[3.16 - RETIRING BUILD] VD Brands: S-Tier Bosser, A-Tier Map! -- MURDERED BY GGG_INTERN SOMEWHERE--

Very nice build, alternative of VDSS since you don't have to stand and cast everytime.
However I'm still not used to 2 arcanist brand setup, usually VD casted before Desecrate, therefore i'm losing 1-2 beat before things start to run.
I'm gonna try with these later when I'm back from work
Helmet: Arcanist brand - Desecrate - VD - Awaken Spell cascade
Body: Scorching Ray - Awk CwC - Combustion - Bone offering - Elemental Weakness - Flammability (i have curse body)

Also I don't know if using +life/+ES gain on hit WE will increase the survivability ? Have anyone tried this before ?

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qryptic wrote:

Thanks for an awesome build. Clearing all maps with ease.
I have tried all versions but i find 1 cluster version superior in general :p

I also switched Desecrate to Phantasmal Desecrate and the dps skyrocketed even more. (+20% forgotten corpse spawn chance) IE. You spawn way more Primal Crushclaws!

Cheers!

Thanks for sharing! I actually came onto this thread to see if anyone had a list of alternate quality gems they found especially useful either defensively or offensively. I'm still rocking a shield with + max lightning resistance and ES gain on block for survivability, and I'm looking for ways to either push my damage higher with the shield or to ramp up tankiness so I can switch back to dual Shimmerons.

So does anyone have any favorite alt quality gems? It'd be nice to see it added to OP for next patch, assuming he continues the build.

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

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qryptic wrote:

Thanks for an awesome build. Clearing all maps with ease.
I have tried all versions but i find 1 cluster version superior in general :p

I also switched Desecrate to Phantasmal Desecrate and the dps skyrocketed even more. (+20% forgotten corpse spawn chance) IE. You spawn way more Primal Crushclaws!

Cheers!

Thanks for sharing! I actually came onto this thread to see if anyone had a list of alternate quality gems they found especially useful either defensively or offensively. I'm still rocking a shield with + max lightning resistance and ES gain on block for survivability, and I'm looking for ways to either push my damage higher with the shield or to ramp up tankiness so I can switch back to dual Shimmerons.

So does anyone have any favorite alt quality gems? It'd be nice to see it added to OP for next patch, assuming he continues the build.

Wasn't primal crushclaw removed from Phantasmal Desecrate though?
Unsure if it helps as you already have primal crushclaw from before, but read some posts about it being removed

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Achsar wrote:

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

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qryptic wrote:

Thanks for an awesome build. Clearing all maps with ease.
I have tried all versions but i find 1 cluster version superior in general :p

I also switched Desecrate to Phantasmal Desecrate and the dps skyrocketed even more. (+20% forgotten corpse spawn chance) IE. You spawn way more Primal Crushclaws!

Cheers!

Thanks for sharing! I actually came onto this thread to see if anyone had a list of alternate quality gems they found especially useful either defensively or offensively. I'm still rocking a shield with + max lightning resistance and ES gain on block for survivability, and I'm looking for ways to either push my damage higher with the shield or to ramp up tankiness so I can switch back to dual Shimmerons.

So does anyone have any favorite alt quality gems? It'd be nice to see it added to OP for next patch, assuming he continues the build.

Wasn't primal crushclaw removed from Phantasmal Desecrate though?
Unsure if it helps as you already have primal crushclaw from before, but read some posts about it being removed

Many has confirmed Primal crushclaw has been removed from "forgotten corpsed", but no official word from GGG. Guess they just want us to play blindfold ...
However it still give us some damage boost since Flickershade have 300% HP modifier, which is higher than default mobs tho (especially in bosses).

I have a question what about Life gain on hit or ES does it apply to the Spells casted from the arcanist brand??

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Aren7 wrote:

Very nice build, alternative of VDSS since you don't have to stand and cast everytime.
However I'm still not used to 2 arcanist brand setup, usually VD casted before Desecrate, therefore i'm losing 1-2 beat before things start to run.
I'm gonna try with these later when I'm back from work
Helmet: Arcanist brand - Desecrate - VD - Awaken Spell cascade
Body: Scorching Ray - Awk CwC - Combustion - Bone offering - Elemental Weakness - Flammability (i have curse body)

Also I don't know if using +life/+ES gain on hit WE will increase the survivability ? Have anyone tried this before ?

The ES on hit should work with triggered spells, yes. I bought the WE right before going to bed last night, but I'll be able to test and confirm tonight.

Keeping two brands up is definitely the most annoying thing about this build's playstyle. It does get a lot easier once you practice the rhythm of dropping the brands while keeping an eye on your brand count. I found myself in the same situation as you, so I switched the keybindings of my brands and that fixed the issue. Stay consistent with which button you press/click first and set that one to Desecrate and it will dramatically improve performance.

A big part of minimizing stopping time is also internalizing the timing of Brand Recall. I usually run toward a big pack, hit Brand Recall, roll my flasks, dash away, cast two more brands, rinse, and repeat. Once you've gotten enough cast speed from Corpse Pact, it only takes a fraction of a second to recast both brands, making it much less of a chore.

So the OP is obviously very clever and I have a hard time believing he didn't try to make the build work with just 1 brand setup. If the downside were just the loss of one support gem, I think it could still be a great way to make mapping super-easy. However, there are consequences for the build's engine when you essentially cut the trigger rate of Desecrate and VD in half, which is what you are doing by linking them to the same brand. Specifically, your slowed rate of corpse consumption would slow down the feedback loop necessary for reaching critical mass for Corpse Pact's insane cast speed bonus, making it really difficult, if not impossible, to achieve damage approaching what's possible with two separate brands. Or at least that's what I'm theorizing. Please post your results here!

Edit: yes, ES on hit from Watcher's Eye works with the build. Really well, in fact!

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WorderMostFoul wrote:

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Aren7 wrote:

Very nice build, alternative of VDSS since you don't have to stand and cast everytime.
However I'm still not used to 2 arcanist brand setup, usually VD casted before Desecrate, therefore i'm losing 1-2 beat before things start to run.
I'm gonna try with these later when I'm back from work
Helmet: Arcanist brand - Desecrate - VD - Awaken Spell cascade
Body: Scorching Ray - Awk CwC - Combustion - Bone offering - Elemental Weakness - Flammability (i have curse body)

Also I don't know if using +life/+ES gain on hit WE will increase the survivability ? Have anyone tried this before ?

The ES on hit should work with triggered spells, yes. I bought the WE right before going to bed last night, but I'll be able to test and confirm tonight.

Keeping two brands up is definitely the most annoying thing about this build's playstyle. It does get a lot easier once you practice the rhythm of dropping the brands while keeping an eye on your brand count. I found myself in the same situation as you, so I switched the keybindings of my brands and that fixed the issue. Stay consistent with which button you press/click first and set that one to Desecrate and it will dramatically improve performance.

A big part of minimizing stopping time is also internalizing the timing of Brand Recall. I usually run toward a big pack, hit Brand Recall, roll my flasks, dash away, cast two more brands, rinse, and repeat. Once you've gotten enough cast speed from Corpse Pact, it only takes a fraction of a second to recast both brands, making it much less of a chore.

So the OP is obviously very clever and I have a hard time believing he didn't try to make the build work with just 1 brand setup. If the downside were just the loss of one support gem, I think it could still be a great way to make mapping super-easy. However, there are consequences for the build's engine when you essentially cut the trigger rate of Desecrate and VD in half, which is what you are doing by linking them to the same brand. Specifically, your slowed rate of corpse consumption would slow down the feedback loop necessary for reaching critical mass for Corpse Pact's insane cast speed bonus, making it really difficult, if not impossible, to achieve damage approaching what's possible with two separate brands. Or at least that's what I'm theorizing. Please post your results here!

Edit: yes, ES on hit from Watcher's Eye works with the build. Really well, in fact!

Hiya! Thanks for your faith in me, haha! I'll share my findings that I got in Harvest scoping out the dynamics.

Regarding the single brand playstyle - definitely one of the things I explored since I knew the two-button pattern was the worst part of the build.

Here are the findings on single-brand:

Slowing the trigger rate by half would have theoretically have been neutralised by having double the brands - but as the brands would go something like this:

VD1 - Dese1 - VD1 - Dese1
VD2 - Dese2 - VD2 - Dese2

At a point in time you have Dese 1 and 2 firing, and the corpse cap means the corpses from Dese 1 are completely wasted/replaced by Dese 2 - and then VD 2 has about 3 corpses left over to work with instead of a full 15.

Exactly as you say (but for a slightly different reason) - the DPS is cut drastically due to slower cast speed "snowballing" - and then again because of the corpses lost to the cap.

IF they ever remove the corpse cap or increase it to 20/24 via a mechanic, then this build would absolutely pop off in convenience. As you rightly say, it would lose one support link's worth of damage - but that's a small price to pay for convenience.

At some

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Achsar wrote:

Hi man! Gotta say that I love this build, it truly has insane damage^^

Can't see any cannot be frozen in the build though. Have you skipped that intentionally as most mobs are killed while you're frozen? Or have I missed anything?

Thanks for the build, and all the time and theorycrafting you've put into it

Edit* And really should've listened about not switching early, this has been the worst uber lab run I've ever done

Ah fuck, sorry you had to go through that. I think somewhere in the post is that this build is absolute aids in Lab (any Immortal Ambition build is horrible, and then you add Shimmeron degen to kill yourself further).

I'll move it up to the Cons section for visibility. xD

Ah! I ran this in 3.12 when Harvest was out to give you an idea of what to expect. The thing you will miss most is, in this order:

1) Explodey being rare af/expensive. While the build clears rather organically (in fact, corpses NOT exploding means your brands have more corpses to work with, you can run 3-1 during mapping instead of 2-2 - also Brands jump more since entire packs don't disappear and the brands snap back less), in general I think it'll suffer like every single build (except HoI/Storms Gift builds) in terms of clearspeed.

The plus is that it suffers slightly less than a bunch of builds for reasons listed above - plus the fact that you drop Conc Effect meaning each ball splashes a lot more.

I've even run maps WITHOUT a chestpiece by accident because I was trying to flip chestpieces - thus putting my chest in a sale tab - then not realising a difference till I tried to channel my CWC Incinerate and nothing happened. Was too lazy to go out and get the chest (and stop the trade listing) so I'd just clear as normal.

1a) Helm DPS boost - loses a bit of bossing power because you will have Hypothermia dropped. The solution is to use a 6L instead of a helm early game until you can get a decent craft or currency going.

2) Frenzy Charges - now you have to use bloodrage somewhere again, ugh!

3) PCoC - actually, the PCoC gem going back in isn't too bad. The damage drop isn't that noticable on bosses, since, ironically, PCoC makes the power charges ramp up way faster and smooths the RNG nature of chest PCoC with it's low percentage.

TL:DR - this build still functions without Harvest, but like every other build, you WILL miss some clearspeed and single-target DPS due to helm modifiers being shut down. Back to vanilla 6-link PoE boys!

Adjustments:

Things you can do:

1) Run shield like Light of Lunaris instead of 2x Shimmeron. This means you can shed Acuity for Storm's Gift + Inpulsa for a bit of old explodey action. It's not a trade-off I would make, since I prize Vaal Pact as it allows me to play carelessly and soak a lot of smaller hits / DoTs, but it's a flavour of the build you can pursue.

2) Drop the whole Double Shimmeron / Power Charge setup for very strong wands (they'll set you back maybe 10-20 ex each though) so you can, again, drop Vaal Pact and now have 6 skill points to donate towards things like Elusive on Kill nodes.

3) As has been a topic, LGOH is now VERY DESIRABLE for the build since we can work in Corrupted Soul with Immortal Ambition now, meaning that you always take Life damage (and consequently can top it off.) I'd donate a ring mod to this without question.

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qryptic wrote:

Thanks for an awesome build. Clearing all maps with ease.
I have tried all versions but i find 1 cluster version superior in general :p

I also switched Desecrate to Phantasmal Desecrate and the dps skyrocketed even more. (+20% forgotten corpse spawn chance) IE. You spawn way more Primal Crushclaws!

Cheers!

Whew, it really should. Plus any corpse that isn't the base Desecrate corpses usually are usually DPS increases! (damn, was it 20%? I thought it was 2.5% or something.)