Tired of dual-wield and two-handed melee combat? Want something durable but retaliation feels like a snail ride? Boy, have I got just a remedy for you, then.
At first I considered such a build a meme material, but it turned out really good. It was pure delight for me to play with this character.
Be warned, though, as this build requires one/two green MI items and one Legendary MI, and a lot of other items are pretty much set in stone.
Now to the build itself.
Stats with all perma buffs, Ascension, Hungering Void, Abominable Might and Righteous Fervor stacks. DPS is for RF.
GrimTools (my setup): https://www.grimtools.com/calc/a2EEjRv2
This is your typical “mace to the face” build with decent damage and survivability without resorting to widely abused defensive mechanics such as Ghoul, Bat and Prismatic Diamond.
Mostly thanks to gear, it can achieve 100 chaos RR. WPS chance totals at 70%, but all three WPS skills (Smite, Shattering Smash, Burning Void) are multi-target, so it’s pretty good regardless. Attack speed is capped or close to cap (depending on rolls).
CC resists are a quite a problem here, though. We get a little bit of them from gear and constellations, but everything else should be found on affixes/crafting bonuses.
Gear
- Weapon - Mythical Fang of Ch’thon - best in slot item here as well as in most chaos builds. Craftable.
- Chest - Mythical Vestments of Severed Faith - every stat is useful to us, conversion, OA and phys res especially; has rare trap res on it too. The only drawback of this item is that it’s caster armor (yikes).
- Pants - Mythical Demonbone Legplates - an item that is (ab)used in almost every chaos build since those are the only pants that have % chaos damage on them. In this build they’re perfect fit not only because of that, but also because every bonus on it is helpful. +2 to Solael’s Witchfire allows us to hardcap the skill.
- Belt - Mythical Sash of the Bloodlord - now, this belt is taken mostly for conversions, but other stats are not too shabby as well: crit damage, OA, spirit are nice to have.
Alternatives: Rah’Zin’s Waistguard, Darkblaze Ammo Belt, Mythical Infernal Knight’s Girdle - Medal - Mythical Black Star of Deceit - I don’t know about you guys, but that’s BiS item if ever saw one: attack speed, life leech, skill bonuses AND flat RR proc. Nuff said.
- Boots - yes, those are double rare Stoneplates, I used them because I had them. As for every green item, main idea is to cover any holes build may have. In this case, it’s CC resists of all kinds: Slow, Stun, Freeze.
Alternatives: Mythical Timewarped Walkers, Mythical Voidwalker Footpads - Gloves - Mythical Voidsteel Gauntlets - pretty much build enabling item. Used to be Voidrend talons which have overall better bonuses, but whatcha gonna do.
- Shoulders - Zantarin’s Shoulderguard - it has everything we want: attack speed, phys res, skill bonuses.
Alternative: Rah’Zin’s Shoulderguards - Shield - Obsidian Defender - basically the only shield that makes sense in this build, but that’s probably because it was tailor made for it. We have Sentinel of the Three and Voidsoul shields, but they should be left to their respective builds. Yes, the one I’m using is also a double rare, but ironically enough, I got it while I was already playing this build through Ultimate. There’re quite a few good shield affixes that provide phys res, attack speed, armor and resists. Use any of them.
- Helmet - Eldritch Gaze - again, BiS item right here. Although Oathkeeper support ends on +3 to Clarity of Purpose. +1 to Oathkeeper would be dope to have, but oh well. Still a good item. Blueprint must be farmed from The Sentinel.
- Amulet - Conduit of Divine Whispers with chaos RR to Guardians - no alternatives whatsoever. We want to maximize our damage, not reduce it. In 1.1.9.0 it got +2 m area, so that was a great QoL change. Also comes with great resists and +3 to max all res.
- Ring 1 - Voidheart - a mandatory item for any chaos build: chaos RR, +2 to Possession, etc.
- Ring 2 - Hysteria - good chaos ring that helps to achieve 100% fire to chaos conversion with lucky rolls.
Alternative: Mythical Combustion Band - Relic - Eldritch Pact - flat and % chaos damage, health, a bit of extra health regen to mitigate life drain from Hungering Void, pretty cool proc.
Alternative: Honor
Weapon was crafted for % armor bonus, helmet got 6% slow res, conduit and boots gave me 19% stun res.
Devotions
Rather typical devotion map for chaos builds with weapon damage. Although at first I was using Viper (mostly for affinity bonus and 3% OA), but then I remembered that Wretch provides same affinity and overall better bonuses (can’t complain about 6% damage to Undead, can I).
Panther can be swapped with Scarab for more defensive setup.
Fiend is a rather lacking constellation bonuses-wise, but I kinda like the proc. I bound it to Guardians so that I get a bit of heal passively if I’m frozen or petrified; also helps AoE somewhat. You can use Eye of the Guardian instead, if you find a way how to fit it.
Skills
Some explanations regarding skills.
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Righteous Fervor - our bread and butter. Unfortunatelly, there’s no sensible way to raise it to rank 24, so leave it at 16 I guess. Max Consecration for all those juicy bonuses. Retribution is useless for non retal or DoT builds.
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Vire’s Might and Tectonic Shift - one-pointers just for more mobility. Feel free to skip this.
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Presence of Virtue - the only useful stat for us here is OA, but it’s needed, so softcap it. Haven is a must have at softcap since we are able to utilize shield stats. Rebuke I wanted to softcap as well, but we are pretty short on skill points and damage scaling on it is pretty bad.
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Resilience - one point gives us rank 5 already, which is perfect for most builds IMO.
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Ascension - max this out. Rank 20 is no joke. Clarity of Purpose is a one-pointer like on most of OK builds.
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Smite and Shattering Smash - rank 11 for 27% activation chance.
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Guardians of Empyrion and Celestial Presence - needed for chaos RR; and to apply this kind of RR, skill needs to be “pulsing”, so Celestial Presence is needed at one point as well.
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Safeguard - a skill that I wanted to max, but didn’t because returns are not that impressive on any build that is not physical or fire damage based.
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Solael’s Witchfire - hardcap this at all costs. Huge DPS increase. Second Rite also provides quite a bit of damage, so softcap it too.
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Blood of Dreeg - flat acid damage that we convert 50-60% of, OA, heal. Put as much points as possible. Aspect of the Guardian at softcap is classic for any Occultist for huge phys and acid res.
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Doom Bolt - I like this skill, so I maxed it. If you don’t, by all means, leave it at one point just for Hungering Void proccing.
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Possession - no comments here.
For second movement skill I chose Rune of Blazing Ends. With shield’s damage added to it, it hits like a battering ram.
Performance
This build can clear:
- all Main Campaing content;
- all Roguelike dungeons;
- all Nemesis bosses;
- Mad Queen, Bourbon Clones, Lokarr;
- SR 75+
Can’t clear or didn’t attempt to:
- Mogdrogen - shockingly (pun intended) enough, he proved to be a force to be reckoned with. I tired him two times (second time was with pharma overdose), and died to his second phase. It’s probably OA problem mostly, so you’d want to take Viper instead of Wretch for this one;
- Ravager - unable to test that since I went hostile with Barrowholm (mainly for thematic reasons). Anyone is welcome to try;
- Callagadra - 99% fail imminent, so I didn’t even bother;
- Crate - see above, but add 1%;
- Crucible - didn’t test it yet, maybe later. If someone is interested, be my guest.
I did one SR 80 run because I felt lazy making my way from 65 to 75. I died once to… drum-roll… Aetherial Terraformer, or two of them rather, stacked on top of eachother. It seems that trash mobs summoned by those lobbed their fiery feces at me all at once. Feels bad man.
Anyhoo, I did 10 SR 75-76 runs and… it was really consistent. It’s not the fastest build in the world, but for me the flow felt very smooth. That said, don’t try to facetank ten millions of mobs debuffing your stuff into oblivion. Same deal with Gargabol’s volcanos. I mean, you can, but only under Ascension. Against Mossie keep an Hoarfrost Ointment handy or, again, engage him with Ascension up.
Here’s a short video-demonstration of one of the SR runs:
I actually have that shield legit, now I got an idea what do with it!
