I like DW melee too, so am glad to see interesting concepts posted. And also it’s nice to see when new players post builds!
I have a question, why it’s your opinion that Fire strike is good currently for melee. Also what do you think about lightning Savagery. Savagery seems better for melee, but also for less skill points you have slow resistance, OA, DA and attack speed.
I have savagery builds before. but it turns out savagery itself is just for buffing as u mentioned. The damage dealt by savagery is awful, so u have to depend on storm totem or storm box, etc. In practice, 155% weapon damage dose not mean it is better than fire strike, the fragments from fire strike is preferred in SR runs. For pure Shaman build , I tested with primal strike vindicator with full sets of Ultos the rest is the same as my elementalist. I used savagery as buff skill and to proc devotion skill, it is a beast, even better than this DW elementalist. Btw I was considered to use savagery as buff for this build as well, but in game stats I have 205 attack speed and 86 slow res, so it is not worth to spend a single point on it.
Interesting, I should try Elementalist this way. I tried Ultos PS with Savagery stacking and for DW you have higher speed-better stacking opportunity. But Savagery can be a beast for melee. Trickster with green MI is just ridiculous Build. Even lightning Savagery Trickster with SR set is decent. Wish there was real support to Necro/Nightblade for lightning damage, cause in these classes are located the best DW WPS skills.
Btw my elementalist only got total 47% WPS, so half of damage is only dealt by Fire strike, but the result is good enough if you do not compare it to full set primal strike vindicator. 
Fire-Strike Defiler the beast is up. feed backs is always welcome
uploaded videos for SR 75 run. The Defiler builds with 3000 DA almost died in the middle by surrounding bunch of foes. It may prove that 3000 DA dose nothing better than 2500 DA in SR 75+, the only option to survive in SR75+ is killing foes as fast as you can.
See my another more aggressive build:
That’s a very interesting observation. You’ve piqued my curiosity, sir.
Any chance I can get the 2 GT’s? Also, what were the mutators?
Edit: meaning no offence, but were you also relying on aether clusters in both situaations?
Aether cluster is great, and I love it. it is not that necessary, depends on how good control you have got. For me, I’m just so bad with controlling, so yes aether cluster is used by me.
Ok. That makes total sense to me then. Because you’d probably want to deal as much damage as you can in your 13s of MC Hammer’s #can’ttouchthis (8s from cluster + 5s ghoul).
Which, with enough DPS, should be enough to take down at least one high priority target.
Defiler’s also have blastshield + MoT for even more #canttouchthis. Perhaps in this case, you might be right in saying that DA isn’t that important.
Best bet is to compare the DA theory more across a whole myriad of different builds to get a larger sample size. But I leave that up to you.
EDIT: P.S you can also increase DA by getting OA shred. You don’t necessarily need to have a sheet value of 3k DA.
I’d love to have as much DA as possible, as long as the damage won’t reduced a lot. But man, today the SR 75 is way tougher than before, there is pretty much one option left for me that using damage absorption skills( Mark, Mirror, etc) or Aether cluster to kill a most threatening target under few seconds, and solo the rest.
So from 1.1.4.0, all my builds must be turned as much aggressive as possible, at least with this method above, may get the SR 75+ runs done.
Same thing happened with hunting Crate Of Entertainment, the longer you stay, the more dangerous you will be.
I’ll trust your judgement since you probably know SR much better than I do. Also, like I said, each crafter imposes on themselves their own personal (and unreasonable) limitations, a common one being no consumables.
E.g. Mad_lee uses self found, korsar uses no greens, I play naked crucible, etc. etc.
On a separate note, I suggest using 1x combustion band.
Thx, may perform much better than dual Ice and cold. I just loved 4% of OA from Ice and cold so much. OA may somehow drop down to 2400+ in SR 75. But I’d love to give it a try.
I also suggest finding another way to patch your aether resists so you don’t need serenity. With all your abosption going on, I feel like you can very safely chain 2x blast shields back to back. E.g. blastshield --> MoT --> cluster --> blastshield --> ghoul --> MoT.
Maybe trading oleron’s chain for sacred plating so you can get a better relic like korvaak’s deception, bane, or ignaffar’s combustion.
EDIT: If OA is a concern, korvaa’s deception can give 4% OA and 4%DA, bane has (IIRC) 5 - 6% OA.
Agreed, more aggressive, I love it. For defiler relic choice is always awkward. Either no mastery bonus, or granted skill just never been used.
Bro, blazing eruption on korvaak’s deception is pretty strong. 245% WD with both weapons? Definitely worth trading 1x firestrike hit with it when possible.
EDIT: maybe that’s why your 3k DA defiler is underperforming? I don’t know, seems to me like you haven’t found the optimal balance point between offence/defence.
It is better than fire strike even proc with WPS. Still casting speed is always been reduced due to those damn mutators. In my vid, you may see sometime even Flash Bang could not cast even I press the button as hell.
Under-performing, yes it is, due to foes generally resist fire damage most. Even worse stat sheet with aether/lightning performed better than fire one.
Blazing eruption relies on AS IIRC. It should be like a primal strike kinda thing.
I thought it’s ranged (never contact foes with weapon, like shock wave dose) so casting speed matters. If it is attack speed matter, then it is worth to use. Thx.
Also, phoenix is going to do jack shit for you. 168 damage absorption is nothing. Phoenix is best used when you have high CDR, and can stack damage absorption from multiple sources (e.g. inqui seal + maiven’s).
I would get magi over it.
168 damage absorption literally saved my ass a lot of time, due to crazy poison dot damage in SR 75. I tried Magi without phoenix, but die more often even before boss stage.