[2.0] YeahPete's Hardcore Elemental Molten Striker | custom Loot Filter | Affordable

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The projectile changes in 2.0.0 remove shotgunning - this means that of a set of projectiles fired together, only one can collide with any given enemy.
Molten strike projectiles cannot collide with any enemies, and thus cannot shotgun. Their AoE can overlap to damage things multiple times, this has not changed.

This was straight from Mark_GGG

Excellent so this build is still on in the beta. Multiple AOE's can still overlap and hit multiple times.

Just noticed that Thief's Torment should be pretty insane for the build, allowing us to run Molten Strike of mana without any real problem

I'll probably get it as soon as I can, it's really too good I think (even though we lose the potential WED and flat damage of two rings, it's worth it I think)
The LGoH makes it even possible to run a shield if you want to get even more defences or simply have even more insane life regen when attacking.

The problem w/ thief's torment if you'll have to use a shield and say goodbye to the coolness factor. Might be the way to go for endgame but will we have enough mana with 4 auras running with dual empowers.

On another note. Just got 3 auras up and a 5 link in A1 Merciless in the HC race league. Melting everything w/ 3k dps tooptip. Still haven't found decent tigers paws though. I think you people are buying them before me. :/. Need to 4L my boots to run decoy totem for warden and merciless vaal.
Thats where I'm at. I may start compiling some of my vid's I've been taking.

I may have some Tiger Paws lying around in stash, I'll show them to you in game if you want them :)
Currently playing my Duellist version, sitting at 2k5 DPS with just Anger and Wrath and also melting everything.
I must say, I'm very impressed by the DPS of the build and overall the tankiness (@ hi insane regen) and it's very fun to play, using Whirling Blades to dodge some stuff, I've been able to tackle every situation the game has thrown on me in this 1M HC league and some were kinda crazy I must say.

I'll be going for an armoured version of the build, as I said, and if I get enough money at some point I'll be running Thief's Torment + Alpha's Howl (kinda obvious) + Lightning Coil + Saffell's Frame + Wrath, Anger and PoL

The ring makes it possible to sustain MS on mana and have enough LGoH even with a shield, so we take Saffell's Frame for some spell block and elemental damage reduction and with PoL + Saffell's, Lighting Coil phys reduction becomes insane, combined with probably 6 total Endurance Charges (not spending them for IC), the % damage reduction makes armour muuuch more efficient.

Combos everywhere.

It'll be expensive though, so this build is perfect for low-budget or new leagues.

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I'll be running Thief's Torment + Alpha's Howl (kinda obvious) + Lightning Coil + Saffell's Frame + Wrath, Anger and PoL

If you're using Thief's Torment and Saffell's, you might as well get rid of the claw and use a Jewelled Foil. Their base AS is much higher and you don't need the LGoH of the claw anymore.

I thought about running Thief's Torment for a while, too, but I figured the downsides are just too big. Let me list them up for you (with the setup you're planning to use, compared to Yeahpete's or mine):
- You're losing out on 2 x ~70 [life] x (1 + ~1,8 [~180 increased life from the passive tree]) = ~392 life which is a lot considering life is the most important stat of this build.
- You're losing out on 2 x ~30% = 60% increased WED which is a lot due to us dealing mostly elemental damage.
- It will be very hard to cap your resists: We need 135% fire & cold resist and 195% lightning resist. Assuming perfect rolls (!), we'd get 30 cold from alpha's, 14% all res from Saffell's, 22 all res from Thief's Torment and ~50% lightning res from PoL (including the increased effect of auras buff). That would leave us with 69% cold res, 99% fire res and 109 lightning res we'd have to get from our amulet, belt, gloves & boots while also getting lots of life from them (keep in mind life is our most important stat), which makes gearing pretty expensive. If you really want to play armour based, you'd have to get a bunch of armour or evasion (if you're using IR) on them, too, because your measly 786 armour you're getting from Lightning Coil & Saffell's (assuming perfect rolls) aren't going to get you very far. Makes gearing even more expensive.
That being said, you'll be facing -max res or ele weakness (often paired with ele reflect) in at least every 3rd map so overcapping wouldn't be the worst idea if you don't want to spend huge amount re-rolling maps. Makes gearing extremely expensive.


Yeahpete did a pretty good job at optimising the build while keeping it very affordable. I have no right at all to tell you what to play, but if you really want to play molten strike with claws, sticking (more or less) to his build guide will safe you a lot of currency. If, on the other hand, you want to play a Duelist with high armour, other builds are probably a better option.



On another note, I'm kinda struggling to decide which chest is the best for this build. I'm lvl 86 (almost 87) right now with +173% increased life from the passive tree (there's 2 more +5% nodes i'd like to get with my next 2 level-ups) and I'm at 235 strength and 4788 life at the moment (with my Tabula Rasa). I get +451 life from my gear and +50 life from the passive tree.

A Belly of the Beast would give me +865,9 Life which would set me at ~5650 life (~5800 with the 2 additional life nodes) and +10-15 all res which would be beneficial to over-cap my resistances.

A Carcass Jack would give me +~200 life, +10-12 all res and would give me +12% area damage and would let me use concentrated effect efficiently without spending 5 more skill points. I have to say I really enjoy playing with concentrated effect, the damage boost is insane!

A Daresso's Defiancy would give me +~170 life, endurance charges(-> physical damage reduction), onslaugh (+20% AS & MS, with Multistrike, that would be +>40% AS) and 6% chance to dodge attacks.


I'm at 490 fusings (most of them with 20 armourer's scraps) trying to 6l my BotB, but considering my luck, I'm thinking about selling my windripper to buy one of those 3 6l chests. Leaning towards a BotB, but what do you guys think? Is the life really necessary? I'm already able to face-tank (!) everything except the usual handful of OP map bosses (Maze Vaal, Residence Dominus, Palace Dominus, ...) and Atziri.

EDIT: Oh well, threw another couple of fusings on my BotB... Took me 508 fusings in total to 6-link it. ~400 of them were used combined with 20 armourer's scraps.

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Ripped my character at lvl 54 and 3K HP in Act 1 Merciless (The Prison) against that Invasion boss based on the spiky mobs from Imperial Gardens. When you get close to him, he casts a huge Incinerate all around him and deals a shit ton of damage.
I had already killed him one time in the Twilight Strand and his Incinerate thing seemed dangerous but I managed to get out of it when he activated it while I was sitting right on his face. It also seemed to have a high cooldown.

Met him again in The Prison, started to hit him, dodged his first Incinerate explosion and thought that I could kill him before the end of the cooldown.
I was wrong, 5 seconds later he activated it again and all my HPs went in less than a second (not exaggerating). I guess I'll avoid him next time ^^'

The build is incredibly strong for lvling and new leagues though, I handled all encounters until there (never had to flee or avoid a fight, even the most crazy ones with pretty much shit from all leagues combined) and had a really great time, the gameplay is dynamic and really awesome !

In fact, it's so good to play that I can't really enjoy my Incinerate character right now, I suppose I'll have to reroll as melee once again...

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Met him again in The Prison, started to hit him, dodged his first Incinerate explosion and thought that I could kill him before the end of the cooldown.

This is the exact reason we play ranger w/ phase acrobatics. Most deaths are due to spell damage. Those lightning totems / incinerate.

I don't press on from Merciless ledge A1 until I have max all resists. I was lvl 61 when I finally scraped the gear together. You can say I'm over-leveled but being melee you must have max resists. We can't kite like everyone else can. Must tank. A self cast enfeeble / enduring cry along w/ CoDT at this level along w/ CoDT Arctic breath to slow dangerous mobs. Everything is super easy right now. I had a slight OMFG moment when I battled about 3 beyond mobs in the forest and my framerate when to 6. Phase acrobatics saved me again. Tanked them all at the same time. solo'd the whole game so far.

This is my gear as of now. over 4.7k tooltip dps.I want to get rid of immortal call It's pretty useless at that low level without increased duration. Endurance charges would stay on much longer as well. At 7.5 Attacks per second. Still need more Attack speed. Also need another CoDT gem for Haste totem.

Phase Acrobatics and Enfeeble may have saved me, it's true. Still not sure though, I really went down in less than a second and I don't think I would have had the time to get out of the zone even with 30% spell dodge. With the reduced damage from Enfeeble, it may have been possible, I'm just too stupid since I forgot to have one on me, was planning on using it... Stupid me.

I had capped resistances though, since the beginning of Merciless (even overcapped resistances).
Though, most of the time on SC, I die to physical damage not spell damage. This, however, may be different for this all mods league since there are such Invasion bosses and Beyond packs.

Still, I'm very afraid of physical damage and consider it a VERY serious threat in most situations, based on my own experience of the game.

Overall, for new leagues and on a budget, the build with Acro/Phase Acro should be better than going for armour. Evasion and dodge are just so much better than armour right now.
The armour setup only shines when you have other ways to reduce physical damage like Lightning Coil and/or Taste of Hate.

Solo'd Dom last night. Level 68 right now. Going to play to level 80 and hopefully be close to top 1,000 to get beta key. I changed a few things as I leveled. An example is, I don't go straight for the templar tree. I put a bunch of points in the duelist and ranger tree, then plan to respec into the templar tree around level 85 or so.

This is my current tree at lvl 68.


I plan on going this far before I respec to the Templar Tree


Yes, it is alot of respec points but by that level you should be rich and able to afford some regrets. Should have plenty of points to spec into dual curse. I also got every quest on video but likely that will all change in the next patch.

Another thing I changed, is I'm not using GMP yet. I believe faster attacks actually enables us to kill much faster than with GMP. When you finally get a 6 link, you should also be able to afford a quality GMP and then toss that in there.

Hey, while beta is loading thought I would finally post on this thread that I have been following for awhile. I decided to try this build after my molten strike duelist died and had a ton of fun, but unfortunately due to some greedy play and desync, died to one shot from the flame blast exile (3.2k health and max res, BE CAREFUL). However, I decided to use this new found opportunity to try to bring this build to the beta (considering the wipe just occurred). I will keep you guys updated on how it goes (gonna start tonight sometime), meanwhile if you read this thread before 8 p.m.EST submit some possible tree you guys would like me to run (scion or rangers perhaps), but keeping this same type of build. Thanks and stay safe!