[1.0.0.7] Another take on the Vitality Caster!

Quick Port Valbury run:

I saw Ceno’s crit-based vitality caster guide and wanted to try it for myself, and I ended up deviating a whole lot from his build over time, to what I think is a more optimal spec. Even with 3000+ OA, I doubt you’ll see even a 40% crit chance against the tougher bosses in the game, so while going with Stormcaller’s Pact seems like a neat focus, I don’t think it ultimately does as much as it looks like, whereas with all the +1 occultist pieces you’re getting, Possession ends up being rather heavily overleveled. So while my version still grabs a good amount of OA and crit, it’s second to pure vitality damage in priority. To put it in numbers, once you get to around 2500 OA and +1700% vit damage, +2 OA is roughly equivalent to +1% vit damage.

For the math of SP vs Poss, if we assume 40% crit chance, 1.6 crit damage, and +1700% vit damage, a 14/12 SP (probably need +2 all skills somewhere to get that), and an 18/12 Poss (roughly what mine is at), SP gives (0.42 + 0.61) / (0.41.6 + 0.61) = 13% more damage, while Poss gives 1980/1800 = 10% more. A little less, but I’d take the 14% damage absorption over the extra 3% more.

Which brings me to my second focus: mitigation. I originally used Giant’s Blood and Wayward Soul, but since vitality casters already have such a sheer amount of life gained, it’s almost impossible for these 15-20s CD procs to go off at a time you’d really need them (most likely in the space of a fraction of a second, when your damage taken suddenly shoots above your regen and kills you from max life before you can react). The DA from Wayward Soul and regen from Giant’s Blood are nice, but unreliable and can be found elsewhere. Instead, my focus is on grabbing additional mitigation wherever I can get it and keying in on some more consistent procs.

Last, while toying with Riftstone for a movement skill, I found out that, between Solael’s Witchfire, Second Rite, Blood of Dreeg, and Possession, you actually hit quite hard. Even at a 21/12 SoC and 11/12 Destruction, my autoattacks were dealing about 75% the damage at twice the speed, so if I attack while waiting on cooldowns (as simple as holding LMB while pianoing your spells), it’s like having another sigil and a half up, plus the big Riftstone hits every few seconds!

So with all that said, this is what my build ended up being!

Skills + Devotions http://grimcalc.com/build/1007-RH5BJc

with skill bonuses http://grimcalc.com/build/1007-NcIAMR

For Devotions, the goal was to get Hungering Void, Wendigo, and Scales, putting the remaining points into some extra defense. They can go anywhere you’d like, but I think I found a nice set of constellations on the right side, using 8 points between Targo, Obelisk, and Ulo for a total of +10% health, +300 health, +5% DA, +90 DA, +7% armor, +150 armor, and +10% ele res. Note that Tip the Scales completely solves your energy issues for everything but one-on-one boss fights. Those are mostly covered by energy absorption from materials, and you’ll only need to use energy potions for drawn-out non-spellcasting bosses.

As for skills, the notable ones aside from the standard build are as such: Blood of Dreeg is maxed for OA and health regen to counteract Hungering Void, Aspect of the Guardian is maxed for physical resist, Oak Skin is pumped up a little for armor and pierce resist, Curse of Frailty is pumped up until you’re comfortable with the area and duration, and Solael’s Witchfire and Second Rite an also be added to if you desire a more beefy autoattack.

Next up, gear! Keep in mind that mine have high rolls across the board, since I generated a few of each and picked which ones I liked to see how good this character could get. You’ll almost certainly see lower stats, but not by a whole lot.

Fang of Ch’thon - Great stats, +1 occultist, +1 possession, great debuff
Riftstone - Handy movement skill + damaging attack

Black Flame focus, helmet, shoulders - All are good pieces in their own right, but they really shine with the 3p set bonus granting +70% vit damage, +300 life, +40% bleed res, and another +10% cooldown reduction to round us off at 30% in total, giving Hungering Void only 1 second of downtime
Purified Sale - Capping aether res
Leathery Hide - Reduced stun dur, %health
Silk Swatch - Helps cap bleed/stun res

Justicar chest, hands - While I’m not using one of the best OA legendaries in the game, I am using one of the best DA ones! Bonus points for having high armor on the most-hit area, and it has some nice resistances to boot. I was originally using a different piece for the hand slot, but after switching to the Justice chest, I noticed that the 2p bonus with the hands was really quite nice, giving extra armor and armor absorption. The health, OA, attack/cast speed, and pierce res are all highly valuable too, of course.
Chains of Oleron - OA
Spellwoven Threads - OA, casting speed

Legwraps of the Tranquil Mind - This originally stuck out to me due to its high OA and spirit, but the proc is what really makes me love it after having played with it for a bit. It’ll even help trigger your offensive procs, which I’ll go into shortly. Still, this one’s up to your own choosing! You can substitute many relevant legendaries here and won’t see much of a difference.
Silk Swatch - Helps cap bleed/stun res

Voidwalker Footpads - Obvious choice, but again, you can change these to suit your preference. I wanted the vitality damage along with bonus points to SoC and Destruction since they aren’t capped.
Mark of the Traveler - Movement speed

Girdle of Stolen Dreams - Speaks for itself; almost certainly BiS!
Dense Fur - Global armor! Can be swapped out for any of the other ones if you need a different elemental res

The Peerless Eye of Beronath - Incredible OA and +1 all skills, along with crit damage and ele res. I don’t use the granted skill, but it seems great without it!
Arcane Spark - Energy regen, great OA

2x Signet of the Damned - Great stats and great procs, though you can swap one out for Signet of the Fallen for an extra vitality resistance debuff.
Soul Shard - Energy absorption, great for spellcasting bosses!

Mark of Divinity - The lifesaver itself! This is what makes me truly feel safe in giant packs. The only way for me to die with this on is to take a big chunk of damage before any of my damage-gained-as-life sources kick in, with a 4500+ damage hit landing just before I get to 30% life. Hasn’t happened yet, and if I see it go off in the buff bar (which is rather infrequently unless I’m doing something silly), I can back out of combat and play it safe until it comes back up.
Arcane Spark - Energy regen, great OA

Solael’s Decimation - A low-CD proc to proc your other procs!

And with this talk of procs, I wanted to point out that we get 4 major offensive procs from our weapon, focus, and rings. A neat little tidbit about stacking all these procs is that they’ll trigger each other even if they don’t deal damage, and Legwraps of the Tranquil Mind is especially powerful for this reason. Every 5 seconds, it’ll give you retaliation slow circle that can proc your 4 damage dealers, each of them having the potential to cause more chain reactions as the others go off cooldown. It’s not to be relied on as a sole defensive mechanic, but it’s a nice addition to everything else you’re doing.

Aaaand that seems to be just about it! I might get to the materials and augments along with adding links, but I’ve burned myself out on writing for now. Aside from that, feel free to suggest anything I may have missed!

Lol this was like a fucking twilight zone for me :smiley:

To explain a bit, I was just preparing to make vitality conjurer caster thread and refreshed forum page, saw this thread and I was wtf is happening :rolleyes:

Btw nice build :wink:

Ahaha, funny timing then! Sorry if I stole your thunder!

Ah, and one thing I forgot to mention is that what got me thinking of stacking tons of vitality damage is the Shroud of Dreeg set, periodically granting +400% vitality damage as its 5p bonus. I tried making it a hybrid vitality/poison character with Dreeg’s Evil Eye, but it felt a bit awkward to play, so I backed out and went to the Black Flame set. Still, the Dreeg set is also a great variation to play with!

I did that as well. It’s really very powerful. Anyway, nice build. I have a soft spot for vitality conjurers.

P.S. Twin Fangs on Devouring Swarm is pretty nuts.

im notise as the autoattack at this build is good as well
can u post materia for easy refenrece to your guide
i see them at screeshot but is convenient

Can this thing die?:smiley:

Nice build.

Still think mine’s better. :stuck_out_tongue:

I think I may remake the build yet again, though. Stormcaller’s is definitely the right route, imo.

5th time’s the charm!

I do like the idea of Black Flame, though…

No, you didnt :wink:
Red part, my build uses that :wink:

Spammable DEE coupled with sigil and high amount HP regeneration.
Its practically unkilable, tested on Fabius, he can outdps your regeneration.

DEE is best route imho, you kill more than twice faster than with sigil :wink:
Ill post my build in few mins.

You mean he can’t

Cause it’s not very unkillable if he can :stuck_out_tongue:

I had a similar idea never tested it as i felt the damage would be too spread out. Is the output as good as you expected it?

Not much of a vitality build if you go DEE you know? Since Poison is pretty OP
But yeah Sigil sucks

Right :wink:

Wrong :wink:

The DEE part, no matter how you put it. Poison being in the mix makes a lot of difference. So not a pure vitality build if you spam DEE :slight_smile:

The Sigil sucks part if you think its wrong then its just that i think it sucks. I hate aether damage remember? And yet i have posted two pure aether build :wink:
So let me elaborate, sigil doesn’t suck. I just fuckin’ hate it. :slight_smile:

I never said its a pure vitality, even sigil is not pure vitality.
But poison dmg on my build is much lower than Vitality and acid are.
Compared to spamable DEE it sucks.

Oh, i thought your “Wrong” meant that you were calling it pure Vitality.

No idea, how it would’ve turned out, two reason i never implemented it:-

-I felt the damage source (DEE) to be unreliable source of Vitality damage (I thought VE<Sigil)

-I am waiting for the Necromancer to make a Vitality Caster :p. So far the only Vitality caster is my PB WH and even he’s mainly Chaos (Blood Rite).

A pure vitality caster would be pointless as you wouldn’t be able to use
Destruction
Doombolt
Devouring Swarm
DEE
Bloody Pox

so all you are left with is
Totems and Sigil without destruction

Exactly that :slight_smile:

Never said to run Pure Vitality. My WH is Chaos/Vitality. The reason i didn’t think DEE is a good source is because i found the Chaos/Vitality synergies to be better

Common mistake, that is if you dont have occultist in class combo. Cof does not reduce chaos resistance.

That’s just insulting :undecided:

P.S
When you post your build call it Solael’s Evil Eye :wink:

Sry dint meant to insult in any way :undecided:

But P&A/Vitality synergy due to cof is not behind chaos/vitality synergy.

Hmm, anyways. Name it Solael’s Evil Eye. Sounds cooler :cool: