[3.11] Doryani Spirit Bomber: a General's Cry-Doryani's Touch + Smite Berserker



Video - Gameplay Montage
Video - T16 Map

POB: https://pastebin.com/3SBNwX8D

INTRO
I wanted to try a General's Cry-centric build, and Doryani's Touch came out as probably the strongest option in my eyes, because of a number things:
Spoiler
- Doryani's Touch has great charactistics for practical use with the GC AI: instant damage (viable for clear) & large AOE (diminishes the issue of mirages stacking the same target)

- General's Cry is not strong enough to stand on it's own (due to being capped by spawnrate/spawndeath); but with Call to Arms (instant warcry keystone) it can be used as a strong damage complement alongside another [2H] 6L

- Doryani's Touch gives us a pseudo-5L that allows us to use a shield, namely Redblade Banner for 50% warcry CDR and massive berserker/warcry buffs

- being a lightning attack with 600% Added Damage Effectiveness, DT can be buffed significantly (about 20% for me) by Smite, giving us a pseudo-6L that can be used with a shield

- our Smite can be linked with Innervate, providing another notable damage boost which makes that pseudo-6th link on DT about as effective as a real link

- despite our Smite being a bit weaker due to our DT-focused links and build, it makes for a notable single target complement by doubling up on damage via Tribal Fury (the TF-hit and your ranged AOE can overlap for 2 hits per activation)
The combination with selfattack Smite results in a satisfying playstyle which mixes that feeling of Hitting Things Yourself and the lazy, powerful, Let-Chris-Take-The-Wheel AI-controlled feel of the General's Cry homing-missile mirages.

PROS
- core of the build is very cheap (can do just fine with a 5L smite)
- pretty tanky, pretty fast, enough DPS (3-7m)
Defensive Layers
- Blind from Flesh&Stone and Disorienting Display (if available)
- maxblock against attacks flasked, some spellblock (Glancing Blows)
- ~25k flasked armor
- Fortify supported
- high-uptime Berserk for more movespeed% and less damage taken%
- high-uptime Debilitate (enemies get -20%ms, -10% damage dealt)
- big ES-on-kill during clear
- life, mana, ES leech-enabled
- high uptime on majority DPS via instant General's Cry
- flexible; can do most map mods
- as a Doryani's Prototype build, doesn't have to worry about cursing/managing sources of -res%

CONS
- a bit button heavy (constantly switch between Dash/holding Berserk & GenCry; handcast desecrate on bosses and, ideally, fresh packs)
- resist-starved due to so many -allres pieces (likely -60 chaos res without substantial investment)
- falls over to lightning DOT, not great at taking lightning hits
- not meta-build power level

MY GEAR & GEM LINKS

Body: Smite-Ele with Attacks-Added Lightning-Multistrike-Fortify-Innervate
Gloves: General's Cry-Ele with Attacks-Added Lightning-Pulverise
Aura 4L: Wrath-Flesh and Stone-Blood and Sand-Enlighten
Utility 4L: Dash-Enduring Cry-Second Wind-Vaal Ancestral Warchief
Shield: CWDT-Vaal Molten Shell-your choice!


BERSERKER ASCENDANCY
We choose Berserker for primarily its War Bringer notable, which gives our mirages 50% more damage (mirage attacks count as 'exerted') and enables super high uptime Berserk in combination with Redblade Banner.

Aspect of Carnage is a massive global damage boost, worth the more% damage taken.

The Rite of Ruin tree gives a similarly massive damage boost, along with enough attack and movespeed to feel good. At 50 max rage, you won't really notice the degen.


GEAR RATIONALE

Doryani's Fist gives us our essential skill, but also the lovely 250 Energy Shield gained on Killing a Shocked Enemy which, during clear, gives us pseudo-OG-Vaalpact for our sizable overshield (largely provided by a Doryani Glorious Vanity).


The new Doryani's Prototype is a real enabler for us:
- both DT and Smite being lightning attacks, Doryani's Prototype enables big damage scaling from gear, since we can't rely on scaling through a weapon
- Doryani's Prototype removes the need for a lot of links providing -lightres to enemies, allowing the build space for two fully linked attacks when we are already down links from having no weapon


The updated Redblade Banner (warcries have infinite power) is nutty for us. It:
- guarantees max rage when you warcry under 25 rage (berserker War Bringer), meaning you are always Berserking except for its 5s cooldown
- guarantees 1 endurance OR frenzy OR power charge per cast, with Mob Mentality cluster
- guarantees the max +100% armor from Warning Call cluster
- gives 30% block, meaning we reach maxblock vs. attacks via Glancing Blows + Rumi's with no tree investment
- gives 50% warcry CDR, providing both big DPS & QOL to GC
This makes it the better choice for us over Maligaro's Lens (-50% allres shield used by some Prototype builds).


Malachai's Artifice x2 are a cheap source of -lightres (Prototype damage scaling) & +fire/coldres. Godly rares (or absurdly expensive Ventors) can match the damage and provide life and even more resist.


Crown of the Inward Eye gives a nice boost to both HP & ES, has high enchant availability, and has massive armor for a hat, which we really need for mitigating lightning (with Prototype). One of the best features of rare helms, the -res% aura, doesn't work with Prototype; so this is our most attractive option.


Immortal Flesh similarly gives -res scaling, big HP, and bonus armor. The mana regen is a nice side benefit; you can manage no-leech maps with it.


-20% res Thread of Hopes can be squeezed into 1-2 jewel slots, given adequate resistance support, boosting damage via Prototype and allowing you to pick up some strong, but often passed by, notables like Sanctum of Thought.


An Avian Twins Talisman with a Lightning from Hits converted to Cold/Fire helps mitigate lightning hits in conjunction with our armour. A mediocre one will do, though ideally you'd have life and resists on it too (though these are very rare/expensive, as many people hide talismans from their filters).


Writhing Jar lets us trigger Innervate on bosses with no adds & also becomes an ES pot given our ES-on-kill. (Optional; you could instead use a life flask for another suffix effect.)

Rare boots with HP & resists.

Rare jewels to fill out stat/resist needs. Adjust tree if needed to further meet these needs.


CLUSTER JEWELS
Large clusters: Supercharge (non-crit lightning damage is lucky) is the biggest deal, though it can be expensive, particularly with other notables. While it provides a big damage bonus, it isn't essential.

Medium clusters: we get considerable power and QOL from the warcry notables:Haunting Shout (intimidate), Warning Call (+100% armor), Lead by Example (onslaught), Mob Mentality (one random charge per shout). Ideally we'd get all four across two clusters, but if budget is limited, singles of your preference will do.

Otherwise, use what you like; life & mana leech on large Attack clusters are pretty cheap and useful. Aim for needed attributes & fire/cold res as tertiary stats.


BANDITS
+2 passives


PLAY TIPS
My usual playstyle is to hold down my keys for Berserk and General's Cry in combat, while smiting. Switch to hit dash as you move around. It's a bit high APM, but it gives you the strongest control. Drop your Vaal Warchief & switch to Blood stance when you go in on bosses. Use enduring cry as needed as a super-potion.

Open up on new packs (i.e. no corpses around) with a Desecrate to get your mirages out quicker. With instant warcry, the timing for your followup General's Cry takes a little getting used to; you don't want to warcry too soon (before the cast completes) or you won't spawn your mirages.

Do reflect maps by unbinding your Smite and letting The Boys do the work. It's a little slower, but gets the job done.

Do no-leech maps with a little patience on the smiting; make sure you leave enough mana for GC, as that's your biggest source of clear.

For no-regen maps, possibly drop an aura if you find yourself accidentally running out of mana. A mana leech cluster is enough to sustain yourself, but overdashing will OOM you.


NOTES ON GENERAL'S CRY
To the best of my knowledge thus far:

General's Cry has a built-in ~0.25sec spawn delay before mirages can attack. Additionally, mirages spawn in sequence and, on top of that, extant mirages die the moment you re-cast General's Cry. (I'm not entirely sure whether mirages currently in their attack animation will complete their attack before dieing.)

Thus, the ideal cooldown to target for General's Cry is something around:

# mirages * 0.25sec + 0.25sec grace period to ensure the final mirage attacks
(grace period is to your preference)

In other words, ~1.5 seconds for a 5-mirage GC, or ~1.75sec for a 6-mirage GC (with +1 helmet enchant).

Because of these factors, the DPS difference between the 30% CDR and +1 helmet enchant is actually not so large. You should use whichever works for the exact tree/CDR amount you feel preferable to.

The 30% CDR enchant has the benefit of more warcry spam to better fuel your Mob Mentality charge generation, and a shorter wait before being able to Enduring Cry in an emergency.

POB doesn't calculate General's Cry DPS properly; it uses the attack rate of the attached attack skill, which is irrelevant for mirages which only attack once. You have to calculate it by hand using the attack's damage values against the cooldown of your GC.


TODO

Get two Uncompromising/Stalwart Commander (Determination) medium cluster jewels. Make space for them by cutting Natural Authority points and some unnecessary points around Templar, and switch the northern Thread of Hope to Large ring to get the mana reservation nodes. Then we can squeeze in Determination for a massive armor boost to shore up our weakness against large lightning hits.


~Cloud
Last edited by CloudAgeExile on Aug 3, 2020, 3:16:16 PM
Last bumped on Jul 17, 2020, 12:05:14 PM
Ohhh man oh man oh man. And just when I thought I was done with General's Cry. And not just a spicy new GC build, but one using Doryani's Touch AND Doryani's Prototype (AND Redblade Banner)? Where were you before I sunk my nestegg into a crit Chieftain variant? (Which I loved as well, but want to try this even more because Doryani's Prototype is just so cool.)

A real shame there isn't more overlap with this build and my current General's Cry character- interesting how different the gearing is. (and slightly disappointing too :( )

I'm reluctant to buy all new gear to try a variant of the same buil (especially when my hunch is that for all it's coolness it will be weaker than what my character is currently) but I might just be tempted yet!
Last edited by Overmasterr on Jul 17, 2020, 4:24:46 AM
"
Overmasterr wrote:
I'm reluctant to buy all new gear to try a variant of the same buil (especially when my hunch is that for all it's coolness it will be weaker than what my character is currently) but I might just be tempted yet!


On the bright side, besides the jewels, its only like 20c for the core uniques if you want to try it out ;)

Since most of your damage is from Doryani's Touch, you actually don't even need a 6L. I did T16s on a 5L (and no Glorious Vanity for that matter, but the survivability difference is noticeable there).

And Doryani's Prototype is a really awesome unique; its liberating to not have to worry about managing curses/exposure/-res shenanigans. The downsides (lightning degens & deadly big hits) are very noticeable though.

Fire based GC looks pretty fun too, I'll probably make one myself for that sweet sweet conc-path blink AI. Pretty sure I'll go berserker again though; I've been sketching a number of builds around GC but it always seems to come down to War Bringer 50% more + rage & Berserk being waaay too good to give up, imo.

GC is just so much fun to build and play with, even if it doesn't make for the most powerful builds. Hopefully we'll see more similarly designed secondary-active-skills as we approach POE2

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