[3.17] Hybrid's Molten Strike Jugg - Hold right click to TANK anything |MELT the Atlas|Divine Flesh|

Maven Fight

Maven's Invitation: The Hidden

Maven's Invitation: The Twisted (all 4 elder guardians)

Maven's Invitation: The Formed (all 4 shaper guardians)

Maven's Invitation: 10 Bosses Fight

Maven's Invitation: The Forgotten

Wave 20 Simulacrum Kosis

Deathless Sirus

Oshabi boss fight

Deathless Uber Elder


Deathless Shaper (3rd phase with full hp)

waited for shaper to fully regen after the 2nd phase.
Full fight here


Mastermind Boss


Deathless Red Elder (with mapping setup)
also tanking the expanding nova.

All the Guardians kills

T16 Mino just holding right click, ignoring boss mechanics completely

T16 UGS bosses with mapping setup (ancestral call instead of ele dmg w\ atks)

Post 3.5 patch: Still face tanking everythig


Uber Lab Demo

Phoenix and Esh demo

3.17:
Same as 3.16

Update:
i played a little bit after the patch, fortify mechanic is pretty meh, even after the change they did in 3.17

without fortify the build doesnt feel as tanky.
cant recommend playing the build at this state.
it already requires a lot of investment, not worth the currency and time.

maybe when/if they rework the fortify system or something, but right now- just dont play it.

3.16:
basically the same as 3.15.
Divine Flesh isnt mandatory as you can pretty easily get 80% all max ele res.
use the POB link, guide itself might no be updated.

3.15:
Game got nerfed overall.
build plays basically the same.


3.14:
so we lost a little bit of damage from wave of conviction, -15% res vs -25% before.

this means that other sources that apply exposure would be a good replacement if they have a better \ more consistence up time like the implicit on the new helmet.
because now its -10% vs -15% and not -25%.

might be worth to replace WoC for hydrosphere to try and boost single target with overlapping AoE from the balls.


as for Petrified Blood- completely worthless for us.
the 40% modifier doesnt increase with gem level, which means you are just more likely to get one-shotted.
basically only meant for builds that are already at low life and not something you could slap on a "normal" build.


other than that i didnt see anything that affect us.

3.13:
Build is the same pretty much.
the only change i would make if you want to farm the real end game with multiple bosses at the same time is a mark ring instead of manually applying it since it can be annoying to target each boss one at a time.

3.12:
there are some interesting changes that we can take advantage of.
for example:
vitality now has a flat mana reservation, so we can use it at level 1 with a watchers eye for the life recovery mod.
poachers mark now grant more life and mana on hit AND has a chance to grant frenzy charge on hit.
on top of that, hexaproof monsters are no longer immune to marks.

update: i made a new POB with some interesting changes:
for our curse we swap from flammability to poachers mark- it got reworked and now is tagged as a "mark" so it doesnt lose effectiveness against bosses.
on top of that it now grants damage by two ways, one from adding flat phyz dmg against cursed enemies and the other is frenzy charges on hit.
another big change is the life and mana gained on hit, 50 life per hit allows us to "ditch" the LGOH mod on the rings thus making it easier to get better rings for lower price.

a huge change to the build is the use of glorious vanity timeless jewel to get Divine Flesh, thats a big boost to tankiness! more on that in the FAQ section.

this time i made the POB a little bit more optimized gear wise, things like 7L helmet and a corruption for the sword, just so people will have an idea for the build setup at the endgame.

another update:
since we now use Divine Flesh we dont need Arakaali and Shakari panthens for chaos damage mitigation.
Solaris and Tukohama are better for the build now and also go along very well with the playstyle.
those pantheons grant more physical damage mitigation, which leads us to the next change.

we no longer use Imbalanced Guard.
with the new setup the breakpoint for the keystone is much higher and causing more harm than good.
the explanation is in the FAQ.

3.11:
kind of rewrote the guide, cleaned a lot of unnecessary text.

for now i only made a quick POB for people that want to play the build in the new league, there might be other changes, but i will probably make another version.

POB is done.
changed it again after the league started (sorry ^^), removed the enduring cry gem and "call to arms" keystone because after some more testing i felt it didnt add enough to the build while costing too much.

i also replaced the anointment from Tenacity to Tribal Fury because of the above change, saves us a bunch of points (and one less golden oil).

wave of conviction - flammability setup moved to a CWDT instead of self cast with curse on hit.

Main Hand:


The sword has a high attack speed and good physical damage, but it doesnt end there!
we also get +2 projectiles when hit, which is all of the time with a melee build.
Point Blank that increases projectile damage based on the distance from you, and as we know, we are always at close range with the enemies.
on top of that we get increased armor and Iron Reflexes while stationary, something that we want since its suites the build's playstyle perfectly.

this is the BiS weapon for the build, an upgrade from the is a good corruption like %attack speed, flat phyz or fortify on hit.
fortify corruption will allow you to drop the fortify support gem for something else like vitality.


Off Hand:

we use a shield for higher defense.
ideally you would want a shield with +2% to all max res and\or +3% to maximum chaos resistance and high life roll, then anything else you need like chaos\elemental resistance.
those are expensive, but worth it for the big defense boost.

*all maximum resistances mod also applies to chaos res.
*all max res and max chaos res can spawn together on the shield.


for the lower levels and the phase before you switch to Divine Flesh, use:


This shield has a very high life roll and with the implicit we can get over 200 life.
also gives armor.



Gloves:


The best option is a pair of hunter influenced gloves as they can roll the +1 target mod.
this mod is important because when paired with "Tribal Fury" on the tree we get a total of +2 target which makes clearing so much smoother and more importantly eliminates the need to use Ancestral Call support gem so we are always using the best damage setup.

hunter gloves can also roll the intimidation mod, which is a really nice damage boost, but really hard to hit with the strike mod.

for more advanced users, i would suggest to make a pair of elevated +2 strike targets and awake them with a pair of culling strike gloves, as its kinda the best option for us in big boss fights.



*if you dont know what this section means go to the FAQ.



Amulet:

This amulet is BiS, every mod on this items is useful for us.

10% str that gives us more life and damage
10% life
fire res
fire pen - more damage
cover enemies in ash - more damage
Avatar of Fire - again, more damage :)


We need Xoph's Blood also for Avatar of Fire mod that saves us points on the skill tree.
this mod convert phyz, cold and lightning damage to fire so we get more damage.
also this mod makes us deal only fire damage so phyz reflect maps are not a problem.

as for the anointment: Cleansed Thoughts or Tribal Fury.
if you can cap your chaos res by your rare gear alone, go for Tribal Fury, otherwise Cleansed Thoughts is the way to go.
visit the FAQ for explanation.

NOTE: dont anoint cleansed thought if your chaos res isnt above 0% yet, it literally doubles your chaos res, so if you have -20% anointing it will get you to -40%.

as a corruption- aim for +1 all max res, but there are other mods which are useful for us.


Belt:


Rare belt with life, res and wed.
preferably stygian vise or leather belt to squeeze out just a little bit more life and damage.

an upgrade would be an influenced belt, which has more interesting mods.
elder can give you mods like %max life, life recovery rate and other damage mods.

examples:


warlord can grant up to 30% reduced damage from crits:




Boots:

Rares with life and resistances, movement speed is really nice to have.

for enchant aim for the 10% pen, its more damage against bosses.
120% crit enchant is also nice for easier Elemental Overload procs.

if you feel you have enough crit, a tailwind pair of boots is a good dps boost and a nice QOL because of the attack and movement speed increase.



you can also use
these will cancel out the grasping vines slowing effect completely.
they are also special because you can anoint them.
although capping res would be a challenge with this pair.



Body armor:


Well, do i really need to explain this one? :)
a TON of life
fire damage
and some armor too

an upgrade to that would be a good corruption like +1 all res, reduced damage from crits, %life, %damage..


WAIT! no 6L!?

we actually get our 6L from the helmet.
we can do that with the elder mods to get another 2 gems in the helmet itself.

Helmet:


you are looking for the "immolate" and "conc effect" mods with any other useful mod like life or res.

we socket our main skill (molten strike) in the helmet and it will be automatically linked with the elder mods, effectively making this helmet a 6L, just like an armor.
we do this so we could use the big chunk of flat life from kaoms heart since it has a very big downside of not having any sockets.


easiest way to find this helmet is with this search filter:
Standard
change to the current league in the search options.


if you can afford it, there are ways to make the helmet even better.
the first one is an enchantment for more projectiles, the second is an essence mod for 30% more elemental damage.



and if you really want to go big, elevated immolate at level 25 and flat crit mod would boost the damage even further and make EO proc much more consistence.



Rings:

you want as much life and resistances on your rings, preferably using Vermilion base for even more life.
chaos res is important, for damage aim for WED, proj dmg, %ele dmg, %fire dmg and so on.



opal rings are a good base too for more damage.



Life Gained on Hit mod on elder rings is a really nice to have, but will make rings more expensive and harder find\craft.

also since 3.12 poacher's mark grant 50 LGOH and on top of that we can use cinderswallow flask for the recovery while mapping so the elder mod isnt as important.


if you want to go higher, get a synthesized ring with +1 max endurance charge implicit.



Jewels:
We use a cluster jewel setup with this build.
for the large jewel you want

those mods will grant us damage, but more importantly life and mana leech which saves up skill points on the tree.
Feed The Fury and Fuel The Fight are the most important ones as they grant us life and mana leech.
Smite The Weak is pure damage and could be replaced with Martial Prowess for the same dps.

Important: large cluster jewel should have a maximum of 8 passive points or else you are wasting skill points. medium ones can have up to 5 without wasting points.

large jewels creates 2 more jewel sockets, you want to use two medium cluster jewels in them.

Eye To Eye is a must, repeater is the best 2nd mod.
Shrieking Bolts is only "ok" damage wise.

this will leave you with 2 more sockets, in one of them you want to use a small jewel with "Born of Chaos" mod.
with this jewel we actually want to have 3 passives instead of 2 so we could get the additional chaos res, unless you are already capped with other gear items.


ideally you want the other mods to be something like 25-35% increase effect, chaos res, dex\int.

and in the other one the unique small cluster jewel Natural Affinity.

with this jewel we get Nature's Patience, check the FAQ and videos on how it works.

NOTE: this is the best jewel slot to get corrupted blood immunity.

Timeless jewel:

we use a Glorious Vanity jewel with the Xibaqua variant to get the Divine Flesh keystone.
the exact location for this jewel is in the POB, we convert Mind Over Matter keystone.

as for why we are using this jewel, go to the FAQ.


another good unique jewel is Watcher's eye, you can get different kind of mods for this build.
Anger mods are good for damage like phyz as extra fire, fore pen, %fire damage.



for more defense a vitality life recovery mod is a good option since vitality is now a flat mana reservation gem and we can leave it at level 1.



for even more defense, vitality has another mod which grant up to 30 LGOH.



the rest of the jewel sockets on the tree should be filled with rares.
those need to have %life, attack speed and another damage mod like projectile damage, fire damage and so on.
also could be rolled with dex or resistances.

for a nice QOL, you can get a mana gained on hit mod on one of your jewels.



*NOTE: for STANDARD players, use the legacy version of Wildfire threshold jewel.

grants +2 projectiles.

league players shouldn't use it since it got reworked in patch 3.11 into this:

we dont need the chain and losing 50% of our projectiles is a big no-no.


Flasks:

We have a very big life pool and normal flasks just wont be enough.
with divine flesh and enough maximum chaos res the degen is very neglectable.
*dont quality this flask, you want the duration to be as low as possible.

another life flask to consider is:

the flask has a good recovery, but its real power is the full life refill at the end of the flask effect.
*dont quality this flask, you want the duration to be as low as possible.



more damage.
consecrated ground give us more life regen when we are standing on it.
you want anti bleed flask for the rare case you get that 20 stacks of bleed.
most bleed effects wont have much impact on us and you probably wont even degen at all.

if you got corrupted blood immunity this flask could be upgraded to

for more damage and larger coverage of consecrated ground.
also helps with procing EO by granting a flat crit to enemies on consecrated ground.



try to get a good pen roll on that.
you also want to get your uncapped fire res higher than cold&light but its not a big deal if you cant manage it because we use the next flask the grant us +50% fire res and should fix that problem :)


this flask gives us 2 more balls for a damage boost.
you want to get a flask that consumes 30 charges or less so you can get 2 uses out of it. if it has the mod "increased charges uses" its not good for you.
you either want it to not have that mod at all or have the "reduced charges used" mod.
also try to get the lowest increased area of effect rolls, more area means less balls hitting the target.


Onslaught gives more attack speed which is very good for us.
you want anti curse mod on this one.
also you need the roll "reduced charges used" to be at least 23% to get 2 uses out of the flask.

if you manage to overcap your resistances to the point you are capped even in ele weakness maps, you can upgrade to

for more damage and nice recovery while mapping.

Main skill in Helmet:(6L)
Molten Strike - Multistrike - Combustion - Elemental Damage With Attacks
you get Immolate and Conc effect from the helmet's elder mods so they are automatically linked.

*if you dont have +1 gloves and tribal fury you will have to use Ancestral Call instead of Ele Dmg With Atks for mapping.

a tip for a damage boost against bosses:


Movement skill:
Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify

*you dont need fortify if you got the corruption on the sword.

i personally prefer WB becase its very fast and responsive, however you can use leap slam\shield charge if you like it better.

also WB is safer than leap slam since you are getting hit by the monsters gradually as you dash into the pack.
with leap slam you get hit from all of the monsters at once which can be more dangerous.

Auras:
Anger- Blood and Sand - Precision - Enlighten

enlighten isnt a must, just makes life easier if you have a free gem socket.

*NOTE: make sure you are in Blood stance (red icon) and not Sand stance.

Vitality
since 3.12 vitality is a flat mana reservation gem so we keep it at level 1 just so we could use the vitality life recovery mod from watchers eye.
if you dont have a watchers eye with the recovery mod, there is no reason to use vitality.
ideally you have fortify as a corruption on your sword.

CWDT:
Cast With Damage Taken - Immortal Call - Summon Lightning Golem - Wave of conviction

*keep wave of conviction at level 1.

DPS boosters:
Blood Rage, Ancestral Protector
both skills will boost the attack speed of the build.

you can link blood rage to the CWDT setup if you like, but it might be annoying for no regen maps.

Poacher's Mark
this is our curse, you "mark" the enemies to apply it.
note that since 3.12 you can only "mark" one enemy at a time so make sure you are targeting the bosses and rare monsters to get the most out of it.

*visit the FAQ for more info about this curse.

Major: Soul of Solaris

Minor: Sould of Tukohama

in 3.12 we moved to a Divine Flesh setup so choosing Aeakaali and Shakari doesnt make much sense anymore.
Solaris is a solid defense option and Tukohama just suits to the playstyle of the build.

dont forget to actually upgrade the pantheon for its full effect.

not much to say here, normal leveling items.



use Thief's Torment as early as you can get it.

I used Molten Strike from level 1 with ancestral call.
you want to link it with faster attacks and multistrike later on.

you can add ele dmg w\ atks and added fire damage to the setup.

for a weapon, try to get a fast attacking sword.



when you get to lvl 68 you can equip

this is the closest to a grelwood while you are saving for the real deal.


alternatively, just level with hollow palm and respec everything later.

Bandits: kill all. we need the points :)

Ascendancy progression:
1. Undeniable for damage, hit chance and attack speed.
2. Unstoppable for QOL.
3. Unbreakable for a lot of defense mods.
4. Unflinching as endurance charges have more effect in endgame where physical damage is high.

Skill tree progression:
doesnt really matter, but getting Elemental Overload should be a priority.


You can take Avatar Of Fire node until you get a xophs blood.
Point Blank is too far to take on the tree and you lose alot of points, its better to save for Grelwood Shank.


POB:

https://pastebin.com/fgEqk3hh


*im using the community fork version.

What is "+1 target"?
Strike skills, like molten strike, only target one enemy with their melee attack by default, secondary effects aside.

this behavior makes clearing slow and clunky.
there is an "easy" solution to that in a form of a support gem called Ancestral Call, this support makes strike skills target 2 additional enemies.
the problem with this solution is that it comes with a big downside of losing significant damage multiplier since the gem itself isnt providing any damage.

to work around this, we take Tribal Fury on the tree and use a pair of gloves with a specific hunter mod.
with those two sources we can get +2 targets just like Ancestral Call, but without any loss of damage as we can now use a proper support gem instead of Ancestral Call.


What is "intimidation"?
intimidation is a debuff that can be applied to an enemy.
it will make the target receive 10% increased attack damage.


What is Nature's Patience?
Nature's Patience is a keystone only available by using Natural Affinity unique small cluster jewel.

the keystone enables a mechanic which make the character gain 2 Grasping Vines each second while stationary.
naturally the vines only have a strong less base movement speed multiplier debuff which is very undesirable.
but we actually want those vines to stack, up to maximum of 10, because the keystone also provides benefits for those vines.
2% chance to deal double damage per vine, up to 20% and 1% less damage taken per vine, up to 10%.
both are very welcome in our build, but we need a way to counter the movement speed penalty.

Juggernaut's ascendancy notable Unstoppable will make sure you wont be slowed below 100% movement speed.
from my testing i decided its enough and there isnt a real need to use The Stampede boots.

although you can still use them if you choose to.



What is Divine Flesh?
Divine Flesh is a keystone available only by using a timeless jewel, specifically Glorious Vanity with the Xibaqua variant (exact location is in the POB).

usually "50% of Elemental Damage taken as Chaos Damage" is a really bad mode as most builds dont invest in chaos res and many have negative res.
but we can get most of the chaos resistance we need from our rare gear and then double it by anointing Cleansed Thoughts.
this means we only need to get half of our chaos res to cap it.
and we really need it because our max chaos res isnt 75, we get +5% just from the keystone, but increasing it even more with other mods like Born of Chaos from the cluster jewel, max res from a rare influenced shield and even from a kaoms heart max res corruption.

our build doesnt scale ES so we dont have the downside of "All Damage taken bypasses Energy Shield".

why would we want to go through all that?
well, just converting elemental damage to chaos with 75% chaos res isnt worth it, we want to get as much maximum chaos res as possible because its effectively increasing the maximum resistance of fire cold and lightning.

how?
without the keystone a normal hit would be mitigated by 75%, but with the keystone and a max chaos res of 85% it would be mitigated by 80%.
50% of the damage is mitigated by the normal 75% resistance and the other half is mitigated by the 85% of our chaos res.
the total damage taken would be 50% X (25%+15%)= 20% instead of 25%.
or another way to look at it is the average of the resistances 0.5(75%+85%)= 80%.

so 1% max chaos res is 0.5% max res for each of the three resistances! thats pretty huge.

divine flesh plus the nerf to Soul of Steel are the reasons we dont get it on the tree anymore, its not worth the points.

another big benefit for converting elemental to chaos is penetration.
enemies with elemental penetration could be deadly since they are lowering your resistances.
against a boss with 20% penetration your effective max is 55%, taking almost double the damage [from 25% to 45%].
but with divine flesh the penetration is only 10%, because elemental penetration doesnt apply to chaos res, which makes your effective max res 70% [0.5(55+85)=70].


Why not using Herald of Ash?
the build used to, but Precision is the better solution now.

with the chances to the jugg ascendancy node 'Undeniable' the build lost some accuracy, combined with a fortify corruption on the sword instead of the flat accuracy you can drop below 100% chance to hit.

Precision grant high amount of flat accuracy and gets us back to hit cap.
due to the undeniable node we also get some attack speed from our accuracy rating, providing a slight boost to dps.
on top of that precision grant a decent amount of crit chance which helps with proccing Elemental Overload.


Can i use "this" weapon?
the build is using a setup of sword and shield
grelwood shank is the best weapon for the build, there is no other sword that will give you more dps.
as for the shield, a rare influenced shield with life implicit is the best option.


Can i use "this" armor?
there is no better option than kaoms.
we use an elder helmet as a 6L so there is no need for a 6L armor.


How much dex&int i need?
Dex: at least 122 so you can equip the sword.
try to get 155 for a level 20 poacher's mark and blood rage, but the dps difference isnt that big.
Int: 111, only for lvl20 combustion.


What level should my CWDT gem be?
lvl 20 so you can use higher level golem and less frequently endurance charges loss from immortal call.

What is Wave of Conviction and why are we using it?
wave of conviction is a spell that applies exposure corresponding to the highest type of damage dealt by it.
since we use Avatar of Fire, we only deal fire damage so we will always apply fire exposure for -25% fire res.
on top of that we link the CWDT gem with Flammability so we can curse enemies for have even less fire resistance.
by using CWDT we are automating the process so we can focus on the fight itself.

Curse
we use Poacher's Mark for our curse.
while technically Flammability is more dps when you compare the two curse directly against each other, poachers mark is overall better.

in 3.12 poachers mark got reworked, it is now a "mark".
the 3.12 changes makes poachers mark better for a few reasons:
"marks" dont get reduced effectiveness against bosses and arent affected by "hexaproof" mods, so you can always apply it.
also poachers mark now grant you flat physical damage against cursed enemies and chance to get frenzy charges on hit with quality (thats why we dont use curse on hit ring, they dont have quality).
on top of that we get 50 LGOH and 25 MGOH against cursed enemies.

so when you factor in all of this you get more damage than flammability plus added tankiness.

the only downside to marks is that you can only target one enemy, but its not that big of a deal since we have blood rage for frenzy charges generation while mapping and enough damage for anything else.


How much extra dps lvl21 gems will give me?
dont bother, the dps increase is very neglectable.
although getting a lvl21 molten strike could be nice for the extra 1 melee range.

What about using Empower?
see last answer :)

Awakened gems?
very expensive, should be your last upgrade pretty much.
the upside is that we can only use 2 awkn gems in our molten strike setup: multistrike and EDWA.

How is my dps? \ Why my dps is so low?
go over the guide again and make sure you have all the correct gear and complete skill tree.

look at "Patches Updates" for the latest updates.





*dont try this at home*

T16 UGS map, the more they hit me - the tankier i get ^^

Sirus stop! its tickling




Videos:


Patch Updates:



I know, i know!
there are many Molten Strike guides out there, probably with more damage too.
but they are focusing on damage too much and it hurts the build in other aspects IMO.
so i made my own build that fits my playstyle without compromising too much (if any) on damage.
Edit: after watching and analyzing more MS builds, i can safely say that mine is among the highest DPS ones.

Pros:
-VERY tanky: many layers of defense
-Lots of life: 9k without GG gear
-Lots of damage
-Can do all content
-Excellent lab runner
-Fast mapping
-Can start on a budget, a good league starter too
-Scales greatly with better gear
-No clunky mechanics
-Can do any map mod, rippy maps isnt a big deal anymore

*ele ref is possible on a 3L, i swap for any other helmet with molten strike-multistrike-ancestral call. (no elder mods!)
i still do enough damage, yes! i tested it, still melts red map bosses :)
you can add Greater Multiple Projectile to further reduce the damage of each ball and increase the tankiness with more ball.

Cons:
-Not a "ZOOM ZOOM" character like deadeye TS\KB (but is it really a con? :P)
-could get expensive if you try to min\max the build



Explanation:
Where the tankiness comes from?
1. we scale lots of life from tree and gear
2. capping resistances (OFC!)
3. armor and endurance chargers to mitigate hits
4. we get life from 3 sources: regen, leech and life gained on hit

We abuse the mod "life gain for each enemy hit by your attack" with the molten strike balls.
each ball that hits a monster grant us INSTANT life.
and since we throw alot of balls with high attack speed we get TONS of life recovered per sec.

Funny note: i survived almost 400 stacks of darkness in Delve before dying.


the build can throw up to 12 balls for EACH swing.
base skill is 3
2 balls comes from the threshold jewel
2 balls from the sword Grelwood Shank
2 more from the Dying Sun flask
and last 3 comes from the helmet enchant


OK! show me the actual build already!

NOTE: please do not PM me in game for help, check the FAQ section if you have questions, then post those in the thread if you couldnt find an answer.

Gear:


My Gear \ "what to upgrade":


Cheap\budget\league start version?


Gem links:


Pantheon:


Leveling:


POB, Skill Tree, Ascendancy and Bandits:


DPS:


Useful Tools (Warning! contains awesomeness)


FAQ



that's it!
would love to hear your feedback :)

EDIT:
please no more linking ALL of your gear and asking "what to upgrade now?", its annoying and spammy.
just look at my gear and and try to get something similar.
if you REALLY cant resist doing it, at least use the "spoiler" option to hide the items.