What do you suggest to craft for?
Also, what would be BiS components and augments, assuming that my resistances are covered by affixes?
Craft for stun resistance if you aren’t capped yet. Otherwise, you can craft for Physique which will allow you to put more attribute points into Spirit or craft for armor for overall defense.
The best components/augments if you have overcapped resistances are mostly the same as before. The only changes that I would suggest are putting Seal of Annihilation on the amulet and Restless Remains on the gloves for the extra OA/DA, casting speed, and lifesteal. If your overcaps are really good, you could also use DA augments on your armor pieces and replace Ravager’s Eye with a more offensive augment like Solael’s Vision.
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What would be good rolls in these cases?
That depends a lot on what you have and what stats you’re lacking. Generally affixes with physical resistance and OA/DA are ideal, but if one of your resistance overcaps is low, boosting that resistance might be a better choice. Another example could be prioritizing stun resistance affixes if you are replacing M. Wyrmscale Footguards, as you would be losing 50% stun resistance by switching the boots out.
If you’re not sure, you can always try out different combinations on Grimtools to see what your options are and what fits best for your current setup.
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Maybe, if you have time, you could post a BiS setup with single rare greens and some affix alternatives, as a goal to work towards?
I finally got to 94 and equiped most of the recommended gear (don’t have the full Vanquisher set yet) with the Shard of the Eternal Flame and it’s a blast!!! I absolutely love it! It’s faster than I can handle!
(posting here since main post hit the 66k character limit)
Advanced Mechanics
Volcanic Stride is a secondary skill, which means that it is unaffected by modifiers to the main skill, Vire's Might. For example, Zarthuzellan's Archive has the modifier "500 Burn Damage over 2 seconds to Vire's Might". This effect only applies to enemies hit directly by Vire's Might, and will not work with Volcanic Stride. Similarly, conversion for secondary skills like Volcanic Stride cannot be achieved through local skill modifiers (e.g. "100% Physical damage converted to Fire damage to Vire's Might") and must be done through global modifiers instead.
Secondary skills can also trigger devotions attached to the main skill, but they do not inherit any increased proc chance that the main skill receives (if any). This means that Volcanic Stride can trigger Aetherfire, but only at a 15% chance each time it hits. Due to the unique behavior of Volcanic Stride however, the effective proc chance is significantly higher.
If you have points in Volcanic Stride, then for every meter traveled in Vire’s Might, a patch of fire is created at your current location. These patches have a radius of 2.2m and are similar to those created by Blackwater Cocktail, which tick once per second to inflict damage in an area. Like Blackwater Cocktail, the patches can also overlap to damage an enemy multiple times.
Consequently, the number of hits that a single tick of Volcanic Stride will deal depends on size of the target’s hitbox as well as the length of the fire trail. Assuming that the trail is long enough, a small target like the Training Dummy will usually be hit around 4-5 times, whereas larger enemies like Manifestation of Korvaak, the Eldritch Sun may be hit upwards of 6-7 times.
Since each hit has its own independent chance to trigger Aetherfire, we can calculate the effective proc chance as:
effective proc chance = 1 - (0.85 ^ N)
where N is the number of times Volcanic Stride hits an enemy. However, this is not accounting for the fact that Aetherfire also has no cooldown, and therefore can proc multiple times per Volcanic Stride tick. For that, we can calculate the proc frequency, which is the sum of the probability for each case multiplied by its value. Roughly speaking, this can be thought of as “Aetherfires per second”.
| Number of Hits | Proc Chance (x1) | Proc Chance (x2) | Proc Chance (x3) | Proc Chance (x4) | Proc Chance (x5) | Proc Chance (x6) | Effective Proc Chance | Proc Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 15% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 15% | 15% |
| 2 | 25.5% | 2.25% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 27.75% | 30% |
| 3 | 32.51% | 5.74% | 0.34% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 38.59% | 45% |
| 4 | 36.85% | 9.75% | 1.15% | 0.05% | 0% | 0% | 47.80% | 60% |
| 5 | 39.15% | 13.82% | 2.44% | 0.22% | 0.0076% | 0% | 55.63% | 75% |
| 6 | 39.93% | 17.62% | 4.15% | 0.55% | 0.039% | 0.0011% | 62.29% | 90% |
As ground effects, both Volcanic Stride and Aetherfire also share a quirk in that their first damage tick occurs not when they are created but one second later. Therefore, Volcanic Stride ticks three times in total despite having a 4s duration, and Aetherfire only ticks twice over a 3s duration.
If we assume that a single cast of Volcanic Stride hits a target 6 times per second, it will deal 4644 base Fire damage over its duration. We should also expect an average of 2.7 Aetherfire procs, which along with 55% Aether to Fire conversion, is another 1246 base Fire damage, or approximately 21% of the total damage (in theory). In practice, the damage is a bit lower since we are not including other sources of damage and Aetherfire is capped to 8 maximum instances at a time.
For a slightly more realistic approximation, let us assume that we can keep up 7 simultaneous instances of Volcanic Stride that hit 6 times per second while also maintaining the maximum 8 instances of Aetherfire. In that case, the combined Volcanic Stride trails will deal 10836 base Fire damage per second while Aetherfire will deal 1846 base Fire damage per second, or approximately 14.5% of the total damage. With only 2000% increased Fire damage, this translates to approximately 227.5k and 38.7k DPS, respectively.
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Glad you’re enjoying it. This is what my current setup looks like. You could use it as reference, although there’s definitely still room for improvement as well.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62aRPgOV
The only affixes that I would say are really important are the physical resistance affixes for the offhand. Sandstorm or Destroyer’s is ideal, but Thunderstruck and Glacial can also work.
Don’t you think that Grava’s Legguards would be better on this build? 3 points of tectonic shift nets us only 0.1 second of cooldown reduction for Vire’s Might, which seems to be excessive anyway.
At the same time, 3 more points to Celestial Presence would give us 3% of additional RR, which is always beneficial.
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That’s a matter of personal preference. Having played the build a lot, I feel that the -0.1 second cooldown from 22/12 Tectonic Shift is noticeable, but if you would rather have the RR you can feel free to use Grava’Thul’s Legguards instead. Kubacabra’s Chausses also provide more useful stats overall (OA and Pierce resistance vs. DA and Aether resistance), though with Grava’Thul’s Legguards you could invest a bit less into Physique due to the lower requirements.
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Hello.
Just want to admire your work on this build and mechanics behind it!
I’m deeply impressed.
I thought that volcanic stride just inherent the proc chance from VM. Again learnt something new.
Thank you !
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Thanks a LOT for this!
I started a thread not too long ago about this interaction between primary and secondary skills, as I was intrigued by your build and wondered if the same could be achieved with other skills.
We realised that secondary skills would not inherit the higher proc chance of the main skill, but I still couldn’t explain why your build did so well. Now it makes a lot more sense (and subsequently squashes my hopes to reproduce it with Heart of wrath)
As a side note, Do you know of any other skill in the game that works like this, besides BWC as you mentioned ?
Any skill that has flat damage and creates a ground effect should stack on top of itself, e.g. Sigil of Consumption, Grasping Vines, etc. There are also skills like Ravenous Earth which aren’t technically ground effects but still deal periodic damage in an area, and therefore stack in a similar manner.
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I meant that creates an effect that overlaps itself by default on a single casting.
I tested a few and even Thermite mines don’t do that (you could have 9 mines within range of a target, it would still take as much damage as if it was just one, and still only tick once per second)
I know the offhand/ medal is unrealistic, but I put this together in grimtools inspired by your volcanic stride builds. https://www.grimtools.com/calc/M2gPjkKV The acid dervish version.
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Ah, sorry I misunderstood what you meant. There are skills that can “shotgun” and hit an enemy multiple times per cast like Phantasmal Blades, but as far as I know there’s nothing quite like Volcanic Stride. Ravenous Earth is probably the closest effect that you will find, in the sense that it’s a ground effect skill that shotguns enemies standing on top of it for a duration.
Looks good, though I would put 1 point in Blade Spirit to proc Acid Spray since you probably won’t have a lot of time to cast Biting Blades in between Vire’s Might. If you do decide to take the build for a spin, feel free to share your results here. I know @Silent_N made a similar build a while back, and he was able to kill Ravager with his version so the concept is definitely solid. I’ve also done a bit of theorycrafting with a Sentinel variant myself (https://www.grimtools.com/calc/xZyG8mn2), though I haven’t actually gotten around to making it in game yet.
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I’ve been trying to make a Paladin version of this. I figured having AoC would help with RR, and placing Dryad on WoP would basically proc it every 3 seconds for a nice passive healing while you’re zipping around. OA and DA are lower, but Deadly aim should fix part of that and add more damage on top. I also had more points left so I capped a few more skills like crushing verdict and presence of virtue.
I’m not as experienced as you two, so it might be really lacking, but for what it’s worth:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/eVLjaxLN
If you’re going Paladin, you don’t need the damage reduction from Light of Empyrion since you get it from Aura of Censure already. Instead, you should take those 7 points and pick up Elemental Storm to make up for not having flat RR from Inquisitor. I would also try to get a weapon that focuses more on Aura of Censure, e.g. Bloodlord’s Vengeance, as it is both a source of damage reduction and RR.
Something like this, for example:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/d2jnypj2
Bloodlord’s Vengeance also adds extra uptime on Ascension, so you could consider moving points from Vire’s Might as you lose 1/3 of the damage due to the Lightning conversion anyways. You can also try using Inquisitor Seal and dashing back and forth between two of them to keep up the damage absorb buff, though I’m not sure how good that would feel to play in game.
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Will definitely try all this
I tried to stick really closely to your build at first, and change things as I went along, but this speeds things up a lot, thanks!
I did try it… and it’s … let’s just say it’s not for me 
It’s REALLY awkward
Hi !
First post here and new to the game.
Thank you for your build !
1 question tho : what order/ratio should i invest my attributes points to ? I tend to be split it equally.
Welcome to the forums and the game! As for your question:
At least to around level 70 or so when the build begins to put more levels into Inner Focus. Then you can put all of your remaining points into Physique.
The endgame setup can also respec primarily into Spirit (a.k.a. “spirit dumping”) for more damage, though you would need good gear to cover the DA loss from not putting points into Physique.
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