[NO LONGER WORKING] c9q9md's Cast On Melee Kill WORM BLASTER - HC Viable! (Physical spells!)

Hey, and welcome to my second worm build!
This is a build that focuses around killing worms and causing an insane amount of spells to be procced while doing so.





The concept is simple: We have 4 "The Writhing Jar" flasks, and we use the unique axe "The Harvest" to gain flask charges every time we crit. With the insane amount of spells we cast, we usually crit enough to instantly get the flask charges back, thus keeping up the chain reaction.

While the concept of this build is nothing new, my goal was to make it Hardcore viable and play the highest tiers of maps with the build and staying relatively safe. The other versions I saw of this build were very lacking in defence, and I believe this is the most defencive version of this build, while still dishing out enough damage to do very high-end content like twinned t15 Kaom or Atziri. If you want more damage, check out Nightflare's take on it, running spark!



Some stats:

Core items:

The Writhing Jar:


These flasks is the backbone of the build. We summon worms only to splat them a moment later. By getting "Reduced flask charges used" mods, we can get up to 4 uses per flask. We do this by getting the "Arcane Chemistry" node on the skill tree, as well as getting a high rolled "Reduced flask charges used" mod on our belt.

Example Belt:

The harvest:



This item is the other core item for this build. The "Gain flask charges on crit" Is the only way we can sustain our flask charge usage. It is a must have since gaining flask charges is such a huge deal. It also grants us huge amounts of global crit, which means that our spells will crit alot, which in return leads to more flask charges!


Not core items but really useful uniques:

Atziri's Splendour:



This item is really useful for my version which is Mind Over Matter based. The 100 mana and life gained on kill is huge for this build since we kill worms all the time. Even with a rather shallow mana pool of 600, we are still able to tank alot of damage because of it. Any smaller attacks will be 1/3 mitigated onto our mana, which is huge concidering the rediculous mana sustainability this build has, both from our flasks and from the mana gained on kill. VS smaller hits, it is sort of like wearing a lightning coil, just slightly better since we never convert that 30% dmg to anything, it goes on mana, which is regenned instantly. This is really helpfull against projectile opponents which spews out alot of smaller attacks in a short amount of time, and it also makes our armour alot more efficient.

To put it short, our mana will only ever go dry if a single attack manages to deal 1800 damage, 30% of this, aka 600 will go on mana, and we will only lose 1200 life. Any single hit dealing more than 1800 will take 600 damage on mana and life on rest, so for single attacks we have a total life pool of my 7180 life + 600 mana, which still is pretty decent.

If you want more DPS and less survivability, I recomend you drop MoM and go for Herald of Ash instead. This will increas eyour dps by a good amount and will save you a couple of points you can put into damage instead. You will still end up with about 7K life.

Note: There are many versions of Atziri's Splendour. My build is hybrid evasion/armour and therefore went with the armour/evasion one. I do this because we get alot of evasion from the right side of the tree, while getting alot of arour on the left side. Iron Reflexes is out of reach for this variant of the build.

The rest of the items for this build is rare items, focusing on EV/Armour/Evasion and life. Accuracy is not that important since the worms we summon have almost no evasion. I myself have 80% chance to hit, but even with less accuracy I did not notice any major difference.

With gear out of the way, let's move on to links!

Main Damage Settup:

Our main sockets should either be in our chest piece or in our weapon.
For this build we use physical spells.

The core is Sweep - CoMK - Blade Vortex - Bladefall. From there we can add whatever spells we want. Blade Vortex is really important because it helps us sustain flask charges. The worms summoned from The Writhing Jar will launch over our BV and will never be killed by our blade vortex unless you move. Our sweep has enough AoE to reach out to the worms, so we can still launch more spells. This helps us reach 50-stack really quickly. Blade Vortex is also the best skill to regain flask charges from. We go from 0 flask charges to full, just from hitting an enemy with blade vortex a couple of times. Our third spell is bladefall. Bladefall is our heavy hitting spell, killing most enemies in one or two volleys. It is insane for close AoE damage. The remaining 2 sockets are more or less for whatever you want. Personally I run Glacial Cascade as the AoE is huge and large enough to down blues/whites, this helps our clear speed get even better. For the last link you can use whatever you feel like. EK will dish out some damage to close enemies, but will not deal much single target damage due to projectiles beeing fired in random directions. Spark can be used since it will crit alot and help us sustain flask charges. It will also shock, making enemies easier to kill.
Arc can be used, but due to some weird mechanics, it will start to kill your worms before your sweep does. You get less Blade Vortex stacks, but you will still clear very well. Good for PvP if you are into that.
A support gem would also work. Added Fire Damage or poison is problably the best support gem. Sadly, we cannot use conc effect or incr. effect. This is because BV will kill worms with incr effect, and sweep cannot reach worms with conc effect.

If you have a spare socket, put in Vaal Lighning Trap.

Second BV Settup:

In our 2nd 5-link we run a seperate BV settup. We do this so that we can regain flask charges if we somehow run out. We also use this settup to easily gain power charges.

Links: BV - Increased Critical Strikes - Power Charge On critical - Spell Echo - Faster Casting.
We dont care about damage here, and getting up as many stacks as fast as possible is the best way to get power charges, and more importantly flask charges.

If you have a spare socket, put in Vaal Lighning Trap.
4l nr. 1:

We run a CWDT settup here. We run CWDT - Immortal Call - Molten Shell - Increased Duration.
Note: this settup should be as high leveled as possible. This is because Molten shell gets more armour with levels, which scale really well with our %increased armour on tree. Immortal call also benefits massively from higher levels. I have slightly ofer 4 seconds of immortal call up when consuming all 5 charges. Since we regain endurance charges using warlords mark, we are pretty much always on full charges, since we are killing so many worms.

4l nr. 2:

We run a curse settup here. Blasphemy + Warlord's mark is the main priority here. I also socket temporal chains, so that I can do some content easier than other, alltough i very rarely use it. The only time I have actually used temp chains, is when I did Atziri, as she deals little to no physical damage, and slowing her down will benefit me more than 2% leech.
In the last socket I have blood rage. I keep it low level so that the duration is short. I rarely use blood rage as I feel I don't really need it. It helps clearing marginally, but is not worth the huge degen in my opinion.

4l nr. 3:

In this final settup we run a movement skill. I use leap slam solely to cross places I normally can't walk. I link it with Fortify, and faster attacks. In the last socket I have simply put Arctic armour.


My Gear


Bandits

Normal - Oak
Cruel - Kill 'em all
Merciless - Oak

Ascendancy:

We first go for the 2% leech node. This is huge as it helps us run Vaal Pact even more smoothly.
We then go for Aspect Of Carnage because it is just so good.

Leveling:


Early on when we level we pick up RT. We level as a two-hander and use Sunder.
We later spec out of 2h damage nodes and RT.


Skill tree 20 points:
Start by picking up the two damage nodes. This will help us level quicker.
After having taken "Warrior Of Blood", proceed to take "Born to Fight" into "Butchery". This is enough damage to level at a decent pace early on. We then proceed through "Armour Mastery"






Skill tree 50 points:
After Armour Mastery, we pick up Juggernaut and Resolute Technique. The order of which you do so does not matter that much.

After that proceed upwards to templar starting area. Proceed all the way to the "Amplify" node.
Our left side of the tree is now complete. We now go for the middle of the tree.

Note: If you suffer from mana/attribute problems you can always pick up Versitality, but remember to spec out of it when you can!




Skill tree 70 points:

After picking up Constitution and it's sorrounding life nodes, go for the shadow area. "Path of the warrior" is taken as it helps us level, and is also good for our spells later on. We start transisitioning into our build now. We drop alot of the 2h nodes and go for the nodes we need. I transitioned at level 60. I was overleveled and was still farming Sarn at this point. Many will do this in Dried Lake cruel.



Skill tree 90 points:



Skill tree 110 points:
We pick up MoM.



Skill tree 120 points:

Dude... idk what to say. Thats impressive!
Clearly my Potato can't handle it tho. Nice guide and nice usage of mechanics :)

looks cool... but i fear the main problem is the actuall clear speed of the map, do you have video of full clear?

Thanks for the guide, had been waiting to start til you finished it :)

Also its always nice when people take the time/effort to suggest temporary passive choices for ease of leveling, so thank you for that too!

"

The_x_ile wrote:

looks cool... but i fear the main problem is the actuall clear speed of the map, do you have video of full clear?

He does actually https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT86M-FuWZU Also is linked at the top, first spoiler

"

bluechipps wrote:

Thanks for the guide, had been waiting to start til you finished it :)

Also its always nice when people take the time/effort to suggest temporary passive choices for ease of leveling, so thank you for that too!

"

The_x_ile wrote:

looks cool... but i fear the main problem is the actuall clear speed of the map, do you have video of full clear?

He does actually https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT86M-FuWZU Also is linked at the top, first spoiler

no he dont, that is bosses only montage

Ill record a Gorge run :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llXHYqyHB2E&feature=youtu.be



Just showcasing different spells. Clearing could be alot faster if I didnt use bad spells/stop to fiddle with them. Doing a full clear in under 4 min should be doable.

Edit: Also, the Arc gem is level 15.

could this be done from pathfinder?

WOW..... WOW.... MANY WOWS. i am in love.


goood stufff man.

"

spoilaaja wrote:

could this be done from pathfinder?

I don't see any reason why it would not work. You would miss out on alot of damage and some leech though. I am not sure if pathfinder allows you to summon 3 worms per flask use if youstack flask effect above 50%.