[1.2.X Guide] Mollari's Molten Strike Bino's Crit Dagger 155k/222k Tooltip DPS! - *With Atziri*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN42ujMefOw - 78 Courtyard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-_NQmEPY4Q - Atziri Walkthrough

All updates to keep this build current will be noted here. If a patch comes out and there are no changes here that means that the build didn't need any changes and remains viable!

9/4/14 - Updated gear/gems for game version 1.2

You can start Ranger or Shadow. There are some differences after 1.2 however. The ranger will gain 17% life and 64% evasion to the shadows 57% physical damage. Completely up to you.

Changes from 1.1 to 1.2. Please note that you can modify the tree for a bit more dmg if you choose to lose some tankiness but overall it gained a ton of survivability.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAm42v6wgu7YMZjgBe037ven11eK7uDv66SO5W-qOKG6094hR1_MUj9kxgpMJnoLcX3Q1Nko19BLGHdoDhLOk6szB8lWZKfeJeFSBRRziWIuIqTedUjb9H4j8nJP0FtdCBSsj_3sLs1COkOW6qtMUwcbXy2-cegWKs3ag1kkcGS41sjEt4_o_YvfLh2Hb_HDpCTeNjQ7k-VvWmVw5IrGbbbjGeXfIRlizhl9Bw1ZAbBx59446KidNwVpUucFKaE_DVKgvb1ElR8-q1SKZ_7UGxsxa_JpVh4lVLjDadqg==

Normal: Life
Cruel: Physical damage
Merc: Power charge

You are able to level using this build all the way through. At level 20 you can use Ungil’s dagger and then switch to a Mightflay dagger at 35. Mightflay will last you all the way until lower 50s when you will have to then find a decent dagger to last until 65 when you can get a Bino’s. This build is built around having a Bino’s so you will have to likely change points around to add survivability if you are not going to use Bino’s or use the Atziri crit gloves.

This build is build around Bino’s dagger. The reason this dagger is so good is because upon killing an enemy that is poisoned (which we poison targets upon crit through the Adders Touch keystone) we gain a scaling life regeneration buff for 2 seconds. With my exact setup I gain around 2500-2750 life per second for 2 seconds (based on damage so yours will be different but not terrible far off) which also applies to close party members. That is is HUGE! For this build you will use Molten Strike as both your single target and AoE ability. The beauty of Molten Strike is that you can buff the projectiles through buffing the melee ability as the projectiles are taken directly from a % of the physical component. Using Multistrike it gives us 9 total projectiles instead of the normal 3 because we gain an extra 2 swings. With these projectiles are do not need to use a support gem like Melee Splash because the projectiles take care of the AoE for us. Also keep in mind that because Molten Strike converts a portion of our physical damage to fire we are able to stack a lot more crit and crit multi without reflect becoming a problem!

Weapon: Bino’s Kitchen Knife is the weapon required for this exact setup unless you have access to Atziri’s Acuity which drop from Uber Aztiri only. Since they are way more expensive then the Bino’s you are better off just getting the Bino’s. Very good damage, very high crit chance, and the regen proc, make this the go-to weapon for this build.
Shield: Crest of Perandus is going to offer the best bang for the price. You are more then welcome to use whatever you would like but the 40% base block is extremely good. With the life, lightning res, and life leech, this is a very good shield. Some have mentioned Thousand Teeth shield but the invasion increase doesn't counter the loss of 3% block so Perandus all the way!

Helmet: Abyssus helmet all the way. Do not be turned off by the Increased Physical Damage Taken mod because that will get negated through our block% and the fact that everything will be frozen from the Hatred cold damage. This helmet is an INSANE amount of DPS. Damn near 50% of the overall build’s damage comes from this helmet. The all stats also save a few points throughout the tree.

Chest: Voll’s Protector is the way I went with this build. It essentially gives us 7 links as the power charge on crit from this chest trumps the gem by a lot. The Power Charge on Critical gem only can proc 1 power charge be cast where as the chest is on every crit. 5L Volls is perfectly alright but keep in mind you will probably be dropping 30ishk DPS depending on gear. This build needs either a 5L/6L Voll’s or a 6L chest to work. A 5L rare chest would not get the job done. A 6L High life, good res chest is probably best but that will be a lot more expensive than a 6L Voll’s and might even allow you to drop Purity of Elements altogether allowing you to add Purity of Fire to the build. Tabula also works out just fine as a good starter chest because you can link in Power Charge on Crit and run Molten Strike off mana.

Amulet: You will have some options here depending on your gear. I would recommend an agate base amulet because you will need some strength and int on your gear. Assuming you have a 20 all stats Abyssus you will need 13 int and 17 strength total on you gear. This can be easily obtained by the agate implicit. If you want to run Herald of Ash instead of Vitality a good roll on chaos resistance will help a lot. Global crit, crit multiplier, accuracy, weapon elemental damage, life, any res you need, this is one of the few item slots that give you flexibility so take advantage of it!

Rings: 1 of Death Rush / Ming’s Heart. Keep in mind that the Death Rush ring may no longer be availible as it was no longer dropping in the 4 month leagues but it was a race reward recently. Even with the health changes in 1.2 Ming's is still the second best option. If not Ming's then grab a rare ring with some high chaos resistance. The other ring you want will be a rare ring with life and resistances depending on what you need. If you can get a physical roll or a weapon elemental damage roll then that would be preferred.

Gloves: Maligaro’s Virtuosity are great for scaling damage and the go to gloves for sure unless you can afford the ridiculously expensive Atziri’s Acuity from Uber Atziri. As long as you have a Bino’s then the Maligaro’s work just fine but best in slot is Atziri's gloves all day.

Belt: Here you will want a good rare belt probably with Rustic base for the physical damage bonus. Life and resists are a must with strength and weapon elemental damage a bonus.

Boots: You will be looking for a pair of high life, resists, and movement speed boots.

Flasks: I would highly recommend 1 Atziri’s Promise + 2 Seething Divine (1 freeze/chill and 1 bleed) + 1 Quicksilver + 1 Granite with increased armor/Rumi's unique Granite. If you can roll generate 1 charge on crit then I highly recommend those as you will be close to crit cap (95%) so they will regenerate amazingly fast.

Molten Strike has the benefit like Reave where the base cost is extremely low. This allows for this skill to be run effectively on mana without requiring a huge pool to draw from. If you were using a non Voll’s chest (50% reduced mana) then you could run Molten Strike on 150ish mana with just 2% physical mana leech without running out of mana. If you choose to go the mana route then you will lose one of your 40% auras leaving you with 1 60% and 1 40%. Completely up to you and your preference.

Molten Strike can seen confusing because it has two parts to it, the initial hit, and the projectiles. The main goal is to scale BOTH parts of the skill through support gems and scale the physical portion through the tree (which the projectiles are a %of the physical). We want to make sure we get the most bang for a buck without focusing on just one or the other. Support gems like Added Fire and Weapon Elemental Damage will scale on both parts of Molten Strike. Support gems like Melee Physical and Melee Physical on full like will make the tooltip higher but they DO NOT affect the projectile portion of Molten Strike. This is why Multistrike trumps Lesser Multiple Projectiles and Greater Multiple Projectiles because it adds 6 more projectiles (you gain 3 per swing and Multistrike adds 2 swings) because it adds projectiles while still scaling the melee portion where as LMP/GMP only adds projectiles.

The gem setup is pretty straightforward. If you have only have a 5L Voll’s generally Added Fire is the gem you lose but it could be Faster Attacks depending on your specific gear. If you do not have much chaos resistance then you may not want to level Blood Rage much. You gems will be a bit different in your chest if you use Tabula and run off mana instead of Voll’s. The Cast When Damage Taken linked with Enduring Cry, Assassin's Mark, and Increased AoE can be leveled to your liking on the proc.

Faster Attacks VS Increased Critical Strike Damage VS Added Fire - The support gem showdown
This is going to depend on gear and WILL change if you are able to get to the gear I have. For the longest time Faster Attacks was MORE DPS than Increased Critical Damage and even Added Fire. After upgrading my last few items in this set it turns out that Faster Attacks became my least damaging support gem. This is when Increased Critical Strikes became more valuable than Faster Attacks and thus was moved in it's place. The specific breakpoints will be totally gear dependent but it started Faster Attacks > Added Fire > Increased Critical Damage then with some gear went Added Fire > Faster Attacks > Increased Critical Damage and finally has ended up as Increased Critical Strikes > Added Fire > Faster Attacks. I know that is a lot to take in but the value of each gem will change through you gear progression.

I prefer the Faster Attacks over the Increased Critical Damage but Increased Critical Damage is higher DPS. I just do not like how anything with Multistrike feels without a Faster Attacks linked to it. Completely up to you. Below is how each gem stacks up with my exact gear and using a level 17 Herald of Ash. Note your numbers will look different depending on gear.



5L/6L
Voll’s
Molten Strike (R) -> Multistrike (R) -> Weapon Elemental Damage (R) -> Faster Attacks (G)/Increased Critical Damage (B) -> Blood Magic (R) -> Added Fire Damage (R)

Tabula or 6L non Voll’s chest
Molten Strike (R) -> Multistrike (R) -> Weapon Elemental Damage (R) -> Faster Attacks (G)/Increased Critical Damage (B) -> Added Fire Damage (R) -> Power Charge On Critical (B)

4L
Whirling Blades (G) -> Reduced Duration (R) -> Blood Magic (R) -> Blood Rage (G)
Cast When Damage Taken (R) -> Enduring Cry (R) -> Increased Area of Effect (B) -> Assassin's Mark (B)
Reduced Mana (R) -> Hatred (G) -> Purity of Elements (B) -> Vitality/Herald of Ash (R)

3L
Vaal Grace (G) -> Vaal Haste (B) -> Increased Duration (R)
Cast When Damage Taken (R) -> Immortal Call (R) -> Increased Duration (R)

Life Gain on Hit
Life Gain on Hit works extremely well with Molten Strike as each projectile also returns life. This means if you are ever running in a party with Anger/Wrath or feeling like you need added survivability then swicthing in Life Gain on Hit for Added Fire is a great way to increase your survivability. In a party situation with Anger/Wrath you very well may run into elemental reflect problems so tuning down the elemental damage you do and addin more survivability will help a lot. In EXTREME cases you may even be required to drop Weapon Elemental Damage and throw Life Leech in there as well but I have not personally run into a problem that extreme yet.

The auras are pretty straight forward. Using Voll’s and Blood Magic you are running Hatred, Purity of Elements, and Vitality/Herald of Ash. Vitality or Herald of Ash is completely up to you and your gear. If you have solid Chaos resistance and can afford to drop the life regeneration of Vitality then Herald of Ash is a great choice. The end goal in your gear progression should be to have enough chaos resistance to run Herald of Ash but that probably will not be until after you get at least a Death Rush/Ming's Heart. If you are using a 6L rare/Tabula and running Molten Strike off of mana then you would only be using Hatred and either Purity of Elements, Herald of Ash, Vitality, depending on your personal preferences. Also keep in mind that you will not be able to run more then 1x60% (Hatred) and 1x40%(Purity of Elements) unless you have a level 19 or higher Reduced Mana. At level 19 you should be able to add the 40% Vitality/Purity of Fire. For Herald of Ash you would need at least a level 11 Reduced Mana for 1x60, 1x40, and 1x25.

With things dying so fast, self casting curses is quite pointless and would add to clear speed so just keep your Cast When Damage Taken that is linked with your curse at whatever level you feel comfortable at. Keep in mind that your crit% + the Assassin's Mark curse should never go over the crit cap of 95% chance to crit.

When solo, physical and elemental reflect are not a problem. A huge desync can cause a little problem with elemental reflect but 99% of the time there is no problem. Keep in mind that you may need to change your gems, IE Weapons Elemental Damage to something like Life Gain on Hit if you run with a Ele Buzzsaw or something with strong Anger/Wrath/Haste auras. If I run with Ele Buzzsaw my tooltip damage goes through the roof so elemental reflect becomes a huge problem so you may need to switch in Life Gain on Hit for Added Fire and even may have to go as far as also adding Life Leech for Weapon Elemental Damage. Physical reflect remains no problem though.

Life Gain on Hit
Life Gain on Hit works extremely well with Molten Strike as each projectile also returns life. This means if you are ever running in a party with Anger/Wrath or feeling like you need added survivability then swicthing in Life Gain on Hit for Added Fire is a great way to increase your survivability. In a party situation with Anger/Wrath you very well may run into elemental reflect problems so tuning down the elemental damage you do and addin gmore survivability will help a lot. In EXTREME cases you may even be required to drop Weapon Elemental Damage and throw Life Leech in there as well but I have not personally run into a problem that extreme yet.

Half regeneration mods can be somewhat annoying but you can help counter these by switching Added Fire for Life Gain on Hit if you really want to run it. No regeneration maps I would genally skip all together unless you have Atziri’s Acurity gloves then the regen mods are easy. Elemental reflect can be annoying with desyncs so if you want to play it safe then switch Weapon Elemental Damage with Life Gain on Hit. Other then that you should be fine on all other mods. Do keep in mind that as more of a glass cannon, a lot of high damage mods may require you to play more carefully.

Please keep in mind that this build was not built around easy Atziri farming. There are far better build for easy farming. This was more to see if this build could complete normal Atziri. There are a few gems you should be leveling or purchase before doing so though. A high level Life Gain on Hit and level 20 Purity of Fire are required for best results. You will also want a few different flasks for each boss. A video walkthrough can be found at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-_NQmEPY4Q

Double Vaal
Neeeded: 2x Topaz Flasks (remove shock preferred)
Drop the first to 20% and kill the second one and then come back and finish the first. Pretty straight forward.

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Trio
Needed: 2x Granite Flasks (remove bleed preffered on 1 with armor % on the other)
The first boss we want to kill is the titty bitch. Try to get the cycloner and red dude away from her, burn her down quickly with Vaal Haste and make sure to move out of the chaos that will spawn from her corpse. You may also want to switch in Life Gain on Hit instead of Added Fire for more survivability depending on your gear.

Second we will be going after the cyclone. If at all possible fight near the spawning adds (without being in the chaos on the ground) to keep the Bino's regen up. Burning Vaal Grace here is a solid choice and burn the cyclone down ASAP.

Finally we will be taking out the red dude. You want to make sure you are not attacking while he is red and continue to pick off adds to keep Bino's regen u pas much as possible.

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Atziri
Needed: 2x Ruby Flasks
Level 20 Purity of Fire and high level Life Gain on Hit (drop Vitality/Herald of Ash and Added Fire)

With Purity of Fire (level 20) we will be able to stand in the smaller Flameblasts with a Ruby Flask up and Life Gain on Hit will bring us up quickly.

In her normal phase we will just push her quickly making sure we have a Ruby up for each of the smaller Flameblasts.

In the 4 add split there isn't one I particular target but obviously avoid the one holding the mirror. Burn down this add quickly while keeping a ruby active for the Flameblasts.

During the streaming adds there is no need for a skill swap at all. Standing on Atziri and spamming Molten Strike should kill all the adds before they get to her with just the projectiles. I like to dip away from her after this phase in case she Flameblasts I can dodge one and save myself a Ruby Charge.

I hope this, along with the video, can show how this build takes down normal Atziri. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to post them here!

Class: Ranger
Life: 4,291
Charges 5 Power - 3 Frenzy - 3 Endurance
Crit Chance: 89.7% (w /5 power charges and crit capped at 95% with Assassin's Mark on the target)
Crit Multi: 728% (951 with Critical Damage instead of Faster Attacks)
Block: 56%
Spell Block: 0%
Spell Dodge: 30%
Attack Dodge: 10%
Armor: 637 (6% reduction)
Evasion: 1910 (19% chance to evade)
Res: 75 Fire / 75 Cold / 75 Lightning
Movement Speed: 29%

Thanks for taking the time to check out this guide! If you have any feedback (good or bad) please let me know and I can improve the guide as needed!

My other guide(s):

Mollari's Twincinerate DW Cybil's 7500 DPS Tooltip Incinerate - *W/ Atziri* - CHEAP
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1052342

Mollari's Self Cast Multicharge Discharger AKA Blue Flame Moose (no Voll's!)
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/959214