[Standard 1.2.4] Molten Strike Aegis Aurora Marauder (crit version)

MOLTEN STRIKE critical hit version + Aegis Aurora
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Preamble:
I decided I wanna respecc my 87 main in Standard to a crit melee build, so I chose a critical hit version of a Molten Strike build with usage of Aegis Aurora shield. I happen to drop 2 legacy versions of it quite some time ago and wanted to put it to use again after a long time sitting in stash.

The build adopts Avatar of Fire keystone as fire damage will be our core skill. Therefore, physical damage modifiers in the skilltree are irrelevant to us. Hence, you can not use physical damage to leech life and mana. Therefore, the gem linking is limited to some degree. But in return, you will be granted high DPS.

Notice: Pick up Avatar of Fire in passive tree after you can solve the life leeching problem. To do this, you can make use of corrupted amulets with "1% of fire damage leeched" and the unique mace Doryani's Catalyst.



This mace suits this built quite well (if you got no mirrored uber 1H weapon), because it amplifies elemental damage and grants % elemental life leech. It also has decent crit chance and fairly good APS. DPS is around 270.

You need quite good gear to make this build work. If your critical chance does not reach 20% and accuracy does not get 80%, it'll be hard for you to play the build. There is high INT requirement (because of Doryani's and the Aegis Aurora) and accuracy (I got it on helmet and gloves).

For a skill tree (crit version) click here: PASSIVE SKILL TREE

My current gear:



GEAR recommendations:

Gloves: As gloves you can also use something like these:


Helmet: Helmet can be Devoto's Devotion if you got it and use a good hi-phys dps rare weapon (so your INT requirement is lower) instead of the Catalyst. Just beware the life leech issue (or specc out of Avatar of fire; which I dont recommend, because of the loss in DPS).

Shield: Due to Aegis, you will have 80% max cold resist.



Necklace: Stone of Lazhwar (preferably corrupted with "1% of fire damage leeched")



Armor: basically any you like with 4RGB sockets (linked) => 5L: 4R1B

Rings: use Pyre / Romira's Banquet or a good rare rings, to meet stats requirements (and +Accuracy)



Belt: Doryani's Invitation or s good rare (I got one, but it's only 20% - want to find a higher one than that)



Boots: Rainbowstrides / Windscream - I got a pair of Rainbowstrides with "Cannot be knocked back" corruption (helps the desync). You can use Windscream for a dual curse setup if you like (I am not that into multicursing)


1H weapons:


A good phys DPS weapon with inc. local crit chance and nice APS is feasable (if you don't have the Catalyst or have better).
All these above are for sale. Grab them if you like. Visit my shop (Standard): CLICK

ACCURACY: (important!)
Make sure you add about 600 additional accuracy on gear, or you will be inclined to socket "Additional Accuracy" gem instead of "Faster Attacks" in the last green 6L slot.

If you're using a 5L, like the poor mfer as me, then you pretty much have to get additional accuracy on gear to achieve 80% accuracy rate (because the fifth socket will be blue for either "Increased Critical Strikes" or "Increased Critical Damage").


AURAS:

Purity of Fire is recommended (although not mandatory if you're more careful around ele-reflect)

Herald of Ash (linked with "Reduced Mana" and "Tempest Shield" in the Catalyst to gain advantage of the level 20 Proliferation it adds) is recommended toegether with the Hatred Aura for damage gain.

You can swap Hatred for Grace (if you have a lot of Dex, ~150) for a decent amount of Armour and survivability (due to IR)

Tempest shield is good to use for more block chance (though I actually need one more "aura mana reservation reduced" passive in the skill tree to fit it into my mana)


GEM Setup:

main attack: Molten Strike + Multistrike + Fire Penetration + Weapon Elemental Damage + Increased Critical Damage and (6L: + Faster Attacks or Added Accuracy gem with 20% quality)

damage mitigation: CwDt (high level) + Inc. Duration + Vaal Immortal Call + Molten Shell
damage mitigation 2nd setup: CwDt (low level) + Blood Rage + Enduring Cry + Inc. Duration

curses: Flammability for solo, Elemental weakness for parties (a curse on hit setup with Leap Slam + FA + CoH + Ele Weakness possible ofc)

I tend to manually cast End.cry and Immortal call.


Gameplay:

Leap slam into packs and face-tank pretty much. Pop a flask when life starts fluctuating and keep attacking until everything explodes or burns down (because of HoA) to ashes!


Epilogue:
Feedback welcome. Passive Tree optimizations welcome for sure. Maybe I'll upload a game video sometime. I got Shadowplay, so no problem. Enjoy!

*reserved*


Version history:

05/11/2014: created thread.