With more experience under my belt, and given the popularity of this build, I’ve decided to add a little of the ol’ sir spank’s zing to ptir’s suggestions and made what I believe to be a very viable budget PB reaper.
Budget PB reaper: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/8NKWEwWN
Original Tank variant: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYRARr2
BiS’d Ptir Variant: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVl3r6b2
DPS variant is without a doubt the best of the lot, HOWEVER, it is much much much harder to pull off both in terms of obtaining the items needed, and the skill required to pilot it.
First off, my thanks to:
Heatwave, strukto, Zanman, Marzuk, Cryoo, Chthon, JoV, mad_lee, superfluff, seriouscomedy, Ptirodaktill, Mator
As always - your input/insight is invaluable.
Preface
As a person who loves the thrill of the crucible, a build must meet 1 of 2 criteria to be considered good by me:
- Clear 150 naked
- Clear 170
This is a build which can do both.
My own silly standards aside, this is a build capable of clearing vanilla content with ease. The biggest issue it faces is that of energy management, however, this will not in anyway cripple the build.
Getting the first node in revenant, and investing more points into phantasmal armor will easily remedy this limitation. See ‘devotions’ for more details.
While it is by no means a peerless top tier build, it is a very solid build capable of dishing out some serious hurt.
Original Tank variant with 220k dps unbuffed, 62% RR
GT link: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/qNYRARr2
As requested by Okami - a video of a gladiator 150-170 run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCUHrOUZeG4&feature=youtu.be
Logic of the build:
Offense
Aside from the obvious PB + Blade spirit (BS) spam, this build uses the flat damage from bone harvet to further juice things up. The 30% cold --> Vitality on the demonslayer hat just makes this skill too good to pass up on.
We’ll also use siphon souls for more AoE, and its lovely OA debuff.
Spectral binding/wrath is maxed - the flat hp, OA, damage, and RR makes this the best passive we have at our disposal.
Master of death was chosen over harbinger of souls to better improve our OA/DA.
Defense
Comes predominantly from Ishtak’s constellaton and Mark of Torment. When the 2 coincide, we are looking at ~75% damage absorption lasting 5s. When they don’t, we have 45%-50% absorption lasting 11s.
In addition, we’ll take aeon’s to minimize their downtime as much as possible. Should this fail, we’ll always have blade barrier as our pocket ‘OH FUCK’ solution.
N.B - Aeon’s is bound to siphon souls. I’ve found it to be very effective.
There is also an INSANE amount of ADCtH going on - you’ll be able to facetank MQ no problem.
I never bothered timing any kills as I was too excited to get this build out, but she gets DROPPED.
As Mator & fluff astutely pointed out, this spec only has -67% vit resist reduction - a woefully low amount. It is possible to give up scales, ishtak, and obelisk for veilwarden to get more RR. NOTE: I have yet to thoroughly test this change out.
In addition, they also both suggested rocking 12/12 decay which works WONDERS.
Devotions:
Purple crossroad (CR) --> Jackal + Viper
Eel
Wendigo
Sailor’s guide
Watchtower
Panther
Lion + Yellow CR
Scales of Ulcama
Ishtak
Aeon’s
Bottom 3 nodes of obelisk OR (Bottom 2 nodes of menhirs + 1st node in Revenant)
What I believe Best in Slot (BiS) would be:
Pants: Mine come close to BiS. Wendigomane’s is a more accessible option
Shoulders: Well rolled Moo’s pauldrons
Offhand: Groble death effigy
Levelling:
- Max night’s chill in the NB line. Max ABB. Profit.
Or 2) Speed level with a friend in crucy 170. Profit more.
More about the build:
Bear in mind that the sheet dps will show a figure of 25-30k dps. However, this reflects the damage done by ONE of the eight projectiles. Therefore, to benefit the most from PB, this toon ought to be played as a melee character to enable us to shotgun fools to oblivion. (I named my toon Ash Williams for this reason).
Demonslayer Ptir-Fluff-Spanks Reaper (DP Fucken’ S reaper), 600k DPS buffed, 91% RR <-- Hugely inspired by fluff, and Ptirodaktill
GT Link: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/JVl3r6b2
^EDIT 19/05/18: The link above is the one further refined by ptrodaktill and features a sub 9 min 150-170 clear time.
Youtube video (Done by ptir): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl_JfCKs22A
Perhaps I, as a player, lacked the necessary skills to do so, but I could never find the DPS needed to consistently beat 170 buffed/bannered using the original DPS route suggested by fluff, ptir, and mator.
That is until I made one simple change to Ptir’s suggestion - swapping out master of death for harbinger of souls.
As you can see - this variant dishes out 75000 * 8 = 600,000 DPS from PB ALONE. We also have a grand total of 91% RR, and +40% crit from DG. Given that each projectile has its own independent chance of critting… 
Basically, it fucks. shit. up.
The loss of DA, flat hp, and ishtak is however VERY tangible.
As such, the downside of this build is the lower consistency it has in clearing 170, and the need to be a far more active player (micro-kiting is a MUST).
It is also much more prone to the unfairness of RNG. E.g. mutators can/will wreck you, and if you get kuba spawning at the location of your vanguard site in 170, you are most likely dead as you will be hard pressed to burst him down before the other nems come to shit on your parade.
Devotion:
- Chaos crossroad.
- Fiend, Viper, Jackal, Sailor’s guide, Eel, Panther, Watchtower
- Aeon’s, Dying God
- Hawk, Candle, Lantern
- Spec out of hawk
- Veilwarden
Items:
Pants BiS: Bloodletters Grava’thul legguards of insight. I would personally also be happy with the following affixes: Tempest, of kings, etc.
Offhand: Demonic of annihilation is clearly BiS here.
Shoulders: Mantle of the black flame or Deathknight’s guard (Deathknight’s guard is used to convert the flat aether damage from spectral binding --> vitality damage)
Shoes: Formidable of kings. Would also be happy with stonehide of kings
NOTE: Lower clear rate is more than made up for it’s massive decrease in clear time. For farming purposes, I would argue that the DPS route is more efficient.
Attachment: Where Kunai Stick This.jpg
