Part three of my controller friendly build series: Acid EoR Sentinel
1.2.0.1 grimtools link. The MIs are just the best I have, not necessarily what’s optimal
Update for 1.2.0.0: the changes to loot at SR80+ led me to push this build higher. SR85 is not easy, although with better MIs it could be. The build is hitting the limits of its healing, and I don’t think it will be reasonable for SR90 without perfect mutators.
Update for 1.1.9.7: They buffed it. 50% more damage to health on EoR. That set off a cascade of changes to the build, making it substantially stronger than when I cleared SR80 with it. Including a nice increase in DPS.
Playstyle: cast Curse of Frailty, cast Plague of Rot, cast Judgment, spin until everything is dead, refreshing CoF, PoR, and Judgment as necessary.
Stats:
Introduction
There are a lot of EoR builds in the compendium, but (in 1.1.7.1) not one acid EoR build, despite the obvious strengths of the Korvan Dunefiend set. All the other builds seemed to top out at around 300,000 DPS, while this one surpasses 420k with the defense for SR85; 15k HP and all resistances heftily overcapped. DPS can go a lot higher if you’re glass cannoning. This build is a beast, able to speedily clear SR80, and push through SR85 and higher. It also requires no effort at all to kill Morgoneth.
This build is also great for farming, especially if you use Vire’s Might, since it shreds bosses and trash alike, and you can just dash through anything that isn’t worth your time.
Builds don’t get much more controller friendly than this, since it’s primarily limited not by button-pressing skill, but by positioning. And while, with the limited number of buttons, I had to choose between pet attack and Vire’s Might, the Guardians of Empyrion actually do a good job without it.
You probably could try this as a dervish, but I don’t see how it could possibly be as strong.
Mogdrogen kill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZKbXmwBisImake sure your lightning overcap is over 80% and you’ll be fine.
Quick Mogdrogen modification/what I used
A better way
Fight tips
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General: the best way to apply Plauge of Rot and Curse of Frailty is to dash out (Vire’s Might), cast them from safety, and then charge back in and resume spinning. Judgment can be cast from afar, but it loses its vortexy nature against hordes if you do it that way.
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Offense: Plague of Rot is only for bosses. Other than that, keep your buffs and debuffs active, and keep spinning.
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Defense: Due to the overcapped resists, the debuff from soulfire, and the damage absorption on Possession, this build will facetank most enemies, until you’re getting to above SR80. Against really tough enemies, like you can sometimes see in SR85, keep moving back and forth or in circles while attacking them. This prevents you from standing on bad stuff (see clear for example.) Don’t be afraid to dash away for a few seconds, while waiting for something to come off of cooldown.
Gear
As usual, the resists are overcapped to deal with resist reduction on high SR.
Essential Gear:
- Dunefiend set: core
Stuff I’m pretty sure is best in slot:
- Meditation: this gives a ton of damage
- Pack of Deadly Means: has a great vitality to acid conversion, and insane offensive ability.
- Viperfang grips: Sure, they don’t give much attack speed, but the offensive ability (100 + 4% on a good one) is a huge deal, and it gives the 26th point to Blood of Dreeg.
- Greaves of Ill Omen: they may not have acid damage, but the +2 to soulfire gives more dps than any other boots, and it reduces enemy damage. Combine that with stun, bleed, and elemental resists, and these boots are great.
- Sigil of the Bear King: gives the last point to EoR, has attack speed, and some very useful resists.
- Pestilence of Dreeg (Plague of Corruption version): sure it’s a huge pain to craft, but it gives +1 to all skills, useful stats, and some important damage conversions. The plague itself is nice for taking down strong enemies, although it cost me the button I was using for Vire’s Might. There certainly could be a better necklace for this build, but Crate has yet to put it into the game.
Other stuff:
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Ring of Shuroth: my intial plan was to have two of these, but after like 50 clears I still have none (does anyone want to trade?) The vitality to acid is nice, plus it would add a couple of eyes spinning around you, for even more spinning!
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Seal of Shuroth: gives damage and attack speed with two important resists.
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Viloth’s Ring of Alacrity : as far as Monster Infrequents go, this one is pretty easy to farm, and I got by with just one rare affix. The OA is the main reason I haven’t found a better replacement for this.
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Zantarin’s Shoulderguard: if you don’t have a good one, Venomtongue Mantle is another good option.
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Nidalla’s Legwraps: a bunch of good stats, and the passive skill is probably useful, but it’s not a convincing argument.
Components
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Mark of the Traveler: I wanted the slow resist.
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Sacred Plating x2: I probably should have used one Living Armor and one Sacred Plating. Oh well.
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Molten skin: I wanted to overcap fire, and I forgot about Spellscorched plating until just now.
Augments
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Rune of Violent Delights: I wanted something that would be strong for disengaging while being usable for engaging, since I cut Vire’s Might. Leap and Teleport would work for engaging, however they would be weaker for disengaging since they don’t apply debuffs or damage (and therefore any lifesteal) until they reach their destination. Violent Delights has the strongest debuff of that class of runes, at least given the debuffs already applied by this build. If you’re using a mouse+keyboard, you have access to vire’s might, and can also use the jump/teleport abilities to hit a target destination, so there are probably better medal augments out there.
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Irrah’s Patience (necklace): I wanted more health and more armor.
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Irrah’s Blood (rings): this offers nice DA, and aether resist that is crucial for overcaps. The vitality damage isn’t ideal, but this build has enough damage.
Writing all this out, it seems like may be a more powerful version of this build a few item changes away.
Devotions
Core
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Murmur/Rumor: acid RR
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Manticore/Acid Spray: while it only provides around 6,000 DPS and a 8% RR beyond Scales of Ulcama, it applies it in an AOE. It may not be necessary, given how strong this build is at clearing trash.
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Scales of Ulcama: even with all the points I dumped into spirit, I still had some trouble with energy regen. Scales solves that, and also gives some pretty good healing You have high vit to acid conversion, so the skill’s damage isn’t wasted.
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Raven: for high SRs, this build is a little low on OA, so Raven makes a huge difference.
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Obelisk of Menhir: you don’t need the DA from this, but it’s absolutely worth it.
Not Core
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Jackal: this is pretty much just for maxing attack speed without dumping points into Solael’s Witchfire.
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Panther: OA and crit damage
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Everything Else: provides important defense. Sure, you could go for Abomination and Affliction, and maybe even Yugol, but you need the defense to do high SR. Or at least I do.
Skill choices
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Judgment: I don’t enjoy using this skill, because it wastes time that I could be spinning, but there isn’t anything controller friendly that has anywhere close to this DAR.
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Vire’s Might: I’m not very patient. You don’t need a lot of in fight mobility with this build, so you can get by in fights with just Violent Delights.
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Possession vs Path of the Three: PotT seems like a good choice at first, since it has 4 extra points compared to Possession, some nice physical to acid conversion, and it would free up 18 points from Occultist to use on stuff like Resilience and Ascension. However, since this build does not substantially benefit from CDR, and doesn’t have any high weapon damage multipliers to apply the poison damage, Possession still gives nearly as much DPS. And since this build requires points in cunning, physique, and spirit, the 18 points is Occultist are definitely not wasted. Possession also provides fantastic chaos resist, 16% damage absorption, and max skill disruption protection, and PotT can’t compete with that.
Leveling tips
I leveled this a while ago, so I don't remember too many details on how it went.For devotions, because this has no max tier devotions to level, you can take whatever path you like. Murmur and Manticore are going to be great at all levels, so get those quickly. You’ll need a good amount of lifesteal until you get the Dunefiend set, so ghoul might be a good intermediary.
For skills, you can choose between an unconverted Eye of Reckoning, or simply using Righteous Fervor w/ Dreeg’s Reproach. I did the latter, and it went pretty well. If you’re doing that, I’d probably prioritize points in the following way: Righteous Fervor, Consecration, Smite, Vulnerability, Blood of Dreeg, Solael’s Witchfire, and then just fill in your weaknesses.
For items, there aren’t any that stand out too much. If you’re doing EoR, you probably want a Riftclaw Slicer or Kymon’s Sanctified Blade, and then to build around that element.
If you’re doing Righteous Fervor, Korvan Gaze, [ Gannar’vakkar’s Sting, and Gulgazor’s Heart might be worth farming. Otherwise, just stack acid damage.
Final note: If you get a good crucible or SR clear, let me know and I can update the build. Suggestions are welcome.