Face Breaker Unarmed Build?

Just curious if anybody has experimented with an unarmed build. If so, what considerations must be made to make it viable?

If I can get my hands on a pair of these gloves, I might just stop everything I'm doing and figure something out... The coolest character you could possibly build ever? Some wacko with the balls to turn monsters into bloody pulp by punching them in the face!

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CanHasPants wrote:

Just curious if anybody has experimented with an unarmed build. If so, what considerations must be made to make it viable?

If I can get my hands on a pair of these gloves, I might just stop everything I'm doing and figure something out... The coolest character you could possibly build ever? Some wacko with the balls to turn monsters into bloody pulp by punching them in the face!

Since you don't need mana for this, you can go many auras and lots of strength for melee damage boost. You probably need fixed elemental bonuses as well as those fixed physical damage bonuses :D

But I doubt it actually works, probably just a joke item.
Hmm, some active skills don't mention a specific weapon (like double strike or frenzy), maybe they can work with unarmed.

I can see a use for this build in cut-throat where someone will just go around punching mid level players into a bloody mess and cackle evilishly :D

It hasn't really passed the thought experiment stage for me. Last I tried, the only skills that work unarmed are Frenzy and Elemental Hit. The only way to get AoE out of these two is elemental proliferation. This is further complicated by the fact that unarmed attacks have a 0% base chance to crit, making it necessary to completely rely on the Chance to Ignite mod if you insist on melee AoE damage. The gloves wouldn't really help except against single targets (though I imagine they're quite nice for that with some integer damage rings).

A few other things about unarmed attacks: They don't count as One-handed or Two-handed weapons. You can't get a dual wield bonus from being unarmed. I don't see any reason not to use a shield or at least a quiver (Blackgleam seems like a good choice) with your unarmed attack, as dual wielding unarmed gives you no bonuses. Elemental Weapon Damage will supposedly work on unarmed attacks.

I hope someone will try it. If I found a Face Breaker I might try it, but the low crit chance kinda ruins it for me. A hybrid caster/puncher might be fun too, though worth slightly fewer cool points. Good luck to you if you do try this.

You think those gloves would work well with a high elemental damage quiver, like:



Petrov.

My current take is:

->Blackgleam Quiver (so 50+% of your melee damage is converted to fire). Facebreaker gloves (obviously), Meginors' Girdle belt (so the 10-20 physical damage bonus jumps up to 100-200)

-> Anger Aura.

-> Fire damage/burning damage nodes, and unspecified melee damage bonuses. Also, attack speed and anything that applies.

->Frenzy / Flicker / Elemental with fire damage related supports, chance to ignite and elemental proliferation.

The end result is that you should be doing substantial physical damage, which in turn is converted to fire so all bonuses are reapplied.

Elemental Proliferation spreads the burn around so that you have SOME amount of AoE, while your main target should be getting hit really hard from the punches.

I'll think of an actual node build in a moment.

EDIT: Here's what I'd try for the Firepuncher templar:
Firepuncher

Fire damage, burning damage, attack speed, all the generic physical damage I could snatch, and rest to life. Improved buffs to get more out of auras too.

The lack of AoE should be discouraging, however I find the fact that the gloves encourage you to punch nightmarish creatures to death, with the added gore modifier, to be well worth the drawback.

In a thread (maybe the unique item compendium?) Mark said something about unarmed attacks benefiting from physical weapon damage and elemental weapon damage buffs. Does this mean that your fists are considered a weapon for purpose of skills like Flicker? I don't have the skill gem so I can't test it.. but it is a pseudo aoe skill in that it adds mobility to the mix, allowing you to strike multiple targets in succession.

Other than that, it would be nice to have some wonky new skills made up to compliment the build.. ranged psychic head butts, anybody? I think yes!

EDIT: I just tested a few things.
What DOES work with unarmed attacks:
+Quivers
+Frenzy

What DOES NOT work with unarmed attacks:
+Double Strike
+Lightning Strike

If the word "weapon" is mentioned, it doesn't work. That puts Flicker out the window as well.

With the new unique gloves this should be a possibly viable build. I just dont understand why there is no crit chance. It should of course be less than a weapon's crit chance, but why nothing at all? Even 2.5% crit chance makes a lot of difference here

Possibly helpful questions and suggestions for this build:
- Is the attack speed 1 attack per second?
- What is the standard damage for unarmed?
- Does elemental weapon damage (%) include unarmed elemental damage?
- Elemental hit seems like a viable possibilty as a base attack skill.
- All 3 elemental auras will be necessary,or at least two, so a hybrid build (templar/shadow/duelist) would be easier, as it gets 2 different stats to level the auras with. The last aura can probably be kept at low level and still be beneficial
- Knockback and stun seem perfect for this build. But im not sure knockback is possible without a weapon
- No AoE does not have to be a problem. Firestorm combined with iron will and blood magic could do the trick.
- This seems most viable for a full respec. I would be willing to give my regret orbs to whomever s willing to try this (and post it on youtube). But since i have only around 10, more donations will be necessary.
- Could this work with a shield? I dont like the idea that much.. but itmight be possible.

How about adding molten shell skill to that firepuncher build. It will synergise with the fire damage and strength and it will add armor and AoE for all of the close combat

Yes! Molten shell would be critical. Also, damage enemies on attack stat would be greatly appreciated in a up-close, minimal AOE build like this.