Unchained Build (PotCG)

A wee bit of fun that scales well while levelling and doesn't cost a lot to put together.

Primary focus is to use Pillar of the Caged God and be able to run all maps and end game content efficiently. Not a great build for MF as it is pretty gear options limited.

My gear:

I found the Bringer of Rain so I use it. Not sure if it is better than using a 6-L chest with life + resists and an Abyssus Ezomyte Burgonet but it is what I had at the time. Not having a chest slot for resists made gearing pretty difficult as all resists had to come from rings and necklace (aside from a bit of Cold Res on the belt) and from the passive tree. I'd think that using the Abyssus would result in more dps as a few of the passives could then be reallocated to +dmg % and +Str nodes.

Boots and Gloves cost me 1c each (I went through ~4 of each getting a decent corruption) Staff was found but shouldn't cost more than a couple c, the belt ran me 8c on the third day of the race, the rings and necklace were 10-15 c each and the helm was self-found. All in all pretty cheap.

Gems are pretty straight forward.

Molten Strike (also could use Lightning Strike, Dominating Blow, Ground Slam, Heavy Strike ... I just prefer the visual and the kill speed of MS)
Multistrike (lots of smashing!)
Added Fire Damage (scales well with all the phys damage)
Blood Magic (mana is for Buffs)
- in a 6-L setup I'd add Melee Physical Damage and Faster Attacks

Typical CWDT setup

Buffs (@lvl 18 gems this uses 100% of mana)
Herald of Ash + Increased Burning Damage + Elemental Prolif + Reduced Mana
Hatred + reduced mana
Haste + reduced mana
- as this gear set has limited slots this was kind of tricky - getting the 5-L on the staff helped and a lucky corruption on my boots granted enough haste to make it work.

Curse on hit from the gloves helps with survival but isn't strictly necessary - I'm much too lazy to curse mobs manually so it worked for me.

With lvl 18-19 gems with little or no quality I'm getting ~14k dps @ lvl 82. At this point I soloed the challenges in the race so am done for now. Had no issue running any mods on all maps up to lvl 77 (never found any 78 but I'm sure it would be easy). Never bothered with Atziri runs so not sure if it would do well there or not.

Skilltree

Tree could probably be tweaked (maybe less life and resist nodes and jump into the Staff wheel) but it worked out well and I love the survivability.

Leveling was super easy - just run around smashing stuff (anti-freeze speed pot is a must for any build imo).

Took health from Oak and skill points x2.

All-in-all a fun melee build.

Dps?? Video?

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Blackdepp wrote:

Dps?? Video?

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With lvl 18-19 gems with little or no quality I'm getting ~14k dps @ lvl 82

I've not taken any videos of this build in action at this point - I'm working on leveling the variation mentioned. If I get bored I'll see about posting a video of this build in action.

Thanks for posting your build - glad to see others giving Pillar of the Caged God some attention. I've only ever used Abyssus with it, but I have been meaning to try out Bringer of Rain.
Have you considered using Alberon's Warpath boots instead of Lioneye's Paws? They grant 1-80 chaos damage and 15-18% increased strength, meaning at 334+ Str (at 18%) they grant more Str than Lioneye's. The chaos damage is an added bonus.
Does your "Herald of Ash + Increased Burning + Ele Prolif" Combo do much damage?
I've only ever used Herald of Ash by itself. I noticed you don't pick up much in the passive tree to support prolif/burn. Is there a reason for that?
Likewise, for Molten Strike, I guess I would have picked up Arsonist/Lava Lash, or is it more effective to convert physical to fire? I don't fully understand the conversion mechanics, maybe you could explain not picking up elemental nodes in the passive tree (besides Catalyse)? I've never really used Molten Strike and don't have much experience with elemental builds.
Overall, build looks fun, thanks for sharing.
Cheers.