Hi. I really want to make an aether pistol gunner with solid SR65+ results. This is not that build. But, while looking at aether % bonus pistols it did remind me that Mythical Arcanum Sigillis was a thing. And poor @Crittrain had spent a week+ of time and much of his sanity trying to find a build for Phasebreaker in GD discord, so pass through elemental seemed like a solid fit despite the limited skill bonuses. Didn’t see a forum build with the pistol yet so here we are.
Pass through firestrike is well documented at this point, with hilarious explosive strike and brimstone scaling via multiple dagallon builds and even a previous quasi-elemental firestrike with Plasmo’s MI run. I’m a build theme purist at heart, so I tried to specifically balance out elemental damage. Lots of opportunity to take it into different elemental directions if that’s your jam.
GT Screenshot, perm buffs and seal
Link https://www.grimtools.com/calc/L2JGMyaV
Above is the damage focused variant @Crittrain and @romanN1 used for Crucible. I tend to go more defensive for SR but will be pushing the setup tonight to see how far it can comfortably go. SR65-66 farming is a breeze unless you’re a derp and manage to early aggro mad queen and then I hope you’re a better player than I am.
Gear Choices! (I’d put these as mildly optimized. I have not made a spreadsheet, nor have I dumped hours into this character yet to play test. Unless we get some bitchin aether pistols in 1.1.7 I’ll probably focus on this)
Helm + Armor + Shoulder: Bonemonger is my favorite Inquisitor gunner set at this point. Gives us elemental support and that QoL spammable seal for pain free repositioning. Also makes sure we hard cap seal for defense
Necklace: Initially had full bonemonger set here for -10RR, but otherwise the necklace doesn’t give us much. No + skills and we don’t really need the attack speed. So now running the firestrike standard M Tainted Ruby of Gar’dal for +1 inquisitor and the important + brimstone to get us into 6-8 fragments. Sadly this means boring blue seals on the ground.
Guns: Hard set for the build if you want to stay elemental focus. Mythical Arcanum Sigillis converts the chaos and adds some flat, Phasebreaker gives us pass through on half our shots to scale AoE to the moon. Double seal of the void gets us to 92% WPS.
Rings: I went for Elemental Harmony set here as they give useful stats across the board and the proc is oh so pretty. Worth testing is the single/double jaxxon setup for more piercing shotgun shenanigans.
Pants: M Mageguard Legguards only give us cold %, but allow us to cap seal. Aether resist is helpful as well and hp is hp
Relic: Bane for adcth. Sustain felt a bit light initially with lower ADTCH running Combustion, but extra adcth and fully supported proc is very noticeable. If you feel tanky enough Ignaffar’s Combustion is the play.
Belt: M Scales of Beronath with mostly all stats we want. Could test a +1 demo belt here and/or conversion from pierce to fire for more flat, but would have unbalanced elemental theme.
Medal: Non-myth Blood Sigil of Ch’Thon for the big flat proc, + brimstone, and bonus racial to human.
Boots: M Wyrmscale Footguards are just awesome boots, OA, DA, huge stun resist, and useful + skills for purifier.
Gloves: M Dawnshard Grip No amazing standouts here but flat, %, and attack speed works.
Devotions: Elemental focus, so I skipped all specific RR (110 + 20%). Even with this fire damage comes out highest, so going for Solael’s Witchblade is worth testing. DA needs help and purple needed for seekers so we go wolverine, and leveraging Abominable Might for the huge converted chaos flat. In SR or campaign I’d set might proc to stormbox because storm spread is not consistent enough, but Crucible has enough mob spam that apparently uptime is still great. Basically lots of options to play around with here that will take awhile to document out.
Craft Slow res on helm and both rings to cover that gap
Gameplay
Put down seal, press fire button. Line up as many mobs as possible to max explosive strike and brimstone. Rinse and repeat, standard ranged firestrike play
Crucible runs
Thanks to @romanN1 ~6:03 as I don’t play crucible. My understanding is this in not consistent survivablilty, but I don’t think that gets talked about much around here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUWdVuhS_U&
SR runs
I’ll grab screencaps tonight, or video if I get off my ass to record my poor play
Leveling Guide
This is not the build you’re looking for. My very petty complaint about all the new AoM and FG sets are not having lower tier versions, so often builds can’t be properly played from 1-94. @malawiglenn is your dude for first character builds.
Callouts! @Plasmodermic for his earlier work and reference point for next things to test, @omnitrio for his gunner love and making me realize bonemonger was a thing when I came back from latest break. GD discord peeps for various input and previously called out @Crittrain and @romanN1
