I’ve just finished hardcore veteran with a no-physique build (attribute spread is 9 cunning, 1 spirit). The build is about 75% soldier (with cadence) and 25% nightblade (with shears and quickcut to accelerate cadence).
Naturally item choices are limited to what I have and prioritize dodge/deflect. Any suggestions for medals and rings that increase dodge or deflect very welcome. I’ve not seen a single medal that grants evasion
For those interested, here’s the current breakdown:
Dodge Deflect
Shadow Dance (Skill) 21 21
Eel (Devotion) 2 2
Aeon's Hourglass (Devotion) 6 6
Head - Solar Defender (Homestead) 12
Amulet - Lapis Lupis (Epic) 3
Ring - Sentinel's Seal (Epic) 2
Chest - Fused Carapace Armor (Epic) 8
Component - Balistic Plating 10
Shoulder - Chosen Pauldron (Kymon) 12
Legs - Shadeleather Leggings (Epic) 9
Relic - Guile (tier 1 relic) 6
Belt - Devil's Waistguard (Devil) 5
Hands - Silktouch Handwraps (Epic) 3
Feet - Boots of Unseeing Swiftness (Epic) 5 5
TOTAL 62 76
Upcoming development
Blades of Nadaan (Devotion) 2 2
2nd Ring slot?
Medal slot?
Shadowstalkers belt once I have level 58 (+7 dodge, +1 deflect)
Since I’ve only played two builds till Ultimate i lack knowledge about this, but shouldn’t Saboteur (Night + Demo) be a better choice for dodge/deflect type builds due to blast shield?
I should probably explain the emphasis on War Cry and Break Morale: the rationale is that “imagine you had 100% evasion, what would still hurt you? spells!” - War Cry with Break Morale effectively silences ability users for a little while, making them rely on attacks to hit you - which in turn are mostly evaded.
@MoridinB:
It’s been working fairly well. The Cadence is phenomenal, while smacking things in combat my DPS reports as over 9000 which I think is good around level 50. By now I’ve completed Hardcore Veteran (including the Steps of Torment and Bastion of Chaos). So the build is obviously viable to this point.
I find mobs are easy, and individual boss fights are easy too. What is harder are confined spaces with large amounts of mobs along with 4 or 5 super heroes. What is also a challenge is that since I want to completely emphasize dodge/deflect - my resistances aren’t as good as they could be. That is mitigated to some extent by evasion - if you have 60% evasion, then that is nearly the same as having 60% resistance in everything.
Since I have 0 physique investment I compensated with Soldier; my current effective physique is 535. Offense around 1500 (about 15% crit chance on average) and Defense around 1400 (around 85% hit rate for enemies on average). 5400 hit points. 450 armor.
The Turtle devotion is extra effective for the build; if you get a 2000hp absorption shield, it goes extra far if only 1 in 3 attacks actually hits. (That said, I very rarely see my hp drop below 90%.)
@Superfluff:
Thanks! I’ll be sure to investigate those and try to get my hands on that.
Currently I use Guile (instead of Blademaster’s Talisman) because it nets me 1% more dodge.
That could be a viable choice. Especially if you use a more conventional stat-spread (like 2phys/2cun/1spi). The build I’m using is kind of experimental and extreme (0phys/9cun/1spi). To still have reasonable physique and health overall (along with a way to reduce physique requirement on armor) I decided on Soldier instead.
In practice my build has very rarely dropped below 90% hit points; so the Blast Shield would essentially just be an emergency backup that rarely matters. As such itemizing or devotions can provide the same backup.
That said… I’ve only just finished Veteran with the build; I don’t know how it will behave in Ultimate.
Just a thought. As you get halfway into elite you are gonna want Field command, Veil of Shadow and Night’s chill.
Cirfle of Slaughter also provides loads of Fumble at high level which is an insane defense mechanism. Flashbang’s searing light is also very popular because of this. It works on bosses and heroes too. At lvl 12 they have a 50% change to miss, unless it’s AOE.
So you don’t really need to Get 100% avoid melee and Deflect
It really is very good and you only need searing light at lvl 7 with + skills for optimal performance. Combine it with Blast shield and you have a solid line of defense already.
the 50% is on circle of slaughter, searing light has 30% at lvl 7 and then gets 1% per level. But it’s still very good, spammable, ranged.
totally forgot about those even though i am currently using them on two builds:D. anyway wether you can realiably maintain 100% dodge or not isn’t the problem. Like posted above, for melee you can abuse cirlcle of slaughter to amazing effect so you won’t need to gimp yourself with time dilation and other items. Otherwise you will get killed in ultimate by other things if you can’t kill fast enough yourself. It’s what dual wield blademasters rely on, kill fast before being killed and be just tanky enough to do that.
You can use life steal more, try a haunted steel on one of your weapons, You will notice the difference immediately. Combine it with reduced resist for greater effect vs bosses. Either manticore constellation bound to Shadow strike or just use Black star of Deceit (which also has life steal on it - very powerful).
Am also using 2x Belgothian Rings, yes. In theory the build can reach ~160% Melee Dodge, but I intended to have the multiple procs such that one of them is always active so that I approach an average of 100% dodge chance.
Without procs active:
Damage is too lackluster, in my opinion, for Ultimate. You just get overwhelmed.
