[1.2.1.0] A refreshed take on the good ol' Rah'Binger witchblade

Overview

Ranged Rah’Binger is strong Chaos damage build that utilizes two full sets at once.
It is a hybrid between an auto-attack gunner and a cooldown caster; both damage sources are important and contribute significantly to the overall damage output.
It is very straightforward, easy and fun to play.

Origin and general ideas

This build is roughly based on Willnoword’s build, with a bunch of tweaks better handling of the challenges of the post-1.2.1 balance updates (as compared to 1.1.9.8).

The general idea here was to improve survivability in 1.2 where ADCTH isn’t as strong as it used to be anymore, without sacrificing much, if anything, in terms of damage output.

Grimtools

Gameplay

  • Debuff enemies with Curse of Frality
  • Shoot. Try to get enemies into a straight line to maximum effect; this build somewhat lacks AoE
  • Delete tight packs of trash or pick off priority targets with Doom Bolt; try to cast it on cool-down
  • Keep an eye on Blood of Dreeg, make sure it always stays up

Items

As usual, most slots are populated by purple items from the two full sets, so there is little room for customization.

Core

  • Hands, Head, Weapon - Mystical Harbinger set - boosts Doom Bolt with 240% WD and 35 flat RR, provides -% RR and various damage bonuses
  • Amulet, Chest, Shoulders, Belt - Rah’Zin’s Torment set - chaos damage bonuses, -% RR, granted chaos DAR and a Zolhan’s Technique modifier

Mandatory

  • Rings - Voidheart and Mystical Combustion Band - the well-known chaos damage meta; they provide -% RR, attack speed and useful bonuses
  • Medal - Mystical Pyroclasm Mark - provides an AoE WPS we so desperately need

Best in slot

  • Relic - Eldritch Pact - flat chaos damage and health regen

Can be changed

  • Legs - Solael-Sect Legguards - provides ADCTH, nuff said; look for “of Solael’s Malice” suffix for Second Rite bonus, but any good chaos damage affixes would do
  • Feet - Voidwalker Footpads - chaos damage bonuses and a nice defensive proc; any defensive boots with % slow res would do

Devotion

  • Dying God - huge chaos damage bonus; health cost is offset by regen
  • Abomination - huge chaos damage bonus and health regen proc
  • Solael’s Witchblade - chaos -% RR; nuff said
  • Hydra and Kraken - meta for 2-handed weapon builds; %AS, ADCTH, defenses and some damage
  • Behemoth - a good chunk of health, regen, and a regen-based defensive proc; combined with Abomination, our passive regen skyrockets for several seconds when both buffs are up
  • Lizard - passive health regen

Everything else is needed mostly for pathing.

Skills

Occultist

  • Possession - hardcap; % damage reduction and a big chunk of chaos damage
  • Solael’s Witchfire and Second RIte - hardcap the former, max the latter (the exact amount of points in it depends on random affixes / craft bonuses)
  • Doom Bolt - one point to hardcap is missing, but it shouldn’t be much of an issue given the WD component from the skill modifier
  • Blood of Dreeg - max points; we need both regen and OA
  • Aspect of the Guardian - sofcap; % phys res doesn’t scale well past it

Soldier

  • Markovian’s Advantage and Zolhan’s Technique - max points, we desperately need WPS
  • Field Command line - softcap; OA, DA, AS - all needed
  • Bottom row passives - softcap all except Shield Training; we need those defenses
  • Fighting Spirit - one point

Performance

It’s overall pretty smooth and safe even with my reckless piloting.

AoE and clear times could be better, but our single-target damage output is one of the highest in the game.

Benchmarks

Coming soon.

SR can be pushed to the new last milestone, 90, but barely. SR stops to be comfortable roughly after 80.

All celestials killed pre-1.2 and I’m not exactly sure yet which ones are still killable after all the buffs. So far tried (successfully) to take on Ravager only.

NB: I’m playing on a low-end MacBook via an emulator, so recording videos is tricky performance-wise, thus, sorry for the lack of them.

Ravager of Minds

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