This is the first build where I have beaten gladiator 170 without using some combo of time dilation/mirror/overguard/mark of torment. It was originally a fun build that used fissure and reckless tempest and I ran around in circles as trash mobs got procced to death, and bosses soon followed suit. It could do 150 but not get past it due to the weakness of the elementalist caster which has no instant heals or panic buttons.
Korvaak’s Deception definitely has better than stats than the relic I use, with the OA/DA increase, as well as slow resist. But there are two reasons why I stuck with Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm. Firstly it has one of my favorite effects in the game, and since reckless tempest and fissure had to be tossed, where fissure is also one of my favorite effects, I had to keep at least one enjoyable visual part of the older build. Secondly, it would add another skill to use which is not really a candidate to replace any skill for proccing a devotion, and I am already full enough for my comfort zone. A player that could handle the extra skill could easily go for it instead, although I have not tested it. Using it could open up different pants such as Runeplates of Ignaffar. But you wouldn’t get all the DA, because you would lose some spirit from the pants I use which is used to pay for the prerequisite for Cataclysm’s Eye. That means you have to put more points into spirit, which takes away from your physique.
Video where I accidentally turn off Vindictive Flame at wave 169. 8:45 4 buffs/1 banner: https://youtu.be/sx55LVO1Ksk
Since I am still learning the best way to handle 151-170, I am probably being more cautious than I should. Although I tried to be aggressive once and was killed by Alex’s bomb and Valdaran attacking right at the same time. And then there are those wtf happened one shot deaths, which made this hard to test since farming points for the crucible is tedious.
Nice elementalist. I really like that you utilize both fire and lightning, shame that we don’t have set for such caster, all sets that have both fire and lightning support made for ranged gunners :/, like we dont have enough of those.
Also a big plus from me for Ulzuin’s pyroclasm it’s such a beautiful relic.
Nice job OP. I’d just advise to swap Warpfire/off-hand components. Haunt can’t activate the 8% passive live steal on caster off-hand afaik. Only the ability from haunt will work
I’m grateful for the comment since I didn’t know that haunted steel only applied to the weapon you are using if you have a shield equipped or are dual wielding.
However, I did a search on this and I found an old thread discussing this, including one of your comments, and one poster said that spell tomes were an exception.
I did a brief test on this, (after backing up my files to save the cost of haunted steel), and I noticed that adding haunted steel to a shield did not change the value of life steal in the second tab of the character screen. I then tested it with my build and the value did change, which of course I had already checked when I first added it to my character when I wanted to know the total life steal at the time.
I did notice a significant improvement of survivability in an old version with solael-sect pants and restless remains as the only source of life steal at the time (no twin fangs passive node, or ghoulish hunger passive node either) when I added haunted steel and it was the turning point in the build. At that point I was relying on such gear as touch of the everliving grove and the salvation (formerly aegis) relic. I wasn’t sure lifesteal was going to be viable in the first place, but thankfully the build has various sources of weapon damage, and even more after the inclusion of wyrmbone handguards over touch.
Well done op