Molten Shell / Elemental Equilibrium lvl 60 Templar build (video)

Do you miss that feeling you used to get when bosses would one-shot themselves after killing your minions? Try Molten Shell, its even more fun (and faster)!

Build link - Includes 12 bonus skill points from quests and plans till 62.

Video link - Clearing Chaos Ledge map

Gear:

Funny thing about this build was that I rarely used Molten Shell before reaching Chaos. While leveling I focused on keeping Ice Nova with cold to fire, increased area of effect, and Shock Nova linked. The idea being to debuff lightning resist -40% after Ice Nova, and then Shock Nova to debuff cold -20% and fire -20%. I mainly used Lightning Strike and Molten Shell on uniques and blue melee packs. The blue ranged monsters were usually lined up in a semi-circle for Novas. Avoided elemental reflect uniques until my lightning resist and "+X life gained after hitting enemy with attacks" could keep me topped off.

Tried Chaos at 58 (before able to use 1k hp chest) and was basically stun fodder for any monsters able to hit me. The Nova rotation that carried me through the entire game comfortably was now eating all my mana and hardly damaging the mobs. After reconsidering my options, I just ditched the novas and went all out on Molten Shell and Tempest Shield. Lightning Strike (make sure to add cold damage from support or equipment...but not fire since that would not prep the mobs for -40% fire resist on Molten Shell) started pulling its weight once I traded for an almost perfect hybrid 1-hander.

Make sure to get a nice granite flask for the blue goatmen.

Respec notes for level 60:

3 regrets - Soul Siphon (+25 mana for killing enemy) is amazing during the early levels, especially if you don't like spamming flasks. Moved points for 30% weapon elemental damage and 10 strength to equip chest.

6 regrets - Arcing Blows (+20% chance to shock on hit with lightning damage, +65% shock duration) up until Chaos with a 17% Shock Nova for ~48% chance to shock using Elemental Weakness curse. Reallocated points down to Blast Radius to boost Molten Shell.

5 regrets - Inner Force (+30% increased effects of buffs you cast) gave 3% block chance from Tempest Shield and about 120 armor from Molten Shell at level 60. Terrible, but I tried it. Used the points for 12% AoE radius and 10 strength needed to equip Kaom's Heart.

Very neat. Two things though:

> I don't think the weapon elemental damage cluster helps anything other than lightning strike.

> Why not use shock nova with arcing blows and added cold damage to debuff instead?

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RabidRabbit wrote:

Very neat. Two things though:

> I don't think the weapon elemental damage cluster helps anything other than lightning strike.

> Why not use shock nova with arcing blows and added cold damage to debuff instead?

Right, weapon elemental damage is only for lightning strike. I didn't bother with it until 50's after getting that hybrid mace. Until that point I was using a 1h mace from the mid-30's with spell damage, increased fire and lightning damage. So, I was only using lightning strike for the debuff on mobs that were too much trouble to shock nova.

I actually was using shock nova with arcing blows the majority of the game. I had it linked to my 11% increased AoE support with ice nova and cold to fire since I was keeping my chest clear of gems to plan ahead for Kaom's Heart at 60. Once I tried the novas in chaos I realized they weren't worth the socket space and had to shuffle everything around. Lightning strike with 5-9 added cold damage on my gloves and piercing from 16% quality debuffs whatever Tempest Shield with added cold support misses. Another reason I liked lightning strike over shock nova was that all the "+8 life gained after hitting enemy with attacks" on my gear synergized with the multiple projectiles to fill me up while debuffing. Most mobs would get one shot from Molten Shell with just elemental weakness alone, I only stopped to lightning strike on big groups or uniques/golems etc.

Wow i tried the exact same build with molten shell, but rather than focusing on damage and equlibirum, i go full tank will endurance charges/buff duration to be invulnerable 24/7.

(looking back I could respec back any armor/life away into damage since i'm practically invulnerable with those charges, but molten shell still do 8k damage per pop anyway, and it pop every 0.1s since my armor is in the 6k+)



Build here, lv60 with Oak chosen everytime.

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http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQUAS1k-EZfUxwb-i-Ku_xUcN0kQeMXA5lhvHRGvtJjFo5vTP_B74CIiHzGTSfd3zwJZm29CSlo7GQMw2jlwm_AqxdSLxKuaWAlQEiGPIwsvNuj0NCX0ZRFytQDU5OZhcTZT2zMiuPNHdxjxO4o-miRPWeSv3A5xt7nfC9UqTUokjrNFHY20ojeodoH2YEwq6vOPzbEgV6oWdgYk7eCoVt-0FVnnKEUAlsXntGauDfta7Q700p1JTK6fiEYUP_jL1RfPp7tJ0uVj0FREqiW3eE0ButE0PddLBiVrAc44i2fuCepwn8VmfMAh3qQRgMUlOwZ_066ianwlLQ0bzk5NvSmZgJsdSUAHd79tqmuudg==

And here's the mace that beat yours in terms of spell dmg
Here's the spell setting


With better armor I could respec into damage and 1 shot all chaos mobs, but for now ignite will do the job (almost 50% chance).

Edit: I really need to grab a Kaom armor to make my build more viable

"

Progammer wrote:

Wow i tried the exact same build with molten shell, but rather than focusing on damage and equlibirum, i go full tank will endurance charges/buff duration to be invulnerable 24/7.

(looking back I could respec back any armor/life away into damage since i'm practically invulnerable with those charges, but molten shell still do 8k damage per pop anyway, and it pop every 0.1s since my armor is in the 6k+)

And here's the mace that beat yours in terms of spell dmg:
Here's the spell setting:

Unavailable

Unavailable

With better armor I could respec into damage and 1 shot all chaos mobs, but for now ignite will do the job (almost 50% chance).

Edit: I really need to grab a Kaom armor to make my build more viable

Oh wow, your passive tree is almost opposite mine! Thanks for posting it. The reason I focused more on spell damage and block was that I wanted to try out as many of the new 0.9.6 skills and keystones as possible in one build.

If I didn't want to use lightning strike I'd be after a scepter just like yours. 50% more spell damage than the one I'm using grr!!!

I dug out an 8% Chance to ignite, but it was unleveled and I figured might as well give mana leech a shot to see if I even needed to worry about ignite. I really like the near endless supply of mana that each explosion provides and was able to change out one of my mana flasks for a sapping health flask, and one of my bubbling health flasks for the granite. Just popping that granite shoots my armor up to over 20k.

Do you just leap slam pesky ranged/casters if there's no melee to drag over and explode your shell on them? I find my build weak against these situations ><

Its a troll tank build, i can just ignore caster. You have a much higher +aoe so that wont be a problem for you. Given the damage from your tree, you could also swap out concentrated effect and still 1 shot them.

The only downside to your build is the unique armor, without it there is only 400HP for them to 1-shot you.

"

Progammer wrote:

Its a troll tank build, i can just ignore caster. You have a much higher +aoe so that wont be a problem for you. Given the damage from your tree, you could also swap out concentrated effect and still 1 shot them.

The only downside to your build is the unique armor, without it there is only 400HP for them to 1-shot you.

I have 818 life without Kaom's Heart. It was enough before chaos, but I needed the HP boost from chest to help with stuns and crits, but you have the nice cushion from endurance charges and marauder passives. Might be overkill if you used Kaom's!

I'll check the effectiveness without concentrate now, but I think the multiplicative damage will be missed (especially on uniques and fire resist).

I'm not in danger from the caster's and even have 8% chance to block spells, its just I'm somewhat of a completionist and it pains me to leave mobs alive! Just takes too much effort to kill straggling casters when I can round up 30 more melee somewhere else to nuke.

"

Progammer wrote:

Given the damage from your tree, you could also swap out concentrated effect and still 1 shot them.

Just tried swapping Chance to Ignite for Concentrated Effect, and the 30% radius gained back is just enough to reach most casters without walking close enough to make them flee (which was my issue using Concentrate). But as I thought, Fire resist mobs, Uniques, and some others are taking multiple Shells since my ignite chance is so low. If my Molten Shell gem was quality I would depend on ignite and invest a few more points in Burn Damage passives.

Think I'll stick with the strategic nuke over the carpet bombing until I find a nice %gem.

Very cool build. Thanks for the video. Best of all, your character looks awesome when you have all the effects running at the same time (phase run, molten shell, tempest shield). It's like some TRON shit.

A very nice working combination of several of the new toys. I like how you improvised when the nova idea turned out not to work so well for chaos.