Pillar of the Caged God - Spectral Throw - Knockback Marauder

So, I'm a big fan of the idea behind Pillar of the Caged God(http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Pillar_of_the_Caged_God), a unique staff that scales damage, attack speed, and Area of Effect off of Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence, respectively. I've seen a couple builds utilize it for things such as high AoE cyclone, but I wanted it to do better. With the release of 1.0.0 and the new ability Spectral Throwhttp://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Spectral_Throw, some interesting ideas came into my mind: Spectral throw and Pillar may have been made for each other! Let me break this down into some sections (Note- This post is pretty ridiculously long. I've uploaded the entirety to http://pastebin.com/N5Jq6DY2- it would be best to read it there and then comment here with any questions / concerns, etc.)

Once again, sorry for not being able to post it all here, but post size limits prevented me from doing that. You can check it out here (very detailed explanations of why I chose Pillar + Spectral Throw, what gear is optimal, skill and support gem choices, and DPS calculations.)

Thanks and feel free to comment.

(Deleted this a I couldn't fit the whole post either way- see first post)

(Deleted- see above)

Love this! I've been wanting to make a Pillar build for a while, but I didn't think about using it with Spectral Throw. Post more when you've made it to maps and let us know how the damage and survivability pan out!

damage is too low, tried it and only has 800dps

I'm thinking of trying this, but not toe to toe, anyways, what's hard is to get one of them Pillars..

Awesome build! I used a free respec on an old character and I'm at level 70 now with ~12k tooltip DPS with Heavy Strike and ~2k with Spectral Throw. Still leveling most of my gems so I expect DPS to improve. I'm using ST with Knockback, LMP, Added Fire Damage, and Life Leech (haven't got anything with the right links to use Faster Projectiles. I used LGoH until I started having mana problems). Using Deshret's, Abyssus, Astramentis, Meginord's, and two high physical rings. I haven't tried Maligaro's yet but I've got a pair to test with.

My major problems right now are crappy resists, since only my boots and my rings have them, and not being able to keep up on mana. I could cover the resists with better chest and boots, but I'm not sure how to deal with the mana problems. I've been running with a friend who uses Clarity and that's more than enough, but I can't solo without constantly chugging mana flasks. Accuracy isn't ideal either (85%), but again, I could probably fix that with some different gear.

EDIT: Okay, Warlord's Mark seems to have solved my mana problems. Should have thought of that sooner.

Nice build-discussion, love it!
Thinking about sacrifycing my lvl 85 for it. I have a lot of FB gear, should not be a problem :-)

A question:
Why going crit, and not RT? Only because of blunt trauma?

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siliconlife wrote:

Nice build-discussion, love it!
Thinking about sacrifycing my lvl 85 for it. I have a lot of FB gear, should not be a problem :-)

A question:
Why going crit, and not RT? Only because of blunt trauma?

It depends to be honest, I've tried RT on a diff char before and it didn't quite give enough to sacrifice crits for it. Crits are awesome, specially when you have some elemental damage.

"

siliconlife wrote:

Nice build-discussion, love it!
Thinking about sacrifycing my lvl 85 for it. I have a lot of FB gear, should not be a problem :-)

A question:
Why going crit, and not RT? Only because of blunt trauma?

Pretty much yes. With Blunt Trauma, the knockback circle across from Blood Magic, and a Knockback support Gem on your Spectral Throw (if you can afford to put that in instead of leech) you'll do fantastically well in terms of CC.

For those with mana problems: As mentioned, one option is to use Warlord's Mark as your curse (this is also a great option if you don't like to bother with refreshing Enduring Cry or using Endurance on Melee Stun in Heavy Strike). As I mentioned near the bottom of my build- I don't have Meginord's girdle yet (have been fine as far as damage) and have instead been using Wurm's Molt to cover my own leech needs. I already have the 3% life leech from the tree, so that on top of Wurm's covers my life and mana (I don't actually run mana pots atm).

I am, however, stopping to farm Lunaris before taking on the Scepter of God and moving onto Merciless, however, as I know I'm going to need better resists heading into Merviel and beyond. My biggest area of improvement right now is going to be my boots (I'm using Goldwyrms for farming) and my amulet, as neither of my regular options boasts any resists to speak of. This is also why I left the glove decision open- you will only be able to consider a unique glove option after you've tested the water as far as your resists and made sure that you are comfortable with not having significant resists on your glove spot. (It's also perhaps another reason to rush the Duelist health circle to get to the +12% resists below it). I choose to pick up the knockback circle first and the tradeoff is I will have to commit to some serious farm time to balance / improve my resists to prepare for Merc.