Mathil's Voltaxic Crit LA/Blast Rain - Cruise control the entire game. Uber Atziri Viable 2.2 ready

Interesting perspective on Pathfinder. I have not played it yet, so I am still wodnering a bit. It looks like for me in Prophecy, the 40th Challenge is gonna be the Endgame Grind one... so was honestly thinking about making a Ranger (only have one and it's on Standard) to test with. Could just transfer all my gear from the Templar over really. But atm, very addicted to the movement speed of Raider, if your assessment is that Pathfinder can rival that, I'm all about it.

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Interesting perspective on Pathfinder. I have not played it yet, so I am still wodnering a bit. It looks like for me in Prophecy, the 40th Challenge is gonna be the Endgame Grind one... so was honestly thinking about making a Ranger (only have one and it's on Standard) to test with. Could just transfer all my gear from the Templar over really. But atm, very addicted to the movement speed of Raider, if your assessment is that Pathfinder can rival that, I'm all about it.

To rival the Raider's movement speed you need the Pathfinder's BiS belt, The Retch.

With that, you have 30% perma movement speed (Nature's Adrenaline + belt bonus) plus perma Onslaught from Silver flask. Also, you have flask effect bonus that can give a ton of movement speed when using a Quicksilver flask of Adrenaline for fast map clears.

If you get a silver flask like this one



you get 2 usages, so it's perma-up as Pathfinder, because every single usage lasts ages.

Raider has 2% movement speed per frenzy charge (let's say 22% with 11 frenzy charges up) plus 8% in the small ascendancy nodes pathing to Avatar of the Veil. 30% then. Plus the Onslaught bonus that the Pathfinder has too.

IMHO, the movement speed thing is very close when comparing the two classes.

Hey man great guide. I have a question though. Is it still viable to go Scion after the nerf in 2.3?

Lovely discussion and build. Few more general questions regarding the Ascendancy class - I'm pretty much going to go Raider methinks for the speed and Frenzy buffs, but just wondering what the best way to generate Frenzy charges is?

Is that 15% chance to gain on kill sufficient?

Poacher's Mark? My issue with this is that I doubt I'll get my hands on a +1 curse amulet so was going to stick with Assassin's Mark for the Power charges
- side one on this, I'm only level 40 something with 22% crit, and with curse on hit + AM + Hearld of Ice, it rarely *rarely* generates anything. Is this just a low level issue? Also running HoA not linked to this, would that effect lessen the chance of a curse from HoI?

Blood Rage? The degeneration puts me off this these days as it makes Vaal Pact seem quite RIPpy, especially out of combat.

I'm also in two minds about which way to settle - LA/Pierce/FW or LA/chain/BR. Levelling gems in the off slots so I can switch when wanted though.

Appreciate expert (or any) input :)

edit: Auras! Only using Herald of Ash and Ice at the mo, is Grace still a must/recommended?

I'd say that the Pierce + FW + LA mono setup vs Chain + LA + BR double setup is a matter of personal taste. The Pierce method is overpowered, but I still prefer having two skills.

The best way to generate charges is Blood rage, but it only works when you are killing things. The only way to generate charges in pure single target fights is Frenzy, but it feels kinda slow in most situations and shouldn't be done.

Blood rage, as you said, feels quite uncomfortable when running Vaal Pact. That's why Acuity are an expensive but solid gear option.

The Raider's Frenzy charge generation when mapping is good and makes Blood Rage unnecessary. Blood rage is also a decent DPS buff because of its attack speed bonus btw.

Auras: if you play Voltaxic you should use Wrath + Herald of Thunder. If you want to map with some more safety you can use Herald of Ice instead of its thunder counterpart. Assassin's mark is the general curse of choice to keep power charges up, and it's used in the curse on hit setup with the Herald of preference and Frenzy.

I see Blood Rage is used in the builds, forgot about the DPS element of attack speed. Only way to combat that is Life Regen, pots and staying in combat right?

Also no idea what end game bow to use, guessing the Voltaxic at 60% is still awesome.

Still, think Raider is the choice for me, full Frenzy as I love running around like I'm on crack :D

Voltaxic is still the safest way to go for crit LA.

Voltaxic + Wrath + Herald of Thunder still allows me to run Elemental reflect maps so it is amazingly safe. Random ele reflect rare is 0 threat. Double reflect I have to be a bit more careful but mostly so far all it needs is for me to pot once.

I respecced to pierce/FW per suggestions in this thread. It's phenomenal for bosses that don't move too fast/have walls behind them. Open area maps or bosses that run around the wall are absolutely horrible though. I think the Gorge boss fight took me longer than the rest of the map.

Hit 89 yesterday, can't sustain tier 7+ maps so back to running 5/6. Levelling is way too much of a drag right now (less than 1% per map... really...) so I decided to attempt everything I had never done before since I don't care if I die. Did Atziri for the first time (yes I know I'm 2 years late). Died once to Vaal Oversoul because I'm an idiot and thought the first one was dead when it wasn't. No death on trio (happy dance). Died to Atziri twice because I didn't prepare pots for the fight at all (armor, quicksilver and mana pots... /sigh) and my dps isn't high enough to 1 shot between phases so on the 4 split phases it was hard to run around and avoid everything. Had fun though and I was super happy when I saw the achievement pop up. Also attempted uber lab with Izaro having dual swords for 3 days in a row. I am still too bad to do this. I'm at 8+ keys wasted and can't finish the last fight to get those last 2 points. I may admit defeat and pay someone to run it for me.

That's so weird, I've had a pool around t8-9 this league and some Red Maps now but I admit I'm mostly hunting Prophecies at this point.

I personally like HOI for Curse Application purposes since Voltaxic base crit is so low, but HOT is also nice. HOI never really had to worry since the damage from it is not really dangerous for Reflect.

I use Spell Echo with FW so when I see Gorge boss I can generally Blink out and spam Walls on him. Not a fun fight though. I also think Uber Lab is fairly tough for this style of char. If you look in my sig, I posted my bow char this league. Doesn't matter if you have good DPS and 5.9 K HP with Kaom, one shot is always a risk. I made an EQ guy instead. I don't ask for Prophecies on it, it is solely to do Unbearable Whisper V, Twice Enchanted, etc.

I retract my previous statement that elemental reflect isn't a threat. I have no idea what happened but I played an ele reflect map last night and everything was going well. Get to a pack with a rare in it, 1 shot myself instantly. Really pissed me off since I was at like 89.8 and I want 90 for the challenge. Come back, look at the rare, not ele reflect, don't understand what is going on. Another LA on the group of like 4 monsters. 1 shot again. Flipped a table that I was now 20% down. Finished the rest of the map without any issues at all. I guess I crit shocked myself on reflect? Not too sure what I did but 5k hp instant death on a tiny pack when I'm killing packs of 30 monsters without issues the whole way through.

I was down to my last tier 8, ran it and got 2 tier 7 and a 9. Ran the 9 and got a whole bunch of 7-8 and an 11. Back to t7+ for now which is good. Found my very first carto box of the league in a t8. Dropped like 1 t7 1t8 and 5 t3 and below.