[3.5]FJTHEBEAST| DW Nebuloch Chieftain Molten Strike |90% Dmg Mitigation|9M Shaper DPS| All content

Looks like an interesting build... but the extreme reliance on Endurance charges, without any easy methods of generating them before big bosses is... daunting.

I'm playing an Oni-Goroshi Molten Strike Chieftain right now, but was interested in respeccing to something more defensive. Your build definitely looks much tankier... but only with endurance charges.

I'm sure it's great on standard trash/maps, and map bosses (with some adds) - but I'm primarily looking for a "big boss" killer.

Not being able to go into Shaper, Guardians, Atziri etc. with maximum endurance charges seems weak. Not really sure about juggling worm flasks/redguard shields/enduring cry etc... seems gimmicky.

Is there possibly some way to get some reduced enemy stun threshold, and proc endurance charges from the Endurance Charge on Melee Stun?

Otherwise... I feel like this build would work better on Jugg maybe?

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KooperT wrote:

Looks like an interesting build... but the extreme reliance on Endurance charges, without any easy methods of generating them before big bosses is... daunting.

I'm playing an Oni-Goroshi Molten Strike Chieftain right now, but was interested in respeccing to something more defensive. Your build definitely looks much tankier... but only with endurance charges.

I'm sure it's great on standard trash/maps, and map bosses (with some adds) - but I'm primarily looking for a "big boss" killer.

Not being able to go into Shaper, Guardians, Atziri etc. with maximum endurance charges seems weak. Not really sure about juggling worm flasks/redguard shields/enduring cry etc... seems gimmicky.

Thank you for your interest. As I said earlier, I usually start the boss fight directly because I do not need any preparation. Killing mobs before fighting a boss gives me my 8 endurance charges. This is true for normal maps as well as Shaper, Shaper guardians and Atziri fights. Due to the 17 seconds endurance charge duration, we will just need to use enduring cry occasionally.

The only situations where this is not the case are:
- Elder and Elder guardians
- Izaro
(we change instances so we lose charges)

I have done these fights (haven't done Uber Elder yet) many times, and they were very easy. I have a free flask slot for such situations (just mentioned The Writhing Jar as a suggestion, I am not using it).

For Izaro, put a Granite Flask. For Elder, put a Saphire Flask etc...
You will start the fight with half your damage, but will gain endurance charges quickly because adds spawn early in these fights usually.

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KooperT wrote:

Is there possibly some way to get some reduced enemy stun threshold, and proc endurance charges from the Endurance Charge on Melee Stun?

I don't think so because :

1- the damage of Molten Strike comes from the projectiles in the first place (one ball does 30% more damage than the melee hit) and not from a huge damage single attack. So we probably can't stun bosses like Shaper with this skill.

2- if we want to use another high damage single target skill like heavy strike, we will not be able to scale its damage correctly because of the 50% fire damage conversion from Chieftain.

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KooperT wrote:

Otherwise... I feel like this build would work better on Jugg maybe?

That depends on some factors. If we chose Juggernaut instead of Chieftain, we will lose :
1 - the free 50% fire conversion
2 - the free 100% fire resistance
3 - the 0.5% life regen per endurance charge
4 - the free life leech
5 - the damage boost (6% per endurance charge + ashes vs 5% per endurance charge)

and we will gain :
1 - a more reliable way to gain endurance charges
2 - 1 additional endurance charge and 5% increased area of effet per endurance charge (45% per 9 EC)
3 - better damage mitigation.

This will result in :

1 - Less passive skill points because we now need Avatar of fire for full conversion (4 points)

2 - Harder way to cap resistances : with the +100% fire resistance from Chieftain we will have much easier time acquiring necessary resistances (2 res items are less expensive and more available than 3 res items)

3 - Less Life: Chieftain has 10% increased Strenght. In addition, having to use 3 res items will prevent us from having more Strength from items (both are Suffixes). Strength gives us Life and damage for both the melee and the projectile parts of Molten Strike.

4 - Less Life regeneration : we will lose at least 6% life regen with Juggernaut and less life leech. Currently I can even play -12% max resistances maps without using Purity of Fire or a Ruby flask. This is not possible with Juggernaut. We will olso have more degen from the additional endurance charge.

5 - Less damage : we will lose at least 36% of our dps, probably more because the increased area of effect per EC has a bad synergy with Point Blank

6 - More mitigation :

With Chieftain we have :
- Fire Damage Taken : 89%
- Cold Damage Taken : 86%
- Lightning Damage Taken : 86%
- Physical Damage Taken : 93%

With Juggernaut we have :
- Fire Damage Taken : 92%
- Cold Damage Taken : 90%
- Lightning Damage Taken : 90%
- Physical Damage Taken : 93%

So, Juggernaut will take 3% less Fire Damage, 4% less Cold Damage and 4% less Lightning Damage. However, more mitigation with less life could be not useful:

Let's say we will take a hit of 30000 Fire Damage (Atziri flameblast final stage) :
- With Juggernaut, we wil take 30000*0.08=2400 Fire Damage
- With Chieftain, we wil take 30000*0.11=3300 Fire Damage

In this case, and if the Juggernaut version has 900 less life than the Chieftain version (1200 for a 30000 lightning or cold hit), the Chieftain will have more HP after receiving the hit, despite having less Fire mitigation. So the utility of the mitigation of Juggernaut will depend on how much life he has compared to Chieftain.

Overall, a Juggrnaut version of this build will cost much more currency (3 high res items are mandatory), have less damage (-35% at least), less map mods choices (can't probably do less regen and -max res maps without sacrificing more dps and time), and better mitigation (depending on how much life it has compared to the Chieftain version).

I hope this is helpful. Thank you!

A nice build!
I'm giong to use it as a base for a Molten strike character since i want to test out the chieftain changes and have fun in the endgame since i had trouble finding a good passive skill tree build for one.

I already have the 2 Wildfire jewels, but if i will get the maces? who knows.
Anyway, thx for posting this build here :)

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Weertangel wrote:

A nice build!
I'm giong to use it as a base for a Molten strike character since i want to test out the chieftain changes and have fun in the endgame since i had trouble finding a good passive skill tree build for one.

I already have the 2 Wildfire jewels, but if i will get the maces? who knows.
Anyway, thx for posting this build here :)

Thank you for your interest. The maces are as cheap as 1c. The good ones are at 10c each. Be careful when dualwielding Nebuloch and make sure you have enough life regen. The build is fun and quite tanky and has a great damage for endgame bosses. I spent alot of time theorycrafting the build and I am happy with the result :)

Ain't Anger better than Blasphemy + Flambility for bosses at least ?

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sirs wrote:

Ain't Anger better than Blasphemy + Flambility for bosses at least ?

Against normal mobs and map bosses, Blasphemy + Flammability is always better than Anger or Hatred.

Against Shaper or Guardians who have 80% Less Curse Effectiveness, replacing Blasphemy + Flammability with Anger or Hatred will result in a slight damage increase (about 3%). However, these two auras reserve 50% of mana each.

We are already using Arctic Armour (25% mana reserved) and Herald of Ashe (25% mana reserved). So to use Anger/Hatred, we have to :
- remove one of them, resulting in a lower defenses + higher damage (HoA+Anger/Hatred) or lower damage (AA+Anger/Hatred)
- use AA,HoA and Anger or Hatred and replace one link in our main skill setup with Blood Magic, resulting in a huge damage loss
- use AA,HoA and Anger or Hatred and get some mana reservation reduction (on tree or gear) and use them all. But with that, the character will likely be unplayable because of the mana cost of the skill (we will have 20-25 unreserved mana, the skill has 23 mana cost) and I think that the slight damage increase is not worth the cost.

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fjtheknight wrote:

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sirs wrote:

Ain't Anger better than Blasphemy + Flambility for bosses at least ?

Against normal mobs and map bosses, Blasphemy + Flammability is always better than Anger or Hatred.

Against Shaper or Guardians who have 80% Less Curse Effectiveness, replacing Blasphemy + Flammability with Anger or Hatred will result in a slight damage increase (about 3%). However, these two auras reserve 50% of mana each.

We are already using Arctic Armour (25% mana reserved) and Herald of Ashe (25% mana reserved). So to use Anger/Hatred, we have to :
- remove one of them, resulting in a lower defenses + higher damage (HoA+Anger/Hatred) or lower damage (AA+Anger/Hatred)
- use AA,HoA and Anger or Hatred and replace one link in our main skill setup with Blood Magic, resulting in a huge damage loss
- use AA,HoA and Anger or Hatred and get some mana reservation reduction (on tree or gear) and use them all. But with that, the character will likely be unplayable because of the mana cost of the skill (we will have 20-25 unreserved mana, the skill has 23 mana cost) and I think that the slight damage increase is not worth the cost.

That is a good reason, I tought would be a lot more damage as curses in bosses(such as shaper) are pretty much useless, if 3% only is totally not worth losing AA for this.

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sirs wrote:

That is a good reason, I tought would be a lot more damage as curses in bosses(such as shaper) are pretty much useless, if 3% only is totally not worth losing AA for this.

This is because I focused on increasing Mace physiscal Damage instead of increasing Fire or Elemental damage (that's better when using Nebuloch because it gives additional fire damage based on its physical damage). If I focus on elemental nodes on the passive skill tree while using Nebuloch, Anger would give 7% higher damage than Flammability (because it adds flat fire damage that will be better scaled with the tree), but the overall damage will decrease. So Anger would be definitely better with a pure elemental weapon and build.

SHAPER DOWN for the first time ever :D (lvl 92) same gear as in main post.



I just used Brightbeak to move quickly between bosses/phases and avoid shaper healing too much and losing endurance charges too.

I have also switched to mapping with Grelwood Shanks (main hand) + Nebuloch (off hand) for faster movement and mapping. We just lose about 16% of our dps but a little bit more damage mitigation, which is ok since we are just mapping with this setup.

I will add a section where I describe these changes.

How to you calculate 1Mil SHaper dps when on pastebinds its 207k ?