Since it was mentioned yesterday that we haven’t had a dual wield pistol build posted recently, posting this a bit early in the process. Expecting some potential item and minor skill point tweaks, while devos should be mostly dialed in now.
In Game Shot, Seal + WoP
GT: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/1NXwx6LZ
I tried elemental firestrike purifier with sigillis and phasebreaker back in 1.1.7 or so, was okay but very glassy. I’ve been mostly doing the unloved ranged AAs for awhile but wanted to come back to relative easytown of fire strike. Also still on a pureish elemental damage kick so I decided to pull out the blue Luminari set that hasn’t seen a thread since maybe AoM and give it a spin with very surprising results. A reminder, especially on firestrike with so much damage wrapped up in the skill line (and WPS), to not get suckered by low GT sheet damage. This thing slaps way harder than I expected. Primary downside is HP. You can tank large groups and nemesis fine in seal, but the classic one shots are a real concern. Don’t try to hero Alek’s meteors, and even those jerk shamblers rock toss can result in death on a lucky hit and procs down. Different affixes on the 2 green items, and especially a good kaisan necklace, can make this manageable and allow for 85 clears as well. 4-5 crafts, go stun resist until comfortable and then physique for the rest.
Core: Luminari set + Arcanum Sigillis. Set gives us a bunch of points to WPS, +1 inquis, an RR aura, physical res, and a big chunk of pierce conversion that helps with those higher than normal WPS ranks. On a point hungry class it can be tough to walk away with only a single class +1 from the helm and a weapon, but tradeoff is worth it here. Sigillis gets us elemental firestrike (although lacking brimstone shard conversion still, hoping this is updated in 1.1.9.1) bonuses and another +1 inquisitor. We don’t have passthrough but going elemental we’ll have AoE tricks in the devotion tree beyond brimstone spam
Necklace: Couple options here. Really wanted to get +1 demo, and 3 primary options jump out. Runefather’s gem is what I have now. +1 all, fire and lightning %, and raised elemental resist cap. It’s honestly not great but helps our primary damage amounts and extra resist tank isn’t the worst. Nightstalker pendant is another option, also +1 all, adds some firestrike bonuses and OA. Cold is our lowest damage pool, and in practice seemed a wash against Runefather %s. Either one is crafted which is nice. Best option is going to be a kaisan burning eye, as you still get +1 all and then HP built in, which is the biggest build need. I hate building with kaisan necklaces though so it was tested without. Last option is Tainted Ruby of Gar’dal, but as mentioned I really wanted to hold +1 demo for skill points and fire strike line. It’s not bad though and gives another aura with some life steal.
Rings: Elemental Balance set. Prettiest proc in the game, solid stats other than no lightning damage, and craftable. We’re light on stun resist so you do want to craft a couple items for that. Other potential option is 1-2 jaxxon rings for more brimstone shotgun, but since we don’t get full conversion on brimstone shards and it provides no attack speed or elemental damage %, they stay on the bench. Tested against dummy and they were a bit slower on this layout.
Pants: I like Fateweaver here. We leverage the + skills, can use the OA, and the proc has a reasonably long uptime for how quickly we murder most things, pushing phys res up and super overcapping the rest. To test option is Alek’s Chausses, but the physique requirement makes me sad.
Relic: Running Bane for stats and survival. Combustion worth trying as well not that the build is stable, although we have a solid amount of RR.
Belt: Ugdenbog Waistguard. One of our MIs, thankfully an easy one to farm in high quantities. We want the aether conversion for attak seru, and gives us a source of HP/OA/resists/+ fire strike with a lucky roll.
Boots: Elemental boots are a mixed bag, and we need both slow and stun resist, so I went crafted magelord. Wyrmscale can work here if you make up the HP with MI rolls
Gloves: Runesinged Handguards provide stats and some not totally wasted skill bonuses. This slot will get more testing with both Dawnshard Grip and Chilling Grip of Hagarrad having potential.
Shoulders: Haunted Shoulderpads, our second MI and also highly farmable. Once again looking for damage, hp, OA in this slot. High conversion roll is nice for brimstone shards but not a bigger priority than useful affixes.
Skill callouts: We 1 point WPS but with Luminari set get good bonuses to them anyway. Max fire strike line other than explosive strike at soft cap. I take blast shield to 10/12 breakpoint, if you want more damage you can move it to 5/10 and put points back into arcane empowerment. I keep mines at 13/16 breakpoint as we have double RR access and they are fiddly. Vigor gets soft capped because HP is needed, cap seal for survival, 1 point deadly aim. I like 1 point Word of Pain line here over stormbox. It’s less annoying to use, doesn’t need recast if you kill the primary target, and Elemental Seekers are a 100% spawn chance on attack so this keeps them running. WoP also brings some modest defensive utility with slow and impaired aim.
Devotions: With a good elemental damage blend, I go south and skip individual RR devos. We’ll take advantage of decent elemental %s and spirit dump to pick up Blind Sage and Attak Seru. Hydra is a ranged requirement now, and without Ghoul I had spike deaths in SR75-76 that went away with it. Rest fill out stats and needs. WoP to Seekers, Currents on fire strike gets those spawned asap as the highest damaging devo proc, and elemental storm on mines. I tried the latter on storm spread for a bit since mines aren’t going to work on ranged targets, but found it was inconsistent on solo nemesis targets when I wanted 100% uptime on the RR.
Gameplay: It’s a pistol purifier, you put down a seal and shoot everything to death, although standing out in the open so elemental force can fully spin up is ideal. We’re streamlined on support abilities, so you just have to tag mobs with WoP once and toss some mines where mobs will stand on them. WoP also works as a nice mass aggro tool to get them all heading your way. As currently built, baseline damage is very satisfying, and if insight proc and deadly aim and diamond prismatic rage all line up you’re going to melt most nemesis before they pull out their trump card, e.g. Reaper before ghosts, Fabius before Blade Barrier, Benji before crystals of doom. Reminder it’s ~10.5k hp without a kaisan necklace and 18% base phys res. Don’t think you can stand in seal and ignore Alek meteor, you will die unless ghoul is procced at that moment. Benji crystals are usually fine in 75-76, just make sure to use WoR or potion on that bonk he does right before crystals explode.
Crucible: RUNS BY @romanN1 has semi-retired so I don’t have a run to show yet. I should be able to do one and then just subtract like a minute from the time if you actually know what you are doing in crucible.
SR: Without extra HP SR85 is not fun, too many 100-0 concerns. Two 75 runs before, including the aforementioned Reaper ghost denial kill. Note, I do not run this if Afflicted rolls, 9k HP without stacking DR is just awful. Both runs still had nightstalker necklace on but it’s a very minor difference at best.
0 death
1 death from Shambler hilarity
