[3.10] Gryph's Volatile Dead Necromancer || Fun, Medium Budget, Tanky, Millions of DPS

Played self-cast iteration of this build in Blight. Was interested in some way to use all that corpse pact power and it seemed exactly right thing.

But notion of cyclone+cwc being best just seems wrong for this league.
It's missing on biggest offensive benefit / having anti-synergy - using neither insane cast(self-cast) nor attack speed(cast-on-crit or outright attack-based).

At that point jugger with unflinching will probably have much easier time sustaining and be more tanky. AND you'll sustain even more from more attack speed, instead of starting to kill yourself from running into CWDT CD cap with cyclone.

CWC just doesn't scale at all, not with CDR, not with attack speed, not with cast speed...
You're on 4-links with mediocre cast speed, nothing can fix that. It's just not "endgame"-worthy for current AW8.
It could've been true that self-cast variant had _too_ much dps for past league and could spare it for smoother mapping AND sure, "mobility is king" for harder bosses, but DPS is so low for AW8 it's just not worth it anymore.

And tbh volatile dead sucks for clear with cyclone casting, because volatiles are created at your feet or even _behind_ you and take time to lock on/move to enemies, don't one-shot rares, you end up cycloning into packs that take time to die and get a chance to chew on you, or awkwardly cycloning in place a screen away, generating weak balls at low cast speed.

Self-casting VD on other hand every few screens - you dash in wake of wave of death already locked on, with enough balls/high enough damage to clear several next screens. Much safer/smoother feeling.
So in my experience CWC VD clear is not faster than self-cast at all.

Detonate dead cyclone mapping feels much smoother, arguably even smoother than self-cast VD, it's pretty much the only thing that CWC variation has going for it. But it can't clear multiple screens/rooms at once.
And from some reddit posts looks like cast-on-crit cyclone necro variant with detonate dead can scale _much_ higher, surpassing even self-cast VD dps despite including desecrate into links, so there's that, CWC can do it sufficiently for normal mapping - but mediocre comparatively to CoC, doesn't insta-kill morps and bosses at AW8.

Defensively -
Sure we can have 9-10k combined pool and 70+ block/50% + spell block, but mitigation beyond some enfeeble is hard to fit in, not that here're no options.
Want TC+Enfeeble? Want leap slam+fortify? Want endurance charges? Want phase acro without acro penalties?
Want 30% less damage or bubble spectres?
Everything is an option but not all at once, and be hones for all that stuff there're greedy offensive options, so you'll MB get enfeeble or flesh & stone for blind.

TLDR

1. You go CWC - you have to spend inordinate amount of time whirling around tanky morps and conquerors that WILL rip you. Despite the fact that you're mobile.

At that point generic geofry's zombo build cycloning purely for offering procs seems much stronger - you can have 12k+ buffer combined, don't waste corpses to offensive spells so have much more powerfull sustain. Have incomparably higher DPS since you're full-fledged necromancer with some 7-link zombos or spectres and while you'll lose a lot of block you can have defensive minions with taunt etc, so overall will be much safer than any non-minion build.

2. Spell cascade and _especially_ awakened spell cascade are still BIS supports dps-wise for VD and DD, for awakened you need to link full 19 corpses generation from desecrate + spell cascade + unearth + gmp + volley. No other supports/auras can replace that DPS-wise. Linking AW spell echo to AW cascade would also be BIS, but is impossible to sustain by number of corpses simply.
Even with just AW cascade can't use cascade for offerings, not enough corpses.

3. 60 balls limit doesn't matter at all since overcap balls explode instantly, still dealing damage. And as self-cast you will be dumb sitting on the boss abusing your block chance + buffer, casting that balls and using full sustained dps when you get that opportunities.
Performance is not much of issue with limit, before it could melt your GPU.

4. Insta-killing or nearly insta-killing more dangerous things is still the best way, and self-cast variation can do it, on a very cheap budget. CWC variation is DPSing all the time but it's nowhere enough to compensate for short bursts of self-cast.

4. "Martyr replacement" is a trap. Block chance is exponentially more valuable the more you have, so loss of extra 16% block is HUGE. Having 70+ attack block alone is insane, you can chill facecheck packs in delve darkness to see if there's something good and not get oneshot / not care about all the surprise conqueror mobs popping up from undergdound - all the things that will constantly rip others.

With self-cast you become basically a quite strong miner with much higher combined pool + insane block/spell block, not suffering from mine reservation and with some nice extra sustain.

ET shroud miners can still scale higher but not be tankier, and it's insanely expensive, while self-cast VD can still blow everything up with +2 tabula, 5link martyr.
You can reach 134 mana cost with just lvl21 VD and using all 140% mana cost supports.

Bonus round
Poet's pen with body swap variant is one of fastest mapper _ever_, had a lot of fun with it on lower tier maps.

But starts to die badly at t12+ to trash from jumping into all the packs, seems impossible to fix.

Damage on higher tier maps is total trash even compared to cyclone CWC, with seemingly only indigon as option, which is a big pity.

Bonus round #2
Strangely enough having totems cast desecrate/unearth and self-casting offerings doesn't create infinite cast speed loop (at least until you kill yourself or run out of mana) but stops in it's tracks quite soon.

What's your point and what do you suggest? A bit messy to read

what are you smoking and can you share it please?

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What's your point and what do you suggest? A bit messy to read

I suggest that current iteration of build is a mistake for current league.
Use self-cast block iteration from Blight - way better.

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what are you smoking and can you share it please?

Sorry they don't make it like that anymore.

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I suggest that current iteration of build is a mistake for current league.
Use self-cast block iteration from Blight - way better.

you didnt account for clear speed and movement.... stoping at every pack to selfcast is super slow....

also yes DD does more DMG BUT VD move around and clear further, making you not need to go in corner and jump down some places, making you faster

you also didnt account taht VD ids ranged compared to DD... i can kill metamorph from 1 screen away and from behind a pillar

also the 60balls limit is important, if they keep exploding near you, you need to get in range instead of being range

Self Cast is more DPS than CWC Cyclone.

This is true and will always be true. You can get multiple millions of DPS on a small budget this way. Honestly in hindsight with starting this league with CWC Cyclone, I may have been better off going for Self cast for the raw damage output at first. But where you're wrong is how weak the self cast version is to standing still to do DPS. For 95% of everything it's literally doesn't matter. I made the switch last league because I couldn't reliably kill even Uber Elder deathless on Self Cast due to mobility issues. Became a particular problem with Aul when I was doing carries.

Of course I was still dealing 1.6 million damage per Volatile on CWC. SO yeah, damage wasn't an issue. That said, even this league I did everything up to and including T16's on a 5L CWC setup.

Clearing with Cyclone is much faster than you suggest. I zip through a map and everything is dead afterwards. In general doing CWC makes VD simpler to use. No need to self cast desecrate all the time between packs (sure not a big deal in general but highly annoying to a lot of people).

I've also considered just having a 6L weapon swap for self cast VD for DPSing metas, but I find it to be unnecessary at this point.


As for the CoC versions, they're a lot squishier and have to melee everything. This is not appealing to me whatsoever. yes they can get more DPS. Like, OF COURSE THEY CAN--it's friggin CoC. hahaha. If anything the bow version looks the most appealing for the range.

Also you seem to be misguided by the "lack" of synergy with CWC and Corpse Pact. We need to reach very high APS to get our CWDT triggers to go off quickly to keep up with CWC triggers. This (and Essence Glutton) is actually the primary reason I don't play this as a Scion.

Also, never compare to a summoner build. I hate summoners. OBVIOUSLY they're still OP AF. :P

I am a huge advocate of playing the build the way you prefer. Most people prefer the simplicity and mobility of Cyclone. If you want more damage, then yeah, go for Self Casting. For anyone that *wants* to try to do the self cast, some information can be found in the reserve post or asked of me.

EDIT: took a look at your profile and that is a SICK Chest piece. You make that yourself?

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you didnt account for clear speed and movement...

Accounting for all that, played both variants sufficiently(and even some others as described above)

Nope, self-casting vd at every pack feels quite palatable with 300%+ cast speed, way better then having balls cast behind you and moving mobs down with cyclone dps alone

Especially since you won't even need to self-cast desecrate that often while clearing since previous VD will provide corpses.

It would've been _less_ palatable before but now life is just too high on boss/morph for CWC.

Detonate dead dps is not higher on bosses btw, though metamorphs kiond of funnily doom themselves by spawning all that high level trash to be detonated.

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I couldn't reliably kill even Uber Elder deathless on Self Cast due to mobility issues.

It was totally the opposite for me, not only did i kill him deathless the very first time, but also on first time i tried with that build, it felt basically like insta-phasing things on that fight, and mobility was amazing with flame dash + CDR alone at such high cast speed.

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EDIT: took a look at your profile and that is a SICK Chest piece. You make that yourself?

Bought at 27ex. Had my doubts whether to do it but don't regret. Still regretting not buying WE with dmg gained as mana+ES on hit earlier, never expected they'd be this rare with uber changes.

You're forgetting the most important factor though, its lazy. When you can literally just hold right click through most maps poping flask on bosses and megamorphs, doesn't get better than that

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WrongBlight wrote:

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you didnt account for clear speed and movement...

Accounting for all that, played both variants sufficiently(and even some others as described above)

Nope, self-casting vd at every pack feels quite palatable with 300%+ cast speed, way better then having balls cast behind you and moving mobs down with cyclone dps alone

Especially since you won't even need to self-cast desecrate that often while clearing since previous VD will provide corpses.

It would've been _less_ palatable before but now life is just too high on boss/morph for CWC.

Detonate dead dps is not higher on bosses btw, though metamorphs kiond of funnily doom themselves by spawning all that high level trash to be detonated.

"

I couldn't reliably kill even Uber Elder deathless on Self Cast due to mobility issues.

It was totally the opposite for me, not only did i kill him deathless the very first time, but also on first time i tried with that build, it felt basically like insta-phasing things on that fight, and mobility was amazing with flame dash + CDR alone at such high cast speed.

It's funny the cast speed on Flame Dash was often the issue. I would constantly rubber band with it trying to avoid shaper balls or something only to go right back into it. Comparatively I insta phased 2-man hp Uber Elder with CWC. whole fight in 88 seconds.

Still not sure how you had issues with CWC Clear. Everything is dead in my wake, even if some of the balls appear behind me.

I got theses two chest pieces
Wich one do you think is the best, and do you think i can sell the other for a few ex or is it worth nothing ?

Also is it more important in your opinion to buy bottled faith or to focus on the second six link ? (i think bottled faith is better but i want to know your opinion)

Anyways, sick build, i've been playing it since last league and i cry every night for my clarity+discipline+anger watcher's eye i bought for 5ex while this league i bought a simple discipline for 10 ... :,(

Also a little advice for our delve friends here. I started using the watcher's eye discipline es on hit + ball lightning and firerstorm. Why firestorm ? It allows me to delve sideways without using a single flare, by stacking up firerstorm and others skills on monster packs, you can't damage them but the es on hit still works (stacked up to 250 darkness stacks at depth 300, could handle more) Not very usefull still flares costs nothing, but pretty good when you forget to buy them :)