3.10 Wallsh's Thick little VD (added leveling guide and simulacrum guide)

Hello my name is Wallsh and I am going to teach you how to kill shit quickly and safely with Spellslinger and Volatile Dead.

simulacrum: done 20/20 1 death (forgot to put on phase jewel)
t8 sirius: done 1 deaths (didn't put on my corrupting blood jewel RIP)
Shaper: done 0 deaths
Elder: done 0 deaths

Tips for encounters (per request):
simulacrum: You need a phasing ghastly jewel to prevent getting stuck, take soul of brine king to prevent stun lock and fully upgraded soul of ryslatha.
The 3 things that kill us are getting trapped on mobs (phasing prevents this), getting stun locked (soul of brine king prevents this) and mass on death effect (constantly moving prevents this). Never stop moving, cast move, cast move, cast move, you want to make a circle around the zone (few exceptions like oriath zone in that one just go to the top right corner and go up and down that line) constantly. never stop except to cast once. If one of the bosses spawn simply stand as close as possible to him and cast and move over and over while standing directly next to him. Watch for his visual queues but you should never get hit.
Hope this helps!

TL;DR
Clear speed: 9/10
Survivability: (assuming you choose the defence route) 9/10
Boss killing: 7/10
https://pastebin.com/iCXCuFQv

I originally made this build for my friend is HCD but I ended up also league starting it and having a blast.

Never made a guide on here before but a few of my guild mates and friends wanted one so I decided to make one. It will not be as fancy and epic as a lot of these other really good build guide people but I will do my best to make it as clear as possible.
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NEW LEVELING GUIDE ADDED FOR EARLY STAGES
https://pastebin.com/QCSF62zF (notes for the entire post inside of PoD)

This is the TL;DR for leveling this character. it will not be super in-depth but should be more than enough information for you to level with.
This is also going to assume you are league starting with no leveling gear, this is going to be very brief.

BANDITS:
Help Alira (makes leveling easier) switch to 2 passives later

SKILL GEMS:
level 1 use freezing pulse (linked with onslaught if you want to scion mule) then eventually added cold/lightning and explosive trap
get frost blink use that as your mobility skill until flame dash
Recommend dual weilding
level 12 grab arc and link it with added lightning and any damage support you can.
Level up as many volatile deads as you can in your off hands (should be 6 not required but highly recommend especially for league start)
Use arc until you can use our VD setup which is:
VD-Spellslinger-spell cascade-Conc effect-combustion-immolate (in that order replacing immolate with awakened fire pen later)
Desecrate-spell-cascade-spellslinger
Wave of conviction-spellslinger-added fire (for fire exposure)
You CAN use Arc for your third spellslinger if you want to get shocks before your ascendancy but it is up to you, I leveled with wave of conviction no issue
you can easily use power siphon for a very long time and link it with curse on hit-flammability- blind for nice defence. But switch to frenzy-GMP-curse on hit-flammability for damage when able.

PASSIVE TREE:

Head straight for EO (elemental overload) as soon as possible as it is one of our biggest DPS nodes. Then head to reservation UNLESS you do not have a 5+ link or have no mana issues
in which case grab Spiritual Aid first. Proceed to get more damage and life on the far left side of the tree. If you are struggling with damage, go for the damage nodes; if you need live get life and etc.
If you find a good wand and your damage is solid I would probably recommend grabbing the life wheel first.


GEARING:
Weapons:Identify almost every spell damage implicit wand you find until you find a solid one. I recommend these mods in order: Spell damage- fire damage- # fire damage to spells OR any wand with HIGH phys/elemental damage
If you are on softcore (or are very experienced and not worried about dying on hardcore) just use dual weilding wands to level faster and switch to a shield once you unlock uber lab.
Amulets: jade amulets, we need a lot of dext and the more we get in 1 place the better. In act 3 you will get a jade amulet from a quest that is rare so good chances you don't need to look to hard but I
recommend you identify any jade amulet you find.
Rest of the gear is pretty typical, find armor pieces (or armor/ES bases to save chromes early in league) with high life and res.

Ascendancy:
Plague bearer- corpse pact- commander of darkness- mistress of sacrifice




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In my path of building I have laid out a good bit of information for you and in the guide I presume that you have little to no currency and tell you what I recommend you buy and in what order. I will also put that information here for lazy people like me that do not want to open up PoB to look at a build.

If you have any questions feel free to ask I will check this fairly often, enjoy!

----------------------------------------GEAR--------------------------------
Weapon: get a wand with "trigger socketed spells" this is the #1 quality of life, defence and damage upgrade you can get with a small amount of currency. note this is only a massive upgrade if you have intuitive leap and uber lab done (for self offering buffs)

Chest: focus on getting a Inpulsa (even 5l is fine I used it for my first Sirius kill) they are extremely cheap at the moment of 3/19/2020 and I recommend you grab it asap.

Helmet: Get a helmet with the Volatile Dead enchant this will be one of your largest single target upgrades. Ideally you want an armor helm but you will have to get 2b 2 g on it.

Gloves: Find a nice pair of (armor based) gloves with "Added X fire damage to burning enemies" this is a significant dps upgrade and the higher armor on your gloves the better, as it gives you even more defense.

Rings: You will need either 1 ring with very high dext or both rings with a medium amount, along side that get the normal life and resist. It is VERY important when you are ring shopping/crafting to have an open PREFIX
this is used to craft "non-channeling skills have -X mana cost" which we need on BOTH RINGS. This allows us to use FRENZY and SHIELD CHARGE with 0 mana which allows us to reserve 100% of our mana and allows
us to run the no regen maps with no problem.

Amulet: Get a jade amulet and roll some good dex on it if possible, you will also want the basics of high life and res, eventually we want a +1 dexterity skill gems level amulet for even more damage.
Annoints for amulet: we actually have quite a huge selection for annoints, I recommend Deflection as it is cheap and gives a lot of defense. You can also use Heart of Flame for a lot more damage; or any other block node on the tree.

Boots: 30 movement speed is a must (since we have no faster attacks on our shield charge which is fine but not without MS), other than that it's pretty simple just Armor life and resist.


Jewels: Intuitive leap is the only REQUIRED jewel. It gives us damage, block and a second golem for even more damage and survivability.
Abyss jewels: 1. An onslaught eye with flat life is borderline required, it makes mapping very fast.
2. A phasing jewel makes delirium's incredibly less dangerous, you can fly through all the hordes of mobs and will not get stuck. If you have no issues with delirium skip this jewel.
3. Besides these two eyes I recommend using normal jewels with % life and as much damage as you can get (area damage, fire damage, global damage)

Cluster Jewels:

So we have a TON of options here but let me give you a quick run down on what to buy.
Large clusters: MAKE SURE YOU SEARCH FOR 8 PASSIVES MAXIMUM! If it has more than 8 passives it is not worth using! I use sadist because it gives us 60% increased damage (we shock, chill, and ignite)
and prismatic heart for even more damage and 30 all res which makes gearing even easier. I HIGHLY recommend rolling 2 jewel sockets that way you can take advantage of the power of jewel stacking.

Medium clusters: once again ton of options here feel free to ask me about some of them but my 2 preferred choices are Master of fear which is a huge damage buff (and the curse nodes give a little)
and Cooked alive which gives us even more single target damage.

Small clusters: Fettle is insane, every life build I run this league will have atleast 1 of these, that jewel gives over 400 hp. I was running a block jewel for a long time but...400 life
Since we are a molten shell build we love our armor, Enduring composure doesn't just give us armor but it gives us FREE endurance charges which are basically up 24/7
This is a massive defence buff as you can imagine and I highly recommend using it for any molten shell build.
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SKILLS
Weapon: Flame golem, Chaos golem and Bone offering. You could potentially use a lightning golem for attack speed but I don't think it's worth it, also you can use flesh offering for faster mapping.
Gloves: desecrate, spell slinger, spell cascade and shield charge (unlinked)

Boots: Increased duration, CWDT, Vaal Molten Shell, Tempest shield. | Typical defence setup that will keep you alive through a LOT

Helmet: Frenzy, GMP, Curse on hit and Flammability (get a lv 21 for a bit more damage)

Shield: Wave of conviction spellslinger and Added fire. You can potentially replace added fire with some more dmg for wave of conviction but it's not really significant.

Chest: have some versatility here but I recommend: Spell slinger, Volatile dead, Spell Cascade, combustion, concentrated effect (we clear with inpulsa) and Immolate.
Potentially can use Awakened controlled destruction but sometimes you don't get your EE proc which can feel janky. Awakened fire penetration is my endgame choice.
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Ascendancies
Plague bringer - corpse pact - commander of darkness - mistress of sacrifice (if you dont have Trigger socket spell craft you can use essence glutton for a while)


Never used this before so once I figure out how to link images/ my gear etc I will probably update it. but for my friends that read this I hope it helps! Have fun slaying

reserved

How do you shock, is it only by Wave of Conviction?

Necromancer ascendancy Corpse Pact shocks enemies near corpses

any video?

I could do 1 but my internet is slow so it would take a bit to upload. but if people like the build and want to see it I can

Just wanted to say that i recently switched over to using this setup for VD Spellslinger and so far i am having a fucking blast playing this way. Really appreciate the guide as i was kind of unsure as what to setup would be a good fit for Inpulsa.

"

fakkel1234 wrote:

Just wanted to say that i recently switched over to using this setup for VD Spellslinger and so far i am having a fucking blast playing this way. Really appreciate the guide as i was kind of unsure as what to setup would be a good fit for Inpulsa.

glad you like it! feel free to ask questions if you need help

"

wallsh1 wrote:

I could do 1 but my internet is slow so it would take a bit to upload. but if people like the build and want to see it I can

Yes please. I want to try this build out. Would love to see this in action.

Inspiration has a mana multiplier of only 115%. This allows you to run three Spellslinger setups without using mana cost enchantments. However, since you cannot generate Inspiration charges with VD, this requires to link Frenzy/Barrage to Inspiration. This way you benefit from the damage multiplier of Inspiration in your DV setup while also reserving less mana.

What are your opinions on Disciple of Kitava?

Edit: Your damage should be higher when using Combustion in your WoC setup and replacing it with a higher multiplier one, such as Hypothermia, Ele Focus or Controlled Destruction.

I am pretty sure that using Master of Fire is useless when using WoC, because the Fire Exposure is a debuff. It won't stack. WoC will always debuff the enemy with the higher one