And now, part 25 of my controller friendly build series: Chaos RF Sentinel
grimtools link. The MI prefixes and affixes are just the best I had, not what is theoretically optimal. However, having +2 to RF on both swords is a big deal, opening up important items. The shoulders are crap.
Playstyle: A single target assassin, held back by limited multi-target damage. Dive in against bosses, and just slash away. Stay at the edge of mobs, they’re surprisingly dangerous here.
The damage is very high; I killed Mad Queen in 5.4s, starting with only 1 stack of RF. With better RNG, it would have been even faster.
Shows with permanent buffs. 272081 dps with Abomination and Dying God active.
Video proof of clear
Mad Queen 5.4s
Fight tips
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General: thanks to the swords, about a quarter of your spells won’t trigger cooldowns. That means you can’t time your spell reapplications based on their cooldowns expiring. Take note of that.
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Offense: attack stuff and it’ll die.
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Defense: mobs are your biggest enemy. Stay at their edge and stay mobile. Don’t trust Ascension; even with more points it often failed me. This build doesn’t have a high percentage of lifesteal, but its damage is so high that it heals extremely quickly. Keep attacking to keep healing.
Blood of Dreeg is another potion, but be sure to keep it active.
Gear
It’s vital that you have 24+ points in RF to unlock the 9th charge level. As usual, the resists are overcapped to deal with resist reduction on high SR.
With the items I chose, the WPS chance is only 85%, but it’s enough.
Essential Gear:
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Ravager’s Dreadgaze [of Minds]: Elemental Res, and +1 to all skills along with 7-9% DA. You could use a lesser Dreadgaze, or something like Covenant of the Three, but they’d be much weaker than Dreadgaze oMinds. That 8% DA is irreplaceable for high SR.
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Voidsteel Gauntlets: They don’t give points to RF, but they buff it substantially. I’m not sure if they’re absolutely essential, but they are the item that gave me the idea for this build.
Stuff I’m pretty sure is best in slot:
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Vestments of Severed Faith: huge OA, trap resist, Aether resist, healing increased, and tons of chaos damage. There isn’t really an alternative here; Dawnguard plate gives +2 to RF, but is otherwise terrible. It doesn’t give important skill bonuses, but it doesn’t need to.
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Bloodlord’s Blade [with +2 to RF]: Initially I thought Fang of Ch’thon, but it does a lot lot less damage, even if you get +4 to RF from elsewhere. You could probably get by with one or two.
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Demonbone Legplates: you need the DA. You need the Stun resist. And they offer a lot of damage.
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Combustion Band/Voidheart: this build has low chaos RR, so you need it from items. These two are good for it. Alternative: Hysteria, if you need points in RF.
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Fleshwarped Pauldrons: you need points in RF, and there’s nothing else good here. I didn’t have any that had much synergy, but it was still the clear choice.
Other stuff:
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Darkblaze Source: converts 100% of acid to chaos, which is a huge buff. Crit damage is useful, bleeding resist is important, and the stun resist is vital (although you could replace it with a leathery hide on the helmet). Conduit of Divine Whispers (With 15% chaos RR prefix) is tempting, but it just didn’t seem to quite work out.
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Darkblaze Ammo Belt: made sense with the Source. Could have been Rah’zin’s, Infernal Knight’s, or maybe even Pack of Deadly Means.
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Mark of Burning Shadows: gives +2 to RF. Mostly, though, it’s chosen for its stun resist. Korvaak’s Brand or Mark of the Dreadblade are options, but without stun res. Korvak’s brand’s WPS isn’t really necessary, since it doesn’t offer multi-target damage.
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Blademaster’s Talisman: with up to 72+8% OA, this is actually really good. And you need an item to allow dual wielding. The WPS isn’t bad either.
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Voidwalker Footpads: you need slow res. These are a pretty terrible option, but there isn’t actually a good one here.
Devotions
The way I do devotions is to start with full offense, then redistribute points into defense until I stop dying at my target SR. The dying thing didn’t happen much, so I kept it very offensive. This build’s strength is its damage, so there wasn’t really any strength to be found by sacrificing offense for defense.
Core:
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Solael’s Witchblade: Chaos RR.
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Revenant: RR, and vital lifesteal.
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Abomination: damage!
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Dying God: Damage!
Everything else should be pretty self explanatory.
Skill Choices
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Righteous Fervor: the point
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Judgment: pulls enemies into range, gives huge DA reduction, and is great for spawning Revenants.
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Vire’s Might: used as the primary mobility skill, since melee builds really benefit from a targeted charge, especially with a controller.
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Ascension: doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t provide the defense I expected. It’s possible that with 10 points taken from Oathkeeper bar, this would be much more useful, but it’s still not going to be active all the time.
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Solael’s Witchfire: soooo much damage.
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Blood of Dreeg: healing, health regen (crucial with Dying God), OA, poison res.
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Possession: 25% damage absorpbtion, max skill disruption protection, and a huge amount of chaos damage.
Leveling
This levelled very well, in large part due to the power in Bloodlord’s Blades. Be sure to max Dying God and Abomination ASAP since they require the most XP to max.
Skill path was max RF and Smite. Consecration. Then Occultist skills, then finish Oathkeeper. Although the conversion doesn’t come till level 84, it isn’t really necessary, since RF offers a multiplier to weapon damage, and thus to chaos damage.