[3.6 Video Guide] Volatile Dead Inquisitor (or Elementalist) [HC/SC/Uber Izaro/Shaper]

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mace_286 wrote:

I heard that only the first exolosion of volatile dead will deal spell dmg and the ball wont scale by spell dmg.

Is it true? Im playing softcore so i use a spell dmg shield

The first explosion is based on the corpse level HP, increase to Spell Damage does not affect the corpse explosion.
(((the higher the corpse lvl the more hp the more damage - that's the reason why +corpse level enchant on Unearth is really strong (and cheap compared to +1 ball enchant) as it places the corpses right below the boss and increases the explosion damage)))

The Ball explosion damage is Spell Damage. but as Inquisitor you do not aim for a Spell damage shield, instead get something like this (((once you got decent crit from tree of course)))



Aim for

- Life
- 80-90%+ crit
- Cast Speed

Everything else is just bonus, but Crit + Cast speed heavily outperforms spell damage shields.

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azaanis wrote:

I guess both items are equally good, right? hard to pick a winner. We can put some 50life jewel in the lightpoacher and we also get resistances, but we are losing sockets.

I personally like the Lightpoacher due to it's unique design but then again, it's hard to compare and it will as with many other things result in a matter of taste.

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Rikonn wrote:

Do you guys have troubles with proximity shield?

usually the orbs fly inside the bubble and dmg the mob but almost every prox-mob i encountered took almost no damage, like when its bugged and they dont deal damage despite being inside.

can anyone confirm?

You have to be inside the bubble for your VD or Cremation to do dmg as the damage source is from you as a player :)

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ferable94 wrote:

if i got an Tabula is it still better to use Nycta's Lantern?

Edit: low lvl's and when should i switch?

Tabula will be stronger as it allows you to 5L both Cremation and VD or you can use 6L VD and Nycta Cremation.

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Tr3Angel wrote:

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infusionxD wrote:

does the bug fix of VD affect this ?
The Volatile Dead Helmet enchantment that destroyed additional corpses was destroying more corpses than was originally intended. The enchantment will now only be available from the Eternal Labyrinth and all existing versions of this enchantment will be changed so that Volatile Dead can only destroy up to 1 additional corpse, down from 2/3 additional corpses.

The only thing the enchant did was faster map clear and higher initial burst dmg when you pull the boss. If you want faster map clear just use Lightpoacher and get 3x the clear speed.

Regarding boss damage it did not change anything, you're still skipping most mechanics and killing everything instantly even without any lab enchant.

Imo +1 aint worth it unless you get it on a good base below 100c. If prices stay at 200-300c (HC) just for +1 yeah huge waste of money.

This.

Also to inform: I hit rank 1 with VD (died at lvl 95, still rank 1 actually! Woop woop!) without ever using any lab enchant. It works very fine without it.

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ScootaLewis wrote:

I started this build today. Took me 2h45m to hit A4, deathless. I'm now in Act 5, still deathless, and not feeling particularly bothered. I'll likely grab some life/res gear before hitting normal lab tomorrow.

Glad to hear!

I hope your steady pace will keep up in the later acts :) Do let us know of your experience with the build!

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Ubuar wrote:

Started the build in HC Abyss feels smooth, and squishy i got A3 trying to do normal lab tomorrow too. lets see how far can this build go :)

The squishy feeling is due to the delay of the dmg applied by your balls which is the design of the ability. Hence why I've added spell totem skellies or Decoy Totem or Unearth totem to help as decoying targets vs bosses and/or harder enemies.

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azaanis wrote:

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jerkan7 wrote:

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azaanis wrote:

I have one last question. Do I even want to apply ailments on bosses? Because if I don't, I have higher crit chance, so I ignore resistances more often.

With Elemental Focus, you don't apply ailments.

I do know that mate, but with Cremation I can and I'm not sure if I should - that's why I'm asking.

Not needed :)

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Jow68 wrote:

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"Oskarm Nubuck Gloves these gloves are there for the Assassin's Mark on Hit mod as well as the increased Critical Strike chance per accuracy rating allowing us to have use of accuracy rolls on items though that is not something we prioritise."

The increased critical strike chance part is only for attack

This.

I confused myself at first with the gloves but yes the crit part of the gloves doesn't apply to spells. We use it as they provide Life as well as the nice Power Charge cursing :)

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mace_286 wrote:

I heard that only the first exolosion of volatile dead will deal spell dmg and the ball wont scale by spell dmg.

Is it true? Im playing softcore so i use a spell dmg shield

Not true, The first explosion is based of corpse lvl / corpse HP the spell dmg doesn't scale this though I'm led to believe fire dmg will. The ball itself that spawns from the corpse scales from everything the gem has tagged, AoE/Spell/Fire(element)

As @Tr3Angel is saying. :)

Noob question, wouldn't Elemental overload add a ton of damage for this build?!

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Pixle_Twitch wrote:

Noob question, wouldn't Elemental overload add a ton of damage for this build?!

I'm currently at 364% crit multiplier with 52.85% base crit chance on volatile dead without power charges. Losing the 364% crit multiplier vs 40 more damage is not worth it I think.

Giving out this one a try, only level 80 atm and the character feels extremely squishy.

Sure I can dish out a lot dmg but the second something that doesn't insta die to the balls looks at me I'm dead in 2 seconds since there's basically 0 defense besides MoM.

Anyone else having that problem ? Just got destroyed by the T10 Bog boss, coming out from my summoner with MoM and max block / spell block it feels like I'm playing completely naked...

Character is DeadlyMcBalls (yes I know, very original) if you want to take a look.

Edit : level 83, got my 3rd grand spectrum, now sitting at 5k life and 3.3k mana. Swapped for spell cascade for spell echo and finding it much easier (and the dmg boost is very noticeable). Still a bit squishy compared to what I'm used to, will have to see how it goes once I go full ham on jewel slots.

Edit 2 : getting wrecked by white elder guardians...What exactly am I missing here ?

Hi! Thanks for posting this build, helped me refine what I was putting together for VD =) A few questions, bearing in mind I'm still a relatively new player. First, what's the best way to handle fire damage reflect for this build? This seems to be a problem given the enormous amount of dmg you can put with a large group of balls, and it seems that overkill dmg is getting reflected as well (could totally be wrong here). I'm also trying out Lightpoacher and had the fun discovery that Spirit Burst is physical damage haha, but I obviously just need a secondary gear setup for physical reflect maps.

Finally, what're your thoughts on Righteous Decree (either via Sanctity for a tiny bit of mitigation or Elementalist for dmg) instead of 3 points in the Witch mana and mana regen nodes? I don't have a great concept for how well mana cost reduction scales versus mana regen, especially because I haven't gotten the currency to pick up the Grand Spectrum jewels to get my mana to where it needs to be for MoM (and they're going up in price!! D:). It seems just from eyeballing that it's a fair option for higher cast speed builds, especially when combined with high mana on kill (I got a chest that returns 3% of mana on kill, lovely for high density groups).

Edit: forgot to ask - wouldn't area damage be a superior stat to spell / elemental damage since, if I'm understanding the skill correctly, it applies to the corpse explosion damage as well as the fireball? I'm also assuming it scales the same as spell / elemental damage on the fireballs.

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Giving out this one a try, only level 80 atm and the character feels extremely squishy.

Sure I can dish out a lot dmg but the second something that doesn't insta die to the balls looks at me I'm dead in 2 seconds since there's basically 0 defense besides MoM.

Anyone else having that problem ? Just got destroyed by the T10 Bog boss, coming out from my summoner with MoM and max block / spell block it feels like I'm playing completely naked...

Character is DeadlyMcBalls (yes I know, very original) if you want to take a look.

Edit : level 83, got my 3rd grand spectrum, now sitting at 5k life and 3.3k mana. Swapped for spell cascade for spell echo and finding it much easier (and the dmg boost is very noticeable). Still a bit squishy compared to what I'm used to, will have to see how it goes once I go full ham on jewel slots.

Hi, thanks for the build at first @Ghazzy.

It was really fun leveling and felt very powerfull in story mode.

Unless when I hit maps i got the same problem as NayleenMT. Sure my Gear is far from perfect, even not quite acceptable (resis uncapped etc.). But the main problem for me is the huge amount of time you need to actually do damage.

When i try to find myself some kind of good position to cast I need to much time and get easily caught by enemies. Especially in Abyss-Encounters and against enemies with gap-closers like leap slam.

Is this just an issue of the lack of cast speed and poor defences? I feel like I'm doing something horribly wrong.

BTW: We are talking about t1-t3 maps.

Yeah that's pretty much my issue : anything that doesn't die in one hit gets incredibly dangerous because of the time it takes to desecrate / VD or unearth / VD. Once flasks and vaal grace are down I just get mowed down.

Also due to the total lack of regen every fight with poison or any kind of degen is massive pain in the ass.

@NayleenMT

Yep, was thinking about taking Sanctity for 1% life regen, but I think this won't fix this problem.

Also proximity shield forces you to stand close to the enemy, like ... really close.

I switched the unearth-totem for skeleton-totem as distraction. Works better but slows down a lot.

I'm afraid to use my shield charge to get some clear speed (no sources of movement speed except for boots and 1 or 2 notables).

Placing a totem every 3 seconds is more safe but feels not smooth and you loose the ascendancy buff for using shield charge as an attack - until you use it to disengage.

I'm thinking about to link spell echo to my skeleton totem (additonal to minion life support) for fights my skeletons die too fast.

Honestly it was super fun levelling this but too furstrated once in maps. I made good use of all the currency I had amassed and respecced to dual poet's pen (VD, unearth) with kaom's heart and some shaper rings for dual curse & life on hit.


It's awesome to play and just destroyed Elder with it :D