[v1.7] 39k+ DPS with INFERNAL BLOW, +239% life, +6.8% regen, +145% armor, TRIPLE curses + blinds!

// VERSION HISTORY




// WHO AM I?

Played actively since C64, Diablo 2 was one of my favorite games, although I quit playing it when the duplicates popped. This was before the synergies. I've also done some game reviewing in the past and bit of game developing (Crimsonland).

Swapped from IT to composing & sound designing, and you can actually find some of my tunes from: www.soundcloud.com/Artifex28
Mostly soundtrack / soundscapes / new age - give it a listen and some comments as well! :)

I recently finished an audio rework for Elder Scrolls Online -trailer, give it a listen!

Well, that's it for self advertising! Off to the business. :)


// NUMBERS

Current level: 79,2
Infernal Blow tooltip with anger + wrath: 17.9k

Theoretical damage vs base 0% fire resist target:
-46% fire resistance from flammability
-56% from elemental weakness
-50% fire resistance from elemental equilibrium

= total 152% negative fire resistance

Single target DPS of Infernal Blow, after modifiers vs fire resist 0% base target:

33887 FIRE DPS
2528 PHYSICAL DPS
1522 LIGHTNING DPS
1467 COLD DPS

TOTAL: 39404

Details




That's quite a bit of damage, without RF, low life -tricks for a rather tanky build. But it gets even better when someone in your party actually stacks shocks...

You will find out that while this build uses arc on spell totem, the damage is too minor to actually proc shocks yourself. Now you might wonder, why we are using arc in the first place. That's to proc blinds and elemental equilibrium debuff on enemies. Arc has godly range and reach, it chains, casts fast on spell totem, hits always and without any waiting.

As everyone with any experience knows, damage is good for nothing, if you cannot survive. Staying one second in the fight - and another out - halves your actual DPS. I can vouch that this build will survive at least up to L72 maps with ease, both in solo and in party.

I rarely play alone with this build, since the damage is just ridiculously high. Overkill damage isn't effective, it simply slows you down. I also enjoy the extra EXP and +50% quantity per player in party adds to the mix!

Did I get your interest? Hope so!

"So stay a while, and listen!" *in the voice of you-know-who*


// BUILD


Type: Fire based, (2 handed) melee debuffer.

Difficulty: High. Multiple skills. Melee is much harder to play than ranged - not to mention 2 handed melee. Not a real tank, but not made of paper either.

Gameplay: Enemies are first debuffed from range and then the highest HP target is killed at melee, which wipes the weaker trash mobs around as the corpse explodes.


This is one awkward build. I've always enjoyed playing something...unexpected. Something that isn't a cookie cutter build. It doesn't have to be the strongest build in all cases, but melee considering this one seems to be very good. I used to have a full necromancer and a lightning strike marauder in closed beta last autumn and thought that I'd try something very different this time.

The idea is to debuff enemies with -150%+ fire resistance and blind the champions/uniques. After that it's time to explode the highest HP targets and just clear the weaker ones with the toughest one exploding.

Elemental Equilibrium allows also rather fast killing of "immune to curses"- enemies with high fire resists. Notice that Infernal Blow also has a base damage efficiency of 125%, which is one reason we can reach this high damage.

Elemental equilibrium effect lasts 5 second, and it also gets refreshed each time you deal new type of elemental damage. Faster casting supported Arc on spell totem, will not only have great reach, but it will also proc blind like hell and keep proccing elemental equilibrium debuff on targets, which means fire vulnerability.


Pros

-Crazy debuffer
-3 curses (flammability, elemental weakness, temporal chains)
-Temporal chains synergies super well with Hex Mastery (infinite curses vs 4.5s normal duration)
-Blinding spell totem with Arc
-Blinds synergy well with temporal chains (+50% duration)
-Massive single target DPS + high AoE DPS via killing the high HP single targets.
-Rather sturdy, specially for 2h melee
-Can complete blood magic, chaos dmg, 50% regen and physical reflect maps with ease
-7 Endurance charges -> great survivability and life regen
-No accuracy, DEX or mana nodes needed
-Won't be gimped by "immune to curses" via elemental equilibrium
-Only one piece of Unique gear needed (Windscream)


Cons

-Gear dependant for all resist + life, and ~130 DEX
-Slow AoE early/mid game. (use lightning strike early game if you want to)
-Long setup time for "full skill rotation"


Click me for the FINAL BUILD WITH 118 POINTS SPENT

Pick Precision for +20 DEX near templar start if you do not get enough DEX from gear while leveling. Also perfectly fine to do some "detours" to get those +30 INT/DEX nodes, which you respec later.

Also, you could pick the two 0.4% life regen nodes south of duelist nodes, and drop the two 10% melee damage ones there, other with the +12 life.


// PASSIVE POINT PROGRESSION WHILE LEVELING

25 passive points
52 passive points
96 passive points


// STATISTICS & CORE KEYSTONES

Resolute Technique (cannot miss, cannot crit)
Elemental Equilibrium (roughly L50)
Blood Magic (roughly L60)
Hex Master (roughly L70)
Whispers of Doom (roughly L70)

Suberb site for calculating stats from passive URLs!




// SKILLS & GEMS




// GEAR

You have one core piece of gear.

You will need the extra +1 curse.

You will need to get +DEX and probably some +INT early game from your gear for the few green support gems you will be using - faster attacks and blind. INT will go to faster casting and discipline.

Focus +LIFE and resists. You really don't need to focus on damage on the gear. Prioritize getting the resistances up and only then increase the damage with gear that gives both the resistances, life and damage. Aim for the +80% all resist cap and as you can to minimize the amount of freezes, shocks and burns on you.

Notice that weapon elemental damage % -bonuses will NOT increase the damage of the infernal blow "corpse explosion". That explosion is PURE fire damage, and the source is not weapon, but the corpse itself. Thus gear with "Fire %" damage increase your AoE potential, where weapon elemental damage % increases your single target DPS.

You actually SHOULD NOT aim for the "fastest possible 2 hander", since the Arc will not be fast enough to keep up with your attack rate. In ideal scenario you'd hit the target first, then arc would hit it turning it again fire vulnerable - then you again - and yet again arc, before you hit it again.

My current gear




// SKILL ROTATION

Typical rotation is:

1) Cast molten shield
2) Cast spell totem
3) Cast curses
4) Cast enduring cry
5) Infernal blow madness.

This is what I do vs champions/elites/unique enemies. Normal creeps, I might just enduring cry to refresh/add endurance charges and then and cast flammability/curses.

You will have more than enough life regen to spam your spells as much as you simply can. Focus getting the "Sapped ...of <+increased armor %, dispels chilled and frozen and dispels cursed" -flasks, so you get the +60% recovery in cost of 10% mana (which you don't have) - with +% armor while recovering. My 5th flask is a granite one, with increased armor %.

I am going to replace one of the health flasks with quicksilver one, for some mobility. Just for comfort. :)


// BANDIT REWARDS

On normal get the life reward, since you will eventually have +239% life from passives. The +40 life will eventually turn to ~135 life. There isn't anything in the passive tree that would benefit you more, with the 119th pick.

On cruel, get the +1 passive skill point.

On merciless, get endurance charge by siding with Oak. I failed here and took a passive point by accident.



// ENDING THOUGHTS

Level 62 update

My DPS is 8.3k with Anger. -140% enemy resistances would give a DPS of 8.3k * 2.4 = ~20k vs enemy with base fire resistance of 0%. This is rarely the case, but you see where this is going. People have been asking me about my DPS/build in every single public party I've joined, when they noticed me one shotting enemies. This is also the reason I suggest using 2 handers. The absolute value of your DPS will increase from the negative resistance multiplier so much. Notice that this applies for softcore. Naturally on hardcore it's all about survival, and I'd suggest 1h+shield.


Level 78 update

45k theoretical barrier broken. There's still plenty to reach DPS-wise, considering I have no IAS on my gear and other of my rings, not to mention belt, have no weapon elemental damage %. Nor I have a 6L yet. Your actual DPS isn't sustainable at that rate, since Arc does not cast fast enough for roughly 2.5 APS I currently have. That means that occasionally hits will actually land vs +25% fire resists instead of -50%, but this really isn't an issue, since typically targets will go down VERY quick anyways. This does not concern solo play, since targets will get one or two shotted anyways 99% of the time.


That's it. Now go on, roll one - and remember to pop a comment now and then, how YOUR adventure is going!

IGN: Ordik

-Artifex 28 @ Soundcloud

Can shields have +elemental / fire damage?

Notice that the spell damage does not apply to infernal blow!

Updated.

Zealot's Oath is not really viable with a hybrid build, at least not without CI.

FEEDBACK! - DO YOU HAS IT?!

Hmm OP.. I also run a Infernal Blow based templar too, albeit more elemental damage based and uses Sword/ rapier and Board.

Here's my skill tree (At level 42, this is my second toon)

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUABAcEswVbDH0QfxRNGF0ZhRo4GmwfAiSqKU8tHzKJNsVG10yzV-JdxmBtbRl35Xy7gW-CHoKbgziLjJBVnYCdrp48ogCnCKeEtPm4k8Hzxp7YJNrd2wvd8-Fz5CLsOO0g8B_zcQ==

Notable Skills I use:
-Eldrich battery ( for aura spam and infinite cleaves and Infernal blows)
-Inner Force
-Leap slam (moblity is good for dem pesky ranged)
-Infernal Blow with Fire pent + weapon elemental + chance to ignite

- Cleave with LOH
-Molten Shield (with Iron Will + Duration increase)
- Anger + Wrath + Discipline + Clarity (maybe with Hatred)
-Enfeeble + Flammability





I am in cruel so far and I am balling, with molten shield + cleave / Infernal Blow my templar facerolls most mobs with impunity.


I would disagree with slow weapons though, I realized with elemental based builds as templar you really Want to hit fast, since Infernal blow pretty much overkills things anyways. I also feel that melee really needs the shield for extra survivability though.


Your passive tree wise I feel that imho, I feel Resolute technique is not very useful as opposed to picking up Weapon tree perks, having 89%-90% hit rate for me is pretty consistent already as opposed to wasting points into Resolute technique.

Finally, Resistance Perks are questionable at best - Its pretty easy to get maxed Resistances through itemization.

Just my 2 cents op, Have fun balling with your templar.

Thanks for the reply!

You will soon find out that the game turns much harder as you progress to merciless.

The thing is, that when you skip dex & accuracy completely, you can focus on items that do not have any accuracy nor dex rolls on them. This means we can hope to equip only items that are "perfect rolls", having 6 prefix/suffixes that we want to have. Now, if you need DEX/accuracy - you will "waste" some of prefix/suffixes for that.

You also gain a "negative" multiplier to your total damage (your accuracy, 0.85 with 85% eg.)

And all this for what? So you can crit? Sure, it can be good if your build focuses around critting. But if we are only talking crit chance lower than 15%, with crit damage of 200% - the 85% accuracy would get you "back to the starting square". PRO/CON-wise you'd be where you stated. But now you have to count the "losing of prefixes/suffixes" on items as a CON, which certainly means you should have a much higher crit chance to properly benefit from it.

And then about the resistances.

Merciless has -60% base resistances as a difficulty modifier.

Now when we have 60% base all resistance from passives, we still need to get a whopping 80% all res from gear. It's not that easy, but it will be needed to avoid the shock, freezing and burning effects. But it is much easier now, since we do not need to waste stats on dex/accuracy on items.

Ah didnt realize Merciless has a -60% Multiplier Lol.

If what You said about Resolute technique is correct, I might just have to spec that LOL, getting 15% less damage all the time is pretty stupid for just 5% crit.


I planned my build around not getting 'perfect rolls' all the time though. That and I dont like one handing maces and axes haha, Not enough swagger compared to rapier /Swords. That and sword and rapiers hit faster. I pretty much just get enough Dex to equip them and try to keep my hit rating around 85-90%.






What do you think about FairGrave's Tricorne as a core helmet though ? I got it and I think its pretty beastly though - immunity to shock is pretty big. ( Getting smashed by the damned mages in Act 3 was why I rerolled) Probably going to use it to end game.

"

Kyozumi wrote:

Ah didnt realize Merciless has a -60% Multiplier Lol.

If what You said about Resolute technique is correct, I might just have to spec that LOL, getting 15% less damage all the time is pretty stupid for just 5% crit.


I planned my build around not getting 'perfect rolls' all the time though. That and I dont like one handing maces and axes haha, Not enough swagger compared to rapier /Swords. That and sword and rapiers hit faster. I pretty much just get enough Dex to equip them and try to keep my hit rating around 85-90%.


What do you think about FairGrave's Tricorne as a core helmet though ? I got it and I think its pretty beastly though - immunity to shock is pretty big. ( Getting smashed by the damned mages in Act 3 was why I rerolled) Probably going to use it to end game.

Well, it is correct if your accuracy is 85%. :)

Is your accuracy is 95%, the multiplier for melee based skills would be 0.95. Then the 5% crit would "even it", (with 200% crit damage, notice that base is 150%, isn't it?) but still you would have to pick accuracy nodes/affixes to get that 95% accuracy. Which would not even it out. Resolute Technique would still win the PRO/CON -comparison.

What I've heard the shock immunity is a huge thing, but I'd expect that with 80% lightning resist the shocking would not be happening all the time. Massive health pool + regen is there to help you survive. Not to mention high armor and ES.

This is unconfirmed, but as long as you have ES up - you have stun resistance of 50%. I would not be too surprised to find out that this extends to other alignment effects, like shock...

I'm actually really liking the idea of this build, will likely be starting a character based off this. Would appreciate any other insights you have as you progress. Thanks for sharing.

"

Villert wrote:

I'm actually really liking the idea of this build, will likely be starting a character based off this. Would appreciate any other insights you have as you progress. Thanks for sharing.

Glad to hear that!

I am only L37, but this far it's been - as expected - a total steamroll. Few deaths by playing supercocky, but then again it's softcore... And the reason for that is my 2Mbit/2Mbit connection 3G connection while at school. :D

I haven't yet picked any FIRE DAMAGE nodes, only +elemental.

I am currently running with:

Lightning Strike (AoE)
+Weapon Elemental Damage
+Weapon Melee Damage
+Fork (experimenting over lesser multiple projectiles), doesn't really matter at this point...
+Adding Pierce as soon as the "gear stabilizes" a bit.



Infernal Blow (single target)
+Weapon Elemental Damage
+Added Fire Damage
+Fire Penetration



The boots are terrible. Trying to fetch the unique reinforced boots, with the +1 curse...

Flammability
Enduring Cry
Rejuvination Totem
Molten Shield
Clarity

My current passive picks are: http://tinyurl.com/at5bmty

Aiming to pick those life/regen nodes from Marauder-tree for now.
Then it's time to probably fetch endurance charge- nodes which I skipped earlier. Depending on gear/drops at that point, might pick the armor/ES-nodes, or could go directly to lava lash/blood drinker.

...and lastly. Be sure to play PUBLIC games (been creating them, so I actually can get my quests done) - for much better drops. Infernal Blow also shines here, since as there are more players -> enemies have more HP -> no/not that much overkill damage from it. :)

This was certainly a purchase worth an orb of alchemy on L28. :p