[3.12] [WIP] [League Start] 9 Curses Ice Nova/Blade Vortex making Doedre great again
 Exiles! How's it going? I always loved the Doedre's theme: Curse everything, scream when angry and explode the whole screen. I also always loved playing Frostbolt Ice Nova because it warms my room as my computer gets on fire. So, today I'm here not-so-proudly presenting you my first build guide ever, which is not complete because I suck hard at doing this and need YOUR help to finish it! INTRODUCTION So, as I already said, I always loved the Doedre's theme, and today I made some courage to make it public altogether to make a cool (get it? :D) build. Recently I've found some interesting mechanics behind Arcanist Brand, Frostbolt and Ice Nova, making it work greatly for both clearing and maybe for boss killing (hey, despite being trash, my PoB dps reached 1.5 mil with trash items). The build works by casting a Arcanist Brand linked to Frostbolt and Ice Nova to make a 2-button build become a 1-button build until you get into bossing. Also, if you don't like Frostbolt Ice Nova and want something that may be simpler, go to the end of this post as there is also a Blade Vortex version. Every moment we draw closer to Heist League, so keep in mind that this guide is a WORK IN PROGRESS and that it may change over time as everything I wrote below is nothing more than theory crafting using my own past experiences with my fat lady Doedre. MECHANICS OFFENSE:
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The build is simple: You cast Arcanist Brand, and it will attach to an enemy while casting both Frostbolt and Ice Nova. Since Arcanist Brand aims at something, the Ice Novas will be cast from the Frostbolts shot by the Arcanist Brand.
If you manage to get a second Brand attached to an enemy, both Brands will cast Ice Nova for a total of 4 Novas, doing this repeatedly until the Brands expire. No need to aim, no need to keep casting. Just leave your Brand there and let it do the job. As this wasn't enough, Arcanist Brand's Frostbolts counts as if they were cast by us. So, we use a Pledge of Hands to self-cast even more Novas, linked to a Spell Echo, for a total of 8 self-cast Ice Novas + ??? Ice Novas from our Brands, dealing theorically tons of damage. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! We, as an Occultist, have access to Malediction, which gives us 8% Non-Chaos as Chaos Damage PER CURSE on a killed enemy. It is up to 72% Non-Chaos as Chaos, plus up to 15% Elemental Damage as Chaos Damage from Atziri's Promise. It is almost 90% of our damage as EXTRA Chaos Damage. Oh, and the enemies also go boom. We also use Doedre's Scorn to get up to 200% Increased Spell Damage with Hits while we make our Doedre's thingy last longer. Up to all that, we use 6 curses through Doedre's Effigy to grant Endurance, Frenzy and Power charges as we kill while reducing to almost zero our enemies' resistances with Frostbite, Elemental Weakness and Despair. DEFENSE:
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We abuse our privileged position in the tree. We are near good nodes from the Templar area and from the Witch area. With trash League Start I managed to pull 3.9k Life, 4.8k Mana and 4.6k Energy Shield. We use Mind Over Matter altogether with a Doryani's Glorious Vanity for Corrupted Soul, making use of all our resources to get effectively a 13k lifepool.
We also are abusing Enfeeble and Temporal Chains to keep ourselves alive by reducing our enemy's action speed and damage. We almost don't reserve Mana (will reserve Mana when we get our #% maximum Mana as Energy Shield Watcher's Eye, which is about 1.5k extra ES, not counting the increased Life, Mana and ES from the jewel itself), making Arcane Cloak a perfect defense and offense layer if used correctly together with a good mana flask. Vixen's Entrapment gives us some Energy Shield leech. Doryani's Lesson gives us some Life leech. As we take damage from both Life and Energy Shield because of Corrupted Soul, both will make a sick recovery. Last but not least, the Occultist's Vile Bastion ascendancy gives a decent Energy Shield regeneration as long as we keep killing. It also makes us stun immune, which is awesome. And yes I know we can be stunned if our ES drops to zero, but if our ES drops to zero we should be dead or almost dead anyway. EQUIPMENT AND GEMS:
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BODY ARMOUR:
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We are playing a Doedre thematic character, so Doedre's Skin is obligatory. It grants us Level 20 Summon Doedre's Effigy skill. What it does? Well, its quite simple.
Doedre's Effigy casts all the curses socketed in the chestpiece with Blasphemy. As the Effigy is casting the curses, Blasphemy reserves the Effigy's mana instead of ours AND all its curses don't count towards our maximum curses applied. Yes the curses have a lower effectiveness, but its 6 additional curses for almost free. Oh, and Doedre's Skin doesn't need to be 6-linked to work. For gems: LV 20 Assassin's Mark - LV 10 Poacher's Mark - LV 10 Warlord's Mark - LV 20 Temporal Chains - LV 20 Enfeeble - LV 10 Projectile Weakness Inb4: But Tales, why Level 10 Poacher's Mark and Level 10 Warlord's Mark? Answer: We don't care about these curses. They are here only to give us charges. You can run them at Level 1 if you wish, but from past experiences with Doedre's Skin I think Level 10 is the perfect balance between attribute requirements and chance to generate a charge. HELMET:
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Doedre's Scorn makes perfect sinergy with our body armour, and it is not because they share a name - or maybe yes, I don't know. It grants +2 Levels to socketed Curses (we will talk about them later), gives a decent bunch of Energy Shield and 20% increased Elemental Damage, but the most powerful stat here is the (10-20)% increased Damage with Hits and Ailments per Curse on Enemy. Only through Doedre's Effigy it is 60-120% increased Damage for almost nothing.
As for the gems: LV 20 Bane - LV 20 Despair - LV 20 Frostbite - LV 20 Elemental Weakness Inb4: Why Bane? Answer: Because it allows us to give them 3 curses for the cost of 1, and deals some damage while making the curses longer. Inb4: Still don't get it. You're using Vixen's Entrapment. Why Bane? Answer: Open the Spoiler below. GLOVES:
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It is here only because it is a cheap way to get the You can apply an additional Curse mod. As it also gives energy leech from cursed enemies, it is a two-for-one item until I find new ways to get Energy Shield leech and an additional curse without wasting Passive Points for Whispers of Doom.
It is here where our Brands make their homes while not out there casting cool (haha, get it? :D) stuff for us. Their balls count as ours - remember it as it is important. Note that Frostbolt must be cast before Ice Nova, or the Brands will cast a useless Ice Nova before going crazy. Take a look out there about trigger order in items so you will know what I mean. The gems: LV 20 Arcanist Brand - LV 20 Frostbolt - LV 20 Ice Nova - LV 20 Faster Casting Inb4: TALES, NOW ANSWER ME! WHY AREN'T THE CURSES IN THESE FREAKING GLOVES? Answer: Doedre's Scorn gives +2 to Level of Socketed Curses , making the curses (and Bane) better. And Bane already casts those curses by itself, so Trigger Socketed Curse Skill when you cast a Curse Skill is pretty much a dead mod anyway. WEAPON:
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Here we have a few good options. By now it is in here where we put our self-cast Ice Nova. Some people like a slower but heavier Ice Nova through Realm Ender while others prefer the fast screen clutter Pledge of Hands is capable of making. Both are good choices, but my personal go is Pledge of Hands. Bulky Spell Damage, a astronomical mana increase (flat 100% mana, like wth?) and the Level 20 Greater Spell Echo support, which stacks with Spell Echo support doubling its effect.
Gems: LV 20 Vaal Ice Nova - LV 20 Spell Echo - LV 20 Intensify - LV 20 Arcane Surge - LV 20 Elemental Focus - LV 20 Hypothermia JEWELLERY:
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The only mandatory thing we need is an Essence Worm to run Hatred. That's it. Why this one? We must keep our Mana free so we can be beaten to death with more style.
For the rest of your gear, focus on the following: - Fixing attributes (shouldn't be hard) - Capping resistances - Get some Chaos resistance (it is easy as we already have some good base resistances) - Maximum Life - Maximum Mana - Spell Damage - Crit And for the boots gems, look into Arcane Cloak linked to Cast when Damage Taken, Vaal Righteous Fire and Dash for some mobility. TL;DR gimme the pastebin
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Last edited: 14/09/2020 (DD/MM/YYYY)
https://pastebin.com/pd0bf4jQ CONCLUSION: As I said in the beginning this guide is a theory craft and needs good players to refine this build. It is made to work on a fairly low budget (about 3 exalteds should do the trick), but may do some good stuff. I got so much better as a player in the past leagues that now I'm really excited to try playing with my fat flaccid lady Doedre again. Feel free to make your customizations to this build and give me advice, but keep in mind that I'm planning this to be my league starter for Heist and that's why the gear listed on the PoB is pretty trash. Blade Vortex variant:
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" This one got up to 4.4 million DpS with 13k eHP keeping almost everything. The only major changes were to the tree itself, dropping Vixen's Entrapment to get a Elemental Conversion rare gloves and the main skill, which is Blade Vortex supported by Archmage and Physical to Lightning. Since this one doesn't use Ice Nova, we also don't need the Frostbolt setup, granting us a Righteous Fire slot to toy with, but I don't really like the idea of getting closer to enemies even with all the defensive layers we have (it keeps most of the Ice Nova variant's defenses). We also use Punishment on our effigies to get the explode mod for free, and we dropped Hatred so we can run Wrath on the ring. Besides the increases this one may be a bit pricier even if we keep most of the garbage we use as equipment as this one may need the #% of Damage taken gained as Mana over 4 seconds from a Watcher's Eye to keep up our Mana. Here is the PoB: https://pastebin.com/5YTYMD14 (last edited 14/09/2020) Thanks for reading this guide, and as Navali says... I'll see you again. CHANGELOG:
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DD/MM/YYYY
12/09/2020 - Corrected some ortography errors (English is not my primary language), added a Blade Vortex variant and finally made the boots setup. 14/09/2020 - Added leveling passive trees. Blade Vortex's variant DpS dropped from 5.5 million to 4.4 million because Ice Nova setup was still there and its supports were counting over the calculation. Last edited by Tales_Black on Sep 14, 2020, 10:38:55 AM Last bumped on Sep 20, 2020, 3:49:20 PM
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Looks really tempting, especially when i saw the today's spoiler. With the new Doom part.
I will have a eye on this build | |
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Very cool build concept,
I love the theme of it, if not for the mechanical aspects, then just for the meme value. I've read through the build and checked out the POB. The damage looks more like 1.6m DPS, that's achieved averaging out the intensity levels instead of just taking maxed out intensity. But that really doesn't matter much it's still a decent amount of damage. My one concern for the build is the number of different skills you need to cast. -Deodres effigy x3 -Bane -Arcanist Brand x2 -Ice Nova (Repeated for damage) That's a lot of setup for bossing, and for clearing you'll be constantly casting Effigy (which thankfully is an instant cast time) though it could feel clunky. Some suggestions Replacing the Ice Nova in your Arcanist Brand with an increased duration support, so that you don't have to cast it as often. Also, adding in the reworked Punishment curse, as it increases damage survivability and adds overkill explosions. Last edited by K33LIN on Sep 10, 2020, 7:54:49 PM
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" The Ice Nova on the Brands is there mostly to make it a 1-button build as we can focus on keeping the interaction between the two skills and not having to stop to cast Ice Nova for ourselves. Cast the Brand once in each white/blue pack and keep going. We can deal with some Rares when we stub into them. Increased Duration for bossing actually looks like a great idea though. Definitely will look into that as it looks really tempting. " I used only old stuff while making this build and I will use the reworked Punishment for sure. I'm just waiting for the numbers (what things will do exactly) to REALLY get this build into 3.12 - for now this build is just a scratch so we can have a floor to work on. As you just made me take a look over the new stuff, Sigil of Power, one of the new "Area Control" skills we will be getting for the incoming league looks great since we eat mana like crazy. As it adds Lightning Damage, Shock may become something to consider about! " I didn't really understand how Doom will work with Bane, since we won't be casting its curses despite the fact that Bane itself is also a curse skill. Let's hope Doom procs on Bane's curses! =) Last edited by Tales_Black on Sep 10, 2020, 9:00:53 PM
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" GGG has already said that they don't intend for Bane's curses to apply Doom. Though they also added this decision isn't concrete so there's always hope. Plus this decision makes sense as the curses that Bane applies are technically triggered. So if i had to I'd bet against this interaction working. | |
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could you create a little leveling guide tips for league starting? and what to get in passive tree early on :D
Last edited by Erakkorapu6000 on Sep 13, 2020, 12:43:11 PM
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" Just done that! =) Despite having the leveling trees, you will have to sort how you will level up. Get mana nodes if you need mana; get life nodes if you need life. What you should get first depends on what your gear gives you. |
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I think I'm going to try this as a league starter but my friend is saying dont use doedres because it's playstyle is "terrible." Oh well lol
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I really love the creativity of the build but with the curse rework in 3.12 and the new tags for mark/hex skills this will no longer work with blasphemy or Deodres.
You'd need to find replacement curses for "LV 20 Assassin's Mark - LV 10 Poacher's Mark - LV 10 Warlord's Mark" in the armour to make it viable. And a good portion of damage is triggered from these 3. You could trigger all 6 remaining curses from armour slot and free up room for something else. | |
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hey, did this new patch rip the shit out of this build, what's ur opinioin to this and is this still playable :D didnt quite understand the hexe's etc thin's :D
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