I was thinking of making a Sorcerer build focused mostly on some of the explosives in the Demolitionist class, with an emphasis on mostly fire and electric damage.
I was thinking along the lines of this for my build:
The concept is using Flashbang to debuff, Canister Bomb for AoE, Grenado for single targets, and Stun Jacks for whenever Canister Bomb and Grenado are on cooldown.
I was planning on doing a mostly 1:1 spread between Physique and Spirit.
I was just wondering if anyone had some advice for how I could improve this build.
Also, I’m almost completely lost on gear and devotions. Pretty much all I know about devotions at the moment is that I probably want the Magi and maybe Solael’s Witchblade in there.
You really want most if not all your points in physique with this build. You are going to be lacking hp/da and this build has straight up 0 source of healing in the masteries. Haven’t played mine in awhile, but I barely reach 10khp with my tanky setup. 100% of points in phys iirc or almost and a lot of HP from gear too plus some from masteries and that’s with me going up to 32 in the arcanist tree too
I use grenado/canister/mortar and it works ok. I’ll be honest though it’s gonna be a bit of a struggle in ultimate till you get a lot of +Demo gear to buff all your skills. None of the bomber skills are very strong individually, you need multiple at a high level for good damage output. You really want thermite mines for the resists debuff too and BWC with agonizing flames too ideally. At least take BWC+1st modifier, 2 points for 25% reduced phys dmg on a squishy build with no innate healing is good
Side note that 2 handed weapons are quite nice even if we don’t auto attack. Grenado, mortar trap, and quick jacks all have significant physical damage as well as possibly some item/devo procs you’ll use. Getting really high conversion can greatly increase your dps output
I’ve got a Grenado Elementalist which uses Grenado as LMB with Wind Devil for support. It’s quite strong early game but I’ll reserve judgement until late game. Normal Veteran with Ulzuin’s maxed I get around 40,000 crits.
Here’s an early vid
Your build definitely needs some defensive nodes. My sorceress has around 6000HP and that’s because I chose to take caster gear and I had both Arcanist+Demo at max level.
Arcanist gives you easier sources of OA, cast speed and -%skill energy costs. Mana and lots of it. It also has access to %skill CD reduction if you choose to go that far into the tree.
On the downside it’s very squishy and Maiven’s Sphere is pretty much a must-have which lowers your damage output slightly. It has less +%Crit Damage than the Shaman as well.
With Shaman, depends on which way you go. You have a better source of +%crit damage and you’re going to be tankier. Your damage output will be about the same, depending on your OA.
My average damage for a grenado is about 9000 and the highest crit I’ve seen is probably 17k. But to be fair, I only maxed the the 1st modifier. I’ve just got one point in the 2nd modifier and 10 points in the base skill.
I’m starting to think that elementalist or sorcerer would have been better than commando. I’m just playing hardcore and I wanted a secondary class that would help keep me alive. I think mehnir’s will prevented a death at least a couple times.
Honestly I find it hard to manage energy issues with Soldier hybrids. With the Elementalist it’s manageable. With a Sorcerer it’s not even a question, you’ll never run out of mana. On the other hand my final build concept converts 55% Physical to Lightning and 35% Physical to fire. But I’ll have to do some testing. Going full conversion will mean the damage output of “High Impact” will be drastically reduced as the bonus +250% physical damage will not really do anything for me. In which case I may decide to lower my elemental conversion and increase my physical damage modifiers slightly etc.
With a Soldier it’s probably better to focus less on conversion and focus on armor reduction and physical resist reduction. Take Owl for reflected damage reduction and -% skill energy cost and add a focusing prism to your amulet to lower skill energy cost further. Etc Etc. I feel a Soldier can work but think it requires a lot more optimisation. I like your build concept btw. Looks like you’re going for a nuke build.
Right, I like playing a nuker, I just wanted solider to have a better chance to not die. Along with the theme of defense, I’m using tree of life right now, so energy isn’t an issue. Because soldier is more defensive than elementalist or sorcerer, I should probably use a more offensive focused devotion setup like ulzuin’s torch or blind sage.
That’s really cool that the physical buff from high impact gets converted for grenado. Since that’s the case, I think converting physical damage to half lightning and half fire would be great so that you can focus on two elements, blind sage is looking like a good idea. I’ll have to start collecting items that convert physical damage.
Blind sage may look like a good idea - but it never is. Easily one of the worst devotions in my opinion. (other bad ones being the procs on Dying God, Unknown Solider, and Spear of the Heavens also perhaps Obelisk and Empyrion, but I have no direct experience with those - but at least those are just bad procs in good constellations)
What makes blind sage bad? It looks like a good boost to fire and lightning damage. I’ve not used it though, so I’m only judging it based on the stats it provides. Is the proc what makes it weak?
It is a weak proc. Weak to the point that you’d barely notice if it broke and started doing zero damage. Combine that with the very high devotion cost to get there and the fact blind sage gives few stats beyobd 180% ele damage and you have a very weak devotion.
