3.6 CI Occultist Vortex Starter/Endgame Build Guide | Tanky | Budget | All Content +Video
" Thank you very much ---MEOW---
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" Hello, thanks for the builds and replies. Im new and i have question, does Vortex hit at all? According to wiki: "The Vortex consists of two parts: explosion and a ground effect." Does explosion counted as Hit, or the whole this is just pure DoT Thank you |
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Whew. That's Flashback launch launch, and that's all the regular Synthesis league I can handle, but I had a blast following this build. I'm about three mirrors, a dozen iterations and two hundred regret orbs in here so I can't .. totally .. remember how closely I still resemble the original, but I made it so far I think we can at least call it a homage. At depth 1451, I'm currently the top off-meta solo delver, and one spot short of the top 10. Big thanks to Durnz for authoring the guide. :>
There was really no reason I couldn't go further beyond personal tedium; due to how the build works I could run any node that wasn't a bad-mods Delve boss or in Beyond biome (actual Beyond nodes are fine, oddly enough) with approximately the same difficulty. On average, I progressed about 1 depth per 2k sulphite since depth 1000, which is when sulphite costs maxed out, although a lot was flushed down the "this is my second league, what the hell am I doing aaaa" toilet. My basic strategy was to run fast, always phase, stop or slow everything, and never stop running ever for a single second as I proceeded to cake every square inch within a half-mile radius in long duration Vortices. My curses were Frostbite, Temp Chains and Despair. For auras, I ran Vaal Haste, Vaal Clarity and Spider Aspect, Vaal Discipline or Malevolence, with Vaal Grace socketed in delve for the Vaal version. This is the centerpiece, of course. I didn't actually know what Skill Duration did when I got it, but once I realized it increased everything from Vortex to Immortal Call, I went all in on the modifier and pathed down to Potency of Will. Ultimately I ended up at 85% skill duration. It also turned out very powerful in Delve as I used it, aptly, to very literally headhunt buffs before starting particularly difficult nodes. The weapons more or less speak for themselves. The Boomstick makes porcupine spines and Delve icicles go away and keeps my FPS nice and spry by exploding corpses, which is lovely. The offhand sceptre makes Vortex trigger EE on its own (the fire hit is added sequentially after the natural cold hit) and powers my ~2.4 second Immortal Call while adding DR/resists. Both are trigger-on-use to minimize clicking, with one running Frostbite/Frost Bomb/Vaal Grace or Enhance, and the other running Storm Brand/Crit Strikes/Vaal RF. Jewelry and boots provide Spider Aspect, Onslaught and a lot of my resists, as well as Ignite immunity and an extra curse. The Shock on Focus effect is also very powerful for burst DPS considering it uses a single ring affix and has 33% uptime. The Null and Voids provide Rampage and Temp Chains, more or less. This is probably the weirdest choice for this build, and I crafted some very Sorcerer Gloves gloves to run 1L Flame Dash, but ended up swapping back because of how stupid powerful Rampage is. There's no replacing it. I just leaned into it. I could've asked for more ES on the hat I suppose, but it serves its purpose as a strong 5L Cold Snap item. Finally, the +3 levels to Vortex allowed me to replace Elemental Focus with Empower and still maintain sufficient DPS to progress steadily in deep delves. It doesn't seem like much, but my instacast spell applying Chill counts when I can't stop for a half-second to Cold Snap because every single mob will instakill me. My flasks and 8 jewels (which I don't know how to link, sorry, you'll just have to look at my profile) provide a variety of damage, utility effects and resistances that help assure my being hit as rarely as possible, and when I do, it's a one-shot as rarely as possible. Big ups to everyone that gave my smooth brain advice; with whom I ran sulphite rotas; who cut me some slack on trade deals, and in particular the wonderful person, the size of whose testiculars one can only speculate on, who double corrupted a solid 6L shaper chest and sold it to me. :3 |
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" Yes, it does hit. It has an initial hit and it continues damaging over the duration (DoT). |
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I'm sure you're aware, but they're moving Wicked Ward to outside the Occultist Ascendancy tree. Any thoughts on how this might affect your build (and other CI builds)?
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Is this build still going to be viable for 3.7? I always use this build even in end game, and they moved wicked ward? then what's on the occultist accend instead?
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" No idea until patch notes |
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I'm calling it, this build is dead as a budget/starter build.
They have essentially decimated es regen while at the same time cutting 2k es out of it. IMO people need to find something else to play. |
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" nah, this build is definitely workable and still viable. just have to path more defensively. gearing will be a bit more tedious, but nothing has changed. survivability of occultist may have taken a hit but it's still manageable. I've been experimenting and I believe the build is still workable. maybe a 30-40% dps cut (that's if you really want to path defensively). imo, a dps cut is not the same as build dead, but I do agree with you that people will always want to play a build that's more "powerful". so if you absolutely want to play vortex (like me), it's definitely viable. but if you want to play a build that's meta or powerful, then yeah, vortex isnt going to cut it. |
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" Exactly. Vortex still viable but not so powerful as before. Just a bit less ES and ES Recharge because of Wicked Ward changes but still a good build. |
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