[1.1.X] Dual Claws Essentia Sangui Elemental Spectral Thrower (Video included)

Introducing my latest creation, the Dual Claws Elemental Spectral Thrower. She's level 85 ranger and is one of my most powerful character up to now (The name is Diabila).

Highlights (stats at level 86)

1: ~11k dps with 5L Spectral throw (~16k dps with 6L). ~46k dps with 4L Dual Strike.
2: 3 Auras (Wrath, Anger, Grace)
3: 47% chance to block (57% chance to block with dual Essentia Sangui)
4: 10k+ Armor (Iron Reflexes)
5: 3500 life + 1300 ES. Ghost Reaver (With Essential Sangui)
6: 2 Uniques : Alpha's Howl and Essentia Sangui.
7: +595% chance to crit with 5 Power Charges.

Offense

Main Skill

Diabila's main skill is Spectral Throw supported by Power Charges on Crit + Weapon Elemental Damage + Faster Attack + Lesser Multiple Projectiles. My optional 5th support is Item Rarity/Increased Critical Dmg. With 5 Power Charges and self-buffed (Wrath and Anger), it deals around 10k dps with 5L. With a 6th link (Increased Critical Damage), the dps is 15k.

Single target skill

The single target skill is Dual Strike. Supported by Weapon Elemental Damage, Faster Attack and Increased Critical Damage, it deals around 46k dps.

Auras

The build benefits from -25% mana reservation passives in addition to -8% from the Alpha's Helmet. This allows the character to use 3 Auras. I normally use Wrath, Anger and Grace. They are obviously socketed in the Alpha's Howl to get +2 to their level. In addition, the build provides +42% to aura effect. All in all, it means that Wrath provides an additional 29-466 base lightning damage while Anger provides an additional 155-258 base Fire damage. Finally, Grace provides an additional 3076 evasion. This translate into 3076 Armor since the character use Iron Reflexes.

While running some specific maps mods, it is sometimes a good idea to use different auras than the usual ones. For example, in "Vulnerability" maps, I often run Determination instead of Anger for increased defense. In "Lower mana regen" maps, I can decide to run Clarity instead of Wrath. In "Elemental Weakness" maps, I usually run Purity of Elements instead of Wrath.

Curse

Since 85% of my damage is elemental, the best offensive curse is Elemental Weakness. Critical weakness would also work, but I find Elemental Weakness more efficient. For harder content, I use Temporal Chain as my defensive curse.

Other utility skills

Conversion traps : A personal favorite. Works with any build. Supported with multiple traps and increased duration. Its very helpful in many situations.

Devouring totem : Awesome tool to leech mana and life from corpses.

Defense

With my current gear, Diabila has around 3500 life and 1300 ES. She also has a decent chance to block (47% against attacks) and pretty decent armor (10,310). The build's passives includes only +8% to all elemental resists, so its not easy to reach max resist. For this reason, I suggest to pick up the +8 to all resist bandit reward in normal difficulty. Currently, my character has max resists except cold (+65%) and chaos (-60%).

The build also includes Ghost Reaver (thanks to the unique claw Essentia Sanguis) so the life leeched (either by the attacks or by the Devouring totem) helps to replenish the energy shield pool. Its particularly useful in chaos per second maps where the ES cannot replenish at all without leech.

Why ES Leech instead of Life Leech ? For many reasons. ES is the first pool that get damaged so it makes sense to "heal" it first. It can't be healed with potions like Life. Finally, like mentioned above, the character wouldn't be able to run the very common "chaos per sec" maps without ES leech. So I consider Ghost Reaver essential for the build.

Build's passives choices (at level 86):



Passives choices progression (1 to 118 points):




Bandit rewards (I underlined my choice)

Normal : 40 Life, +8 to elemental resists or +1 Passive points.
Cruel : +1 passive point
Merciless : +1 power charge

Gear and skills setup :



What kind of gear you should look for

With passives and gear that provides +106% to Evasion (including +52% to Armor thanks to Iron Reflexes), 82% to Energy shield and 52% to Armor. Evasion is naturally the first defense you should look for on gear. Energy shield is also a good idea since the build can leech any ES back and, contrary to Evasion or Armor, Energy shield increase your "health", making your character stronger against elemental damage (especially elemental spells).

For your main hand weapon, I highly suggest to pick a claw (for the +10% chance to block bonus from the Essential Sangui) with high local crit (to benefit from all the crit passives), decent physical dmg (for mana and life leech) and high elemental dmg, ideally lightning (the build provides an extra 30% lightning dmg).

In addition, its important for survivability to have lots of +life on gear. The build provides a respectable +170% to life so each point of life from gear should give a good boost.

Another thing to look for on gear is +mana and mana regen. The build provides +56% to mana and +110% to mana regen, but because of the limited available mana (The 3 auras takes up 87% of the mana pool), you'll need to increase your total mana somewhat with +mana items. Mana regen will also help to sustain a 5L or 6L Spectral Throw + Curse casting. 4L Dual Strike's mana consumption is not really a problem.

Gameplay video

Soloing Temple map and killing the boss (Piety)

Any comments or suggestions are appreciated !

Do you feel that the ES leech rate (20% of max ES per second) is too slow? How do you return HP, or is that just on regen?

It's always been my experience that dual claws ST is severely outclassed in damage (therefore leech) by pretty well any other setup. Tested it against cyclone and reave. Have you tried other skills, can I ask why you chose ST? (Got a pretty good idea of the answer, but I'd like to hear it from you.)

You have a really pretty Vaal, can you do a quick test? spec the next like 4 points to get to GR in the tree, lose the Essentia in favour of a dagger or another fantastic claw and test your clearspeed/damage?

Ever consider using a Rain and why or why not?

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Kirielis wrote:

Do you feel that the ES leech rate (20% of max ES per second) is too slow?

My main defenses are block (47%), physical damage reduction (10k armor) and health 4700 Life/ES. ES leech is a secondary form of defense. For most content, its mainly to top off my ES without having to wait several seconds for it to replenish by itself. Also, for harder content, I usually cast a devouring totem linked with faster casting. At level 15, it leeches 289 ES per second. If my strength was high enough for a level 20 devouring totem, It'd leech 443 ES per second. I don't think the devouring totem leech is limited by the 20% of max ES per second rule. So, if I add the max leech from my attack (260 ES per second) to the leech per second I get from devouring totem, the result is 549 ES per second. I consider it decent for a secondary form of defense. At this point, the mana leeched by the totem is icing on the cake.

"

How do you return HP, or is that just on regen?

Regen (1% life per second) and life potions. I'll get 2% life per second at level 89 (Hearth of Oak).

"

It's always been my experience that dual claws ST is severely outclassed in damage (therefore leech) by pretty well any other setup. Tested it against cyclone and reave. Have you tried other skills, can I ask why you chose ST? (Got a pretty good idea of the answer, but I'd like to hear it from you.)

I tried ST with another character just for fun and I liked it so much that I decided to build a character specialized in ST. Because of support gems availability and the +projectile dmg from the gem (+57%) and passives (+39% for 4 passives), I think Spectral Throw scales much better with elemental damage than most melee skills. Since its much harder to leech life off elemental dmg, I didn't build the character with leech as a primary form of defense.

In term of dps, frankly, I find the clearing speed with ST so good that I never felt the need to explore other skills. Its true that ST dmg multiplier is only 60%. However, if a fight last more than a couple of second, the damage multiplier is more like 120% because each projectile hit the target twice. So, all in all, I consider the damage multiplier of Spectral throw to be 100% instead of 60%. So, in reality, the 10k tootip dps of 5L ST is more like 16.6k dps. The 15k tooltip dps of 6L ST is more like 25k dps. I consider it pretty good dps for a balanced build. With Lesser Multiple Projectile, the area of effect is also much larger than any other alternative skills, even Reave. As a result, it clears faster and its safer.

"

You have a really pretty Vaal

Thanks ! When I bought it, it had onlt 2 prefix (Increased physical dmg and added lighting dmg) and 3 suffix. So I eternaled+exalted it hoping to get +flat physical dmg or +flat elemental dmg. Unfortunately, I got + mana... 3 times in a row. So, I still have the opportunity to improve the claw but for now, I gave up :p

"

Can you do a quick test? spec the next like 4 points to get to GR in the tree, lose the Essentia in favour of a dagger or another fantastic claw and test your clearspeed/damage?

Losing the Essentia would not only mean 4 less passive points (And franky, I'm not sure where I could cut). It would also mean 10% lower chance to block and 63 less energy shield. Also, because of a good balance of attack speed, crit chance and physical/elemental dmg, the damage output of the Essentia is not bad at all. In fact, when I equip only 1 weapon, the dps of my Vaal Claw is about the same as the Essentia (a difference of only like 300 dps). That's because of the fast attack speed of the Essential combined with my augmented Anger and Wrath auras.

"

Ever consider using a Rain and why or why not?

Rainbowstride boots ? I think they would be great for the character. The "25% chance to block applied to spells", the extra mana and the ES would all fit perfectly with the build. The problem is the lack of resist, particularly with the non-legacy version. The lack of life is also a weak spot, but its manageable. Eventually, I might purchase a legacy Rainbowstride but I'll have to compensate the missing resists elsewhere.

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Great questions ! Thanks for your interest !

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I finally added a video, available on YouTube (Soloing Temple Map, including the boss):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_wlsg9NpMA&feature=youtu.be

^

Hi Velkor, I'm interested in your build. With the new leagues coming out, is this build easily made for Hardcore play? Is it expensive to get the gear...How is the survivability... etc

Very well done btw!

Does this build still work?

Was thinking of trying it out before new leagues came up

Would it be hardcore worthy?

"

juntar wrote:

Hi Velkor, I'm interested in your build. With the new leagues coming out, is this build easily made for Hardcore play? Is it expensive to get the gear...How is the survivability... etc

Very well done btw!

"

vixenia wrote:

Does this build still work?

Was thinking of trying it out before new leagues came up

Would it be hardcore worthy?

Thanks !

The build definitively still work. Its very strong both offensively and defensively and doesn't require that much in term of gear.

The only thing that is required is a 5L ES/Evasion chest, Alpha's Howl and at least one Essentia Sangui (Dual Essentia is also a good choice for the additional 10% chance to block). For the rest of gear, you want pieces with high amount of life and some elemental resists so you can get +75 to all resists by the end Merciless.

The build has been designed to work in end-game standard which mean the character is gonna be sturdy enough to not die. Would it work in Hardcore ? Most likely. Maybe the passive tree could be tweaked to include more defensive nods and less offensive nods like this maybe :



It includes an additional 32% increased life, 50 str (25 flat life) and 10 int (+2% es)

At the cost of +16% accuracy and +125% chance to crit.

Surprisingly, this build's passives choices are exatly the same with patch 1.1.0. The only numerical difference, in term of passives, is the mana and life nod in Shadow area which got buffed from 15 mana/15 life to 20 mana/20 life and one 8% life passive that got buffed to 12%.

Other than that, Spectral Throw got significantly buffed. At level 20, it does 65% weapon damage instead of 60%, which is 8.3% more damage. In other words, if the dps was 10k before, it should be 10,8k now.

I don't think Spectral throw needed a buff but I'll gladly take it.