[1.0.2.1] Poison/Acid, Doom Bolt/DEE WH - Dont trust when they tell you its squishy
No buffs, no banners 150 wave cruci against 3x Valdarans, one dispatched, two to go, facetanking all the way
After they all died
I just had to start like this, cuz somewhat widely adopted opinion on forum is that poison/acids WHs are squishy. No they are not if you build them not to be, like every other build in GD universe after all.
Before going further I have to give homage to two extraordinary gentlemens Mr TomoDak and Mr Drizzto, whose superb knowledge helped me a lot in making this and many other builds. Thank you guys this game wouldn’t be the same without you.
My first build capable of farming all game content, back in the days when I was starting to play this game, was DEE WH, something similar to TomoDaks build tho w/o Dreeg set, or to be more precise w/o any legendary items at all. Still it was capable of farming whole game content and it was a blast to play it. But major problem with that build was its squishines and that was especially noticeable when crucible was introduced where standard WH setup suffered from being overwhelmed and couldn’t perform so well. You could somewhat compensate for that with more defensive devotions setup, but price for that was losing in most cases one of the best devotion procs Abominations tainted eruption, or you could just say screw you to WH and make shield WB like Drizzto.
AoM expansion changed all that, not just you can reliably farm gladiator crucible, with bit more emphasis on tankines, w/o changing optimal devotion route, you can do it even w/o buffs and banners with reasonably high success rate.
Picture of the build, constant auras and judic signet proc up, Doom bolt on LMB.
Grim tools: http://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZPzoOK2
Disclaimer: This build is made with a single goal of conquering gladiator crucible w/o buffs and banners, thus some gear, components, augments and devotion choices together with skill point distribution are made to fulfill that purpose. Build can be remade to be much more ofensive by changing some of that, ie investing in NJE for stronger dot, changing medal to mark of lethal intents, changing ell and scholars light for akerons scorpion (tho this last, energy management vise, maybe is not such a good idea) etc.
What makes this build different from more or less usual poison/acid WH setups?
Aside from being much more tanky, this build differs from standard p/a WH setups in one crucial thing: standard WH setup relay solely on poison DoT dmg from DEE and some other sources like NJE, while this build converts most part of doom bolt dmg (100% chaos and ~50% vitality) to acid and uses doom bolt/tainted eruption combo as main direct dmg nuke. To further amplify this, we use items that are flat lowering doom bolts CD for 3.5 s and off hand for even more CDR. This build has doom bolts CD on 2.1 sec.
Important notice: Since Doom bolt is major energy consumer, having it on that low CD will bring you some energy management necessities and you will have to use from time to time tonics for replenishing energy, especially in crucible. So if you want to play this build be prepare to monitor your energy bar.
Attribute points
Invest in cunning and spirit only to meet gear requirements, rest in phisique.
Skill points
To further boost tankines by gaining DA and HP I invested in NB mastery all 50 pts. Its not necessary if you are not to keen on doing cruci w/o buffs and banners, you could invest much less and use those points on some other places, NJE for instance.
Also you may notice that I invested heavily in phantasmal armor, reason for this is to gain higher energy leach retaliation and thus reduce energy management issues and ofc for freeze resistance.
Devotions
Eel is not necessity, you can take those 3 pts and invest them somewhere else, or 2 to be more precise since you will have to put one point in blue crossroads. I took Eel for DA mainly. Also left hand Abomination node can be changed for something else. Rest I wouldn’t change tho, if you are willing to give up on some energy regen you can take akerons scorpion instead of scholars light.
Gear
To play this you absolutely need Conduit of eldritch whispers with 100% chaos to acid conversion on Doom bolt and dethguard blade to convert vitality to acid. Covenant of the three and mythical rift warped grasp are also important pieces of gear. Rest is changeable and adjustable.
Also for energy regen and additional CDR I dont recommend dual wielding, use off hand.
Game play
SS to target, apply CoF, rumor (im using nidala relic given skill for this, due to higher proc chance because of shotgun nature of that skill (5 blades), you can use B pox or something else) and blast them with Doom bolt. Use DEE only on stronger targets. BoD and PB to heal, if it gets really nasty BB.
In closing
Using tainted eruption on doom bolt is so satisfying, its like nuclear bomb, if initial hit dont kill them they will die from radiation poisoning
Have fun
Peace out!