Hello people! This is what I have been playing recently. I decided to go after my Hardcore achievements before the 1.2 Update dropped. It is an Acid/Poison DoT Dreeg’s Evil Eye build using the Daega’s Oath set and the Dreeg’s Affliction relic. I was able to get all the hardcore achievements with it. However, while grinding for the Haunted Waystone on the Boss Room in SR 80 (Normal Difficulty), I got way too careless and underestimated the damage of the enemies at such a high shard. Even on Normal difficulty, the enemies (nemesis, mainly) can still hit quite hard. Instead of fighting enemies one on one, I went for the fast approuch and tried to drag all of them into my AoE DoTs. But I got stuck because of the ghosts that Illgor spawns when entering his second stage. I’m still not sure what killed me exactly, but I think it was Grava. I wasn’t really paying enough attention and probably was caught by the balls. Oh well… Life goes on.
This is how he looked while he was still alive. The build wasn’t completely finished yet as I wasn’t able to find the Mythical Pack of Deadly Means which was required for the complete global conversion of vitality to acid damage. Unfortunately, I ended up skipping the Key Dungeons and both the Lokarr and Bourbon Clones quest to focus on finishing the campaign for the achievements. Below is how the character should have been if I was able to find the belt.
It was pretty fun landing those big DEE hits and watching the enemies dying from the immense poison DoT. And I recorded two videos with the character and took one screenshot from the character sheet but this one was to record the biggest crit and not the stats. The videos were the Korvaak kill and the SR 35 Boss Room (both in Ultimate difficulty).
What kind of DEE Sentinel do you want to play? The acid version is the easiest to work with, but you can also go for the vitality or fire versions.
In my case, I fully intended to maintain the Daega Set for this build, but I also considered using the Rotgheist set because it increases AoE on the skill and adds vitality damage to it without fully converting it to vitality damage. Thus the Leafmane Horn and Mythical Wretched Tome of Nar’Adin can be used to convert the vitality damage to acid.
As a level 82 caster set, Daega has very low armor value, but it also has physical resistance on all three pieces. It can’t be crafted, but sets like this aren’t all that rare. This also works for the retaliation version and you can use the Sentinel of the Three set as well. Check out this build by @lMarcusl if you are interested.
When it comes to just leveling, DEE is easy to work with (if you are using nuke version) and there are quite a lot of options to work with. You can obtain a Groble Toxic Effigy early on and work with that. I suggest going immediately into Act 7 after beating Act 1 and making your way toward the Infernal Wastes. There’s a crypt there with Sister Crimson as a guaranteed spawn. Then you farm her until she drops her Vile Scepter which provides a big offensive boost to DEE while leveling. And before Old Arkovia there’s a hive with another boss you can farm for the Ronaprax’s Sting. All of these can be obtained pretty early on and this gives DEE some serious power. Just remember to periodically farm the MIs again after certain level thresholds (30, 40, 50 and so on). I hope this helps! And feel free to ask if you still have questions.
Thanks for your very informative reply! I’ve seen Marcus’ build, but I prefer something that focuses on Acid DEE like your build. I think I’ll follow your tips then decide between Daega and Deception depending on how my character plays out.
Would you say Sentinel is the best class for a DEE focused build? I just thought it’s good because of the support skills from Oathkeeper that helps with the Acid Damage.
Sentinel is tankier because of shield bonuses (if you are using a shield) and more hp through Presence of Virtue. It also has Resilience which provides more defensive ability and physical resistance after falling below a certain hp threshold. Oathkeeper also gets flat damage absorption and CC resists through Ascension. I went for it particularly because of Path of the Three which has cooldown reduction and poison duration. CDR is very important for the nuke version of DEE. And poison duration just makes damage over time more efficient. And Guardians are simply busted.
Nightblade is more mobile because of extra speed from Pneumatic Burst and Shadow Strike which helps cover large distances. And the extra healing is nice as well. Blade Barrier is also useful as a panic button and Lethal Assault can add more damage to DEE if you use items that give DEE weapon damage (like Ronaprax’s Sting and Toxic Effigy). And Merciless Repertoire provides %damage. The RR from Nightblade requires enemies to stay relatively close to you though. This makes it less safe for a caster with low armor (which would be the case for my build).
Overall, I’d say that both Sentinel and Witch Hunter are fine and it mostly depends on your playstyle.
Thanks a lot for the explanation. I’ll definitely stay with Sentinel for tankiness and the cooldown reduction. I never used casters so I think that would help me a lot.
