Since long now I haven’t see anyone post any PB build (which is shame btw) so I decided to post this, more or less unusual, one.
Im toying with vitality dmg for long now and this is one of 3 vitality casters I had on drawing board (have conjurer and trickster except this one).
Recent upgrades to DS set made me accelerate a bit process of making this build (who knows maybe it will be nerfed again :D) so here it is:
Concept of the build
This build is using newly changed Demon slayers set to convert some portion of cold and pierce dmg from phantasmal blade line to vitality. Here how it looks like:
To stay alive this build is relying on massive ADCTH from PB line (heart seeker) supported with acid spry from manticore for even better results, coupled with wendigos mark bound to cof for even more ADCTH.
Wtf vitality build without sigil and doom bolt? - I just dont find them needed, but if you want you can dump few points in one or in each you have plenty points to go around.
Dying God where? - Was tough call to drop it, since ToL is a must if you dont want energy issues, only way to grab DG is to drop wendigo. I didnt want to do that cuz wendigo is uber in terms of defense.
What can you do with this build?
You can easily finish all main game content with all rogue like dungeons. Facetank and kill most nemesis, MQ excluded from facetanking cuz that ridiculous retaliation but its doable with kitting. I didn’t tried this build in crucible but its tanky enough not to have some serious issues. Dont expect some boss/nemesis uber killing times this is caster after all, but it has great clearing speed.
Spirit and cunning to fulfill gear requirements rest in physique. This build has: Physique/Cunning/Spirit - 63/0/27
Gearing
I wont here go far into details, cuz its pretty straightforward and you can cap resistances with many gear and augment combinations.
3pc of demon slayer set (you can even go with full set but I find PE of Beronath to be better choice for amulet),
BoM at lest with +3 PB (mine is +5)
OoBF or BOoC as offhand
Signet of the fallen for -15% vitality resistance reduction
Girdle of stolen dreams
Mos shoulders with +3 to PB
Solaels decimation
Green pants, ring and boots to cap resistances
Gloves with casting speed and resistances you need.
Sidenote Important thing is to get you PB on 26/16. On 26/16 you get 6th blade so its actually 20% more dmg. It is achievable even w/o +5 PB BoM, +3 PB BoM is enough.
In closing
Phantasmal blades due to its shotgun effect and ADCTH is definitely one of the best if not the best castable skill there is. You can make so many builds around it and all will work more or less good, WH, trickster, saboteur, spelbreaker. But be advised that for maintaining its high energy cost only spelbreaker dont need to take some energy regen devotion (ie. ToL heling rain).
I have hard time to decide between trickster and WH. WH looks better on paper cuz of gear available (almost everything vitality based is for occultist lol) but devouring swarm is so uber for -% vitality resistance…I have to fully finish trickster to be sure.
Idk than, In my case is more than enough, with ToLs HR proc my energy regeneration is almost 170 per sec. Up time of proc is 8 secs with 9.4 sec CD, so almost perma up.
Also worth mentioning is OoBF -9% skill energy cost.
Im even thinking to remove that ectoplasm from ring now that I reached lvl 10 HR.
Hmm i made something similar only it used Blood Orb of Chthon and was a Chaos/Vitality build and a little different devotion
It did have Doom Bolt though and my gloves were green gloves of Dark Intent which had an extra Doom Bolt. I found PB to be a decent skill but i was perplexed by it having such low sheet DPS (sure its better in the field but still), I guess i got used to seeing better numbers
EDIT:
The reason why you didn’t find many PB builds is because imo they’re pretty straightforward to gear for (atleast that’s the reason i didn’t bother posting one), it’s a decent skill no doubt with innate life steal and looks pretty cool
Thx, you can go with BOoC and there will not be much difference. Took this one mainly cuz of proc and -% to skill energy consumption.
I did it and its cool, but main reason I bind it to cof is that cof is radial effect (I even invested points in it to increase radius) so its letting me possibly leach from all the mobs surrounding me, not just the ones hit by blades.
Cunning and spirit just to meet requirements rest in physique.
This build has 63 physique, 27 spirit (you could go with less) and 0 cunning.
Augment on weapons and armor are highly dependent on resistance rolls on other equipment. On weapons I use OA/HP/Energy regen augments, armor augments are aether/lightning, Aether, Vitality/chaos ones.
