Tempest shield build

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renatobaal wrote:

I would like to suggest my Tempest Shield Ranger called Kemaya.
First of all, my compliments for making a game that even allows this build.

Up until today, I have been searching for that one missing skill that would make my build complete. Not that it is complete now that I found it. On the contrary, I am still missing a lot of items and levels. Yet, even now, I am having a blast playing this character.

The main skills is tempest shield. I have taken a bunch of shield block nodes to make sure I reach the 75% block cap. On low levels, I was using the unique ‘Kaltenhalt’ Bronze Buckler. For later levels, I was planning on using the ‘Daresso’s Courage’ Baroque Round Shield, but I have found another shield that is much more to my satisfaction, though I only have a total of 72% block with it.

First and foremost, tempest shield is tied to elemental proliferation. This is undoubtedly the key in the build, as stacking the shock status on a group of enemies allows me to kill them quite fast. Correction, I think I meant to say “allows the enemies to commit suicide swiftly”. I have enough spell damage to have my tempest shield deal 250~350 damage whenever I block an attack, which is 75% of all non-spell attacks. Normal mobs tend to kill themselves on my tempest shield, and do so especially fast when in groups. Each individual hit is another chance to shock a group of enemies.

I have the passive that shocks mobs 5% of the time, but I also have decent critical strike chance (22.8 currently, though will become more if I can add a crit chance support gem) meaning the chance to apply shocked is 27.8%.

To augment the damage of my tempest shield, as it is often not enough, I have molten shell. Both tempest shield and molten shell benefit from me blocking attacks, rather than evading them. Furthermore I will tank a lot, meaning I need armor to prevent myself from dying when mobs get hits on me. The ‘iron reflexes’ keystone is very important for this build.

My sequence of actions in combat mostly looks like this:
-endurance cry for 3 endurance charges to enhance my survivability
-Cast the enfeeble curse to enhance my survivability
-Cast molten shell
-Stand still in a group of mobs
-Drop a Detonate Dead-casting totem

I chose enfeeble as curse to apply, because it lowers damage output significantly, but doesn’t impair the ability of the mobs to throw themselves on my tempest shield/molten shell. Temporal chains is less optimal. For the same reason, I am not using any cold damage skills, as I don’t mobs to be frozen, I want them to hit me =)
Lowering the damage output of mobs is crucial, as you’ll be spending most of your time surrounded by angry critters that stun you if you receive too much damage. Stuns are molten shell’s primary enemy, as you will lose both time and mana by getting stunned during the cast animation. The build allows you to tank a lot, but not until the end of time. You’ll be using your potions fairly often (I always have a health regen potion running with 2 instant heals ready for unlucky streaks of hits/crits)


Detonate Dead is my latest addition to my build and was the skill I was referring to in my opening paragraph. The synergy with my build is amazing. Tempest shield has the habit of killing mobs at an uneven speed. Sometimes mobs are simply lucky and I don’t block their attacks, for other, tempest shield crits for 410% (will be more soon) damage and kills them outright. With detonate dead, the fallen serve as a catalyst for speeding up the impending doom of the remaining assailants. With the rampant shock status ailments everywhere, detonate dead becomes even more effective than usual.
The skill is also welcome because it gives me something to do while the rest of my build is doing its work. Molten shell is not a spammableand I only need to cast my defensive skills every 10 seconds, which, incidentally, is more than the duration of most combats.

Another crucial part of the build is viper strike. My main hand is a weapon that averages on 20 damage per hit, so a skill that doesn’t rely on weapon damage is great. I apply viper strike a couple of times on rare/boss mobs and occasionally on blue mobs if there is not enough cannon fodder around to trigger shocked and molten shell for large amounts of destruction.

I have whirling blades for escaping difficult situations, but I am not very adept at using it, because I hardly ever need it. Not to say that I don’t die, but that’s because I am not really a very good player :P

This build destroys everything that is not a spell-caster and some spell-casters as well. Necromancers have never been easier. With this build, it is possible to charge right at the necromancer, even if it is a rare mob. The necro will only die faster if his minions come to his aid. Even if you choose to kill the necromancer later, the detonate dead totem clears the room of undead meat used for his practices.

The bane of this build is a room full of casters. If it is only a couple it’s quite doable, just kill the casters first while the non-casters continue to throw themselves on your torrent of fire and lightning. Another weakness if viper strike. If you see large spiders crawling your way, you might want to consider twice tanking them, because a stack of four viper strike charges is quite indifferent to the otherwise mighty defenses that are your armor and your shield.
I am desperately in need of the unique amulet that allows me to block spells at a rate of 50% of my block chance. Without this amulet, not only am I vulnerable, tempest shield simply refuses to damage casters without it (the baroque shield I mentioned earlier only works on low life, which is not ideal, the node in the skill tree is too far away for me to take and it’s only 12% anyway.)
Molten shell doesn’t trigger on casters and detonate dead doesn’t work without something dying first.
As a side-note, if anyone is willing to trade me one (normal legacy league), name your price ;)


As for my passive skill tree, it is currently as follows.

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAQIAAy-ieAXc070I23LXDTEnnA3wYAUUUvkIFs0jlBd-l-IYPlkdGe2egBrryz0dCl1LHplemSEa-H8hrvC1IdovZSKryuglIQk3LNfCCzOBRLY1ASd2PwSf60IlWQtExjLpSFn880m2H21LEvqpU0q5nFdv3D5fm7mIX9NDhWjaGVRphWzcaiLrvG0HEvlxhCkcc88WpXbNX5mMKoh2lPYNZ5Y6prSWa8ytlv1vtpiq2n-egfe5pF7hoaSYTeKpCn88r1KUZrCmEeyxV4zVtB5ne7az8e2_UjmuwkD1osQl-jjHP9Ckx_NdvdEssafUkxN43qCvTeDBFyDoQHTt7x4SX_j7IMj9tPx5

I am on my way to the sets of nodes that grant me critical chance and critical damage, as those stats are simply very important to keep the massacre going. Apart from iron reflexes and shield block nodes, I have a few HP nodes and a bunch of elemental/spell damage nodes. Quite specialized and straight-forward actually.

My gear is focused on spell damage/spell crit and survivability. Anything with a high evasion rating and/or a lot of health is great. My current configuration is sub-optimal, due to some constraints (int/strength must be obtained from gear, I need to have sufficient linked sockets etc.), but some items, like a unique skean or a lapis amulet with spell damage/fire damage/health/+to all attributes are really nice and help enormously.
+X life on kill is also very nice for this build. It grants an enormous amount of survivability, as stuff dies all the time. it is almost a continuous stream of additional health. I wish I had more than only +20.


I haven't been able to test the build in maelstrom yet. I had too much fun with the build to advance the story :P