Inspired by JoV’s Defiance Blademaster with revised tanking methods and a moderate reshuffling of gear. Also, I don’t like Aleksander’s meteor.
Strengths
- Tankiness: This build has pretty much all the defenses you could ask for: a decent HP pool, 4.5 second PB, damage reduction, a shield, good DA, phys resist/armor, dodge/deflect, fumble, overcapped resists, and a circuit breaker. Unless you play around in poison pools or aetherfire, you aren’t dying anytime soon.
- High resists: Your worst is at 84%, and you soak a wonderful 91% aether damage, or 93% with consumables.
- Flat damage: Just shy of 2H levels, and getting even more is a cinch.
- Racial damage: This build shines at deleting Grava/Aleks right as the wave starts.
- RR: A respectable ~80% on most things, and permanent War Cry.
Weaknesses
- Reflect: You’ll find out that the random skeleton has an “of Valor” shield the hard way. At least you have a circuit breaker and PB to mitigate the trauma hits you take.
- Poison Resist: When a crucible mutator gives enemies poison damage those ticks will hurt when Anesteria or Reaper hit you with RR.
- Double greens: you know them, you love them.
- The usual aversion to fumble, ground effects, reduced damage, etc. Fortunately, we’re great at blowing Grava away the moment he pops up.
Gearing and Sidegrades
- Mythical Undying Oath: gives doubled flat damage, decent resists, HP, faster PB, and a (somewhat useless) max resist. Ever sine Rylok Marks stopped giving %DA, this is probably our BiS.
- Mythical Avenger of Cairn: All our resist goodness, along with +skills, DA, and HP. We get nothing from its skill mods, but it’s not like the conduits do anything for us either. It’s also not going to burn through your Ugdenbloom supply trying to craft the right one.
- Ancient Stoneplates of Kings: One double rare green. If you’re short on scrap and bits, these can be swapped out for Runeguard Greaves, which cost health and chaos resist in exchange for a second shield and skill points. You’ll probably want to use Ulo in crucible if you like your overcap.
- Dread Lord’s Living Ring: We really want that chaos resist and ADCTH to fill the gaps between PBs. If you don’t fancy the required gardening, an ordinary ring with the same affixes will cost you a bit of vit overcap and HP, but do the same thing. For a more offensive route, other MI rings work too.
- Consumables: For 150-170 runs, I like to keep Aetherward Oil and Courageous Tinctures on my hotbar. Aetherward gives rounds out racial damage to include Aetherials as well. With this up, you deal 40% extra damage to Aleks and can wipe him before he gets to casting. Courageous tinctures are great for waves 160 and 170, but with an actual cooldown, have to be managed more carefully.
Devotions
Because the three bottom nodes of Menhir are great, it’s easy to throw in an extra 3 blue for Empyrion. With conversion, this gives decent flat damage, even more max chaos/aether resist, and an AoE that doesn’t take up a weapon skill. Comparatively, Oleron does more damage, but it needs more purple points to get there and its proc makes us juggle it with Assassin’s mark.
Harp mitigates our energy issues and procs extra OA/DA, freeing a medal slot for tainted heart or runebound topaz. Crab and Scepter pay for themselves when filled out, sparing a few points from Wolverine and Dagger.
Crucible
150-170 works best with a vanguard banner and health/damage buffs. Ulo is nice for extra physical res and DoT mitigation, but isn’t mandatory. You’ll flatten most heroes and non-nemeses, but there are still a few things to watch out for:
- Aleks: He’s a glass cannon when you’re around, but his meteor will still hurt, especially with other nemeses in the mix. He’s not as bad as Grava, but generally your second pick for a kill.
- Grava: It’s not enough that fumble costs you damage, it also costs you consistency. Fortunately, with a 22% racial bonus against him, it’s a quick kill.
- Kuba: Without a racial bonus, he’s tough and his healing can get annoying, but nothing overwhelming. Kill him after you deal with Grava, Aleks, and Reaper.
- Other nemeses: All of them do healthy damage and can keep up with you, but aren’t annoying or super-fast kills. Of the four, Reaper is the most dangerous and Fabius is the easiest to kill. Zant, Benny, and Moose can’t catch you.
- That one mutator that gives 6% max aether resist: chug your potions, sit and laugh as meteors honk and bounce off you.
Stats (Lethal Assault/Deadly Momentum)
