[2.2] Nuclear Shell - VMS Scolds Flameblast [DEAD AFTER 2.3.0]

Build now uses a Witch class & Elementalist ascendancy

At the moment, at least in Perandus and partially standard legaues, this (or similar VMS-based) build is probably one of the, if not the most powerful in the game in terms of cost efficiency, or how much currency you spend vs how much power you get for it.

With a few exalts worth of gear you get both high clearspeed and insane boss killing ability, with relatively high survivability to top it off.

Intro

The idea of this build dates back as far as Torment league, just posting the particular variation that I run these days. 2.2 update brought VMS builds to new ridiculous heights, so I decided it is worth to update it.

The build uses two main skills - Flameblast and Vaal Molten Shell (VMS). Flameblast is used both as VMS activator and as a backup skill when VMS is down.

After ascendancy the build gained so much more damage that now it is possible to kill things mostly using just Whirling Blades while VMS is active, resorting to using Flameblast only for very tough targets.

Gear for it is relatively cheap, you can totally crush all maps with 4L.
Main concern is the current price of Scolds, however in Perandus it is super cheap.

Alternatively, the variant without Scold's and VMS can be built on less than 3ex budget with 5L, and will still deal respectable damage. You can use either Flameblast or Firestorm depending on your preference.

Updates

After 2.0 I decided to get rid of RF, in order to be able to run a higher variety of map mods, and to prevent every Discipline user from blessing my char with a high life degeneration...

After 2.2 the build no longer uses the EB / MoM combo in order to save passive points, instead just Ghost Reaver is used. It also switched to Flameblast. Elementalist ascendancy is now used in order to gain Conflux, idea is from this video by Cory W

Videos

[2.2] Volcano - run without Sacrificial Harvests
[2.0] Gorge (initial testing)
Atziri Trio (old RF build version)
Bosses in Necropolis & Crematorium (old RF build version)

Other versions

CI/ES version of a similar build was posted by sftruze, and can be found here.
Instead of Elementalist he uses Occultist ascendancy, in order to debuff enemy chaos resist,
get more max ES, and get ES regen on kill.

Pros & Cons

Mechanics

Offense

Our main attack is Vaal Molten Shell (VMS), which is being triggered on each skill use, due to the special property of Scold's Bridle helmet. This means that it is triggered once on each use of Whirling Blades, as well as around 8-10 times per second if you are casting Flameblast.

Note that VMS activates on the starting point of Whirling Blades, so in order to kill a pack of enemies you need to first whirl right in the middle of it, and then whirl away to the next one, so that VMS would go off in the middle of the first pack. Using Whirling Blades efficiently can greatly increase you clearspeed.

What makes VMS really great through is a buff called Elemental Conflux, which is an effect that places shock, burn and chill on enemies when they are hit with any elemental (chaos is also an element!) damage, with the effect duration based on the total combined value of all elemental damage!
This means that if you, for example, deal 500 chaos and 500 fire damage, the enemies will be shocked as if you dealt 1000 lightning damage!

So, with Elemental Conflux buff active, each enemy will be shocked, poisoned, burned and chilled!
In order to gain Elemental Conflux we chose the Shaper of Desolation node from Elementalist ascendancy of Witch class.

Beacon of Ruin is another important Elementalist skill node - it grants us elemental effect proliferation to nearby enemies, which means that stragglers who were out of range of VMS can still die if they follow you and get around the corpses which will proliferate shock and burn on them.
This mproves clearpseed!

Defense

The best defense is movement - just moving with whirling blades will evade most of the attacks coming your way. However, you still need to cast Flameblast sometimes, plus your game client can freeze / lag / or you might just get into a bad situation, so you still need to be moderately tanky to survive , and for that we have:

* Whirling Blades & Fortify - best movement skill in the game - allows to evade most of the enemy attacks manually, on hitting enemies it also activates Fortify which reduces all damage taken from hits (doesn't work for DoTs)
* Life / ES hybrid lifepool. We are looking at 6000+ effective hp (EHP) with decent gear
* Block and spellblock. With Rumi flask active, we are looking at around 40/50, basically cutting the amount of incoming damage in half.
* Warlords Mark and Enfeeble on Blasphemy. Warlords grants ES leech (with Ghost Reaver) and endurance charges, which reduce physical damage taken. Enfeeble reduces enemy damage, crit chance and accuracy.
* Arctic Armour - provides physical and fire damage taken reduction, as well as chilling ground effect, which can be used to slow down bosses.
* Basalt Flask - reduces physical damage taken.
* Elemental Conflus - most enemies hit by your spells will be chilled

Gear

Helmet
The centerpiece of the build and one item which is definitely required:

Scolds Bridle allows us to endlessly proc Vaal Molten Shell, because each skill/spell use counts as a hit on yourself. In order to pull max effectiveness out of this interaction, we use Flameblast, which has high amount of casts per second. Previously I used Incinerate, but Flameblast usually provides higher clearspeed and generally a safer option in most cases.

Body Armour
Carcass Jack - general-purpose chest usable by a ton of builds, boosts AoE, has life, some ES and resists.
Cloak of Flame (CoF) - not that good for a hybrid build due to no ES and life. It provides 15% reduction to any amount of physical damage taken. You can use a 4L one until you get a Carcass.

We aren't using Lightning Coil since it does not have ES and the negative lightning res that it gives can be quite hard to counteract without decent gear. But most importantly, it reduces our EHP, which is really bad against elemental attacks.

Rings - 1xDoedre's Damning, enables the second curse. Other one is rare with life, resists, fire dmg, cast speed. Preferably with Elreon's -8 mana costr mod.
Amulet - rare, same stats as rings, preferably with Elreon's -8 mana cost mod. Ideally corrupted for +1 curse, then Doedre ring can be replaced.

Shield - Rathpith Globe
Gives damage, life, spellblock and ES.
Until you can get one use a rare ES shield with life, added block chance, spelldamage and resists.

Weapon - Consuming Dark
If you don't have a legacy one or want to maximise your damage at the expense of defense - drop the shield and dual-wield them.

Belt - rare with life, ES, and resists.
STR can also be good since it gives some life as well.

Boots - you have a choice here.
Either rares with life+resists, or Blood Dance, to get % more overall damage and extra life regen. I prefer Blood Dance.

Gloves - rares with ES base. Life, resists, attack speed, DEX. Attack speed is highly desirable here, as it directly translates into faster clearspeed. You can mastercraft up to 12% on a free suffix slot, which is equal to 3 average skillnodes.
Vaal Caress is an option, but with VMS being as OP as it is +2 skill lvl won't make much difference really.
Now, if you corrupt another +2 to vaal skills on it, that might be worth considering,
with this you will most likely be able to kill most bosses extremely quickly even in full party.

Gems

6L: Vaal Molten Shell - Increased Duration - Void Manipulation - Controlled Destruction - Increased AoE - Empower / LL
Hypothermia can be used if you have one spare green socket, however, it is not very effective.
4L: Flameblast - Faster Casting - Void Manipulation - Controlled Destruction
4L: CWDT (5) - Blade Vortex - Arctic Breath (7) - Stone Golem (7)
3/4L: Blasphemy - Warlord's Mark - Enfeeble (+ Enlighten lvl 3)
3L: Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify
3L: Flame Dash - Faster Casting / Arctic Armour - Vaal Lightning Trap

Use AA if you have at least 1 piece of Elreon jewelry with -8 mana and level 2 Enlighten, Otherwise you'll be running out of mana.

Vaal Lightning Trap is optional for very dangerous bosses that you need to bring down quickly. On most maps I don't use it at all, because it requires the same amount of souls to fill as VMS, delaying your first VMS activation.


Stats

-- will be added later --

VMS dmg is around 20k unbuffed, up to 35k in ideal circumstances.
This is just tooltip though, real dmg with shock, burn and poison is much, much higher.

Tree

Planned tree - 110pt - for any additional points just go to Scion life cluster

This tree has 4 jewel sockets.
Probably at least two of them should be filled with 8% to max life jewels with other useful mods, cast speed in particular.
Other jewel sockets should be filled by either Sacrificial Harvest (preferable) or Atziri's Reign jewels (meh, only use close to max rolls and only if you can't get Harvests)

Ascendancy

Class: Elementalist

Shaper of Desolation - grants Elemental Conflux, main reason to get Elementalist subclass.
Beacon of Ruin - Ele Prolif with less radius, but without using up gem slot and no dmg reduction!
Pendulum of Destruction - each 10 seconds grants 100% increased dmg for 4 seconds, not bad!

My current tree

Bandits

Norm - Oak
Cruel - Krait
Merc - Krait (moar damage) or Oak (better phys mitigation)

Mapping, dangerous encounters

Map mods that you should always reroll:
* Enemies are immune to leech - no mana to use skills and you don't restore hp
* Enemies are immune to curses - same as above, plus no Enfeeble = even less survivability

Map mods that you can run, but not necessarily should:
* Blood Magic - need to link Life Leech to VMS, set up CwDT-Warlords Mark, care to not ever hit reflect with Flameblast (unless you have dual Darks), and lose all ES. Too inconvenient, I always reroll this.
* Elemental reflect - doesn't matter if you run dual Darks, but for one + shield - can be problematic. You should mostly be fine if you link Life Leech gem to VMS.

Dangerous enemies