I’ll definitely try to peek at existing builds, to see if there are tricks that I’ve missed. For example, one trick that I’ve learned and is almost a general rule for me is to have 2x titan plating components and fill the rest from two devotion constelations, to reach 100% resistance to reflection damage. Or that the Maul devotion skill is mandatory for a physical build. I’ve only recently made an account on the forum, but I’ll interact more here and check other people’s ideas, of course.
you generally don’t need to worry about reflect reduct on most non phys/trauma builds (not phys retal) or perhaps bleed in some cases.
2x titan plate is pretty situational/build dependant, specially just just overcapping pierce res by a ton can itself also be a bit of a waste (armour increase isn’t bad tho, but forces you to use 2x scaled hides on most non soldiers)
I made a thread about Ravager of Souls a while ago.
It might be helpful regarding positioning and handling Sunder.
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But I’m under the notion (from my research) that reflection damage applies to all damage types, not just physical. Is that yet another wrong information that I have?
Thanks a lot. I’ve also used the same strategy, engaging him on each of the three routes, alternately, to avoid his lingering summons and projectiles. I always hit him a couple of times until he curses me and then run until the curse wears off. But my problem is that often I don’t run fast enough after the curse, so he one-shots me.
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reflect applies to all dmg types, but, non physical dmg default has easy 80% resist right?, the issue with phys, or more specifically trauma is it’s hard to get high phys res, and trauma ignores armour.
It’s not impossible to suicide on magick dmg nuke type skills, like hitting 1-2million cold/acid shadow strikes, cadence or chaos doom bolts etc, but those are extreme outliers, and normally regular mitigation is enough for most non trauma/bleed builds to not only not worry, but not care about stacking reflect reducts.
Bleed can care because of the insane bonus duration you can often get, and it’s funny enough not most bleed builds that get bleed reducts, so if you reflect a million bleed with 8-12 sec duration it can sometimes kill you with no targets to lifesteal from.
That’s why titan plates and reflect reduct devos are not really the norm outside phys/trauma and bleeds.
( iirc reflect is at 35% dmg effect on the higher end, on avg 10-20%, which is then again reduced by all your regular mitigation like 80% cold res etc)
Oh ok, I understand what you meant now. On the same topic of defeating these superbosses, I’ve begun a while back a Conjurer that uses Vitality-based attacks with a lot of life leech. And I remember thinking that this one will be the one who will beat these superbosses, because if you have multiple life leech sources and in great quantity, you’ll be able to survive. And I looked earlier at someone’s build, that uses siphon souls for damage and sustenance. So, it made me remember about the build that I put on hold. Does this type of build sound better for having damage and survivability at the same time? Even though these superbosses have a lot of life leech resistance, it might still make a difference. I had a look at the Conjurer build and it has 4 Wendigo Totems, 4 Storm Totems (converted to vitality), Sigil of consumption, Bloody Pox and Devouring Swarm. All maxed. And applies a maximum of -150% vitality resistance if I remember correctly.
it can basically be boiled down to, can you survive burst dmg, then you can heal it.
Vitality leech builds usually get plenty enough lifestealing combos that they can recover dmg even if it’s “smaller” amounts from the sources (leech res doesn’t really matter the same since many builds rely on leech, they just either have higher amounts from weapon attacks etc, but vit builds get leech res reduct in Rattosh anyway)
So if you have, number pulled from butt, 25k hp, not trash DA and passable armour/phys res/DR to ensure you don’t get 1 shot or “insta” tapped(ex Rav’s triple swipe), then you can be fine because you now have room to heal back up before the next hard hitting attack.
Ex with some napkin math i did on Calla at somepoint was that i needed like 12k heal per second, just to counteract her tornado, which i simply couldn’t do on a build with low armour/mititagion on top of her own burst dmg.
So for argument sake, say you have the “same” vit build, on Ravager, but one has 15k hp and the other has 25k hp, dmg/defence/leech amount the same, the 15k hp setup might simply die too fast, not that it can’t leech that amount, but it just doesn’t get time to from taking 15k dmg in 0.1 sec burst mode. But the 25k hp setup might survive with the same leech amount, because it now has 10k buffer to give time to heal back up after.
in the latest top20 i think there was several of these “passive” healing examples from ex vit leech builds, even if regular weapon lifestealing still can work/is also the norm in other builds, it’s just different compensation methods.
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Good point when you say “if you don’t get one-shot”. That’s kind of the problem that started this thread in the first place. So, keeping distance is a must and skills like Bloody Pox and Devouring Swarm might actually help with that because you cast them once and they do their thing for a period of time. Same with totems and Sigil of Consumption, if you manage to constantly run around a smaller area.
keep in mind not everything is fixed. So where 1 char might want 25k hp another can get away with 17k etc/some gets 1shot at x others not. Builds/defences are a spectrum, it’s just that you can then use HP layer as “shield” to outstat and tank parts of stuff. So take it as an illustrative example not a set metric.
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No, you don’t need to be ranged. It can help, but in general I find that melee-types are easier than spam/channel ranged, and cooldown ranged easiest/least hard of all as you can kite. Reason: being ranged doesn’t help if Ravager is in your face every 0.5 seconds and you need to keep attacking to deal damage.
If you check various videos on the top X builds or anywhere else you will see many, MANY builds that defeat ravager by facetanking, or rather dodging around the pools and sunders but never moving more than a couple of meters. (Though usually ravager of Flesh, Souls is a pain with all the projectiles flying around.)
I personally only managed to kill Ravagers with only a handful of my builds (probably due to lack of experience on my part) and Souls only with 1, who used hit-and-run melee tactics. (primal strike/vire’s might vit archon) But that was on ultimate. On Veteran, many builds should be able to face-tank ravager. (Though even then it’s not easy.)
Life leech is great, but bosses and especially super-bosses resist it. Ravager has 93% life-leech resistance on all difficulties and in all forms. So be double sure you apply the Rattosh devotion to reduce that resistance, it makes a huge difference. (And if you can find other sources that reduce ADCTH resistance, go for it, but they’re very rare.)
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I have a Witchblade Beginner guide here, that aims to beat Celestials in easily farmed gear.
Obviously you are beyond that level of gear, but there’s still some relevant info in the “build mechanics” section and below in “Celestial fights”.
I’ll have to say, that the Cadence version (in the first reply) had more trouble staying alive, and could not defeat Celestials. Simply because it took too much burst damage and doesn’t have the same defensive layers as the Blade Arc versions.
Maybe with better gear, you have more success.
Ravager of Souls is harder for melee, he will drop a puddle under your feet that makes you miss nearly every attack and deal 70% less damage, iirc.
You can still beat him on melee characters, but typically you have to reposition a lot to avoid the Sunder totems and the puddle.
Good luck!
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Well, I’m at the level where I still strategize about those “many” builds. It might also be just a gameplay flaw from my part, as I said earlier, that I’m not able to properly dodge his curses and the fast attack that follows. If you know of any builds that can stand there when Ravager applies his debuffs, then it means that these builds stack phys resistance and damage reduction/absorption and that they’re able to heal themselves back pretty quickly. It’s kind of what I tried with this build, but it appears that my knowledge was wrong and you can’t stack “% enemy reduced damage”. I also can’t take any skills that grant damage absorption or even healing (like Menhir’s Will) because it’s dual-wielding. So, maybe this build isn’t the one for these superbosses, which isn’t a problem.
In my experience the absolute easiest and safest build to kill superbosses is a totem summoner such as a Ludrigan Druid. You just summon totems on cooldown and kite around, avoiding getting hit. Pet builds should also be safe.
However, you don’t have to have a particular build archetype to kill Ravager and he is fully doable with melee. He is hard though. It’s expected that you get your arse handed to you at the start.
Also, not sure if this has been mentioned explicitly or if you are already aware, but there are three variants of Ravager. Which one you get is determined by who you choose to sacrifice. “Of Souls” is the hardest for melee because it has fumble, which kills your DPS and sustain. “Of Minds” is also tricky. “Of Flesh” is generally considered to be the most melee-friendly. You get him by choosing Tyvald to sacrifice. You can’t change Ravager in the difficulty you’re on, but you can pick a different one in elite or ultimate.
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I had a look at the one that’s focused on DPS, but yours has a shield, so you have access to the skills needed for damage reduction and healing. Otherwise, it pretty much has the same skills (except I use Touch of Chaos with WPS). And it has the same devotions that mine has. The purpose of my build was to generate as much -% phys dmg resistance on enemies (I described the build earlier). It also has the same stats like HP, OA, DA. But yours has the damage reduction skills and 15% more phys resistance, so that should make a difference to survival. It’s because you have more flexibility for what gear you wear (I’m stuck with 2x Corruptian, Rah’zin set and Markov’s medal to make the WPS multi-target) and you must have specifically chosen items for extra phys resistance. This is exactly as I said earlier, if you want to beat Ravager you need to make a specific build that’s focused on the superbosses, even if you lose other benefits that you wanted as well. So, of course that I’ll have to strategize for builds that maximize the perks requred to combat these specific enemies, if I want to farm them. And yours is a good example, thanks.
Whoops, my bad then. I always choose the same guy apparently and it generates the Ravager of Souls. I sincerely didn’t know that your choice impacts what you get, nor that the Ravager of Souls is the most powerful. But this doesn’t excuse my builds, I need to optimize them more in either case.
If you scroll to the first reply, there is also another version similar to yours.
Like I mentioned, that one also has trouble beating Celestials.
With better gear it should be doable tho.
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I’ve seen it now and have made a variation similar to yours as well. But mine still uses 2x Corruptian, since I have the Occultist class and want to improve Curse of Frailty, but discards the Rah’zin set (I kept the amulet and Armor). Although it allows more flexibility for the gear, the problem is that you use many skill points to lift Cadence to the same level that Touch of Chaos has, which doesn’t require any skill points and is bound to all the WPS. Not like Cadence (the third hit), which doesn’t have the WPS on top of it. So, I decided that it’s more worthwhile to have the Touch of Chaos, so I can have extra skill points. But the version with Cadence is also a good choice, if you can afford it.
Nah, cadence is poopoo.
I’m not trying to convince you to copy that build, at all. 
Just mentioning, that maybe there’s a few ideas you can apply to your own build.
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Ok, LOL. I kind of agree with you that there are few cases where Cadence is worthwhile, from what I’ve tried to put together so far.