[1.0.5.1] Krieg's Death Knight of the Aetherfire Heart of Theodin Marcell of the Aether

[astralgazer]

UPDATED!

Thanks to all the input, I am able to update the build just a day after it was posted. Now it sports 3k OA and DA. The damage output is slightly reduced, but all of the critters now have chance to hit below 70%, no one can crit us and we can crit everyone with chance to crit upwards of 20%. The community is a blast! I grovel before you guys!

During the umpteenth run to complete my Krieg’s set, I noticed that Theodin dropped one MI with an eye-catching (and mouthful) name: Aetherfire Heart of Theodin Marcell of the Aether. I looked at its stat and was surprised to find that it sports north of +400% aether damage. With that huge % aether damage on a one-hand weapon, I can equip a shield on the off hand slot; practically having a 2-hander damage potential with the safety of a shield and additional stats on the off-hand slot. I eventually built my Krieg’s Deathknight around this weapon, and this character went on to be my most successful character thus far.

Theodin’s MI is so amazing; not only does it has % aether damage on par with 2-handers, it also sports % crit, flat OA, % IAS, phys converted to aether, % RR to all and, most importantly, a good default attack skill. Having a default attack skill frees a LOT of skill points for your build.

Now I don’t know whether the RR is local or global; either way it is amazing to have on a gear. Considering all the stats, IMO only Aldritch’s MI can compete with it as the main hand aether weapon; but Aldritch’s is more difficult to obtain because it takes longer to reach him and it takes skeleton keys to run the farming.

This is my very first build post, discussion and critiques are welcome.

Without further ado, this is the OLD build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2pnj6JZ.

Updated Build: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YZeanQrZ

Updated stats:

Active Skills: Fleshwarped Strike (default attack), Blitz, War Cry, Overguard, Reaping Arc, Krieg’s Wrath, Siphon Soul, Mark of Torment.

Procs: [from gears] Eternal Haunt, Aether Spines, Will of the Living, Krieg’s Fury, Arcane Blast, Ancestral Ward; [from devotions] Arcane Bomb, Ghoulish Hunger, Twin Fangs, Spear of Heaven, Time Dilation.

Passive Skills: Aether Weapon, Master of Death, Field Command, Spectral Binding, Whirling Blades.

Pros:

• Lots of debuff in the skills,
• Great AOE damage, fast mob kills,
• Survivability: high HP, OA and DA; decent armor, ADCTH, shield block and Overguard.

Cons:

• No “boss killer” single target skill. Against bosses and nemeses you have to prepare to kite a little,
• Low Health Regen, DOTs could be a problem if you’re not careful.

How to play: Bind Time Dilation to Krieg’s Wrath (100% proc). With approaching mobs, dive in; start your preferable chain of skills, end it with KW. Enjoy your instant second chain of skills. Kite a little if necessary (against bosses and nemeses), then rinse and repeat. We can now fully tank some of the bosses, too.

The hearts of the build are the Krieg’s Armament Set and the Heart of Theodin scepter. The set is easily obtainable by farming Fleshweaver Krieg, Valaxteria and Terrnox. The Heart of Theodin is even more easily obtainable, because you can stop by and kill Theodin while farming for Krieg’s set. The scepter must be with “of the Aether” suffix; while its prefix may be of your choice–mine happen to be “Aetherfire”, but “Magestorm” is also a good choice. Lucky for us, “of the Aether” is a yellow suffix so it drops quite often. (Most of my collected Heart of Theodin MIs are of this suffix, Theodin seems to have the knack of dropping his MIs with this one.)

All other gears are replaceable; especially the pants which are only there to round out the resistances. If you have super roll MI pants, they might be more preferable than the ones I use.

FYI, this build was made with vanilla game in-mind, so it is good to go with all the vanilla game’s content. (Grava is still PITA, of course.) For Crucible, I’ve only tested the build to Gladiator 100 without any buff; the intensity of the mode is not for me.

[TZ_Tz]

Akhirnya, Finally Astralgazer First Build Post !
Nice Build !
No need of Cadence as Default Weapon Attack

Also you can increase your OA and DA by using Survivor’s Ingenuity Augment
Buy it at Devil’s Crossing

Please let me know if you want space, I’ll delete my post…

[x1x1x1x2]

I think your DA is too low even for campaign. I suggest using Survivor’s ingenuity for ring and amulet augments to help with that. Your Attack Speed is also very low. Imo you should aim for about 160% or more. Change your glove component to consecrated wrappings to help. But I think fixing the AS issue will require a devotion overhaul to a path getting Spear and Dying god so maybe you can work on that. A ring change would be good if you have some better ones, but if you don’t it’s fine. Any ring that can cover your resistances, especially vit is welcome so that you’ll be able to use seal of annihilation on amulet for more AS.

For your skills the only thing I disagree is Olerons rage. Master of Death or Menhir’s bulwark should be better, especially if you get more OA from ingenuity and by switching to dying god/spear. Dw about movement speed. You have blitz and some blue devotions give ms too.

Still pretty good for your first build. Nice job!

[astralgazer]

Akhirnya, Finally Astralgazer First Build Post !
Nice Build !
No need of Cadence as Default Weapon Attack

Also you can increase your OA and DA by using Survivor’s Ingenuity Augment
Buy it at Devil’s Crossing

Please let me know if you want space, I’ll delete my post…

Trims2, akhirnya punya build yang bisa di-share. Thanks. I learnt a lot from your builds, too. No need to delete any post, I won’t add too much to the build; in fact, I would instead learn more from the comments.

I think your DA is too low even for campaign. I suggest using Survivor’s ingenuity for ring and amulet augments to help with that. Your Attack Speed is also very low. Imo you should aim for about 160% or more. Change your glove component to consecrated wrappings to help. But I think fixing the AS issue will require a devotion overhaul to a path getting Spear and Dying god so maybe you can work on that. A ring change would be good if you have some better ones, but if you don’t it’s fine. Any ring that can cover your resistances, especially vit is welcome so that you’ll be able to use seal of annihilation on amulet for more AS.

For your skills the only thing I disagree is Olerons rage. Master of Death or Menhir’s bulwark should be better, especially if you get more OA from ingenuity and by switching to dying god/spear. Dw about movement speed. You have blitz and some blue devotions give ms too.

Still pretty good for your first build. Nice job!

Thanks for the input. I have been considering to switch to Menhir’s Bulwark for some time but I had difficulties with the OA if I switched. Overhauling the devotion setup is a most tasking job. I will try to find solutions to your proposed change, though. I do need more OA and DA, RR spamming bosses will be more manageable.

[korsar]

For campaign with shield I don’t think DA is low, still I thing build need some tweaks proposed above.
Also I’d like this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2g0JjyV

[astralgazer]

For campaign with shield I don’t think DA is low, still I thing build need some tweaks proposed above.
Also I’d like this https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2g0JjyV

Dear God! You solve my problem for me! Thanks. I do however, have some questions:

1. Why use Time Dilation? The build has no long CD skills, wouldn’t the devotion be wasted? Or do you use it to instantly reset the chaining of skills?
2. I have never used Hungering Void. I dread the HP cost, seems like a high-risk-high-reward approach to me. How can I offset the cost in HP during boss fights? AFAIK bosses have high life leech resistance, so I wouldn’t be able to replenish health by leeching.
3. The more I see it, you guys seem to value OA and DA more than % damage. Is it the meta? If it is, then my future builds would have to be based on stacking those two stats.

Thanks!

[Superfluff]

.
[li]The more I see it, you guys seem to value OA and DA more than % damage. Is it the meta? If it is, then my future builds would have to be based on stacking those two stats.[/li][/LIST]

Thanks!

If you don’t crit all your dmg is not capitalized upon. %dmg is additive but % crit is multiplicative.

if you have anywhere from 2.6K to 3.6K OA then 100 OA will be stronger than lent’s say 50% dmg. Especially below 3k OA

[TZ_Tz]

[li]The more I see it, you guys seem to value OA and DA more than % damage. Is it the meta? If it is, then my future builds would have to be based on stacking those two stats.[/li]

Like Fluff said,
Crit Damage is more valuable than %Damage
You’ll have high chance for Hit and Crit Damage with High OA
Even sometimes there’re several skills that activated On Crit

Also Resistance Reduction can skyrocket your DPS Significantly
RR Cheat Sheet

DA is needed for prevent you get crit by enemies.
Perhaps you never get crit yet by Fabius using Notched Bone of a Thousand Deaths
That weapon has chance for insta kill your toon ^^

[Autentist]

Eh, here’s my take on this build - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7AqbON

Not really satisfied with that raw damage, though… OA should compensate.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/dVb4dAQN - with Mark of Anathema. More balanced.

[MrTek]

Eh, here’s my take on this build - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7AqbON

Not really satisfied with that raw damage, though… OA should compensate.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/dVb4dAQN - with Mark of Anathema. More balanced.

I would go for hungering void over spear of the heaven proc anyday! Also would give up on Imp, especially binded to blitz xD

My devotion set-up: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mGdaoZ

But I’d like to see a video of the build of astralgazer. Curious of the difference on how they both perform.

[Autentist]

I would go for hungering void over spear of the heaven proc anyday! Also would give up on Imp, especially binded to blitz xD
My devotion set-up: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mGdaoZ[/url

I figured out the path to get both, but then we will be hurting on Ghoul and other stuff. In fact, we can get three T3 constellations (God, Hourglass and Spear) at once, but we will be lacking just a tiny bit of points to get everything else.
Goddamn it, this expansion can’t come soon enough.
There is an alternative to Fiend and Imp too. It’s… Toad, if you want to get crazy on that life leech. So it’s simply the preference between the three.
And by the way, I was capitalizing the build on Crucible tackling, as I see your DA is a bit low, as well as some resists. But since astralgazer didn’t specify the outcome, it’s all good.

[MrTek]

I figured out the path to get both, but then we will be hurting on Ghoul and other stuff. In fact, we can get three T3 constellations (God, Hourglass and Spear) at once, but we will be lacking just a tiny bit of points to get everything else.
Goddamn it, this expansion can’t come soon enough.
There is an alternative to Fiend and Imp too. It’s… Toad, if you want to get crazy on that life leech. So it’s simply the preference between the three.
And by the way, I was capitalizing the build on Crucible tackling, as I see your DA is a bit low, as well as some resists. But since astralgazer didn’t specify the outcome, it’s all good.

Well my build do everything in campaing mode. The only 2 bosses I never tried are Modrogen and the Ravager. Otherwise everything else, Lokarr included, is facetankable! Also did Gladiator 150 when it was the max. With Mis for the ring, belt and the pants i could probably get higher resistances!

[astralgazer]

If you don’t crit all your dmg is not capitalized upon. %dmg is additive but % crit is multiplicative.

if you have anywhere from 2.6K to 3.6K OA then 100 OA will be stronger than lent’s say 50% dmg. Especially below 3k OA

Noted. My updated build now has OA and DA above 3k. Thanks for the input.

Like Fluff said,
Crit Damage is more valuable than %Damage
You’ll have high chance for Hit and Crit Damage with High OA
Even sometimes there’re several skills that activated On Crit

Also Resistance Reduction can skyrocket your DPS Significantly
RR Cheat Sheet

DA is needed for prevent you get crit by enemies.
Perhaps you never get crit yet by Fabius using Notched Bone of a Thousand Deaths
That weapon has chance for insta kill your toon ^^

I only met Fabius once or twice during all my Cronley runs, so maybe I underestimated him. But I have suffered crit from Aleksander’s meteor, and it sucks: 16 k HP plummeted in an instant.

[astralgazer]

Eh, here’s my take on this build - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lV7AqbON

Not really satisfied with that raw damage, though… OA should compensate.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/dVb4dAQN - with Mark of Anathema. More balanced.

I would go for hungering void over spear of the heaven proc anyday! Also would give up on Imp, especially binded to blitz xD

My devotion set-up: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mGdaoZ

But I’d like to see a video of the build of astralgazer. Curious of the difference on how they both perform.

I have incorporated ideas from both of you. TYVM for the input. However, I still have this mental block against using Hungering Void. If I can get pass this, I would be able to fully integrate all your ideas.

Regarding videos, well… it would be better if someone else do it. I don’t have the dexterity to do any showcase play; my videos would show many mistakes and wouldn’t be able to show the full potential of any build.

[korsar]

Much better now. Still you don’t need Markovian’s defense. Max Blitz and cap Blood boil.

[astralgazer]

Much better now. Still you don’t need Markovian’s defense. Max Blitz and cap Blood boil.

Noted. The build will still be refined as I understand more about the intricacy of the game mechanics. And, oh boy, there’s so much to balance and re-balance.

[biopon]

The build will still be refined as I understand more about the intricacy of the game mechanics.

Did you get anywhere further with this? I’m asking because this seems like one of those rare newbie-friendly yet highly capable builds; the level 94 weapon and the Krieg’s set can be farmed easily on Elite with sub-optimal gear.

Even if you haven’t tweaked the build further, expanding on the leveling process and gear might be useful for many. I’ve only recently progressed far enough for this not to matter to me too much personally (Lokarr set FTW) but I’m sure many others would benefit from seeing a guide for a build that doesn’t require hundreds of hours of farming.

[astralgazer]

Did you get anywhere further with this? I’m asking because this seems like one of those rare newbie-friendly yet highly capable builds; the level 94 weapon and the Krieg’s set can be farmed easily on Elite with sub-optimal gear.

Even if you haven’t tweaked the build further, expanding on the leveling process and gear might be useful for many. I’ve only recently progressed far enough for this not to matter to me too much personally (Lokarr set FTW) but I’m sure many others would benefit from seeing a guide for a build that doesn’t require hundreds of hours of farming.

Hi, there. Thanks for the appreciation. This build, at the current incarnation, is capable of farming Lokarr and the new Ancient Groove dungeon. Take heed about learning the timing, though, because all builds that incorporate Time Dilation require some finesse in execution. In Crucible, I have only tested it to be able to clear 150 in Challenger and 100 in Gladiator. As I don’t play Crucible much, that’s of no concern to me.

In levelling up this toon, I exclusively used Soldier class until later in Elite; so that I could level up using Blade Arc. Only after lv 50 or so, I began to take Necro’s mastery. So on so forth, at lv 90 or so, I began my Cronley/Swarming Hive farming until I get close to 100. Then I began my final playthrough section of Malmouth, using full spec potions to switch to this build.