Clinkler Build, Face Tanking Boss Destroyer

Hello,

This build utilizes a claw as a main hand weapon and Brutus’s Lead Sprinkler as a stat stick (Hence, “Clinkler”) and Blade Flurry. I’ve played some of the meta builds lately, such as HOWA, and realized that this build seems to have an easier time with Shaper, Uber Atziri, etc (My first deathless kills ever were with this build). I haven’t found anything else similar, so I figured it might be worthy of a post. Sorry if the guide is not overly detailed, I didn’t want to spend all day on it. Also, I am not currently set up for video capture (not in a way that doesn’t junk up my fps anyway), so I do not have any videos. If there is sufficient interest, then I will try to produce something along those lines.

I moved over to sc to finish challenges, and went with Berserker for the easy damage bonuses. Of course, there’s the 10% increased damage taken downside, which turns our ~9k life pool into an ~8k life pool, but hell, that’s still pretty good. Chieftain would be a safer option with less dps, and something like Raider could make up for the damage with frenzy charges and the strength with dex -> strength conversion jewels. But I haven’t tried those.

Pros
- Big time dps
- Big time leech (Vaal Pact + Cloaked in Savagery)
- Great hp pool for a life based character
- Fast movement (WB) and clear speed
- No charges to worry about maintaining

Cons
- It’s not CI, so you will still be 1-shot from time to time
- As everyone knows, Vaal Pact on a life build can be a pain in the ass
- Not hc viable. I wouldn’t call it a “glass cannon”, but it’s hard to justify an hc build that intentionally takes 10% increased damage.
- Couple of problem map mods: Elemental reflect, Any degen ground (especially chaos), -max (lone ele ref monsters usually aren’t a problem, different story with –max)

This build generates huge DPS by stacking flat fire damage, fire penetration, and attack speed. The flat fire damage comes from whatever you can get on your claw, Brutus’s Sprinkler (From stacking strength), Anger aura, and whatever you can get on your ring and gloves. Fire penetration comes from the support gem (37% at lvl 20), skill tree (14%), Xoph’s Blood Ammy (10%), and Wise Oak flask (20%) for a total of up to 81% fire resistance penetration! The real benefit of using a claw (or dagger, or sword) in your main hand is that you can use Blade Flurry (Still the best “melee” skill, even after 3 nerfs). This skill adds an additional 1.6 multiplier to your IAS that you stack from the tree, gear, and buffs. Additionally, we use Ancestral Protector for boss fights, which adds another 1.2 multiplier. Fully buffed, my guy attacks at a rate of 10 per second, which is stupid fast.

The required uniques for the build are:


The Sprinkler is pretty obvious, it gives us 30% increased fire damage and the flat based on strength (Ends up being ~150-300 for my guy). We have to waste a ring slot on Essence Worm because Blood Magic boosts our life pool by quite a bit, and we still want to run Anger. Xoph’s Blood is amazing, it boosts our strength and life by 10% each, has fire penetration, and covering enemies in ash is a 20% more multiplier on our damage! Finally, the newly buffed Kaom’s Roots are also pretty amazing. Up to 200 flat life is great, but we also save a few points by getting Unwavering Stance for free (never stunned) and the “Cannot be Slowed” mod makes us immune to Temp Chains and Freeze, priceless!!!

My Current Weapon:


You can use a sword or dagger, but I decided to go with a claw for the little bit of LGOH implicit and to keep the stat requirements down. The most important mods on your weapon are attack speed, flat fire damage, and WED. Any additional damage mods are nice, but they only get applied as fire at 50% of their value because we get Avatar of Fire from our neck. Resistances and stat points are also nice to get on the weapon if possible. I made my claw by spamming Noble Claws with Deafening Essences of Zeal.

Other gear:


Helmet: If you can make up for resistances elsewhere, then Devoto’s Devotion would be a decent choice (Giving up life though). Otherwise, you want to stack strength, life, resistances, and armour. A big intelligence roll could also be nice, as it could save points on the tree.
Chest: Looking for Strength, Life, Armour, resistances.
Gloves: The handiest rolls to get on gloves will be IAS and flat fire damage. Otherwise, it’s the same strength, life, resistances, and armour that we are after on all of our gear.
Belt: This is a place where we can get huge strength and life, as well as a high WED roll. Otherwise, get whatever resistances you need.
Ring: Besides our weapon, the ring is the most important piece of gear from a dps perspective. An Opal ring with big WED, strength, and flat fire rolls provide a huge boost. You also want a life roll if possible, along with whatever resistances and stats that you need.

Current Flasks:


Wise Oak is great for dps and some defense, and BoK is nice for maintaining life when degened or for certain boss mechanics (Nice to tap it when the smoke cloud Chimera phase starts, you know that you will have full life back 2.5 seconds later). I used Doedre’s Elixir for a while, which I used to proc “Savage Hits”, but it seemed like I ended up killing myself with it more often than not, so I took it out. Otherwise, you need a bleed flask, do not need a freeze flask, and the other mods are up to you. I went with poison and curse immunity on Granite, Basalt, and Silver flasks.

Jewels:


I wanted max life % on all my jewels, which uses up a prefix. The other prefixes that you are looking for are % increased fire damage or IAS with claws, second tier are IAS while dual wielding, one handed weapons, etc. The best suffixes are area damage and melee damage, second tiers are damage, ias, or whatever resistances or stats that you might need.

Skills:
Blade Flurry, Faster Attacks, WED, Fire Pen, Ele Focus, IAE/Conc
CWDT (lvl 20), Molten Shell, Summon Light Golem, Temp Chains/Enf
CWDT (lvl 1), Arctic Breath, GMP, Chain
Whirling Blades, Fortify, Culling Strike (or Faster Attacks, kind of uncontrollable)
Vaal Light Trap, Ancestral Protector, Inc Dur

Bandits:
N- Oak
C- Kraityn
M- Point

Tree at lvl 94:


I'd like to hear any discussion, questions, or constructive criticism that you might have. Please feel free to post here, or contact me in game if you have any questions or would just like to chat.

IGN: Blah_Blah_My_Ancesters

What a god. Upvoted!

Hey man,

I was looking for a blood magic melee build and this looks perfect. Leveling him up now and had a question.

Until I can afford a Xophs do you still recommend i go fire based? Maybe get Avatar of fire on tree until i can afford it?

Definately a cool build and love that Xoph's is the most expensive item. Hopefully I can get one soon. Until then want to get this build able to do some content

Thanks for any help'

"

Dpachi wrote:

Hey man,

I was looking for a blood magic melee build and this looks perfect. Leveling him up now and had a question.

Until I can afford a Xophs do you still recommend i go fire based? Maybe get Avatar of fire on tree until i can afford it?

Definately a cool build and love that Xoph's is the most expensive item. Hopefully I can get one soon. Until then want to get this build able to do some content

Thanks for any help'

I wouldn't bother with picking up Avatar of Fire on the tree, there is really no upside to having it. You would take advantage of fire penetration by converting cold and light to fire, wouldn't really gain much by converting phys, and they are only converted by 50% of their values anyway. The Avatar of Fire thing is basically just a consequence of using Xoph's, it's the other mods that we are really after.

You will be using Sprinkler, Anger, and Fire Pen anyway, so you will basically be fire focused even without Xoph's.

Have fun, and feel free to hit me up if you have any questions!

Hi,
i respecd to your build from ngamahu cyclone (meanwhile i tried some physical/chaos build with starforge but didn't like), whirling blades/blade flurry combo is more funny. atm i have done only chimera and i had no problems.
Damage is good, good hp pool, high leech (yeah we are berserker), i like movements with whirling and the buffs from kaom's root are very good.

actually gear (don't look at arctic breath, just want lvl 20 for sell)



need to find same gloves that i have but with fire to attack, a good opal ring (is not easy), need to choose if use enfeeble or temporal chains (probably enfeeble) and i must buy ancestral protector. i'm in doubt if use devoto or good rare.

I have a question about jewels, why you take melee damage? it scales with fire?
is not better increase damage?

"

tecer0 wrote:

Hi,
I have a question about jewels, why you take melee damage? it scales with fire?
is not better increase damage?

Glad you are liking the build so far! Any damage that you do with Blade Flurry (or any melee skill) is considered "melee damage" (Some weird things like the after effects of Wild Strike don't apply, but those are the exception). Melee Damage goes up to 12% on jewels, while Damage only goes up to 10%. It's a small difference, but for min/maxing purposes, Melee Damage is better.

Have fun, and feel free to hit me up if you want to chat.

:)