Hello and welcome to my first class guide!
Today I would like to present a solid Chaos Warlock that uses two mighty skills to squash feeble Cairn enemies - AAR (Albrecht’s Aether Ray) and SoC (Sigil of Consumption). Massive damage, great lifesteal, defence, resistance overcaps, different counters against nasty mechanics - this build has everything for success. So, lets start!
1. Grimtools link.
My standard Chaos setup with Abomination, Dying God, Revenant for flat RR and Ghoul for extra defense - has some usefulness since 1.2.0.3 for casters too.
2. In-game characters stats.
general stats, only passive and Blood of Dreeg buffs are active
AAR damage breakdown
SoC damage breakdown
magic stats
defence stats
3. Gear/Build explanation.
Core items for this build are Black Flame set (obviously ), Essence of the Grim Dawn (allows to lifesteal with AAR), Aethereach gloves (skillpoints and modifiers to our AAR again), Vestments of Severed Faith (huge Chaos and Offensive Ability percentages, Aether and Physical resistances) and Rylok Mark medal (defensive bonuses to SoC and large variety of delicious prefixes/suffixes to cover your resistances from different sides). Rest of the gear is of my personal choice. Rings give huge Chaos RR + valuable skill points, Serenity relic for +All Skills, resistances and circuit-breaker in dire situations, boots provide skill points to our SoC, pants - +3 to Disintegration, belt - conversions for our celestial Eldritch Fire and SoC Vitality part. Craft a helmet with Freeze Resist bonus (blacksmith in Steelcap District, Malmouth).
I tried to make build sturdy and reliable in unfortunate situations. So almost all important CC resists are at 65% value or more (Stun, Freeze, Slow and Trap), except for Petrify. For the rest - use your imagination and Mirror of Ereoctes . Our main abilities - AAR and SoC - provide enough sustain to facetank hard-hitting enemies, and do not forget about Ritual Circle, it is really helpful against enraged hulks and Nemeses . If only its cooldown had been lower…
About Resistance Reduction. Total amount is ~107% (-35% from Eldritch Fire, -20% from offhand, -18% from rings, -10% from Mark of Solael component and flat 24 from Revenant), not huge, but that is what we have. Damage is not a problem, though.
4. Gameplay.
Straightforward. Spam AAR, throw some SoC under enemy’s feet and use Bloody Pox to reduce enemy’s OA. If you face some tough monsters - add Ritual Circle and empower yourself with Hungering Void through Solael’s Flame. But be careful - it is very life-draining. Use Mirror and Nullification to escape/dispell auras and dots. Displace yourself out of corners if must. Do not forget to uptime Blood of Dreeg.
5. Videos.
Mad Queen.
Kra’Vall.
Lokarr.
Morgoneth.
SR 75 full.
Avatar of Mogdrogen (old video).
Callagadra (potions are in the video, no Aether Clusters, occasional healpots, kiting. Not a pleasant fight for somewhat fragile channeling casters, but doable).
Crate boss (potions are in the video, one Aether Cluster, occasional healpots, kiting. Too many boxes were created, they did hurt much ).
Clones of Bourbon (potions are in the video, no Aether Clusters and healpots, facetank…sort of ).
Crucible? Did not try yet. Ravager? Decimated to Reaper status with Nemesis reputation .
Thank you for reading this topic. Hope you will find it helpful and not too tiresome . Have any suggestions, questions, critiques? Feel free to voice them.
P.S. Big thanks to @AngmarDT, @malawiglenn, @Andrej553 and @Superfluff for amazing ideas and feedback, that help me to improve the build .