I’ve been trying out this build, using the leveling guide, and am now sitting at level 38. Thought I’d share my experience so far. The early levels were pretty easy, in large thanks to Lethal Assault which lets you just melt mobs. Survivability can be a small problem early on, but once you hit Pneumatic Burst it quickly becomes a non-issue.
However, I found that towards my late level 20s and early level 30s things got a lot rougher. The damage was still fine but mobs could do a large amount of damage in a short timespan and Pneumatic Burst had trouble keeping up. It felt like I was put into a position where I had to kill them before they killed me, and while the damage was fine it oftentimes wasn’t bursty enough, or safe enough, to do just that. Some fights I died two or three times before I managed to progress. This was in the area of the game preceeding Homestead. However by my mid 30s I felt like the build came back in full force again, and even though it clearly isn’t as tanky as say a Witchblade or Vit Caster (duh), I rarely died and was able to tear through enemies again.
I’m not a 100% sure what caused this sort of mid-life crisis, but I think this might be due to heavily investing in Fire Strike early. The extra damage is fine, but not spectacular. Especially considering it a) doesn’t really let you handle big groups of mobs much easier and b) it feels like its usefulness is to a certain degree dependent on WPS passives which we don’t have at this point. If I were to level the build again I’d maybe try going for Vindictive Flame, and possibly Veil of Shadow as well, before maxing Fire Strike. Seeing as damage, especially single target, wasn’t the main issue.
Overall though, the build is very fun so far and I’m looking forward taking it further. Thanks for a very well put-together guide!
When I was leveling in the late 20’s, I was using the old leveling guide and I was invested in Veil of Shadows, etc. which gave me more defense. I haven’t tried it, but I’m really wondering if a Hollowed Fang (lvl 11 -> 4% ADCtH) or better yet, a Haunted Steel (lvl 24 -> 8% ADCtH + a temp ADCtH booster power) would provide “life steal” and eliminate that period of squishiness while letting one maintain the new full DPS based early leveling path.
Note: I noticed that Haunted Steel and Vitriolic Gallstone are both listed as part of the end game equipment. The are available at levels 24 and 20, respectively, and I think using them asap would be quite strong.
That’s a good point. Veil of Shadow would indeed help with survivability a lot. I will update the guide to offer that as advice.
Yes, definitely adding a Haunted Steel is very helpful. Any char that isn’t the first really should be able to obtain one. I will also add that to the guide.
Yes. I am suspecting this build isn’t the one with fastest clear speeds until you get the wps procs. And yes, with later 1.0.0.7HF2 patch both FS and ES damages feel somewhat underwhelming.
It might absolutely help mitigate it, but I don’t think it will fix it completely. The problem I encountered (which you maybe might not if you got gear stored up, played more carefully etc) was based on very high quite consitent incoming damage spikes. Going in and losing 80% of my HP, using potion and PB and a second and a half later lose another 70% of my HP. You’d need insane health recovery to deal with that, which is why I think mitigation might be the better path.
Yes. I am suspecting this build isn’t the one with fastest clear speeds until you get the wps procs. And yes, with later 1.0.0.7HF2 patch both FS and ES damages feel somewhat underwhelming.
I don’t know, once you get Manticore it starts clearing really quite fast. Your very high attackspeed will let you leverage procs such as Manticore or weapon procs very well and any flat damage such as from Lethal Assault and Guile etc. will benefit you to a much larger degree then a lot of other builds. The single target DPS seems pretty phenomenal, it’s just that the AoE is somewhat limited before you get procs. Damage wise this build feels pretty comparable to my 1.0.0.6 Witchblade at level 35~, which is by no means bad.
But I´m a beginner as I bought the game 2 months ago and I have only 1 level70 char.
At the moment it´s a hit and run playstyle, because as soon as stay near a boss more than 2 seconds I´m dead. A group of casters or range mobs are a pain in a ass. I really die often, maybe I´m doing somehting wrong, but it´s ok.
I´m using the mentioned relict and Mark of Dreeg, unfortunately I have only 2 swords…
The other equipment is yellow/blue - so nothing special! Should I take care about the equipment? Any important states?
At the moment I check the level and some states of the gear, but to be honest I really don´t have deep knowledge about it.
Thanks for the guide - I will definitely push this char!
I’m hardly an expert either, but if I were you I’d try to prioritize getting defensive stats (Health, Health %, Defensive Ability) and putting a handful of points in Veil of Shadow. Use components to bump your defensive stats since removing them later is cheap and the gear you use you probably would vendor anyway. Beyond that just push through the bump, once you hit your mid 30s it gets a lot more survivable, especially when you get down to the Behemoth constellation.
Before reaching Homestead I was dying very frequently but after that point I’ve only died a handful of times (primarily in the Conflagration which has been somewhat difficult on all my characters), and am now in the very end of Act 3. An easy way I’ve measured it (beyond the subjectivity of how it feels) is to look at my Health Potion supply. I was at 60+ before I hit the late 20s bump, went down to 20~ and am now at 99+. Not a perfect way to measure things but your Health Potion Equilibrium can give you a pointer on how survivable the build itself is and the stark difference does tell a story.
If incoming damage is a problem at lower levels, I agree that mitigation is helpful. Since the skills of the build give you plenty of damage, you can gear focused toward defense. I look for armor pieces with high armor rating, favoring them even over pieces with lower armor but a whole bunch of affixes. I also put Scavenged Plating on all my armor pieces, should be easy to acquire. A twinked char would have access to even better armor components. That might help a lot, as most incoming damage is physical.
I have pictures of my lvl 25 char from earlier. You can look at the armor rating and see if it’s comparable.
I’m already sitting at 70% reduction from armor at the moment, don’t remember exactly how it was at level 30~. You might very well be right that that was the problem. For now my biggest worries with gear are a) resistances since most of my deaths seem to come from boss spells and b) spirit so I can actually equip these damn daggers haha. I recon once I’ve pumped mastery a bit it should be easier though. But as mentioned I really think just prioritizing Veil of Shadow a tad bit earlier might do it. The build seems to scale very well and even though there have been a rough spot it is very fun not having to be a caster for the first 40 levels.
You did’t found a better medal for this build? Mark of Fierce resolve doesnt seem the best way here? Or maybe there are no better Legendary medals for this class?
It very well may not be the best medal. I used it because I had one and was looking to plug some gaps in resistances, and it does so nicely. The huge pierce resist is nice, stun resist is welcome, the defensive ability is also helpful, and the bonuses to physique and health are both good. It’s a nice stat booster, but not critical to the build.
I’ve tried experimenting with Mark of Divinity, and I can still max resistances with that by shifting around augments. That’s another nice option if you want a fail-safe.
I also forgot to update the main thread but I changed to an Arcane Spark instead of Dread Skull on the medal.
Hello, I’m kinda new and don’t know much about the game, I’m following the guide (level 28 currently and going strong!) and was wondering why we don’t pick Rat and Eye of [Something], they all give a ton of poison/acid damage.
I’m having a blast btw, thanks for the build really cool to play!
Hello, welcome to the game! Hope you enjoy the build and I am happy to offer advice.
Regarding the Constellations, I was actually thinking about that. I am re-leveling a character to test my leveling guide, and I noticed that the devotion setup I listed is great for end-game, but perhaps a different one is more suited for leveling. I did notice my character is a bit low on bonuses to Acid damage, so I think taking Scorpion, Rat or Eye are reasonable options early game. Since we can respec devotions, we can easily adjust later to the end-game devotions.
So go ahead and take those, I think it will help. I do still recommend getting to Manticore as soon as you can, so when you have 14 devotion points accumulated, I recommend respeccing until you get to the tip of Manticore.
Thanks a lot for the answer!
So, i’m trying to understand, is Spider better lategame because 3% cunning and some da/oa are better then, for example, Rat or Eye or Scorpion?
Since you take it, I guess the answer is yes, so the real question is, why? How much is damage is worth 3% cunning?
Or maybe there is not a good path for what we want late?
So, the main reason Spider is worth it is because the rightmost leg has the following: 20% Reduced Attack Speed Retaliation and 20% Slowed Movement Speed Retaliation. They don’t show up in GrimCalc because it is outdated, but look in game and you will see them.
Here’s why that is very powerful. One of our skills, Veil of Shadows, reduces all enemy attack speeds (since total speed includes attack speed) by 25% at 10/10 rank. What that means is that we are seeing 25% less damage per second coming at us because enemies are attacking slower. Spider’s effect stacks with this. Whenever an enemy attacks us in melee, we will retaliate and slow their attack speed another 20%. This means they are only attacking at 55% speed. Where Veil of Shadows alone reduces enemy DPS by 25%, with Spider it nearly halves incoming melee damage.
This also speaks to a general rule when evaluating stats. Anything that independently multiplies something such as your damage output or enemies damage output is very powerful in endgame. Adding more bonuses on to a stat you already have a lot of is less powerful. Early game, you don’t have a lot of bonuses to your favored damage type, so something like Scorpion, Eye, or Rat which give bonuses to Acid/Poison damage are useful. Late game, my character has +1600% Acid damage, so the +39% from Scorpion is tiny and barely helps. Meanwhile, a full half reduction to enemy melee damage is hugely helpful.
Thank you for all your great explanations, Edisonian. I’ve learned more about how to make builds work from reading this thread than from pretty much anything else anywhere.
