[1.1.9.8 - 1.2.0.3] Darkness Palpable - S&B Chaos RF Sentinel [sr+][vid]

Greetings! :slightly_smiling_face:

Soon 1.2 patch will come out and ruin many builds, rise new builders, change GD life in a lot of ways. Bring it on, I say! :grin: And while waiting, let me introduce a new build, Chaos S&B one.

I always wanted to make exactly shield-based melee Chaos build (not Voidsoul Sentinel, it is a Caster). Something dark and powerful. Like this.


And GD has an interesting shield for Chaos - Obsidian Defender. It says - make Sentinel, crush your enemies with the power of Void, make them suffer. @fordprefect’s one and @XandeRoot’s demolisher have already proven the viability of such task. So I tried it myself.

First variant did not even use RF, it was full Rah’Zin + Obsidian Defender. Understated, squishy and unworthy to be called tanky Chaos Lord. Against Chthonians it was deadly, but too fragile otherwise. So I forced myself to drop Rah’Zin and use Chaos RF too accompanied by… SR set. The one and only, despised by all top players here, a lazy solution with easy CC stats and no damage. At least, it looked like a S&B tank, clad in heavy armor, with acceptable amount of HP. Its damage… Well, it was less than before, but still appeared nice. Construction is complete, time for testing.

And here are the results!

1. Grimtools link.

Abomination + Dying God Chaos setup for melee, but without Ghoul because I wanted solid numbers of stats (DA, armor etc) provided by Solemn Watcher and could not fit them together. 18/12 Resilience is almost as good as Ghoul, so no worries. Oh, and Turtle instead of Watcher would also be nice but I am 3.000 DA casual :grin: that does not like Turtle.

2. In-game character stats.
1.2.0.3_SBCRFS_general_stats
general stats, only passive buffs are active. Damage Per Second is for RF.

1.2.0.3_SBCRFS_RF_breakdown
RF breakdown

1.2.0.3_SBCRFS_magic_stats
magic stats

1.2.0.3_SBCRFS_defense_stats
defense stats

3. Gear/Build explanation.
Tankiness, 24/16 RF for maximum charge effectiveness, QoL without much struggle - these are criterias for gear I chose. It is strange that items with Chaos RF support do not provide points to the skill. Weird design choices :thinking:.

  1. Core items.
    Gloves. Voidsteel Gauntlets. Chaos conversion for RF and Smite, +3 to Solael’s Witchfire, %AS/%CS, overall good slot. Resistances are redundant.
    Shield. Obsidian Defender. Chaos conversion for Shattering Smash, nice bonuses to Solael’s Witchfire. Look for %Phys res prefix and Chaos suffix. Easily farmable at vendor in Bastion of Chaos.
  2. Mandatory items.
    Set. Shattered Guardian. Pretty defensive set with +2 to All Skills, great CC resistances, good %Phys res and proc, sort of easy to get at SR vendor. Solves many of our problems except for damage :slightly_smiling_face:.
    Weapon. Fang of Ch’thon. Wonderful Chaos slot with life leech, +2 to Consecration, +1 to Occultist and mighty RR proc. Doom Bolt modifiers are not used here. Craftable.
    Ring 1. Voidheart. One of standard Chaos RR rings with Fire-to-Chaos conversion for some of our skills and devotion procs (Blazing Charge, Vire’s Cascade, Eldritch Fire).
    Ring 2. Gargabol’s Ring. +3 to RF (important, chaos RF ring has only +2). Look for OA/DA/Aether res/Health/Chaos Damage (in this order).
    Pants. Demonbone Legplates. Chaos slot with huge %Armor, DA, +2 to Solael’s Witchfire and +3 to Resilience. Proc is another source of damage, does not hurt to have.
    Relic. Honor. +1 to Oathkeeper, %All Damage, racial to Humans, good offensive proc that is mostly converted to Chaos when Abomination is up. Smite/Shattering Smash relic bonus is BiS, so prepare materials :laughing:.
    Belt. Lacerator Girdle. Stat-wise it may seem trash, but the item has +2 to RF (important) and reliable AoE DR proc, even converted to Chaos. Not to mention huge %Health. So definitely needed.
    Medal. Mark of the Voracious One. Nice bonuses to Shattering Smash, damage-wise and ADCtH, %Armor. Craftable.
  3. Can be changed.
    Boots. Stoneplate Greaves. An okay slot with %Pierce and %Phys res. Craftable. Same affixes as Gargabol Ring. I used Voidwalker Footpads, also good. Or Timewarped Walkers.

Craft items with whatever you want. I would use Angrim %Armor crafting bonuses, but too lazy to farm materials again, so I have something like %Stun res and DA :sweat_smile:.

About Resistance Reduction. Total amount is ~84% (-15% from Fang of Ch’Thon proc, -10% from Voidheart proc, -35% from Solael’s Witchblade constellation and flat 24 from Revenant constellation). Not much, but okay for Chaos. Benn and Reaper are sturdy but not dangerous, no problems with other Nemeses.

4. Gameplay.
Charge into crowds through Blazing Charge, shatter enemies’ lines with Vire’s Cascade, spam RF in-between to proc augmented Smite, Shattering Smash and Burning Voids. Simple enough :slightly_smiling_face:. Uptime BoD, Ascension for damage/defense, Vire’s Might for move out and into danger.

5. Videos.
Mad Queen.

Kra’Vall.

Lokarr.

Morgoneth.

SR 75 full.

Avatar of Mogdrogen (old video) (potions are in the video, occasional healpots on phase 2, no Aether Clusters, facetank).

Ravager of Flesh (potions are in the video, no Aether Clusters, occasional healpots, facetank with evading on sunder. Pretty tough fight).

Callagadra (potions are in the video, no Aether Clusters, occasional healpots, kiting).

Crate boss (potions are in the video, occasional healpots, one Aether Cluster, kiting. Very hard, especially with sunder :neutral_face:).

Clones of Bourbon (potions are in the video, no healpots/Aether Clusters, facetank).

Decent Chaos build, had a lot of fun playing it :slightly_smiling_face:. Looking for future changes and patches/expansions.

Feel free to leave your comments and feedback. Until next time!

6 Likes

I want more cool-looking Chaos gear! :angry:

2 Likes

Grimtools Link is broken?

No, works fine.

Yes now it suddenly works lol

1 Like

Hi! :slightly_smiling_face:

This build also needs attention in 1.2.0.3 patch. Here are some changes:

  • Abomination: increased Health to 800 and Offensive Ability to 120
  • Dying God: added 8-20 Chaos damage for pets and increased Defensive Ability to 55
  • Fox: added 10 Health Regeneration
  • Raven: reduced Energy Regeneration to 1.0 and increased Lightning damage for pets to 9
  • Blood of Dreeg: reduced Cooldown to 12s and increased Duration to 60s. Increased Energy Cost and Health Regeneration scaling with rank. Increased % Heal at scaling at ultimate ranks.
  • Possession: increased % Absorption scaling with rank to 18% by rank 12, 25% by max ultimate rank
  • Ascension: increased Energy Cost scaling with rank
  • Smite: increased base % Weapon damage by 15%
  • Shattering Smash: increased base % Weapon damage by 15%
  • Vire’s Might: increased Travel Distance

As you can see, nothing game-breaking. The build is same, just relocated some Physique points into Spirit. And, of course, updated all videos except for Mogdrogen. For now it holds, but game became much harder now, especially Celestial bosses. Additional challenges for a casual like me on the way to FoA :slightly_smiling_face:.

Stay safe!

1 Like