[3.3] The Dancing Baroness - The Baron/The Dancing Dervish/Rampage/SRS Summoner (1.2k Str)


(Disclaimer: TDD can't be dual wielded)

Abstract
Changes for 3.3
You can now corrupt Two-Handed Swords with "Resolute Technique". This means it will always hit (but never crit) which is a huge damage boost.

Remember that while it's not manifested, the Keystone will apply to you and you won't be able to crit until it's active. This is not relevant to this build but still worthy to be noted down.
Changes since 3.2
None, it remains the same build. A bit weaker due to the Ascendancy changes though but stronger due to the introduction of The Dancing Duo.

Spoiler
This build revolves around Scion's Necromancer/Guardian Ascendancy Nodes (of which I've only take the former one as of now) focusing on stacking Strength to buff "The Dancing Dervish" in it's manifested form and her Skulls aswell as her 12 Zombies which are acting as meatshields.

Why not Witch you ask? Well, because Scion has better access to Jewel sockets and to strength nodes which allows to invest more points into defensive passives rather than travel nodes to strength.


Introduction

First a few questions.

- Are you kinda sometimes bored leveling up characters?
- Are you a hipster?
- Are you 16 C broke but still want to have some fun? The Baron is expensive now, even in standard.
- Do you not care that you'll be most likely unable to solo ubers?

If you answered at least one of those questions with yes, this build might be for you.

Concept

Spoiler
I remember as if it was yesteryear when I first got in contact with this item


(Ignore the +1 Powercharge, I'm trying to get a nice corruption)
I really like this thing because it is really unique in what it does. It was the core of my first build ever to successfully and seriously get my casual ass into mapping up to two digit maps *COUGH*shamelessplug*COUGH* which is also why I tried to make a viable build with it in each subsequent league. In Breach I tried myself on a TDD Raider which kinda went... meh... because you can't really scale TDD that well without minion damage and support gems are leveled up sometime which means it won't scale further.

BUT!

Everything changed when three things happened:

1.

was implemented which allows further scaling of TDD (namely 200%+ increased damage)

2. TDD got a serious AI overhaul. It Cyclones hard now! (Before/After)

and

3. It can now self sustain itself in bossfights if it hits a unique enemey in it's manifested form.

Since probably only like four people use it seriously, I got this perfect rolled TDD for around 2 C or something. After spamming 12 Jewellers on it, it was 6 Socketed and that's all you need because Manifest Weapon is an inherent Skill which gets supported by all gems in it meaning you have an artificial 7-Link comparable to Nhagamu's.

Noteable things about TDD in 3.1
TDD got a serious AI overhaul. It Cyclones hard now! (Before/After)

Since probably only like four people use it seriously, I got this TDD for 1 Alch or something.

A 6 Socket version is all you need because Manifest Weapon is an inherent Skill which gets supported by all gems in it meaning you have an artificial 7-Link comparable to Nhagamu's or Whispring Ice.

You always reach the Rampage State after just 15 kills now because it seems they kinda forgot to update that after Kitava encounters. I like it a lot.

It can also sustain itself in a bossfight now if it hits the boss in it's manifested form.

You can artificially create/keep up a rampage with thefollowing two things since 3.1

Pro/Contra

Pro
+ Extremely fun to level because you can wear The Baron pretty early on which buffs your minions pretty nicely.
+ Fairly Cheap, I'm was 1K Strength atm and I maybe invested 16 Chaos into this. (Currently 1.2K with a 24 C investment) The most expensive things were the 18% Alberon's and the two 6% Str Brawn Jewels which cost around 3 C each which is explainable due to a certain person playing a Strength stacking build increasing those items prices a bit. But I'm broke and I could do it soooo...
+ Non ES items are generally much cheaper than ES ones which means you can cheaply stack stats.
+ Inherent tankyness due to Strength stacking.
+ 12 Zombies at your command.
+ The satisfying visual of a very nice Cycloning Sword.

-/+ You give away 6 sockets for The dancing Dervish but it itself is strong so it's pretty much even.

Contra
- Strength stacking takes some effort and I only reached 1K at lvl 75. You don't have to reach 1K but to fully utilize The Baron, it is recommended.
- You lose defenses as you cannot wear a shield. You do have a Zombiehorde and your weaponswap though.
- If you fail to start a rampage, you are missing a lot of damage and clearspeed.
- Build starts at lvl 59 because you can only then equip TDD.

How to Baroness:

Skilltree
I started out selffound and with a normal melee setup with Zombies as my first meatshields. I fought with them, defensive rare stuff and rare weapons until I could equip SRS. It worked surprisingly well. The zombies later recieved a melee damage gem and minion damage. This went on until I got my hands on The Baron at lvl 26. I was lucky that I also found another good one handed leveling unique which increased my killspeed threefold or so... a bit... at least... Skillwise the Minion skills were little priority and I only increased my zombies survivability and numbers when I had a bit of strength. I kept those 2 weapons until I switched to The Dank Dervish.

Skillwise I first took the Jewel Sockets left and right of the Scion to equip two Violent Dead Jewels.

When I reached lvl 59 I had too little dex and int to keep on scaling so I specced into the 30 points to the left.

After merc Lab I put my points into the Witch starter Keystone and carried on there into the Guardian Keystone, refunding the right starter jewel socket because I didn't need it anymore. The Int I gained through this was also welcomed for the support gems since I have 2 13% reduced Int Brawn Jewels in my tree.

Since my gear doesn't have too many res on it, I had to get some jewels and passives for that purpose.

As of now at lvl 85

With this tree and Items I am at 1211 Str atm, enabling me to have 12 Zombies at my disposal.


Items


In depth Gear description


This is mandatory. I got this for 1 or 2 chaos because it's perfectly rolled. Mind that they don't have to be linked to support "Manifest Weapon". In general, one of these costs 1 alch since, well, nobody builds this. After a lot of Vorici crafting (If you aim for 3 blue sockets, use the "at least 1 blue socket" crafting option as it will cost less overall statistically.) I put as many "more" multipliers in there as I could. Minion Speed is needed because it's pretty slow otherwise.
Tl;dr Just put damage in there and look what works best for you.


Rarely built but not that easily dropped so it will cost around 2 or 3 C. I use this for the whopping 20% added cold damage which allows TDD with Hypothermia Support deal more damage and have a chance to freeze. I also use Hatred with Generosity which will result in combined 75% added cold damage or something like that with lvl 20 skillgems. Edict of the Grave would be nice touch to this because those heads hurt a bit and explode afterwards to deal cold damage. The 10% reduced Movementspeed gets negated as soon as you reach 100 Rampage stacks which should be achieveable. Else you still have Convocation.


Another Core of the build. You need this to scale TDD into lategame. It really helps. Try to get as much Str in there as possible, it can have up to 40.


I'm just using this to further buff TDD as Unholy Might adds 30% phys as chaos on kill for 10 seconds. You can use any chest you want, I chose this one. The 20% reduced Minion Life gets negated by The Baron.


The Uncorrupted version of this Belt is the Best in Slot Belt for leveling because you gain 50% increased flask charges, up to 25% all res with at least 200 Str which you have anyway and 50 Str to beef up you and your minions. I got this corrupted one because of possible future mana probs and that I'm affected by an Aura I cast too for the purpose of the Ascendancies.


Those Boots are needed for stacking strength even further. Try to get a 18% pair of them, sometimes they are offered cheap. You can pretty much ignore any other stat except maybe the chaos res.


This Jewellery is to complement missing resistances and stats. I got each for 1 C because they don't have any serious ES on it I guess. The Unset Ring contains Flame Dash for the occasional Dash Action, really useful sometimes.

Weapon Swap


This setup allows for your minions to get Power and Frenzy Charges and empowers your Zombies for potent Single Target damage if your rampage ended and you can't get it up again in time. Victario's Charity combined with a fast hitting Ball Lightning allows your Minions be permanently on 3 Frenzy Charges which is an awesome boost for them. If Ball Lightning has Culling Strike, even Power Charges. (Combined with Warlords Mark, if you got a respective Spectre, you can even have all 9 charges on them from time to time.)
What those charges do for them (as seen on the wiki):
"
15% Physical Damage Reduction per Endurance Charge
15% to all Elemental Resistances per Endurance Charge
15% increased Attack Speed per Frenzy Charge
15% increased Cast Speed per Frenzy Charge
4% more Damage per Frenzy Charge
5% increased Movement Speed per Frenzy Charge
200% increased Critical Strike Chance per Power Charge
3 Maximum Endurance Charges
3 Maximum Frenzy Charges
3 Maximum Power Charges

Remember that Rampage with the Dervish manifested disables your weaponslot which also includes your offhand. This means it's only useful if your Rampage indeed ended.


How to play
1. When you arrive at a new instance in a new game, get your desecrate out, summon those zombies and raise your spectres. (There's a guide somewhere here telling you in detail which Spectres are better than others or you can just summon what you want) Then get your Golem.

2. Approach a pack of monsters (care if they are ranged AoE mages, they will fck your sht up) and cast SRS. Eventually they will die, you will rampage and you can move on to the next pack.

3. Repeat step 2

4. Repeat step 3

5. ????

6. profit


How to play if your Rampage ended
If you are up against something where you can't get your rampage up and the enemy is singletarget, swap to Monti's/Victario's and swap SRS Melee Splash to Melee Damage/Added Fire Damage.


Skills and Links
Disclaimer: Those are just the skills I'm using in the setup they are in. You don't HAVE to link them exactly like that because there surely is room for improvement.

Raise Zombie - Minion Res - Minion Life - Fortify

Those are basically just your meatshield to prevent your enemies from reaching you.

SRS - Minion Damage - Faster Casting - Melee Splash/Added Fire Damage

The main damage setup to start the rampage. Get Melee Splash to kill packs quickly because of the overlaps and Added Fire Damage against bosses. I chose Faster Casting because of the damage penalty and the "stun" you have while you're casting.

Hatred - Generosity

Last Link just to support the minions because you don't need any added cold damage.

Dank Dervish

You would be lucky to have more than 2 blue sockets.

I thought about this seriously and finally came to the conclusions to socket it with Minion Damage, Minion Speed, Melee Physical Damage, Hypothermia, Weapon Elemental Damage and Melee Damage on Full Life (TDD seems to not lose life has a LOT of damage reduction and if you have minion regen, MDoFL works on it.) You can fill it with any "more" multiplier you want.
You can have more raw damage if you swap Minion Speed with Phys to Lightning but then TDD will be a lot slower and clearspeed suffers a bit. Gotta experiment more with that though.
Alternatively get some poison in there, might work pretty well.

Weapon Swap

Spell Totem - Summon Skeleton - Minion Damage

It's to make additional Meatshields and Damage Dealers once the Rampage ended for good. Since you get + Skeletons anyways from Passives, this would be a waste not to use them too. I'm considering to selfcast them but I am hesitating.


Bandits
>>-N-C-M-> Kill them all


Map experience with it up to now

Ele reflect is not a problem
Phys reflect is not a problem
Reduced Mana and Health regen, not a problem
Elemental Equilibrium , not a problem
Totems, not a problem
Extra damage, not a problem
Extra crit, you gotta watch out, the thing is that you can still be frozen.
Bloodlines, no problem
Beyond monsters you have to watch out for but it works out
Nemesis Mods care about corrupting blood when you don't have your Dervish out.
Shocking/Burning/Chilled ground no problems up to now, the chilled ground can impede your Rampage though
desecrated ground can be a hazard if not cautious
Cursed with Enfeeble is no problem
2 bosses is only a problem with certain bosses
Rogue Exiles I've encountered so far were not a problem except Antalie Napora with LA in a Vorici mission. It hurts if you stand in your minions and LA pierces through because you may not kill her.
Master missions are possible without much of a problem except particular Vorici missions and Vagan duels.
Hall of Grandmasters is pretty much impossible solo





GL, hf, Bye.
Last edited by JoBilly on Jun 20, 2018, 11:30:52 AM
Last bumped on Jun 14, 2018, 4:47:19 AM
Changelog

5. April 2017

- Created Guide

7. April 2017

- Added in-depth Video

21. April 2017

- Updated Skill Links
- Updated Map Experiences
- Cleaned up Post

21. June 2017

- Updated Passive Tree
- Updated Items
- Cleaned up Post

11. July 2017

- Added AI comparison from before 2.6 times to after

20. August 2017

- Updated to 3.0, Isn't Budget anymore because The Baron costs more than a Shav's

19. December 2017

- Updated to 3.1, it's budget again due to The Baron nerf.

2. February 2018

- Added 3.1 Buffs section

4. March 2018

- Added 3.2 Notes

18. June 2018

- Added 3.3 Note
Last edited by JoBilly on Jun 19, 2018, 5:01:58 PM
I like everything about this build, but the thing that gets me is that the weapon dies without rampage up. At this point the animate weapon build would be on par in play style and perhaps surpass this build in clear speed.
Indeed, I would have welcomed it a LOT if they added a "recently" tag to it.

[...] dies if Rampage ended recently.

so it stays for 4 seconds to still help you. And yes, you would lose rampage but you can kill much more efficiently with a pure AW build.
What happens if an item that grants permanent rampage is equipped? Will that permanently manifest the dervish or will it not manifest the dervish because rampage has to "start" for it to appear?

The Dancing Dervish gives you the ability to get Rampage. As soon as you killed enough Monsters and get Rampage, the sword will be summoned and deactivate your main and offhand, aswell as your weaponswap, for the duration of your rampage.

There isn't a way to keep your rampage up indefinitely except refreshing it by killing monsters. There are a few things to prolong the duration you have between killing monsters like being affected by Temp Chains or certain Leaguestones.
Do you considered The Writhing Jar as a way to keep up with the Rampage? I'm wondering if Pathfinder's Nature Boon (Gain a flask charge every 3 seconds) can keep up the Dancing Dervish indefinitely alongside the jar. Maybe add Overflowing Chalice as well idk. The most obvious disadvantage is Ranger starts really far away from all the minion and strength nodes. I might try to make a build for it if I have time.

By the way really nice write up! I enjoyed reading both your posts.

Edit: Nevermind forget about what I said. I just tested that Writhing Jar doesn't work with Rampage. :(
Last edited by shin_igami on Jun 17, 2017, 8:17:28 PM
It's super fun to read. Thank for your work :P

I wish i can use Baron one day in a cookie-cutter build.
what ascendary points u using?
"
tuberiolse wrote:
what ascendary points u using?


Nec and Guardian

I threw the idea of skipping to witch into the wind because 2 skillpoints help more than what you would save with the jump.

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