#truth.
Huge thanks to: mad_lee, Korsar, user_name, valinov, cryoo, strukto, fluff
GT for 1.1.4.2: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrOQb3N <— A lot of changes were made, I’ll update the guide some day or never
YT for 1.1.4.2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6Ku3O8IJfU <— 5:45 clear, averages 6min.
GT: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4VxOLwM2 <---- Not dependent on GG rolls
BiS’d GT: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZoqKWl2 <---- Dependent on 1 affix and sufficiently high elemental resist affixes on the rest. Devotions here are radically different as well to make up for the loss of OA and phys res.
YT (14min clear): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrfpJet7PYA&feature=youtu.be <---- Done with non-BiS’d GT
YT (11min clear): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4-phUyn6e0&t <------- Done with non-BiS’d GT
YT (9min 20s clear): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aclqEL8_xSM&t=131s <------- Done with BiS’d GT
Preface - feel free to skip
With the advent of the SR, I have a feeling that many of the top crafters will start gravitating towards trying go as deep as they can with their creations.
SR is unlike anything GD has ever thrown at us. The unpredictability of it, imo, is what makes it so much more difficult and exciting in the higher shards.
Though you might run across a shrine every now and then, gone are the days where you can reliably pick up buffs/banners to bolster your toon.
The only thing you can truly rely on in the SR is your piloting skills, unless you’re a S&B tank.
As such, I believe that the ability of a toon to clear 170 naked (i.e. no buffs/banners) will be a good indicator of how well it’ll fare in SR.
Barring any fuckery from mutators, this guy can reliably push up to shard 76. It’s no record breaker, but it’s also not a warlord. Coz fuck those guys. :rolleyes:
Introduction
The blightlord set has always fascinated me because it intuitively makes no sense. Clearly it’s trying to push you towards a vitality build, but vit based BWC is meh at best, and too much of the fire damage on RE can’t be converted to vitality.
Furthermore, transmuted Guardians deal waaaaaay more acid damage than vitality damage.
All in all, like x1x2 said, you’re better off using the dark one’s set.
Then it hit me. Screw vitality damage. Fire damage all the way.
And thus the blastlord was born.
Offence
- 4x roided out mortar traps (with a possible 5th from affixes giving + points to mortar trap)
- 3x roided out guardians
- 1x roided out transmuted BWC
- Meteor shower
- 200 DA shred
- -165% fire RR <---- Read it and weep, maiden.
Defence
- Respectable/all-rounded CC resist
- 30% phys res + 2.3k armor + 100% absorption
- -314 OA shred
- 368 damage absorption with all buffs up
- Serenity
- Blastshield with Giant’s blood bound to it
- Constant heals from dryad (dryad still sucks ass, but it’s the best option available)
- 29% Fumble
- 10% damage reduction from augment
- 14.6k hp
- But most importantly - the ability to kite with Rune of Displacement
Gameplay
My one biggest advice - pay attention to blastshield’s cooldown/availability and that of ascension. Tank-&-spank only when you have them at your finger tips.
Try to blink away at the beginning of a nem’s attack animation. Not only will you dodge the attack, your mortar’s will be able to land a sizeable barrage as they remain rooted to the ground while they complete the animation.
After a bit more fiddling around with the BiS’d build, I think I’ve cracked the problem posed by the lack of heals. I’m going to just quote myself from my devotions guide:
The moment BS is triggered, we can safely assume that behemoth will almost instantaneously trigger. So let’s walk through the timeline:
- Blastshield won’t activate for another 17s
- Behemoth won’t activate for another 25s
This means that I am garaunteed a heal every other time blastshield is activated.
Another thing I’ve done is to bind chariot to ascension. The biggest weakness of the shieldbreaker is its lack of heals. Binding chariot to ascension, effectively makes this skill a ‘bootlegged’ version of a heal.
And thus, I will only activate ascension AFTER behemoth is procced, and when I am NOT at full health.
Essentially, ascension/chariot serves as my backup source of sustain whenever GB/BS is on cooldown.
Devotions
I’ve tried an incredible amount of combinations, desperately trying to make fissure work. And while this is definitely doable in vanilla/lower level shards/buffed-bannered crucible runs, it’s not going to be a good use of devotions at the harder stages because you’re kiting too much for fissure to be of much use.
You’re far better off going for heals because it’s the single most glaring weakness presented by the shieldbreaker class.
To quote my mate cryoo, ‘As they say, your health bar goes up and down more frequently than a whore’s drawers.’
- Chaos crossroad --> Vulture, viper, sailor’s guide, eel, Solemn watcher
- Refund crossroad + refund eel
- Eldritch crossroad --> Spider, solael’s witchblade (Bind to guardians), hawk, lantern
- Dryad (Bind to BWC)
- Phoenix (Bind to BLASTlord’s gift)
- Refund crossroad
- Meteor shower (Bind to mortar trap)+ Behemoth (Bind to blastshield)
Devotion pathing for BiS’d build. Note: I have yet to try this devotion path with the non-BiS’d variant
- Chaos crossroad, viper, sailor’s guide, eel, solemn watcher
- Green crossroad
- Quill, Behemoth (bind to blastshield), Solael’s witchblade (bind to Guardians)
- Yellow crossroad, phoenix (bind to blastlord’s gift)
- Chariot of the dead (Bind to Ascension)
- Lantern,
- refund yellow/green crossroad
- Refund eel
- meteor shower (Bind to mortars)
- Ascendant crossroad, crab (Bind to flametouched)
Do I really need double-rolled greens?
Nope. Nuh-uh. Negatory.
Your shoes and your offhand are your flex-slots. Use anything which fixes your resists. With the new augments available, flexibility in this regard should be at an all time high.
However, I HIGHLY recommend using a Sandstorm terrnox’s tome of ‘insert any random suffix here.’
Why? Because slow res + phys res + Ele damage = win.
xxxx ‘of the sands’ is pretty good too as it offers slow res. But it lacks phys res.
ADDENDUM: I just realized that you get an additional mortar summon at 24/16 vs 23/16 mortar. This makes the ‘demolitionist’s’ prefix with +1 to mortar on terrnox’s arcane tome the BEST possible prefix.
Unless, of course, if you are lucky enough finding a commando’s valatrexia chest piece with +2 to mortar.
That being said, even without these affixes, I’ve taken this chump to shard 76, so they clearly aren’t necessary.
Questions? Comments? Suggestions?
EDIT: Just realized I accidentally used one of the hoarfrost ointments I made in preparation for SR. 
