Mage Hunter AAR build GrimTools link:
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZod5WoN
I’m only at level 85 so I still have 15 more to go, but I am getting absolutely demolished in Ultimate after this patch. I’m getting 1-shot killed by champion monsters even with MoE up, it doesn’t make any sense how much the enemies damage went up. I can still kill everything just fine, and I realize my gear is not optimal at all. Just looking for advice on Skill Points and Devotions, I have an especially bad time dealing with poison.
I am sick and tired of corpse-dragging myself through dungeons since this patch. It’s not friggin’ fun anymore.
On initial look:
-
You have no skill disruption reduction. AAR is a channeled skill the moment a boss or anything else drops a disrupt on you, you’re going to drop like a rock.
-
I also don’t see any “attack damage converted to health” anywhere (though I may have missed it). With a channeled skill this will ALSO be extremely valuable in staying alive. Except for Hungering Void but that’s only going to proc when you most need it. And if you have to need it back to back times you may not find it’s reliable.
-
Your poison, pierce and bleeding resistance are going to get you killed the moment something drops some of this in Ultimate.
-
You’re DA is so low that just about anything is going to crit you and more often than you want. Your OA isn’t really high enough to do reliable crits either and should probably get a little boost.
Keep this in mind, this is concerning Ultimate. If you’re lvl 85 you might fair better farming reps (for the armor augments) and some better gear in Elite.
I’m not the most expert person so others will surely add their bits so take all my comments with a healthy dose of salt (and aether if that’s how you roll.)
- You should use augement for weapons / jewelry - check faction vendors you are at least Honored with.
- If you have reached Revered with some of them, use armor augments to raise your resistances.
- Put components in all items - Ugdenbog Leather, Bloodied Crystal and Titan Plating would be great, if you can craft them.
- I assume you took Dying God for the OA and crit bonuses, but shouldn’t you use AAR with Tainted Power then? The Korvaak constallation might be better.
- On the other hand you convert about half of your fire and lightning damage to aether. Therefore reducing elemental resistances is not that effective.
- You have not assigned Aether Tendril to your hotbar. Instead of Aethersteel Bolts you could use Resilient Plating.
- You can move buffs to the second bar to free up some slots in the first one.
- You should probably move attribute points from spirit to physique to help with your health and DA.
Except for Aether Tendril you have no skill that deals weapon damage, so life steal (aka attack damage converted to health) is not useful. This would be different if you could craft Conduit of Arcane Whispers and get the right prefix.
But tell us, which damage types you want to focus on.
1 Like
For lifesteal, take bat devotion proc and bind it to AAR, or use Pusling shard
As mentioned, you need skill disruption, as close to 80%as possible. It can roll on green items too.
Poison damage, get resistance. Antivenom salves, augments.
You should have a look at my AAR guide for beginners here: ☄ Collection of malawiglenn's Beginner Friendly builds which is for lightning AAR but you should get plenty of tips in there.
I do not think its fun to be able to do ultimate with negative resistances either, this is the game’s way of telling you that you need to improve the build before you move on.
The following might help your build, and all but the shoulders should be obtainable at your current level and progression.
Faction: Cult of Dreeg
Elite Dreeg Vile Mantle
Faction: Malmouth resistance
Elite Malmouth Aetherblaze Vestments
Dropped by The Amalgamation, decent chance
Pulsing Shard
Devil’s Crossing augments:
Bladeward Powder
Mogdrogen’s Touch
Plus one can “powershop” them in Port Valbury in Normal
1 Like
Hmmm hmmm, these are good tips. I may just do a complete tear down and rebuild. I don’t want to be lightning-focused because I don’t want to drop points into Stormbox, the goal is to have most of the damage be from AAR and WoP. I’d like to maximize the AAR dps and am OK sacrificing DA for that. I know my gear is way off right now, I was waiting to hit 90 before going for the appropriate stuff.
Is lifesteal really that necessary for a build like this? Is that because AAR hits fast?
WoP will deal no damage, it is a debuff. So effectively you are swapping WoP for storm box (to use the faction amulet rr)
Have fun without life steal then 
You could look at the AAR mage hunters I have in my guide for ideas. I think Nery is working on budget aether AAR now, not sure if he will go with Fleswarped off-hand and Bat or just Pulsing shard.
I can tell you some of my experiences with AAR and life steal.
When your dps get high enough, you heal full health in less than 1 second.
Thus, you die if you get one shotted or cant leech (you get disrupted, stunned, frozen), also on bosses with high life leech resistance you get some trouble too that is why I use haunt even on the lightning version - to get life reech rr on bosses (and its also a nice proc for making monsters fumble attacks etc)
tbh the reason why you die in ultimate is because your resistances sucks
This is me when I started ultimate https://www.grimtools.com/calc/nZodzadN for reference (about 60k AAR sheet dps)
1 Like
All of the advice above is solid.
If I had to build around the equipment you show, I’d rework to something like this until I found better stuff:
grimtools:juggling skills and resists for survival
This assumes:
-
aether is your target damage and you probably want the Arcanist exclusive skill rather than the Inquisitor, athough that does mean you loose the damage reduction. You may need to stand in inquisitor seal more often.
-
you only have access to the most basic components and a couple of low-level augments (no armor augments)
-
it uses devotions to fill resistance gaps and a few others to weather damage (Turtle), since armor and DA is fairly low with minimal augments and gear.
-
Bat is used for life-leech sustain, as the offhand has vit->aether convert. Bound to AAR, and Ghoul to max that %WD part of the leech when really in trouble and also some extra emergency physical resist.
-
Giant’s blood is bound to Arcane Will so the heal comes when needed and not at any random time
-
You do have decent cooldown reduction with the current gear, so Arcane Will, Turtle, Bards Harp, and Ghoul should be up quite a bit, if needed
-
OA is low, so you will not crit much at all, but DA is higher so you should not get crit so much. Some more armor absorb will help to limit trash-mob damage getting through your armor. 98% means that only 2% of the physical damage under 1155 armor (the chest for this example) affects you, instead of 30% of it.
Use it as an idea pool for improving your survival when you have limited items/components/augments to work with. As you find better stuff, switch it up and change devotions.
1 Like
Believe me Pulsing Shard alone would improve your survivability. Also craft some Silk Swatches and Antivenom salve. You need your poison / bleed / piercing resistances higher. Resistances should be 80% for Ultimate (except Stun resist maybe). Check faction vendors and buy all good augments for your build. Especially those that give %resistances. Use the new search function in the Blacksmith window if you need a specific stat like ‘% poison resistance’ for example. That would make it easier to find the necessary component to craft.
You also have Aura of Censure which gives -% elemental resistance. But your damage 90% is aether which makes Reckless Power a better option. Just 11/12 Reckless Power is enough. Level 12 doesn’t increase %cast speed any more untill lvl 14.
I think he can get along ok with the Fleshwarped book for now. He just needs some life-leech sustain from Bat (because book has convert) and a little more defence.
The Shard is more reliable but the book has a nice flat aether and some lit conversion to help augment his damage until he finds better equipment. What I mean is that he doesn’t necessarily need to immediately go and grind for a decent Shard (and other better equipment) if his devotion path compensates.
He should do some faction stuff to get access to all that juicy armor augment. That frees up soooo much resistance juggling.
OK I tweaked my build to your advice, with a few changes of my own, and I’m already hitting much harder and doing far better in terms of survival. The downside is it is a bit mana-hungry, but I’m sure that will improve with better gear. In Devotion I took Toad, Typhos, and Rattosh . I’m not sure Typhos is worth it yet. I also noticed no one really takes Elemental Balance, why is that?
Grimtools - AAR Retweak
Man, I really wish you could tie Arcane Bomb to Inquisitor’s Seal. I hate having so few options for that one. And I have no idea why I never picked up one of the weapon augments from factions until now, I always thought they were potions of some kind. Also picked up the Dreeg’s Mantle. There’s a ton of good stuff I can craft but it’s all for level 94, so time to get playin!
Man, put Silk Swatch in your pants at last. And why you taking Vitality constellations? Your damage is Aether not Vitality. Ectoplasm components into rings - willl solve your mana issues.
What with the other slots? And weapons includes whatever off-hand item you use, too.
And Hallowed Ground or Chains of Oleron in your chest armor.
Aether Soul does not seem necessary. If you put Arcane Spark in your medal, you can use Focusing Prism to help with energy costs.
Well, look at the skill and ask yourself “what does it do for me at present?”
To have a reasonable chance to critical the more dangerous mobs in Ultimate, you’ll need to have ~3k OA (or some equal combo of OA and monster DA reduction) when everything is up. If your OA is too low, then you are better focusing on simple damage increases by other methods.
As you find and improve your stuff/stats, you may eventually find it relevant.