Looking for a build that doesn’t need gear to farm, can clear fast and tank enough to get gear for other builds!
Any recommendations?
No such animal. But builds with lower than average gear thresholds are phyical + shield witchblade and poison cooldown witch - hunter. The latter can start killing nemesis bosses in little more than faction gear.
I say just play the game and you’ll figure it out as you go. I have re-done the points on the below build many times since early access and learned a lot (while still having a lot more to learn).
This is my build for my first (and furthest) character. Been playing since build 23 in early access (roughly 2013). Currently level 72 working my way through Elite, just got to Homestead.
https://grimcalc.com/build/cinJFS
I’m relatively casual and play the game in fits and starts. I play slowly and clear the whole map. I recently started playing again after 1.0.0.6 came out after a relatively long break. Character is relatively effective, and all his gear is self found. Biggest problem he had was the end boss, mainly due to having to swap out DPS gear for resist gear to beat him after many many deaths, though I believe they have toned the end boss down since he was first released in early access.
I certainly wouldn’t call this a “pro” build by any stretch, but it has been effective for me to play the game and find gear and get through it (with quite a few deaths along the way as i figured it out).
I’m using Squib’s Hetzer build(retaliation/reflect) with one of my characters, and if you can find green gear with retaliation/reflect damage you’re pretty much set for most of the game. From level 2-40 Devouring Swarm will just annihilate everything in your path, which should be ample time to collect such gear. If you have (an)other character(s), you might have some spare Perdition gear, which turns this into a beast at level 40, as melee enemies just impale themselves on you, and you don’t have to attack at all.
Main problem is that dealing with even trash mob ranged enemies becomes a chore, and dealing with bosses who only use ranged attacks and never melee can take upwards of 10 minutes(seriously). Component abilities abilities help a LOT in this(for a long time, a nice +poison/acid sword with Mark of Dreeg did the trick), but it still takes FOREVER.
So pretty much anything with Soldier? As long as your tanky enough you’ll widdle them down eventually?
I went the same route. The retaliation build is good enough by itself that you can go and face tank stuff and I switched some stuff around to get around the ranged issue.
- I kept Devouring Swarm just to have something to initiate combat and to hit stuff outside the range of the totem.
- I slapped Twin Fangs from the Bat constellation onto the swarm for additional manual damage.
- I run the Affliction constellation. More vitality damage for the swarm.
Fetid Pool is bound to a passive permanent buff. Note that it triggers ‘when hit’ without any additional descriptor.
It affects spots on the ground but mages dont tend to move around too much if you manage to stay put. This thing is a godsent against caster bosses. - Mostly anything that triggers on hit will do. I went around and farmed a little. I got a Death Omen and a Thread of Mortality. Neither of them looks flashy but its a lot of passive damage racking up that afflicts everything.
- If you have something that triggers on attack, the swarm will proc it.
Im not sure if any of the passive procs count as you inflicting damage for the purposes of setting off your attack triggers, but a stray bolt of lightning or chain lightning every once in a while helps all the same.
(I got the Mark of the Apostate and everything is always poisoned as far as I can tell)
My screen looks like a big ball of violence when I play this character but he has enough of the retaliation build’s bulk and staying power and melts through casters and bosses.
The sticky build compendium (in the classes, skills forum section) lets you know how gear dependent each build there is.
Notvreally. Many present a best case scenario but don’t go deep into the question of how well does it perform if you can’t get many/any of the lusted items.
Btw if the OP looks through the list stay away from pretty much anything presenting with the Ultuos set - frequently such build rely on that to be some/all of their AoE.
@OP:
Try Retaliation Warder by Heltz:
- High HP pool
- health regen
- built in resists
- built in damage absorption
- built in disable reductions.
- damage reduction debuff:
You literally build Health, Resistances and some retaliation damage that will be augmented by your devotions. While others will swear that a commando retaliation is a better retaliator, Warder just gives you so much room for error with that massive health pool.
my first HC is one: crawled my way to Act 3 Veteran then when devotions got developed, development shot up the roof. Was able to clear SoT 1-5 with self found gear fairly early at levels most HC players would not attempt it at. Now I’m perma stuck in SoT while my B Mage is farming C’Thon Bloods for keys. Retaliation Warder was made to be a new player’s first toon to be the designated farmer.
@Silben:
I agree; maybe because the game is sill fairly young and people are still doing some experimentation on what builds can survive in HC. I really do hope someone finds a way to break this “tank meta” aspect of the game (where in people don’t have to focus too much on survivability) especially on non-tank/melee focused builds.
Seeing 30/60 SPI/PHY or CUN/PHY for casters and ranged focused builds make my eyes bleed just to squeeze out every possible HP you can
Why would people assume commando is a better retaliation tank than the warder? Just because of vindictive flame able to hit ranged? He is fairly squishy compared to the warder.
Thanks everyone, I think I will try the warder! I was just trying to steer clear of it originally because I heard it was “boring.”
Retaliation warder (or retaliation anything) is by definition gears dependent, since all your damage will come from your gears. Without gear you aren’t retaliating anything.
Same with summoner (or anything with pets). Pets scale of + pet bonus, which is a unique modifier only found on gears (and devotions)
Those are the only 2 forms of damage that require a specific set of gears to be played at all.
Then you have some combinations that are specifically built around a particular relic or component, (Mistborn Talisman, Conflagration, Shard of Beronath, Gunslinger anything), or unique effect from a legendary armor piece or weapon, but those builds are probably the 1% and you usually have very similar alternatives that don’t require such item.
Finally, some statistics are exponential damage multipliers (attack speed, cast speed, critical chance), and while everyone will benefit from those stats to some degree, some builds may rely on those more than some others. It’s minor at best, but it’s worth mentioning.
Any other class combination will be as good naked as it is with some gears.
People usually misuse the term just to say that x build is good with some good gears, but what build isn’t? That’s what gears do, they boost your damage/defence.
As my signature indicates, I am currently playing a completely Self-Found, Single-Pass Fire Strike Pyromancer. As of right now I am in Act 4 of Normal Veteran and my death count is 0.
I pick up every single item that drops to go and sell it back in town and in doing so, shop the two vendors at Devil’s Crossing each and every time I return. I have found some absolutely crazy items in doing so, as well! 
Up to this point, the game has been challenging at times and a cake-walk during others. All in all, a very enjoyable experience.
I believe there are certainly other easier builds but I thought I might offer this one as an option.
My 13 cents
Syn
as far as i can remember, “gear-dependent builds” referred to builds that do not need optimum/BiS/high-end gear for the build to function. while your definition is “technically” correct, it does not cater to the intent of the opening post; where in he wanted to start with profession (build) that doesn’t need good gear to function well so he can start farming the good stuff
retaliation gear quite frequently in the game you don’t need to drop those extra 5-50 hours farming for specific re-rolls. In fact, you quite possibly, might not even need to farm it at all. That and retaliation builds are mindlessly simple to run and build.
- got hp? - check
- got armor? - check
- got resists? - check
- got some retaliation? - check
go have a blast walking your opponents to death and falling asleep whacking that ranged boss
But you can run ultimate and kill nemesis bosses with any class combination in yellow/green gears. And any build is bad with bad gears and good with good gears. There is no such thing as a build that requires the best stuff to be playable (exceptions are the ones in my post above). To be overpowered? Yes, but any build is overpowered with the best gears.
I think what the op wants is an easy to play build, that doesn’t take much effort or thinking and is very forgiving. Has nothing to do with gears.
Please someone confirm or prove this. Dying 30+times per boss is not counted by the way
I’ve completed ultimate, SoT and BoC with several characters in a mixed bag of yellow/green and blue with little to no death.
Now I’ll say something controversial, but skill matters. The thing is, for every 10 posts on this forum/community/board/whatever, maybe 7 are from players who aren’t very good at the game. For every 30 posts, only 1 is from someone who knows exactly what he is doing and is very good at the game. (taken from the ranked ladder from the millions players playing League of Legends). And yes you can have all the legendary and have played for thousand hours and still not be good at the game. (as evidenced out by all the people in the bronze league in LoL).
Overpowered is not a synonym for Viable. Of course everything is easier when your character is overpowered and has all the cool stuff, but you can still beat the game in a timely fashion with a more balanced character by playing well.
The exception to this whole end game talk, is the Crucible, that is intentionally overtuned (comparing to the campaign) and requires all around very good resistances and damage to be beaten. I don’t believe the OP has Crucible in mind however, as neither him or anyone else mentioned it.
So you completed the game(meaning killing all nemesis, sot and boc and mogdrogen titan) with 15 builds with only green and below gear with little to no death. Mog is impossible so this utter bs and some builds have weaknesses to certain bosses and add them low quality items, i think there is no way you can complete it with “little to no death”. Yes it is possible, but not like with the death amount u say. Please post a video about a build vs its highest weakness boss so i can learn from it.
Since we’re on this, which class-combination do you guys is the least dependent on BiS gear while still being able to clear Ultimate?
I vote for Warder (Huge hp pool, Menhir’s and Totem)
I am asking this cause a poll isn’t possible as the number of combinations exceed the number of poll options
I haven’t said anything about Avatar of Mogdrogen. From my understanding, it’s not a boss you are meant to fight.
How do you think people beat the game with their first character where the game was just being released? They played the game with what they had. Sets and legendary items are the rewards you get for beating the game, not the other way around. The campaign isn’t balanced around those items, no one would have beaten the game in the first place otherwise.