Similar to the Vitality Ring of Steel Reaper build I posted recently, I wanted to see how much I can push Ring of Steel with the new buffs in 1.1.9.8. This time, it’s fully converted to Acid damage, with just enough points to be able to 26/22 the skill.
Tooltip damage is with permanent buffs and Lethal Assault
Gameplay is simple enough - use ABB to turbocharge your Ring of Steel, and then let it rip. Acid Ring of Steel doesn’t have any cooldown reduction, so it’s a bit awkward playing the waiting game for RoS to get off cooldown, but I’ve seen RoS crit for over 500K in Crucible, so the damage is clearly there. A significant issue with the build is that energy regeneration is terrible, so you don’t have the resources to be able to spam Biting Blades as filler without having to drink Energy potions.
Gearing: There are 5 MI’s in this build - all of them BiS because of their skill bonuses, which is either a blessing or a curse depending on how you want to approach it. I selected the affixes which I thought best balanced my stats, so here are the big things to focus on:
Jewelry: Focus on getting OA, OA, OA, regardless of whether the damage type matches the Acid theme or not.
Equipment: Chaos resistance is the biggest issue with this build. “Amarasta’s Flurry” just happens to give Chaos resistance as well as points to Lethal Assault, so that will obviously be BiS. Other than that, something as simple as “ordered” will provide the Chaos resistance you need so you can focus on other resistances in your augments.
Weapon: “Venomclaw” is clearly BiS, again because of points to Lethal Assault. The prefix “Venomfang” also gives points to LA, so it’s a matter of finding the mace that has either of those affixes. Otherwise, getting something with OA or Cast speed (to help with your CoF / Bloody Pox rotation) is the way to go.
Performance
Crucible - I nearly die multiple times in this run, but the overall time isn’t too bad considering the cooldown-based nature of the build.
SR 75-76 with Poisonous mutator
Overall, the Ring of Steel buffs are a nice touch and it’s good to actually be able to use it as a main skill, but for Witch Hunter specifically, there’s no reason to take this over something like full Venomblade set and going ham with the autoattacks.