[1.1.3] Dominating Blow - 75+ seconds duration. low gear requirements

DISCLAIMER:
This is NOT uber-survivable, Invasion viable, min-maxed build. If you are looking for optimum efficiency - there are other guides, most of them include spectral throw in the title.
Even among DB builds there are better ones (mostly these with FB and 20k+ dps) and the only reason I have DB on mana is my stubbornness and will to prove that it is possible to do so.

This is a repost from skill feedback where my DB feedback got longer and longer with each time i re-visited said post. I have made several 75+ chars (not any higher because I do not trade much and never party - if a char can do 7x+ random rare map i consider it complete and move on) and out of these Dominating Blow char i think is the most interesting.

This builds DOES NOT rely on OP stuff, does not exploit snapshoting, does not rely on one particular mob type (BM/Evangelists). this is fair and simple build that - because of that - is not likely to be affected by future patches

Summary:

- 75+ seconds uptime on dominated minions
- 5L Dominating Blow run on mana
- average single target kills without minions
- EXTREME damage with minion army
- gear independent but ofc the better gear the better

PROS:
- does not need any specific item besides good enough weapon (Kongors is my item of choice)
- works perfectly with 5L. 6L is not needed, but ofc helps. Is effective with 4L
- INCREDIBLE fun factor!
- surprisingly high clear speeds once you learn how to manage minions
- ignores content level. if it works in fellshrine it shall work in lvl79 maps. it is just question of you staying alive and doing enough dmg to tag enemies for conversion
- incredible staying power.
- Rare mobs auras stay with you
- Incredible synergy with vaal auras. Vaal haste for that double damage, vaal discipline for these 6 seconds of uber tankiness (looking at you temple piety!)
- mob uptime = 75seconds currently, 82 theoretical max if i calculate correctly. this is A LOT.
- Increased Duration goes well with A LOT of skills that are otherwise meh or just 'ok' (vaal molten shell, Immortal Call, Animate Weapon, Summon Raging Spirit etc - there are a lot of 'duration' skills in this game)


CONS:
- starting a dangerous map is always a challenge. but once you have 2+ minions it is all easy
- leveling with DB is not that great because Duration this build is based on is available rather late. sadly the easiest way to build this char is to use free full respec.. ofc it is not impossible to do it 'legit' but it simply is a build that clicks together at some level and previously is just meh
- going to town == minions die. this requires strategic thinking when clearing maps with very dangerous bosses. easy to remedy this with Vaal Summon Skeletons if you have socket for that. Also I use Animated Weapons to ease the first kill in dangerous maps (or to kill minion vacuum - temple piety)
- probably not party friendly. my usual army size is 50+.. mind people with AMD cards and if they complain, leave the party. it is not their fault that poe has coding issues..



Few fun facts:

- dominated minions are 'Minions' but not 'Alies'. This means that all 'summoner' items and passives affect your army.
- if a map has 'monsters fire 2 additional projectiles' your dominated minions ARE NOT affected by that. but they inherit their 'base' mods/skills.
- dominated rare is still 'rare' and has all its stats INCLUDING auras
- that 'minions have XX increased phys dmg' applies to the player, too.
- minions retain their stats. that means that this build is more or less 'content level independent'. if it works for you in Dunes it shall work as well in Shipyard. monsters are killing themselves anyway.

General overview:

there two ways to build DB character:
- you deal lots of dmg yourself and have feeble minions that just quickly vanish and are just a distraction and an rare aura from time to time for short time bonus. this guide is not about this style of play. most common version of this playstyle is the 'facebreaker DB'
- you deal 'enough' damage, your minions (hordes of these) deal 95% of total damage. this guide is about this playstyle.

My tree and explanation of choices:

- I knew I'll have Kongors so i ignored Resolute Technique and focused on mace nodes
- i luckily 5Linked lightning coil so focus on Ligtning resist is obvious
- I stubbornly decided to run this skill on MANA to shut up the 'Blood magic or gtfo' crowd. I do not regret and I think that after finalizing my gear i can drop some mana-related nodes already.
- I did that long trip to Templar because:
- - Scion minion healing nodes
- - mana/life nodes
- - increased AOE (for melee splash) node
- - very good life nodes
- - I needed some dex/int anyway and there is a limit to how much dex/int you can get from gear
- - -7% mana cost
- 45% increased duration is a foundation of this build

My current gear with comments:

- Kongors (while not the strongest mace) has a built in Resolute technique that allows me to save up on points. My dmg is mostly irrelevant as it just needs to be 'enough' so crits are not needed. +all resistances are very desirable mod due to Lightning Coil.
- Skullhead I just got and I'm still experimenting with it. It has worse stats than my normal helmet but it is going to be easier to chrome to RBGG (mana/haste/purity/vaalHaste)
- dual curse boots (all resists + dual curse). In general everything on this char (except Skullhead) is self found and is not worth much (i think so, im not really into trading)

Links:
Dominating Blow[2] + Melee Phys Damage[5] + Melee Splash[1] + Culling Strike[3] + Increased Duration[4] + (Increased Area)

Numbers mean order of getting Q20 versions.

Dominating Blow: quality affects minion longevity. Levels your (and minions) general damage.
Melee Phys Dmg: quality is least important, affects both you and your melee attacking minions
Melee Splash: see below. MANDATORY
Culling Strike: +20% damage is huge. this affects ALL your minions (melee/ranged/spell/degen) and you. also the cull itself == 10% more damage on average. HUGE dmg boost
Increased Duration: MANDATORY. you want your minions to stay with you as long as possible
Inc Area of Effect: bigger splash range. see below

why no multistrike? several reasons:
- affects only melee attackers. this is only a subset of your minions!
- affects you:
- - increases your dps
- - decreases your mobility (need to do all 3 swings no matter what) - this applies to minions too!
- - mana cost
- - cull is much better

Melee splash: this is the second most important important support. DB has a negative feedback loop: the more minions you have -> the less mobs YOU kill -> the less minions you have. to circumvent this you need to make sure you 'tag' (that is damage, even for irrelevant value) mobs for domination. melee splash with as wide radius as possible is the best and only choice.

Mana management:
First - ive calculated BM gem and it is simply not viable no matter what.
BM gem
a) removes one dmg link (or two if your life leech from gear/tree is not enough)
b) lowers your damage AND your minion damage (As they use the same links as you). Your minions ARE your damage.
c) has interaction with minions' health that reduce their survivability
Mana is from my perspective the only choice. Soultaker - probably the best weapon for this skill, but i do not want to base a build on a weapon i do not have... Prioritize SLOW weapons to ease the mana cost. you wont be attacking that much yourself once 30+ minions are there.

- Reduced Mana Cost of Skills passives are mandatory (or EB, but EB has its own problems, mainly placement and getting enough phys dmg). i have ~45% reduced cost

Before I finetuned this build i spammed flasks over and over again. It wasnt that bad but now I do not need it. I carry hybrids just for half-regen maps (this build can do such maps with no issues). have yet to try no-regen but that mod is difficult for all builds anyway.

Reminder: mana management has FOUR vectors:
- flat mana (from int too)
- % mana
- % mana regen
- % mana reduced cost
These are multiplicative and as such the biggest effect is gained by taking all 4 instead of focusing on one

Links:

Defense:
CWDT + Temporal Chains + Vulnerability + End Cry. Standard stuff. Minions like slow targets due to their inherent sh.. pathing.

Auras:
Red Mana + Hatred + Purity + (Vaal Haste if i chrome my helmet). CON: Hatred+Crit == shattered corpse == no minion. Purity is always good and my char has ~60 Lightning resists. Because both Purity and PofLightning are Blue i decided for Purity so my minions get allresist. Vitality/Discipline etc are good candidates but this build has 0 aura related nodes and 60% and 40% aura is the reasonable limit

Misc Stuff
CWDT + Desecrate + Bone/Flesh Offering + Increased Duration (in that order) procs corpses that are immediately 'offered'. free dmg/survivability bonus for minions. VERY strong synergy with Increased Duration (up to 10 or more seconds)

Animate Weapon + Increased Duration. Currently ~70secs uptime. meat shield. deals surprisingly good damage.

Clarity on Blood Magic, Leap Slam and Rejuv Totem for harder spots seal the deal.

Special Uber Mention:
Convocation. just get it now. and i mean it. get it now. MANDATORY

in action:


Summary: it is fun to have 60 angry minions following you and with Convocation any boss fight lasts mere seconds if you manage to clump them all on it..

Very nice guide man.

hmm

What do you think about using 2 6Ls for Dominating Blow. One for dominating regular mobs and one specifically tailored for strong rares. How about this sid:

Regular Mob 6L Dominating Blow:
- DB
- Inc. Duration
- Melee Splash
- Multi Strike
- Culling Strike
- Faster Attacks

Strong Rare 6L Dominating Blow:
- DB
- Inc. Duration
- Inc. Minion Life
- Inc. Minion Damage
- Culling Strike
- Empower?

"

Wishuponastar wrote:

What do you think about using 2 6Ls for Dominating Blow. One for dominating regular mobs and one specifically tailored for strong rares. How about this sid:

Regular Mob 6L Dominating Blow:
- DB
- Inc. Duration
- Melee Splash
- Multi Strike
- Culling Strike
- Faster Attacks

Strong Rare 6L Dominating Blow:
- DB
- Inc. Duration
- Inc. Minion Life
- Inc. Minion Damage
- Culling Strike
- Empower?

i cant afford 6L weapon so this is purely theoretical. I tried several setups with Tabula but always with 'general' proviso. never actually gave much thought to specialization - im starved for links already with my setup..


Regular - would replace faster attacks with minion speed (it helps with absurdly stupid minion pathing..) or IIR. Faster attack == MASSIVE mana issues if not BM (keystone). Also not a fan of multistrike. This support - embraced by many due to its paper dps increase - is not a clear cut over melee phys dmg in this case.


Strong - i started observing my strong minions closely after getting Skullhead helmet and replacing Flesh to Bone offering and how to put it - these are almost always on full life. So minion life is out, not needed. Minion Damage, esp when no nodes taken == HUGE dmg boost, so it is a good idea. Empower - for 4-5 seconds more from levels on DB and IC? Not worth it imho.

If i had 6L id rather use it to add second offering to CWDT setup (offerings make INCREDIBLE difference) and mix in Zombies. Entering map after TP to town IS somewhat stressful if it happens in a bad spot and you need to face boss without your army. Zombies - even expendable as in this case - would make a solid 'starter'.
EDIT: tested it for the first time - minions cant be affected by both offerings at the same time

In general mind the negative feedback loop - if your minions are too strong, these will kill all mobs instead of you and your army shall remain small. this is a natural limit to size of your army - it starts to die off when it reaches certain effectiveness level.

In retrospect im inclined to try another DB char but this time with more 'summoner' into it - and more auras as these can provide very good utility (discipline/grace) and damage (however i do think that damage is already enough). The fun feeling when you hear lootsplosion and think 'oh, i killed a boss already? or was it an exile?'.

Ok that makes sense. I agree that the Minion Damage gem is very powerful, and maybe you are right that I would waste Minion Life. In that case maybe only use a 4L for the Rare Dominating Blow.

I think the auras are initially a good idea, however you sacrifice so much on the tree and you will probably need quality auras to increase radius otherwise it is a bit wasted. I also really like Displine though because I have seen myself get boosted from 1K ES to 5K ES with a minion ES aura.

I really like DB and it is a great skill, could you post vids please of high level maps? I really like this guy doing a hard tort chamber map with DB:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqZhn7oSuqQ

Also - you ever think about using Animate Guardian with Leer Cast to help buff your minions. Animate Guardian should be much easier to use now with Convocation.

well.. given that i have one 75, two 74 and just few more 73 maps in my stash (self found, solo, almost no trading) i can safely say that i have no idea if that should work

torture chamber is a well known mfk boss so probably not. but.. that could be as well the easiest attempt ever IF i was able to get 'allies cannot die' rare just before final encounter :) 75secs of immortality makes a difference

so, i have no idea if this is viable. and im not talking about the damage (As it scales directly with enemies, so i have no worries about that) but about player survivability. this is 2h, no block, no dodge build with ~4k hp tops. it survives by means of other getting hit.

ill try and record something but i wont lie - never done that as im not into pictures/movies type of guy. saw that nvidia experience now allows auto game-capture. will try that out in a while

edit: re: animate guardian

he let me down SO MANY TIMES that i do not even bother. slight deconcentration (and i am frequently on the phone while playing) and that stupid pile of armor pieces runs away to never be seen again. ive lost probably 4 or 5 voidhomes and sets of quite good pieces just because he wanted to die.

and - dmg is not a problem. it is the delivery that is a bottleneck (minions with their terrible AI trying to catch equally stupid mobs - thats why temporal chains are so good, same as any 'chill' source). look at it this way - your dominated zombies can deal 1mil damage per hit, but because these are soooooo sloooooow it is all wasted. better to invest into speed and general mobility(relative mobility when using temporal chains/chill)

just as i was puting poe to sleep something unheard of happened:

in span of like 10 minutes i found this:


and chanced THIS:

my first ever chanced unique and it is a pretty damn good rolled soul taker. i literally felt silent for few moments.. i chance lots of stuff but with grim understanding that im just performing 'currency sinking'

because of that, ill create and describe in another thread DB Witch with Necro Aegis, EB, AA and crapton of auras - Soul Taker opens this possibility

if i can survive with 2h, i can survive with 1h without shield (necro aegis) - and ability to forget about mana management due to ST creates interesting options

Nice. I think Soul Taker is nearly a build enabler for Dominating Blow because of the very high mana cost. Plus you save tons of points that went into reduced mana cost and increased mana passives before.

I've been playing with the idea of a DB build, but it might be more trouble than fun without a Soul Taker. I've got enough in items worth to afford one, but I'd have to either give up a non-Legacy Kaom's or a Windripper for it. Both items are being used in builds, though the Windripper Ranger is still a low level.

I'll get around to it eventually, I think. I've got some good ideas for DB and it's a skill that still has a lot of unexplored potential due to it not seeing a lot of use.
So many builds to try, not enough time.