Elemental Buzzsaw & Static Strike - Solo the entire game, quickly and cheaply 1.1.0 update

*************STATEMENT FOR AWAKENING**********

As of Awakening I don't believe this build to be very efficient or effective anymore, at least not to the extent it used to be. The strength of the build used to be being cheap and powerful but these days it just doesn't hold its own with limited starting gear through progression.

The reasons for this are that Spectral Throw itself is just lacking in damage output compared to other skills now. With the increase in life on all monsters ST feels extremely weak alongside other skills. On top of that reservation changes to auras has made running auras harder and foils were also nerfed from 1.7 attack speed to 1.6, making Life on Hit claws the best option for the build as they are also 1.6 attack speed.

I will still be trying to see if I can make the build effective in the future because I believe there is hope, especially with the increase in elemental damages to weapon rolls. If you are still really wanting to do a Spectral Throw build I believe daggers to be the only effective way of doing one and for that you'll need a decent Crit Ele Dagger and some expensive gear as well as that.

If you still want to do elemental builds on some sort of budget then my greatest suggestions would be Crit Elemental Split Arrow or Crit Elemental Kinetic Blast. Both are quite powerful and can be scaled very high with larger investments but work equally well on budgets.

Videos can be found at the bottom of the post


1.3 passive tree

Ele Static Strike video


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Here's a video of the basics and leveling tips/guide: Buzzsaw guide
Watch this and read the entire guide before asking questions please!

After playing around with it a bit since 1.2 here's what I have to say

"

The gist of it is that Buzzsaw still works and is viable. I'd run Wrath/Anger/Haste(or grace)/Herald of Ice and wear an Alphas still. My skill tree would look like this. The top right aura nodes are unnecessary to run 4 auras and are only worth taking if you have a lvl 21 reduced mana in a +1 gem item because then you can add a purity.

Being evasion based is now a really good option and Acro is worth taking in such a spec, you'll become really tanky, go up to phase acro if you want to be even tankier. Life leech may or may not be necessary, I haven't tested in really high maps but I believe you may be able to survive off of the life regen you'll now have and the buffed life flasks (wear 2).

All that said the build is no longer 100% optimized like it once was after I played it for months and worked everything out tirelessly. There's several options, choices and variations you guys can now make based on own preferences.

If you want to play around with aura reservations and see what is possible, I suggest this calculator: http://poe.mikelat.com/#

Here's the video on my thoughts for what it is to Buzzsaw these days. (1.2 Masters expansion)


The following below was all written prior to 1.2 when things were changed up quite a bit. Take it with a grain of salt if you want to read it anyway.

I came up with this spec at the start of Domination league because I saw how ridiculously powerful the elemental auras now were and could be with the right spec. This spec abuses wrath, anger and haste through spectral throw and buffing your auras drastically.

Your end total should be something like 70% more effectiveness of auras which is the bulk of your damage and defense through purity of lightning/fire. I am also purely evasion based. This is because I find with very few points invested into defense in your passive tree, evasion far outweighs the effectiveness of armor. I believe armor to be stronger when it is very high but to achieve that with my spec you'd sacrifice alot of dps and utility.

For me, this was the ultimate solo spec. I did every boss in every map and managed to outplay them all. However this spec is just as powerful in groups as you will literally double the damage of any other non spell users. People will get addicted to having you in group and you'll quickly be a permanent member of any group you want to be. This is not however a "aura bitch" spec as I wanted to be able to do my own dps and carry my weight.

Lastly I will say this is not a braindead aegis aurora/immunity spec. You will still have to not be shit at the game to do the hardest of the hard stuff. To me part of playing Dom/standard is testing and knowing the limits of your character so trial and error by attacking every type of boss with every type of mod was necessary, to know what you can and can't do or how hard certain abilities hit, etc. I'd never shy away from a challenge even if it seemed like there was little chance of winning.

I've solo'd every boss from double Dominus in Palace to temp chain double Courtyard bosses to GMP pieties and -max fire furies. With this spec, being a ranged and your own skill nothing should stop you from doing the same.

My gear on Domination (scion lvl 96):


My gear on Ambush (shadow lvl 93):

About gearing for this spec - it is really quite cheap. The essentials you need to be effective are an Alpha's Howl, atleast a 5L and a fast 1h wep preferably with good ele damage (2.0 aps or higher). You then try to get life and weapon ele damage on rings, amulet and belt. Get attack speed on gloves and whatever you want on boots. If you don't like running then by all means just leap around because it's very fast with this spec.

A 6L unlocks faster attacks which raises your dps by about 30%. I used a 5L up until about lvl 93 and you can still do everything in the game, you'll just be a little slower than me. I found crafting a ele weapon was rather easy by alt/regaling and getting atleast good attack speed and 2 elemental damages. I got lucky by eternal/exatling the last few stats.

Open these images in a new tab to see them fully
My dps stats: (pre 1.1.0)


My defensive stats: (pre 1.1.0)


Choosing the class for you:
Currently there are 3 options to choose from when starting the build. Scion, Shadow and Ranger. All 3 are really close together in terms of what you'll be getting with minor differences. Shadow is probably the one which gives the slightest edge but if you're going to be avoiding Resolute Techniques then Ranger is better. I also believe Ranger and Scion are more versatile if you want to change the spec up a bit.
By going Scion you get 13% attack speed and 1 extra passive.
By going Shadow you get 6% attack speed, 3% movement and 24% projectile damage.
By going Ranger you get 8% attack speed, 20% accuracy and 24% projectile damage.
The specs:
Scion start

Ranger start


Shadow start and what my current spec looks like


General idea of how I would spend passives leveling:


Bandits: 40 life // 8 attack speed // free passive

Things to mention about the spec - You won't be running all 5 auras like I do until you have a lvl 20 reduced mana and all of those reduced mana nodes. That's not too big a deal, it's the 3 damage ones that are essential for the build to work best.

You can always sacrifice some dps and go for Acrobatics, Ondar's Guille or Phase Acrobatics but I've found they're not all that necessary. Just build a high life pool, good resists and play with your head and you'll be fine.

Ele reflect can be a slight problem until you get good resits and life like me. Using both topaz and ruby flasks helps greatly when attacking large packs with reflect.

I'll answer any questions people have and I'm trying to upload a video of just a random boss kill to see the spec in action.


VIDEOS - Apologies for the quality, can't go higher than 480p with how slow the upload is on my internet.
Most of my newer videos can be seen in 720p if you manually change the quality.

Videos post 1.1.0


Videos Pre 1.1.0



FAQS
Mathil! Life leech vs Life on hit, why? Where? When? How do I life?



Mathil! I want to shock everything and I read what static blows does and I think it is good and I want to use it and why shouldn't I use it and tell me how to use it.



Mathil! I found this .00002 attack speed 2h maul with MEGA elemental damage on it. Time to equip it and pwn face right?



Yo Mathil! So you're a scrub, scrubbing it up on scrubcore with your scrub friends and... a question? Oh right. Since you're a scrub and I'm better than you in every way possible I am going to play Hardcore. I WILL make this Hardcore viable. Is it hardcore viable?



Oh man Iron Reflex. That passive is dope, I'm so taking it. Who is ready to praise my genius and ingenuity for changing the way you breath air itself? Wait what?, I shouldn't take it?



DoubleU-tee-eff Mathil, why do I only have 2k deeps while you have a bajillion? Please look at my gear and tell me why I didn't read your guide or look at your gear?



God damnit Mathil you sexy beast. How did you get so good looking? I love your spec and will never wash my eyes after having read this guide. Thank you for posting and coming up with it and please sign my mousepad.

Thank you for this awesome guide!
I'm using elemental ST too, but gears are not as good though.
Before I put some point to block and make my spell block max when swap shield and amulet.
It was very dangerous for me when facing some high spell damage bosses with "- max res".
Do you think these block passive points necessary?

I'm personally not big on block. I've tried little bits of % block added to spells and it didn't feel worth getting unless you're going for alot of it. I'm not sure what your own goals are or if you play on Nemesis/hardcore, as if you did I could understand the desire for the extra defense.

For myself I never really died unless I made a mistake. I've died plenty, yes but since 92+ or so I've probably only died once or twice outside of extremely hard boss mods and as I've said, it's my fault for making the mistake in doing so.

I think you should atleast have ballistic mastery because for spectral throw it is a very powerful talent.

"

Mathil wrote:

I'm personally not big on block. I've tried little bits of % block added to spells and it didn't feel worth getting unless you're going for alot of it. I'm not sure what your own goals are or if you play on Nemesis/hardcore, as if you did I could understand the desire for the extra defense.

For myself I never really died unless I made a mistake. I've died plenty, yes but since 92+ or so I've probably only died once or twice outside of extremely hard boss mods and as I've said, it's my fault for making the mistake in doing so.

I think you should atleast have ballistic mastery because for spectral throw it is a very powerful talent.

Because of location I play, there are always random lagging spike and very high ping which forced me to max survival.
But my hp is too low comparing to your 6k, may not need block when 6k hp.

Tried ballistic mastery after read your guide, and that's a nice node!
Was worried about it may lower my dps, but now I think it make me safer.

looks great.

i've thought of an ele-1h build for a while, because i found a lot of decent e-weapons.
however i played 2h-physical throw as my first ladder char.

now im lvl80 and still didnt found too much sellable (neighter didnt found a single exalt -.-) and want to start a new char.

so some questions:
- can play more or less selffound on a vanilla account?
- How important is alpha howl for the build? is it still working with 2 auras?
- Why did you decide to go for swords, over claws or axes?
- can you give a short lvl-guide for the milestones and when to claim them?

best regards

Self found is fine, this char isn't very gear dependent.

Alpha's howl lets you run the 3x 60% auras + 2x 40% auras. Without it you're going to miss out on 1 of those 40% auras. Along with that you will lose something like 1-50 lightning and 20-30 fire which for me is around 500-1k dps.

You use swords and foils in particular because they are the fastest 1h wep. This build is all about how fast you attack and when you level/play you'll notice the faster your weapon is the higher your dps goes almost regardless of what is on the weapon. Foils are a 1.7 base, a good corsair can compare at 1.65 if you find the right stats with it.

It's not too important how you spec when leveling since both sides of the tree will be fairly similar. I'd say to start go out to Harrier and then move along to Charisma or be near it for when you hit lvl 24 and can get a blood magic gem. When you can do that you need Charisma to be able to run both wrath and anger which will be the bulk of your damage leveling. Then go for the circle of life just below scion tree and move your way towards Resolute Techniques and up to Catalyse and the templar life nodes. By this point you can probably grab Acrobatics and start filling out the tree as you see fit.

I've found when leveling characters, especially ones that kill quickly, you need little to no defense at all so something like Acrobatics isn't needed until maybe 55+.

Focus on getting your life and damage up.

RT + surgeons on flasks says it all about this guy.

"

creamydream wrote:

RT + surgeons on flasks says it all about this guy.

Never bothered to reroll my flasks to make them optimal. Sorry for offending you.

Build looks really cool, I have never tried an elemental build in all my time of playing poe, I was thinking of trying elemental LA but this looks far more enjoyable.

I adjusted it for hardcore I think I am going to try something like this. Not running acrobatics/evasion probably just with 3 auras Wrath Anger and grace, will probably 1 shot myself on reflect but it should be fun thanks!



One question im interested in is how much mana less reserved do I need to run 3 60% auras?

You should have plenty with that passive tree for 3x 60% auras.

It's also pretty hard to 1 shot yourself to reflect. The damage is so steady and consistent that you literally have to attack into a large ele reflect pack on an ele reflect pack with -max res. Otherwise you're just slowly killing yourself with more than enough time to stop attacking and realise what is happening.