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

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nocebo wrote:

Wrath increases damage, simple as that. The target is already vulnerable to fire when you hit it, although part of the damage is lightning based at that point. Then again, when you occasionally hit the target when it's fire resistant, the wrath deals some extra damage.

Eh...

The only time it is going to be fire resistant and NOT lightning resistant is after a corpse explosion. Since the infernal blow hit deals fire and lightning, the primary target is always, 100% of the time after the first hit, going to be resistant to lightning.

When the arc totem hits it, it becomes lightning resistant and fire/cold vulnerable. When you whack it, it becomes fire and lightning resistant, and cold vulnerable.

Depending how much damage your arc totem does, it is conceivable that the lightning resistance generated by wrath reduces arc damage more than wrath increases infernal blow damage. If you didn't have wrath, the arc totem would be hitting a lightning vulnerable enemy instead of a lightning resistant enemy.

That said I'm of the opinion that it is moot anyway. You should use melee splash, which makes the arc totem and elemental equilibrium simply bad.

First of all thank you a lot for your detailed answer :-)

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nocebo wrote:

Blood magic is really suberb. You really shouldn't be afraid of it. Sure, it breaks % -based auras somewhat

I'm a little afraid of it. I have an Ice-Shot archer which uses blood magic and I have to keep an eye on the lifepool due to the very high attack speed and the costly skill gem combination. This gets dangerous when the toon takes a lot of damage, fighting back can easily kill me...

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nocebo wrote:

keeping endurance charges up isn't hard at all. Wish I had a video up now to show that to you.

One of my first toons relies on Endurance charges for defense and I died several times because I missed to renew the charges. I have to admit tough that this build is really weak and I don't use increased AoE nor faster casting. So I guess I will give the charges a second chance. Your build should have enough armor to survive even if the charges are not up all the time.

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nocebo wrote:

Perhaps you should just party with someone who has purity/determination, or give it a try without those, following the build. I think you might be surprised how well it all turns out with proper gear.

I prefer playing solo with self-found gear only. But maybe in this case I should make an exception to get Windscream as it seems to be kind of build-enabling.

I have chosen to try your build. Right now my toon is in cruel a2 and so far it was rather easy. Maybe I will try my build later or if I should get stuck with your version. Playing solo self-found has the tendency to slow my progress to a crawl around level 60 when everything gets more gear-dependent...

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magicrectangle wrote:

When the arc totem hits it, it becomes lightning resistant and fire/cold vulnerable. When you whack it, it becomes fire and lightning resistant, and cold vulnerable.

Depending how much damage your arc totem does, it is conceivable that the lightning resistance generated by wrath reduces arc damage more than wrath increases infernal blow damage. If you didn't have wrath, the arc totem would be hitting a lightning vulnerable enemy instead of a lightning resistant enemy.

fully agree

It's true what you both are saying, but the Arc totem minimal damage. It's just there for the EE + blinds. Wrath on the other hand gets multiplied via the numerous melee passives, directly increasing DPS. Pretty certain it deals more damage than the Arc does.

Also, most of the targets Arc will hit, are targets that already took a chained lightning effect to the face, so those will be lightning resistant anyways.

Ideal scenario would actually be infernal blow -> glacial blow -> infernal blow, but then you would have to drop a support gem and flammability wouldn't work as well as it does now. This way each Arc hit would turn the target vulnerable, no matter which attack you have coming. This would also solve the issue with "too fast attack rate", when Arc does not manage to shoot again before your next attack hits.

This would lead us to the fact that because the attack speed is so fast, it will become super hard to effectively swap two skills one after another without wasting attack time.

Doesn't really matter that much, I suppose. Using/losing wrath that is!

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fae76 wrote:

I'm a little afraid of it. I have an Ice-Shot archer which uses blood magic and I have to keep an eye on the lifepool due to the very high attack speed and the costly skill gem combination. This gets dangerous when the toon takes a lot of damage, fighting back can easily kill me...

I think the reason is a) lack of life regen and b) high attack speed. This build has the life regen and relatively slow attack speed, compared to many other "attack" based builds.

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fae76 wrote:

I prefer playing solo with self-found gear only. But maybe in this case I should make an exception to get Windscream as it seems to be kind of build-enabling.

Hah! :)

I've always enjoyed the trading game plenty. It's basically half the game - one part of searching the loot, I suppose. :)

Yeah, it will definitely become very hard without trading a thing!

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fae76 wrote:

I have chosen to try your build. Right now my toon is in cruel a2 and so far it was rather easy. Maybe I will try my build later or if I should get stuck with your version. Playing solo self-found has the tendency to slow my progress to a crawl around level 60 when everything gets more gear-dependent...

Keep me posted! :)

I have taken a lot of inspiration from your build, and I tried it out - in the beginning. But I had to low HP, and no real AOE. Your point about the explosion from IB, is a bit flawed in my opinion. I tried it, but if the mobs are not packed really closely, you dont wipe the whole bunch at once.

I respecced a few points, and (for me at least) it works a lot better. Namely, I went sword and board. (And I think this build is better if you take it as a marauder)

Here is my spec:
(next point will go into +30% fire damg, dealt with weapons)

My tooltip DPS is 5k, with melee splash, and shield and board. I couldnt get a hold of windscream yet, so only 2 curses (flamability, end lower resist, or enfeeble if I feel the area is a little sketchy)

I know 5k seems low, but I absolutely trash everything.

My 2 cent to this post were - first of all. I think melee splash REALLY supplement the build.
It went from okay fast 1 shotting a mob (and maybe damaging his next of kin, or a few more) but I 3-4 shot whole packs now. And tbh, with 1.7 Attacks per second (tooltip), my biggest concern is getting arc to go faster. melee splash works wonders with this build. I lowered my tooltip DPS from 8k (without melee splash) -> 5k (with melee splash) but I think ive cut my grinding time in half. And the quality bonus from melee splash (20% Increased AOE range) also benefits the IB explosion (read it - not tested it yet) so they synergise well.

2nd of all, some BDA from the sword and board side from this build. I tweaked it a bit more towards a elemental build. Since I deal 110% of my physical dps as fire (35% added fire, 50% IB, 25% chernobogs)
And boy do I feel powerfull, as a sword and board build, this does tremendous damage, and I really like the 34 block from (chernobogs + 1x6& shield node)
I got pretty lucky, and am currently wielding a 283 DPS 1 hander. With chernobogs, you scale better than the pure IB+added fire type of build.

A link to my gear for the curios:


TL:DR Took a lot of inspiration from this build, and a notion of how this is IMO better as a marauder build + how it works a shield and boarder
EDIT: Lvl 75, soon 76, and has started doing maps, which IMO goes pretty well

A2 cruel: Well this is hilarious. After I started one-shooting rare mobs I decided to try melee splash. After swapping Melee Phy Dmg for Melee Splash I'm one-shooting entire mob packs, sometimes even rare ones if I start with the weaker mobs around it to trigger a chain-reaction... I'm not even using double curses, just Flammability :-)

At this stage I prefer Ice Nova over Arc to trigger EE. Reach of Ice Nova is certainly smaller but on the other hand it hits all the mobs at once which is not the case for Arc. Arc triggers more blinds though. But right now my toon kills so fast I usually don't have to use Molten Shell, Endurance charges or blinds.

I'm having a lot of fun with this build, glad I tired it :-) Thanks OP!

It is worth emphasizing that quality infernal blow and quality melee splash are vital. The area bonuses on each apply to the other. That is, if you have 20% melee splash and 20% infernal blow, you get 40% increased explosion radius and 40% increased splash radius.

That's a synergy that is way too good to pass up.

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magicrectangle wrote:

It is worth emphasizing that quality infernal blow and quality melee splash are vital. The area bonuses on each apply to the other. That is, if you have 20% melee splash and 20% infernal blow, you get 40% increased explosion radius and 40% increased splash radius.

That's a synergy that is way too good to pass up.

That is tasty, but then again - your single target DPS gets gimped. Often the hardest fight of a dungeon is vs a singular target.

...but then again, I would focus survival over damage.

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nocebo wrote:

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magicrectangle wrote:

It is worth emphasizing that quality infernal blow and quality melee splash are vital. The area bonuses on each apply to the other. That is, if you have 20% melee splash and 20% infernal blow, you get 40% increased explosion radius and 40% increased splash radius.

That's a synergy that is way too good to pass up.

That is tasty, but then again - your single target DPS gets gimped. Often the hardest fight of a dungeon is vs a singular target.

That one is easy, just use both. All you need are 2 good 2 handers one for AoE and one for single target then simply switch weapon according to situation. Level a Heavy Strike gem as well for elemental reflect...

What I start to miss in this build is mobility. 3 curses, Molten Shell, Enduring Cry, Arc-Totem and Infernal Blow fill up all quick slots (I prefer to keep the LMB for move only) so there is no quick slot left for Lightning Warp or Leap Slam. Sometimes this would be very useful. Yesterday for example I encountered a room full of skeleton mages and 3 Necros. I could not get to the Necros because the other mobs kept blocking the entrance and got resurrected nearly as fast as I could kill them.