[2.6] The Death Knight, melee witch that delivers pain <Guardians+Shaper videos>

Atziri's Splendour Sacrificial Garb with armour, evasion and energy shield % increase should be better? Or Iron reflex have no benefit from the inc evasion from it...

The one with increase to armour/evasion/es can only have a maximum of 317 ES, which is low for end game, but it should be enough for 1-10 tier maps (I had only a 220 ES chest till tier 8 or so). You can reach 13-13.5k armour without flasks and break 31k flasked with it, but you won't have as much ES. For comparison, on a pure ES Atziri and 20 lvl Grace, I reach 10503 armour without flasks.

If you are on a budget, then best armours are (in order of worst->best):
- no ES
- Armour+ES
- Evasion+ES
- pure ES
Evasion is better then armour, because we get around +70% evasion from the tree alone, and if you are using Shaper's Touch, that is another +60% or more.

I don't know how pricy hybrid Atziri armours are at the moment, but you can always look around for any rare ES body - less armour, probably more ES then similarly priced Atziri, but also harder to get right colours.

wouldn't void manipulation and added chaos be better than Melee phys and melee phys on full life? I realize 4g 2b would be hard to get on an ES chest, but wouldn't the damage be higher?

Also rather surprising you don't level as a summoner due to the build being a death knight. Looks fun I had an epiphany last night about this build figured one existed and this morning here it is.

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The_Real_Swerve wrote:

wouldn't void manipulation and added chaos be better than Melee phys and melee phys on full life? I realize 4g 2b would be hard to get on an ES chest, but wouldn't the damage be higher?

Also rather surprising you don't level as a summoner due to the build being a death knight. Looks fun I had an epiphany last night about this build figured one existed and this morning here it is.

Added Chaos gem isn't that strong in this setup, I've tried a lot of gem combinations and current ones are best I could come up with.

Void Manipulation works mainly with chaos from Spirit Offering and poison, which means that:
- it boosts only a portion of our attack damage (we deal around 75% physical damage, and around 25% pure chaos damage)
- even though it greatly boosts poison damage, it won't make up for loss of front loaded damage.
If trash mobs die in 2-3 hits anyway, poison doesn't have a room to do its damage, so its additional damage is wasted anyway.
2 of 4 Guardians are poison immune, so its better to stick with higher attack damage.
Less front loaded damage and more poison damage means that our ES leech is lower, and in my experience, we do need as much leech as we can get against end game bosses to tank efficiently.

All in all, I wouldn't recommend it, but you won't break the build if you use VM.
Killing Phoenix or Minotaur will be easier, but Chimera or Hydra will be harder.
If you do want to use VM, I suggest swapping out Critical Strikes gem for it, as other gems provide much more damage or utility (AoE gem for example) the CS gem.

I didn't really think about using summoner for leveling when I wrote the guide, but yeah, it seems like a good way to go :) It's just that all the best minion nodes are opposite way we are going, and wasn't sure if that won't slow the leveling too much :p

- Slightly updated passive tree (minor changes)
- Updated Legacy gear
- Added Minotaur/Phoenix "deletion" videos and Hydra kill
- Updated stats section and improved formatting.

Also, added no Grace -> Hatred passive tree setup, which theoretically will perform better in maps and against poison immune bosses, without too much loss of damage against other bosses. Will test it in the near future.

edit: Uber Izaro video added.
edit2: Shaper video added.
edit3: Vaal Temple video added with experimental Hatred setup.

why is your build SO diffrent on your legacy char than the build u posted as intended 99 build ?

is their any alternativ for blood rage? i have 6.1k es now. and if i dont hit a mob after 5-6 sec then im dead

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Twintech wrote:

why is your build SO diffrent on your legacy char than the build u posted as intended 99 build ?

Hi, in the passive section there is experimental Hatred aura setup. I got rid of Grace, but took more ES nodes, and I'm testing both damage/survivability on this setup. Experimental as in I'm currently testing in with my character, but so far it looks good.

In videos section you can see that both setups work quite well, so I haven't decided yet which one will be final. Both work very well.

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Twintech wrote:

is their any alternativ for blood rage? i have 6.1k es now. and if i dont hit a mob after 5-6 sec then im dead

You can swap your weapon sets twice if you have it socketed in your weapon, or if you have it in your other socket, just lift the gem and put it back in to stop the degen.
For both speed and ease of use, I have it it my weapon. But yeah, sometimes I die too when I finish off the boss or a mob pack and stop to pick up the loot, completely forgetting about Blood Rage still going.

Even though silly deaths will happen, I still recommend using Blood Rage. It boosts our total damage by 25-40% or so, and charges are quite easy to keep up on Guardians, only not as much on Shaper though.

edit: added another Chimera video, with 6L chest and experimental Hatred setup. Also added Normal Atziri yesterday or day before, forgot to mention. Same setup.



Differences between Hatred and Grace so far:
Grace - less ES, a bit easier Minotaur with same gear. Better survivability vs Chimera, especially during smoke phase. Phoenix is harder then in Hatred setup.
Hatred - slightly better clear speed, more ES but feels a bit more fragile. Rather sameish survivability overall, but handles Volatile bursts, Phoenix's burst and Shaper yellow balls better.
Imo, both builds have really similar performance, but Grace setup can be made more flexible - for example, you grab %mana and mana regen on your way down to Iron Reflexes, with Hatred setup you need either good regen on your ring or spend 2 points to get Dreamer notable, otherwise there will be split seconds when you don't have mana for BF after a Whirling Blade or recasting your Golem, and no BF - no leech, you die.
You also get 20% more flask charges, get more strength (with Hatred you are more pressured to get str on gear), can possibly grab Druidic Rite for even more flask charges gained and flask duration, or even get Graceful Assualt which really does speed up your mapping (and is quite useless for bosses, but its still an option some people might want to test, would be great in Chayula domain where you need every bit of additional movement speed).

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Bristoling wrote:

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Twintech wrote:

why is your build SO diffrent on your legacy char than the build u posted as intended 99 build ?

Hi, in the passive section there is experimental Hatred aura setup. I got rid of Grace, but took more ES nodes, and I'm testing both damage/survivability on this setup. Experimental as in I'm currently testing in with my character, but so far it looks good.

In videos section you can see that both setups work quite well, so I haven't decided yet which one will be final. Both work very well.

"

Twintech wrote:

is their any alternativ for blood rage? i have 6.1k es now. and if i dont hit a mob after 5-6 sec then im dead

You can swap your weapon sets twice if you have it socketed in your weapon, or if you have it in your other socket, just lift the gem and put it back in to stop the degen.
For both speed and ease of use, I have it it my weapon. But yeah, sometimes I die too when I finish off the boss or a mob pack and stop to pick up the loot, completely forgetting about Blood Rage still going.

Even though silly deaths will happen, I still recommend using Blood Rage. It boosts our total damage by 25-40% or so, and charges are quite easy to keep up on Guardians, only not as much on Shaper though.

edit: added another Chimera video, with 6L chest and experimental Hatred setup.

thanks for the quik reply. and yae weapon swap works well haha :D tyvm

A small note to everyone following this build (I know there is a couple of people out there), Blasphemy+Vulnerability has been dropped - Vulnerability in Cwdt setup + Witchfire Brew (previously experimental setup) is enough vs all bosses, and Shaper's Touch corruption even better for wealthier players.
This saves us 1 gem slot to use (we need as much of them as we can get), but your golem will have to be recast manually. Mana saved can be used for Arctic Armour (defense) or Herald of Ash (offence).
Also, if no one noticed, Jade flask has been replaced with Basalt flask - it provides almost twice the amount of mitigation against physical damage.

Feel free to try Hatred aura setup - so far it looks as good if not better then Grace, but it might be also because my gear has slightly upgraded. Check my current character in Legacy league for most up to date version.
Either way, both setups work great, difference is preference.