Build advice

Hi,

I'm looking for some advice on my build. POB and profile are available publicly. The characters is a Chieftain in settlers called Runforfun.

It is a simple build. Ice Crash slam converted to fire damage. The build is not struggling, just wondering if many eyes can spot something that might improve it that I may have over looked.

Thanks.

Haven't played Chieftain in years, so maybe there's stuff I don't know.

What I saw instantly were two things.

1. U're using Steelskin instead of Molten Shell. Why? From what I've seen MS would give u more mitigation and vaal molten shell ontop is pretty good aswell.

2. Why no Echoes of Creation? Is there something important on ur current helmet that u can't get anywhere else or can't u make Echoes work in ur build?

Something minor is ur Body Armour, I think there's upgrade potential and I don't know if that replica rumis is really worth it instead of a 4 slot MB with a ~100% effect granite.

Like I said, maybe I'm missing something but the whole block stuff doesn't seem to make too much sense to me.

For example, if u get that 100% effect granite u could switch off Determination and have the same armour as of now. So u could use a different 50% aura if u wanted to. Or obviously just use both and have 43k armour instead of 25k.
But maybe it's not needed with DoD, never played with it so I dunno :D

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1. U're using Steelskin instead of Molten Shell. Why? From what I've seen MS would give u more mitigation and vaal molten shell ontop is pretty good aswell.

Good point. I had no armour on the build untill recently so SS was better, but I think almost certainly you are right that it will be better now that I am running determination.

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2. Why no Echoes of Creation? Is there something important on ur current helmet that u can't get anywhere else or can't u make Echoes work in ur build?

I've just been looking into that. I haven't used it up until now, a bit because of what I mentioned above, I thought it would not mitigate well. I've bought one with fire leech and been able get another affix on the flasks. The other helmet is pretty good, but I think you are right that it will be better. Just testing it in the hideout and I'm surprised it doesn't inflict more physical damage taken on use. I've never used it before, so I thought it would be chunking me down with 4 different exerts, but it doesn't appear to be. As long as determ or endurance charges are up it is fine, which surprised me a bit. I'll see how it goes with mapping. It will probably improve my single target dps which is a bit low. Struggling to do Kosis on the last simulacrum wave.

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Something minor is ur Body Armour, I think there's upgrade potential and I don't know if that replica rumis is really worth it instead of a 4 slot MB with a ~100% effect granite.

Yes you are right, that is something I thought of when writing the post too, it is the slot that needs the most upgrading. There is a lot of room for improvement, probably good enough for what I'm doing but should be something I look at upgrading. Happy with the flasks at the moment, but that might also be correct. Auras is something that can be altered so you might be onto something, Hatred instead of determination if I don't need the defense.

Thanks for taking time to look at it and your advice, particularly the molten shell idea, I had not thought of that. It should be better and also I've been trying to fit a vaal skill in so that is a good option.

The build is well executed so i can't see anything that's particularly out of place. Just a few minor details.

Your elemental mastery, inverting enemy resistances is going to do much more for you than extra random elemental damage with low chance of happening AND in 1 out of 3 cases, losing half of the gained damage due to avatar of fire. Especially against bosses.
You should also ask yourself if you actually benefit from the "cover enemies in ash after 2 seconds of not moving". I don't know your playstyle but i certainly don't stand still for so long on a slam build.
I'd also consider a medium cluster jewel for exerted attacks. Warning Call and Lead by Example would give you 100% increased armor and perma onslaught allowing you to use a basalt flask instead of the silver flask for probably twice your current armor.


The next two point's aren't really suggestions since they go beyond just optimizing what you have but... you kinda "doomed" yourself with your skill/build choice.

Going for cold to fire conversion ice crash serves no practical purpose. You would have been better off just going Consecreted Path or Tec Slam if you want a fire based slam. Given how solid your build is otherwise I assume you are aware of this and went for it anyway. I also like to make builds by using specific gems/gear despite knowing it's not the best choice so i am not one to judge you but there is the chance you simply weren't aware so i am pointing it out anyway.

Also, going RT means throwing away a TON of damage for no gain. Battlemages cry means you get a ton of added crit for essentially free so it's fairly easy to get near 100% crit chance even with just 5 base crit weapons. If you had gone for crit you'd have 3 or 4 times the damage easily without having to cut defenses.

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Your elemental mastery, inverting enemy resistances is going to do much more for you than extra random elemental damage with low chance of happening AND in 2 out of 3 cases, losing half of the gained damage due to avatar of fire.

Good pickup. I don't know why I have that selected, I was playing around with it at some point and changed it over.

(Edit, I think the added damage might be stronger. I have a lot of resistance lowering mechanics. I played around with it in POB and couldn't figure out why the numbers were so unfavorable for the inversion. Turned of flammability and exposure and was still bad. Then finally realised looking at calculations, scorch form boots is also lowering fire res. For bossing or really high fire res mobs the inversion may well be better, maybe if combined with punishment or ass-mark on crit version, but I think it might be worse in general with current setup. Not using mastery and just using the point elsewhere might also be better, it is certainly inconsistent and won't be doing much except on that 1% chance it does hit. -18 exposure might also be good since I only have -12 on gloves. It will miss damage on the first slam, but might be good on longer bossing fights if the uptime is good.)

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You should also ask yourself if you actually benefit from the "cover enemies in ash after 2 seconds of not moving"

Yep, another good point. I have only just put this on so I'm testing it out. I like having ash on the build, but you are right that I don't spend much time standing still. It's mainly good in delve, but for most things the extra 3 points will be better. Before I was using Xoph's heart, which was really good, but lost the ash when I upgraded amulet. I think its ok with ignite chance, but you are right that a large amount of the time it is wasted points.

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Warning Call and Lead by Example would give you 100% increased armor and perma onslaught allowing you to use a basalt flask instead of the silver flask for probably twice your current armor.

I'll look into it, thanks, warning call does sound pretty good, might be better than the armour/es mastery, or even both, though my tree is pretty tight on spare points. Perhaps if I save some on the above suggestions it won't be that difficult. Like I was saying in the earlier post I've only just added amour in, so there's certainly some things I can improve in that area. I probably want a few more life nodes as well.

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Also, going RT means throwing away a TON of damage for no gain. Battlemages cry means you get a ton of added crit for essentially free so it's fairly easy to get near 100% crit chance even with just 5 base crit weapons. If you had gone for crit you'd have 3 or 4 times the damage easily without having to cut defenses.

Yeah, my original build plan was crit, then it seemed easier to go this route when I was playing. I have been planning on going back to crit eventually, although it seems to be working pretty well like this. Maybe now that I'm levelled I can think about getting it working with BMC and crit. Would need a bit of gear changing, but you are right that it would be more optimal if I got it working.

Thanks for the response, lots of good points.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

Also, going RT means throwing away a TON of damage for no gain. Battlemages cry means you get a ton of added crit for essentially free so it's fairly easy to get near 100% crit chance even with just 5 base crit weapons. If you had gone for crit you'd have 3 or 4 times the damage easily without having to cut defenses.

I don't know about that. I'm using RT myself and I thought about going crit or precise technique instead, but the hassle to get enough accuracy and crit chance seems too much to me.
For Slams, especially slow slams in the case of Belegur, u really want to have 100% chance to hit and 100% chance to crit, otherwise the build feels like shit.

I played an Ice Crash Inquis a while ago and everytime I didn't crit it was like a wet noodle. It felt like I didn't hit at all. Combining that with actually not hitting aswell and maybe the enemy blocking ect. it can feel sluggish pretty quickly.

So I haven't tested it yet, but unless u can get 100% crit chance easily I don't think it's worth it in terms of how the build feels.

It probably felt like a wet noodle because of the massive gap between crit hits and non crit hits. Sometimes I do 10% to a pinnacle boss while other times it's like 60% so obviously the 10% hit's feel weak. The thing is with RT you'll only get those weak hits. Slightly stronger ofc because of more increased on the tree but the difference won't be that big by comparison.

As for accuracy, there are plenty of options to get that. I think i have like a 5% chance to miss against evasive monsters but that's about it and it's honestly rare to see it happen. The much bigger annoyance are attack block monsters but that's the same for RT.

If you say you don't like the feel there isn't much to argue about but it doesn't really change the fact that the damage potential of an RT build is way lower. The last time i reworked the RT Earth Shatter build of someone into a crit version it went from 3 mio to 12. Just with that. I consider that a big waste but to each his own.

I agree with both of you. I think RT is more convenient. It is consistent, and easier get up and running, particularly if you are unfamiliar with the build, and you can also get a lot of the value back by not needing to invest in accuracy at all. Also think on unlimited scale crit will have another direction and more potential for damage. For example my weapon is pretty good, but has a lot of room for improvement as well. Ive also got a few more versions with more clear and flat damage but less dps overall. A crit weapon would make more use of the suffix's, but also be harder to roll. I'm also using a mace because originally it would open up a lot of good crit node on the tree, like blacksmiths clout and painforger, but axe might be another option for RT. Although the mace enchant is pretty good for the build as well.

I've made a few changes since making the post. I crafted a new body armour, its not that different and can still be improved but might be a bit better. Echos of creation is made for the build, I am a bit more squishy but it's a large amount more damage. Not even using the +1 cooldowns, but that could also be incorporated to refine the build. It might be possible to incorporate more endurance charges for survivability. I put in VMS. I will try out the cluster jewel as well. Certain that will be an improvement. Just don't want to do too many changes at once. I'm also going to get aspect of carnage to swap in when i'm doing bosses that don't need unstoppable. It was pretty expensive last time I checked and mightn't be that important with echos equipped, but probably still good for certain fights.

It's not a meta build, just something I POB before the league. There is still a lot of room for improvement but I'm realistic about how far it can go. These have been some good suggestions. It would be good if it can do ubers. Haven't tried any out yet, just started doing some t17 and its doing pretty well.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

It probably felt like a wet noodle because of the massive gap between crit hits and non crit hits. Sometimes I do 10% to a pinnacle boss while other times it's like 60% so obviously the 10% hit's feel weak. The thing is with RT you'll only get those weak hits. Slightly stronger ofc because of more increased on the tree but the difference won't be that big by comparison.

As for accuracy, there are plenty of options to get that. I think i have like a 5% chance to miss against evasive monsters but that's about it and it's honestly rare to see it happen. The much bigger annoyance are attack block monsters but that's the same for RT.

If you say you don't like the feel there isn't much to argue about but it doesn't really change the fact that the damage potential of an RT build is way lower. The last time i reworked the RT Earth Shatter build of someone into a crit version it went from 3 mio to 12. Just with that. I consider that a big waste but to each his own.

Obviously Crit is more damage than RT, that's not up for debate. The question is if it's necessary.
Like u said it's subjective and I didn't like how it felt. Now with already 20m Groundslam and way more Earthshatter dps, do I really need to gimp my QoL just to get to maybe 60m? Maybe if I want to farm ubers, but for T17 imo it's not needed/worth for me.

U said that we now do basically the same damage than with a crit build that doesn't crit, but that's not really true. As crit u invest way more into crit multi, because it's the best multiplier and cut alot of other damage sources and sometimes even pure "more" multiplier with swapping to crit multi support for example. Also I'm going for Impale which wouldn't be possible then and would mean less dps aswell. So all in all I think the "non crit" hit is way lower, but of course the "crit" is way higher aswell.

Also u have to consider more map mods or altar mods that decrease ur accuracy and/or crit chance/multi. It's just convience like Belegur said. I think I'd rather go Precise Technique than crit atm, even tho I'm not running a slow slammer.

/edit: forgot the crit "resistant" mobs aswell, eeew.

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Belegur85 wrote:

It's not a meta build, just something I POB before the league. There is still a lot of room for improvement but I'm realistic about how far it can go. These have been some good suggestions. It would be good if it can do ubers. Haven't tried any out yet, just started doing some t17 and its doing pretty well.

That's the best place to be in tbh. It was the same for my build this league. Just started a random slam berserker and did develop the build from there. It feels so good when u realize how much more potential the build has and u have a slight clue on how to get there.

Just keep it up and I think ubers should be possible. The only thing that might be a bit annoying is the slow attack speed, when u have to dodge a lot in some fights.