[3.1] Dual Wield Ancestral Call Molten Striker AKA Not Your Grandma's Duelist
 I. Introduction Hey everyone, thanks for checking out my build! I've been playing this game for about 4 years now and decided to make my first build guide for what I've been playing this league! Please be gentle, and if you have any improvements in mind for this build, please let me know :) This build focuses around one thing: Making enough meatballs to put your Grandma to shame. As soon as I socketed molten strike and ancestral call together I knew this build was going to be fun. The tree focuses on picking up as much physical damage as possible which is then converted into fire damage with molten strike and Avatar of Fire. Later on instead of taking Avatar of Fire on the passive tree, you could fit a Xoph's Blood into the build, however this may cause problems with the amount of Intelligence needed to run some of the auras and gems. This character is currently at level 86 and hasn't broken into red tier maps yet, but I'm confident this should be able to pull off all content. II. The Passive Tree
Level 89 Passive Tree
Path of Building
https://pastebin.com/FD3hx8A1
Leveling
I started off picking all the nearest life nodes I could while bee-lining to Resolute Technique. You can go 2h to start and respec into dual wield later on depending on how you feel. After picking up RT I started pathing to the templar AoE and life nodes. After that you can start building out the right side of the tree. I picked up Avatar of Fire just before getting into maps (started pathing toward it at around level 60). I would say that VP is an arguable keystone to pickup. I feel that it gave me a lot more survivability even after getting bloodseeker, however you can spec out of these 3 nodes if you feel comfortable without it. I picked up VP around the same time I picked up Brutal Fervor.
Bandits
I took the 2 passive points but you could also take Kraityn
Ascendancy
Endless Hunger > Bane of Legends > Brutal Fervor > Headsman
III. The Gear
Required Unique
I'm not sure why this weapon still behaves the way it does, but it does so we're going to use it.
For armor we're just looking for res and life. Movespeed on boots. For the other weapon we want the highest pdps one handed weapon we can possibly afford. Jewellery is just straight up life and resists. If you can fit ele damage on them then it's obviously going to boost your damage, but these kinds of items can get pretty expensive.
My Gear
The abyss items are just for the memes (Except for the belt. Why use any other belt when stygian belts exist?). They're not crucial to the build at all.
Links
Molten Strike (Mapping)
Ancestral Call - Ele Damage with Attacks - Multistrike - Fire Pen - Elemental Focus. You can also use Increased AoE instead of Ele Focus.
Molten Strike (Bossing)
Added Fire - Ele Damage with Attacks - Multistrike - Fire Pen - Elemental Focus. You can also use conc effect instead of ele focus. Ancestral Call might work better than added fire on some bosses who spawn a lot of adds, or multi-boss maps because of the overlap.
Whirling Blades
Faster Attacks - Fortify (Big Surprise!)
Ancestral Protector
We just want this guy for the attack speed. Doesn't matter what supports are in here. I have Melee Physical and Faster Attacks.
CWDT Immortal Call
Increased Duration with a curse of your choice, or just Increased Duration.
Auras and Heralds
The only herald you would consider using is Herald of Ash since the other two are only half as effective.
For auras you can use Grace or Anger. I highly recommend always running a Blasphemy - Flammability. I'm currently running the Blasphemy and Herald of Ash, but when I felt a bit squishier I ran the Blasphemy and Grace.
Golem
I use a lightning golem. A chaos golem could be nice especially in this league where there's a lot of physical damage going around. Flame golem could be useful as well but I believe the attack speed from lightning is worth more.
IV. Videos Tier 11 Pit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL9fJ9cfJx8 V. Conclusion I hope you guys enjoy this build as much as I have. Again, if you have any improvements in mind, post a comment! I plan to post some videos of the build later on once I get into red maps. Last edited by Vaaroth#6837 on Dec 21, 2017, 10:27:28 PM Last bumped on Mar 2, 2018, 4:12:50 PM
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Which Major and Minor gods did you take?
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Do you think this could work with 1h and shield too?
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" I'm using Soul of Lunaris and Soul of Tukohama right now. The minor god can be changed depending on what you're doing. For running Lab you'd want soul of Ryslatha, reflect maps want Soul of Yugul, etc... " Yup! just change out the dual wield nodes underneath Duelist for the 1h + shield nodes, and instead of taking the dual wield nodes in front of the ranger start for the 1h + shield nodes. If you want even more tankiness you could roll this as a gladiator. The path I would take for gladiator is Painforged > Versatile Combatant > Outmatch and Outlast > Violent Retaliation. Gratuitous Violence does nothing for us since we can't bleed due to doing no physical damage. |
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" Sweet, thanks my dude! AC and MS are really fun in combination and i honestly don't think i've ever rolled with shields before so i'll see how it that pans out! Would you still recommend going with the same unique claw if 1h and shield? Last edited by Hyroero#7486 on Dec 18, 2017, 2:44:44 AM
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" The bloodseeker is the main form of survivability for dual wield, however with 1h and shield with gladiator you might be able to get away without using it, I haven't tested it though so I can't say 100%! |
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The Elemental Focus gem makes it so you cannot inflict elemental ailments, but in the passive tree you spec'd into Ambidexterity. That gives you a combined total of 58% damage with ailments, are there any better nodes for those 4 passive points?
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" Good point! I think picking up Lava Lash and Weapon Artistry would be better point choices. I'll update the passive tree in the build to reflect this. |
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What do you think about going crit with this build? could it be viable?
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" It might be possible with a Xoph's blood or some other way of converting your physical damage to fire, but otherwise there would be too many nodes to switch. You could also just live with 60% of your damage being fire and the other being physical, but I'm not sure the switch to crit would overcome this loss. |
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