*King Elessar leading an army of #deadbuilds
Foreword
Emperor’s heir was in the middle of his dance lesson or so he liked to call it. Elessar was so young he could barely grow a man’s beard yet he was the most talented fencer this court or any court in the history of Arkovia has ever seen. He has won every fencing tournament in the last two years and was mostly reknown for defeating the infamous imperial assassin Murcielago de Fuego and his fiery blades in one of the finals. Right now he was sparring his current teacher - another famous imperial assassin and a prominent member of Luminari Inquisiton (“There are too many assassins in this court” that was Elessar’s favourite icebreaker joke he told ladies at the numerous balls and other social events that involved Royalty). Elessar was wielding his favourite weapon - a two-handed long sword, a massive and heavy blade and yet it looked so light and nimble in his hands.
Suddenly a creaking old voice interrupted their sparring. “You can’t be mono-damaging”. Inquisitor Malakor was known to have just “half of his mind” left after the last clashes with the fierce followers of Witch Gods. Although Inquisitor’s ill-wishers whispered that it happened because he once swinged his Malakor hammer too hard trying to destroy an ancient magical artifact - Storm Box of archmage Elgoloth - and hammer bounced back and hit him right in the head. Some evil tongues in the court even thought of a “funny” name for that tragic accident of self-harm and severe head trauma - Malakor’s Infusion. “You can’t be mono-damaging, your Highness”, Malakor repeated. Young Elessar stopped the sparring and looked at old Malakor: “What are you saying, uncle Malakor? Have you had your herbs today?”
continued at the end of the post
This build is based on @Firozo’s somewhat iconic Pierce Blade Arc’s Blademaster. Credit for the idea to try and utilize Bleeding damage on a Nadaan’s build goes to @banana_peel and his amazing Tactician.
The Build
1.1.7.0 Update
With the new green meta this build got a great boost in a form of Balthazar’s medal. Even better results across the board.
1.1.6.2 Update
Updated a build a bit. Lost ~30 OA but gained whole lot of tankiness with more hp, more adtch and better resist overcaps. Added Shattered grimtools too.
<<<< GRIMTOOLS >>>>*
*Craft only for Slow Resistance
**Swap Assassin’s Mark and Azrakaa’s Sands binds for SR boss rooms
P.A.Q. or Piercingly Asked Questions
Shouldn’t Uknown Soldier be better than Azrakaa’s? It has both Pierce and Bleeding!
Tested it and due to OA losses on the way to the Uknown Soldier damage is actually slightly worse despite higher Bleeding damage
What about Reforged Chains Oleron? They have Pierce and Bleeding damage and let us hard cap Ring of Steel!
Yep, tested and they are worse. I am guessing OA scales too good on this build
If you like OA so much why didn’t you invest in Lethal Assault? You convert most of its flat into Pierce!
Well, apparently not! Version with fully leveled Blade Spirits and more streamlined melee gameplay turned out to be faster in the end
Gear/Skills/Devotions/Leveling
Every piece of gear is pretty much bis here. Devotions are perfectly balanced in terms of offense and defense. Put everything into Cunning. Medal is farmable, you need some %pierce damage on it, preferably “Cutthroat’s” affix.
For leveling check dedicated guides on this forum. This is an endgame build and it works as advertised only when you equip all the gear/skills/devotions exactly like this at level 100.
Gameplay
Everything is facetankable in Crucible Gladiator 150-170 when you play it with buffs/banners. Try to learn how to play it by watching Crucible videos below…
In Shattered Realm stick to fast 65-66 farms if you want smooth deathless runs. You can also farm 75-76 with this build but do expect to die sometimes and be prepared to use camera abuse if Slathzar spawns.
Stats
General
Blade Arc damage with all the procs
Defenses
Videos
1.1.7.1. Crucible Gladiator 5:00 run by romanN1
1.1.7.1 Crucible Gladiator 150-170 4:56 run by Slev1n
1.1.7.0 Crucible 150-170 5:17 run
1.1.7.0 Shards 75-76 10:42 run (one death)
1.1.6.2 Shards 75-76 13:23 run (few deaths, tough mutators)
1.1.6.2 Shards 75-76 11:35 run (couple of deaths)
1.1.6.2 Shards 75-76 9:45 run (no deaths)
1.1.6.2 Crucible Gladiator 150-170 5:13 run
1.1.6.2 Crucible Gladiator 150-170 5:44 run
1.1.6.0 Banana_peel’s Crucible 150-170 4:57 run
My Crucible Gladiator 150-170 5:16 run
Shards 75-76 very difficult 13:55 run
Shoot2033’s 4:55 run - slightly modified towards more Bleed
In Conclusion
“What are you saying, uncle?” Elessar gave his sword to his squire and wiped the sweat of his face with a piece of cloth towel he got in exchange. “Mono-damaging? You shouldn’t ignore court healer’s prescription, you know that!”. Old Malakor suddenly forgot where he was: his mind was fading out of the reality (as it usually happened with him these days) taking him back to the days of his youth where he was just a young Inquisitor hunting the followers of the criminal warlord Cronley himself. Back then in the simpler times he could combine seemingly any element with any element in the art of war and fetch himself a good bounty bringing one of the Cronley’s scumbags to justice.
Inquisitor woke up sitting at his moldy desk in his small cabinet. Before him were his unfinished memoirs of the resonating events that took place in the year 1160. Old Malakor farted.
