[2.6] Bat_boy's Quad/Triple Aura, pure evasion & crit Wildstrike Build(™)

Hi everyone, this is Bat_boy, and I've decided it's time to share one of my own self-created builds, especially with the new Wild Strike buff with the deployment of patch 2.6.0 which brings it from 60% to 100 % conversion of physical to elemental damage! So here we go!
I call this build my Quad/Triple Aura, pure evasion & crit Wildstrike Build(™)!

FIRSTLY:

What is wildstrike?
Wildstrike is a skill gem that converts 100% of your physical damage to either an icy projectile attack, a fire AoE attack or a chain lightning attack.

How does it work?
Wildstrike takes all of your physical damage and converts it to elemental damage. So, you want to stack as much physical damage as possible if you want your elemental conversion to be the highest.
The conversion occurs AFTER the stacking of your melee physical damage. Let's say I do 0 physical damage, then I will do 0 elemental damage because 100% of 0 will be converted and 100% of 0 is 0.
If I have 200 physical damage and I use WS, then I will do (100% of 200 = 200) 200 elemental damage either as ice, fire or lightning.

Modifiers?
Any modifiers that affect conversion are specific to the TYPE of conversion. For example, area of effect nodes will affect the FIRE blasts since they are classified as AOE. PROJECTILE nodes will affect the ICE portion of Wildstrike since the ICE projectiles are classified as well "projectiles". Same thing for "chain" effects - it will only affect lightning since the lightning is classified as a "chain" attack.

EDIT: MARCH 14th, 2017:
VIDEO explanation & showcase of the build with a tier 5 map (as a start)
Will Upload Clips of clearing higher tier maps later on:

Skip to 12:00 in the video below for mapping portion. Apologies in advance about the quality/framerate. Running video oberlay plus poe on a surface pro 3.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvfkCi_A_XM

EDIT: All suggestions/questions/important discussions will be posted at the bottom of this post for everyone to see!

Updated Passive Tree 2.6.0+ (03-03-17):

Passive skill tree build

Ascendancy:
You want to pick "Assassin" as your ascendancy. Go for the lower one - (the one with power charges) and middle node paths (100% crit on full, 100% crit on low) and ignore the upper (poison/bleed, DoT).

With this build you will have 95 % crit (so you will be capped) either way. You just get a bonus 5 % crit (100%) if you choose assassin (on full life mobs) and 100% crit on low life mobs as well.

so: 100% (start of fight) - 95% (middle of fight - you're crit capped remember) - 100% (when enemy is below 10% hp).

Why Power Charge Line and not the bleed/poison? The previous wildstrike only converted 60 % of your damage to a random element, so 40 % of your damage could have caused bleed since it is physical damage. Now, since WS converts 100% phys to elemental damage, it would be an almost useless line to take. You can still get the bleed/poison nodes if you want but now you are forced to take the node "Force Shaper" if you want to do so. Otherwise, going with power charges is better.

Bandits
Normal Oak
Cruel (Kraityn for attack speed - HOWEVER, NONE IS PREFERRED)
Merciless - get skill point from Eramir

At level 90:
Refund Normal Oak for Skill point (20 regrets + 1 Amber Amulet)

Passive Skill Tree checkpoints (assuming no bandits taken):

Start of Act 1 Cruel (End of Act 4 Normal): Level 40 with a total of 47 skill points (no bandits taken, all skill book quests completed from normal) and 2 ascendancy points:

Passive skill tree build


Start of Act 1 Merciless (End of Act 4 Cruel): Level 55 with a total of 70 skill points (no bandits taken, all skill book quests completed from Cruel) and 4 ascendancy points:

Passive skill tree build


Level 70 with 93 skill points: All merciless quests completed (no bandits taken) and 6 ascendancy points:

Passive skill tree build


Level 90 with 113 skill points (no bandits taken, all quests completed) and 8 ascendancy points:

Passive skill tree build


Current Gear:


If you have , you can use it instead of QotF.

The Perfect Form is a good substitution for QotF, you need to make sure you get cold capped after you wear it however:


Will also be trying out duo HoWA once breach merges with standard in replace of double binos and see how it goes:

Duo HoWA yielded poor results. Would not recommend using HoWA or any claws over daggers.

Build Mechanics:
Firstly, expect to have a low life pool. With this build, you hit about 64-65 % evasion with grace and 52 % without if you decide to run with Hatred. The current variation of my build is using Hatred + Herald of Ash + Herald of Ice (all three being active at the same time) and having Grace on hand and switching out Hatred for it if I'm trying to do a speed run or farming areas where the 50-60 k + tooltip dps boost won't matter (like farming dried lake).

You will also be running Vaal Grace no matter what. That is your emergency button (either to finish that lengthy boss fight (if its a multistaged one) or save yourself from a potential one hit K.O.

You can run Hatred + Grace + Herald of Ash + Herald of Ice all at once, but you need to sacrifice dps for that (basically take all the reduced mana reserve nodes on the tree with the exception of the cluster near templar - too far). Also expect to take some %increase mana nodes instead.
When I have the time, I will make the passive tree for those interested in running quad-aura. Either way, whether you run triple or quad aura, you need a level 4 enlighten and alpha's howl.

Mandatory Socket Links:
Wildstrike - faster attacks - multistrike support - weapon elemental damage - melee physical damage support- (either added fire/added lightning or critical strike multiplier for the last one)

Boots: Whirling blades - faster attacks - fortify - reduced mana support

Helm (In alpha's howl): Vaal Grace + Grace + Hatred + Enlighten (lvl. 4)

Gloves: Herald of ash - herald of ice - IIR (increased item rarity) + Ice Golem

Weapon slots: Whatever you want basically.

With this build, you have to watch out from any reflect elemental damage mods on maps and on mobs. Other than that, you will basically one to two shot bosses (with the exception of staged bosses like Malachai where you have to go kill the hearts, then back to him, etc...).

The most amazing thing though with this build is that sensation and feeling of hearing everything around you get shocked, ignited and shattered all at once. With literally one mouse click on a mob, you can clear not only all the mobs in your field of view, but also behind you AND off-screen. When I have the chance I will update this with a video of what I'm talking about, but those experienced with wildstrike will already know that.

A MUST HAVE: Either the 40 or 60 % damage increase to WS enchant from merc./uber lab OR chains 4 more or 6 more times from merc./uber lab. I prefer the chaining enchant because that can give you up to an additional screen area of clearing from your position in the screen before (so basically clearing two full window length spans of mobs with just one click).

So, those were all the positives, with the warning with ele damage reflect and low life pool noted.
However, I must stress this out, you are a glass cannon. If you want to be more tanky, you can take life nodes instead of extra damage or evasion nodes (especially evasion/energy shield nodes) and can increase your life to about 4-5000 hp. But you wont be getting more than that. I would recommend you sacrifice dps nodes instead of evasion nodes if you want to increase your life since your intention would be to outlive the mobs/boss and thus you would be expecting a longer fight.

If you are interested in this build, have any improvements you would like to make or general constructive feedback, please let me know! I'm always open to suggestions!

From reddit:


EDIT (02-26-2017):
Some key pointers that should help anyone trying to get from level 80 to level 90 with this build:
-> If you plan to do boss fights, you should have the timing and switching of their attacks and their different phases memorized. It should become reactive. You don't want to waste precious opportunities for advancing your character. Having a higher life pool can probably allow you to dps a boss face-to-face for a longer period of time but even then, I would recommend going in, throwing a few hits, going out. You need to essentially dance for your kill. This especially has to be done for multi-phased bosses like Atziri/The Pale Court/Shaper. No exceptions.

EDIT (03-20-2017):
Tooltip DPS @ hideout self-buffed pre-2.6.0 w\ phys. to lightning support:
247,000 to 257,000 dps give or take.

Tooltip DPS @ hideout self-buffed post-2.6.0 w\ added fire support:
205,000 to 215,000 dps give or take

So, while the DPS post 2.6.0 shows a slightly lower tooltip than phys. to lightning, you are actually at an advantage running added fire because the conversion is now 100% anyways so you lose that aspect from phys. to lightning.

Reserved for future use.

Passive Tree Updated to better reflect the direction I want this build to go (pure evasion/crit).

Updated With 2.6.0 and some crucial information for clarification on how wildstrike works.

Need to update one skill gem link.

Wild strike is one of my fav. gem so far but couldn't find any viable build yet. I will give it a try. Thank you.

"

demosty wrote:

Wild strike is one of my fav. gem so far but couldn't find any viable build yet. I will give it a try. Thank you.

Cheers! I am glad you really love wild strike. Honestly, I fell in love with the skill as well and couldn't switch from it.

There are a couple things I'd like to update in the original post, but figured I'll reply directly to you first (so that I don't waste your game time, etc...).

1. I tried using double HoWA claws and got really bad results with them. So basically don't go claws, stay daggers (even after the 10% crit chance nerf to the implicit on binos, they still outperform HoWA).
If you can, find or even craft daggers with T1 Crit and high pdps. If you can't craft but can afford to buy, then buy rare daggers that have better stats than binos. If not, binos will carry you through to level 90 and to end game.

2. Hyrri's Ire or The Perfect Form are still good substitutions. If you cant find a Queen of the Forest that has a roll of 360% and above then I suggest you go with Hyrri's Ire. If you want more survivability, go with the perfect form for the free arctic armour. Just make sure you are resistance capped for cold after putting it on.

3. 1-2 k life should carry you until levels 60-70. After that, you want to drop some damage nodes and go for as much life as you can from gear, and the passive tree. If you want to do endgame bosses, I would recommend you try and get at least 3 to 5 k hp. This is probably the most important point and I cannot stress this point enough.

You will have high movement speed, so no worries there.
You will have high dodge and evasion, so you'll actually find with enough health, you're pretty darn good at surviving.

To do really well as evasion, you have to make sure you are aware of your surroundings, the mods on rare mobs especially and how boss fights work.
You will have to memorize the fights (timing of various attacks, etc..which can be done with practice).

Lastly, if you have any questions, feel free to ask in this thread or pm me. I'm available to answer your questions on a daily basis.

Other than that, have fun!

Hey thought I'd give some feedback as I'm playing this build for Legacy league.

I thought wildstrike would be fun as I've never played a build with it, so far I quite like it. Sort of like a funky discharge that chains.

I noticed you didn't have bandit info, I ended up taking life, skill point and then power charge, after I noticed you went back down the power charge route, as WS now converts to 100% ele damage. Maybe should have taken attack speed as second point?

One thing is I died LOTS so far, but I guess it's okay as I play SC. The thing is I really try my best to avoid taking damage and jumping into stupid fights, I like to think I'd be capable in HC. Last league I was a slayer using lacerate and was definitely tanky, so probably used to that playstyle. I'm currently only level 71 so the build is not complete, I'll see what happens at 90. Thing is I've died about 60 times though, just makes me feel bad, never had a character die so much. I played a bow crit barrage assassin before and found having the range much more comfortable.

Feeling completely weak though, relying on eva with a low life pool is tough, and while leveling I rushed a lot without capped resist so deaths were going to happen... just so sick of the leveling process, so disrespecting the game will make you die lots.

Relying on jade and basalt flask for every pack, having to be in melee range is so dangerous with such low life and no phys reduction. I've taken more life than damage nodes so far, only just getting to complete the dagger wheel now. Even in maps I find occasionally I just explode to something when evasion and dodge fails. Some of the legacy combinations really rekt me, like ghosted exiles and invasion bosses, nasty.

Was wondering if crafted daggers are going to end up being better than Bino's? Will have to test. Can't really beat the crit on Bino's but I feel as though they'd synergize better with poison? Which now doesn't work with the WS changes...

I'm running vaal lightning trap on one of my weapons, the other one is still empty, need to figure out something to use. I'm running Hatred and HoA as normal auras, grace is in my alpha's howl but I don't really use it, the evasion bonus it gives seems to be minimal. Don't have an enlighten gem yet or a vaal grace. Sitting on 2400 HP. Will find it hard to transition away from my 5L chest and still cap resist. Prismweave is a massive dps boost, one with good rolls is cheap. Perhaps a talisman with frenzy charges could work? Hinekoras sight is too expensive at the moment. Don't have maligaro's gloves yet, also relying on my gloves for resists.

Does the "Adder's Touch" notable skill point on the tree work with wild strike, it says crits with daggers have a 30% chance to poison, take it this still works without phys damage?

Anyway just some of my thoughts so far. Will report back once I've settled in @ 90!

Oh one last thing, I took the Blood Drinker notable node for the leech, but it's so minimal now it seems to leech nothing. The life bonus is good. Will have to test the mana leech node, as mana is currently one of my problems, I have to flask to get it back. How did you solve mana issues?

"

armsinmotion wrote:

Hey thought I'd give some feedback as I'm playing this build for Legacy league.

I thought wildstrike would be fun as I've never played a build with it, so far I quite like it. Sort of like a funky discharge that chains.

I noticed you didn't have bandit info, I ended up taking life, skill point and then power charge, after I noticed you went back down the power charge route, as WS now converts to 100% ele damage. (1.)Maybe should have taken attack speed as second point?

One thing is I died LOTS so far, but I guess it's okay as I play SC. The thing is I really try my best to avoid taking damage and jumping into stupid fights, I like to think I'd be capable in HC. (2.) Last league I was a slayer using lacerate and was definitely tanky, so probably used to that playstyle. I'm (3.)currently only level 71 so the build is not complete, I'll see what happens at 90. Thing is I've died about 60 times though, just makes me feel bad, never had a character die so much. I played a bow crit barrage assassin before and found having the range much more comfortable.

Feeling completely weak though, relying on eva with a low life pool is tough, and while leveling I rushed a lot (4.) without capped resist so deaths were going to happen... just so sick of the leveling process, so disrespecting the game will make you die lots.

Relying on jade and basalt flask for every pack, having to be in melee range is so dangerous with such low life and no phys reduction. I've taken more (5.) life than damage nodes so far, only just getting to complete the dagger wheel now. Even in maps I find occasionally I just explode to something when evasion and dodge fails. Some of the legacy combinations really rekt me, like ghosted exiles and invasion bosses, nasty.

Was wondering if (6.)crafted daggers are going to end up being better than Bino's? Will have to test. Can't really beat the crit on Bino's but I feel as though they'd synergize better with poison? Which now doesn't work with the WS changes...

I'm running vaal lightning trap on one of my weapons, the other one is still empty, need to figure out something to use. I'm running Hatred and HoA as normal auras, (7.)grace is in my alpha's howl but I don't really use it, the evasion bonus it gives seems to be minimal. Don't have an enlighten gem yet or a vaal grace. Sitting on 2400 HP. Will find it hard to transition away from my (8.) 5L chest and still cap resist. Prismweave is a massive dps boost, one with good rolls is cheap. Perhaps a talisman with frenzy charges could work? Hinekoras sight is too expensive at the moment. Don't have maligaro's gloves yet, also relying on my gloves for resists.

(9.) Does the "Adder's Touch" notable skill point on the tree work with wild strike, it says crits with daggers have a 30% chance to poison, take it this still works without phys damage?

Anyway just some of my thoughts so far. Will report back once I've settled in @ 90!

Hi armsinmotion! I'm glad you're enjoying wildstrike so far. That's a good sign. I will try to answer all your questions and concerns (I have bolded in order what I will be responding too).

1. For the bandits, I personally decided not to take any of them (initially I had +60 life & 6% attack speed), however I found that having three additional points offered me more flexibility to tweak my build depending on the current situation. I think it's fine the way you chose your bandits. If you are really still dying way too much, I would recommend to respec out of merciless kraityn and go for a passive skill point. I would put it towards increasing your overall life pool.

2. This makes sense since this build is all about damage (whether it is for clearing/farming maps) or getting endgame bosses down before they could sufficiently damage you. It does have a steep learning curve and by that I mean if you are used to longer fights, with less deaths then it will take some time before you can transition to shorter fights that require you to "move in" "attack" move out". This is to be expected so I don't think you should stop trying to tweak this build. In fact, I think with your experience on being tanky, you could probably find a nice medium between having lots of HP nodes, high global defences, and high dps.

One other recommendation (Which I have not posted in the main post) is if you are happy with your current damage, you can sacrifice some evasion for more life nodes. You can also pick an additional jewel socket and make sure you have all %life increases in it.

3. I would recommend that you save up some currency to try and get hinekora's sight and a decently rolled maligaro. This will increase your dodge overall and also boost your dps. This will do one of two things: it will boost your overall survivability and due to having maligaros, you can now sacrifice some dps nodes for even more survivability.

4. This is probably one of, if not the most important point I want to address. For any build, you should always, always make sure you are resistance capped. Resistance always should go before anything. If you are not capped on your resistances, find some gear that will get you to the cap and if you need too, take resistance nodes on the tree.

5. This is the step in the right direction for you at your current level. I would even say forget about taking the dagger wheel and go for more life/resistance/evasion nodes. Really once you hit 90 is when you want to start increasing your damage. Again, I cannot stress it enough, but you have to watch out for volatiles, ele reflect and bearers, especially if you are not resist capped.

6. Absolutely. If you can get daggers with higher attack speed/crit chance and pdps than bino's, then go for it! The more damage you can get out of your gear, the more evasion and life nodes you can pick. Same is true for getting evasion on your gear. Try to get as much high evasion gear as possible.

7. Grace should be giving you a significant boost to your evasion. It should at least increase your evasion % into the next bracket. However, if you don't have % increased evasion nodes, then it will give minimal since the scaling on it will be lower.

Also, you really need to get yourself a vaal grace. Vaal grace has saved me more time than I can count. It is amazing when you are fighting multi-essenced mobs or ghosted exiles or end game bosses. It pushes the gap between moving out and dpsing further apart, thus increasing the time you have on damaging the boss. 2400 hp at level 71 is decent. By level 80 try to hit 3300 to 3600 hp with this build. I would recommend sacrificing dps at level 80 and focusing on life/evasion/resist gear so you can get to level 90. This build is really rewarding if you are really aware of your environment and can adjust accordingly.

8. I see that you are trying to get the resists (from your chest and gloves). Are you taking elemental resist nodes? If you are still struggling with the resists there is the wheel right below the scion where the left half is +18% to each ele resist and gives you access to a jewel slot for one extra point.

9. It should still work, but I will have to do some research to get you a solid answer on it. There may be a hidden requirement that you need to do physical damage to poison, but as it reads, and attack with daggers that crits should apply poison 30% of the time. So my short answer would be yes, it should work. But I will have to do more digging to confirm it.
Contacted a few friends of mine, turns out adders touch unfortunately doesn't work with the new wild strike (as the poison you would apply would deal 0 damage over time since there is no physical or chaos damage). It seems like for it to work you would be forced to take force shaper. However, the 60 % crit multiplier it gives is more than enough of a benefit to take it. I also will probably start tweaking my playstyle a bit to throw in maybe one physical attack between every 10 or so wild strikes to get the benefit of the poison.

So basically, at this point, get ele resist capped, get more life, get more evasion (so grace scales better and use grace instead of Hatred at this point), don't worry too much about dps until you have hit level 90.

Vaal grace is important, try to get one.
Maligaro's is also important, it will help you free up more skill points for survivability nodes. Don't worry too much about getting pure damage modded diamond rings if you still aren't ele capped. Try to get diamond rings with resist and some life. Even some evasion + resistances would be good.

In regards to mana issues, you really need a level 4 enlighten to sufficiently help. Until then, try to get maybe a necklace with 50% + increased mana regen. instead of hinekora's. Then, once you get a level 4 enlighten, switch back to hinekora.

If you need anything else, please let me know!

Hey thanks for all of your help!

I solved mana problem by getting a better neck with 50+ regen, it's rare that I oom between packs but it doesn't take long to recover.

My resist have been capped for a while, I know how important that is, it was just while leveling I got really lazy as I was just trying to rush to end game.

The enlighten gem I will need to get asap, just too expensive to get one that is already leveled up. Picked up a vaal grace for cheap and put it with vaal lightning trap + increased duration. Put CWDT + IC + whatever curse in my other dagger. Even a split second of immortal call is enough to absorb some physical and whirl out of danger so that works. Still need to get mali's gloves and hinekoras.

Switched to using grace full time with HoA and will figure out the rest of the auras/swap to hatred depending the situation and when I get the enlighten gem. It's starting to feel a bit more comfortable using the eva/dodge playstyle as long as I'm careful.

Wondering what your thoughts are on alternate skill setups using this tree and gear? Would something like frost blades and the new threshold jewel work out well? I was always interested in that skill but never went too far into it. Or something like double strike for single target damage or DS + melee splash? That way we could activate bleed/poison with those skills, it might be interesting. What do you think about mark of the doubting knight? That dagger is cheap at the moment, has poison and bleed, resist, higher pdps but loses the crit and attack speed over binos.

Still on the way to 90 but clear speed isn't too bad...