Ignaffar Deceiver from scratch
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4VxjO95N
Introduction
Among many beginner guides on the forum there are no Deceiver ones, so today we will fix this unfortunate accident.
Deceiver (Inquisitor+Occultist) has quite a bad reputation, both masteries are known for being good support masteries lacking strong offensive skills. Furthermore even if Occultist has elemental RR the mastery has no other elemental synergy thus rendering the most obvious damage type choice to be mediocre. So even if defensively Deceivers can be built to be practially unkillable the lack of offense swayed builders of the class.
Recently the class was receiving more and more MI-support with Storm Herald allowing to build interesting lightning doombolt/stormbox caster; Abaddoth sermons supporting chaos sigil/kalastor builds and Blugrug axe/Leafmane trophy supporting various vitality deceiver builds. Any of these three new toys can be used to make a decent beginner build but I decided to choose the third option among the three. Vitality deceiver is the most unkillable of them and thus will probably be a better choice for a complete beginner. Furthermore the abundance of defensive layers makes this character really suited for hardcore playthrough, being able to safely stand inside the Inquisitor Seal and outheal incoming damage is a strong point of Vitality Deceivers.
The combo of Blugrug’s axe and Leafmane Trophy gives us 100% elemental to vit conversion allowing for a wide range of setups, any inquisitor skill can be used as the main weapon. I decided to use Flames of Ignaffar because of its high lifeleech that will fit the build perfectly. The channeling nature doesn’t hurt us that much given that we plan to stand inside the seal anyway.
Pros
- Fast leveling.
Inquisitor has one of the best leveling skill combos in the game (Word of Pain and Storm Box), if you use it you will be able to get to endgame very quickly. Alternatively you can use flames of ignaffar (our endgame source of damage), it will be a bit slower but you will be able to get used to it quicker.
- Tankiness.
This build has an insane amount of defensive layers, we have access to them all. Inquisitor seal provides large amount of flat absorb (we are able to hardcap it if we want) making you invincible against small attacks, Horn of gandar provides damage reduction, our physical resistance is higher than what is achievable by most builds (70% with Aura of Conviction version and 55% with Possession version of the build), we take less damage from 2 out of the three most scary enemy types.
Note that each additional defensive layer makes your flat absorb even stronger, there are very few things we can’t simply facetank while standing inside the seal, the only thing we are truly afraid of is being dispelled by an Arcane enemy but obviously it’s something any build is scared of. On top of everything we are a vitality build and our main damage source has large amount of ADCtH so even when something damages us we are back to full health almost instantly.
Very often the words “hardcore-friendly” don’t mean much given that whether or not build is hardcore viable depends on a player, but in this case as long as you keep your buffs up and stand inside the seal you are practically invincible, even during SR farming.
- Ease of gearing resistances
We have access to skills giving poison, vitality, chaos, aether and elemental resistances. This shouldn’t be surprising for a class composed of two support masteries. Obviously this is not a big deal for someone who has access to all items, but for a first character it may be harder to cover all resistances. We will have no issues with it, allowing to be more flexible in our item choices.
- Simplicity
This build doesn’t require precise skill rotation and deep mechanic knowledge. You need to 1)Renew world of renewal, blood of dreeg and horn of gandar 2)Stand inside the seal. The beauty of stacking all defensive layers is that things which would kill other builds will barely scratch us and then be healed back instantly.
- Damage
Not a true pro of this build but not a con either. Despite our efforts to be unkillable the damage is fairly solid, the endresult has around 200k sheet dps (140k with flames of ignaffar and 60k with Stormbox) which is dealt in aoe. These numbers are nothing to write home about for endgame builds, but they are on a high end by beginner build standards. Another tank beginner candidate, vitality conjurer will be much less damaging in comparison.
- Item acquisition
Not sure if it’s worth listing since any truely beginner build has it. The items we will be using are all target-farmable, in fact most of them will be vendor-farmable which would let you get above average rolls on them with ease.
Cons
- Buttons
The build has a lot of buttons to press. In fact you will be forced to remove potions from the hotbar and use a dedicated hotkey for them (go to options -> hotkeys if you didn’t know about this feature). As a minor solace, it doesn’t really matter how do you press your buttons, they are not timing sensitive, as long as you renew your buffs and debuffs once in a while and hold your ignaffar key you are good.
- Clunkyness
Some of our skills are a bit inconvenient to use. Ignaffar is short ranged and the spread feels a bit thin (I wish there were some QoL buffs in this regard), inquisitor seal has low casting range so it makes it awkward to use as resistance reduction. You will quickly get used to it though.
- Movement speed
Just like any other class not involving Nightblade, Oathkeeper and Soldier masteries we do not possess any movement abilities apart from the medal augment. Obviously the same is true for half of classes in the game yet it is something worth mentioning. Your first character will need to do some component farming (ugdenblooms, aether crystals, seals of binding) and we aren’t fast in doing it.
- Item farming
To achieve the best performance of the build you will need to farm the Decree of Malmouth. It is a simple farm (you expected to take around 19 runs) and can be done on elite, but it’s still something which can be boring for some. We still have it easier than builds that do need to farm Krieg or Dark one and we can use well-rolled Blugrug’s axe if you are too opposed to farming. Some of the axes you can get are not that much worse (if you get Wraithbound Blugrug’s Axe of Insanity the physres and casting speed would be a big plus for you).
- Endgame prospects
Deceiver is not a very popular class, so even if our beginner build is already capable of farming SR65, if you want to go further with a vitality deceiver you will have to make your own builds.
Skill overview
Active skills
- Flames of Ignaffar
Our main damaging ability, it will be fully converted into vitality damage. First three nodes should be maxed, fourth one should be a one-pointer and should fix your energy issues. Flames of Ignaffar damage scales of the casting speed thus we will try to get it as high as possible (ideally your should reach 200% when dying god is active).
- Storm Box of Elgoloth
Our supplementary damaging ability. Before we respec into ignaffar it will be our main source of damage but even after we start focusing on ignaffar it will still be responsible for around 30% of our total DPS. The reason for why we are focusing is a hidden game mechanic. While the game doesn’t tell you explicitly the second node (Lightning tether) triggers three times a second and scales of casting speed. This means that even if the Lightning tether damage number looks small it is the main contributor to the storm box damage and for a character with high casting speed is worth being maxed.
Tether deals damage in a small aoe around the tether so when fighting a hero pack try putting it on different heroes so the damage stacks if they stand next to each other.
- Inquisitor Seal
One of our defensive layers. Early on even a one-pointer is good in preventing the DoT damage. Maxing it will make you invulnerable in the main campaign. I suggest placing one before activating a shrine or a totem. If you really need to kite (you don’t) you can place few seals nearby and run between them. Also after reaching level 50 the seal gives some reistance reduction to enemies so try to place it under their feet too. Don’t worry, don’t think of this build as a caster, you should be perfectly fine with faceatnking all the content, the build is capable of doing it.
- Word of Pain
Early on it’s our leveling ability (and all nodes should be maxed, especially the second one). Later it’s just a esistance reduction debuff, it won’t deal much damage.
- Curse of Frailty
Our resistance reduction. The second node needs to be maxed, put points into first only for QoL purposes, the aoe and duration is a bit low at early levels.
- Horn of Gandar
Is taken purely for damage reduction. There is a breakpoint at 7 skillpoints, this is where I leave it at during most of the leveling btu I think it’s worth maxing at the end.
Passive skills
- Blood of Dreeg
Should be active at all times. Don’t try to use it as a heal, if it’s on cooldown – press it, it is vital for it to be active at all times. Maxing the second node is of a very high priority. First node is very strong too, but some versions of this build won’t have skillpoints for it.
- Word of Renewal
Should be active at all times. Don’t try to use it as a heal, if it’s on cooldown – press it, it is vital for it to be active at all times. First node should eventually be maxed, second and third node have sweet-spots at 6 and 8 respectively. If you need chaos and aether res you can put more points into the third node.
- Possession
One of the strongest exclusives, gives tankiness, useful disruption res and boosts the damage a bit. Unfortunately it requires a lot of skillpoint investment (we don’t want to put so many into Occultist mastry bar). I found that during level and without getting better gear Aura of Conviction is better. Once you get Decree of Malmouth and reach lvl100 you can consider switching to this (especially if you have serenity or are using a +1 inquisitor relic).
- Aura of Conviction
Somewhat debatable choice of an exclusive but it’s very synergistic with what we are trying to do. The more physres we have the better getting more physres becomes and we have plenty of it. Furthermore inquisitor seal is getting stronger the more defensive stats we get. By not investing into occultist mastery bar we are able to max all the skills we want to max. If you get Decree you can switch to Possession, AoC will make you tankier overall while Possession gives better damage.
- Deadly Aim
Quite a strong passive. It is worth being ramped to 12 skillpoints btu we are skill-hungry so it can be left as a one-pointer.
- Solael’s Witchfire
Just a value one-pointer. Second node is worth maxing for the flat damage boost but we don’t have enough skillpoints.
Gear overview
Early game
Even more important than using proper items will be the proper use of components. Stupid Dragon’s guide should be a point of reference for you.
In early parts of the game (levels 1-48, up to reaching Malmouth in normal) I recommend leveling as a lightning inquisitor. The only item I find important to get is the Ulraprax’s Sting, you can farm it in the Twin Falls bee hive. Affixes don’t matter much, the skill modifier and the +1 to inquisitor alone is worth it.
I also recommend lying during the Rover quest to use the Bone Talisman relic.
Use any lightning weapon and offhand, try to get resistances at other gear slots (don’t try to get lightning damage in armor slots, it’s not worth it).
At level 50 I suggest to buy Legion Headguard and Legion Greaves (vendorfarm for physical res).
Midgame
Once you reach Malmouth Crown Hill you can farm Blugrug’s axe here and from point we are going to deal vitality damage.
- Weapon
Use Blugrug’s axe. Ideally you want physical resistance/casting speed/vitality damage on your affixes. Farm him by running backwards starting from crown hill rift. Use imbued silver or purified salt.
- Off-hands
Use Leafmane Trophy. Best place to farm is northwest from barrowholm, south from the mine. Ideally you want physical resistance/casting speed/vitality damage on your affixes, bonuses to Inq seal or Flames of Ignaffar are welcome too. Use imbued silver or purified salt.
- Head
Buy Legion Headguard (if you want you can reset the vendor until the helm has 6% physres). At lvl 75 you can update it to the Fettan mask. Ideally use prismatic diamond but before you get it can use runestone instead.
- Rings
You want rings with casting speed or resistances. After getting honored with Rovers (happened at the start of elite for me) vendorfarm 2 Rhowari Void Seals with 5% casting speed roll. You can use them even in endgame despite it being a lvl40 ring. Use mark of illusions, if you don’t have them buy them from Benevald.
- Amulet
Get Ulraprax sting. Rolls won’t matter. Use wardstone.
- Chest
You can use Bloodsworn vestments (drops from Bolvar ) but usually it has pretty bad (for us) affixes. Alternatively you can use any vitality chestpiece, Death Vigil sells one at level 50 if you decided to side with them. At level 65 and furthermore use Bysmiel Vile Vestments, it’s great for us. Also you can use Solael Black Flame Vestment, it gives damage during leveling (and you won’t need to use Rhowari rings to hardcap Flames of Ignaffar).
- Shoulders
Farm Loghorrean for a shoulderpiece. Affixes aren’t too important, the base is good enough. Use scaled hide.
- Pants
Use any resistance-covering pants. If you insist on having good pants you can farm Anasteria or Hidden Path guardians. Use scaled hide.
- Gloves
Any casting speed gloves will do, rover gloves or craftables work too. Use restless remains (blueprint can be bought from vigil or kymon’s chosen).
- Boots
Buy Legion Greaves . Use mark of the traveller if you need movement speed, otherwise antivenom salve/molten skin.
- Belt
Use Ugdenbog Waistguard. The best place to farm them is inside the Barrowholm mine, affixes don’t matter too much. My poisonres was overcapped so I used molten skin instead of antivenom salve. Yours will probably be overcapped too due to aspect of the guardian.
- Medal
There are three good choices. My most favourite during leveling is the bloodsworn sigil (drops from Bloodmage Thalonis). You will have to farm him anyway when you run to Loghorrean. The sigil will help you sustain and will help solve mana issues. Alternatively basilisk crest or basilisk mark are also good and easier to get. Use wardstone (or if you lack vitality res use soul shard to fix it).
- Relic
Bone talisman is ok but soon you will have no mana issues (once you finish scales devotion) and there are better options. Best would be Deathchill or Torment. Another good option is Vendetta (blueprint can be bought from Malmouth resistance).
Endgame
Your gear at level 94 won’t be much different from your leveling setup.
- Weapon
The baseline is using Blugrug’s axe. Starting from level 89 you can start farming Dreven Cole to get the Decree of Malmouth, the decree is the best possible weapon you can get for this build. Note that the weapon drops exclusively drom Dreven so if you want you can speed things up by killing him first and then restarting the session if he doesn’t drop it. Ideal component is the Seal of Might
- Off-hands
Use Leafmane Trophy. Ideally you want physical resistant/casting speed/vitality damage on your affixes, bonuses to Inq seal or Flames of Ignaffar are welcome too (suffix “of the Cabal” has all three). Ideal place to farm is by vendorfarming the ancient grove vendor (check his inventory, go to next zone, wait for 45 seconds while unpaused, go back and his inventory be reset. Repeat until you get disgustingly good offhand). Try to get high conversion roll. Best component is the Seal of Might.
Eventually the best-in-slot option would be to get a dual-wield-enabling medal and use the second Decree of Malmouth. Alternatively just get Destroyer’s Leafmane Trophy of the Cabal with max casting speed physres and the conversion rolls 
- Head
Use fettan mask. Any +1 inquisitor helm is ok, the best is probably the Radaggan headpiece. Use Prismatic Diamond.
- Rings
You want rings with casting speed. Rhowari seal is good enough, seals of basti are a strict upgrade. Any vitality ring with casting speed would be good too but try to keep your Flames of Ignaffar maxed even if you have to use Rhowari seal to do so. Use mark of illusions, later Runebound Topaz or Bloodied crystal.
- Amulet
Any +1 inquisitor amulet works, there are three easily obtainable options.
First, you can buy (vendorfarm) a Conduit of Runic Whispers blueprint in the Tomb of Heretic (can be done on normal, but you have to be lvl94). Ideal bonus is getting -vit res to stormbox but any neutral roll will do.
Second, you can craft aetherbolt pendant (blueprint from Coven). Lightning damage is waster, but the +1 all skills, tether bonus and casting speed is quite useful.
Third, you can farm Ulraprax for his sting. If you get a sting with casting speed it will probably be the best option.
Best endgame component is the seal of annihilation.
- Chest
Use lvl90 Bysmiel chest. Eventually getting a vitality damage chest with physres will be better. If you got good vitality rings with casting speed you can use Solael Black Flame Vestments instead. Personally I prefer having 21/12 or 22/12 seal and that is possible with Bysmiel chest. Endgame component setup should have either living armor or sacred plating.
- Shoulders
Farm loghorrean for a shoulderpiece. Endgame component setup should have either living armor or sacred plating.
- Pants
Farming Anasteria for pants is an option, crafting 40 Rimeguard chausses (blueprint can be bought from Benevald) is another one. Using unique pants with physres ( Legplates of Valor ), vitality damage or both will eventually be the best option. Use scaled hide.
- Gloves
Any casting speed gloves will do, if you don’t have good ones keep crafting emberguard gauntlents (blueprint can be bought from Benevald) until you get ones with vasting speed and something useful. The best in slot option are the Mythical Gauntlets of Ignaffar . Use restless remains.
- Boots
Any physres boots are ok, if you don’t have any keep crafting stoneplate greaves (blueprint can be bought from Benevald) until you get good ones.
- Belt
Use ugdenbog waistguard, can be vendorfarmed in Ancient grove, together with offhand and medal.
- Medal
You can use a craftable Mark of Burning shadows but I prefer the three MI medals. Bloodsworn sigil would be best but it is much much harder to obtain than the other two. So I suggest to vendorfarm a basilisk crest or a basilisk mark (any of them can be bought from Ancient Grove vendor). If you are using aura of conviction I recommend using arcane spark component (for energy leech and disruption res).
- Relic
Serenity would be the best. Deathchill, torment or any +1 Inquisitor relic is an easier to obtain option.
Devotions
You can use any vitality damage setup you like. I prefer using scales to fix the mana-hungriness of Ignaffar. I think any layout involving Dying God, Rattosh and Tip the Scales will work great for this build. I tried to maximise physres and casting speed in mine.
One of the possible tweaks is switching lotus and solemn watcher for lantern and panther but I think in most cases the build enjoys getting DA from devotions more than OA and 3% phys res is probably more valuable than 5% casting speed. The switch will increase the damage though, so it can be to your liking.
The sequence I used in the leveling section isn’t ideal (I originally planned to use completed wendigo in the endgame build so I took it early), use the following sequence instead:
Get green crossroads
Finish Bat and assign it to storm box.
Get yellow crosstoads
Finish Crane.
Finish Jackal
Finish Lotus
Finish Scholar’s Light
Remove yellow crossroads and add red crossroads
Finish Rattosh, the Veilwarden and assign it to Word of Pain. Later once you respec into ignaffar reassign it to ignaffar instead.
Finish Tip the scales and assign it to Aura of Conviction.
Finish Stag
Finish Viper
Finish Sailor’s guide
Finish Solemn Watcher
Put point into blue crossroads
Start putting points into Dying God
Once you are at 52 devotions, remove Crane and yellow crossroads and finish Dying God, assign it to Horn of Gandar
Put the last three points into Wendigo
The result should coincide with what I got at the end of my leveling.
If you instead want more damaging version or if the items you got lack OA and have DA excess (you will need to get more DA on items than I did for this version to have comfortable DA) then the sequence is different
Get green crossroads
Finish Bat and assign it to storm box.
Get yellow crosstoads
Finish Crane.
Finish Jackal
Finish Lotus
Finish Scholar’s Light
Remove yellow crossroads and add red crossroads
Finish Rattosh, the Veilwarden and assign it to Word of Pain. Later once you respec into ignaffar reassign it to ignaffar instead.
Finish Tip the scales and assign it to Aura of Conviction.
Finish Stag
Finish Viper
Finish Sailor’s guide
Finish Oklaine’s Lantern
Remove Lotus
Finish Panther
Put point into blue crossroads
Start putting points into Dying God
Once you are at 52 devotions, remove Crane and yellow crossroads and finish Dying God, assign it to Horn of Gandar
Put the last three points into Wendigo
Leveling diary
If it’s your first time then playing without Veteran will be much quicker. My level snapshots are from non-veteran leveling but from quick test the same strategy works on veteran (but you have to put more points into damaging abilities and focus on stormbox more than on word of pain). Also in my experience leveling with rune of hagarrad is a bit better on veteran so you can try that instead. We are not going to use rune of hagarrad in the final build but we will use word of pain and storm box so I decided to level with those.
All leveling was done SSF (I emptied my stash, left only the sr65 waystone and deleted all blueprints) on hardcore and the resulting char cleared ultimate SR65-66 (with relatively bad mutators, had -20% casting speed).
One generic hint I need to tell you is to buy a faction Writ as soon as you hit Honored status with them.
Another frequent way beginners shoot themselves in a foot is by overusing loot filter. I suggest filterning out yellows past level 15 and gather everything else. Yes, we will never need a two-hander on this build, but if you pick up all 2handers you find and then sell them you will end up getting a lot of extra bits. Your first character needs to buy stash tabs, craft bunch of stuff, buy merits writs and experience potions. You will always find use for those extra bits you get by selling greens. Even though I was picking up every green I found I still almost got down to 0 bits at one point during leveling this build.
Also, clear every totem you find, our build is perfectly fine in clearing totems (focus arcane first) and totems are an amazing soruce of early items components and blueprints.
As for attributes, you will need spirit to equip offhand and some physique to equip armor. How much you spend and when will not matter much. I prefer getting low spirit (only as much as to equip the offhand) andput the rest into physique, but having extra spirit will also be useful due to our low % damage modifier.
levels 1-25
We start with word of pain and storm box. The process is very simple, cast word of pain on every crowd and storm box on every hero mob. Getting lightning offhand from Overseers in warden’s lab would be great but you shouldn#t both too much (I didn’t get it).
Once you rescue a blacksmith, start crafting components to put on your gear (check Dragon’s guide or my grimtools to see what components). I didn’t have enough materials to craft them immediately, but by the time you get to Krieg you should be able to craft silk swatch and scaled hides.
Also craft a green medal, it’s a really good way to fix your resistances a bit.
If you need of scraps or materials (to craft components), reset the session and buy them out of two vendors in devil’s crossing. If you need aetehr crystals, go to the third rift in warden’s lab and run backwards. I fought Warden Krieg at level 19, facetanked him. If you are in melee he won’t pull the crossbow against you. He is much harder on veteran, but the same strategy works, put stormbox on him and run in circles around him. On veteran yo ushould be able to be lvl20 by the time you fight him, so craft two purified salts too.
After you kill krieg, go to forgotten gods and do the first quest to get a movement augment. I sided with Byscilla (we will need her rep to buy a chest) but it’s not too important. No need to do anything else, our goal is to get to Malmouth asap.
Before going to act 2 it’s a good idea to fill all your components according to dragon’s guide or my lvl25 grimtools.
Once you reached the Twin Falls I suggest farming Ultraprax sting, it will give a big boost to your character.
5: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lNkQlkBV
10: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYqMleN
15: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GEmoGZ
19: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/b28GpwpN
25: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZP8adgZ
levels 25-50
Continue putting points into word of pain/stormbox nodes as you go, if the damage feels great then put points into Iquisitor mastery instead trying to get seal.
Once you reach seal there are three things you can do, you can either max seal to become invincible, max WoP and stormbox to deal good damage, continue pushing Inq mastery bar to get Aura of Censure or start putting points into Occultist tree for reasons I can’t explain. Evenatually you will need to do all 4 to get access to elemental resistance reduction.
If you happen to get one of thegreen item blueprints (head or boots) you can craft them, they are pretty good in covering resistances. Also if you want to be extra safe you can use two weapons, one with imbued silver and other with purified salt and switch depending on the enemy types you fight.
After you kill Loghorrean go to Malmouth DLC, I also recommend maxing seal before you start doing AoM expansion content, some of it is a bit dangerous otherwise.
25: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZP8adgZ
32: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVA7l0DN
35: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVl4JgjV
40: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/DV9jxpvZ
49: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZwGOd8Z
levels 50-94
At level 50 I was able to get blugrug’s axe, trophy and a waistgurd so we are now a vitality build!
This https://www.grimtools.com/calc/aZqEJDpZ is what I was able to switch into. Objectively it would be a better idea to continue being a WoP-Box caster, just doing vitality damage. Converting all of WoP into one damage type boosts our damage and helps us scale it better. If you want to go that route make sure you have WoP andBox maxed and go for Blood of Dreeg and Aspect of the Guardian next. You can do it for 20 more levels and no specific gear is required, it would be faster than what I did.
But otherwise you can respec into build which is very close to our final build! I went and killed Loghorrean and thalonis 2 more times to get their MIs and respecced into https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV1BMKYZ . We don’t have enough skillpoints to max every ability we want so the priority is Lightning Tether>Intensify>Flames of Ignaffar. Tether and Intensify are cheaper manawise than Flames themselves.
From now on we melt things even more than we were before and we are able to facetank any enemy. The build will not fundamentally change from now on.
I got good bloodsworn robes (dropped of Thalonis) to use but don’t worry too much about them, you can use any vitality chest instead.
I quickly cleared Malmouth and FG (I think it’s worth for reputation but you can skip it if you don’t like it) and went onto elite. If you happen to lack poisonres as I did try to get into Aspect of the Guardian sooner.
Once you have enough rover reputation, go buy their Rhowari Void Seals. Reset the game until you get a ring with 5% casting speed and buy two, we will be using it until the endgame (and even in endgame). The stats will eb a bit underwhelming, but getting Flames to 26 is a big damage boost so it will be worthwhile even though it’s a lvl40 ring. I managed to do it during elite act2.
If you feel like your damage is lacking feel free to go back to normal and farm an improved version of the weapons, it’s fairly quick. Also once in a while you can update your other slots. We have disgusting physical resistance so keeping armor up-to-date isn’t as important but it never hurts. At level 65 buy the bysmiel chest it will help with manaregen and extra points into seal is always welcome.
I think I’ve reached ultimate at level 87. At this point I was revered with Malmouth so you probably can already buy experience potions and put them in stash for your next character.
Once you hit level 89 you can start farming the Decree of Malmouth elite (the droprate is the same as on ultimate provided yo uare level 89 or higher). I think I started doing it at level 92. It takes on average 18 runs so it can take quite a while. It’s not too necessary, you can usea well-rolled Blugrug’s axe instead but it’s the best weapon our build can wield.
Also one small advice, don’t use pet augments, they don’t do anything for you. I did it by accident, do not repeat my mistakes
50 (before ignaffar): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/aZqEJDpZ
50 (after ignaffar): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/wV1BMKYZ
55: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/pZrkjX0N
57: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2E05nJN
63: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/b28GpkpN
66: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2MGpl7Z
75: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/bVA7lyDN
84: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YZe5nGdZ
levels 94-100
Upon hitting level 94 I vendorfarmed for a few minutes and then quickly finished FG to get the skillpoints. Turns out that if you vendorfarm at level 94 the vendor sells lvl 90 items too so I later redid it. You can skip vendorfarming step, you don’t need good items to get from 94 to 100, any belt/medal/offhand will work.
But before going to SR, vendorfarming is a good idea, you can buy some truly godly items if you spend 10+ minutes doing it (it can be done on normal but no need). While vendorfarming don’t forget to buy prismatic diamond blueprint if you don’t have it yet (it dropped for me much earlier)
At this point we still have plenty of upgrades to make, put ugdenbog/spellscorched plating in armor slots, get bloodied crystals/runebound topaz in rings, get seal of annihilation, change scaled hide for sacred plating, etc.
But the most important one is getting Seal of Might in your weapon slots. I suggest farming some totems until it drops (for me it dropped much earlier, somewhere around level 80). Once you are level 100 and haveseal of might I think you are ready for SR65-66, even on hardcore. With a new account it will take quite a while to get there, you will have to farm the waystone on normal, I suggest to cash out every 15 levels to have some protection against possibility of a crash.
There are two versions of the endgame skill layout, Aura of Conviction version is tankier overall, Possession version will deal a bit more damage. If you use aura of conviction I suggest using at least one arcane spark for some disruption res. The difference between 0 and 30% is quite big since it lets you jump away from a disruption pool.
I did sr 65-66 with the character, it wasn’t too fast but I had the -20% casting speed mutator, you probably should reset it :D. Farming SR isn’t too demanding, remember to kill healers and arcanes first, otherwise you can facetank everything.
94:https://www.grimtools.com/calc/p25Y30m2
100 (AoC): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/DV9jxgvZ
100 (Poss): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4VxjO95N
What to be afraid of
First, kill healer mobs, then kill arcanes. Arcanes are very scary, once they strip you out of your buffs you stop being invincible. Put stormbox on them and ignaffar them to death.
The scariest enemy is probably Grava Thul. Whenever Grava raises his hands, get the hell out of there and try to dodge the ball he throws at you afterwards (it’s homing so try to guide it into an obstacle).
Whenever Gargabol crouches, get the hell out of there until he spawns two volcanoes.
Zantarin has scary shotgunning spell, if he is channeling it don’t jump at him. Wait till he finishes it and then jump at him. He doesn’t channel it when you are in melee range.
Kaisan is a bit annoying since you can’t heal out of him, it’s a rare case where it makes sense to keep WoR and BoD for heal. We have racial bonuses against him so he doesn’t hit that hard though.
Everything else can be facetanked. Stay in seal, renew blood of dreeg, word of renewal and horn of gandar, debuff enemies, put storm box on random beefy enemies and hold your ignaffar button.
Note that seal has high windup time so it’s not advisable to jump in the middle of a crowd, better to place a seal and wait the crowd to come for you while seal is warming up.
Sister builds
There are some builds which are tangent enough to be worth discussing.
Ignaffar-Sigils Deceiver
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eZP8azdZ
If you want even more survivability (I don’t know, maybe you want to go into deep SR or smth) you can tweak this build to include the Sigils. This way you will have even more leech and even more physres at the cost of casting speed (and hence damage). The main downside of this tweak is that the three items you need are not vendorfarmable so you will have to manually run Lunal’Valgoth for medal and belt and Mountain deeps for the shield. Also it will be harder to get good rolls.
Yet, this version is also extremely potent.
Vitality Ignaffar Apostate
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2E05zJN
You can use the same items and the same leveling procedure for an Apostate too (or you can level with Ravenous Earth instead). The result will have better damage and is arguably just a better build.
The downside is that it’s not nearly as “hands-free”. While you are still quite durable, you will need some game knowledge to properly use mark of torment to absorb the heavy attacks.
There are few version of this build, you can use ill omen instead of ravenous earth so it’s more convenient to play, you can get Harbinger of Souls instead of Conviction to get more damage at the cost of survivability and if needed (if the rolls on yoru scepter and trophy are terrible) you can use Namadea’s medal to convert elemental to vit .
Sigil-Kalastor Deceiver
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NKoJEnN
Considered doing this instead but the vitality Deceiver has much better survivability.
Some info about affixes
I probably need to explicitly mention that you do not need to get the same affixes I did. If I am using Thunderstruck Emberguard Gauntlets of celerity it doesn’t mean that it is the best combination of affixes nor does it mean that you have to get better ones, it only means that I crafted 20 gloves and it was the best rolled pair.
Normally on greens you want affixes that have one of the following:
- Resistances you are lacking
- OA/DA (stalwart,agressive, of attack, of protection, of readiness)
- health (vigorous, of vitality)
- bonus % damage of your type (in our case, of Decay)
- bonus scaling stat your character is using (in our case it’s casting speed, of Celerity)
Any magic affix that has one of those is great, any rare affix that has some combination of those is also fine, even if its damage doesn’t fit you. If instead of Rampage Loghorrean’s corruption of Attack you get Rampage Loghorrean’s corruption of readiness is perfectly fine. Or if you get Stalwart of Attack, Or Vigorous of Tormented Souls, or a dozen of other options.
This build has a lot of wiggling room for you affix rolls, it doesn’t really matter at the end, if you check our augments we are using a lot of health/DA augments because we can afford it. If your affixes have a hole in some resistance type, don’t worry you will be able to fix it by turning those Health/DA augments into a resistance augment instead. Also if you follow this guide you will be vendorfarming belts/medals/offhands so you will have some options to choose to fix any problem your affixes may cause you.
And that’s it, I wanted to thank Stupid Dragon (for his builds and useful guides), Ulvar (for discussion and the guide template), RektByProtoss (one of whose builds made me start toying up with deceivers).
