[1.1.9.8] Murciélago de Fuego - Fire Bat: 4:20 Crucible Gladiator 150-170, 51s Ravager, SR 75-76, SR 90, DW Melee Fire Strike Shieldbreaker by mad_lee [c+][sr+][g3][vid] (+bonus build: fire SnB Shieldbreaker)

5WiROSe

*famous last picture of a top-tier build in the last hotfix

credit for the picture goes again to @Tararihen

Foreword

“This magic is what brought Cairn to ruins” - Malakor was furiously pacing back and forth in his spacious study where only the most trusted of his allies were allowed. “That bitch, can you believe it” - it seems that he was mostly muttering stuff to himself. “Exiled into another world and reborn, and those pompous old hacks, who for some fucking reason call themselves Witch Gods seemed to have a hand in it after all”. Old Inquisitor has gained a little weight in the few years after the last time he swinged his infamous maces - these days he was mostly seen wearing his old patchy robe locked up in his study reading ancient manuscripts. “I think I found a way to save Cairn from that Magic for good, yes. That arrogant wench, Harra, died retreiving those Mad God diaries.” Malakor leaned over his table where a lot of old books were lying chaotically scattered. His grey-haired plump belly was showing - falling out of his robe a bit. “But wouldn’t that also strengthen Aetherial invaders and Chtonian demons, Sire?..” - a figure in a suit of red heavy armor stepped out of the shadow. Malakor looked amazed for a second like he forgot that his new hired sword was in the room the whole time. “It’s none of your concern and you have a job to do. Do it well and Inquisition will not forget your deeds for the Empire. Whatever your damn name was…” last words Malakor muttered almost to himself. “Murciélago de Fuego, Sire” - the figure answered. “What in a Korvaak’s name… You don’t use that dialect in my house! Now get out!” screamed Malakor. “Fire Bat,” red figure calmly answered “You can call me Fire Bat,” he added disappearing into the red portal.

The Build.

The concept of this build was born as more of a joke in response to @adoomgod plea to make a good “fire” Fire Strike in one of our chats. Naturally Shieldbreaker is a very strong archetype, however, not for melee. And melee “fire” Fire Strike was more of a meme among Grim Dawn veterans. Well, “was”.

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For the bonus build scroll down to the bottom of the post

Burning questions:

Melee fire based Fire Strike? On a Shieldbreaker? What?
Yes.
But why no Essence of Beronath amulet or Annihilation relic? Do you hate damage, mad_lee?
After couple of recent patches Endgame became extremely demanding to melee builds. Without the defenses from Serenity and Conduit build would have no consistency. And I have actually tested Annihilation + Essence of Beronath + green boots and it’s the same in terms of killing speed (but dies a lot).
Shouldn’t you bind Eldritch Fire to Fire Strike for speed?
Weirdly, no, build works better with 70% Fire damage Bat proc bound to main attack, I have tested it.
Flashbang flat RR mod Conduit? What in the meme??
There are no great Demo conduit options for this build (at all). This one actually works pretty well.
Ancient Armor? What about armor absorption?
Same values of effective armor as with Scaled Hide but AA has +physique

What about Abomination in devotions? You have 100% Chaos to Fire conversion, should be a sick flat damage boost.
I have tested it and while flat damage did look good on paper and build got even more OA with that devotion map, clear times were the same, except build has lost its consistency with some minor losses of defensive stats

Gear

Dual Blazehearts was an obvious choice - amazing stats + they fully convert Vitality from Bat devotion proc (and actually little flat damage on a 4th nod) and Burning Void WPS which makes build hit like a truck. Justicar is a great set with great stats and it has plenty of flat damage on it (for some reason). I wish it supported Fire Strike, sigh. Everything else is patching the wholes in the defense or/and stats. Yes, Black Tallow in the medal performs better than Tainted Heart.

Skills and Devotions

One of the more tankier Fire devotion maps. Didn’t go for Aeon because I wanted that flat fire damage from Magi, although I guess Time Dilation setup perform similiarily, maybe even better in shards. Skill distribution is obvious too. Chaos Strike movement rune is actually taken for its damage reduction. Helps a lot versus dangerous heavy hitters.

Just regular fire devotions with some emphasize on phys res

Gameplay

In Crucible - blink around and decimate stuff. Be careful on wave 169 and 170. Try to take out Grava first, use Chaos Strike on him and Anasteria (and Kaisan) to tone down their damage a bit.
In Shattered Realm - 65-66 is a sweet spot, although expect to die sometimes, SR had become even worse nightmare than it has ever been. It’s okay to kite versus some bosses on boss chunks. After becoming a better SR pilot taking on Shards 75-76 with this build becomes a trivial task, but do expect to die on 75-76 sometimes.
One on one you can take anyone in SR 75-76, but build is susceptible to swarms of heroes and monsters, so try to pick your battles.

Stats

General with Ascension up

Fire Strike tooltip with Ascension up

Defense with Ascension up

Videos

1.1.9.8 Fire DW Melee Shieldbreaker vs. SR 75-76 7:32 run w/bad mutators (Empyrion/Scales spec)

1.1.9.8 Fire DW Melee Shieldbreaker vs. Ravager 55 sec. no pharma kill (Empyrion/Scales spec)


1.1.9.8 Fire DW Melee Shieldbreaker vs. Ravager 48 seconds kill (Empyrion/Scales spec)

1.1.9.7 Fire DW Melee Shieldbreaker vs. Ravager 51 seconds kill

1.1.9.7 Fire DW Melee Shieldbreaker vs. SR 75-76 (6:58 run, final spec)

1.1.9.8 Fire DW Melee Shieldbreaker vs. Shard 90 (tough bosses, few deaths)

DMT’s 1.1.6.1 Shard 80 run

Shattered Realm 75-76 run (couple of deaths)

Shattered Realm 75-76 run (couple of deaths - take 2)

Shattered Realm 75-76 run (no deaths, really fast run)

5:58 super lucky Crucible run (1.1.4.2.)

6:06 lucky Crucible run (1.1.4.2)

6 seconds Mad Queen kill (lucky Armored mutator with -8% elemental res to monsters) (new devotion bindings)

1.1.4.2 test - 6:40 Crucible run

6:14 lucky Crucible run (new devotion bindings)

6:52 unlucky Crucible run (new devotion bindings)

14,5 seconds Lokarr kill

Shards 65-66 run (just 3 deaths but still fast, lol)

7 seconds Mad Queen kill

6:48 Crucible run

6:36 faster Crucible run

Death at 6:43 on wave 169 with Essence of Beronath+Annihilation+green boots spec

In Conclusion

Go check out @malawiglenn similiar Purifer’s build. It seems like he decided to make a very similiar concept at the same time as me (random coincedence, lol), but he managed to post it couple of days earlier (for which I wholeheartedly hate him so actually don’t go to his guide and don’t check out his stupid stinky build! jk :smile:)

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Bonus Build: Fire SnB Shieldbreaker

A brother of this build but with a bit more tankiness and a different flavour. Very bursty when put together right. Stolen from Inspired by similiar specs made by @banana_peel and @grey-maybe

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Videos

1.1.9.8 Fire snb Shieldbreaker vs. Ravager (44 seconds kill)

1.1.9.8 Fire snb Shieldbreaker vs. SR 90 (few deaths)

1.1.9.8 Fire snb Shieldbreaker vs. SR 75-76 (5:45 run)

1.1.9.8 Fire snb Shieldbreaker vs. Ravager (56 seconds kill, no pharma/no cluster)

Bonus Meme: Ravager Kill world record

Probably could’ve glassified it further and squeezed out another second or two, but still not too bad.

Fire DW Melee Shieldbreaker vs. Ravager 22 seconds kill (world record)

18 Likes

Interesting

Congrats on the build! It looks very strong and defensive enough not to kite as melee.
I am still bugged, why not vindictive flame conduit? It’s not like flat RR isn’t common for a build like this.

Side question, do you think. N&O can work as fire Shieldbreaker?

Health Regeneration? But it would do exactly nothing for a build like this. At least with Flashbang I actually have an instant flat RR that covers huge area (10 metres) and I don’t have to wait for Revenant/Rhowan’s Crown to proc.

Probably decent-ish, but really not sure. Chaos conversion as well as vitality conversion is pretty huge on blaze hearts. With N and O you gonna have your Chaos converted to almost useless cold.

Got it. Just first time I see this conduit being used :slight_smile:

Oh and please don’t steal Malawiglenn builds :grin: LoL

Oh but I will. I even have the totally original idea for build tags for the beginner builds I would steal from him: “TOP STARTER BUILD GREAT BEGINNER BUILD”

These are the tags from “friend” of yours, who never steal builds. And you should definitely put these tags here, it have Justicar set after all :slight_smile:

Hi Madlee. Your build looks really neat as usual. Some suggestion and question:

  • Is bat really that needed? With full chaos conversion, flame torrent will provide a more significant damage for your build and leech quite fine.
  • With full chaos conversion, 3x osyr’s temper augment should be provide better stats for your build.
  • Vindictive flame conduit mod is actually a decent alternative for more regen. Flat RR mod on flashbang seems quite redundant? Otherwise, blightlord’s amulet is also good for more plus skills. It has less resist though.
  • Last thing, have you tried to made this same concept with Shattered guardian set? :stuck_out_tongue:

havent really made an auto attack build again as spellcaster in this patch is more interesting now.

Yes! Full bat is actually better then Flame Nerfrant. I have ~65% of its flat damage converted to fire, bigger weapon damage, 6 flat fire, 3% Life Leech. I even felt the difference when I tested it with different bindings (Eldritch Fire to Fire Strike and Twing Fangs to Mines) - survivability dropped. I am telling you, I have squeezed every little bit of defense (not to sacrifice sufficient killing speed) out of it to make it consistent in Current Crucible.
And I think Flame Torrent might reduce completion timer by like 5 seconds tops tbh.

Well, bit more OA and I have sufficient DA. But 150% less fire damage and 150% less Burn (which is also a small part of my damage). I am honestly a bit lazy to test it, but I just can’t see ~60 more OA outweighing 150% fire damage in this case.

Already explained it to @Nery. Health regeneration is completely useless here. It’s a facetank melee build. Going from 150 hp regen to 300 hp regen won’t make any difference. However, instantly proccing flat RR on 10 meter Area instead of waiting for skellies or elemental storm actually helps.

Obviously thought about it, and it would be tankier obviously, but I wanted that flat damage and DA. Besides, I have already made 3 builds based on Shattered set, I think that’s enough for me.

Ya, cuz melee is in deep shit again with all those difficulty buffs and player’s damage nerfs, casters are obviously better atm :slight_smile:

Nice. Was blazeheart changed? Cause pretty sure it wasn’t that great before.

Anyway I agree with flashbang mod. You’re not a caster where lifesteal is limited. And there isn’t any other mod that’s as useful.

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@mad_lee Lol, Fire FS is pretty great now with the recent Blazeheart change. You should have given it another shot back when I asked you to update the defiler version of this build. :stuck_out_tongue:

And yes defiler is a legit choice because 2 Blazehearts = -30% Fire RR on Siphon Souls. And converted flat damage from Bone Harvest and Master of Death.

To not be so boring, what do you think about virtue set for fire strike / Righteus Fervor build?
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/D2p8Yj62
(dont mind pierce res, spellscorched should have 20% pierce res now)

Looks decent on paper, res is super tight, but almost permanent ascension intrigue me. Virtue set is not explored much currently. It’s quite sad for such a cool set.
I havent leveled a shieldbreaker, so cant test it at the moment.

Nice one! I am glad that we came to the same conclusion, that melee fire fire strike does not suck :wink:

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Gread build as usuall,i testeded yesterday with my friend in 75 76 2 ppl patry runs performs insain liturally. Did 10 runs didnt die once i must say i was suprised how well performs i knew it had needed dam but didnt except to be that durable,trick is insain speed of this build combined with great dam y basicly skate up and down left and right and waporise everything great fun

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Nice build. Good Work :sunglasses::+1:

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Hey, Adam Bomb! I have actually tested Defiler in a very similiar setup after you asked me :slight_smile: . Damage is there! But it just can’t survive, unfortunately. Oathkeeper offers much better tools for survival here. Also, -30 RR to Siphon is not really that great since cooldown of SS is 6 seconds.
And I was dying in a much softer Crucible 2 or 3 patches ago. Right now it would get stomped even quicker.

On paper looks like it wouldn’t survive with armor that low, despite perma Ascension. Flat damage and leech seem to be lacking too. But you have to test it for yourself, who knows, maybe I am wrong. But from my experience with Crucible and Shattered Realm in the last two patches - it’s absolutely brutal and unforgivable for melee builds. It has to be very tight synergetic min-maxed spec in order to do well there.

Didn’t expect anyone to play it right after I published it, but nice to hear, thanks, man! For solo runs I wouldn’t recommend Shard 75 with it tho.

Yep i played it 60 solo and realized straight away its not 75 76 solo build but after hot fix so few are,at least to my standards,any mellee build is so hard for solo high shards its so not fair expecually when with pet build i can do whathever content i want half a sleep,iam so sick of nerfs catching mellee builds while pets stay on top all the time.

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Added a video of Shards 65-66 run. Pretty fast despite 3 silly deaths. :crazy_face:

Couldn’t imagine that melee FS might be that good. Very tough build and a cool illusion!

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Wohoo, new chapter!

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