The Headbang Gang 2.0 - Raging Spirits madness - now with cheap version + leveling guide
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Update 8/20 : Build is outdated for 1.2. Until I fix it up, head over to both Matrixfactor's and Sherkhan's threads, they have all the info and soon to be OP build tricks you would need.
This is an evolution of my previous Raging Spirits build ("The Headbang Gang - Elemental Spirits Animator Scion build") prompted by the introduction in 1.1.5 of Spell Echo and a sizable buff to RS's damage. This builds uses self-cast Raging Spirits as the main source of damage, heavily boosted by powerful auras. Supporting skills vary depending on the version you choose to run, but usually involve proccing Elemental Equilibirum with Arc and a lot of buffs/debuffs, mainly Flesh Offering and Vaal Haste. It's main defense besides minions is Cloak of Defiance and Arctic Armor (or Lightning Coil + PoL instead of Cloak of Defiance, it works just as well if not better). It requires only one unique (the chest, Cloak or Coil) and can be done with cheap rares in all other slots. It works perfectly fine for endgame - as in farming lvl78 maps - with a 5 link ; 6L is pure luxury. Considering the above, I think it's reasonable to say that this is a fairly cheap build - although it's a dangerous word to use around here, as its definition varies wildly from one player to another. If really strapped for currency, see the last version and leveling guide at the bottom of this post. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below are three different versions of the build : - The Dominating Tank, which is my latest and favorite iteration of the build ---> The build I recommend the most at this point - The Overkill Staff, more focused on DPS awesomeness with a bit of gear requirement ---> If you want all the deeps and clear speed - The Poor Man's Build, which is aimed at league starts or players without much currency ---> For starting out. This will end up as one of the above after you get a bit of currency ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENERAL INFORMATION
Gameplay videos
Here's a little compilation of me killing some of the hardest map bosses in the game (77 Shrine Piety, 78 Palace Dominus, 78 Courtyard trio) with this spec. It's quite fast.
http://youtu.be/9B7FHqevygk The video also includes a quick run through of the build, although some if it is out of date. Here is another video of the wand + shield version of this build doing a corrupted Courtyard in full. The map has -max resits, LMP+Chain, half-regen (meaning I can't use AA), exiles... Gear is exactly that which is in the appropriate gearing section. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFZU6jt_55o TL;DW : cleared without much of a problem, although a bit slow and with a(n avoidable) close call with the bosses Because I can already hear the cries of "eww so slow", here's what mapping with this build looks like when not doing real hard content and trading carefulness for speed : blue plateau in 4 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_OfHtB5cOY (NEW 25/07/14) Fun with Dominating Blow tagging in the brand new variant of the build https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDO6POEiyeQ (NEW 28/07/14) Showcasing the poor man's build at lvl65-67 with bad gear and low level gems https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZBaK36xZkI
Playstyle
Like Headbang Gang v1.0, this is a fairly involved build. There are a lot of different active spells to use, you need to press a lot of buttons in succession with good timing, and it involves taking good decisions on the spot or being faced with less than ideal solutions. As I said before, this is a playstyle I like much more than some of the 1-button major builds out there that can be played one handed while watching a movie (or other activities...). I find it much more fun this way.
Typical action sequence : On zone entry - Activate AA - don't snapshot anything, just start mapping From pack to pack - Summon a few Raging Spirits - (optional) proc EE for your minions and proliferate shocks - (optional) curse Elemental Weakness - when the first mob dies, cast Flesh Offering ; see your minions go into turbo mode - summon a few more Spirits - as soon as available, cast Vaal Haste. Your minions are now moving at warp speed - run (very fast) to the next pack, repeat At act or map boss - Summon a dozen or so spirits and activate Flesh Offering and Vaal Haste before triggering - Look at the boss melting in seconds, laugh manically
Pros and Cons
Pros :
- Very fun to play, although that's subjective - Extremely good at downing tough rares and bosses (see videos) - Capable to do most map mods without problems (within the limits of what a MoM/AA build can do, see cons) - Not very gear dependent at all. Only the staff and empower in the overkill version are hard to come by / expensive, but those are not in the other versions. The damage of this build scales almost exclusively off gem levels, which are cheap to get - just play. - Relatively party friendly, in the sense that you will not bring performance issues like a CoC or Mjolner build, although some people dislike the screen clutter that minions generate. this build is however mostly meant for, and very capable at, solo play. In a party with Lightning users, just don't use your totem. Cons : - Involved gameplay means having to pay attention while playing, which some people dislike. Just standing there holding right click without looking at the screen will get you killed from time to time. (with smart play, however, there is not reason this should happen) - The most DPSy version requires a relatively rare roll on a staff to work really well (+1 all gems/ +2 fire gems), which might be difficult to come by in certain environments like a short term league. A leveled Empower is also very desirable, and that is not too easy to come by either. - Relatively low defenses (no significant amounts or armor or block notably) for the MoM version - although MoM/AA is pretty solid by itself, you have minions to tank for you, and you should not be in the way of danger too often if you play smart. The tank version, as the name implies, is a lot more tanky though. - As any EB/MoM/AA build, no regen maps are not doable (or very painfully) and half regen maps will be a bit challenging (but very doable). - Very strong AoE attacks can counter your horde of Spirits pretty hard. But this builds addresses this much better than any other I have seen before it - at this point, only Palace Dominus with added damage mods was able to give me any significant amount of resistance of this sort. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE DOMINATING TANK VERSION + Strong defenses through IR+Grace (~13-15k armor easily), AA, Lightning Coil, PoL (also PoF situationally) + Spirits do good enough damage to take on anything the game can throw at you (except Uber) + Dominating Blow tagging of select mobs brings extremely powerful boosts to both player and skulls, while being an inordinate amount of fun + No need for gear that's difficult to come by like a +3 staff or lvl3 Empower + Good Mobility with Leap Slam (no offhanding needed) - significantly less "sheet" DPS than the staff build - Requires an Alpha's Howl to run all the auras - Dominating Blow tagging is tricky to do, and greed might put you in dangerous situations
Dominating Blow ??
The Idea :
Most if not all existing builds making use of dominating Blow use it as a main ability. It ends up costing such ridiculous amounts of mana that the only options are using a Soul Taker and killing yourself with blood Magic. It also ends up dominating dozens of useless trash mobs that do nothing but melt your GPU, and has shit damage. The good thing is that you can get rare mobs as minions, complete with their auras and nemesis mods, which is extremely powerful with other minions and a lot of fun. A key point about Dominating blow is that you don't have to do the kill youself for it to work. Hitting the mob shortly before it dies is enough for conversion. In this build, it means we can let the Spirits do all the work and just swing at chosen mobs while they are dying, and we will get them as minions. The investment is extremely minimal (taking up 2 gem sockets for it) and the mana cost is absolutely not a problem, while the synergy is fantastic. The Synergy The skill duration nodes are excellent for Dom Blow too ; our minion nodes make those rare mobs very powerful ; and our skulls benefit hugely from some of the rare mob auras, like the mob version of Haste (which stacks with the player's Haste !!), "substantial extra physical damage", etc. Allies cannot die auras are a one way ticket to OP-ville (it applies to you too btw). Most nemesis mods are absolutely hilarious - Soul Eater is probably my favorite, although Storm Herald is pretty cool too. Why not use Conversion Trap ? It's an option, but : -Conversion trap is extremely hard to aim in a pack. Most of the time you will end up with a useless white minion and a dead rare. -Conversion trap will have the mob return as an enemy at the end of its duration, which is annoying. -Critically, Conversion Trap's base duration is 9.8 seconds (lvl20, +15% from quality). In this build and supported with Inc Dur 20/20, that's about 22 seconds. On the other hand, Dominating Blow has a base duration of 39 seconds at 20/20. That's 85 seconds with the passives and 20/20 increased duration ! How to use it Pay attention to rare mob mods, which you should be doing anyway. If you see one you want for yourself, tone down the SRS spamming a bit to make sure you don't faceroll him before you can tag him. Leap Slam close to it (after thinning down the pack a bit if necessary). When his health start going down significantly, spam Dom Blow on it - avoid holding shift as it is more likely that you will be out of reach and miss the tag. When your skulls kill it, you should have the mob as an ally. This is a bit tricky to achieve, but should be doable reliably with a bit of practice. The main problem with it late game will be terrible accuracy (likely missing 30%+ of the time). Getting one good accuracy mod on jewelry could help a lot, if you can afford to.
Passive Tree & Bandits
Here is an ideal passive tree at 106 points : Endgame build (lvl87)
Going further, the next 6 points would be best spent on the immediately available cast speed nodes (Nimbleness cluster + the 3 next to Lord of the Dead). Based on preference, you could take those earlier at the cost of for example the life&mana nodes. For a leveling strategy in a fresh league, refer to the "poor man's build" section. If you have twink gear, just do the usual thing of your liking - flameblast, ST, anything. Having access to both Echo and Multistrike makes Spirits a very valid option as soon as early Cruel. You can support it with Searing Bond for the best speed, depending on preference. this build can also be done as a Scion, just take the mana/mana regen route out. Bandits : Normal - Oak (life) Cruel - passive point Merciless - passive point
Gem links
Main link (in chest B-B-R-R-R-anything) :
Base 4L : Summon Raging Spirits - Spell Echo - Multistrike - Melee Physical Damage 5L: Increased Duration or Melee Splash 6L: depending on color of socket - Minion Damage, Added Fire, Q20 Culling Strike This already works quite well on a 4L ; 5th and 6th link are obviously very nice to have, but not necessary. Quality on Raging Spirits is a very significant boost to damage output and quality of life, get it as soon as you can. Quality is useless on Echo, and is luxury on Multistrike and Melee Phys. It's very nice on Inc Dur or Splash, whichever your choose to use. It's also really nice on all choices for the 6th link. Auras 1 (in Alpha's RRBG or RBGG or RGGG) : Purity of Lightning - Grace - Reduced mana - (Purity of fire, or Haste if green socket) Alpha's 8% reservation will let us run 3 60% and 1 40% + Clarity with enough mana left to cast our spells. If you are lucky enough to have corrupted lvl21 purities, putting them in Alpha's will net you 2% bonus max resist which is fantastic. Else, you can just use a GGGR Alpha's and put the other auras in there (your chrome stock will thank you). Auras 2 (in boots or gloves, colors depending on that of the Alpha) : Haste - Hatred - Clarity - Reduced mana (or whatever auras are not in the Alpha's) We cannot actually run all the auras socketed. Purity of Fire is here to be switched in situationally instead of Grace (Crematorium boss, -max map, etc) Dom Blow and mobility (boots or gloves, RRRG) : Dominating Blow - Leap Slam - Faster Attacks - Increased Duration See below about the how and why of Dominating Blow. Leap Slam - FA is very handy for fast movement. Buffs & Debuffs (weapon and shield, R-G-B + G, B, B) : Vaal Haste - Flesh Offering - Increased Duration, Arctic Armor, Elemental Weakness, Arc Arc procs EE and is used along with the curse on the few enemies who don't die instantly to our horde of skulls. We try to get maximum uptime on Vaal Haste and Flesh Offering.
Gearing
Weapon : For Leap Slam and Dominating Blow, you can't use a wand, but you want something with Cast Speed, so we'll use a Sceptre. You'll want as close as possible to max cast speed (22%), increased attack speed (the base AS doesn't matter much), and if possible +levels to cold gems for Arctic Armor. Some flat mana or resistances would be nice too. (note : cast speed, IAS and +2 cold is a difficult combination to come by ; I suspect people vendor those. Here's the one I'm using at the moment (kindly lended by MatrixFactor):
Shield : 2 options here - either you consider that you have enough physical damage mitigation and you're not short on either resists or ES, in which case you use a Saffel's for the max resists. Otherwise, get a rare with a good amount of ES, life, and resists. Chest : You want a Lightning Coil, preferably 5L and ideally 6L, BBRRR+something. A BBRR 4L will do in a pinch. Helm : Alpha's Howl. Colors are flexible since we share auras between this and another 4L. Gloves, boots, belt : just standard rare stuff with life and resists, ES where you can get it. Armor and Evasion are equally nice (evasion slightly better), but ES should be the priority unless you have a GG shield. Here's the unimpressive gear I have in these slots Rings & Ammy : you want as much mana regen and life/resists as you can get, plus you will need some STR there depending on the rest of your gear. Some flat mana or ES is always nice. Total budget : ~3ex for 5L Coil + 3~4ex for Alpha's + 10c to 1ex for the rest of the slots (those can be just self found stuff), although the best jewelry can be quite expensive. This should work perfectly for very late game with about 10ex of budget, if buying all the gear and not including buying quality gems. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE OVERKILL STAFF VERSION + Highest DPS (30k per skull, ~15 concurrent skulls) on a 5-link + Spirits are very resilient, even facing high map bosses + Strong Arc totem in the chest (5L) o Uses Zombies and Spectres to tank for you (the spectres can be anything you come by) - Requires a +3 staff and lvl3 empower to deliver to its full potential - No shield makes gearing harder, mana sustain more tense, and you're generally a bit more squishy
Passive Tree & Bandits
Here is an ideal passive tree at 105 points : Endgame build (lvl86)
For a leveling strategy in a fresh league, refer to the "poor man's build" section. If you have twink gear, just do the usual thing of your liking - flameblast, ST, anything. Having access to both Echo and Multistrike makes Spirits a very valid option as soon as early Cruel. You can support it with Searing Bond for the best speed, depending on preference. this can also be done as a Scion, which is actually what I have now (due to it being a repurposing of the Headbang Gang 1.0), but I do think the witch version is clearly superior. Endgame build (lvl86) - Scion version Bandits : Normal - Oak (life) Cruel - passive point Merciless - passive point
Gem links
Main link (in staff) :
Summon Raging Spirits - Empower - Echo - Multistrike - (5L) Melee Physical Damage - (6L) Increased Duration or Melee Splash Quality on Raging Spirits is a very significant boost to damage output and quality of life, get it as soon as you can. Empower should be leveled as high as you can afford - a lvl2 would be enough to be worth it if your staff has +1 all gems. If you don't have access to a lvl2, just skip it entirely. Quality is useless on Echo, and is luxury on Multistrike and Melee Phys. It's very nice on Inc Dur or Splash, whichever your choose to use. I will touch on the subject of not using Splash in a 4/5L, and other support gem choices, in the Q&A section (which does not exist yet). Secondary link (in chest) : Arc - Spell Totem - Elemental Proliferation - Lightning Penetration - (5L) Faster Casting - (6L not necessary, maybe Q added lightning ?) This is to process Elemental Equilibrium and stack shocks on mobs when possible. Quality on Arc is important for the shock chance. Quality on faster casting is nice, but like the rest, is pure luxury. tanking minions (in helmet) : Raise Zombie - Raise Spectre - Empower - Minion Life We socket both minion gems here as we are only using them for tanking, not DPS, so they do fine in a 3L. The helm should have +2 to minion gems. Minion Life is here for obvious reasons and Empower gives the minion more base life. If a (second...) leveled Empower is unavailable, you could try it with Minion and Totem Elemental Resistance instead (I'm sure that gem would be very happy to finally be used by someone). Quality on Zombies very useful, also nice to have on the others. Auras (boots or gloves) : Haste - Hatred - Clarity - Reduced Mana pretty straightforward, no need for quality here (no harm having some though) Buffs & Debuffs (boots or gloves + spare sockets in weapon and/or chest) : Vaal Haste - Flesh Offering - Increased Duration - Arctic Armor, Elemental Weakness, (Convocation or Desacrate if you have the sockets for it) Quality on Elemental Weakness is one of the best of any gem in the game. The others are luxury.
Damage Calculations
Below is the calculation of the "tooltip" DPS of Raging Spirits assuming max level gems and the setup described above. It does not take into account resistances, curses, EE, or Vaal Haste. it does take into account Flesh Offering as this should be up close to 100% of the time. It does not take into account bonuses from gem quality (which should give a bit of a boost to the final damage).
Base damage per hit of a lvl26 (20 + 3 staff + 3 Empower): 523-784 = 653.5 average hit before 1.1.5 buff (source) edit 21/07/14: Numbers posted by Rory indicate the buff rate for lvl26 is 102%. This brings the average hit of a post-1.1.5 lvl26 spirit at a slightly insane 1320. additive damage modifiers : 105% increased minion damage from passives 60% increased melee physical damage from Multistrike ->total increased damage = 162% Multiplicative damage modifiers : 36% less damage from Multistrike 50% more damage from Melee Physical Damage 36% of physical damage added as cold from Hatred, which is 61% more damage with 70% increased aura effect 10% less from Spell Echo --> Final average damage per hit is 1084 * 2.62 * .64 * 1.5 * 1.61 * .9 = 4811 damage Base attacks per second of Raging Spirits (independent of level) : 1.63 APS additive attack speed modifiers : 20% increased minion attack speed from passives 16% increased attack speed from Haste, which is 27% increased with 70% increased aura effect 40% increased attack speed from Flesh Offering -> total IAS = 87% Multiplicative attack speed modifiers : 107% more attack speed from Multistrike --> Final attacks per second is 1.63 * 1.87 * 2.07 = 6.31 APS ----> DPS of a single Raging Spirit : 4811 * 6.31 = 30,357 DPS (if you take Vaal Haste into account for 71% IAS on top, that's a slightly ridiculous 41,880 DPS per skull, by the way) Actual damage to mobs would need to take into account resistances and modifiers applied to it, shock stacks, etc, which is where a lot of guides get into the fuzzy math territory to reach the pretty numbers. I will leave the above figure as being the more clear and non-debatable representative of the damage dealt (it's pretty much what the tooltip would show if it were to show something) That being said, just for funsies : let's assume a mob with a native fire and cold resistance of 75% each, without any overcap. EE from Arc will bring those resistances down to 25 each 20/02 ele weakness (because we're cheap and it's a round number) will bring those down further to -25% let's not take shock stacks into account at all because that's not reliable armor should be taken into account for the ~35% of the damage that is physical, but that's hard to do. Let's be generous and assume 20% mitigation (7% less overall damage) -->The actual damage on a fire/cold resist capped mob should be a bit under 35k DPS per skull.
Gearing
Weapon : the key part. You want a staff with +1 all gems and +2 fire gems, and that is 5L (ideally 6L). On top of that, you want as much cast speed as you can get (22% max) and if possible some mana / mana regen. Resists are always nice. It's not a common thing to find, and you will likely need to link it yourself if you find one - pretty much nobody uses +fire staves that are not Searing Touch. Here is mine which I bought for 25c at the end of Ambush and 5L'd for about 1.5ex worth of jew/fuses :
Chest : also key. You want a Cloak of Defiance, preferably 5L, BBBBR. A BBBR 4L will do the job fine too. Helm : you want a rare with +2 minion gems and then some life and resists. Ideally you want a ES or ES hybrid base to get some mana for EB. Mine is pretty shitty Gloves, boots, belt : just standard rare stuff with life and resists, ES where you can get it, and ideally some STR and maybe some DEX on the gloves. Scraping up a bit of armor would be nice. Here's the unimpressive gear I have in these slots Rings & Ammy : you want as much mana regen and life/resists as you can get, plus you will need some DEX and/or STR there depending on the rest of your gear. Some flat mana or ES is always nice. Total budget : ~4ex for 5L staff + ~2.5ex for 5L cloak + 6ex for lvl3 empower (you could make do with a 1ex lvl2) + ~10c for every other slot = 15+ex for a fully geared character, or <10ex if you skip the lvl3 empower. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE POOR MAN'S VERSION + Uses 0 uniques + Can go through merciless and start mapping easily on a 4L + very good boss killing ability and viable to stack mf -> good for farming some currency to get started - you will have to buy some gems (reduced mana, multistrike, and a few cheaper ones) - late game and after gathering a bit of currency, you should transition in one of the above builds for the best results
General Leveling Strategy (and alternatives)
Unless you have some of the rarer gems available early, leveling with Raging Spirits is not a particularly pleasant experience (nor is it fast). Therefore we will be choosing to level with a different spec, a Caster, and switch to Spirits later (some time in Merciless). The first half of normal will be spent with the spell of your choice, Ice Nova being a prime candidate (but anything goes at that point). As soon as we get the gem, we will be switching to Arc, and keep to it until we switch to SRS. We will take a few points in spell damage (early in the witch starting area) that will need to be respecced when making the switch, but it's only a dozen or so points that are easily covered by quest rewards. Note that pretty much any other spell than Arc would work similarly, as long as you take the relevant elemental nodes. Other straightforward options are Flameblast, Fire Trap (you'll need a bit of dex, but nothing a jade ammy and a +30 node can't fix), etc. Searing Bond is also very viable and very fast, and can be combined quite smoothly with SRS early, but it's a skill I personally dislike so I won't be recommending it.
Gem shopping list
Those gems will be needed for endgame, but you don't get access to them through quests. Some of those will probably be dropping, but those that don't you will have to buy. Here is the list of those with indicative prices (assuming a beginning of league situation), when you should get them and their importance.
Essential: Reduced Mana (3-6 chaos), get one as soon as you can afford to, because it will need to get leveled quickly. Important: Multistrike (3-4 chaos), the earlier the better as levels are important here too. You can do fine without it at first though. We will be getting Echo from Merc Library so we can't get this one from quests. Melee Physical Damage (0.5 chaos), not a rare gem but one the witch does not get. Hatred, Haste (0.5 chaos each), as neither of our main auras are witch quest rewards. Not critical (you can just wait for these gems to drop for you) <WIP>
Levels 1-20 : A1N, A2N
Our witch willuse ice nova or Fire Trap (personal preference) as main pack-clearing ability through act 1 and the beginning of act 2. This part of the game is fairly simple and it should not be a problem. If you want to speed up the process further, you can craft a +1 ice or fire wand/sceptre through the following recipe.
The +1 recipe : (wand or sceptre)+(any skill gem of the right color, blue=lightning green=cold red=fire)+orb of alteration vendor those three together and the NPC should give you back a wand with +1 to level of [x] gems in this item modifier. You can then use an orb of Augmentation on it to get another modifier (ideally, cast speed). You'd ideally want to use a sceptre with 20% increased elemental damage as implicit, but those are not available in the earliest game, where a ~16% spell damage wand is your best bet. Try as much as possible to choose a base with the right sockets and links, as it would be a waste to use jewelers and especially fusings at this point. The rest of the gear you use is mostly irrelevant, just wear what you get. Do all the corrupted areas you find, at least until you get a nice boss killing skill like Vaal Skellies or Vaal Spark. Ideally you want Vaal Haste. I would do them all even if I did get that, they're good XP and fragments are always nice to have in a fresh economy. Quests and rewards : Act 1 1. Hillock : none of those are mandatory, but I recommend taking raise zombie and leveling it 2. Mercy mission : do it right out of the gate and get a quicksilver and Ice nova/fire trap. 3. Breaking some eggs : summon raging spirits, obviously 4. don't forget to do dweller of the deep for the skill point 5. Brutus : get clarity, or if you want to level flameblast, get that (you can still get clarity later) 6. Do Fairgraves for the skill point 7. Merveil : take added lightning Act 2 1. Intruders : get Arc and start leveling it. If going flameblast or other spell, take arctic armor or flammability. Arc will need a couple levels to catch up in terms of damage Passives Start with spell damage up to Elemental Dominion, then get the mana regen and life nodes on the right. After that, route from elemental dominion up through spell damage and towards the +30 nodes. Passive tree at lvl20
Levels 20-32 : A2N, A3N
This is roughly when you start using Arc as your main skill. You should make yourself a nice +1 lightning sceptre, as described in the previous section. Support Arc with Added Lightning you got from Mr Evil if you don't mind having to spam mana pots more often.
If you get sellable gear at this point, make sure you do sell it, as you will need some cash to buy gems, and you might as well get them soon so that they level with you. Vaal, Piety and Dominus should not give you much trouble in normal, especially if you got a nice Vaal gem already. Quests and rewards : Act 2 (continued) 2. Weaver : get minion damage, or chance to ignite if going flameblast 3. Don't forget to do the way forward for a skill point 3. bandits : help Oak rush through the rest of the content as fast as you can, don't do side quests (maybe just Beast for the rare) Act 3 1. Crematorium : take flesh offering 2. Gravicius : take lightning pen and link it too Arc immediately (or fire pen if flameblast) 3. Library : taking Purity of Lightning in preparation for when you get a Coil is not a bad idea, but skipping it is also an option Passives the order you take EB, Written in Blood, Nimbleness and Harrier in matters little. Passive tree at lvl31
Levels 32-45 : A1C, A2C
This part should be smooth sailing. Even more so after getting faster casting from Weaver. Do corrupted zones, pick up anything remotely valuable that drops, and don't spend currency (unless buying gems from the shopping list).
Quests and rewards : Act 1 Cruel 1. hillock : get Grace 2. skip mercy mission 3. Brutus : take Clarity if you haven't already, else purity of elements (it will help you cap resists in cruel/early merci) 4. Merveil : take Item Rarity, you'll need it when farming later Act 2 Cruel Few gem choices here. Take Faster Casting at Weaver and stick with Arc for a GG 3-link (if you already had found a Faster Casting, take Increased Duration instead). At the bandits, take a skill point (or maybe the cast speed). Passives Take some lightning damage nodes to make your life easier and your clear speed better. If you don't want to respec those points later, just go ahead and fill out the tree in advance on the next section. The rest of the points go to making the trek towards Elemental Adaptation. Passive tree at lvl42
Levels 45-55 : A3C, A1M
This part gets a little tricky. A3C is a large hurdle to overcome for most builds in a fresh environment. We don't have much survivability from the tree yet, so it's going to take a bit of skill to get through it without too many deaths. If you have a good Vaal gem, bosses should not be much of a problem. At this point SRS-Minion Damage-Faster Casting will be more effective than arc for bosses, so you might want to switch to that.
Quests and rewards : Act 3 Cruel 1. Crematorium : take arctic armor if you don't have it already 2. Do the busts for the skill point 3. Farm a few levels in docks, depending on how well you are doing 4. Gravicius : it's a toss-up between melee splash (for spirits in merciless) and spell totem (for a skele totem or an arc totem). Since spell totem is offered again later, I would go with melee splash 5. Do Piety and Dom Act 1 Merciless 1. Do mercy mission and get Increased Duration 2. Do dweller for the skill point 3. Brutus : nothing really good here, you could take lightning warp (but we will stop using it when switching to raging spirits 4. Farm ledge for a few levels. Passives It's time to take the trek down to IR, and take the life nodes on the way and Thick Skin. Once that's done, the skeleton of the build will be complete and all points beyond that will go into meaningful nodes. Passive tree at lvl55
Levels 55-65 : A2M, A3M
Once you reach Act 3 Merciless (lvl60-65 depending on how fast you progressed), it's time to switch to Raging Spirits ! Before doing the jump, make sure you have the following :
- enough respec points (go do "dirty job" in each difficulty if necessary) - a BBRR 4-link to put the spirits in - gems : Raging Spirits, Echo, Melee Phys, multistrike or melee splash (the rest you should have gotten from quest rewards earlier) Refer to the next section for a look at what your build and skills setup should look like after the switch. Quests and rewards : A1M 1. farm ledge some more (unless going well and confident) 2. Merveil : take spell totem if you havent earlier, or increased duration (you'll need 2) A2M 3. Progress through act 2 normally, no gems to choose from here. Take a skill point at bandits A3M 4. Getting to act 3, farm docks for a bit if you don't feel comfortable. 5. Go do the Busts, then Dialla, then Gravicius, then Piety. 6. Go open the sceptre and do the library quest, finally get spell echo (if you haven't earlier, in which case take it anyway and sell it, you can then buy a multistrike and keep some change) 7. Go do Dom, see how hard it is for you. If not a problem, start farming him, else go do Piety runs. You can start mapping as early as you like. Passives Start filling in the aura nodes before making the switch. Take the witch flask nodes as you will need them to be able to reclaim the spell damage nodes. [passive tree at 65 before making the switch](http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAuMHYwelCPQOXBB0EZYVIBbzFy8ZhRmGGmwc3B2qJDwkqiY8J6ko-imlKk0snCzpLR8vby-dMYg26TyORKtFfkZxSVFJskp9TipVrlXWVytXyVptW69k52ega9tsFm0Zb55wu3NTeQN_xoCkghCCHoLHgwmD24d2j6aTJ52uoqOnCKdcrEe0DLiTwFTB88pKznHZE9sL3Q3fsOGI42rquuss6-7z3frS_Ev8xQ==) When ready to make the jump, take off all the spell damage nodes at witch start but not the cast speed nodes, which you will keep connected through lord of the dead. Put the freed up points towards the skill duration nodes under Scion and starting up on the Gravepact cluster left of Scion. [passive tree at 65 after making the switch](http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBAuMHYwelCPQOXBB0EZYVIBbzFy8ZhRmGGmwc3B2qHb4kPCSqJjwnqSj6KaUqTSzpL28vnTGINuk8jj8nRX5GcUlRSbJKfU4qVdZXK1fJWW1abVuvX5hk52ega9tsFm0Zb55wu3NTeQN_xoCkgh6Cx4MJg9uHdpMnna6io6cIp1yofaxHtAy4k8BUwfPKSs5x0_vZE9sL3Q3hiONq6rrrLOvu89360vxL_MU=)
The "finished" build at lvl 65 (with video)
Congratulations, you now have an SRS build capable of getting you to endgame. You should be able to farm Piety easily, maybe Dominus too (possibly after a few upgrades). With a 4-link, you should be good to go for low level maps without much of a problem, and a 5-link will make mid-level maps very accessible even with otherwise pretty bad gear.
You next big gear upgrade will be either a 5L Arm/ES chest, or a BBRR +2 to minion gems helmet, which ends up being about equal in DPS to a 5L. Here is a quick demonstration video of the build, using only gear you should realistically have available to you at that point.
The later levels
Passive wise, you still need to finish up a couple of clusters, and go grab Mana Geyser and Charisma (which will let you run 1 more aura). The build will then start looking more and more like the "dominating tank" version above, provided you get yourself a Lightning Coil, another Reduced Mana gem, and if possible an Alpha's Howl - but that's not necessary to do well in maps.
I'm proud I made the build that got hotfix nerfed by 80% in under a week : Kamikaze Clones /1204796 (LL Mirror Arrow Instability Prolif) Last edited by PepprmintButler#6593 on Aug 19, 2014, 9:12:47 PM
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Awesome, i wanted to do the exact same build for the new league but couple of things here rly surprised me.
First i though that the wrath+anger+haste aura combo is best for RS. Spirits have 50% physical to fire conversion so with hatred and melee physical gem u scaling only half of their damage correct? Second, is it not important to have at least some casting speed nodes from the tree? Or is the new spell echo gem enough by itself? Lastly, the single target is obviously from the videos brilliant, but what about aoe clearing without the melee splash? Or are u switching multistrinke for melee splash for map clearing? Thx in advance for your answers mate. |
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That music! big claps!!
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@PrimalFury :
Thanks for the feedback. To answer your questions (which are some of those I was planning to touch on in a yet unexisting FAQ section :P ) : Flat ele auras damage scaling was the best way to go about scaling Raging Spirits damage, before the buff. It possibly still is by a small margin, I have yet to do the math properly. I will add a section with the actual math on this later, but the takeaway is that Hatred gives a lot more damage than one of the flat ele auras, anf I didn't deem it consistent to just run one of those. Ditching a 60% aura means I can also ditch Alpha's and still have more unreserved mana for MoM. One important thing to understand is that Melee Physical Damage will scale ALL the raging spirits damage : the pure phys, the phys converted to fire, and the physical added as cold. See http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Damage_conversion for the how and why. As for cast speed, you already get ~27% from Haste and hopefully 20-30% from gear. Echo on top is of course huge at 69% more. Spending 3 points for 12% increased cast speed would only give you about .2 more skulls out per second (3.2/s to 3.4/s or the like), which is nice but I don't think is a priority considering what else you can get for 3 passive points. It depends on your gear and your priorities ; taking one or 2 of the 12% 3-node clusters directly available seems like a valid option, just not one I focused on. Regarding pack clearing and AoE, you can take a look at a full map clear like this Palace with pack size : http://www.twitch.tv/buttersplayspoe/b/544330831. This is with the same setup as in the other video - no melee splash. In short, it works just fine. I choose to not use melee splash because of a lack of available links - I consider that doing more damage is more important than doing AoE, as in their current state one of my skulls will kill any mob in one multistrike, and often 2-3 of them if they are trash mobs and in range (which usually get one shot). This makes for pretty fast AoE clear while keeping the best efficiency against tough rares, bosses and exiles, which is where most of the dangerous situations are. I'm proud I made the build that got hotfix nerfed by 80% in under a week : Kamikaze Clones /1204796 (LL Mirror Arrow Instability Prolif) Last edited by PepprmintButler#6593 on Jul 5, 2014, 12:30:58 AM
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Edit: Just saw you're intending to do the math regarding Wrath/Anger, but I have a feeling the +6 version would still be better due to the balance of life+damage.
I would personally have the totem priority as Arc - Spell Totem - Elemental Proliferation - Faster Casting with Totem Resistance being the 5L. Just because it isn't your main damage dealer and getting the totem up quickly (and surviving) would be more beneficial than LPen (imo). Also with levelling, I would probably just roll a flameblast/arc caster speccing into spell/elemental damage nodes, and then use the respec points you get from quests to get the minion/duration nodes. Another option to consider is some kind of elemental buzzsaw build due to getting a lot of the aura nodes anyway. Both options are very cheap and effective. Last edited by Hojirozame#7390 on Jul 5, 2014, 8:03:06 AM
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I've been giving this a try, just based on your youtube video. Once you posted the guide, I was able to figure out a few more things like support gems, including echo. I took another char who hadn't done that quest yet to grab the gem. It made such a freakin difference in dps/survivability. Once the new one month league starts, I would almost suggest making a tankier char just to go grab this gem first, then start a new witch, just so you can level with RS. It's been pretty fun so far. They are great for sniping around corners and taking out champ packs and bosses. After 4 months, Vaal skellies finally dropped for me, which make a great addition to this build, along with regular skellies. Echo is the best gem since multisrike. It's going to jump-start a lot of new builds. Arc is now even more op then before.
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Thoughts on going Totems with Raging Spirits? Seams 2 or 3 Totems would have the advantage of less travel time ( You put the totem near the fight ) and 2 totems would get out more then one single case?
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just to point out, cause i'm pretty stupid so i guess i must be wrong, but :
isnt elemental equilibrium actually diminishing your overall DPS? for it to be worth it, you basically need to apply the debuff between each hits. with around 15 spirits (let's assume 10 are actually hitting an enemy, and the rest are moving), each with around 6 aps, it means they're applying the resistance buff about 60 times per second. which in turns means you need to reapply the debuff just as often. and with arc hitting 6 times, that means 10 casts per second. |
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" EE only applies when you hit the mobs, not your minions, but anything that hits with an element once the debuff is placed by you will benefit (or not if you are using it wrong, heh). |
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" ok, i didn't know that, that's nice then. ^^ |
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