BUILD ITEMIZATION GUIDE
The purpose of this section is to outline a detailed breakdown on how to fill in the non-core item slots for this build, especially the pants, boots and the shield affixes which is highly dependent on what drops you have. Also, this aims to show that even though the final build contains two specifix-affix MIs and a +5 Badge of Mastery, this can be built without godly items, that will still be very viable in the crucible. Finally, I am showing here my thought process in theorycrafting/creating a build, which while not as valuable as forum vets like Fluff, will hopefully help some newer players in making their own builds in the future. Let’s start:
- Formulating build concept and putting in core items, skills and devotions
With the way I make builds, After thinking of a build concept (which should obviously be the first step in buildmaking), I select the core items of my build, then put in devotions and core skills. For this discussion, I just used the link of my final build, took out all items except the core ones and show it to you guys. Here it is:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/dVbD1wEN
That link shows what I consider the core items for this build. I didn’t include the bulwark cause some of you might choose to dual wield Amplifiers which can be good but I haven’t tried yet. Skills and Devotions were already elaborated in first post.
- Selecting accessories and offhand
After having the build as shown above, the next thing to do is to select what the offhand and (remaining) accessories for you build will be. Why choose the accessories first instead of the pants/boots?. Selecting the offhand first is kinda obvious cause it’s a weapon, but the accessories not so. For me, the reasons are: (1) higher %damage mods on accessories compared to armor, (2) The presence of Badge of Mastery and +skill mods on medals and (3) the pants/boots slot should be used more for covering resists. In choosing candidates for these slots, I ask myself these (in order of importance):
-Does this item give me a significant amount of % damage or RR?
-Does this item support a skill that needs support?
-Does this item give me other useful offensive bonuses? (OA, crit damage, speed)
-Does this item give me useful non resistance defensive bonuses? (DA, health, regen)
-Does this item give me useful resistances?
-Item availability (not a problem for a GDstasher)
The last two can be moved up depending on your view on MIs and GDstash, but for me who doesn’t care, MI pants and boots will usually cover resists. Looking at the candidates for the ring and medal slot, the following are candidates:
Ring: Mythical Reign of Ice and Fire (craftable and supports fire and cold), Mythical Band of Wandering Souls (blue and supports chillsurge), Mythical Band of Eternal Haunt (cold RR), Purple Alkamos Rings (Pierce to cold conversion)
My end choice was a second ice and fire ring due to supporting both fire and cold, as well as giving me a proc source and OA/crit bonuses. Wandering souls give me a needed 20/12 chillsurge but doesn’t support fire and other stats suck. Band of eternal haunt also doesn’t help Kalastor while Alkamos ring isn’t good without it’s pair. You can select a different one from the list or even something that isn’t in there (like a cronley ring with good affixes).
Medal: Badge of Mastery (+5 to Hagarrad is ideal but anything with bonus to any of the runes is fine), Mythical Mark of Kalastor (caps rune of kalastor but doesn’t provide anything else), Infiltrator’s green medal of anything with +2 to Hagarrad (can roll with very great suffix and medal can have useful stat by itself). Tactician’s green medal of anything with +2 Kalastor (Same with previous).
My pick is obviously +5 Hagarrad BoM here cause that’s the most dps gain but I understand that only a small amount of players will have that, so I recommend a green medal with +2 Hagarrad. Even the craftable ones are very good, Watcher in particular cause it provides good resists.
Offhand: Obsidian Bulwark is surely my pick here but if you wanna go for something like DW anderos then it’s fine. I just like the tankiness.
The build will look like this after including my items of choice: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZo1Wjl2 I didn’t include shield affixes cause it’s a fairly common drop in BoC so you’ll surely have some choices to make which is pretty important next part.
- Remaining Components
Putting this above pants/boots cause there are much less choices here compared to the armors. Keep in mind that boots component will most likely be Ugdenbog Leather so consider bleed resist here as 57%.
I chose the following:
-Head: Sanctified Bone, very good now in cruci due to the racial bonuses. The vit res is also a nice bonus
-Chest: Chains of Oleron, I wanted another bone here but I can’t live with the OA so I got chains.
-Weapons: Seal of Resonance, Elemental damage and Stun res to free head component slot as well as boots/pants slot. You only need around 25% stun res for the current game, both campaign and cruci so these seals are enough.
-Medal: We’ll have tainted heart for now. It’s kinda an obvious choice though if you see the final build I changed it to Topaz. I’ll explain it later when we get to that point.
-Others are self explanatory, I guess.
Build looks like this afterwards: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2MJMY4V
- Pants and Boots and Armor Augments, Shield Affixes
These two slots will be mostly used to cover resistances, but this build has a shortage of HP so you should do your best to fill in that weakness.
First we look at resists: We lack 102% Pierce res, 43% Bleed res, 32% Aether res. Looking at armor augments, we have a few cases: (1) 70% max Pierce res using 7 Bladeward Powders, (2) 32% Aether res (capped) and 62% Pierce Res using 4 Malmouth soulguard powders and 3 Bladeward powders and (3) 32% Aether res (capped), 42 % Pierce Res and 24% Bleed res (capped) using 4 Malmouth Soulguard powders, 1 Bladeward powder, 1 Wendigo Bloodscent Powder. Keep these things in mind when choosing the last two items (numbers above will be different depending on ring and medal choice).
The above numbers mean that the boots/pants slot should at least be able to fill in the pierce res weakness and patch up health, pierce res is easy but most of the non MI options that could fill that in will have a hard time increasing health to around 10k, which unless you’re Ptiro, you’ll struggle in cruci without that amount of health. Again, other medal/ring/offhand choices will probably cause you less health problems but you’ll miss out on damage. Pick your poison.
The options we have for pants are: Venomskin Legwraps, Mythical Wendigomane Leggings, Mythical Dread Knight’s Leggings, Reaper’s Legguards (regardless of affixes, it’s a good choice). I chose Wendigomane cause I wanted to stack a good amount of phys resist, but from the criteria stated above, the BiS should be Venomskin (for non MI) or a Reaper Legguards with enough Bleed res to cap. Come to think of it, as I was typing this, I saw Mythical Legplates of Valor in GT. That blue pants should be BiS. Provides phys res, health, DA, Pierce and Bleed resist. Totally forgot that item. A Reaper’s legguards of Vitality should provide more health but this has well rounded stats while being a blue.
Taking Mythical Legpaltes of Valor for pants, Pierce is the only thing uncappable by augments remaining (aether should be capped with soulguard powders). Out of all boots with pierce res, Golemborn Greaves provides the most health while giving us valuable armor and phys res. We select that shoe. We get this after the boots addition: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/w26PJ7bZ (HOLY SHIT THIS DOESN’T LOOK LIKE ANYTHING IN THE FIRST POST, THE PANTS CHANGED EVERYTHING)
For shield affixes, since we have mostly solved the health problem, we should just go for the best one available which will depend on your drops. Imo, you should look for (in order of importance)
(1 or 2). Phys res or CDR, these two can be interchanged depending if you want defense or offense. If you have one but not the other then it’s autopick.
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OA. Not many shield affixes have this but rune builds have shit OA so this is always helpful.
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Health. We still only have 10.4k HP before the shield so more health is welcome
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DA. 3k DA is already good but more is welcome.
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Resists, in case you need more.
My pick for this is either Immovable of Vitality or Immovable of Attack. Build is already finished at that point and should be ready for testing. Here’s how it looks like: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVL5Lg6Z
That build is a bit different than the one in the first post, and honestly, I think this one is better.
Here’s an alternative build provided by Dioarchet: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZr33M0N
That build is outdated and was made for the old cruci before 170 release but it should provide an insight on how to build without BoM. He gave me the freedom to adjust this for the current meta but I don’t have much time now. Will do it later.
THANKS FOR READING EVERYONE! Hope this guide will help new players.
