[2.6] Brutus' Lead Sprinkler ST Chieftain
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Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler Spectral Throw Chieftain
Build Introduction Hello and welcome to my BLS (Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler) guide! Just like many other players, I was excited by the recent buff to BLS, giving it an attribute-based damage scaling mod that is similar to HoWA, but for Fire Damage and Strength instead of Lightning Damage and Intelligence. With this new mod, BLS adds 2-4 Fire Damage to Attacks per 10 Strength. So I looked at some HoWA guides and used my previous game knowledge to come up with this build. I hope you enjoy!
Random personal ramblings about my league start (skip if you want)
This is actually my third build 5 days into the league (yea, I played a lot during the weekend…). My first one was a Split Arrow Ranger that I lost interest in. The second one was a Righteous Fire Chieftain that is quite successful and I’ll continue playing it. I wanted a change of pace from RF after burning out of it (no pun intended) for hours during the weekend, so I started this BLS build on Monday and it’s coming along really well.
Skill Choices
Spectral Throw (ST) works really well for this type of build, as confirmed by the HoWA builds in previous patches. Also it had been a while since I played ST so I thought I’d give it a shot.
One issue that I had to solve: the common multiple projectile ST setup is awesome for pack clearing but terrible for single target. Most HoWA builds solve this problem by using a gem swap (GMP for Slower Projectiles) for harder battles, but I personally don’t like the idea of gem swapping and find it clunky, so I decided to assign two 4-Link setups for dedicated single target by using Molten Strike (MS) and Ancestral Warchief (AW). I chose MS because the build already gets some Projectile Damage (around 60%) on the passive tree for ST, and MS is one of the few melee skills that can benefit from that. Then I chose AW because it’s a pretty solid DPS skill overall (with some builds actually entirely dedicated to it), and the Chieftain ascendancy synergizes well with it. Class and Ascendancy choice Since we’re scaling flat damage from our Strength, Marauder is the first class to come to mind. Other classes might offer other benefits, but I chose Marauder because it has the Chieftain ascendancy and also the highest base Strength (32). The Chieftain ascendancy provides Fire Damage scaling, some flat Strength and also a percentage modifier to Strength, Life Leech from Fire Damage, Fire Penetration and a Buff/Debuff associated with totems (works well when dropping an AW). Gear Required Uniques The only absolutely required uniques are a pair of Brutus’ Lead Sprinklers, as the build is defined by using them. Their main mod is 2-4 Fire Damage added to attacks, and dual-wielding them of course doubles that for every attack. They also have decent base attack speed, an implicit modifier to Elemental Damage and an explicit modifier to Fire Damage. They have decent base critical strike chance too, but I chose to go with Resolute Technique for this build so I could focus on stacking Strength instead of having to get Accuracy. Finally, they have some physical damage mods which are not that important since we’re using it for the flat Fire Damage mod, but might help squeeze a bit more DPS if using Avatar of Fire.
Recommended Uniques
The build does not need these uniques to work and they can be replaced with rares, but they are great because all of them provide a % increase to Strength:
- Xoph’s Blood - Black Sun Crest - Alberon’s Warpath.
Useful Uniques
These uniques are useful while leveling or for filling some gear slots while you focus on improving others. Ultimately they should be replaced with better ones:
- Meginord’s Vise - Meginord’s Girdle - Karui Ward - Karui Charge - Doryani’s Invitation (Fire Damage version, if found cheap) - Le Heup of All Also, you should use a Pillar of the Caged God between level 13 and level 28 (which is when you can equip BLS). This way you can start the build right off by stacking Strength and not having to worry about specific damage nodes.
Rares
To reach the full potential of the build you will want to have Strength mods on every single rare, which can be difficult while also maintaining your elemental resistances overcapped for Elemental Weakness in red maps. Just progress slowly on getting that Strength and consider this the ultimate min-maxing of the build. You might want to play around with crafting good bases with Deafening Essence of Rage, since those can create Strength mods up to 58, but that requires some patience and luck for getting a good item and should be done only when you don’t have other gear concerns.
Passive Tree This is the planned tree for level 90. I will update this section later with details on how to level through it, but it requires no respeccing. Bandits: Normal: Oak Cruel: Kraityn Merciless: kill all
Gems and link setups
Main Skill: Spectral Throw Spectral Throw – Greater Multiple Projectiles – Weapon Elemental Damage – Fire Penetration – Elemental Focus – Faster Attacks Single Target: Molten Strike Molten Strike – Weapon Elemental Damage – Elemental Focus – Fire Penetration Single Target Totem: Ancestral Warchief Ancestral Warchief – Weapon Elemental Damage – Concentrated Effect – Fire Penetration Auras and Movement Skill (socket these on Black Sun Crest for +1 to levels) Grace – Haste (or possibly Anger) – Enlighten – Leap Slam Cast When Damage Taken setup 1 CWDT – Immortal Call – Increased Duration Cast When Damage Taken setup 2 CWDT – Enfeeble – Summon Lightning Golem Videos: coming soon! Please feel free to reply with any comments, suggestions and feedback! Thanks! Last edited by Rhoa_Power#0936 on Mar 7, 2017, 5:53:30 PM Last bumped on Mar 22, 2017, 8:52:35 AM
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Hello !
Thank you for sharing this build ! I've done pretty much the same. There is some difference though, I'm playing Berserker instead of chieftain (it's probably a bad choice), and i'm playing Blood Rage because I have enough leech even if i'm not dealing physical damage. I'm not playing Vaal Pact. The other difference is i'm playing with a Geofri's Sanctuary Elegant Ringmail ! It offers around 1k ES. Maybe Combine it with Shaper's Touch Crusader Gloves and Discipline. For the rings, I've found that Le Heup of All Iron Ring are pretty strong and cheap. The other thing i'm not so sure about is Resolute Technique [Even if I'm playing with it], given that the Brutus' Lead Sprinkler have high Crit Chance. Maybe combining it with Elemental Overload ? That's all I can say, I hope this build shall work pretty well, but it seems like a pretty poor HoWA build to me, but even if I don't have much experience in the game, I enjoy playing it ! It works pretty well with Frost blades too, even if singlet target is lackluster. |
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" Thanks for the reply! It's nice to see other people trying out the build. " I don't think Berserker is necessarily a bad choice... You get a lot of damage and leech out of it. I chose Chieftain mostly out of personal preference. A Chieftain will probably end up with more Strength but a Berserker can have even more leech and damage. On Vaal Pact: I chose it assuming that it will be necessary against Elemental Reflect, but I haven't reached endgame with this build yet so I'll have to verify this. I'll probably stick with it even though it cancels the relatively high amounts of life regen that I get from the tree. The area in the tree where VP is is actually very good for my version of the build, as you can convert a lot of Dexterity to Strength (80) by socketing an Inertia jewel on the nearby jewel socket, while also getting Projectile Speed for ST, Attack Speed, Life, Damage and mana utility. " I saw that some people were using Geofri's for this kind of build and I realize it can provide a lot of eHP, but for Spectral Throw, it would be a bit harder to get the correct combination of socket colors, and I can get a lot of armour from a hybrid AR/EV chest + Iron Reflexes. A rare chest can also have a Strength roll. Geofri's is still a nice option, but if you're going to use Shaper's Touch with it, that's another slot where you could be getting Strength. You probably end up with more eHP but a bit less damage and a hybrid HP pool. " I actually hadn't thought of that ring! Good call. I'll add it to the guide later. It's a great option to get started with the build. It's possible to upgrade but it fills the ring slots quite nicely for a time. " Yes, the high base crit makes you itch a little and want to make it a crit build, but I still think dedicating fully to Strength is better than having to get Accuracy. Maybe with a Juggernaut Ascendancy (+1000 Accuracy) we could make a different type of build for it that uses Elemental Overload, but for Berserker and Chieftain I would stick with RT. I guess it's a new type of build so everything is still kinda subject to testing, but it should become a pretty viable endgame playstyle! Last edited by Rhoa_Power#0936 on Mar 7, 2017, 5:41:49 PM
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hi guys,
Im playing a crit version of this build with inquisitor. I would be interested in some of your dps numbers if you dont mind sharing, becouse i want to compare the crit/non crit version of the build. Im at lvl 77 right now sitting at 944strenght, 90K on 5l sunder undbuffed something arround 300k fully buffed at the moment. But i feel abit squishy which ill try to fix in the next few levels.Do you think the non crit version can reach similiar numbers with being more tanky ? ps: nice guide so far looking forward to some video action :) |
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" Hi, thanks for joining the discussion! I haven't reached endgame yet because I've played with the build for just one day and I didn't play at all today. I'll continue tomorrow and expect to reach level 70+. Currently at level 54 I have close to 900 strength and I think around 12k dps on Molten Strike 4L and 5k dps on Spectral Throw 4L. Relatively small numbers compared to yours due to low level, low gear, low links etc, but it should scale pretty well. I don't think it will reach 300k buffed but I'm aiming for at least around 100k. Can't tell how tanky it will be based on the experience of level 54 and below, but I do run Grace with Iron Reflexes and hybrid AR/EV gear, plus all the Strength and life from the tree, plus Vaal Pact with 2.6% leech, so hopefully it will be tanky enough. I'll update the guide with tooltip numbers screenshots when I reach a more decent state with the build. |
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Hello again !
" That's very true ! I though about it, and if at first I went for VP, I just decided to stop at Ballistic Mastery. But nearby, there is a node of Elemental Damage (6% penetration ! Huge !) and the socket for the jewel to get something like 80 strength ! I just stopped because I've found that the other jewels, and the +1 Frenzy charge had more value. If I manage to get to lvl 98, i'd take all of them. " I totally agree with that. Luckily in the League, I managed to buy a 1c Geoffri's and 6l it for less than 120 fusing !(My very first 6l, yay !) It also has 4greens, 1blue & 1red. You'd want 3g 1b & 2r but It was so hard to get more than 2g than I decided to keep it like that. I just replaced fire Penetration with Pierce support (~6% less damage). _________________________________________________________________ " So, at the Hideout, I have : 27.463dps with lvl.19 0%Q Spectral Throw (I have a 6l). 56.132dps with lvl.11 0%Q Cyclone (5link) 55.003dps with lvl.18 0%Q Frost Blade (5link) 43.206dps with lvl.15 0%Q Molten Strike (4link) Basicaly, it's pretty low, but I don't have : - Frenzy charge (4 max), Onslaught, Blood Rage, been Hit Recently. |
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I am doing a similar build but instead I am focusing solely on the molten strike. I just like pretending that I am a little volcano. Either way, I notice that you are recommending ancestral warchief, but in our cases (both of us care about projectile damage, not melee) does AW even make sense? I mean protector grants increased attack speed, but AW increased melee damage
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" Good call.. It's actually my first time using the Melee totems (Warchief / Protector), so I didn't know which one would benefit more. I switched to Protector and got more DPS that way! I'll change that in the guide next time I edit it. |
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Im already at endgame with chieftain brutus' lead sprinkler and im at 1.1k str and 6.1k life right now. The only skill thats working well atm are sunder and earthquake. You wont get past tier 6-7 maps with ST sadly since you cant really get much attack speed on this build.
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Been playing this for a few days now after I finished acquiring the big Golemancer pieces before they become a bagillion chaos. I'll share my choices and experience so far:
Level 41 using a 4L with Molten Strike, Multi-strike, weapon elemental and faster attacks. I'm using Anger, Herald of Ash, and blood rage since the few regen nodes I've taken on the tree for traveling has the blood rage free. I'm doing 8k dps without Blood Rage and around 9.5 with it up. Thief's Torment has been an excellent leveling ring until I can ascend into leech as EACH orb from molten nets me 50~ life and 30~ mana. I imagine ST would be roughly the same. Once I get to merc I'll have to care more about res and move into rare rings. I started heading south east towards Point Blank since it's a huge buff and we get some pretty nice nodes on the path (54% fire damage + 8% fire pen to the right of Iron Grip, a jewel node, leech if needed, and some minor dex to fill the quotas), but have since stopped as I think the DPS will be sufficient without it and I'd almost rather spend those nodes on life/str. I'll probably test PB later to see if it makes a difference and can regret out of it later if it's bad. I plan to test both crit and non-crit and see which one I like more. I'll report back when I do. How does everyone feel about the Wildfire jewels? Even if Molten ends up being a single target is it worth 2 slots? |
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