2.3 Poison Block BV Budget Supertank -- League Starter (new vid)

Hi,

I liked the build a lot! I played like 10 different builds on HC the last 3 months and this is by far the most stable, easy to achieve and fast build to get into (mid tier) maps.
Because of this and the fact that you only need Izaro Normal to really get it going, I will straight away start with this in prophecy.

Theres some thoughts that I kinda want to ping back with you on the build though:

1. I am not really convinced about the poison setup and plan on rather switching the gear a bit more towards critical strikes with a increased crit gem.

a) Poison shines against single target, but BV already shines at single target due to the endless stacking

b) Poison does not really scale well in itself 10% of the initial hit, the initial hit for BV is quite low since its core mechanic is "stacking a lot of low blades". Depending on whether poison (and the critical hit) derive from a single blade or the accumulated blade dmg - I imagine it to work something like this:
Poison lasts 2 seconds. We have about 125% increased duration -> 4,5 seconds.
We get an initial hit of lets say 3800 damage from BV (my char runs T10 maps with 3800 sheet dps currently) x 0,1 = 380 dmg.

BV attacks once per second at all times. So we add one stack of poison every second.
Means for me in the duration of poison (4,5 seconds) we stack about 45% of our initial hit dmg before the poison stacks start to drop again. Initial hit on BV is very low.

Now poison might scale with a bit of toxin / chaos dmg here and theres but its just never going to matter.

"

"for example, if Poison is linked to a projectile skill that deals 1000 damage, then Poison deals 100 damage per second. If projectile damage is increased by 10%, then the projectile skill deals 1100 damage and the poison deals (110 * 1.1) = 121 damage per second. In this way, the poison damage "double dips" from changes in these stats."

If this really works like this and our spell damage applies to poison at 2 times (increasing initial hit and poison) we have our 45%*Initial Hit*Spell Damage poison per second max

0,45*3800*3 (assumed 100 spell damage from tree + 200 spell dmg from gear) = 5130 dmg per second

Whereas our BV dmg works about like this:
5 seconds base duration, increased duration 2,25, 3800 per stack; one hitting attack per second
= 5*2,25*3800 = 42750 dmg per second at max

conclusion: poison deals with all effects, double dipping and everything accounted for about 12,5% of our BV dmg if my calc is halfway correct

AND it needs 4,5 seconds to actually ramp up! and this is a pretty long time

c) so how do we achieve good crit stuff - I would use the increased crit rune instead of poison, decent crit gear here and there, add 2 power charges and some crit nodes in the tree and take the power charge of A1 and we are automatically gaining the charges by using some kind of cast on something mechanic with power charge on hit with a second blade vortex (im not ultra convinced of this, might switch enfeeble for assassins mark)

This in total should get us to roughly 50-75% crit chance with a couple of nodes on crit and say maligaro or else (since we dont need any other gear really) to 300-400 multiplier.

Lets do the rough calc again, (my char without the crit setup sits at about 12% crit chance and 200% multiplier right now) with the new setup its defensively calculated:

50% chance to crit, 300 multiplier = 0,5*3800*3 = 5700
Before it was 3800*0,12*2 = avg 912 dmg added by crits

Difference is roughly 4800 and as such about the same 5200 dmg from poison and we get a better life leech of this and dont need 4,5 seconds of stacking [which is not too bad in this stacking build ofc]

Depending on how the BV mechanic actually works with crit it might be a lot more and with 75% chance and 400% multiplier its already about 2 times the dmg poison does.

2. I dont like the manual bone offering and would instead use the cwdt setup with desecrate. (worked very well for me)

Gems I imagine:
3s Blade - Fortfify, Whirling Blade, Faster attack
4s Helmet - blasphemy,warlords mark, enfeeble or assassins mark, (vaal discipline)
4-6s armor - BV - AOE - Duration - echo - increased crit - controlled destruction
4s boots/glove - CWDT - desecrate - faster casting - bone offering [or CWDT - inc duration - IC - Bone]
3s shield - arctic armor - ice golem - tempest shield - or blood rage
4s boots/glove - cwdt - bv - power charge on crit - increased crit

3. I guess we need to find a good solution to squeeze in chaos resistance here and there, I noticed thats the only thing coming close to ever killing me and needs to be adressed as well :)

Good thing is you get a bit of it from the last 4 useless ascendancy points in necro :)

Thanks again and im looking forward for your poison dmg counter argument :)

I don't think anyone disagrees that focusing Crit is more DPS than focusing Poison. The creator of the build essentially acknowledges this in his post, noting that SC players may want to do this.

It is an extremely bad idea if you plan to play HC, though. You will be unable to do reflect maps, and endgame reflect mobs will likely kill you very quickly.

"

D0omsdaymachine wrote:

Hi,

I liked the build a lot! I played like 10 different builds on HC the last 3 months and this is by far the most stable, easy to achieve and fast build to get into (mid tier) maps.
Because of this and the fact that you only need Izaro Normal to really get it going, I will straight away start with this in prophecy.

Thanks so much for this, it's awesome to hear! It may be a personal thing, but the fact that you can just chug away with the same build forever after normal Izaro is a huge plus for me. I hate leveling with different skills or builds than the one I'm going for.

"

D0omsdaymachine wrote:

Theres some thoughts that I kinda want to ping back with you on the build though:

1. I am not really convinced about the poison setup and plan on rather switching the gear a bit more towards critical strikes with a increased crit gem.

This is for sure an option, and our tree is pretty versatile in this regard (all the major crit nodes are immediately off our normal pathing). However, the reason I don't go crit is 1) The passive tree investment (it's about 8 points to get the minimum number of crit nodes; more if you want the power charge). 2) Reflect (which would go from annoying to flat out deadly), and 3) crit synergizes well with added elemental damages (like hatred and phys to light), and I don't have room to run those. However, if you can make it work, I'd say test it, and if you feel the clear speed goes up enough to justify the lack of survivability, let me know :)

"

D0omsdaymachine wrote:

a) Poison shines against single target, but BV already shines at single target due to the endless stacking

True, but why not focus more on single target than other damage? trash mobs always melt, and I'd prefer to have faster boss and rare kills than the 1 second I'll save every blue mob. I'm not a power leveler though.

"

D0omsdaymachine wrote:

b) Poison does not really scale well in itself 10% of the initial hit, the initial hit for BV is quite low since its core mechanic is "stacking a lot of low blades". Depending on whether poison (and the critical hit) derive from a single blade or the accumulated blade dmg - I imagine it to work something like this:
Poison lasts 2 seconds. We have about 125% increased duration -> 4,5 seconds.
We get an initial hit of lets say 3800 damage from BV (my char runs T10 maps with 3800 sheet dps currently) x 0,1 = 380 dmg.

Poison scales much better than you think it does. Poison is 10% of our damage for 2 seconds by default. but, with our increased duration, we get over 125% duration, so each one lasts for 4.5 seconds. This means that straight away, our poison in a 45% *more* damage multiplier (I'm not sure what you meant by initial hit, but everytime a BV hits a target, another stack of poison is added). With our increased area damage, the increased poison damage from the gem, and chaos damage from necro 4th ascendancy, we net about 120% increased poison damage (not including vulnerability). 45*(1+1.2) = 100% more damage (and this is much further increased if you use a conc. effect gem for bosses). Because the only investment we're making into poison is the gem (because vuln and duration are already helping our BV), it's 1 socket for huge reflect help, and 100% more damage (at a bare minimum. Conc and Vuln make poison almost a 200% multiplier).

"

D0omsdaymachine wrote:

c) so how do we achieve good crit stuff - I would use the increased crit rune instead of poison, decent crit gear here and there, add 2 power charges and some crit nodes in the tree and take the power charge of A1 and we are automatically gaining the charges by using some kind of cast on something mechanic with power charge on hit with a second blade vortex (im not ultra convinced of this, might switch enfeeble for assassins mark)

I'd take the crit gem over poison, drop MOM, run Hatred, take phys to light over duration or controlled destruction, and use a pcoc bv set up with a curse on hit, and just self cast it every once in a while. Like I said, it's at least 8 skill points, and I'm not sure what you'd drop, because the only thing in the tree really is defenses. You'll get really high crit, with shocks and shatters, but you're sacrificing your defenses. I still think it would be completely viable, just not nearly as safe if you happened upon a reflect rare.

"

D0omsdaymachine wrote:

2. I dont like the manual bone offering and would instead use the cwdt setup with desecrate. (worked very well for me)

I tried that, but I really wanted the bigger block bonuses (and extra life on block) from a higher level bone offering. Also, I'm already starved for links when trying to run 3 curses. The self cast took barely any time, and it lasts literally forever, so I think of it like running an enduring cry, with bigger benefits. :) It's up to you, but the self casting goes pretty quick, and it lasts a long time (and is more reliable if you go against a boss with no corpses around, and you need to desecrate first. there is a delay for corpse spawning from desecrate, so you can't run a cwdt desecrate - offering and have it work, unfortunately. :/

Alright progress so far is good. Couple of hours into the league I was able to acquire the Lazwhar (1Alch) and Cybils (2c) already. Overlevelled a bit for Malachai Normal, Izaro normal then was a joke with BV and Warlords Mark setup too. Took the first 2 Ascendancy points (of course starting with the offering and duration). From now on pretty much facetanking everything in cruel. A4 now. Struggling with resistances since I dont really have luck on gear.

Gonna scale up fire res for Malachai and Piety. Should be able to facetank them pretty much.
Almost at the Ascendancy-Life node now as well so huge life spike incoming.

For everyone that tries this: Be extremely cautious around Shavronne - her FULL phys reflect shield recks you (went to 20% hp there).

So far its again the most stable build I could imagine.

Looking forward to Merciless and finally Mapping !

Tribute from the casual front =)

€dit: the extremely diverse main gem-setup makes it pretty hard to acquire a 5link with 2 green 1 red and 2 blue. Was not able yet to socket poison ^^

I'm following this build and enjoying it so far. I've just gotten a four link to set up the additional blade vortex with warlord's and the cast when damage taken and curse on hit. Should these be leveled at all?

"

Crazy_Quint wrote:

I'm following this build and enjoying it so far. I've just gotten a four link to set up the additional blade vortex with warlord's and the cast when damage taken and curse on hit. Should these be leveled at all?

Glad to hear it!
And no, you want your cwdt to activate as often as possible. However, because of the way curse on hit works, you can level it, and warlord's mark as much as you can (but don't go beyond your strength. You need a good amount of str and dex from gear, and it's annoying if you over level gems before you have at least 1 semi-permanent attribute roll).

So, lvl 1 cwdt - lvl 1 BV - max level curse on hit - max level warlord's.


For D0omsdaymachine, yes, watch out for shavronne. Her lightning thorns are a bit tricky, but you shoudl be ok if you accidentally hit her for a bit if you have your cybil's. As for links, I used a hybrid EV and ES chest until I could afford a 6L (which needs 3b 2g 1r). Since ES doesn't really matter early on anyways, it's just fine to use hybrid as long as you have the best life and res rolls you can get. I was over level 80 (84 I think) when I switched to ghost reaver and invested in a good ES helm and chest.



Side note: I'm leveling a RF 10 charge discharge Marauder as my first char, and it's a little bit of a struggle. I miss this build already, and it will probably be my next once I rip heroically. Once you get cybil's, you can literally just face tank anything...

Speaking of CWDT and Warlord's Mark, this might be a newbie question, but the warlord's mark doesn't seem to apply in my case.

I took Whispers of Doom so I can have 2 curses, and when I try to manually cast Warlords mark and Enfeeble, it does work.
But as soon as i put back Warlord's mark in the CWDT set up it stops working. I did some test letting the mob hit me, and the Blade Vortex does work, but it's like it's not applying the Curse on Hit + Warlord's Mark ...I don't understand what is going wrong ?




Apart from that, it is a great guide and seems to be one of the safest HC build I tried, tx u !

"

Ghorghorexp wrote:

Speaking of CWDT and Warlord's Mark, this might be a newbie question, but the warlord's mark doesn't seem to apply in my case.

I took Whispers of Doom so I can have 2 curses, and when I try to manually cast Warlords mark and Enfeeble, it does work.
But as soon as i put back Warlord's mark in the CWDT set up it stops working. I did some test letting the mob hit me, and the Blade Vortex does work, but it's like it's not applying the Curse on Hit + Warlord's Mark ...

Apart from that, it is a great guide and seems to be one of the safest HC build I tried, tx u !

It should be working. Sometimes the icon is hard to see over your vortexes, and you probably aren't killing anything if you only have your one low level blade vortex going. Try just running with it for a bit, and see if you notice that you're getting endurance charges; if this happens, then that means you're successfully applying warlord's mark. If not, then you either aren't taking any damage, or something else is going on that I'm not understanding. Should be good though!

Gl, and keep me updated!

"

Ghorghorexp wrote:

Speaking of CWDT and Warlord's Mark, this might be a newbie question, but the warlord's mark doesn't seem to apply in my case.

I took Whispers of Doom so I can have 2 curses, and when I try to manually cast Warlords mark and Enfeeble, it does work.
But as soon as i put back Warlord's mark in the CWDT set up it stops working. I did some test letting the mob hit me, and the Blade Vortex does work, but it's like it's not applying the Curse on Hit + Warlord's Mark ...I don't understand what is going wrong ?

Apart from that, it is a great guide and seems to be one of the safest HC build I tried, tx u !

it happened to me. u should upgrade ur Warlord's Mark gem more than the CWDT's level( >38 ),everything should be fine then.

"

gxstore wrote:

it happened to me. u should upgrade ur Warlord's Mark gem more than the CWDT's level( >38 ),everything should be fine then.

Well of course, that must be it, it makes perfect sense ! Thanks a lot, I was totally lost with this :)


EDIT: Tested it and it was indeed this problem, just needed to lvl the gem higher than the CWDT lvl for gems. Once again big tx !
Won't be able to play during one week, but will be back here soon after, with more questions I'm sure :)