A quick q&a just before we get started
Q: It’s your second posted build and it’s a Blade Arc again. Are you some sort of fetishist or cultist?
A: Nope. I’ve got a bunch of lvl100 tunes, but those are more “classic” builds and I have no desire to post a similar version of an already existing build. To me creation of something new is more important, than beating 170 Glad w/o banners/blessing and I want to share my experiments with this wonderful community.
Q: Untransmuted Blade Arc works much better with 2h weapons. Why would you try this?
A: Yup, I fully understand this and I’m aware of the existence of the magnificent Mythical Wildblood Crusher. I even have one, nearly perfect rolled for a melee build and it gives me circa 14k sheet dps more. But we also have this little thing and my goal was not to create another 2h-top-tier-sheet-dps-build, but to make this particular item useful.
Now that we made thing clear, greeting to all of you, who will take some time and look through this thread!
And I’m finally ready to introduce you the build itself.
Meet Mograine, The Scum of Earth
“What if it was not a breath of life, not your own heartbeat, that raised you up after being freed from the tenacious and cold grip of the gallows? What if it was a darker, a more vile power? Mayhaps, an ancient curse, wich power must be contained… if it will not consume you, eventually.”
The Concept
As you’ve probably guessed, the idea is pretty simple - make Blade Arc great again work with S&B setup. To achieve this, I’ve chosen to base my build on a very well designed Blood Knight set (not including the amulet, wich I simply don’t possess ATM) and a weapon with a unique (due to one of the Conduit-prefixes being erased from the game) modificator: Howl of the Wendigo. With the second mastery being a Necromancer we get a tonn of ADCtH, RR, flat and % vit-damage and many other pleasant additions.
Pros & Cons
- Hard to kill. This guy was facetanking MQ (~30-40 seconds kill), ~6 clones of John Bourbon, including the fancy “final form”. Lokarr forced me to kite a lil’ bit, but in general was kinda easy. What is already dead, cannot die
- Sweet AoE. Trash mobs just lay down crying while you deal with bosses, guys like Van Aldritch gang ask devs to nerf this son of a slith, cuz killing them almost simultaneoulsy, screaming: “GIT GUD” - effortless and without switching between targets makes them… let us say, frustrated.
- A decent DoT damage allows us to kite if things get really bad. Can they?
- Stun Resist overcapped as hell. “Stun resist is like a condom”, they say. Hue-hue-hue.
- 3100 effective DA + 15.5k HP + permanent 25% Damage Reduction for enemies. Did I mention “hard to kill”?
- Easy to level. Soldier and Necromancer. Nuff said.
- Small energy issues - keep an eye on your energy bar and drink a potion whenever it drops to like 1/2, this may solve the problem.
- Average damage output. First of all, this is a tank. A pre-patched BDK from WoW WotLK. Damage is pretty good, but not a skyrocket Belgothian Blademaster on steroids. This reminds me on Chris Redfield from RE5 vs the giant rock in the last level
- Blood Knight set required. It is possible to use faction gear and non-set legendaries, but the set is top-tier. Probably.
- Only one hard circuit breaker, the rest of your tankiness lies in ADCtH and pressing your defensive buttons timely.
- Vulnerable to DoT damage, especially when out of combat with Hungering Void active
The Build
Stat sheet. Only permanent buffs and Soul Harvest active:
Blade Arc damage:
A quick glance on itemization
Armor
- Head: Blood Knight’s Visage, self explaining. Mythical Eyes of the Reaper may be used instead as a temporal replacement
- Shoulders: Blood Knight’s Scrolls, self explaining. Mythical Dread Knight’s Guard may be used instead as a temporal replacement.
- Chest:Blood Knight’s Armor, and again, self explaining :D. Mythical Dread Armor of Azragor may be used instead as a temporal replacement.
- Gloves:Mythical Grasp of Unchained Might. +30% Weapon Damage to Blade Arc. Nuff said.
- Pants:Solael-Sect Legguards. Gap-closer for Aether resist, legit, no GDStash crafting used (same goes to belt)
- Boots: Mythical Boneshatter Treads. Overall good for this build. Granted skill seems pretty neat.
- Belt:Lunal’Valgoth’s Gridle. Some flat damage, OA/DA, resistances. A lucky one, I’d say.
Weapon & Attire
- Weapon:Howl of The Wendigo, core item.
- Shield:Stronghold Defender, pretty useless damage-wise, if not the +1 to all skills. Also provides a great bunch of resistances.
- Rings: Mythical Signet of the Fallen and Mythical Cursebearer. Because RR is never enough!
- Amulet: Empowered Essence of Beronath. I lack the amulet from Blood Knight set, so this might be one of the best replacements 'till I get one. Attack Speed, +1 to All Skills, a bit of Elemental Res. Nice and sharp
- Medal:Mythical Mark of Impurity. Another thing to get resistances capped alongside with % vit damage bonuses and a nice Granted Skill.
- Relic: Uroboruuk’s Reaping, +1 to Necro, nice Granted Skill, bunch of useful stats and a badass name! :rolleyes:
Components and Augments
Everything’s pretty straight forward. Cap Armor Absorption, cap DA, add a bit of OA, squeeze some energy regen and damage. No Symbol of Solael or Essence of Ch’thon this time. One can get a little more DA by putting all the stats points into Physique to get a second Coven’s Bane on shiled. As for me, I’ll continue to push OA to the next softcap point.
Skill Tree & Devotion
Some explanation to the Skill Tree:
Overguard - is our “little” save. One doesn’t need to put much points in it, It’s enough just to have it.
1 point into Dread - quality of life. +2m Range and some additional Vitality Decay.
1 point into Siphon Souls to get Blood Boil for the OA shred
As for the Devotion. Again I’m taking advantage of Manticore (Acid Spray>Bone Harvest). All credits to hammyhamster1 
Other main Constellations are:
- Dying God (Hungering Void>Siphon Souls) for it is an amazing dps-buff
- Wendigo (Wendigo’s Mark>Blade Arc)
- Rattosh, The Veilwarder [Will of Rattosh>Ravenous Earth]
Resistance Reduction:
-38% from Spectral Wrath (skill tree)
-25% from Will of Rattosh (devotion)
-15% from Mark of the Fallen (ring)
-10% from Curse of Crashed Resolve (ring)
(-88% total)
28 flat RR from Acid Spray (devotion)
Gameplay
And again, as most of spam-builds, this one is pretty simle.
Rules, that should be followed:
- Soul Harvest must be always active when fighting
- Always keep Ravenous Earth placed near the most dangerous enemy
- Use Reaping Arc and Siphon Souls on cooldown
- Keep Mark of Torment for the most dangerous situations (but try to use it before Will of Menhir), like facetanking Zantarin.
- In less dangerous situations use Bloodthirster, when health drops
Achievments so far
+As mentioned before, facetanked MQ
+Defeated Lokarr (not without kiting, though)
+Gladiator Crucible Wave 150 complete for the first time! Yay!
+Facetanked Kra’vall
Still, I didn’t test all the Nemeses in main campaign, but Cuba and Grava’Thul are not a problem. This section will be updated after I test the build in 150-170 Cruci (but a bit later, I’m not a big fan of Crucible, actually) and get all the nemeses in MC. Maybe I’ll consider trying other superbosses.
Leveling tips
There’s not much to say about leveling - both soldier and necromancer have great, nearly one of the best leveling skills: Tremor Forcewave, Blade Arc, Raise Skeletons and Bone Harvest. As for me, I always try to level with the skills I’m going to use in late game, so here I started a Necromancer, got and maxed out Bone Harvest, then slowly switched to blade arc as a main damage source, while getting Harbinger of Souls for additional survivability - all this using a shield and 1h (or sometimes swapping it for a random Spectral Warmaul). Leveing this way should be smooth and easy even without 100% phys>vit conversion
Updates
24.12.2018 added 1 point into Counter Strike, Grim Tools link updated as well
Conclusion
Soooo… that’s it. A simple and humble build, but it suddenly appears, that the concept of s&b blade arc is working not as bad as one could have thought. I’d even say, that this build is HC-viable. Again, no videos, because my PC is trash. Thank you all for your attention!