But I do love MI legendaries! I think it’s a cool gameplay concept. So I wanted to see how far I could take the Anasteria cosplay - a pure Aether (or as close as I could get with that pesky fire damage) Devastation Spellbinder, with not one but TWO storms of arcane energy battering my foes at once due to the helmet’s proc. It did pretty good. Very good, actually.
The basic concept of this build is to make use of cooldown reduction to keep as high of an uptime as possible on Mark of Torment and Mirror of Ereoctes to be able to facetank enemies and keep them inside our Devastation(s).
Siphon Souls can also be transmuted to deal pure Aether damage, making it a valuable tool for healing in a tough spot and being an easy proc for Time Dilation (and, thanks to the conduit, it provides a hard-to-come-by source of Aether RR as well!!) The weapon, off-hand, and helmet all provide flat Aether, flat CDR, and skill points to Devastation, making it quite easy to max and leaving lots of points to invest in the Arcanist tree.
4 pieces of Krieg’s set helps max MoT and Mirror to increase uptime, as well as providing lots of Aether %, +1 to all skills, and a decent amount of armor for what would traditionally be a more frail caster.
There’s an argument to be made for Flames of Wrath in the amulet slot for full Fire → Aether conversion on Devastation, but I think that RR, +1 to my second mastery, and tons of health and energy outweighed it for me. I was able to clear SR80 with Flames of Wrath as well, though, so it’s really up to personal preference.
Very good damage. Not speedrun-levels or anything, but if you can set it up right and get enemies inside of both of your Devastations, they’ll melt pretty fast. Bonus points for damage consistency against large groups and single targets.
Nearly unkillable when you play your cards right; Time Dilation combined with decent awareness of when to pop your defensive abilities makes for quite the tank under the right circumstances
Very high % damage against Aetherial enemies, from the medal, one of the rings, and Fabric of Reality; good against foes like Aleksander who are usually pesky for Aether builds
Relatively high armor for a caster thanks to Krieg’s set
Only about 0.6 seconds of downtime on Devastation casts due to Eternity procs means that repositioning your damage source isn’t a hassle, and you can afford a decent amount of mobility
WEAKNESSES:
Low lifesteal without Siphon Souls
Highly Aether-resistant targets, especially Reaper, are still a bit of a slog on the DPS front
Accessibility; Conduit crafting requires a lot of resources, and don’t even get me started on the fucking helmet (MIs aren’t that bad to get though, I got these legit in just a few hours for each)
Not the highest HP
NOTES/THINGS TO IMPROVE:
As usual, here’s your disclaimer that I might have gotten some devotions and skill point allocations wrong. I think I did okay this time. Constructive feedback is still welcome, though.
This is pretty subjective, which is why it’s buried all the way down here, but I think this build is really fun to play. It’s satisfying to make an Aether build that’s so thematic to the gear it’s using work, and Devastation is quite the spectacle to watch.
Never saw someone actually maxing mirror xD.
You can put 2 more points in maiven though.
There’s an argument to be made for Flames of Wrath in the amulet slot for full Fire → Aether conversion on Devastation, but I think that RR, +1 to my second mastery, and tons of health and energy outweighed it for me
Maybe magelord instead of screams would be an idea for a better conversion?
For devotion, I dont think Hour glass helps too much, as you can spam Devastation enlessly. You already have -20 RR from Decree of Aldritch, so Revenant gives you a very little.
Better bind Giant blood with Arcane will, so it will proc everytime your hp drop below 70%, rather than sometimes full → full, it’s a waste.
i played a very similar aether Devas Spellbinder when the test patch 1.2 came out (i want to try all the buffs to Outcast helm and Terrnox MI turn out), here is the build i played:
Here are some thought:
Its very easy to get 100% elemental to aether conversion, and i think its the way to play aether Devas, since every proc we use are part elemental damage (Devastation itself/ Chain lightning/ Aether bomb proc/ Spear heaven proc/ Outcast helm proc/ Decree aldricht proc/ some MI procs…), so there is no benefit at all of using 4 Krieg pieces or Scream aether ring, when you can use MI shoulder and 1 Magelord ring to get 100% conversion. Every damage skills you had got much better with 100% conversion. Using full magelord set is not good either (i tried it, due to Eternal Haunt 10% RR is way to good to ignore)
Full aether Devas is good- at least with the “damage spec”. But the “tanky spec” is bad. I dont try health regen spec (behemoth +/- Tree of Life +/- Dryad) yet, but sustain from Siphon souls + Chain Lightning + Phoenix devo is only nearly good enough with some 1 vs 1 boss fight or small pack bosses. SR 80 is very dangerous with low physical res caster (28% in my game) even with Turtle. I dont know how to fix this, but adding small ADCTH mod for Devastation somewhere (like Spellscrouge set) is very helpful IMO.
You need a lot of OA (since a lot of proc base on crit), but no where to be found. Even with hardcap inner Focus/ spectral binding)- and A LOT OF OA suffix (tempest, agressive, double-rare MI…), build set on merely 3k OA. Thats not good at all. More OA to Aldricht/ Outcast helm/ Terrnox MI- are very welcome
If going for full Magelord, then you could also go for two-piece Agrivix (chest and shoulders), ditch Chain Lightning and go for Callidor’s Tempest as your spam skill. Such a setup will have 100% elemental AND vitality to aether conversion. Then you could also get Soul Harvest to get a big chunk of flat damage to feed into CT.
the problem with spam CT AND soul harvest buff is you dont have enough skill points. You need 40 skill points JUST for a filler. Maybe you sacrifice huge points from Overload/ MoE + MoT/ skill bar from Necro- then you lack a lot of useful stats / OA/ DA/ RR to make the build work. Trust me i tried it, doesnt work well. Full focus on CT and Devastation as filler is much better than focus on Devas and CT as filler
I think it can still work. If he has Time Dilation, then he doesn’t need that many points in MoE, because over a long period of time, TD essentially makes MoE have a 16 second base cooldown. So only 11/12 is really needed for MoE. By the same reasoning, Nullification only needs 7/10. Then the following skills have poor or mediocre returns for an aether build:
Overload: OA and aether resist are common stats that can be obtained elsewhere; in 1.2 aether resist only needs to be at 28% overcapped or so
Elemental Balance: weak crit damage returns, especially after 8/12
Blood Boil: IMHO Spellbinders should just forget about DA and enemy OA reduction and expect to be crit often. Maiven’s and extra damage from Spirit dump is there to compensate. Also, by dropping Blood Boil, only 32/50 is needed for Necro mastery.
Arcane Will: Again, DA not needed and damage bonus is not that strong
Then some other skills can be trimmed to breakpoints, such as 11/12 for Inner Focus and 6/10 or 9/10 for Conversion.
With all these changes, there should be enough points to max CT, Inferno, Soul Harvest, and Siphon Souls. But just barely.
Now admittedly this setup is somewhat glass cannonish so if you don’t like it, don’t use it. To each their own.
Wow, even if I’m not going for CT, I definitely didn’t have this amount of knowledge of optimal skill breakpoints. I appreciated the detailed explanation
Its doesnt work with this kind of build that simple. Build required A LOT on crit - not crit dam, but crit proc: Aldricht staff, Outcast helm, Eternity, and Phoenix Fire devo if you used it like me. Even with my build you can see i use double rare MI (with both + OA affix), 1 “agressive”, 1 “tempest”, hardcap Inner Focus and Overload, and maximum skill bar Necro, and even use Chain of Oleron component for chest gear → build barely sit at 3k2 OA. Putting away everything, lower Inner Focus/ Overload/ stats from skill bar, even with less MI gear by using Agrivix set… then you can’t even reach 3k. You can show me an actual GT how to fix all that problem, i’ll gladly to try it again for myself
In game i might have more physique, not like in GT (only need 825 to wear that shoulder). Maybe because i craft everything for physique and got lucky with roll. But this is my old build, right now my Spellbinder is Screaming Veil full aether Callidor Tempest, and as i said, full focus on aether CT is much better than aether Devas with CT as filler
EDIT: @Dioarchet i just check in-game, my shoulder only required 820 physique to equip, and with Eternity -10% requirement my set up in GT link is more than enough to use it. Dont know why , maybe because my own shoulder is level 84 shoulder (but in game they said lv 94 item) as you can see in the picture
@gutten_morgen would also be interested in how yout CT version would differ from mine.
I find Devastation cool and with the Outcast helm it’s nice it can proc often, but i think it’s hard to sustain/survive with only Devas procs and some cheap filler like ChainLightning …
The DPS of CT is around 230k with Soul Harvest uptime. 100% elemental and vitality converted to aether, and everything (even the proc from items/ devos)- will be aether. I have to spirit dump for not only damage, but also mana regen, so my DA is a bit bad. But build has very good OA for crit and leech, and the tanky part is fixed really well with good-old- combo MOE + MoT + Time Dilation (even with 0 CDR), and the new combo Turtle + Wendigo devo. And yes, the sustain with life leech from CT is much better than filler like Chain Lightning, but outside of Spellscrouge we can’t leech with Devastation.
Thanks!
Oh so you completely ditched Devastation, i see …
Also, i have to say it looks a bit disjointed kinda? Random boots/gloves/legs and you basically switched to a single spell build in Callidor’s buffed by Soul Harvest?
Also, why do you take Harbinger of Souls instead of Rekless Power? It only gives 31 Vita damage, while Rekless gives ~80. I take it it’s only because of a little bit more leech?
I think you could also make more efficient use of skill points, as you now probably don’t need Arcanist mastery at lvl50 and can go for efficient breakpoints on things like Overload and Conversion.
I also think some components are kinda useless, like the ones on chest, helm and gloves. Instead you could use more stun reduction, and rings are kinda wasted potential as well
You cant use Devastation without an off hand. And CT is re-designed with huge buffed Weapon damage, so basically CT is much better with a 2h weapon (due to much higher WD). So if i want to focus on CT, i always start with 2H amd completely ignore Devastation. You can use 1H CT with Devas as filler (Agrivix set is an example), but then both skills are mediocre
I take HoS due to high life leech only. With patch 1.2, you need as high as possible LL due to bosses got much higher LL resistance. A small flat damage buff from Reckless cant compare with leech from HoS.
As i said before in another section, i want to get high OA for any builds, not just this build. And you can see that even with full both skill bars, hard cap Inner Focus/overload, and even a few MI affix with a lot of OA- i barely sit at 3k2 OA. Conversion is for CC res at high SR. You can try another set up/different skill points/attributes- just suit it for your style. Rings is for 100% elemental conversion and i dont like Eternal Haunt with this build (tbh i did try that ring in the 1st place for every aether builds). Component on chest/helm/glove are BIS due to racial damage/resis/LL/cast speed- the weapon is supported CT but got 0% CS (why???) I did try a lot of similar set up before leave it like this one and i prefer it the most- thats my playstyle
I mean … you can, it just depends on the items and rest of the build you choose. A 2h weapon has more base weapon damage, but with a 1h + off hand you have much higher Aether% damage. For example your 2h has 518% aether dmg at most, the 1h+offhand has 715%. And also up to 25%critdmg. Flat damage from 2h is good, but you also need enough %-dmg to support that. Agrivix buffs CT well, but you don’t need to use it to make both skills hit hard.
You don’t need as high lifeleech as possible and if you’re doing not as high damage, it doesn’t really also help that much. The “small” flat damage will be buffed by the ~2800% Aether-dmg multiplier though (2400% in your case).
I mean, 3.2k OA is actually high. Common recommendations are 2.8k - 3k even. Yeah i see that you try to get all the OA possible, but even with that, your OA is actually slightly lower than in my 1h+offhand build, and DA is much lower. So if i also were to hard-cap those OA boosters i would get even higher OA. I also think you use your skillups inefficiently, like boosting the inefficient Conversion, while keeping Blood Boil low (it helps your DA by lowering monster OA by ~200+!)
The rings are actually trash except for the elemental conversion, which is easy to max anyway. Without Eternal Haunt you lose out on -10% RR, Aether%, Vita+Chaos res, Skillups, etc. The components in Chest for racial damage don’t help you in anyway, neither in the offensive stats, nor in the defensive stats. You already get enough from Fabric of Reality, which combines dmg vs Aetherials + Ch’thonics, while you waste 2 components for some more % … Which also makes your StunRes, other Resistances and Armor Absorption bad ( I see you use 6x 30DA just to get to a measly 2400DA in total …), which is a waste as well.
So just for fun, i recreated exactly your build and did some damage tests on dummies … The damage with CT with your setup was comically low and then I tried to run SR80 … and got killed by the first Nemesis that i encountered - Iron Maiden. Before that i tried my build and was breezing through 80-81 within almost record time, facetanking Nemesis like Iron Maiden, Ravager, Kubakabra and several others. I also killed Mogdrogen with it without any buffs easily from first try.
So if you want to try some good Aether CT build or just have an inspiration, you can check out mine:
