[1.3] POTCG DomBlow
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POTCG DomBlow: A Build Guide
" Overview *** This build is currently out-dated for 2.0! ***
The Concept
Spoiler
If you don't know much about the Pillar...
Pillar of the Caged God Explained
This is what the build all revolves around: It requires an entirely different way of building your character - similar to that of a Facebreaker build. Because every 10 strength gives you 18% physical damage (16 from the weapon, 2 from the innate strength bonus) and 5 life, all the +10 strength nodes on the passive tree suddenly become better than almost every staff node, 2Her node, and general physical node. This means you can skip nearly all traditional damage nodes (attack speed nodes are still very good, though!) and instead path all around the Templar, Marauder and Duelist area gathering defense while getting all your damage from traveling around with the +10 strength nodes. But a large amount of increased physical damage alone will not do anything if it does not have a good base of raw, added physical damage. This is where the build is very similar to a Facebreaker one. By using certain key uniques with large amounts of flat damage and rare jewelry/gloves with flat damage, your strength conversion will start to really shine. The other bonus of agility->attack speed can make up for a lack of good attack speed nodes around the strength areas of the tree, while the intellect->AoE bonus is a stat that is very difficult to get and highly valuable for many builds. Now, it is very important to note that your damage will still struggle to reach that of a well crafted, end-game rare weapon. Even though it can give you plenty of DPS - and it will, if you build right - you should be aware that it won't give you the *most* DPS. Tooltip-whores be warned! That said, knowing the strengths (hah! that's kind of a pun!) and weaknesses of this item is very important. I find that it lends itself best to two skills: Infernal Blow and Dominating Blow. Both are skills with built-in secondary damage effects that don't require high weapon DPS, meaning you can have good clear speed while also reaping the benefits of not needing to pick up DPS nodes on the tree. Have your cake and eat it too, if you will. For this build, I've chosen to use Dominating Blow. ...otherwise, just keep reading. Ok then! So this is a Dominating Blow build. That means a couple things:
This is because whenever a monster you tagged with Dominating Blow dies, it becomes a buffed minion temporarily under your control. You can have far more minions this way than traditional summoners. That is a very powerful effect, so naturally the skill needed some heavy downsides! How can you combat those downsides? I use a Pillar of the Caged God and the Blood Magic keystone. Since my damage is not nearly as important compared to a traditional build due to all the damage controlled minions bring, all I need is "enough" to get the ball rolling. Once you convert some minions, they do a lot of the work for you. The Pillar is an easy, affordable way to get a decent amount of damage while focusing heavily on defense. By using the Blood Magic keystone, I avoid the increased multiplier of the Blood Magic gem and don't have to worry about sustaining the high cost of the skill off mana. This also opens up an extra gem slot - and every gem I link to Dominating Blow is also given to everything I dominate! So what else? There is a lot more to the build than just using a Pillar and Blood Magic. Here is a quick rundown...
Why no auras or minion damage? Both of these would, of course, be great additions to the build. And in fact, a lot of other DomBlow builds do invest in a lot of both. I however, have chosen to not go for either. For auras, I could use the blood magic gem and then run two 60% off my mana pool with a reduced mana gem. However, it's VERY important to note that with Dominating Blow, your minions tend to wander and can be quite spread out. You would need to invest in a lot of aura radius to make sure your minions are within it's range, and not constantly popping in and out. Secondly, as it would require a blood magic gem to do, I would lose one DPS gem. That DPS gem not only affects my skill, but also the attacks of every minion I dominate. The blood magic gem would also raise the cost of my skill a significant amount. I would also lose another 4L in the process due to the need to link my auras and reduced mana somewhere. All that said - it is still a valid option, just not one I've chosen. For minion damage, I could have pathed over to a couple various minion clusters without too much trouble or worn one of a few various minion-related uniques. The latter isn't a very good option, since most of the uniques I would use are slots I already use uniques in, or ones that have flat physical damage on them; a much more important stat, IMO. The minion nodes on the tree are definitely an option, though. I decided that I was comfortable with my damage as is. Largely because the increased duration nodes let me, usually, have more minions dominated at once. If I were to go for minion damage, I would drop some armor and/or life and pick up the Gracepact cluster. So what is the play-style like? Here is a run-down of my typical map experience: I start off fairly slowly, since I have no minion army when I first load into a zone. I'll go around and dominate a few groups, making sure to focus on white and blue mobs first if I come across a pack with a rare in it. I make sure to keep my endurance charges up when I have no minion meat shields as well (though I usually keep them up anyways, it is extra important when I'm alone). Once I have a good group of minions going, things start to pick up. Since they can down targets by themselves quite fast, I make it my job to leap slam around and "tag" any important mobs. If you are not paying attention, they can kill a good rare or a pack of powerful mobs (such as bone rhoas) before you get a chance to add them to your army! At this point, I also make sure to use Convocation anytime my minions start to spread too thin, I've leap slammed over an obstacle, or I need them to focus my immediate target. Having a lot of minions is nice, but if they are constantly lagging behind you, they are not doing you much good. When playing DomBow, I pay much closer attention to certain things that can give my army a "big boost". Strongboxes are one such thing. Normally, people are just looking for box mods that improve loot, but a +3 rare monsters strongbox can be just as - if not more - exciting for me. Tormented spirits are another big one. Apart from dropping good loot, all mods gained by white, blue and rare monsters stay after they are dominated. This gives you even more incentive to drive those spirits into as many things as possible! When I am ready to finally take on the boss, I try and make sure I go in with the best army possible. If the map is one where it is easy to tell when I am about to fight the boss (Jungle Valley is a good example) I make sure to be more careful about dominating as much as I can before I head to the fight. On the other hand, if I just dominated a particularly good rare, or an entire strongbox worth of mobs, I may rush the boss while I still have a strong army on my hands. When I do get to the boss itself, I make it my priority to dominate all the things around it first, letting my minions attack the boss, and only joining them when everything is converted. For certain bosses, it can be a good idea to leap slam in and immediately Convocation your army in to surround the boss. A Map Hillock jumping around to your spread out army can be...sucky. Passive Tree
Spoiler
110 Point Tree: http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEBAdwD7gSzBS0JlgxfDc0OPBLhFCAUcRiRGjgaPhv6HKcczh2-JIsl3ycvJ9UpLitQLdIxnjIJM4c1kjkOOlI62DrhPC09Dz38QYdHflBHU6VVqVcNWGNZbV4TXz9fmGBLYSFhUmVNaPJqAWxGbqpybHKpdO12rHy4fLt82YIHhNmE74ZgjM-QVZHOl3mXtKIApBmmV6lur2y18rYstz677byfvTa-p8BmxFjE9sWKxq7G2M8yz37Yvdl837_i6uRR6hjsOO8O707wH_Gs8kHyRfZI9zL46_no_gr-VA==
For progression, the two important nodes to aim for first are Resolute Technique and Master of the Arena. Apart from that, pick up Life, Life Regen and Armor as you see fit. Endurance Charges can be taken as soon or as late as you like. Make sure to grab at least one Increased Duration cluster around the same time that you are going to switch to Dominating Blow full-time - this is also a good time to take Blood Magic. Gear
Spoiler
My Current Gear
This build is planned with four uniques in mind. Pillar of the Caged God * See the "Pillar of the Caged God Explained" section above. Meginord's Girdle * It's not going to break the bank and it's got everything you could possibly ask for. If you buy this early, it makes leveling with Pillar a breeze. Try to Blessed it for a good strength implicit roll. Abyssus * Just shy of 50% of my overall damage comes from this one item. The insane amount of flat phys is so important to this build. The only other real option is a Bringer of Rain. It is more defensive, but much more expensive and has a lot of issues - especially after the nerfs. Don't let the free "7L" fool you; you want Abyssus. Though the increased physical damage taken might seem scary, it isn't actually too bad once you have your build properly set up. Alberon's Warpath * It's not hard to net over 100 strength just from this boot alone. The more strength you get, the better this item becomes; kind of like POTCG, itself! Just make sure to buy one with an 18% strength roll - it's not going to cost you much, if any, more. The movespeed, chaos res, and surprisingly decent base armor are all a good bonus, too. Until you get a lot of strength (around 650+, perhaps?) a Lioneye's Paw is a good alternate choice. For rare items...
For flasks... Currently, the only flask of note I run is this: If I am fighting a boss with degen or running a desecrate map, chugging a quick two swigs of this flask will top off my minions (especially if used with Convocation's regen). Nothing is worse than losing your entire army of rhoas to some chaos degen! The instant life is also really useful for my character since I run flask nodes and a unique with a bonus to flask life. I am still experimenting with other flasks. At the moment, I use two life, one granite, one amethyst and a quicksilver. None are rolled to what I want them other than the above life flask. Skills
Spoiler
5/6L Dominating Blow + Melee Splash + Multistrike + Added Phys + Added Fire [6th: Faster Attacks or Inc Duration] * For my DomBlow links, I decided to stay clear of Faster Attacks and Increased Duration, leaving one to instead be a potential 6th link later on. I wanted to keep the mana/life cost low by avoiding Faster Attacks, and the extra duration did not seem needed after picking up some duration on the tree and getting quality on the DomBlow gem. This also makes it easy to link in a pure armor chest by being all red gems. 4L CWDT (Level 1) + Warlord's Mark + Desecrate + Flesh Offering * My lower-tier CWDT that goes off frequently. Warlord's Mark makes sure I top off my endurance charges, spreads some to minions and gives us all much needed life leech that I couldn't fit in the build anywhere else. The Desecrate makes sure there are corpses for Flesh Offering to absorb (few corpses are left behind due to the nature of DomBlow). Just make sure the Desecrate gem comes before the Flesh Offering one in the link or it will not work! The gems proc in order starting at the top and going clockwise. 4L CWDT (Level 20) + Molten Shell + Rejuvenation Totem + Immortal Call/Enduring Cry * My higher-tier CWDT that goes off less frequently, but has fully leveled gems. Molten Shell is just a nice defensive spell, especially for a pure armor build, while the totem is a little extra healing for both me and all my many minions. The Immortal Call can be swapped out for an Enduring Cry gem, but it is up to personal preference. It is nice to have the Immortal Call during physical heavy maps, but it *can* rid you of your precious endurance charges right before the time for a Vaal Immortal Call comes. 4L Enduring Cry + Spell Echo + Vaal Immortal Call + Increased Duration * Fairly simple. The double-casted Enduring Cry is an easy 7 charges from most packs, and the Vaal Immortal Call with extra duration takes those charges and gives you true immortality for a time. 4L Leap Slam + Faster Attacks + Convocation + Stun/Blind/Knockback * Mobility is important for a DomBlow build. A fast Leap Slam means you can get to that important rare mob or pack of useful mobs before your minions destroy them, letting you first tag them to become your own. Convocation is essential for gathering your unruly mob when you need them most. The Stun gem is added because of the spare link and little other use for the spot. A Blind or Knockback gem can also be used. (If you've been counting, you might have noticed I don't have a second 5/6L even though I'm using a staff. That's just because I have not yet linked up a Pillar with more than four sockets. If I did, I would probably run my higher-tier CWDT inside it with an Increased Duration) Most Important Gems to Quality Virtually Essential:
Really Handy:
Most of the other gems in this build are only minimally boosted by quality. Of course it won't hurt, but don't worry too much about them. Bandit Choices
Spoiler
I feel these are the best choices for the build. The attack speed is an important stat that is hard for us to come by and the extra charge is too good to pass by. For the choice between life and a skill point, I think the skill point will win late game, because there are a lot of 5% life nodes you can easily grab, but I am shit at math, so I just took the life. Extras
~~THE GLORY OF DOMBLOW~~
TEN REASONS WHY DOMBLOW IS BETTER THAN [[skill name here]] AND WHY YOU SHOULD SWITCH TO DOMBLOW TODAY 1. You can dominate and keep all Bloodlines/Torment features on mobs. Yay new leagues! 2. You can dominate and keep all Nemesis mods. Mmmm Storm Heraldz~~ 3. Lockboxes are not just loot pinatas, they are now minion re-fill stations. 4. All those annoying charging rhoas, leaping frogs and scary devos? Yours now. 5. Totems can be dominated with ease. Diamond totems? Yes please! 6. Mob auras are yours! Mob curses are yours! 7. Corpses? What corpses? Can't explode them/eat them if they don't exist! 8. Fat chance of a projectile hitting you with all those minion meat shields surrounding you. 9. When dominated, crabs don't split to their second form. Hah! Take that crabs! 10. Vagan's dummies can be dominated. GOGOGO USELESS ARMY OF DUMMIES!
My Stats
Stats for Level 82 Offense
Defense
Videos
Level 70 / Solaris 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBdVQ6UnVgA * A quick video showing off some general gameplay. Nothing too fancy. Level 71 / 66 Grotto w/ Fracture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKofRE-2z5I * A quick video to show what the fracture mod is like for this build. It is...interesting. Level 81 / 71 Strand, Pack Size https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HHwd2eMc8w * Just another video. Shows the whole map this time. Level 81 / 74 Gorge, Sea Witch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idK9TURzkYU * An example of a map with less-than-optimal mobs to dominate.
Guide Changes
Jan 2nd
Dec 9th
My Other Builds
Current (2.0)
Spoiler
* [2.0] Hidden Potential Poison Arrow (100% magic gear!) https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1330650 Out-dated (Pre 2.0)
Spoiler
* [1.3] Purple Rain; a shockingly chaotic Voltaxic Rift build https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1096864 * [1.3] The Green Tornado (10 Frenzy Charge, Crit Bow Frenzy Ranger) https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1184004 * [1.3] HybridFlicker (life+es w/ Incandescent Heart) https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1194915 Last edited by Yordle on Jul 24, 2015, 5:03:43 PM
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I've re-done this build guide from the ground up and added the first gameplay video. More to come as I level up, though I am still playing quite casual at the moment.
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I would love to try this build but your passive tree link seems to be off. Can you please try to link again?
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Oh lord. Good catch.
Thank you for that. I somehow posted a tree for a completely different build of mine! Fixing that right now, | |
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Up to what level maps can this easily run? I'm still trying it becuase it cheap and looks fun, but I'd like to know.
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Unfortunately, I'm having a shit time with map drops, and the highest I've been able to run is a 74 Zana Courtyard. That went smoothly, though, as have my other Zana dailies around that level.
I don't think I'll have trouble in any maps, to be honest. The big difference is the higher level maps take me a little longer to get my army going. But the nice thing is that the higher level maps give you stronger dominated minions, so it should even out nicely. I will post some new videos of higher maps as soon as I get them! | |
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very interesting build :)
can this build clear 75++maps? I think dps is too low for making army 75++ Last edited by Slyuns on Jan 12, 2015, 5:26:32 AM
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I guess I just have to cave and buy a 75+ map, then, and run it on video! I got my first 74 drop yesterday, but none of these maps are paying off, even when chis+alched...
But since I've run builds that only had 12k dps period and were able to clear 75+ just fine, I have no worries at all. I'm confident 12k dps is going to be enough to make my army. edit: ...was going to record my 74 Residence, buuuut it alched Temp Chains, and no one wants to see me run...er...slowly walk, a temp chains map :P So I just ran a quick pack size Strand on video instead :/ I'll try and get something better asap. Last edited by Yordle on Jan 12, 2015, 3:15:50 PM
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I was curious what your thoughts on Astramentis is.
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Astramentis is not a bad choice at all, you just have to know what you're giving up to use it.
If you use all the other uniques I suggest + that one, you are down to FOUR rare slots. That's only four slots to cap your resists. It can be done, but when three of those four slots ALSO need to have a high flat phys dmg roll (and preferably also +strength) you are looking at very, very specific and expensive rares. You are also missing out on the highest potential flat phys roll of all your rare slots (neck can roll higher than rings or glove). All that said, depending on the roll of your Astramentis, you gain about 5% AoE and 10% attack speed, plus all that good %phys and life from the strength. This also means you do not need to worry about getting any int or dex on your tree or rare items to be able to use certain gems. A good phys dmg roll and str roll rare necklace will *probably* still out-perform it damage wise, though. It depends on how much total str you have. Personally, I would sell it and buy good rare jewelry with that money. |
