Part five of my controller friendly build series: Targo’s Farmer Warlord.
Note: DO NOT use on hardcore. A couple times with this build I’ve encountered the perma-frozen bug, where you can’t do anything until you die and respawn.
Grimtools link. (move 11 points from Tectonic Shift to War Cry for SR, or other challenging content)
This build is a little different. While I find it very fun, it’s not great for SR (and I assume Crucible as well), and I initially put it down as a failure. However, I’ve been farming MIs for some other builds that I’m working on, and this has quickly become my go-to build for that. For grunts, these build is the best I have. For bosses, the hyperfarm variant of my Piercing EoR Dervish is superior.
Playstyle: run around with Vire’s Might and Leap (or whichever medallion skill you prefer), charge at enemies with Blitz, use Judgment to wipe out everything on screen. Against elites/bosses, spam Judgment, War Cry, and Blitz, with Blade Arc as a damage dealer. Use Overguard if you’re in trouble.
In game stats:
Introduction
The closest build to this that I’m aware of is MysteryMeat’s skater, which has similar skills but uses them in a completely different way. This build is a lot less work to play, since it uses Vire’s Might only for mobility, and Judgment, Blitz, and Blade Arc for damage. As a result, facetanking is allowed, mouse movement is largely unnecessary, and everything is controller friendly.
When I first tried to push SRs, I found that a more defensive setup really struggled for damage, and as a result was boring. I switched to an offensive farming setup, and eventually decided to work on the build so that it would be good enough to publish. My goal was to have a super fast farmer, that can clear SR65 with minimal changes. As a result, all you need to change from farming to SR is to take 11 points out of Tectonic Shift and put them into War Cry.
That said, if you’re only going to use it for farming, you can make the build work just as well with budget components, sacrificing the overcaps on the resists and getting an extra 10% casting speed and attack speed. That’s really what the build is meant for, but use it as you’d like.
This build is very controller friendly: it only requires 7 active skills, and they all have simple targeting where precision is unimportant. That said, you can definitely benefit from utilizing Blade Barricade, but I prefer to keep that button as “pet attack”. And as a CD based caster, you could certainly add an item-based spell (such as Doomforce).
Video proof of clear
Incendiary Casque Farming Run
Larria Run
Fight tips
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Offense: Make sure to use War Cry on cooldown, then Blitz, then Judgment, since the former two increase the damage of the latter. You may need to drink an occasional energy tonic.
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Defense: War Cry’s 29% damage reduction debuff only has around a 66% uptime, so in the last couple seconds before it finishes recharging you should be careful. Don’t be afraid to walk (or dash) away until you can cast it again. Vire’s Might can prove useful, as it provides a quick escape from damaging stuff under your feet, and can get you some distance while you wait for things to come off of CD.
Menhir’s Will, Fighting Spirit, and Resilience all activate automatically, and when they’re all off, you will see a noticeable drop in defense. Overguard also doesn’t have great uptime so try to manage it so that you always have one or two of these abilities active. If you do that, and you max your resistances, you shouldn’t have to worry about defense for most content. If you are struggling, you can put the point into Markovian’s Defense, and also (if necessary) use a Mark of the Voracious One as your medal to get some of the damage back. But this build isn’t really meant for content that would require that.
Gear
As usual, the resists are overcapped to deal with resist reduction on high SR. You won’t need it for MI farming.
Essential Gear:
- Targo’s Craft Set: core, since it gives big buffs to Judgment.
Stuff I’m pretty sure is best in slot:
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The Grey Knight: buffs Judgment, finishes your 100% fire to physical conversion, which helps Judgment’s Heart of Wrath and Vire’s Might.
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Mythical Reforged Chains of Oleron: doesn’t seem like there’s anything that fits the build better. +1 to all skills in soldier is huge, since you have 16 abilities in soldier.
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Mythical Grasp of Unchained Might: 20% weapon damage to Blade Arc is the headline, but pretty much everything else it provides is useful as well.
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Mark of Ulzuin: this is here for Judgment CD. Since Judgment is strong enough to one-shot most weak enemies, you want as many casts of it as possible. The OA and vitality resist are excellent.
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Serenity: it is generally useful, but I’m not sure you really need it.
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Mythical Arcane Harmony Leggings: I’m a huge fan of these, even though skill disruption is rare, since if you run into an enemy with skill disruption without protection, you will struggle massively. Plus, the DA is huge, and this build doesn’t have a lot of sources of DA. The spirit bonus goes into the requirements for your rings and amulet, so it’s as good as if it were physique or cunning. The Aether and Elemental defenses are good too. It makes a lot more sense than using one or two Arcane Sparks in my opinion.
Other stuff:
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Spellscourge Deflector: +1 to soldier, reduces the CD on Overguard, and gives you attack speed to help deal with the tough enemies that you use Overguard against. All the other stats are relevant as well.
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Mythical Menhirian x2: may not give you the most damage, but it provides useful defenses and reduces the CD on Vire’s Might (via Tectonic Shift).
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Mythical Dreadnought Footpads: +2 to Blindside and Blitz is good. There might be better options out there, but none spring to mind.
Devotions
Core
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Assassin’s Blade: Physical RR. Since it requires a crit, it’s bound to Blade Arc. Blade Arc is only used against elites or harder, so it doesn’t help with most enemies, but it makes a big difference against tough enemies.
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Scales of Ulcama: this build needs a source of energy regen, since it’s a caster with minimal spirit, and Scales of Ulcama takes care of that pretty much singlehandedly.
Core 2 (the damaging skills): since you cast a bunch of spells, you can have several damaging devotions. They add up for a substantial damage boost, and apply several good debuffs.
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Oleron: provides physical damage, and activates often when bound to Summon Guardian of Empyrion. Note that it damages in a circle centered around the Guardian, not the player (when bound to Guardian).
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Dire Bear: the armor reduction on Bear isn’t actually very useful, but it has a 100% chance of activating (with no cooldown of its own so it hits every enemy!) when bound to Judgment. Think of it as an extra 305 base damage to Judgment. The healing can be good if you’re ever at low health in a big pack of enemies, but that doesn’t happen too often with this build.
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Azrakaa: I have it bound to Blitz, which isn’t a perfect fit, but the debuffs are very good, and the damage isn’t too shabby either.
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Bull: Since it’s bound to War Cry, it only is relevant against tough enemies, but it’s moderately useful.
Not core
- Shieldmaiden: makes a big difference in your shield’s performance when used along with Overguard, Shield Training, Safeguard, and Haven. I’m not actually 100% sure that it’s necessary, but it looks good on paper. Since this build obliterates weak enemies, most hits will be from strong enemies, where blocking should make a difference. Although many bosses have continuous sources of damage, and I’m not sure how shields interact with those.
*Anvil: not actually sure that this is a good choice, but the build works.
Skill choices
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Vire’s Might: its mobility is what makes this build work. Its damage can kill weaker enemies, but that’s not really the point. If you want a damaging Vire’s Might, you’d be better off with a skater build.
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Judgment: the best, and most fun, damage skill in this build. Crushing Verdict and Heart of Wrath aren’t very important.
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Blitz: does a boatload of damage, and reduces enemies’ DA by 330, so it makes a big difference when it comes to getting the crits to proc the Assassin’s Blade and Oleron devotions.
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Blade Arc: you need something to do when all your spells are on CD, and Blade Arc is good and requires only 27 points. Cadence with Deadly Momentum should also be strong, but I went with Blade Arc since Targo’s set buffs Blade Arc, and that way you don’t need to worry about keeping Deadly Momentum active while you’re farming.
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Oleron’s Rage: Menhir’s Bulwark and Divine Mandate are also good, but the 17% OA from Oleron’s Rage is huge.
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War Cry: the 39 resist reduction from Break Morale makes a huge difference to your damage against enemies that can survive a Judgment. The 10% damage reduction is nice, and the 29% in the SR variant makes a big difference for survivability. It also procs Bull.
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Summon Guardian of Empryion: they trail behind you for most of your farming, but will be able to hit tough enemies and proc the Oleron devotion. I’m not sure you really need 12 points in Celestial Presence, since most of the time the guardians are out of range
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Single point in a bunch of things: with +2 to Oathkeeper skills, and +4 to soldier, this seems to make sense.
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The bottom bar of passives for Soldier: points are allocated to Decorated Soldier and Scars of Battle to finish your resistances, then what remains to Shield Training and Military Conditioning to boost your defense.
Leveling tips
When levelling this build, you won’t have the Judgment cooldown reduction that makes it shine, so your focus should be on Blade Arc (or perhaps Cadence). Since you don’t need damage type conversions, it should be a fairly straightforward process. Soldier provides a bunch of defensive options if you need them.