First Things First
This is clearly a meme build - I got it in my head to make the Acid/Poison conversion for PB (along with a large weapon damage mod) on the two-handed Venomlance gun into a viable build. This proved to be quite the challenge as there’s no other noteworthy support for acid/poison Phantasmal Blades and most of the Acid/Poison-oriented sets give us bonuses to Nightblade skills we don’t use. The build was cobbled together from more general acid/poison gear along with lots of skill points to the PB line to get the most out of it. While I don’t think it performs as well as current meta PB builds like Demonslayer or Pierce/Bleed, it was a lot of fun to build and green knives look cool.
The Build
(listed DPS is per blade, so actual is 448,182)
x GRIMTOOLS x
_Nimh.zip (717.6 KB)
UPDATE (thanks @Foehammer): Changed affixes on pants and medal to buff stun and slow res. Gained some health and Battle cry, lost some OA, and DA in the process and a couple of skill points needed to be moved to max PB and cover ele res overcap. Should be smoother now.
(see below for explanation of gear, skills and devotions)
Concept
Maxed PB gives us 105% weapon damage. -55% from the Frenetic Throw mutator gets us down to 50%, but Venomlance adds another 25% to get us back up to 75%, which isn’t bad. Higher weapon damage on the skill means more benefit from sources of leech other than Heart Seeker, and more benefit from flat damage sources that get converted to acid/poison. The gun gives us full conversion for Vit and Chaos damage to PB, letting us take 75% advantage of sources of flat damage of these types. You also get most of your Elemental converted to Acid as well, which helps with the Cold from Nether Edge. We also get some solid bonuses to Blood of Dreeg and fully converted Ring of Steel, which we use to proc the Abom dot. The confuse from this is good CC if we get overwhelmed in SR/crucible.
Cast Curse of Frailty to debuff RR, proc Acid Spray for flat RR, and debuff DA. The Scorpion Sting devotion proc (another layer of DA debuff) is bound to Blade Sprits so that it procs around them, rather than around you. In swarms and against Nemesis, use Ravager’s Deathgaze and Ring of Steel for more debuffs/dots, and position yourself so that you’re shotgunning as much as possible with PB to maximize damage against big targets. It pierces through weaker stuff and mows down everything in its path.
Even with only 18k HP, you’re fairly tanky with Possession, full armor absorb, 27% phys res, dodge/deflect, confuse, fumble, slowed enemies, etc., but much of your tankiness also comes from leech so keep chuckin’ them poison blades. You do actually have decent regen as well, but not quite Shaman levels.
Notable deficiencies are low Stun and Slow res, no movement skill apart from the medal augment, and high skill energy cost which we attempt to address with energy leech, regen, and absorb. Energy isn’t a problem in target-rich environments like Crucible and Shattered Realm, but you will need to smack some energy pots vs. bosses.
The Gear
Weapon
Venomlance is the key to the build for the damage conversion and %weapon damage for Phantasmal Blades. It also has +2 to Nightblade Skills, +4 to Aspect of the Guardian, some CDR, lots of flat poison damage, and OA. Sadly, the huge Attack Speed bonus does nothing for us as a spam PB build that needs Cast Speed. The proc is kind of cool and looks to be getting a buff next patch to proc more often. Craft for stun res.
Helmet
Ravager’s Dreadgaze is good in this slot for the RR debuff, +1 to all skills, and energy regen. The % Health variant would also be good if you can get a little more in other gear slots - this build struggles to get 18k health. An alternative might be Packla’s Visage for the points in PB, crit damage, and flat health.
Body Armor
I think Mythical Venomancer’s Raiment is BiS here, as it gives acid/poison damge, lots of energy regen on an energy-hungry build, health, OA, good resistances, very much needed stun resistance, Aspect of the Guardian points, and an aura with good % damage multipliers and lots of flat acid damage.
Pants
Pants are flexible and mainly used to fill holes in defenses. Solael-sect are good to add more leech and freeze resist. Dreeg-sect might also be a good choice with even more OA (we want lots since we have good crit multipliers). Get CC resistances, health, OA.
Belt
You have some flexibility here, but I like Mythical Girdle of Stolen Dreams for the Vulnerability, PB, and Occultist skill points, lots of OA, casting speed, and importantly the Energy Leech which helps with the build’s energy issues.
Shoulders
You really want Kra’vall’s Shoulderguards. These give you points in PB, Nether Edge, and Solael’s Witchfire, along with health, elemental res, and freeze res. Try to stack health and resists here.
Gloves
I think there’s some flexibility for gloves. I went with Viperfang Grips for the flat poison, %acid and poison with poison duration, Blood of Dreeg bonuses, and OA. You could craft some Emberguard Gauntlets to get more Cast Speed and other useful stats, but with how energy-hungry the build is, I didn’t think the higher cast speed would do me a whole lot better than the huge OA and damage buffs from the Viperfang Grips. Up to you with what feels more comfortable.
Boots
Boots are flexible. Venomspine Greaves don’t give us any useful skill points, but the resistances (especially slow res) are much needed, and another source of fumble via a decently-scaling damage proc isn’t the worst thing to have.
Amulet
Putrid Necklace is great in this slot. Occultist skills, lots of Blood of Dreeg bonuses, % damage. Look for an “of Butchery” suffix for the PB skills, health, and elemental res. I’m sure there are other options that could work, too.
Rings
Two Shuroth rings will take the longest to farm for this build. Other options could be viable, but the Shuroth rings really shine due to their Night’s Chill points, flat damage, % damage, cast speed, and powerful proc that adds a lot to our damage output.
Relic
I like Nidalla’s Outbreak here. It gives us +1 Nightblade Skills, % damage, a big chunk of DA, very useful energy absorb, and a great damage proc that overlaps nicely with PB for another DoT source.
Medal
Basilisk Mark is really cool for the medal slot. Full conversion for Ring of Steel, which we were going to use anyway as a devotion proccer and for the fumble debuff, and adds a big chunk of flat acid to it as well. There’s also some useful OA/DA for Blood of Dreeg, +3 to Aspect of the Guardian. Get health, OA, resistances, and CC resistances.
Components are all fairly straightforward/standard. Same thing for Augments, but make sure you get 1x Basilisk Gaze on your jewelry to cap armor absorption.
Skills
Nightblade
Cap the Phantasmal Blade lines with the transmuter to allow you to spam it. Put one point each in Ring of Steel and Circle of Slaughter to proc devotions, add fumble debuff, and do decent damage with the conversion from our medal. One point in Blade Spirits to proc Scorpion Sting devotion.
Soft cap for Pneumatic Burst (OA, regen, and total speed) and a few points in Shadow Dance for the defensive buffs. Put a point in Elemental Balance if you need the extra elemental resist. Soft cap Veil of Shadow for the radius, OA shred, and speed debuff. Max out Night’s Chill for the RR. One point each in Phantasmal Armor and Merciless Repertoire, and a good chunk of points in Anatomy of Murder for the Cunning buff (for OA) and racial damage.
Occultist
Max Possession for the flat Chaos damage, % damage, damage absorbtion, and skill disruption protection. Solael’s Witchfire gives us flat chaos damage and DA (you could move points from this to Shadow Dance for a more defensive option, though the DA scales better here). Second Rite gives flat vit, crit damage, and vitality resist.
You don’t need tons of points in Curse of Frailty although more will give you a bigger radius for better QoL. Vulnerability is your source of RR and DA shred. Max Blood of Dreeg for the flat acid damage, regen, and OA. It has a huge duration so can also be used as a heal when needed. Maxed Aspect of the Guardian for % damage and a big chunk of phys res.
Devotions:
Since we’re using a 2h ranged weapon, we can take both Kraken and Hydra, with tons of OA, speed, and health in both.
Scorpion gives us a great damage proc that adds tons of weapon damage from our big 2h gun and poison damage and shreds DA - bind this to Blade Sprits so it will proc at their location instead of in a small radius around you.
Get Manticore for great stats and the mandatory flat RR debuff - bind this to Curse of Frailty as every tick of CoF on every mob is a chance to proc the Acid Spray.
Murmur has more great stats and Rumor is our main acid/poison RR, so bind it to Phantasmal Blades for the most consistent application (though it will also spread on its own like Bloody Pox).
Behemoth is really nice on this build. The build is very health-starved, so this shores up total health, and we get decent flat regen from both Pneumatic Burst and Blood of Dreeg, so the additional flat and % increased regen is quite helpful, along with the lifesaving Giant’s Blood proc. I like to bind this to Prismatic Rage so that the extra regen pops off when we’re hurt and taking a beating with the Prismatic Rage absob up.
Abomination gives us lots of damage, some OA and some health. The Tainted Eruption proc is a huge poison dot that also CCs stuff around us to help reduce incoming damage. I like to bind this to Ring of Steel which I’m hitting when in melee with a boss or surrounded by mobs.
Yugol isn’t my favorite constellation, but it does give us some added damage, health, OA, ADCtH, and the Black Blood proc, which is our source of Reduced Enemy Damage.
Gameplay
My computer is a potato so I can’t record. Maybe I’ll try to post a .zip of the build so other people can try it out - I’ll gladly post videos here if they’re worth posting!
This build performed fairly well in Crucible. In SR 30-31 it can also do ok, but you do need to be careful of CC as the stun and slow resist are less than I’d like and we don’t have awesome circuit breakers. Keep at least one of Blood of Dreeg/Pneumatic Burst on standby for a heal, especially if there’s nothing immediately available to leech off of.
I’m a crap pilot but the build does okay against bosses. Ravager of Flesh is fairly tough because of the energy leech on an energy-hungry build. You’ve got multiple sources of pretty good DoT damage, so kiting is always an option if you’re bad at the game like me.
Leveling
I leveled this build with Dreeg’s Evil Eye. Grab a Leafmane Horn and Basilisk Fang from Ugdenbog (or run into the Ancient Grove and buy them from Vinelton asap). The Leafmane Horn fully converts DEE to Acid/Poison damage, which will allow you to use the acid/poison devotions in the endgame build the whole time you’re leveling. The Basilisk Fang gives leech to DEE for sustain.
Hydra and Kraken don’t do anything for you without a ranged weapon and two-handed weapon equipped, respectively. Instead, you can use Rat instead of Hydra and Viper instead of Kraken, then re-do devotions at 94 when you can equip Venomlance and switch to PB. This way, you can still level all of the same devotion procs so that you don’t have to re-level anything at endgame.
Conclusion
I’m far from a professional builder, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out given the inherent limitations of the weapon, which is the core component. I’m sure this could also be built as a Dervish or even a Reaper. In fact, I may tinker around with a Dervish version of this using Righteous Fervor with cooldown PB instead, as the gun gives bonuses to RF as well as attack speed, and there’s more equipment support for acid/poison Dervish which could help with how point hungry it would be to have both PB and RF.
I also looked at including ABB in the build, but dumping points into Solael’s Witchfire and Second Rite seemed a better way to boost damage while also getting useful other stats.
Any other constructive criticism would be most appreciated!
