[3.5] Oni-Goroshi Wild Strike/Molten Strike: (Slayer/Jugg, 7K+ HP, 5k+ Leech) ~ Uber Elder Down!

Squishy? I play in hardcore and just finished the storyline.
I got close to being one shot a few times, but in most cases that was just me rushing into a pack of mobs.

That being said, I didn't use anger but Blasphemy / Warlord's Mark, which really helped: life (and mana!) leech and endurance charges were really good. I'm pretty sure she endurance charges saved me a couple of times actually.

I was hesitating between the jugg and the raider, but I guess the best option is the jugg, which will allow me to put anger back?

What about infernal blow for clear? It has 50% converted to fire, so with a xoph's it will be 100% conversion, seems better to me for clear than wild strike but I've not tested and I'm really wanting to play a IB character as the blowing up of packs looks GREAT and fast, and safe. Thanks! Also will vaal double strike with the anger gem that converts phys to fire work better than molten strike, or should you just keep with molten strike for single target? I was wanting to try the reworked skill out. Thanks again!

Also, what about instead of koam's going 6l belly or even 6l shapper/elder chest with max life life % so you can run a 6L vaal doublestrike? I've looked at your tree and it looks like it would be easy to just switch to general 2h crit sword instead of projectile for this build. Just wondering if you've tested it at all. Thanks in advance!

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tntpop wrote:

Gosh love playing this build but she is really squishy along the way.

Honestly I've played a ton of builds and Scion's tend to err on the side of being "tankier" while leveling, since the majority of initial points go towards the Scion life wheel and Str nodes (traveling). You don't really get to pick up damage nodes early, so I usually have a ton of HP nodes. Don't skimp out on HP nodes while leveling - if you level with a proper Sunder setup (with or without Oni-Goroshi) you will do plenty of damage anyway.

You become MUCH tankier when you grab the Jugg ascendancy (which I personally would recommend over Slayer first).

ASAP set up a proper CWDT + Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Stone Golem (Yes, Stone Golem is great for leveling - sub out to Ice Golem later on/mapping. This essentially makes you have 100% uptime of frenzy charges, and almost full uptime of Immortal Call when anything hits you. There is almost no way you will die to physical damage; so as long as your resists are capped, you should be plenty tanky.

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That being said, I didn't use anger but Blasphemy / Warlord's Mark, which really helped: life (and mana!) leech and endurance charges were really good. I'm pretty sure she endurance charges saved me a couple of times actually.

There's no reason to run Blasphemy/Warlord's really, since you pass through the Duelist area first, you should grab Vitality Void and the mana leech nodes. You can get Jugg ascendancy pretty early, to cover endurance charges. If you want to level safer (since you're in hardcore) you could run something like Arctic Armor.

Slayer/Jugg is definitely superior for starting off/general mapping. Slayer/Raider is only slightly better (IMO) if you are exclusively only doing Shaper or Uber Elder farming (since DPS/movement speed is very important, and endurance charges less so.)

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What about infernal blow for clear? It has 50% converted to fire, so with a xoph's it will be 100% conversion, seems better to me for clear than wild strike but I've not tested and I'm really wanting to play a IB character as the blowing up of packs looks GREAT and fast, and safe. Thanks! Also will vaal double strike with the anger gem that converts phys to fire work better than molten strike, or should you just keep with molten strike for single target? I was wanting to try the reworked skill out. Thanks again!

Also, what about instead of koam's going 6l belly or even 6l shapper/elder chest with max life life % so you can run a 6L vaal doublestrike? I've looked at your tree and it looks like it would be easy to just switch to general 2h crit sword instead of projectile for this build. Just wondering if you've tested it at all. Thanks in advance!

I've never played the new IB so I cannot comment... but from what I've read/heard, it's somewhat lackluster, since the aoe is small and other clear skills are just overall still better (like reave). Plus, personally Wild Strike looks so much more awesome. The Icy Waves are vastly underestimated; they count as projectiles, meaning they do ridiculous damage with Point Blank & Iron Grip. In addition, if you run a Dying Sun, not only does your Molten Strikes gain projectiles... but you get 2 more Icy Waves with Wild Strike. It's pretty crazy.

I answered this under the "Double Strike" theorycraft on my OP - but Double Strike will not work over Molten Strike, since it's in your weapon-swap. It won't build up any charges while you are clearing trash, making it somewhat pointless, since you won't really ever get to pop the clones on bosses.

Using a 6-L belly is an option if you really wanted to run Double Strike... but you lose out on so much to fit this in. One big benefit of Oni-Goroshi is that you can easily weapon-swap to your single target skill. So you are basically wasting your weapon swap by putting your single target skill into your chest.

Second, you are losing out on huge HP amounts; remember that this is a "tanky" slayer/leech build. You want as high EHP as possible so that you aren't oneshot, since you will easily leech back over 3000HP/Second between hits. I already delete bosses in seconds, why lose over 1000 total health to fit in doublestrike?

If you REALLY wanted to fit in doublestrike, I would instead just run a 4-link doublestrike. You could run 1-2 unset rings, maybe drop ice golem, increased duration, or leap slam, and run a 4-link doublestrike to just pop on bosses. The clones are strong enough even on a 4-L.

Lastly, keep in mind that Oni-Goroshi is not a "2h sword" - it counts as a 1-hand sword. If you look through the build, we don't actually pick up many projectile nodes. The only ones I can think of are Fury Bolts, Point Blank & Iron Grip, for 4 total points. Fury Bolts by itself is already very strong since it provides 20% accuracy and 20str, coupled with the 1000 flat accuracy from Jugg, puts me at 94% hit without any other accuracy nodes on the tree or from gear.

You COULD however, easily convert this to a full double-strike build. Just run an AoE doublestrike in one oni-goroshi, and a single target doublestrike in your weapon swap. The AoE clear is pretty mediocre with DS obviously... but if you enjoy it, go ahead.

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Lastly, keep in mind that Oni-Goroshi is not a "2h sword" - it counts as a 1-hand sword

Thank you for reminding me about this one. Only reason I'm wanting to run something else is because I've run molten strike two leagues in a row, while it is OP, I'd like to play something fresh. Wildstrike seems to be pretty good too something I haven't run before so maybe it will be more fun than IB, I'll try them both out. Molten strike is super OP for sure for single target. Thanks for the quick reply. And you are probably right on Kaom's vs belly as far as its WAY better for survivability. I think maybe I'll try IB/Wildstrike out for clear and just stike with Molten strike for single target.

Hello KooperT,

Ty for your guides they have been great. I am running the Chieftain variant and have a question. We dont get RT and i dont really see much accuraccy stacking. I feel like I am missing something obvious for this being a crit build. Do we get enough hit % from just Oni maybe? Sorry in advance if dumb question I am still learning.

Also I picked the Chieftain variant because it looks like it is better for ssf?

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tntpop wrote:

Gosh love playing this build but she is really squishy along the way.

I initially had the issue.... i was killing myself quicker than them killing me.

realised the biggest issue was..

1) need high fire resistance
2) slayer really do wonders

Hi, i'm having so much fun with this build. But my defence is really lacking and i'm not really sure why. Current dps is about 31k+ with her embrace. Hope OP can look at my gear and suggest an upgrade. Thank you.

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Dpachi wrote:

Hello KooperT,

Ty for your guides they have been great. I am running the Chieftain variant and have a question. We dont get RT and i dont really see much accuraccy stacking. I feel like I am missing something obvious for this being a crit build. Do we get enough hit % from just Oni maybe? Sorry in advance if dumb question I am still learning.

Also I picked the Chieftain variant because it looks like it is better for ssf?

Initially, I had two nodes for the Chieftain variant: Eagle Eye and Acuity.
You may want to play around with PoB to see which provides more DPS per skill point.

However, once you pick up 1-2 items with accuracy (IE at least 200-300 per piece), coupled with the generous 40% bonus from Oni-Goroshi, I believe I was sitting at something like 92% hit (with ice golem) - and ended up dropping eagle eye/acuity. You definitely want some accuracy being a Chieftain, since you don't get it elsewhere. I wouldn't fret if your hit chance is lower - while it's true that crit builds want high hit, remember this is a Molten Strike build... so if you're launching like 40 balls a second and only 88% hit, that's still not too bad, compared to a skill like Sunder or something where missing 12/100 hits is actually pretty bad.

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I initially had the issue.... i was killing myself quicker than them killing me.

realised the biggest issue was..

1) need high fire resistance
2) slayer really do wonders

This is critical; for those familiar with Righteous Fire, you should know that capped fire resist is REQUIRED. You cannot sustain Her Embrace (or RF) with anything under maximum resists. The self-burn damage is way too high unless mitigated by both fire resist and the Arakali pantheon.

The slayer overleech is also extremely potent; it essentially negates any damage you may take between packs, as the Her Embrace buff still lasts 3 seconds after igniting.

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Hi, i'm having so much fun with this build. But my defence is really lacking and i'm not really sure why. Current dps is about 31k+ with her embrace. Hope OP can look at my gear and suggest an upgrade. Thank you.

Hard to tell exactly without a PoB link to review, but looking at your profile, some issues I noted:

1) You are running only 5 links in your Molten Strike...
2) Your amulet literally does nothing, and has 0 life. I'm confident you can easily find one with a good life roll, resists, and int, for less than 2-3 chaos orbs.
3) Your 1 ring has 0 life. You want life on everything. This is a Slayer leech build; you want to stack EHP to leech back between getting hit.
4) You have a 5-link corrupted chest with 31 life. You can easily find 100+ life, 5-link chests for literally nothing; or even 6-link corrupted chests with 100+ life for under 10-15c.
5) Zero life on glove.
6) Zero life on boots.
7) 32 life on belt.
8) Your flasks are literally all garbage. You have no staunchign flask to remove bleed, and you are not running a Basalt or Granite flask. Drop your 2 quicksilvers, mana, and sorrow of the divine - all 4 of these flasks are useless. Flasks are the strongest component of offensive/defensive items in PoE, you really need to spend some time equipping yourself with the right ones, and using them at all times.
9) You don't have Juggernaut ascendancy yet, for endurance charges, and uptime of Immortal Call.
10) You are not running Fortify linked to Whirling Blades/Leap Slam. This is literally free damage mitigation. You aren't utilizing like 5-6 gem sockets.

Are you fully resist capped in FIRE specifically, but also Cold and Lightning?
Try to grab Barbarism ASAP. The extra 1% fire resistance is extremely potent.

So overall... you really need to just focus on buying the right items as upgrades. You are completely ignoring life rolls on your items; this "late" in the league you should easily be able to grab cheap items with life/resists for no more than a few chaos orbs. Don't worry about damage rolls like flat physical or elemental dmg with attacks.

You should have, at the minimum, 5000 life at your level without Kaom's heart.

@ OP

im still looking at your NON-PoB skill tree.

i get i need the path of the duelist to mimic what you have..

but your skill tree is for lvl 92.. but currently im at 76 without path of the duelist and looks like i am near what you have.. just wondering if the non-PoB skill tree is correct or something is missing?