Adrenaline (buff from Champion's First to Strike, Last to Fall node)

Adrenaline is really interesting, it's in the new Champion re-work. I'm really interested to see what build ideas will come from First to Strike, Last to Fall, and aiming to get Adrenaline permanently, or almost permanently.

The First to Strike, Last to Fall node says you gain it for 20s when you reach Low Life if you don't already have it.

It gives 100% increased Damage, 25% increased Attack, Cast and Movement Speed. And 10% physical DR too, but let's look at the damage/speed ... it looks great.

So, how do we actively use this buff?

We have the option of reserving some life, so we stick just above the Low Life threshold and use blood magic with a movement skill, in order to pretty much always have the buff. That means we have to play an ES-based duelist, which isn't ideal, but hey.

Or, seeing it lasts for 20 seconds, we've got the option of using it once every 20s, which means we can afford to play a life-based character, if we dip to Low Life once every 20 seconds.

The next option is to never actively use it, but I don't want to consider that option here.




1) Going almost-low-life, with just over 35% life unreserved, and using blood magic with a movement skill is certainly one idea. It will mostly be rather hard getting a lot of ES with a duelist ... and then of course you've got to be immune to chaos damage with Shav, or you can go for a lot of life regen and high chaos resist to counter-act the chaos aspect of it, but that requires a fair bit of life too. This tactic would mean you need ES leech, and have life regen. It might feel a little odd, but could work.

2) Secondly, you can go for a hybrid character, with a lot of life and maybe 2k+ ES. Then, you use coruscating elixir to take you down to 1 life, but you regen ES quickly ... and use a flask that gives you instant life when you're on low life. Essentially, you'd use those two flasks in order to get a rather good lot of bonuses. You'd want life regen and life leech, and almost ignore the ES when it comes to defences, as that's mostly there to keep you alive when you use the elixir. Instead of using the elixir, you could instead use an aura with blood magic, turn it on and then off again. More annoying, but it doesn't require flask charges to use it. You'll still of course want to use flask charges to heal yourself, but those can be recovered fairly easily using the Ryslatha pantheon power.

Are there any other ideas on how to do this easily?



Now, what to do with it? It's 100% increased Damage ... so really it would go well with anything that uses Hidden Potential. Maybe combine them both to get a lot of increased generic Damage. Of course, you could go with Inspirational for 35% increased Damage, Conqueror and Worthy Foe to make targets take increased Damage, Unstoppable Hero and Fortitude for the defences ... Champion does have options.

What skills would this go best with? Physical damage spells, perhaps? Maybe a blade vortex obliteration build, or similar?



I'd be keen for some thoughts. I'm unsure if it's actually worth it right now, or if it's too much hassle for the benefits ... it could end up being quite broken if it can be achived easily.

I thought about the BM move skill idea. Never considered the life build corruscating before. You could also consider using vaal righteous fire ;)

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Wuffell wrote:

That means we have to play an ES-based duelist, which isn't ideal, but hey.

Go for a huge ES shield and get all the 'increased defenses from equipped shield' nodes in duelist area.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

I thought about the BM move skill idea. Never considered the life build corruscating before. You could also consider using vaal righteous fire ;)

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Wuffell wrote:

That means we have to play an ES-based duelist, which isn't ideal, but hey.

Go for a huge ES shield and get all the 'increased defenses from equipped shield' nodes in duelist area.

Vaal Righteous Fire is something I thought about, but because it also removes all ES it's a lot more risky without instant life leech!

The shield nodes in the duelist area could definitely be used, especially if an attack skill is chosen.

It's hard to know what the best skill would be, for this build idea; the duelist ascendancy and the nodes in the duelist area both make me think attack skills are best, but it's fairly easy to get damage and attack speed with attack skills, so this gimmick may be better for a physical spell or something else that's hard to get bonuses for on the skill tree.

An attack skill might be nice for option 1: You could get some life gain on hit, and then use blood magic (keystone or gem) for your attack skill; meaning you can reserve more mana as well. Good attack skills would be ones that use different types of damage (eg: wild strike, frost blades) since the generic damage would affect the melee portion and also the added effects.

Or you could consider some sort of build that uses hybrid damage types (eg: cospri's malice, bleed (initial hit + dot), cwc blade flurry, etc...), since the damage boost will apply to all of the different sources.

Problem is, to get to 34.9% life and proc low life u need to lose 65% life every 20 sec. BM is the only option unless u will go hybrid and get BM with ES and get auras to get perma 30% life. I had that idea (which is not really perfect at all yet) u have perma herald of ash on BM and in the same gem set up hatred, u proc hatred, u get to 30% live, u unproc hatred u pop up life flask, u'r back to 80% life with adrenaline. Atm u need good rege or leach cos u are always at 80% unless u unproc HoA also, and proc it only every 20 sec, like I said its not perfect cos u basically sacrifice 3 gem slots just to get adrenaline.

What Im saying is, Chempion is still same as before (good) if proc adrenaline sucks, taunt hasn't change so Lifting lazy totem uber farmer is still there.

Conclusion? Seems for me like Chieftain with its fire buffs (rege from fire dmg and def mods from fire) is stronger option for AW uber lab farmer/boss fights.

Chieftain got his 3 sec 70% more dmg, why the heck chempion didn't? Diversity in the ascendencies, one suck, one is op :)

P.S. Sry for grammar mistakes (English is my second language), I still have problem with tenses :)

As far as I can tell, you can achiev the adrenaline stage by using RF. As it states, it removes Ailments AND BURNING when you reach the adrenaline point. You'll need a life flask or a good life leech after that point, but sounds to me a realiable way to reach the buff. All you'll need to do is to run a little bit to desengage to buff yourself for 20s and that's it. (This is what i could get from it, i might be missjudging it all)

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anastazjasz wrote:

Problem is, to get to 34.9% life and proc low life u need to lose 65% life every 20 sec. BM is the only option unless u will go hybrid and get BM with ES and get auras to get perma 30% life. I had that idea (which is not really perfect at all yet) u have perma herald of ash on BM and in the same gem set up hatred, u proc hatred, u get to 30% live, u unproc hatred u pop up life flask, u'r back to 80% life with adrenaline. Atm u need good rege or leach cos u are always at 80% unless u unproc HoA also, and proc it only every 20 sec, like I said its not perfect cos u basically sacrifice 3 gem slots just to get adrenaline.

What Im saying is, Chempion is still same as before (good) if proc adrenaline sucks, taunt hasn't change so Lifting lazy totem uber farmer is still there.

Conclusion? Seems for me like Chieftain with its fire buffs (rege from fire dmg and def mods from fire) is stronger option for AW uber lab farmer/boss fights.

Chieftain got his 3 sec 70% more dmg, why the heck chempion didn't? Diversity in the ascendencies, one suck, one is op :)

P.S. Sry for grammar mistakes (English is my second language), I still have problem with tenses :)

Thanks for the thoughts :)
It's definitely possible to use a blood magic gem with an aura, in order to dip under 35% life. I think that's better than always having blood magic, for this idea anyway.

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kashelldaj wrote:

As far as I can tell, you can achiev the adrenaline stage by using RF. As it states, it removes Ailments AND BURNING when you reach the adrenaline point. You'll need a life flask or a good life leech after that point, but sounds to me a realiable way to reach the buff. All you'll need to do is to run a little bit to desengage to buff yourself for 20s and that's it. (This is what i could get from it, i might be missjudging it all)

Interesting thought, it's certainly a reliable way to do it. It doesn involve disengaging for a bit though, but it should work, as long as the character has really good life regen.

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Wuffell wrote:

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kashelldaj wrote:

As far as I can tell, you can achiev the adrenaline stage by using RF. As it states, it removes Ailments AND BURNING when you reach the adrenaline point. You'll need a life flask or a good life leech after that point, but sounds to me a realiable way to reach the buff. All you'll need to do is to run a little bit to desengage to buff yourself for 20s and that's it. (This is what i could get from it, i might be missjudging it all)

Interesting thought, it's certainly a reliable way to do it. It doesn involve disengaging for a bit though, but it should work, as long as the character has really good life regen.

Yeah i mean, a simple use of a life flask might put you back at your feet, if the adrenaline works as it is intended, might get rid of the RF burning when it pops, and hey, its a desengage once every 20s (its a long duration buff!), i bet there are moments on bosses that this could be done without much problems, and all of that considering your dont auto-proc it by getting a big hit from the boss, that would put you into that state automaticaly (use Immortal Call with higher level to proc leaving you low life maybe?). I think RF will only be needed to start the boss, the rest of the fight will lead you to keep it up as long as you get a hit or two (i suppose)

can't you just put the BM + aura on your swap? switch shield (proc aura) switch back and pop a life flask?