[2.2 P-HC] Jonix's Champion Voltaxic! New league/first character tips!

*guide is not close to being finished, just put a brief skeleton together before patch notes.

**Patch notes released! VOLTAXIC IS SAFE! How did we escape the nerf bat?!?! I will have to reevaluate fatal toxins and thus possibly snakebites (initial thought is poison will still be powerful, if anything, look for chaos damage jewels over projectile/lightning.)


INTRO
While duelist has a pretty poor start on the tree (clunky), perma-fortify and a significant movespeed/party buff, made the champion ascendancy class a no-brainer for a starting character in a HC league.

Some quick pro's of the build.

-Blast rain is extremely powerful and flexible (can get around LOS issues, great Single target).Now throw in poison, which double dips from Conc effect, chaos manipulation-its op. Think blade fall but better, with shocking capabilities, passive leach via the skill tree and REFLECT IMMUNITY.

-LA has incredible clear speed. My path to 97 on HC talisman was incredibly easy. Just spray and let GMP and Chain take care of "aiming". Whether you want to farm currency/items/ or experience, clear speed is imperative. This build has it.

- A single +2 mana gain on hit jewel eliminates any mana issues (slow regen map/ no regen etc)

- Build has very good defenses. ~40% evasion, 40% dodge/spell dodge, ~7k hp. capped res/ ~+2% chaos res in merc. (my gear)

- Patch 2.2 is shaping up to be very Flask oriented. Basalt is a budget friendly ToH. We take advantage of this with our position on the skill tree by efficiently picking up flask duration/recovery/charge generation nodes.

- INSANE BASE MOVESPEED thanks to Champion Class. +60% BASE MS without a flask/Vaal haste/onslaught. It gets absurd with buffs.

-This character is a GREAT first character/farmer. You don't need a voltaxic to start building a map pool and currency base.

Core skilltree ~lvl 80ish


Notes on the skilltree FAQ
**Ill be making modification to the tree in the coming days based on the new patch notes

-Start off stacking life. I leveled through merciless and started mapping with very few damage nodes, rely on blast rain over LA for leveling and earlier maps. You can level using a stormcloud (i.e a fast ias ele bow) with wrath/herald/Static electricity, OR a phys bow (switch to hatred/ash or just heralds depending on bow).

If reflect starts giving you trouble before you get voltaxic, use a physical bow pick up a LGOH jewel. Blast rain and LA both have damage conversion so it distributes your DPS between phys and elemental making it much safer for reflect. Also feel free to take arrow dancing. (temporarily)

Ice golem + Blind trivializes bosses. use it for leveling.

-I've seen many Voltaxic builds go up the ranger side to the scion wheel. Going up the left branch (duelist/mara) allows you to flow into the Mara start at higher levels and is more efficient.

- Dont rush jewel nodes, unless its 1 node away, OR you have a sick/required jewel to use (MGOH/resist jewel). When looking for jewels I always start with %life and 1 core dps stat (chaos damage/crit multi etc). If you can afford 2-3 dps stats great! if not, look for affixes that will make gearing easier ex.. resist, intelligence (lvl 21 wrath is 159 int). Remember to get a +2 mana gain on hit jewel.

Bandits

Normal:Oak

Cruel: Kraityn or skillpoint

Merciless: player preference (suggest kraityn or skillpoint) Be careful picking up to many frenzy charges, It makes it very difficult to keep snakebites poison active. I run with 4 total.


GEARING/GEMS




Stats at 97 (rippppp. Tried twinn'd daresso.)
6.9k life
~39k lightning arrow (with flask)
~45k blast rain. (5l'd with flask. 6linked is more than 60k.)

res

hey thanks for this it's exactly what i was looking for haven't played the game or used LA for a long time.

Are you certain this is going to work as a new league character?

Sounds great! Is there anyway you can link a individual skilltrees for level checkpoints? (Tree @ Lvl 30,50,70 etc) Would really help new players!

Looks similar to what I had planned but:

- Why no frenzy charges?
- Thoughts on fatal toxins/snake bite? (Poison is a very cheap way to double dip damage)
- no Lethality ring? thats almost 122% Crit

I would drop Phase acro (I always just keep acrobatics), and the Scion jewel slot (you have used 3 passives to get it) and use those 7 points on some of the above, or you can pick up the missing life nodes from ranger/duelist start.

Very high life, and scope for a lot more

"

drigorin wrote:

Sounds great! Is there anyway you can link a individual skilltrees for level checkpoints? (Tree @ Lvl 30,50,70 etc) Would really help new players!

I dont know about the op but I plan to level as 2h molten strike until act 3 normal - at which point we can tri-herald with Revelry (+2 mana gained on hit) and grab a fast/ele dmg bow.

Duelist starts are some of the worst so going bows from lvl1 is very painful.

I plan on filling the Duelist nodes then picking up Herald of Oak and Druidic Rites then going for Acrobatics and making the way to Shadow life nodes.

Since you have Master of the Arena, Golems Blood and Heart of Oak, frenzy and tri-ele aura should carry your damage through to Merc in self-found gear.

From there, you can either start stacking crit and then moving to the Scion wheel before filling in the jewel slots.

"

Are you certain this is going to work as a new league character?

Yes, it's very flexible and the base skilltree is very safe (lots of life, close to resists). If you have problems in early maps and can't craft/find a decent bow, just buy a chin sol. Its cheap and works with blast rain.

"

Looks similar to what I had planned but:

- Why no frenzy charges?
- Thoughts on fatal toxins/snake bite? (Poison is a very cheap way to double dip damage)
- no Lethality ring? thats almost 122% Crit

I would drop Phase acro (I always just keep acrobatics), and the Scion jewel slot (you have used 3 passives to get it) and use those 7 points on some of the above, or you can pick up the missing life nodes from ranger/duelist start.

Very high life, and scope for a lot more

-I tried out running 5-6 frenzy charges, it was difficult to keep charges up with snakebites for bosses or in a party with buffed mob HP, even if i weaved in a few frenzies. If you attack with frenzy it doesnt refresh all the charges, they all have individual timers based on the charge duration %, you can get away with 5 charges but i don't suggest anymore than that.

-Fatal toxins, i have to test. Its 3 pts for ~70 poison damage. is 23% per point worth it? What does it cost me in terms of projectile damage (which increases the poison damage too!)

-I use snakebites. See gear.

- OOPS! Yes get lethality! updated tree

- Phase acro is personal preference. Some players love it, other's dont. In HC, having layered defenses is powerful (eva/dodge/fortify/basalt etc) We have alot of phys mitigation, not so much for spells/elemental damage. With the inclusion of fortify I may drop PA, but not sure yet.

- Scion jewel was absolutely mandatory for me. Unless i had GG mirrored gear or used all my jewel slots for resists. There was no way to cap resists (and get 60+ chaos resists) wearing snakebites + Lightning coil. Then trying to overcap for ele weakness? yikes. But yes, if u can manage to get the proper gear/jewels than those points would be better suited elsewhere, just be careful your not sacrificing suffixes on ammulets/quiver (crit/crit multi), or all your jewel properties to get there.

Hey just two quick questions:

1.: Would it be possible to play an IR Variant of this build (easier to farm...); my first impulse tells me this build somewhat depends on PA so probably no...

2.: Would it be possible to fit Bloodless (and possible Iron Grip) into this? To me it seems it would be possible to substitute this for the small nodes around Constitution...

So, I'm being following your build, but mana is a problem early on, what do you recommend since you don't pick Spirit Void?