1.3 The Community's Molten Strike, Face Melting Build!! 1h+shield and 2h variants available

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Keyblader wrote:

I'm playing the 1h+shield variant in HC tempest league at the moment with a tree i made which is pretty much the 1.3 tree but transferred over to 2.0. Could probably do with some extra work and looking over though for it to be fully optimized.

Heres the tree

Current Gear at level 57

3103HP | 33% phys reduction | all capped res | 138 life regen/sec | 3,143 tooltip with Molten with Anger+HoA

looks good to me. i added born to fight, unwavering stance and retaliation. must have skills imo.

Im currently playing a custom Molten Strike build:



Its intended to be a quality mix between survivability and DPS. You also can easily swap the 2H Sword skills to fit your own personal playstyle.

ATM im at 2400 HP, 31% phys reduction, mid range res (havent found any good gear so far :( ), 3400 DPS

Molten is assisted by Multistrike, Weapon Ele Damage and Superior Added Fire Damage. Fire Golem and HoA are always on! No Anger in my build

Greetz

Frickel

Still rockin' this build from 1.3 and since Molten Strike got a buff in 2.0, I wanted to continue building it to see just how much potential it has. From continued testing, I've made the following changes. All my work was based off Kartikdon's own testing as well as tons more people. Without them, this build wouldn't exist so thank you to all who have contributed in the past :)

First off, pedigree (Level 89):

Life: 3.8k | PDR: 61% (13.2k Armour) | LR/S: 188.9 | MR/S 26.9 | RES: 135%+ | Chaos RES: 36% | DPS (HoA + FG): 34.2k | APS: 3.92

Second, existing skill tree (Level 89):


If you want to take it all the way, then take a look at the final skill tree. This is currently the path for my end game.

Final skill tree (123 point allocation):


Gear:


Notes:

I'm clearing Level 78 Maps just fine (highest I've been able to acquire). Clear rates are good, with the only snags being monsters that have elemental resistance or fire resistance. One way around this is to rely on Vulnerability via CWDT or self cast Flammability, the latter of which becomes disrupted by Enfeeble, but you can skirt the line to find the right balance depending on the map. Enfeeble is a workhorse considering we soak up 100% of the damage volleyed to us.

And there in lies the problem. The build is still viable to some extent, but the issue is the big hits. With regards to mana management (which is actually absurdly easy with this build), I've found that it's a toss up between Revelry and Righteous Decree. On the one hand, Revelry will give you a slightly bigger mana pool, but the 2 mana per hit only begins to show its worth clearing large mobs. Righteous Decree cuts the cost of your strikes down to 42 (from 50). So essentially you're on par the moment your targets drop to >= 4 and you start conserving it when striking single targets (i.e., bosses). My mana regen per second is only 26 and so far, it has been enough where I don't even have to carry around a mana flask. Sometimes it gets low, but I have yet to run out.

In any case, being starved for life and the nature of Molten Strike and Multistrike poses serious problems with hard hitting bosses. Even with hyper attack speed, you are required to remain stationary during attacks and always at melee striking distance with no means to slow or lock down the enemy. This means taking a guaranteed hit and armor/elemental resistance only prevents so much. With Life Leech, you can replenish your Life pool quickly, but for the big blows, it won't be fast enough. I'm working on solutions, but at this point, that has been the roadblock.

I have found routes for damage amplifications above and beyond the original design. Using the following gems, HoA becomes a powerhouse and probably more of a workhorse than Molten Strike + Multistrike with regards to AoE.



There are definitely stronger builds, but tossing around fireballs and watching everything burn till it explodes is a lot of fun.

Note: Marohi Erqi nets way more DPS than Doryani's Catalyst and a Shield (I ran with Saffel's Frame). Granted you do receive a boost to defence with the one-hander and the shield, the boost fades as your DPS plummets. And there is very little in the way of nodes that can make that damage loss back. The tree is definitely geared towards two-handers (especially Staves and Maces). With Marohi, I'm almost double of what Doryani's brings to the table (maybe a little more). If it takes 40% longer to kill monsters, then I would start shaving a large portion of that percentage off from the defence you have gained by using the shield.

TODO:
• Find a good balance with mana sustain while maximizing damage.
• Get more life.
• Better defence against hard hitting bosses.
• Test a burn variant to maximize HoA.

anyone playing molten strike since 2.0?

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kompaniet wrote:

anyone playing molten strike since 2.0?

I played a Molten Strike build (with claws) after 2.0, you can see a link to my guide in my sig.
The main downside was being melee = too rippy.

going to start making an updated build for this... Still deciding on the best route. Ascendancy class, crit/non crit, DW or 1h + shield, etc. If you have any opinions go ahead and contact me in game.

current ign: The_Plaguemancer

Thank YOU! I absolutely love this build! Cant wait to see how it turns out!

Thanks for maintaining this thread.

I wanted to share a new molten strike DPS calculator. This is targeted at people who are comfortable using Path of Building and/or calculating DPS for normal builds. This spreadsheet emphasizes correctly calculating how AoE and point blank affect molten strike's DPS.

Highlights on how it differs from existing calculators:

• It's simple to use. Put in the damage numbers you see in Path of Building and 4 other numbers and it does the rest.
• By doing all the work in a single column, it makes it easy to compare multiple configurations side-by-side.
• It calculates the precise interactions between point blank and molten strike for namelocked bosses. Frequently, people assume they get the full 50% more bonus for all projectiles, but doing so greatly overestimates DPS.
• It includes the 2.6 changes to AoE mechanics.
• It calculates the average number of balls that hit (typically around 30% chance to hit per ball with RT and conc effect). All existing calculators I've found either have bugs or they assume all balls hit, and as such they greatly overestimate DPS.
• Given Mark_GGG's 2014 statement, it assumes the inner radius does not change with AoE. Most people assume both the inner and outer radius change and thus underestimate DPS.
• As with some calculators, notes have been added explaining any non-obvious user inputs, calculations, and assumptions.
• It includes a link to a more complete but much more complicated ipython notebook that analyzes more complex situations and includes a lot of explanation, calculations, tables, renderings, graphs, and analysis.