[3.5] Pure Uniques Molten Strike HOWA. 4 Mill Shaper DPS, Good Defences

Lvl 95 update:

https://pastebin.com/CUDXb0mm

4,112,314 dps (basically, I got the helm enchant)
12,905 ES

No freeze immunity flask Zindax? Do you swap to one at all or just find you dont need it? Thank you.

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w1162431 wrote:

No freeze immunity flask Zindax? Do you swap to one at all or just find you dont need it? Thank you.

It's a good question. With what I have for everything else other than uber elder, I don't need it. I've been considering what flasks to use on that fight. One idea is to swap bleed immunity for freeze and chill immunity in a Silver (Onslaught) flask. I don't miss that flask anywhere else, including Hydra. I do use the Yugul pantheon though, so that might help with that.

The thought is switch from an Experimenter's Flask of Staunching to an Experimenter's Flask of Heat. I'm curious if that's what other people do.

Also, this build doesn't typically have a lot of elemental overcap resists, not including flasks. I'm wondering if anyone actually knows the damage penetration of shaper and elder on the uber elder fight. I know shaper balls penetration 25% cold resistance on regular shaper. I'm wondering if anyone has any idea what the penetrations are like on uber elder. I'm wondering if people use a sapphire flask, or there is a requirement to pop flasks on that fight, like at least the Wise Oak, so penetration doesn't drop you below 75% resists.

I'm also using:

https://poesimulator.github.io/

to practice for the Uber Elder fight. It is hilarious.

Update:

I did make a flask for the Uber Elder fight that I would swap in for my current bleeding onslaught flask:



It would help for making sure I don't get frozen by Elder spears while wailing on Shaper.

Hey what do you think of going Prayer of Glory and using Rallying Cry for the last 2 ascendancy points? That seems like it would be a better choice than 12% maximum ES.

https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/weichenggak3/characters

Done every end game bosses except for uber elder. Would recommend this.

I'm currently lvl 94 and I've done all content easily other than uber atziri and uber elder, the only items I dont have are wrath pen watcher's eye, helm enchant and some good corruptions on belt/rings. I was wondering if someone could look at my char and let me know if I'm doing something wrong because on PoB even with all the right boxes checked I'm still nowhere near the dps numbers listed in the guide. I'm pushing like 1.7 mil tops? Just trying to figure out if i have something messed up before i go into uber elder today

Still level 95, but I've beaten uber elder twice deathless, and I'm about to fight him again. I got some significant upgrades:

4,245,325 shaper dps with flasks
13,402 ES

In terms of what I leech/sustain:

5,360.8 ES/sec in leech
((24 balls/attack x 0.47) + 1 melee hit/attack)) x 10.59 attacks/sec x 28 ES/sec = 3,641.3 ES/sec in ES on hit

5,360.8 + 3,641.3 = 9,002.1 ES/sec in sustain

It also allows me to do zero leech maps.

I wouldn't say this character has a lot of weaknesses, but if it does, it is the lack of elemental resistance overcap which makes the character vulnerable to elemental penetration. When I do Phoenix, I swap to the shield which trivializes the fight.

I don't swap to the shield for the uber elder fight. But it is A LOT easier to do this fight with support unless you have 3 jewels providing +10% resistance to all elements. I have two jewels at the moment and plan to add a third next level. Support really makes the uber elder fight simple.

Here is my build:

https://pastebin.com/rP9VeJLn

I think Guardian is a lot stronger, simply because it's much easier to reach I high ES number. Without anymore item upgrades, I will still cap this guy around 14,500 ES.

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Zindax wrote:

Here is my build:

https://pastebin.com/rP9VeJLn

I think Guardian is a lot stronger, simply because it's much easier to reach I high ES number. Without anymore item upgrades, I will still cap this guy around 14,500 ES.

Promised I'd post, so here's my stuff! Quick rundown.

https://pastebin.com/i4sBxzmL current stuff



my next step is +allres corruption on something and another jwl slot with res that lets me ditch le heup for another perandus. I can use memory vault fire res 20-24ish depending on which jwls I use to still balance Oak. After that it's another jwl slot for a watchers eye. Oh.. and flasks...
MS enchant continues to elude me.

edit: playing PoB is silly sometimes and I'm sure there's better variants out there with unlimited resources but this is the path I'm on, one that I'll never reach: https://pastebin.com/qmqPm68d

First ty for this build. In second week of the league, navali gave me atziri's reflection, i really wanna use it instead of selling. And i found this guide, i already got a top tier Molten strike build for boss killing so i chose to play Spectral Throw which i didnt play when it was meta and it becomes really fun mapping build. Besides, single-target dps is not that bad atm but should not even compare with Molten Strike. I went through Elementalist/Raider but i guess pathfinder is solid choice for sustaining flasks. I got 9k es and 82k GMP dps in ho(wrath, HoT, flame and lightning golem) i dont remember but i guess 130ish k with slower proj.

I dont see why people dont use Ylfeban's Trickery for this build, its cheap af this league and its simply better than vertex. OP should add it on his guide as an option. Im still trying to hit ST enchant on it but still unlucky and prolly will never get it in this league Lol.

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Lysithea wrote:

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Zindax wrote:

Here is my build:

https://pastebin.com/rP9VeJLn

I think Guardian is a lot stronger, simply because it's much easier to reach I high ES number. Without anymore item upgrades, I will still cap this guy around 14,500 ES.

Promised I'd post, so here's my stuff! Quick rundown.

https://pastebin.com/i4sBxzmL current stuff

gear

my next step is +allres corruption on something and another jwl slot with res that lets me ditch le heup for another perandus. I can use memory vault fire res 20-24ish depending on which jwls I use to still balance Oak. After that it's another jwl slot for a watchers eye. Oh.. and flasks...
MS enchant continues to elude me.

edit: playing PoB is silly sometimes and I'm sure there's better variants out there with unlimited resources but this is the path I'm on, one that I'll never reach: https://pastebin.com/qmqPm68d

Thanks for posting this. It is always interesting to see how someone implements this build in hardcore in the league. Obviously, it is tougher to get good items in that league. I am slightly envious of your elemental resist overcap. It certainly is useful, and I find myself wanting more overcap than what I have. With what I'm looking at now, I'm planning to take my eventual overcap to 75% (93%) with a 10% all resistance jewel and another 1% resist on my Le Heup of All. I'm not quite sure that what I have is the best possible combination that a guardian can have with this build. It is possible that there is some room for upgrades. But I think I have made some contributions to this build. One is the Le Heup of All ring, which, if well rolled, allows one to dual wield with the all unique build successfully. In fact, many still think that the all unique build prevents dual wielding. So, I'd say my character can correct that false assertion. The swap of all well rolled Le Heup of All (I found this one at low levels in Flashback) does increase the damage significantly and allows one to explore more defensive nodes. I don't take credit for this because my build is pretty much the same to what WaffleT used in 3.2 before the witch node buff. I was just either less tempted to take those damage nodes, or unsure how those changes would work with my specific combination of items. I still think Atziri's Mirror is a more practical choice for most that play this build simply because a Le Heup of All that well-rolled is hard to come by. Also, in Standard, where you can use a Legacy Perandus ring, the dps advantage of a 2nd HoWA claw is less. I would certainly say that using Atziri's Reflection and two Perandus Rings is superior (especially if both Perandus Rings are legendary). If I equipped a second equivalent equivalent legacy Perandus ring (instead of my current Le Heup of All ring), a perfect Atziri's Reflection (instead of my other claw), and made two tree node changes, I would gain about an additional 2900 ES and an additional 10% block. I would lose about 870,000 damage from my 4.245 million damage, and my attacks per second would drop from 10.59 to 8.91 (about a 16% drop). My ES on hit would drop, but I would gain in my leech cap.

The point I was hoping to make is that it was suggested that one of the problems with this build is that it hits a hard cap, and can't improve past a certain point, since all of the items are unique. The continuation of that suggestion, which was made earlier in these forums, is that there is very little to chase for, but I would disagree.

What I think I've shown, is that there is a lot to chase for in this build. This is the cheapest character I've had that was doing red maps. Obviously, the advantage of uniques is that they are commodities and readily available. I did not have a 6L in Flashback. And the most expensive item I had at the end of Flashback was a level 3 bricked corrupted enlighten. Good rare jewels are hard to find early. But the advantage of having uniques is that they are easily corrupted and replaced (though my Le Heup of All with its rolls is much less the case. You can save for a legacy perandus ring if you play standard. You can corrupt your Shaper's Touch. You can corrupt your Cyclopean Coil. Non-legacy Perandus rings can easily be corrupted and replaced. Getting a perfect rare is a huge pain, and the effort that you spare in that category allows you to chase things like my Watcher's Eye:

5% increased maximum Energy Shield
5% increased maximum Life
5% increased maximum Mana
26% of Physical Damage Converted to Lightning Damage while Affected by Wrath
+28 Energy Shield Gained for Each Enemy Hit while Affected by Discipline
Gain 18% of Maximum Mana as Extra Maximum Energy Shield while Affected by Clarity

and my Vertex with the Molten Strike fires 3 extra projectiles enchant.

Now, I had to sell my legacy Atziri's Acuity Gloves (the ones that give instant leech on crit for life builds), but that sale let me get those two things above. And since legacy Atziri's Acuity doesn't give ES leech instantly, there's a desire and a prestige involved in being able to push back vaal pact to its former glory for ES builds. The point here isn't that you should sell your legacy Atziri's Acuity. The point is that Molten Strike hits a lot, so much so that life builds basically get vaal pact and instant recovery without any of the sacrifice. The challenge is getting that for CI. Lots of CI molten strike users use the ES on hit mod and love it. That is no secret. But it's hard to get a truly great ES pool of the old days without legacy items or the clarity mod on Watcher's Eye. Getting both those mods together has to be the pinnacle of this build. And this build provides the motive and the mechanism for that. There aren't tons builds that can claim to having 4 mil+ damage on shaper resists, over a 13k health/ES pool, a recovery/leech/regen of 9k/sec, and 25% of all elemental damage off the bat is converted to chaos and doesn't damage this character. What I believe I've demonstrated is the notion that this build hits an abrupt ceiling is false. There are plenty of high-tier elite upgrades that this build can chase.

Additionally, there aren't lots of guardian builds out there that do damage. There is certainly LL RF, and that can have a large pool and sustain, but not really the damage of this build. So, in terms of partying with other players, this character is great. I have a scion aurabot, and if there's a build I want with me, it's probably this one. This character will elevate the ES pool of my aurabot an additional 4k ES. It shares charges with the party and gives them quickly in abundant supply. It gives stun immune on block and 10% extra block which is nothing to sneeze at. And it gives rallying cry which gives increased damage, attack, cast, and movement speed to the entire party, in addition to a taunt. Support characters need to clear content too. This character brings a few needed goodies and quite a bit of damage to boot. There aren't many map mods this guy can't do, and the support character and this character basically make each other immortal to the point where they trivialize the hardest content in the game. What does this character lack? Sufficient elemental resistance overcap? The support eliminates that weakness? Susceptibility to reflect? Now, I haven't had the need to test this, but with grace and high level purities, this guy might even be reflect immune. A reflect watcher's eye combined with Yugul's Pantheon, which I normally use would do the trick, if we HAD to run that map. What's the support's weakness? A need for more regen? The 4k extra ES that this guy gives a non-guardian support goes quite a ways towards boosting regen and overall pool. What else does support need? A desire to move freely and take less damage? This guy provides does plenty of damage which lowers the damage that the party sees, and gives a taunt and movement, attack, and cast speed to boot.

Now regarding the above player's specific build changes:

I calculated your damage. With all flasks being used, max charges, blood rage, and shaper level resistances, but no vaal haste (not necessarily reliable or takes time to cast):

10,056.3 damage per ball x 8.98 attacks/sec x 0.47 x 14 balls = 594,211 dps

+

152,554.2 dps for melee hit

= 746,765 dps

Now, you are only level 91, but its certainly hard for me to argue in standard that your choices are better. I do not intend to disparage your choices. You do play hardcore in a league, so just reaching where you got is quite a challenge. I probably could not do what you did, and can only speak so intelligently regarding choices in a hardcore league. You probably need your 37% resist overcap, and 10k ES is nothing to sneeze at for level 91 without a clarity watcher's eye. But it's hard for me to argue that my character would be better off or stronger by adopting your build changes. It's quite different, not taking vaal pact, using blood rage, and taking regen nodes.

I'm going to take a closer look at Memory Vault though. It seems like a pain to balance resists around, but it may have merit in the end. That 10% increased mana reserve though...it seems even tougher to work around. /Edit: Just did some testing. If I swapped to Memory Vault and Skyforth, and my two Wildfire Jewels had 1% reduced mana reserve, and my two Fertile Mind Jewels had 1% reduced mana reserve, and could get a helmet enchant on that (which is a big IF), I could avoid using another node on auras; however that change alone would drop me 200 ES and 800k dps. So, it doesn't look worth it on that level.

Your choices are at minimum, interesting, though. And I look forward to seeing you in game, regardless.