Infernal Blow Templar build

Hi, I have made a Infernal Blow Templar build. This build uses Infernal blow, Fire Storm, and Molten Shell as it's main abilities. I would like to know how viable my build is for this type of skill set up.



Please leave your feedback positive or negative! Would love to see what people have to say!

why don't you take amplify your build revolves around aoe damage

i do like it though can i assume its a weapon/shield build?

Yes, it is a Mace/Shield build and thanks! Did't even consider it.

id say pick up the nearest shield nodes to the nodes you have for some juicy elemental resistances and you would be set i think.

Hi mates, first poster here.

I love the concept of the build, and I just started a new Templar to try something similar.

Would you mind posting an updated calc-link, if you follow the advice from Adbugar (which seems vialble, defensive resisits seems crucial to most builds, (thanks Adb)) as well/make other changes? And maybe something about prioritized order of nodes/how the build works out for you?

Sorry I can't contribute with anything on my own this time around, but no-one would benefit from my green-ass guesswork. Hope to change that in the future, this game looks and feels like a keeper.

- Perp

try going south first towards the marauder area for the ele resists and added fire damage. infernal blow is a bit underwhelming IMO, when compared to something like heavy strike. it will take some modifying to make infernal blow really effective as a main attack.

Hi Monkeywaffles

(Apologizing for any poor grammar, norwegian at the keys)

Thanks for your input! I see a some el-res nodes in that southern direction, but can't for the life of me see the see the added fire damage:( Do you mind pointing it out for me?

And, do you propose to go as far south as the diamond skin cluster (straight left from marauder start)? If so, what part(s) of the original build would you sacrifice/postpone?

Also, Infernal Blow has a nice AoE damage side-effect, does'nt that give it a slightly different role, and effect, than Heavy Blow? I've read positive things about other melee+AoE skills in these forums (Cleave, that ground shake one (can't remember t name). I'm really curious as to why you mean IB is infernior (pun intended), and what you'd recommend instead (pref one with AoE, always feel better with an AoE on my right mouse button)

I'm really interested in this type build, so I hope this tread will see some activity. If anyone reading this knows of specific other treads I should check out, I'd be grateful for any tips.

- Perp

"

perpetuum wrote:

Hi Monkeywaffles

(Apologizing for any poor grammar, norwegian at the keys)

Thanks for your input! I see a some el-res nodes in that southern direction, but can't for the life of me see the see the added fire damage:( Do you mind pointing it out for me?

And, do you propose to go as far south as the diamond skin cluster (straight left from marauder start)? If so, what part(s) of the original build would you sacrifice/postpone?

Also, Infernal Blow has a nice AoE damage side-effect, does'nt that give it a slightly different role, and effect, than Heavy Blow? I've read positive things about other melee+AoE skills in these forums (Cleave, that ground shake one (can't remember t name). I'm really curious as to why you mean IB is infernior (pun intended), and what you'd recommend instead (pref one with AoE, always feel better with an AoE on my right mouse button)

I'm really interested in this type build, so I hope this tread will see some activity. If anyone reading this knows of specific other treads I should check out, I'd be grateful for any tips.

- Perp

even further south. the fire damage cluster is right under blood drinker.

I know that infernal blow sounds great on paper, with AoE on death that'll hit lots of other enemies, but in practice it isn't as good as it sounds on its own.

for one, when i used infernal blow vs. heavy strike, infernal seems to hit slower. this is amplified by the fact that most of mace nodes and 1h nodes in the templar/marauder area doesn't have many increased speed of attack bonuses. then there is also a severe lack of dexterity which would give you a middling chance to hit with a low rate of attack. then there is also a high chance of being stunned often if you get ganged, since with a low attack rate a bunch of mobs have a high chance of stunning you and interrupting your swing, basically locking you in. with such a slow attack speed and a decent chance to miss and a good chance of being stun locked, the mob that you are beating with infernal blow may die before it can pop because the timer to explode may expire (such deaths may come from other sources ie. the party, molten shell popping, etc.)

then, even if it does explode, it only does 20% health of the dead mob as damage at a relatively small AoE. with enemy resists, it actually hits less than that. then there is the fact that most of the enemies you'll be beating up are whites; infernal blow is okay as a finishing attack for blue or yellow mobs, but for others heavy strike outperforms it.

when i tried using infernal blow, i ultimately just used heavy strike for most attacks and then maybe try to sneak in an infernal blow as a finishing attack for blues and yellows, but even that it only sometimes does me some good. i eventually took it out because i needed the gem slots for some other spell that had more immediate use. now my guy just uses shield charge to dive in with molten shell, let molten shell pop, and then zip out with another shield charge and recast. molten shell does much more damage unmodified with a bigger AoE and better benefits than infernal blow does.

now here is what i might try to do if i made a build revolving entirely around infernal blow.



this is a high dmg faster attack speed but lower hp pool build. i'd go with resolute technique but that would mean a waste on the mace accuracy and critical multiplier on the galvanic hammer circle. i focused on a lot of pys damage because infernal blow is based on phys dmg conversion and the phys dmg nodes tend to have a higher dmg increase rate than fire damage.

a tankier version would be a little more like this.



resolute technique and much much more HP while focusing on high gain dmg nodes only with an additional 18% ele resist cluster in the center so you can rely less on gear.


I focus a lot on phys dmg nodes because infernal blow is still a phys dmg conversion attack, it converts half of it to ele. going with high dmg phys boost nodes is then more cost efficient than going for lower valued ele dmg boost nodes. a good way of seeing if its worth the cost or not to invest is calculating the total amount of HP/resist/DMG gain from the selected nodes, and then tallying the number of of passive skill points it takes to get there (including connecting nodes). you then divide the HP/resist/DMG gain by the number of skill points used to get there and you'll get the approximate value that each skill point invested to get there nets you.

Wow! Thank u SO much for laying down all that work for me, I really appreciate it!

A rather lengthy post follows, sorry about that.

I understand about the "choose +%phys damage for cost efficient dmg gain", but the method for calculating cost efficiency in the passive tree, was new to me. I think I'll give your tankier build a shot, ResTech seems the way to go (I already, at lvl 13, have trouble hitting often enough)), saving several points in added to-hit and crit-boost.

I totally agree on Infernal Blow seeming slow, the annoyance not reduced by missing 20% of the time.

Like you, I also love the shield charge, and have it on RMB on my swap set. That's a "habit" I've brought over from Titan Quest, but since the swap does'nt work as well/needs to be done between animations (?) here, maybe I should try to designate it to some quick button, and get used to that. As is is now, I rarely use it "on reflex", as would be ideal. Can I ask how you would set up the mouse/most important skills for keys? Mana cost makes me go

Normal AT | InfBlow

for now, with Firestorm on button 1 (and center mouse).

And, I almost dear not ask, after all t work u put in, but... If I wanted to switch my main skill, preferably (but not nesc) still dabbling in fire dmg, what skill should I go for? Tried out Cleave w a Marauder, seems pretty awesome early-game.

Edit: I would pref one with AoE, and rather have some boss killer like HeavyStr on swap set.

Lastly: What of armor? Should I go max phys/strength, or part energy shield, u thimk? Sorry for all the basic questions, but this game takes a lot of asking and reading to get a grasp :-)

Thanks again MW, don't feel obliged to write up a whole new build around a new skill, I never expected so much help in the first place. It's just like being back on the Titan Q forum, where where ppl where unusually helpful! (Maybe that's where u learned the "forum ropes";))

- Perp

sadly the only melee fire damage attack that i know of is infernal blow. the rest are magic skills or that fire totem (there is of course elemental hit, but that is a dex skill and its random in its elemental damage). none of these fire spells would benefit from your melee phys nodes or your elemental weapon damage nodes, so its unoptimized to be casting fire spells unless you spec towards a spellcaster.

if you are still adamant on going fire damage, then you could definitely chose the other AoE or single target skills that give phys damage but then attach the fire damage passive gem since that also adds X% amount of your phys damage as fire damage. heavy strike is great as a single target attack but its knockback may sometimes glitch mobs into a wall (i glitched merveil into a chasm once and when she died no loot was dropped). cleave is great too but its arc of attack quite limits its reach and you cant hit those behind you. its fine if you have high mobility (ie. whirling blades to zip behind a mob line and then swat at them from behind; repositioning with another whirling blade if they move), but as an AoE attack with attached support gems, its at a low damage effectiveness (70% so there are penalties). now ground slam + leap slam should be a decent combo that you can use with your mace: ground slam does a cone shaped AoE so with good positioning you can hit quite a few targets. you can use your leap slam to reposition if they start crowding you and then start groung slamming again. ground slam also has lower damage effectiveness but the cone AoE compensates for it.

now lightning strike, though its a lightning attack, maybe one of the best melee character attacks anyone can get, if only for its ability to shoot projectiles from far away. your added fire damage wont do as much damage adds because it already converts some phys damage to lightning, but its def good to be able to shoot projectiles from afar if you need to stay a distance away from a particular mob. lighting strike gets even better if you add multiple projectile passives and chain or pierce. its been known to clear out crowds and whole builds have been made based on lightning strike.

a good option if you're going for fire damage but without resolute technique (as in you can still hit crits) is to use the elemental proliferation support gem and focus on burning damage. its basically where you use whichever primary attack with fire damage that you have, plug in added fire dmg support, increased chance to ignite, and elemental proliferation; so if one of the mobs you attack ignites, the elemental proliferation would spread the burning status to other mobs around it. if you're going this way, definitely try to get the passive that increase burn duration.

there is another strength single target attack that i have yet had the pleasure to experiment with, and that is dominating blow. sounds like a good idea to have a temporary minion walking around assisting you.

my preference for the three mouse keys is for the main attack, mobility skill, and primary AoE so i'll have most of what i need there. as for key allocation, i usually go LMB for the primary attack (ie. heavy blow, but with supports that make sure i can still smack things even with low mana. using health on hit or life leech on these may be a good idea as long as your mana flow is good), middle mouse button would usually be my movement attack (ie. shield charge/leap slam/whirling blades.. also must make sure these have low mana cost because its needed for escape as well as repositioning), and RMB would be my AoE attacks.

the QWERT keys you can use whichever you want. I usually put my most used skills on Q and T, and the rest in WER so i have less chance of pressing one of them by mistake.

in terms of mana, I don't carry mana potions for my templar, only health and hybrid potions, so if things get really though, the potion i use for mana can also be used to heal. my own templar uses blood magic support gems for some skills because of my limited mana pool from my three auras, but you def need to make sure that the blood magic cost is either really low with a less mana support gem or can be recuperated on hits / kills with life on hit / life leech. my current favorite setup is that I use molten shell + blood magic + life leech + iron will so i can cast it at any time and when the molten shell pops because of all the damage it takes, i'll gain back whatever life i lost and then some. makes melee crowd control much manageable.

in terms of armor, i personally would prefer full on str armor because it multiplies well with the armor aura that adds a percentage of your total armor, though I might also try to get a 4L/5L int/str chest piece for endgame because it has a higher chance of having red and blue gem slots and it'll also benefit from some of the ES gain nodes in the templar area that also give you 10% ele resist. dont count on ES too much though, since without the ES cooldown passives in the witch / shadow area and a whole lot of ES gear and ES increase nodes, you might not have enough time to regenerate your ES if you keep getting beaten up in melee and also not enough ES to last through it, so ES should only be supplementary after HP and armor gain.

oh, and try not to have a swap set at all if you can, unless its a ranged/spellcasting set. my templar uses the other set only for its slots to level gems that I don't use immediately. swap sets can mess up your spell hotkey lineup and can confuse sometimes :P

here's one idea that came to mind for a fire damage elemental status build - an elemental proliferation lightning strike and fire templar. the skill tree isn't optimised but it should give a rough example of what i am trying to achieve:



his main attack would be lightning strike + chain + added fire damage + chance to ignite/chance to crit + elemental proliferation, with a 6th support gem either +melee dmg, less mana, or +lightning dmg. he'd also have the +lighting and +fire damage auras on. he'd also have enduring cry for that extra dmg mitigation and ele resists. he could also dual wield maces and axes and even daggers since he'll have some dex. dual wielding daggers would give a good amount of increased global crit chance wich would also apply to spells and other attacks and increase the chance of elemental status effects triggering.

the shock from lighting damage would cause the target to be more succeptible to damage, while burning provides continuous damage on target and the proliferation would spread said elemental effects to other mobs. chain just increases the chance to hit other targets.

obviously the build above would need fine tuning, since i didn't put much in terms of mana source, and armor, although the base chaos resist would be at a respectable 32% and ele resists would be at 70% for all after 5 endurance charges, with 15% extra on top for fire and lightning, and would still need gear resist adds for merciless... though at this point, I think this character would play more like a shadow than a templar :P