Disclaimer #1. In case you are a newbie seeking for a build to start playing, keep in mind: this is not quite the class you want, mostly because of equipment used (there are at least two must-have items - weapon with pure Vitality damage and headwear with 2 Vitality RRs, both lvl94). Well, you can receive a purely Vit twohander even while at Normal, but these are MIs (i.e. rare drop), so you will have either to grind for it, or visit trader inside Steps of Torment (“rogue-like” challenge dungeon), which is not quite piece of cake for a newbie. Also, you won’t receive THAT good green items - unless “Lucky” is your nick, hehe.
Disclaimer #2. In case you think that “real” build has to be purple-only (or maybe with small bits of blue), either stop reading immediately and don’t waste your time, or don’t blame me! As melee Vitality Ritualist has next to no decent legendaries (“decent” = “lots of flat Vitality, ADCtH, armor and health”), this build is designed to display The Power of Green (or rather, power of Dread Lord).
Disclaimer #3. If your motto is “Crucible is the final challenge and the best build benchmark”, then stop reading as well. I don’t really like Crucible, so this build is designed and implemented as boss killer, first and foremost… the best or maybe the second best (after Vindicator) boss killer, depending on actual superboss. Well, it can handle Crucible too, but it does not show any exceptional performance there.
- The basic build: end of the main campaign + dungeons.
Pro’s and con’s:
- Tremendous damage against single target + as great life leech: almost 600 flat Vitality (weapon included), +2635% Vitality (+3104% with procs included), up to cap of attack speed (with procs, again) and (the most important part) up to 180 total Vitality RR.
- Pretty much durable due to that high damage + 38% life leech + 2-3 RRs to life leech; also can’t really be oneshotted due to decent hps. Any hits damage (suporboss hits included), any crits, physical, magical, whatever - get restored after 1-2 successful hits.
- Easy to play: you can faceroll on abilities (almost the thing I do, usually), because it’s enough to re-use them as soon as cooldown is over; you just have to learn to press Swarm once after you successfully launch any other 5s-cd ability (I use it after Ill Omen, for example). There are hardly any classes easier to play than this one - except, of course, physical Warder and Death Knight.
- Eq, as I’ve said before: you have to use Stasher to obtain it. However, experienced hoarders can compile something pretty close without double-rare greens, using more common items like “of Attack”, “of Readiness”, “of Health” etc.
- The build can survive 3x reduced damage, can survive 50% fumble or insane double RRs (flat + percentage), while two of these at the same time could be lethal (or not, as I’ll show later). All three at the same time mean almost certain death, as incoming dps becomes greater than life leech per second, and there is no other means of tanking. Thank godness, such situation is next to impossible in campaign (unless you lure Aleksander to meet GravaThul, for example).
- Gameplay requires some handwork skills, as you have to hit something non-stop to survive. However, it’s not much of problem for me, so it should be easy enough for 95% of other players.
Still, main campaign and dungeons are not quite the best way to demonstrate this build potential: superbosses are (they are the reason why I started this build at all). So…
- Specialized build #1: Ravager.
I’ve sacrificed everything in the name of dps here, because Ravager has no control and I can leech-heal any damage incoming, even during enrage. Still, Ravager is not the best test subject for this build due to its 139% Vitality resist. Here is the best one (the main target of this build):
- Specialized build #2: Avatar.
The fastest absolute Avatar solokill I’ve seen before was 4:40. Well, not anymore 2:12 from now on. To be honest, time variance is insane here (the worst attempt took 3:03), as it depends on placement of his pets - the trick is to never let him tank you with his cannonfodder. Maybe some Vindicator can still do it faster, but I’m not really sure, taking into account Avatar’s 131% Lightning resist.
- Specialized build #3: Crucible (4 buffs, no banners, faction elixirs only).
Yes I know that 11 mins is not any achievement. There are two major problems with this build at the Crucible: first, the fact that Ill Omen (RR and DR at the same time) has also fear included (hardcoded fear, as opposed to mutator given to Soldier’s War Cry); second, half of RRs (Swarm, Rattosh and mask) being [almost] single-target. The first part is not any problem in campaign: if some trash mob have fled, then it can be considered lucky and ignored… but this does not work at Crucible. This is, by the way, one of reasons why I don’t really like this mod/addon. But anyway! My point was: if this build can survive arena - then it should survive everything else as well.