If you are just doing the math you are probably right on most of your points. Blade Arc is just 18 cost so you can easily spam it. Obsidian Tremor is sitting at 94 cost so that is hard to spam indeed.
I totaly disagree on the mentality of ‘just another Blade Arc build’. Let’s say I went for Shaman (should I say just another Conjurer build here?) and I got more health regen and better single target damage. What would make that build special, and not ‘just another Savagery build’?
The whole point of making this build, was to combine classes that most people tend to avoid and pick a path that almost no one goes for and actually make it work. Is it the most optimal build? HELL NO! I never claimed it was though.
But without an optimal build, and without a high level gear set designed around this build, I had fun and completed Ultimate level. That is why I shared with everyone else, so maybe they could have the same fun I had making this work. Attached is my Log kill on Ultimate!
Cadence is higher ST damage compared to Blade Arc. Reason I stuck with Blade Arc is because it has a better synergy with ADCTH due to its AOE. Sitting at around 27% ADCTH you can facetank most groups of 4-5 heroes, besides some weird combos, which you can still finish off quite fast. When I tried Cadence I had issues on packs of heroes so I decided to stick to Blade Arc for better survivability. The gear selection has lots of items with procs that add a solid amount of damage on your overall. So you still get a pretty decent kill speed despite Blade Arc not being that great on ST.
Cadence is pretty weak (compared to Savagery). It deals 150% weapon damage average, which doesnt even work well with WPS. Savagery deals 172.5% weapon damage, puts a buff that multiplies ALL damage by 1.1 (so you can take it as 190% weapon damage), grants 8% physical resist and works perfectly with WPS.
Literally any attack-based build can do it, if he stacks decent ADCTH. Same can facetank anything even with 10-15% ADCTH.
However, do note, that most bosses, some heroes and even some mobs are immune to ADCTH in Ultimate. You cant rely upon it all the time. When you can, game is insanely easy… But when you cant, you suddenly realize which builds are indeed “tanky” and which arent…
Actually, Soldier combines pretty well with Occultist for physical damage. Curse of Frailty grants insane damage boost for very low skill points investment. Aspect of Guardian provides huge resistance buff and increases your physical resist too.
The main problem there is that physical damage isnt supported well by endgame legendaries (or, more harsh - most physical legendaries are trash). That’s whe only reason why physical builds are lackluster.
Soldier can also combine with Occultist for bleed build, but Shaman is probably better choice for bleed, instead.
In my opinion, true Obsidian Juggernaut build should most use its unique ability, Obsidian Tremor. But it’s very hard to make it spammable, cause it has absolutely sick energy cost. IDK how you can sustain that, maybe with going Arcanist, but then, you dont really want IEE conversion…
As far as ADCTH goes I absolutely agree with you. I am actually pondering about changing into more health regen and less ADCTH. Tanky though is not just about healing it is about soaking damage too!
From scratch I wanted to go for a Chaos build, so I never gave any thought to physical or bleed builds.
The Obsidian Tremor is absolutely trash. It is not just the cost. The damage output is too low. It would be a bad choice to begin with even if you could spam it.
Also , 1 point in laceration is pretty much a must for the increased arc, and additional targets. I made a similar witchblade, but opted for more physical than chaos, with the great physical debuff of curse of frailty. Using stonefist rebuke for better single target damage, and debuffing, and physical resist (got one with 17% resist and 143 % physical.).
Dude fucking thanks for this, i was trying to experiment with a similar idea for a build and my prob was that i had put points in cadence and something felt amiss.
I strongly suggest adding somewhere that the new helm that is going to come with new expansion is going to be an awesome addition to this build.
Let me also point out that my devotion is slightly different, i have taken lizard at first only to refund it later for Panther.1 more point and gives better bonuses , and also allows us to get 2 more yellow in order to spec last 3 points into targo the builder (a 14% health and some DA). For those i have not taken ghoul.
The guide wil be update for the new patch once I get to check it out, so the helm will be added for sure. Hopefuly there is more stuff in the patch to help the build. Interesting variation in the devotion there. Waiting to see what changes the new patch brings before working around my devotion set.
Thank you for this extremely well written guide. I have been following it and I gotta say, I love this build. I’m currently 78 with everything except for the amulet, ring and medal.
I wanted to point out a really viable option for the weapon instead of Obsidian Juggernaut that I currently use. It’s a rare weapon that actually beats out Obsidian Juggernaut in DPS (especially single target DPS, so it’s nice for Nemesis farming) purely with attack speed.
I’m using a Void Touched Obsidian War Cleaver of Alacrity.
At first I decided to stick with the Juggernaut as I didn’t want lose +2 to all skills occultist. But then I broke it down and realized although I am losing +2 points to the few skills we have in occultist, and losing some chaos dmg per hit, gaining +24% attack speed well makes up for it. This means proccing all the on-hit stuff 24% more often as well, and it’s pretty impressive how well it’s been working for me.
Just a heads up - if you find this particular brand of War Cleaver, hang on to it!
Hey, nice guide, I was thinking of making a Witchblade, but I wanted to ask - if you were to make a more physical damage variant, how would you do it?
http://grimcalc.com/build/HPp8exG - This is something I came up with but I hate using that Devotion calc so I have no idea yet how I’d build it.
Also, there’s the thing about physical legendaries that would enhance this build, but there don’t seem to be many choices. I would probably use most of the gear that you use, except maybe a different weapon, gloves and Relic.
I dusted off my Witchblade that I left at 35 thanks to Imp mentioning this on our guild forums. Most of our skills already lined up, but I’ve taken a large detour in devotions and some gearing choices. My build really took off at level 50. I felt like a wrecking ball going all the way through Elite. It’s definitely HC capable.
I’m now at 75. I raided my stash for legendaries and I’m now sitting at 30k sheet DPS with regular buffs. When Fighting Spirit and other temp buffs go off, it skyrockets. And this is all AoE! I love running into a group of four heroes and making them explode.
I’ll post my build and how I deviated from Imp’s once I clear Ultimate, and do my final tweaking.
If you were going for a more physical build with internal trauma and bleeding on the side, it would not make sense to go with Witchblade, but rather go with Warder as Shaman has a lot more to offer into that kind of build. You can try it, I just feel it would not be too optimal.
Just started my Witchblade, but have changed the build somewhat, opting to drop Blood of Dreeg and War Cry in favour of maxing Menhir’s Will and also most of Field Command so I can max Doom Bolt for an AoE skill. I really don’t like timed skills like BoD so build is this:
Blood of Dreeg gives health regen in the hundreds. Dropping it will hurt alot with mobs on which ADCTH does not work. It is currently one of the best skills in game. I understand not liking timed skills, but I think you are giving up too much defense. Let me know how it works!
Well, Blood of Dreeg gives +106HR with 28% Health restored while Menhir’s Will gives +272HR and 65%. But BoD can be up constantly while Menhir’s only kicks in if health drops below 33% - and it has a longer cooldown. But I don’t have to try and remember to hit the key to trigger it in the middle of a fight as I will with BoD as it auto triggers. So we’ll see.
It’ll depend on how much ADCtH and HR stuff I can find as well. I tend to have a fair amount of HR with all my toons. I’m actually running 3 different HR only toons in Titan Quest just to see if I can make it to the end of the game with them: Diviner, Haruspex and Harbinger using different gear set-ups. I’m also thinking of trying an HR toon in TQ’s Legion of Champions mod as pets get 100% HR from every Exalted item in the game so might be fun to try. Don’t think such a toon would work in GD though.
If worst comes to worst I’ll simply have to respec some points back into Blood of Dreeg.
Oh, by the way where do you get the Devil’s Cage Hauberk from? Looking at the quartermaster in Devil’s Crossing he doesn’t have anything called that.