Theroycrafting Physical damage Witchblade

Hi guys, am leveling a 2-handed Witchblade to test the following build:
http://grimcalc.com/build/XjSKl9

Basic idea is to abuse blade arc for aoe & Laceration for the extra crit damage. This is further supported by COF for the awesome -39% physical resistance & Maxed Oleron’s Rage for the 12% OS and Field command for the extra OA. Attack speed will come mainly from devotions, Squad tactics & Solael’s Witchfire.

For survivability, there’s the always reliable Blood of Dreg(which also adds OA) & AoTG.

Any idea if the above will work?

http://grimcalc.com/build/JiHOKa

Laceration is pretty irrelevant if you’re Focusing Phys Damage.

Optimized your Devotions and moved skillpoints around in favor of survivability. Not sure if Manticore is really a good choice, but its your build.

It will probably work on veteran, it might work on elite (up to a point) but it will definately not work on ultimate. You have focused alot on offense and for the most part ignored your defenses. Blood of Dreeg on its own is nowhere near eanough to keep you alive in Ultimate. Without some solid defensive options on devotions it will not be enough on elite either. As Ceno mentioned you need to rework your devotions towards more survivability, meaning more hps/regen/resistances. You also need to keep in mind that gear plays a part too. Working your first character to having everything in a shared stash means different selection of devotions/augments/components.

You really should get 12/12 in War Cry (after +skills) and as many points as possible into Break Morale, perhaps even 12/12 before any skills. Also as already mentioned you need more defenses, I recommend redoing devotions to include Tree of Life.

Depending on OA the laceration points may or may not be useful, but there is VERY little return going beyond 12 points total either way - so you really won’t need 12 hard points there. Same with Oleron’s Rage, Squad Tactics, Field Command…several skills scale very poorly. Here is a partial redo of the build (I am assuming +3 solider skills)

http://grimcalc.com/build/0yeO5i

That includes a complete re-devotion to get you Tree of Life and Behemoth along w/ Lizard and Harvestman’s Scythe for defenses. For offense in your devotion it is fairly limited to Dire Bear (phys and Maul proc), Assassin’s Blade (for your 3rd source of -phys res) and Kraken.

Taken together it should increase both offensive and defensive ability.

With +5 solider skills I’d go to something like:

http://grimcalc.com/build/q1AfLs

The addition of blindside to really lower enemy DA would be welcome.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback. Do let me know if this is better. Pretty sure it’s more defensive now. Do keep in mind that the below will take into account +2 soldier as the only equipment I have in mind(and in my stash) is Leviathan & Ulzuin’s Headguard.

http://grimcalc.com/build/KVy9lk

What on earth are you doing specing into Dying God? And you do realize that lifesteal is functionally worthless by Ultimate difficulty right?

Kraken, Falcon and Assassin’Blade are the only offensive devotion you really want/need to take on a 2h physical char, the rest must be tailored around your gear/skill choices, so to have a good balance beetween offense and defense.

Break Morale is a must, untill you find another source of comparable flat resistances reduction. The same can be said about War Cry for its damage reduction.

Field Command should be maxed. Not so sure about Squad Tactics.

1 point Blizt + some points in Blindside give you a slight advantage against difficult opponents.

You can also give a look at the Cadence Skill + Zoltan’s Tecnique. You can have Falcon on Cadence, and Assassin’s Mark on Zoltan. You can also take Markovian’s Advantage, with something like Dryad attached to the wps. This way you do not have to spam 2-3 diverse skill every time. There’s even a nifty item, the Ring of The Black Matriarch, that is designed around those choices.

You can also consider going 1h + Shield. This way you can take less defensive devotions and go straight forward till Oleron for Blind Fury, and the not-so-special-but-nice-to-have Targo’s Hammer (the skill that make you look like an Hammerdin, for some illogical reasons i really love it).

However a Witchblade built around physical damage offer so many options that is a difficult char to screw.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback again. Did not know that ADCTH is heavily resisted in Ultimate. Here is the new devotion setup:

http://grimcalc.com/build/O0hkR6

Probably will test the build with a save file level 85 first before I fully level my witchblade(currently at Lvl40).