Fevered Rage Witchblade
Grimtools (no greens)
Foreword
Hello, and welcome to my first build on the forum. I probably won’t post many, since I’ll only post builds that I’m really happy with and that are different enough from other builds.
That said, I’m happy with this build, and I want to thank idontwannaknow0 for his help on this build. He made a lot of suggestions that ended up in the final build and it wouldn’t be where it is without them.
The Concept
I wanted to make a character that made good use of Fevered Rage. I also wanted to make a character with 100% block chance and 100% block recovery. The two seemed to work well together, and so I set out to find a good way to mesh the ideas together.
I tried to find a good Blade Arc build to take advantage of the free crit damage, but the Blade Arc gear didn’t work well with the gear I needed to keep 100% block. I settled on Warborn; although Markovian’s would probably do well, Spellscourge Bulwark has over 50% more blocking power than Markovian’s Bulwark, and I plan to squeeze as much as possible out of that blocking power come the infinite dungeon in FG.
A quick note: if you roll average or less than average for the % block chance on your relic and mark, you need to have survivor’s resilience on your amulet as well as your rings. I rolled 1% bonus on my mark so I could afford to swap while maintaining 100% block chance.
Build Performance
Gladiator crucible is the metric by which builds are measured today, and this build hits the “acceptable” mark. On average, the build should hit 12 minutes or less with 4 blessings and no banner. I have almost no experience in crucible, I have a cheap laptop that lags a bit, and on a double Aleksander 170 (worst case) with Aeon and Ghoul not fully leveled, I made roughly 13 minutes judging by the buff icon.
I wouldn’t call it a “crucible farmer”, but it’s passable.
Where this build shines, however, is in multiplayer. It feels like a classic multiplayer tank, with double blitz to stay at the front and a massive shield presence. And you bring something that almost no other build does: Fevered Rage. As long as you can keep most of the aggro, your party will love how often they crit.
Playstyle
This build is not quite as simple as “run at stuff, use your skills when off cooldown” (although it’s pretty close). There are a few things to note:
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Fevered Rage usage. Most of the time you should be fine to use this. But keep an eye on the mutators; if the +75% crit damage mutator (red skull with a crosshair on its forehead) is rolled, don’t use Fevered Rage on high-OA high-threat enemies like most nemeses.
Whether or not that mutator is rolled, don’t use Fevered Rage on Aleksander or Anasteria. Those two are the toughest enemies for this build and are the sole reason I use Purified Salt on my warmace. -
Overguard Management/Rotations. I bind Aeon’s Hourglass to War Cry because it has 100% proc chance and because I want to be able to freely use blitz before Overguard. Whatever you choose to bind Aeon to, make sure to use Overguard before you use the activating skill. Also, if your Overguard has only a few seconds left and you think Aeon is up, it’s best to wait to use the activating skill until you use Overguard. And I probably shouldn’t have to say this, but try not to facetank Fevered Raged enemies while your Overguard is down.
Conclusion
This character has been fun to play and fun to optimize. It was my first character that could farm crucible and was a good learning experience for making builds. I’ve learned that the best strategy is something along the lines of “get just enough defense so that you can obliterate them”; but there’s something satisfying about standing in the middle of a hoard of Fevered Raged enemies and watching your health bar not move an inch. If tanking is something you find enjoyable, I recommend you give this build a try.
I am not that much of a cruci-player either