[3.13] MOLTEN STRIKE | Chieftain | all content easy | low budget | no bullshit

There are three ways to handle the damage loss due to Ancestral Call:

A: Gems swap: Ancestral Call for Mapping, Inspiration for Bosses
- cheaper as you dont have to get Hunter Influenced Gloves with +1 targeted Enemy and the Tribal Fury Annointment
- you can annoint Brinkmanship for way better clear speed!

B: getting additional targetable Enemies with Tribal Fury and Hunter Gloves:
- you dont have to swap gems!
- you are running your best gem set up all the time, also while mapping which is also a defensive benefit as monsters die more quickly
- you can hit multiple enemies with max damage during boss fights
- it seems like you can hit from a greater distance when you have sources of additional targetable enemies, which is extremly usefull to stay safe during bossfights, being able to target only one enemy takes away this big advantage
- you really want to get Brinkmanship somehow to get endgame viable clear speed, would require a slightly differen Skill Tree with loss of some damage and attack speed and a jewel slot.

c: getting an additional Support gem through a mod on an Elder Staff (see an example in the "My Gear" section below and possible mods in the "Gear" section).
- increases the cost for the staff heavily, I managed to luckyly craft one in SSF by myself (Harvest obviously helps a lot there)
- not full damage potnetial as these mods only grant level 1 support gems
- you can annoint Brinkmanship, while not having to gem swap for bosses
- more damage in all cases where you hit multiple enemies
- for pure max single target you can still swap ancestral call for Combustion for example (need a white socket then)

As we do not reach that little Life and Mana Leech one pointer leading to Spirit Void that solves the mana problem for many melee builds, we somehow have to get creative to solve our mana issues. There are many ways to do so, but we have to make sacrifices in any case. I'll try to show you all options and why they are good or bad, please check your characters PoB to figure out what options results in the best defensive/offensive/clear values. Keep in mind that you can stick to a cheap and easy to access option (like Option B) first and upgrade to a more effeicient option (D or even A) later.

Before that I want to outline some characteristics of Molten Strike that have to be considered. As we are using Multistrike we spend mana once (with all support gems and Tireless, but without Inspiration, its 29 Mana)and perform the attack three times. In a boss type scenario in which we attack one single target, we hit three times with the melee strike and in a bad case 3 times with the projectile (way more in a average case, but we have to consider the worst cases). So spending mana once results in at least 6 hits.
Assuming we attack 8 times per second, we spend 2.67 times 29 mana, resulting in 78 Mana spend per second. These are more or less example calculations, you might wanna do your own calculations with your stats.

Option A: Using an Divergent Elemental Damage with Attacks Support Gem.
When I initially wrote the guide I didnt plan to write this section as I thought every trade league player has easy access to this gem, which would provide Attack Damage Leeched as Mana. It is very powerfull as many mana leech stats only work for physical attack damage, excluding elemental attack damage. Not so for this alternative quality effect, but it seems to be very expansive, about 12ex in Ritual Softcore. As I intend to make cost efficient builds, I cannot build around a mandatory Item that costs 12ex. If you are one of the rich 1% you might wanna get this gem, as it makes gearing way easier.

Option B: Annointing Spirit Void (Node that grants Attack Damage Leeched as Mana)
Depending on your maximum mana you will leech about 200 mana per second upon dealing damage. This completely covers all of our mana problems, right like Option A would, but we cannot use another annointment. That hits actually hard! This way we can't use Tribal Fury or Brinkmanship. I consider this to be the worst option.

Option C: Using Clarity and #% increased Mana Regeneration Rate stats
You have to get at least 78 mana regen per second (your value might vary, look at the calculation above), a bit more is probably necessary, as you are not only using MS but for example your Totems too. This comes to the cost of an additional aura that you somehow have to integrate and the need for stats on your gear which makes gearing a lot harder and you might miss important other stats that way.
In a similar way problematic is the option to invest in -# to Mana Cost of non-channeling Skills or #% reduced Mana Cost. While these stats are powerfull for mana sustain they always take space where other important stats could be.

Option D: Mana gained on Hit stats
Thats probably the best way and the one I managed to go for in SSF. You can get this stat on Viridian Jewels: +(1-2) Mana gained on Hit with your Attacks. If you decide to go for them you want to get at least 2 of these mods. 4 mana gained on hit, considering our calculation in the top, results in at least 24 mana (lets say 24 up to multiple hundreds depending on the amount of nearby enemies and the amount of enemies hit by one projectile) gained per once spending mana. Thats solves mana issues mostly in every case.
The problem here is that Viridian Jewels cannot roll the Attack Speed with Staves mod and you are restricted in your jewel choice even more. But:
...you can get this mod from other sources too:
1. Harvest Implicit on Gloves: 4 Mana gained on Hit with Attacks
2. Hunter mod on Gloves: also up to 4 Mana gained on Hit with Attacks

Together with the Options outlined in the concept section there are many ways to build this character. As it would involve a lot of work and testing I currently cant figure out the one and only way. I showed you every possible option that is out there and now it is up to you to find you way to go for this build.

We chose to go for a staff. As I basically copied Mathils 3.13 starter, I was kind of predetermind in that regard. But using a staff gives us a big advantage, also one small disadvantage though:
+ We gain critical strike chance and multiplier independent from wether we hit with the melee or the projectle part of Molten Strike. Most crit notes for certain types of melee weapons only scale melee critical strikes, not so with staves! Thats why they are so good for Molten Strike. Also they make it very easy to get lots of block chance.
- We have to travel in the upper part of the tree so that we cant reach the good stuff in the bottom part of the tree like Point Blank (30% more projectile damage). Thats not completely terrible as all the staff node in the top are very good and we deal enough damage without Point Blank.

Unique: Hegemonies Era, okish phys values but reliable power charge generation and good crit and aps values, spell block and also its very cheap
Rare: at least:500 pds, 1.4 aps, 7 crit chance, 20% spell block implicit. If you cant afford or find a staff like that or better, you should use Hegemonies Era. It is absolutely enough to get good damage in the end game. If you have a couple of exalts you can get very good staves though, even far better than the listet stats and even better than a Hegemonies Era.

You can also get the following mods on an Elder influenced Staff:
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level # Endurance Charge on Melee Stun
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level # Power Charge On Critical Strike
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level # Fortify
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level # Inspiration

They are all good, especially the Inspiration one. But all in all they are not cruicial and will probably make the staff very expansive.
Note that Fortify only increases the melee strike and Inspiration wont grant permanent 5 inspiration charges, as we spend too much mana to keep them up for some time.

Thread of Hope: we use this one to get Access to some Damage Increases, Crit Multi and one additional minimum Frenzy Charge.

Murderous Eye (Belt Slot): Life, Crit Mulit, Attack Speed, Added Phys, Added Fire

normal Jewel: 7% Increased Life (you can easily divin ones with less than 7), Crit Mulit (with two handed weapons, ele skills, fire skills, global, try to get at least 2), 8% Attack Speed (with staves)

Ignore the Molten Strike Threshold Jewels!

Life FLaks - Bleed Immunity
Silver Flask - Freeze Immunity
Dimond Flask - Curse Immunity

These Flasks are more or less mandatory, we have two slosts left for Uniques now:


Bottled Faith - BiS! This Flask is huge in so many aspects: 2% base cir chance, 100% increased crit chance, 10% more damage, 40% increased Damage and 6% Life regeneration - completely overpowered!
Rumi's Concoction - also very good for maxing crit chance and for a good amount of armour which we need for Molten Shell as well, best defensive option
Wise Oak - als very good for damage as well as tankyness if you manage to balance resists, Chieftain is a bit weird in that regard as we tend to have a lot more fire res than every other res, try to get rid of fire res from most gear pieces.
Dying Sun - I am not yet sure how good this is as I still have to figure out how it impacts the amount of projectiles that hit a single target, but I hypothesis that it is an actually good dps increase (cant be used together ith wise oak as Dying Sun adds Fire Resistance)

!Cinderswallow Urn - not good as we dont ignite, only our totmes but they dont count as the Player!
!Lion's Roar - also not good as it only scales melee Damage

Thats a lot of options there, while the last two of them are bad, all the other ones are fine. As I like a good balance between offense and defense I stick to a Rumis together with a Bottled Faith.

What abot an elder staff with Fortify or Endurance Charge on Stun Support?
Fortify isnt that worth taking as it only provides a damage buff for the melee hit. Stilll the almost permanat Foritfy effect is nice to have. It is not necessary at all though and the additional cost that comes with a roll like thatisnt justifyable.
ECoS is great if you decide to go full on max endurance charges.

How crucial is a Bottled Faith for endgame content?
As explained i the Flasks section the Bottled Faith Flask gives huge amounts of bonueses we can really well benefit from. While it adds only about 20% damage overall it also provides defensive as well as more damage consitensy due to more crit chance. Try to get one as fast as possible. It isnt mandatory though!

Can this build be played on SSF or HC?
SSF: I am playing it on SSF, so yes. To be honest though, I have quite good gear, got a Hegies and Bottles Faith for example. How it performs as starter without this gear I cant say. As a Bottled Fiath isnt that crucial and famrable as you reach the endgame and a Hegies can be replaced with a well crafted staff this build is totally SSF viable, not so much as SSF starter though perhaps.
HC: I dont play HC and do not relly know what standards of tankyness a HC Build has to keep up with.

Is it worth to get more than 2 extra enemies targeted by strike skills?
No, not really. In some clear situations it might be benefitial, but I didnt feel a difference that much.

Somehow the clear doesn't feel good in the endgame?!
As I figured out the Brinkmanship Node increases the clear a lot. If you aren't using Tribal Fury I really suggest taking it as anointment. Besides that option I am currently trying to figure out a skill tree that involves Brinkmanship so we don't have to get it by annointing.

Besides AoE and melee strike range, as mentioned in the Concept section, attack speed is very important to make the build feel good. Be sure that you have all passive tree nodes that involve attack speed. Get a blood rage gem at lvl 20 with 20% quality and jewels with 8% attack speed for staves!

I always encourage people to not blindly follow guides but to adjust them to their needs, budgets and avliable gear. Thats why I want to give you a couple of tips how you can build this one more tanky or more hard hitting:

1. More Damage/less Survivability:
- get an Reduced Mana Reservation for Anger Helmet Enchant
- reduce the gem Level of Precision to something like 10 and get the lost accuracy somewhere on your gear
- replace Flesh and Stone with Anger
- get an Watchers Eye with Fire Penetration while affected by Anger

2. Less Damage/more Survivability:
- get two Kaoms Way rings
- take Valako instead of Hinekora (Ascandancy)
- get a divergent Blood Rage to be still able to leech life
- get a rare staff with ECoS, socket your Molten Strike setup in the staff
- use Infernal Cry to Cover Enemies in Ash