This is the Diary of the Dollar Store Defiler
I always wanted to have a build that spams a bunch of fire effects, meteors and volcanoes.
This is that build.
Is it extremely powerful? - No.
Is it extremely bad? - Also, No.
Does it spam meteors and look really cool?
Is it fun to play?
Hell yeah!
→ Final GT build ←
I am not covering every detail here, but I’ll include enough guidance so that anyone who is interested can follow the build. It’s not complicated to put together.
Gear choices and two target builds
For the full build, I was planning to use the trash… ahem… I mean epic set Festerblaze in combination with the Blazeseer set.
I call it: Festerblazeseer™
The Festerblaze Set provides full Acid->Fire conversion and a resistance-shredding proc.
The Blazeseer adds more meteors. (Non-negotiable, if you ask me).
Now that means finding or transmuting 7 different set pieces, and that is a bit much, when you just reach level 94.
So I made a spec without set pieces, until I found or transmuted enough of the sets.
OnlyGreens and faction gear spec (GrimTools)
Full Festerblazeseer™ Set Final spec (GrimTools)
I start by picking the Demolitionist mastery.
- It has Blackwater Cocktail, which makes it an excellence leveling choice.
- Putting some points into Blackwater Cocktail and Demon Fire, roughly 10 points into Vindictive Flame and one point each into High Potency and Flame Touched, I battle my way through Act 1
- Everything including the Act boss melts in a puddle of fire. So far so good.
After Act 1, I quickly hoodwink some gear from the Forgotten Gods area
- Blackwater Cocktail defeats the summoned “challenge” monsters in a few seconds. I was hoping for a Compelled Wraith drop, but no luck.
- So I join the Cult of Solael and follow the path until I reach the Temple of Osyr. There I farm the Eldritch Spirits until one finally drops the Wraith.
- I do a few quests for Solael, until the cultists send me to the Vanguard of the Three. There they ask me to hop into a portal and dispose of some corrupted velociraptor. He drops a Riftclaw Slicer, which is all I wanted from the desert for now.
- After that I continue the main campaign and head over the bridge to take care of some Bandits. One of them drops the medal I will be using for the rest of the playthrough.
With these three items plus random drops & faction gear for resistances, I easily walk through the main campaign.
- Skill points go into Blackwater Cocktail nodes, then further into the Demo skill tree for Thermite Mine, then Blast Shield.
- I took Necro to level 5 for a point in Spectral Bindning, but that locks you out of Kymon’s Chosen and some useful faction gear, so maybe don’t do that.
Snapshot level 25 (GrimTools)
Things continue to melt and I continue my way through the campaign
- Kymon’s Chosen hate me, because they don’t know what’s good for them. Also, I may already be a Necromancer. So I can’t craft the +1 Demo skill belt, but really, I think the blame lies with these fanatics, worshiping the wrong fire god. They really should worship me instead.
- The big boss at the end drops the ugliest shoulders, but they have nice stats.
- I also start the Hidden Path quest at some point, to get some new pants
- Then it’s straight towards Ashes of Malmouth
Campaign defeated.
- Skill points go further into the Demo skill tree for Agonizing Flames and into maxing out the used skills
Snapshot level 40 (GrimTools)
In Ashes of Malmouth, the plant life rules. Turns out, plants don’t like fire.
- After reaching the Coven, I take a detour into the Ancient Grove (Thx for the key, to my boi, Moggy!). There I pick up a number of items:
- Vilgazor’s Heart from the fire crab.
- A Living Ring from the plant vendor (he’s not flammable
) - Slathsarr’s Crest from the Basilisk boss
- Gargabol’s Ring, because he dropped a nice one
- With that massive damage boost (well worth the expended key) I blaze towards the end of Malmouth.
- There, I shop for a Conflagration relic blueprint from Hyram, after liberating and staffing Steelcap District.
Then there is just the rest of the desert DLC left, plus some tuning to get the build ready for Ultimate.
- I finish the desert DLC, pick up a better Compelled Wraith and get my hands on a Burning-Blade
- One of the fanatics drops a new hat
- I also take a short detour into Port Valbury, to get a belt with +1 demo skills. Totally not necessary and I could have skipped this, by joining Kymon’s Chosen
- I go deeper into the Necromancer tree to get Siphon Souls going, which is now 100% converted to fire damage, thanks to the dagger.
Snapshot Level 55 (GrimTools)
Equipped like this and ignoring my resistances, I head straight to Ultimate
(If someone tries this on their first character, I would recommend a short visit to Elite first to get better resistances, more faction reputation and some extra shrines. But you do you.)
- Long story short, things still melt just fine, bosses melt a little slower, but I am hungry for meteors.
- After Act 1 I go to the desert again, this time joining the Cult of Dreeg, because they have a better source of Compelled Wraiths (or so I hear)
- I follow the Dreeg questline, until they ask me to hop into a portal (*sigh* again?) and slay some eldritch ghost. He has a 35% chance to drop the off-hand - and after that I leave the desert and continue with the main campaign
After finishing the main story, the character looks somewhat like this:
Snapshot Level 75 (GrimTools)
I rushed to the meteors in the devo tree, and later I had to reset the devotion tree to rework it a little, so I won’t include the point-by-point progression in this GT-link (check the level 100 spec instead).
Path to 100 and farming part 1
After finishing the main campaign, I hastily finish the Ashes of Malmouth DLC
- At Malmouth, I start buying XP potions, because the resistance now reveres me. They have seen the (very hot, very volatile) light.
- just adding that, if you aren’t Revered, but Honored, buying a Writ and reading it will speed up your reputation gain. You don’t need the XP potions, but it helps to hit level 94 by the time you finish most quests
- The final boss goes down surprisingly fast, but overall, the lack of single target DPS is slowly becoming more tangible
- The desert is next, and I make a halt before the final boss, because I have hit level 94
Now comes the part where I try to transmute some set pieces, end up getting zero Festerblaze and zero Blazeseer parts and make a green build instead, for the time being.
- I grab the Fettan Mask in the desert
- Chaos->Fire conversion is added, from Galakros Singed Plating and Incendiary Shoulderplates
- I buy the blueprint to Mark of Burning Shadows from the Cult of Solael and craft it at Steelcap District
- I also craft Stoneplate Greaves and Emberguard Gloves there (blueprints from totems along the way). I could have probably picked up some blues for those slots, but I have become somewhat epic-blind over the years.
- Every other slot gets a refresh to current item level, which means a few trips around the map
- At some point, I integrate a Gollus’ Ring into the build, to get some extra sustain
By the end of this farming trip, I have reached level 100.
Snapshot Level 100 (GrimTools)
With that setup, I challenge Korvaak
Lack of single target damage is starting to show and his meteors hurt more than mine.
This setup is a little weak to just jump straight into the Shattered Realm, but it does almost anything in campaign perfectly fine, excluding nuisances like Loxmere Nightmage (ends up being the 1st death) and Kaisan (can be beaten, but he’s dangerous).
Farming part 2 and into the Shattered Realm
So I set out to farm some totems, eventually find some Blazeseer pieces and transmute other sets into Festerblaze.
I shuffle some gear around and end up with the final build (for the time being).
Festerblazeseer™ Level 100 (GrimTools)
This ends up being a much stronger setup and works mostly fine in the Shattered Realm
The caveat is that, like all builds who spam projectiles, you absolutely do not want to see the Mad Queen in your boss room. Valdaran is a problem, too.
Iron Maiden is also a bit sketchy, because of her resistances and dmg output.
The build could swap to Blazeheart in the final setup, which would mean Ravenous Earth only gets partially converted, but you would get extra resistance reduction.
Final Verdict
Good? Bad?
I don’t really care too much, the build is fun and you live out the full fire mage fantasy.
Other classes can torch Cairn more effectively, sure, but only one class can defile it.
The build cuts through the campaign like a blow torch through a pillow fort.
Only some boss fights take a few seconds longer than full, top tier DPS specs.
On the transition to “endgame” does it start to get a little rough, when Nemesis bosses appear and you wish you had an Act2 mercenary with you, to tank.
What are the main issues?
-
You almost fully convert Ravenous Earth, but you don’t get the fire effect from Mark of Burning Shadows, because the medal slot is blocked. This is actually my biggest complaint.
-
The build is kinda squishy and doesn’t have much sustain. When things melt that’s not a problem, but when stroing monsters survive, it can become one.
-
Single target damage is not great, and monsters need to stay in your AoE effects, to take full damage. Often that means the squishy build needs to face-tank.
-
Projectile-heavy builds like this have hard-counters in the Mad Queen, Valdaran and a few other, minor bosses. These monsters spam out counter-attacks when they get hit by projectiles, which can lead to one-shots. (Seemingly, the developers hate projectiles in builds).
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The sets block out important slots, so you can’t use the good Compelled Wraith off-hand with Festerblaze, a different medal or belt with Blazeseer. This limits conversion and skill bonuses severely.
Upgrades?
- You can swap to the Blightlord set, when you get it. That fixes the issue of the blocked off-hand, but it’s the squishiest set I have ever laid eyes on.
- seriously, 500 HP total over three armor slots and almost no resistances for a legendary endgame set…
- Getting an amazingly rolled Compelled Wraith to go with the Blightlord set would be the goal, but they are slightly annoying to farm (often drops with Vitakity modifiers and needs a good CDR roll as well)
- Relic should be upgraded, either Korvaak’s Deception or Annihilation for even more meteors, hmmm…
So that concludes this journey, at least for now…
I will continue to play this build every now and then, and maybe someday I’ll say:
“It’s more than a meme”
some damage would be lost though
