[outdated] King of the Forest (Crit version)

Just killed Shaper. My first time getting this far since Atlas of Worlds expansion (I skipped most of Essence league), thus my first attempts on the boss. I killed him on my 2nd fragment set, 4th or 5th portal.

Overall my impression is that unless you shit on him EXTREMELY FAST in the last phase (with the clone), you are fucked. That's what happened to my 1st set and I couldn't recover from it, even though I got into phase 3 with all 5 portals up. I just had the orbs that leave ground effect spawn during the "To me, exile, quickly!" phase twice and ran out of space: http://i.imgur.com/TnxUnF2.jpg. I don't think there's any other solution to this than killing him before it happens, as it's the clone spawning them.

Second set I fucked up several times in phases 1 and 2 (to being a bad player, not anything to do with the build), but I made a very focused effort on executing the maximum possible damage burst on phase 3. I calmly waited out his casts while getting my Frenzy stacks and dropping Wither totems, and once he decided to use his beam, I flasked and barraged his ass as hard as I possibly could. I did this twice and died, but he was nearly in Cull range, so that's what I did - added Culling Strike to LA, damaged him a little bit more (straight up improvising and dodging everything like a Jedi at this point), and then finished him off with a Cull.

I'd say my gear is very good. I have all pieces of the puzzle except Vulnerability on gloves, and I just use Temporal Chains instead (which increases Poison damage a good amount too); you can see my profile, it's public. I do have the +2 Barrage on helm, the 21/20 Added Chaos, Dying Sun, etc - all the good shit. The only big upgrades I could get are Essence of Envy jewelry, but we all know the availability and prices on that.

I did several adjustments specifically for Shaper: the Wither totem setup and a Witchfire Brew (I bought another Snakebite just to not have the Curse on Hit Temp Chains interfere with it), and I tried Point Blank but specced out of it for the 2nd attempt. I figured I keep him in the "negative" range more often than in the "positive", just due to being inexperienced with the fight and afraid of being close; Point Blank is probably the better choice if you are confident you'll make it work for you and not against you. Besides, the Witchfire Brew Vulnerability aura is tiny, so getting close is something you want to do anyway (but unlike Point Blank it doesn't penalize you with 'less' damage if you fuck up, hence why I chose to keep it in the setup when getting rid of Point Blank). Also worth mentioning is that I didn't have Blood Rage - this is due to me using a Jeweller's Touch prophecy to 5-link my bow (thus it's also 5 sockets), so I don't have a free socket for it - I'm sure this is a noticeable damage difference.

So... yeah. This build definitely CAN do Shaper, and I think I can learn to do him reliably, but it's just spooky as fuck and takes every trick in the book to do. I rather sell the fragments/maps than run them, honestly, at least for as long as I care about XP. There's a lot that can go wrong in this fight, some of it even outside of your control (the phases/order he casts stuff in - it felt like my second attempts last phase was 'easier' due to which spells he casted and in what order).

Can also fully agree with what was said about Guardian mods. You can't just instagib them with any random mod set. Yesterday I failed to close a Phoenix map with -12% max res, added % cold and fire damage (the added fire damage multiplied nicely with all the fire max res reduction), and multiple projectiles. Now, the added damage by itself was manageable, but the multiple projectiles made his small Phoenixes cover the whole map with projectiles that one shot me on contact. Of course, running that map was stupid in the first place, but that's just an example of how a Vaal Orb can make a Guardian undoable (and I'm at 0% xp anyway).

I've also had 2 derpy deaths on Minotaur from the falling rocks - they are one shots even without any damage mods. Of course, it's easy to avoid, but it's very well within the realm of possibility that you'll get unlucky and HAVE to walk through one, or accidentally Blink Arrow into one, etc. I also don't even want to bother doing the Poison immune ones - I hate the idea of 5-10 min boss fights. I think it's bad design and I'll just trade with people that run Ignite builds or whatever.

So, the end result is the same as Shaper: I CAN do the Guardians, but it's just not very comfortable. From having to roll the map, to having the most butt clenching experiences at the computer, I feel like I rather just go speed farm t14/15 maps, make some XP, make some currency, and buy all the boss challenges on 820. That would be the more 'economic' decision.

By the way, map clear with my current gear makes me feel no difference between doing a t1 or t15 map - this is where this build is doing absolutely great. I'm slightly afraid of Malachai (because he has this stupid targeted spell that drops a bit of blood and spawns tentacles under you which is poorly telegraphed, and hurts like a motherfucker with certain mods), but everything else is facerollable. Core maps are easy to convert into the other t15's anyway. The XP/Hour and currency from running thru t15's like sonic is pretty juicy I have to say, and it just feels great to do. The smoothness of map clear is the reason I wanted an archer character.

It's largely thanks to us outscaling Izaro so hard, but Lab actually feels great on this char too. Izaro insta dies, life and life regen is great for traps, Blink Arrow is great for trap skipping. Rather do that than Shaper & friends, if I do get bored of running maps.

Overall I'm very happy with how this build turned out; it's my only char in Breach so I played it all the way from zero to hero. I was able to do everything in the game on it, just as advertised, and I enjoy map farming more than boss farming anyway - leave that to the "facetank everything" ES chars. The progression path felt nice and rewarding, and I generally enjoyed these ~7 days of /played a lot. Thank you for this guide, thread, and league experience, cmphx. I got exactly what I wanted by going with this build.

Time to do challenges, farm XP and chill. Probably going to invest all my currency into the Envy crafting gamble as I won't be making another character.

Merry christmas

P.S.
This was all I got as my reward: http://i.imgur.com/JRSORXl.jpg ;_;

Saw this build mentioned in a youtube video comment and was tired of looking for one so I just went with it. It ended up being a good build to start with; death's harp/opus and lioneye's glare carried me pretty far into end game.

I'll admit I am not a big fan of QueenOTF so I went straight from a 5link rare chest to the Cospri's. Dropping the snakebites made for smoother gameplay, and I opted for the DPS choice of maligaro's. I could have used the additional res/life/atkspd but there just weren't any good rare ones yet for sale in Breach with vulnerability. As it stands I'm still ele capped and have decent chaos res with the headhunter equipped. Sometimes I use a tri-res leather belt for -res/ele weakness maps.

As the guide stated Tornado shot works fine for ele refl and that unique heavy belt does the same for phys. Tried all the breach lords with this guy and they were all defeated easily. Chimera as well. I will update later when I find the remaining memory fragments and can fight shaper.

Got about 5.7k life with the headhunter but got another jewel socket to fill yet.
-I run Blasemphemy-Enfeeble but sometimes use TC.
-CWDT Immortal call + INC duration + Vaal haste
-Last gems are Decoy totem, Ice golem, Blink arrow+Faster attacks, Blood rage, Grace

I use my LV21 added chaos/Void manipulation in my Lightning arrow instead of Barrage for a bit more clear spd. Likely unnecessary with the +2LA enchant but I like feeling OP. Sometimes on bosses I will put them in my barrage links but it doesn't really seem necessary.

On my skill tree I dropped all the frenzy nodes but kept the evasion/movespd ones. This is because sometimes I equip QueenOTF for additional movespd for lab. I may drop those nodes too however for the jewel socket near the +10 INT Nodes at the top of the tree.











If you got any questions feel free to whisper me in game.

Merry Chrismas!
Hi ,it's a good BD ,and i have a question
Now i passed 4 Guardian , but failed 2 time in Shaper at phase 2
A question, i think my dps is enough but i can't deal the monster quickly from Shaper's portal ,Zana always died ...and there are more than 5 black hole so it's hard to move ..

my skill

DPS at home

Here is my eqip

and i will use a curse vulnerability gloves

I was wondering, do we really need to get the 4th frenzy charge? Or would it be ok just to grab the frenzy charge duration nodes and forgo frenzy charge?

Also, how is the volley fire unique jewel for this build?

One more thing, can you post a video of you doing a hardmode uber lab?

Do you think its possible to do something similar as assassin wander, or even pathfinder? (ci probably)

Guys,
which one jewels are the best for this build?
I mean it's obivious first mode is + life, but what about dps?
Most important is projectile dmg, chaos dmg or physical dmg?

Really nice build!

I enjoy this build but one thing that annoying me is that theres not enough place for skills on my bar. LA/Barrage/Blood Rage/Totem/Vaal haste/Golem/Frenzy/Move only/Blink Arrow.

I cant play without move only bind and changing skills middle of a fight is annoying (for example if golem die) so Im ending up not using something whole fight :/

Are you not using something or just change skills during fight?

Golem + move only on LMB, summoning golem with shift and u get extra one slot :P

If I cant afford a Devoto's with +2 barrage, Would a regular res helm serve me better? Or is the devoto's still worth it?