I tend to enjoy playing tank classes more than DPS glass cannons or casters - maybe it’s because I’m getting both more patient and slower as I age!
In any case, one of the niches I couldn’t see a lot of, is a vitality leech tank that meets the traditional criteria of a tank (high armour / physical resist / HP) while also having super-high ADctH for life leech. There are a few that are close, like Ceno’s Sandwich Maker, but I wanted to up the focus on traditional tanking stats and take away some of the meme AFK potential.
So here’s my first stab (at both this build and a build post in general!). This is not a meme build, I haven’t GD Stashed anything and I’ve only used one easily available green (prefix/suffix not critical) - initial goal was to achieve the outcome using self-found legendaries and then tweak from there.
Extremely tanky. Almost comically unkillable in SR 65-66 unless you make a major piloting error.
51% baseline ADctH with the ability to spike to 75% on demand.
Capable (but not amazing) AoE DPS and clearing speeds.
On average when actively played, the build is healing between 2x and 3x its total HP pool every second depending on how many mobs it’s facing (through weapon ADctH and Counterstrike)
~4200 armour with regular boosts to ~4800.
37% physical resist
Capped Stun Resist on demand with Overguard.
High blocked damage with acceptable block chance and recovery.
Almost 20k health.
Acceptable -RR at approximately -89% Vitality RR.
All resists comfortably over cap, in all but the case of Pierce by in excess of 30%
Weaknesses- hopefully to be addressed as I get some lucky green rolls.
Very exposed to freeze, traps and petrify, although the life leech on Counterstrike almost always sees you through.
Only a couple of circuit breakers and little health regen, so survival depends on you laying down damage.
Updated with some refinements. I swapped out two legendaries for a couple of epics, added the Morgoneth gloves, and introduced a single green I found (Mark of Plagius). It seems to drop like candy in SR so I’m not too worried about introducing it.
Build has lost (a little) armour, and about 6% maximum ADctH at full proc, but is now comfortably overcapped for all resistances, and is now at a much more comfortable level of OA and DA without requiring any stat dump into Cunning.
As far as gameplay goes - while I haven’t tried any Celestials as yet, the build is slow but essentially unkillable in SR 65-66 unless you get incredibly sloppy about RR ground effects, or (and this is the biggy) you encounter Arcane mobs. Because the DPS is currently so low, you generally can’t drop Arcane mobs before they try and debuff you, so when you encounter one it becomes a game of kiting and slowly eating their health, because if your buffs drop you lose a lot of your survivability. I’ve not yet encountered Grava in one of the boss rooms but I imagine it would make life… difficult.
So yeh, that (and the low DPS) are the build’s weak spots. But most of the time, the health bar either doesn’t move, or seesaws like a yoyo but never unsafely.
With 1.1.8.0 and the additional resist on augments, I was able to tweak some things around with this build to the point I’m pretty comfortable it’s ‘final’, barring any revelations in an upcoming patch.
I made a major change that has increased survivability and significantly boosted DPS, by ditching the WPS skills and migrating core attack to Blade Arc, boosted by migrating some points away from Bone Harvest (but still leaving it softcapped, with overcapped Soul Harvest). AoE DPS also skyrocketed with this change. Plus, the knockdown on Blade Arc, while sometimes annoying, also helps reduce incoming damage on trash packs for even greater survivability. Just wade in, and swing.
This build can now comfortably clear through 75-76 SR without major concern, and likely deeper (i’ve not tried though). The only bosses that are best tackled individually are Grava’thul and Rashalga, and if Slathzar is in the room caution is required due to the Fumble chance. Otherwise, you can generally facetank 2-3 bosses in the boss room at once, all 4 if you’re lucky with the mix. Because of the incredibly high ADctH and the AoE nature of its delivery, as long as you’re laying down damage and don’t be totally ignorant about ground effects, you’ll survive no matter how many mobs you’re facing.
There’s one choice that I’ve not yet 100% decided on - whether you’re better off for survivability with the extra points in Blood Boil for target -OA, or putting those same points into Menhir’s Will for a more powerful circuit breaker. Feel free to try out which you prefer - I’ve left the points in Blood Boil for the moment because most of the time the health bar is barely moving so even Overguard is rarely required and circuit-breakers even less often.
So after saying ‘it’s done’, I stumbled across Howl of the Wendigo - a weapon i’m not familiar with due to normally cleansing Barrowholm in righteous fire rather than siding with them - on GD Tools. I’m going to craft and try it out, and report on how it compares to the Ravager’s Bite.
Initial suspicion is that the loss of 3-5% ADctH, some OA and the points to Soul Harvest, will be offset by the likely significant increased DPS of the modifiers to Blade Arc (being my main attack since last build) and the Attack Speed boost.
Whether 10% -Vitality RR AoR on 3/4 uptime from Siphon Souls is better than 15% chance to proc potential 100% uptime -15% RR on single target, will be the other point of evaluation.
Any videos to check out with this build yet - looks interesting and a vitality+leech tank might just be the ticket I’ve been looking for to take on Crate.
How did Howl of the Wendigo go - a keeper or keep using Ravager’s bite ?
It is not worth investing that much in counter strike unless you are retalation build imo.
12/12 squad tactics, not higher. Your blocking ability is garbage, anyway so you should not be needing markovian defense that already lowers your low damage. Call of the grave can now be used as a small damage boost. Howl of the wendigo should be a must here for vitality blade arc and also has very important resistance removal on siphon, but I think cadence + deadly momentum and upgraded zolhans tecnique + reaping strike will be much better.
Here’s a couple of quick vids of the build in action. It’s late, I’m tired, and I did a terrible job piloting, but hopefully it gives you at least an idea.
Seal of Might is in the build link - https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWnm8e2
Howl of the Wendigo is not in the build link though - could we get an updated GT link - though to be fair if that is the only thing that changed I’ll just do the substitution, no new link required.
Are the components and augments on everything the same as those in the build link otherwise ?
Found this build as I was looking for a tanky DK build that runs off of lifesteal. I’m 56 right now, and all seems moderately well. Something I’m confused on is why do you use “Rune of Displacement” on your medal instead of something that does damage ? am I missing something? I’ve been running it with Blitz and my medal enchant is agile huntress disengage but I’m thinking of nuking off blitz for a rune, and nuking off the disengage so I looked back here for reference and realized you aren’t running an engage skill that does damage. This has me miffed a bit. Thinking of trying Burning rifts, scorpion tail, or incorpreal winds.
