Over the course of a year, devastation itemization has expanded anew, but Pyran has taken the spotlight while other devastation builds couldn’t possibly cut through. I want to shine a tiny spotlight on the most miniscule devastation too: my personal breakthrough.
A Tiny Inspiration Strikes:
As these MI buffs began to accrue, this sparked an idea within my brain tissue. What if I made the tiniest devastation of all, smaller than Cindy Lou Who? When all the pieces came through, three sizes my heart grew
Playstyle
There once was a nem named Reaper
who pursued me, ever the creeper
so as he came nearer
I turned on my Mirror
and he was renamed the Weeper
The Build
Enough rhyming, I need to actually explain shit now. This build uses 3 items which reduce the target area of devastation, turning it into a powerful single-target nuking skill. The small radius combined with the crit mods on the helm and offhand result in insane single-target damage, assuming you can hold your ground. That’s where blast shield and mirror come into play. The duration of devastation is 8 seconds, and the duration of blast shield + Mirror combined together is 7 seconds, meaning you can tank through almost the entire duration of devastation while your enemy stands helplessly underneath. Although the offhand converts aether damage to lightning, devastation’s damage ends up being about 4/5 fire damage and 1/5 lightning damage because the aether damage is converted in so many directions at once.
I focused on elemental devotion procs rather than going for Time Dilation because sorcerer has so many reliable ways to proc devotion skills. I also personally don’t like the Time Dilation/Mirror of Ereotces playstyle. You might also be wondering why I invested 50 points into demolitionist for hellfire mine despite not needing the RR. I tested at least 5 versions of the build, including versions where I invested only 32 or 40 points into the demo mastery, but this version was overall the most tanky and reliable while sacrificing very little damage. Picking up hellfire mine also turns thermite mines into a respectable damage skill due to the conversion on the medal. Even if it doesn’t make much sense (even to me), I go by feel when judging a build while playing, and this version felt the best by far.
In terms of itemization, the amulet, helm, and offhand are necessary to get the tiniest devastation possible. The rest of the items focused on thermite mines (for the highest possible RR), spirit, health regen, and Devastation skill bonuses. I find that health regen is very handy when both blast shield and mirror are on cooldown, and the extra regen has saved my life in at least a few circumstances (like in the video above, for example). The itemization and devotion pathing strikes a good balance between offense, defense, consistency, and healing capability.
You’ll also notice that I uploaded a video which demonstrates that the build can still function even in the worst circumstances. For example, Valdaran makes it very difficult to lure enemies near my devastation, and Slathsarr’s health reduction pools ensure that I can’t tank using blast shield. I personally evaluate the strength of a build based on how it plays in sub-optimal conditions, so I figured this video was the best representation of the strength of the build.
The build’s only downside is that Blast Shield’s damage mitigation becomes less effective in higher shards, so I doubt this build could pass anything higher than shard 80 without constant kiting even on more forgiving boss chunks.
