[3.3] The Dancing Avatar - AoF IW GC/The Baron/12 Zombies/The Dancing Dervish(1200+ 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 that relevant to this build, except if you take Elemental Overload.
Changes for 3.2
There are 3 noteable things.

- For the Uber Lab points you can go either Arohongui for offensive or Ramako for defensive stats
- You can now ditch Hrimsorrow for either Meginord's Vise or any other spell damage focused gloves because you now get 100% cold/physical to fire through Ngamahu, Avatar of Fire and Cold to Fire
- The addition of The Dancing Duo

Spoiler
This build revolves around the Marauder's Chieftain Ascendancy with it's ability to efficiently stack Strength to buff himself's full fire conversion Glacial Cascade aswell as his 12 Zombies while using "The Dancing Dervish" (TDD) in it's manifested form as effective clearing tool. Due to the fact that Strength stacking gives Life and there's leech on the Ascendancy tree and the Zombies through The Baron, it's also fairly safe to use.


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 costs more than a Shav's atm for WHATEVER reason. Even in standard it's relatively expensive. It's not that expensive anymore since the nerf!
- Do you want to use TDD as effective Minion to see how it does?
- Do you want the feel of a spellsinging Summoner?

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



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 which is also why I tried to make a viable build with it in each subsequent league. In Legacy I managed to sucessfully make two other builds with it, a Scion and another Duelist. 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.

This Marauder is an iteration I wanted to do for a while and since it's around after the middle of this league, the items got cheaper too.

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
+ Rampage.
+ Fairly Cheap.
+ Fun to play with.
+ Defense=Offense.
+ 12 life leeching Zombies acting as meatshields.
+ 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
- You lose defenses as you cannot wear a shield. You do have a lot of leech and a wall of zombies though.
- If you fail to start a rampage, you are missing a lot of damage, defenses and clearspeed.
- Build only really starts at lvl 59 because you can only then equip TDD.
- Stacking Strength at first is easy, but knocking through the 1K mark is kinda hardish as you need to juggle res, str and life on gear which could be expensive.

How to:

Skilltree
Skillwise I prioritized a lot of Strength. Minion stats were secondary but I took them as I travelled around.

When I reached lvl 59 I had too little dex and int so I went to get some items with stats on them aswell as the two +30 Dex/+30 Int nodes on the left side of the tree. I could use some Minion nodes as travelnodes to Avatar of Fire.

As of now at lvl 76

As of now this character has 1210 Str. I'll try to stack more Life and Strength as time comes.

Ascendancywise I chose:

Normal: Tawhoa, Forest's Strength

This is the statboost which made me take this Ascendancy. 10% Increased Strength aswell as other useful stats. Together with Alberon's Warpath boots and two Brawn Jewels I get 40% increased Strength which means you only need around 858 Strength to get that sweet 1.2k +4 Zombie Threshold on The Baron.

Cruel: Ngamahu, Flame's Advance

Travelnode and only useful thing atm. I occasionally ignite things with my Glacial Cascade. I might respec into another skill but this is what I'm going for atm.

Merciless: Hinekora, Death's Fury

1% of Fire Damage leeched as Life, count me in with my 100% Fire Damage Glacial Cascade. 10% Firepen? Sure. 20% added fire damage? uhm, yeah.

Uber: Aronhongul, Moon's Presence

As I occasionally use a Scorching Ray Totem to boost my damage, this boosts it even more. Because my minions deal Physical Damage, they also deal more damage.


Items


In depth Gear description


This is mandatory. I got this for 1 or 2 alchs. 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.


Bread and Butter. Gives you Strength, Minion Leech on you, and it buffs your minions. Now that it's not league start anymore, it is kinda affordable at 35 C at the time I'm writing this. It's quite affordable now. Look for one with a Str roll as close to 40 as possible.


Increased Phys damage boosts your Glacial Cascade, free Strength, free Res, cheap belt, all you need


This one helps to stack Strength even more and Chaos Res never hurts. I might implement a use for skellies if I find a use... Maybe Iron Will Skellie Mages?


With this you have a tad of Str, 100% Phys to Cold and thusly 100% Fire damage with Avatar of Fire and Cold to Fire Support.


Due to the lack of res on this, this was cheap AF, seriously. I had to Annul it to make room for the +1 Zombie Mod from lvl 6 Catarina for 4 Chaos and I got pretty lucky I gotta say.


Cheapish Stats.

Weapon Swap



Doon gives a really big damageboost. I still gotta decide what skills I use in there and I'm just leveling gems with it atm.

This setup allows for you to provide your Zombies with Power and Frenzy Charges and empowers them 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 Glacial Cascade allows your Minions be permanently on 3 Frenzy Charges which is an awesome boost for them. If you kill enemies like adds, even Power Charges (Combined with Warlords Mark, or if you got a respective Spectre if you prefer that, 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 a manifested Dervish disables your weaponslot which also includes your offhand. This means it's only useful if your Rampage indeed ended.


How to play
1. Approach a pack of monsters

2. Kill a few monsters, summon Zombies. Eventually 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 against Singletarget?
1. Press the button to swap your weapon if TDD vanished and didn't keep on refreshing Rampage and cast away.

2. You might need to kite a bit or nibble on some potions but it's by all means manageable.

3. Repeat step 2

4. Repeat step 3

5. ????

6. profit


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.

Glacial Cascade - Iron Will - Cold To Fire - Controlled Destruction - Added Fire Damage - Fire Penetration

Since I'm running Full Fire Conversion with Avatar of Fire, Cold to Fire is mandatory. It also provides nice added damage. Iron Will is the main scaling Tool in this setup so you need it too. Since I have Ngahamu, I didn't choose Elemental Focus. This is a non Crit build so Controlled Destruction is all we need. The rest is just additional scaling.

Raise Zombie - Minion Life - Fortify - Minion and Totem Elemental Resistance

I put this in the helmet because +2 to Minion Gems is a steal of a deal. Zombies need those levels because each level increases their survivability tremendously. They're not here to deal damage (they do some though) but serve as additional meatshields. If they get hit, you usually don't.

Spell Totem - Scorching Ray - Minion and Totem Elemental Resistances - Animate Guardian

The Spell Totem procs Arohongui and diminishes the Fire Res of enemies. The Animated Guardian wears the usual suspects of Dying Breath, Leer Cast etc. To summon it, take the Spell Totem out of the links. Never ever summon an AW Spell Totem in a map or anywhere for that matter.

Hatred / Flame Dash / Summon Stone Golem / Convocation

Pure Utility Spells which don't have to be linked.

The Dancing Dervish

WED - Phys to Light - Innervate - Minion Damage - Melee Physical Damage - Faster Attacks

This setup allows TDD to deal a lot of Lightning damage which can shock enemies for additional damage. It can kill by itself so Innervate isn't wasted on it. I decided against Minion Speed because it will rather stay in range for Hatred like that.

Weapon Swap

Still gotta find something which would be superior to a 6L GC. Maybe I'll use a secondary GC setup in there with Conc Effect and something else.

Also, having a Desecrate in there helps with resummoning your meat mates once they inevitably die to something.



Bandits
Help Oak for additional defensive/offensive stats or Kill them all


Map experience with it up to now


Ele Reflect Let your Minions do the Dirty Work. You can also swap GC for SRS aswell as the support gems for it and let them do the talkin'.
Phys Reflect no prob
Curses This Character doesn't have that overcapped res atm, so ele weakness might be a hurdle.




GL, hf, Bye.
Last edited by JoBilly on Jun 20, 2018, 11:26:48 AM
Last bumped on Mar 26, 2018, 4:55:39 PM
Changelog

28. September 2017

- Created Guide (WIP)

29. September 2017

- Finished V 1.0
- Polished Format

9. October 2017

- Added Shaped Beach Map Video

10. December 2017

- Updated to 3.1, nothing's changed.

20. December 2017

- Cleaned up post

2. February 2018

- Added 3.1 Buffs section

4. March 2018

- Added 3.2 Section

18. June 2018

- Added 3.3 Section
Last edited by JoBilly on Jun 19, 2018, 4:57:29 PM
Just recently found your build,was getting tired of all the witch minion builds. Yours is fun so far, only in the 30's but its very enjoyable to play. Can't wait to get the levels i need for the weapon.
no skill tree?
Clarified where the tree is now, my apologies, it was hidden in the "How I leveled" tab which is now renamed to "Skilltree"

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