1.3 The Community's Molten Strike, Face Melting Build!! 1h+shield and 2h variants available

Hey there, I recently decided to try this molten strike build and wanted to report back.

I had a 69 marauder with a passive respec available this season. I had originally leveled facebreakers and my bandit choices were Oak, Krailyn, Oak. I feel that kill all for the skill point would have been a better merciless option in hindsight.

I decided to play AoF going for a Doryani's Catalyst / Shield Combo.

I started at 69 by buying a 17/20 MS gem for 1 ex. Using mostly found gear including a 170dps 1h mace. Dominus was relatively painless but too slow to really consider farming him.
I leveled in docks and 66-68 maps but felt like I was being carried, the damage was mediocre (My low dps mace was probably to blame) and I spent a lot of time running around trying to get in range before other people gibbed the mobs.
I was however super tanky having moved a belt, chest and helm from my groundslammer.

At 75 everything changed. I was able to equip a Doryani's catalyst I picked up for 3ex and took the avatar of fire keystone which took my dps from 5400 to 9kish.
After a bit of play with the new damage and elemental leach I felt comfortable dropping grace for hatred (anger gave about the same results) and got up to over 11k.
Now able to run maps up to 72 (the limit of my small pool) and farm Dominus easily.

Passives


As you can see I'm going to the chaos resist/life, shield and life nodes above and within the Templar start and dropping the flask/life and shield nodes to the right of the Duellist start.
Losing the flask buffs is really the only major negative. Base agility is also a bit lower and losing 2% block makes getting capped harder but still doable.

For those that don't want to go through the numbers
Gained:
10 strength
10 int
12 chaos resist
22 elemental resist while holding a shield
30 flat life
4% life
6% elemental damage
15% attack speed
18% phsyical 1h mace damage

Lost:
20% flask recovery speed
95% increased life recovery from flasks
60 dexterity
2% block
60% increased def from shields

GEAR

Most of it I had lying around with the exception of the Catalyst and MS gem. My next purchases for this build will likely be an Aegis and 3% block Stone of Lazhwar.

As a comparison to a HS/Groundslam build I find the damage is only slightly lower than heavy strike while the defense goes up substantially. The biggest change for me was the lower area effect of MS compared to GS, the herald 4link helps immensely with this.

Any feedback on my spec or gear is appreciated.

Thanks for reading and thanks to Kartikdon and everyone who contributed to the thread.

"

Kartikdon wrote:

2-Handed MS AoE Burn Prolif using 4L HoA(work in progress)

Spoiler

The build also will run 4 60% auras. If you plan on running 4 60% auras you will want Alphas Howl. If you run 3 60% and PoF, you can get away with a quality Red. Mana. Quality reduced mana is something you can simply build into.

The problem with what I quoted its not possible to have 3 60% auras (i think author more likely meant 2 60s% + HoA) since quality on reduced mana gem doesn't reduce mana reserved of auras tho with Alphas Howl it probably could be possible, didn't test it myself. But in general thx for this "subbuild", it gave me idea how i like to go with my build.

Alright I made my own variation of the build

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAxthYYz38jM_2SF8_f-PzBsEE458x-6C0VbVr2Scvns0U9u8O0iGGO1cNOFM0jszb2WEir__Ti08ZLnbnAecn7TborKr8S1ivZKM6UnKpWfNsFkZphykaVWn-Mn582cAahxl5wGEhOzuQVWaeBjmE73dTp4T60q-N7tl07ZuDg7EaOBcvfuI26dwdeu9T32CR7Dhk54BWJKrjamBLrK9X4lXWT30WbwUtd-UyiYCkUWBAoASzIWAUTXTxogAY2xR1W6-kwk4qKaXwH7T5vJ8=

This is my current tree, I am level 84 and I took Oak, skill point and an endurance charge

I am very happy with the build
stats are
Level 84
4.2k life (low, rings have VERY low life and BoR life roll could be higher)

76% fire res. 80% when I use purity of fire for atziri runs 90% with fire flask and 94% with saffells frame
80% cold res, 90% with flask and 94% with saffells frame
79% light res, 89% with light flask and 93% with saffells frame

None of my gear is legacy so I have room for improvements, gear cost me less than 9 exalts in total on standard. using the standard cwdt set up with end cry and ic and increased duration but I'll swap out inc duration for enfeeble later OR Flammability



75% block with this build EXACTLY and 38% spell block. I run grace+hoa+hatred and I swap out hatred with purity of fire and grace with anger depending on whether or not I'm farming atziri or I'm mapping. Thing with this build is that you need 113 intelligence for Doryanis Catalyst, I have no intelligence on my gear except for the 30 int stone of lazhwar which is really important (dont corrupt it!). So I have 114 intelligence and enough dex to run even the the highest level grace. level 20 grace requires 153 dex, I have 154. This is with no dex on my gear whatsoever, so I truly wanted to min max. I went BoR just for the 15% block chance which saves me a lot of skill points for damage.

Damage is 13k tooltip dps for molten strike without buffs. Up to 19.5k DPS with Anger+Hatred+HoA

I use Herald of Fire in Doryanis Catalyst to abuse the level 20 elemental prolif. I also put in a fire penetration just for the extra burn damage and to level it, although you could easily swap it out for INCREASED burning damage so your Herald of Fire does insane burn damage. I will probably do this later. Lastly, I have leap slam with faster attacks on my shield, chest is there for leveling. Great build, lots of room for improvement in terms of gear. One I get 20 int/dex on my rings I can get 2 more skill points so I am definitely looking forward to min/maxxing as much as possiblec

strength is 429
dex is 154 (need 153)
int is 114 ( needed 113)
5320 armor WITHOUT grace (106.4 ES per block with my 2% Aegis) 34% phys reduction
8452 Armor WITH grace (169 ES ) per block 45% phys reduction
400 ES which is enough, small hits do nothing.
38% spell block
75% block exactly
19.5k dps with anger+hatred+hoa
17.8k dps with hatred+hoa

I know BoR uses Melee phys which doesn't affect projectiles but the 15% block is too strong to pass up along with the added phys damage. Even then, melee phys damage does affect the melee portion which is great against bosses like double vaal.

Hi there, I could use some hints on Dominus (or God Chosen in fact). Both his version, in Residence map and in Palace map proved to be very problematic for me.

I am over 9k tooltip dps which I am sure is viable. I can pick spellblock shield (saffell - resulting in 74% spell block), but then I miss physical blosk. My health is about 5200 and my resists are capped, armor reduction is about 50%.

The issue I face is basically getting one hited by his Fist skill. I read that its part physical and part lightning. But I have honestly no idea what to do in order to sustain it.

Please do not tell me I should just move away. Obviously I do that however sometimes (oh, hello desync!) you just cannot...

Thanks for your hints!

Honestly Silarus moving away is about all you can do, if you run alphas howl + soverignty then determination + grace + hatred/anger you can sustain the hit, alternatively you can jut grab soverignty and do determination + grace + herald of ash + inc burning + proliferation from doryanis or use gem. I actually find residence harder owing to all the zombies exploding, palace that bit of wall is pretty easy to keep moving behind dodge the lightning come back out hit etc. Leather and steel is good since it takes away movement penalties from armour your other option is lightning warp + reduced duration I play from nz and suffer desync all the time, lightning warp (quality on both is really helpful) is def preferable to leap slam.

@Siliarus: that dominus fist is really intended to be a must avoid attack (that's its concept), you are not supposed to resist a so called "touch of god".
Anyway, if you really can't/won't avoid it, the only thing is to use cap block+flask of lightning resist (and prayers of course), but beware that standing on shocking ground/lightning totems seems to increase its damage.

--------------------------

VARIANT BUILD UPDATE:
Now, here, I would like to make an update on my build variant (taken from a post at page 104, thank you user Resilient, and pimped the best I could with my experience/resources):

Atziri (normal): downed pretty easy. I had to change the gear only for the atziri fight, I used Saffell shield + Purity of Fire + Ruby flask.
Maps (solo and party): zero problems up to lv 78.
I have yet to try lv79 trio bosses fight and Uber Atziri.

Build at level 90: http://goo.gl/vHkcMk

Molten Strike (6L) dps tooltip: 16500 (plus fire penetration gem bonus)
Auras: HoA, Hatred, Tempest Shield (not an aura technically) then -> HoA,Hatred, Purity of Lightning/Fire for magic encounters
Block attacks: 75% (0% with Saffell's for magic encounters)
Block spells: 55% (75% with Saffell's for magic encounters)
Phys defence: 35%
HP: 4400

Gear/Gems:

I will try not to use BM gem.
with a little mana regeneration rate on items and a clarity+BM gem we could have enought mana regen for molten strike.
WED+FirePen+ConcEffect+MultiStrike = 60 mana cost
Like that, without a 6L chest we can do lots of damage (6L is not for everyone...)

Sovereignty + alphaHowl + lvl20 reduced mana = Anger + Hatred
HoA on Doryani's
Clarity+BM+reduced mana lvl20 on shield

with 400 mana= 68 unreserved mana, should be enought.

the +%physical dmg from tree to take Sovereignty worth it, projectils dps is 20% better.
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgEAxthYYz38jM_2SF8_8wbBBOOfoLRVtWvZJy_7qp7NFPbvDtIhpzCGO7yfVw04UwHnFCCkrNlhIq826FBH8i8ZLnbnZKM6UhiRJ-0aVTJ-_EvE9qyqYSFsFsQVcqlZ84Tvhxl82cAaXhN07ZuDkFVmnhvIw4Z676eE-tKvjUMx55FgSxo4Fy9-4jbptkGsrwUtZOeAVqmV42pOKlXWT31brymlgKRRYN0NkAr8xVb6Z6AUde4Oh3akwqOKSn0j9tfLTZKNfbfTPeJI7hut

how does mings heart affect molten strike projectile dmg

Below is a link of my skill tree and I need help. I accidentally followed the guide using two separate variations and have a combination of the both. I just recently acquired a kaom's primacy and was thinking of going into 2 hand ms build.

However it seems the 1 hand variant is much more efficient but costly. Can anyone suggest what I should do with my skill tree? I have 5 points and 8 refund points left. Thanks.

http://tinyurl.com/n38hkro

Is Doryani's Catalyst always better than Soul Taker, even if I'm not running Avatar of Fire?

Furthermore how does either weapon stack up against something like this



with a whopping 425 dps? I have the currency for any of them but I'm not sure what to buy.