Volcanic Fissure and Chieftain Scaling

Hello,

I am trying to put together a build for Volcanic Fissure for the new league. I looked at chieftain as my ascendancy and was looking to use fist of war and war cry’s for big slams. I was wondering why Tawhoas’s Chosen is considered bad with war cry’s? Additionally, if it’s not a good choice is chieftain even worth it for Volcanic Fissure?

I guess the next question would be which ascendancy works the best for a fire based war-cry slam build? My plan is to start with non-crit mace and transition to crit staves once I gear up.

Also, I wanted to see if anyone had thoughts on if it was worth pathing down to point blank from marauder with a skill like volcanic fissure? I definitely want to create my own build given I’ve not done it yet, but if anyone would be willing to look at my POB that would be awesome.

Tawhoa's doesn't exert and can't be supported by fist of war is why its considered bad for war cry/slam builds (it has anti synergy basically)

I'll be honest I think Chieftain is a trap ascendancy for attack builds, if some big chieftain players want to chip in with why that is wrong i'd be interested too but everytime i've ever setup a PoB as a Chieftain its vastly superior as a Zerker for offence, or a Jugg for defence. You can make fun casters as Chieftain but for attacks? Always feels like a trap.

Point blank does work for the projectiles but I can't see the pathing being worthwhile for a staff/mace build, if you were axe you might justify it. If you were starting as a duelist ascendancy too I could see you grabbing it.

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Draegnarrr wrote:

I'll be honest I think Chieftain is a trap ascendancy for attack builds, if some big chieftain players want to chip in with why that is wrong i'd be interested too but everytime i've ever setup a PoB as a Chieftain its vastly superior as a Zerker for offence, or a Jugg for defence.

What would be the best ascendancy nodes for a Zerker?

Right now my tree paths down to point blank picking up the mace nodes next to life and mana leech, the leech nodes, and then the life nodes above the point blank area.

Here is what it's looking like so far if you're interested:
https://pastebin.com/vUFi5ifs

If I went duelist what do you think would be good? Just go slayer and get the generic damage nodes? Would it be best to go crit axe then?

Thanks for the reply!

The worst thing you can do when making a basic attack build is to stretch your tree out a lot. That's because you end up wasting a ton of points on traveling, so even if there's something strong at the end, the total number of points you spent to get there isn't worth it.

Chieftain for attack builds should lean on 2 things--strong regen and Tukohama ascendancy for totems.

Try something like this:

https://pobb.in/ivSAKeqYmIYe

I'm not a fan of non-crit (ceiling is super low) and there isn't an obvious reason to me why you'd want to play maces here (given you aren't doing Overlord on clusters even for Fortify) but I tried to keep in the spirit of what you were going for so I changed as little as possible.

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TemjinGold wrote:

I'm not a fan of non-crit (ceiling is super low) and there isn't an obvious reason to me why you'd want to play maces here (given you aren't doing Overlord on clusters even for Fortify) but I tried to keep in the spirit of what you were going for so I changed as little as possible.

Thanks for the suggestion! Would you just go axes then? I was also thinking I would switch to staffs late game and go crit scaling.

I see the Tukohama node gives a good boost, but I don't really like relying on the totem being up for my damage. Do you think zerker would work with that same tree, or what adjustments would be good?

You mostly need the damage from Tukohama on bosses and tanky rares, and you should be plopping down the totems in those cases anyway, hence Tukohama is good.

You can make something similar work with Berserker, just keep in mind he's MUCH squishier especially before you have good gear. Whether you prefer one or the other is up to you.

I personally would go axes because:

1) Hatchet Master gives you Onslaught on kill

2) Cleaving has built in Intimidate

3) Practically every mastery for axe is a banger (Bleeding one doesn't do much for you but an amazing mastery for bleed builds) whereas the vast majority of the mace ones are worthless.

4) Axes just plain do a lot more damage than maces.

Maces have almost nothing going for them to be honest. They have nice stun synergy but you aren't playing that. Overlord for a large cluster is nice but you don't have that either. That's why I said I didn't see why you were going maces. While staff is nice, most of the good staff nodes are on the other side of the tree whereas all the axe stuff is here.

Nothing wrong with staff mind you and a lot of people do end up with them in endgame. But when building a tree it's important to think in terms of "power per point" not just node 1 vs. node 2. Because if you keep your tree tight and compact like this, you will just get more actual nodes that are good versus getting nodes that might be stronger but having far fewer of them because of how much travel you need to do.

To be clear, you don't need to do the tree exactly the way I laid it out. That was just meant to be an example of how keeping your tree compact actually makes you stronger despite the individual nodes potentially being weaker.

One last thing--you have a metric ton of investment into warcry stuff. I can't speak to or against that since I've never played anything warcry heavy. But make sure what you are getting out of it is worth sinking THAT many points into it. Because you are next to a ton more damage that you don't have points to take.

I see, I'll play around with some axe versions of this. I'm not very experienced with making my own builds so I'm not sure if the investment in warcries is too much. I definitely wanted to use multiple warcries so I wanted good cast speed on them, and I thought the warcry nodes looked pretty good. However, I'm not sure how well stacking multiple warcries works. I think it's good because I do see a few builds doing this.

As for onslaught and intimidate I am using infernal cry linked with onslaught to get it while mapping and intimidating cry as well, but it's definitely not automatic like those masteries which might be annoying.

Looking at the tree it seems like a lot of the axe nodes focus on attack speed and crit, so maybe I will swap to that if I'm not enjoying the big slow slams, and perhaps just to scale crit later.

I swapped a couple things but definitely took out the big travelling to the top and out to point blank like you suggested, and the damage numbers look a lot better. I swapped to Berzerker but will see if the survivability is too bad like you mentioned.

If the warcries seem like they have too much invested what is one or two node clusters that would be good to take instead?

Also curious, what are you starting? :)

I really wish they stacked, that would be so good to get screen bonks on just one hit...

Still, my late late goal is to do my usual marohi and stack endurance charges on a jug and slam so hard the room on the next map is deleted... I enjoyed it in sentinel with a valako flesh combo.

Terrible bosser but damn could it clear and hitting a vaal ground slam with all that stun effect stacked too...

I have an explosive trap sabo that I threw together. Never played the skill as a league start before but I played it in Mayhem. I was sold when I saw that a single volley of traps destroyed Vaal Omnitect the minute he popped up haha...

Explosive trap does obscene dps on no gear.

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Sherudonst wrote:

Terrible bosser but damn could it clear and hitting a vaal ground slam with all that stun effect stacked too...

This! I am hoping I can put together something that isn't so bad at bossing but I know it has the potential to suck. I wish you luck on your fatty slams though.

Also I feel like it doesn't make sense for the chieftain ascendancy not to stack. Like one of the only ascendancy nodes related to slams doesn't work with the main way to scale slams? Seems weird.

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TemjinGold wrote:

Explosive trap does obscene dps on no gear.

Noice, I never enjoyed the trap playstyle but I can see the allure given how much damage you can get up to. I am hoping to kill some bosses this league with Volcanic Fissure, but if I can't get anything done I might go with something stronger later.