[3.22] - Deadeye Ward Trauma Molten Strike

------ Introduction ------

Hello exiles!

This may be my last league experience, but this one is quite obscure. It started off as a meme and became a genuine build with lots of potential.

A brief explanation of the general idea: the Ward is used in the meta for the Warloop or to add chaos damage, but never truly as a defensive system even though its potential is fantastic! In this build, the Ward is paired with a ton of damage reduction (100% physical to fire conversion, a Ruby flask enhanced by Mageblood, 90% resistances, Fortify, Berserk, Immortal Call, etc.), resulting in almost no hits in the game being able to deal more damage than the Ward pool, making it very tanky and do a anti-shotgun effect.

To complement this defense, I'm using some new additions like the Trauma support gem which, I admit, results in a slower-paced gameplay, but it's not too bad.

The build managed to handle almost everything, except for Uber Sirus which became quite challenging in its last phase with a myriad of ground effects, and Uber Maven is a bit tricky. It's doable but can be really tedious.

I play Deadeye mainly out of laziness to make a Scion, but it's perfectly viable with her, maybe even better than a pure Deadeye.

The build has a Mageblood which is very useful for increasing the Ward, but a rare belt with flask mods like "reduced charge per use" can be quite handy to minimize investment and make the Olroth flask infinite, thereby allocating more DPS in the tree.

For the targeted content, the build performs very well in the Simulacrum, invitations, maps in general, and bosses (except for Uber Sirus and Uber Maven). I didn't showcase much map gameplay, but it's notably fast with Leap Slam and 3 additionnal strikes.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the result and if this can inspire you to explore this defensive mechanic, that would be great. It was an amazing league, and I hope we'll see the tattoos again in future versions as they're a fantastic tool for build creators.

You can also use Lightning Strike or Frost Blades (with little changes).

------ POB & gameplay ------

For Deadeye POB: https://pobb.in/kyW4PbLZUpVk
For Scion POB: https://pobb.in/xUcYTdwJ6aeB

Build vidéo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3i0YV_-s0k

------ Gears ------

Weapon:
Helmet:
Offhand:
Ring:
Ring:
Amulet:
Body armor:
Gloves:
belt:
Boots:
Flask:
Flask:
Flask:
Flask:
Flask:

------ Pros ------

- Extremely tanky
- Can't be shotgunned
- Fast mapper
- Good damage
- Deep Delve (run 2000 depth tested AFK)

------ Cons ------

- Trauma ramping
- Uber Sirus and Uber Maven
- Not for Sanctum


------ Others------

Find more informations in the Discord: https://discord.gg/mNY8kbN5N3
Let me know if you have further questions.