[2.4] c9q9md's 10 Meme Ballista build.(Siege Ballista Shaper/Uber Viable)

Ayo I got alot of requests for this guide and many of you are already trying to use Meme ballista, so I thought I'd write some stuff that might help some of you. Those I can't help are those who went on a meme ballista adventure with a 5 chaos budget.

For you people out of the loop(You didn't watch my vid, what's wrong with you?), this is my build in action:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s12YBLyEUY0


Ill start with some cons and pros, mainly about why you shouldn't start meme adventures on a 1-dried-lake-merc-run budget.

CONS:

It is expensive.
- The stuff you need to make it into an actual viable build is very hard to get. A +1 drillneck is almost required as it is alot of added arrows when all totems are down. Without drillneck you will suffer. Rain of splinters is nice for clearing but will REALLY hurt your single target because the reduced damage also negatively double dips with your poison, so 30% reduced totem damage and 30% reduced poison damage.
We are sadly not done yet though. Since alot of the build is based around totem placement speed, you ideally want a devoto's devotion with 45% ballista placement speed. If you can't get that, a rare one with 50+ dex and the same enchant will get the job done. I suspect the enchant itself will be hard to get, let alone on a devoto's.
Alltough not 100% required, having Emperor's Cunning and emperor's Mastery is really useful for this build. It will help you get alot of dexterity, while not having issues with the negative Intelligence drawback of Brawn jewels.
While getting all of the above is doable, you still need some really high tier rare gear to cap your resists. Preferably you also want high dex and high physical damage aswell if you can find gearpieces with that.
I mean you will problably still be able to clear mid tier maps really easily, but your build will have a hard time breaking into real endgame if you don't have all of this junk.

- Somewhat relying on mana flasks.
- low life regen.

PROS:

-Meme mastery
-A good build for Elreon rotations
-You can with good gear clear all content in the game I believe, alltough you need to be a good player to do so.
-Decent clear speed I guess
-We can proudly equip the mighty Briskwrap
-Hard to die as you can hide behind a wall of totems.


Intro:

Alright this build started off as a joke build initially. I didn't plan to clear endgame and my only goal for this build was to summon 10+ totems. Man was I wrong. While getting 12 totems is theoretically possible with both scion and Hierophant, I decided not to play as them because of the drawbacks they got.(Scion is ok I guess, while hierophant is trash)

Since there is so many different versions you can do with this build, I will just leave the number of totems you want up to yourself. Your dexterity should be very easy to calculate. Take the flat amount of dex and multiply it with the %increases. Very easy. I had this character all calculated before 2.3 even began. Here is my personal spreadsheet I made that kept track of the dex I would have in total.
The only real important part is that you get close to the 200-marks for an additional totem. If you calculate you will get 1450 dex then you can loosen the dex on gear and aim for 1400 instead. Same goes for 1350. Tighten your dex requirements and push for 1400.

The skill tree is also very flexible. While getting AB grants you 1 extra totem, it is by no means required. Staying on the right side of the tree is problably more functional. I will not make a tree for it though, as there is problably one tree for each amount of totem you want and it would require alot of calculation to find the best pathing for every tree, which my lazy ass ain't going to do.

My Gear

Gear:

Whops wrong character

Actual gear:



Preferably a devoto's with the enchant. Playing without the enchant works, but it is nowhere near as comfortable as playing with it. Just before anyone comes into this thread screaming "WHY NO BLACK SUN CREST 15%!!1!" I will go ahead and tell you it is a terrible helmet and you should feel ashamed of even thinking about using it. You gain 80 dex over devoto's at the very best case scenario and you problably will not make good use of it anyways. Besides the loss in light radius and lack in EV is going to make you wanna quit. Also no MS.
calcs from before 2.3, only thing it lacks is the belt you can only get via essences. Crafting a belt really helps to ease gearing elsewhere.


For the rest of my gear getting dex is my main focus along with life. For quiver I use drillneck since you get a shitload of damage that also double dips with your poison stuff.
The Fluid Motion jewels are used to convert strength into dexterity and are really useful as some of the nodes will effectively become +20 dex.(while you lose 10 str).
Getting emperor's mastery and emperor's cunning is nice to avoid 20% reduced intelligence, but is by no means required.

To see links hower over my gear and stuff. If you got other ideas feel free to try it out.



Skill tree and leveling:
Leving this character is easy. Get a bow that can get you to level 32 then equip iron commander and never de-equip it. At level 36 you get drillneck to boost your ballista damage like crazy.

My skill tree:



For bandits pick Oak first then 2x skill points.


On a second note..

I was also told to try and make a HC viable version. It is actually quite easily to go from 4K life to 7K, while still maintaining 7-8 totems. Just slap on shaper gloves and kaom's heart. The biggest concern for this is the loss in resistances. For a long period of time I was running purity of elements, so I guess that can help you some. If you got spare jewels I also recomend getting res+ life jewels as any %life node will scale really good with your hig h amount of added flat life from dex + kaom's. You canb potentially also loosen up on dex on some of your other gearpieces. I would suggest you calculate the build BEFORE you play it.


If you wanna see more stupid builds check out my youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/eirikeiken

"

PROS:

-Meme mastery

Sold.

BoTW of the meme

Thanks for the inspiring build!



Almost wanted to scrap this build but got lucky 6-linking the chest in 3 fusings after seeing the 10 meme build lel.

Sitting at around 1338 dex, missing the 2 emperor's jewels. Probably can push to 1450 dex. Gear is about 80% optimized in dex. Maxing on gear is hard. Then i'll have to squeeze in for 10th. no shit.

Post your DPS and defense stats please.

lets be serious for 1 sec, isnt this build just as good with 8 totems?

yea but you lose meme magic

"

c9q9md wrote:

yea but you lose meme magic

i see.... thx
p.s. i love to theory craft uniqe builds, and just want to tell you you are one of the most creative build maker in game, keep up the good work! (and would love to throw ideas with if youll like)

Made an alternative version, more oriented for HC, untested ofc.


110 points


core difference between op build and this one:

red marked is what this build has worse stats compare to original build, green is what is better.

noticeable bonus which doesn't shown on the tree:


this jewel socket will give 60 str to dex conversion + roll on the jewel

tl;dr you will perhaps lose 1-2 ballistas, but you will gain more life and dmg which should make up for it.

That's the only build where Shaper gloves are any good for...