).

The auras I run are Determination - Hatred - HoA - Reduced Mana. This is only possible by grabbing around 27% reduced mana cost from nodes and 14% reduced mana reserved. Grabbing 1% mana leech is also important.

Offensively, I use 2 skills. Glacial Hammer for single target and Sweep for mobs. I only have a 4 linked staff so I use Glacial Hammer - Faster attacks - Multistrike - Melee physical damage - (Added Fire Damage) - (Crit Multi). For Sweep, I have a 5L Sweep - Faster Attacks - Multistrike - Melee physical damage - Increased AOE. Increased AOE is nice for clear speed, although it can be swapped out for crit multi if you prefer the additional damage.

Bandits: +40 Life, +8% Attack Speed, +1 Endurance Charge

looks solid + can be expanded for potentially higher levels ( some crit here, some armor there)

however since you have no source of lifeleech other then warlords mark (unless i missed something) i highly recomment to pick at least the 1% phys leech node at lust for carnage. you never know if the curse times out without you noticing it, curse immune monsters etc, just a little more safety for 1 point.

Hmm that's true, I might grab that node as a temporary fix until I get some jewelry with life leech. Ultimately my aim was to upgrade and get some chaos resistance on my gear and then just start running bloodrage instead since I have 5.2% Life regen. The frenzy charges would also improve my damage too.

if i dod my math right, you would need roughly -30 chaosresist to sustainbloodrage with 5,2% hp reg considering you use a lvl 20 gem ( lvl one in the off gear, just in case to bypass the higer chaosdamage you take fro mearlier levels).

~0 chaosresi would be needed for a vulnerability map (vuln increases chaosdamage you take)

and ~30 chaosresi for a 50% reg map

but around 20 chaosresi should be good enough (thats what i run on my melee lifebased bloodrage using sword dude). usually you leech the few hp you loose while moving between packs on teh first hit you deal and when it takes a moment longer, just hit a life flask.
as a side node, i cn even do no reg maps while running bloodrage. i do however have to use lifeflasks frequently.

Hmm I like your math. This build already grabs 20% chaos resistance from the passives so I could probably start running this now then, if I can get a green socket in the top left hand corner of my body armour.

Bump.

Like it very much, currently making Templar version of this