There is also a different way to do it (as done by grey-maybe). Solid punchy melee that lacks defenses a bit. Feels like it needs all hp and DA it can get. Still, great niche build given that it’s made out of scrap.
Grimtools SR 30-31 4:19 run
The weakest of this trio: it suffers from usual Pierce melee problem - bad aoe (plus it’s single rr). This is where small arc of Smite is felt the most. Plus using ABB for self-buff is infinitely more cancerous than using BH for that. And shield’s global phys to acid conversion is eating a bit of our damage. Still more than viable overall.
Conclusion
Snb melee becomes more than viable when you have a shield with a dedicated wps even if that shield has “wrong” damage type and wrong conversions. It’s a unique and very enjoyable kind of melee to play even if block is still semi-useless. Without third wps all of our previous snb melee attempts feel incomplete. Which brings me to
Suggestions
More in-built wps to more shields. Shieldbreaker for Physical, Maw of the Damned (or Meat Shield) for Vitality, Wrathguard for Pierce etc. etc.
Or if that’s off the table (at least till FoA) can we remove conversions from Occulant? As in remove global conversion (not really needed for anything if you are playing Acid Oathkeeper) and remove Shattering Smash conversion (again, not needed because RF’s transmuter converts Physical already). Dare I suggest that Crate should make it an %All damage item too?
Hate to beat a dead horse but Smite’s default arc is too damn small.
A build that me and cooked some time ago. Punchy and sturdy with a lot of synergies from gear and pretty good everything: %damage, flat, OA, crit, as etc. Updated it yesterday to see how it fares against Occulant snb melees thinking that Physical damage buffs can elevate it.
As you can see, solid performance against Celestials but when it comes to farming grounds it’s inconsistent and slow-ish. If you don’t proc your shield wps often enough your damage disappears. Played Occulant builds after it and felt like night and day in terms of consistency.
P.S. That Shield’s skill is cool and all but is hard to utilize. Animation speed is very slow for it and builds that carry Siegebreaker usually have no casting speed whatsoever.
The Occulant change is very minor this PT, what made Acid SnB viable are all the other general changes for acid.
But for the rest of the builds nothing really changed in this patch. It just didn’t occur to anyone before that Occulant can be effectively used for other dmg types, especially when you have an item with an RF conversion mod that preceds the SS conversion on the shield.
I’ve made a chaos Sent at first, and it’s actually a much more prominent example of, yet again, a simple truth: AA builds need a good WPS pool:
In this build example as ridiculous as it is Occulant is a little stronger than the dedicated chaos MI with huge SS and passive bonuses, AND with a natural Chronomancer’s prefix that allows more frequent DB hits.
I also really wish to see more shield granted skills. I think shield needs more of less damaging but area denial skills to more accurately fit the SnB theme.
But the removal of SS conversion and global innate conversion (both arent needed for the shield now) as a temporary solution to open up more SnB options is a good alternative.
I’d like to see a cold variant, a rework of Wradlith’s Bulwark would be interesting
For the aether version, I’d like to see some changes to “Will of the Living”
One way you can make Occulant a more universal item is changing all its flats (so shield base, flat on the shield, flat bonus to Smash and flat on its wps) from Acid to Physical and adding %Physical damage to it. Of course together with removing conversions. That way it still has the same value for Acid because Acid gets to convert all Physical damage on RF via transmuter and then other damage can also fully benefit from using this shield.
Maybe we should keep the shield as it is and then look at some others. There’s a plenty of shields that could use some love. Wrathguard? Anyone remembers it? Or uses? Watcher of Erulan? Etc
I suggested as much and it would be amazing. But I doubt we are gonna get a wps update to every other shield, not in this test patch at least. Removing conversions on Occulant or doing my other suggestion costs nothing, don’t change anything for Acid and opens up a few more builds.
cooked some time ago. Punchy and sturdy with a lot of synergies from gear and pretty good everything: %damage, flat, OA, crit, as etc. Updated it yesterday to see how it fares against Occulant snb melees thinking that Physical damage buffs can elevate it.
