[2.2] MorgNThorg's Iron Will Biohazarauder - uber down



Core concept

The base concept of the build is to get a lot of strength to scale both our damage and survability as well. The high strength gives spell damage with the iron will support gem and the unique affix of Doon Cuebiyari. Each two points of strength also gives 1 base life as well. So 800 strength gives us 260% increased spell damage and 400 flat life! The chaos degeneration of the new spells Contagion and Essence Drain can be scaled with spell damge.

However we are restricted to use the Iron Will gem as it basically gives us the damage increase other spellcaster builds would get in the passive tree, so the tradeoff is practically a link in our damage setup. That's why I planned the build to use Tabula Rasa, as it's an easily obtained 6L item. It's also the cheapest 6L option to get the +1 level of gems corrupt implicite which has great benefits for spellcasters.

The build takes huge amount of life, armor and life regen to be extremely tanky even in a tabula. Also as our main damage scailng is pure spell damage it can be adapted to other spells easily.

I decided to make the character blood magic originally (however I switched to a mana version with MoM, it's inculded at the bottom of the post) for the following reasons:
- there are no offensive auras that really help the build
- the build is really tanky without any defensive aura
- gets rid of all mana problems regardless of the map mods
- clear mind jewel is a nice damage boost
- huge life gained behind the BM keystone
- (sapping life flasks are nice to have)

Gameplay videos

A T12 map run (BM version)
A T12 map run (MoM version)
Atziri run (BM version)
Atziri run (MoM version)
My first uber kill in talisman: vaals, trio, atziri.

Features

- extremely tanky (8k life, 800 life regen/s, 10k armor unbuffed, 5 endurance charges)
- 37k essence drain degen damage per second with 3 frenzy charges up
- can do all map mods, all map bosses
- mobile, bossfights are easy, you can kite while the boss degenerates, and it synergizes well with the huge life regen
- quite cheap
- Atziri is a cakewalk
- very strong for PvP (nearly full cleared the Hall of the Grandmasters map - killed all except Qbot on the very first try)

Passive tree

Passive tree @ level 100. The build is almost identical as a scion and can be adapted to duelist as well. The choice of ascendancy class is a matter of taste. The marauder subclasses, and ascendant or champion are all great.

Bandits

- normal: Oak for life
- cruel: kill for passive
- merciless: Oak for endurance charge (passive or frenzy charge are good options as well)

Required items



Stats

offense

defense


Gems

Main attack.


Spreading essence drain.


Wither for more chaos damage dealt. Can be used with spell totem as well.


CwDT defensive setup.


Flame dash for kiting and mobility, blood rage for frenzy charges. Enduring cry for generating endurance charges, but it can be swapped for abyssal cry as well.


The other gem slots are optional.

Example gear







Mana version with Mind over Matter and Righteous Fire

The concept of this setup was to swap the high armour shield for rise of the phoenix to be able to run RF if the map mods allow it. I tried to replace the mitigation and EHP loss with mind over matter with 1k free mana, and taking advantage of the special attribute "% of damage taken gained as mana". With using these items and the Battle Rouse notable on the tree, I gain back 25% of the damage taken as mana making MoM nearly free:


I typicall use 1x35% aura (purity of fire, vitality or purity of elements) and still have 1k free mana.

L99 champion passive tree for mana version. For bandits I took Oak, kill, kill route with this spec. With RF I have 51-52k ED drain/sec depending on the number of enemies affected by rallying cry.

Stats with mana version

offense with RF

defense with PoF


Gear for mana version:





uber setup

Trash

I use both Vitality + PoF + RF here. The most dangerous mob here is the snake with puncture. The others are easy for this build. Using this skill can help a lot in these stages


Vaals

I switch my shiled on this fight to


Flasks

The topaz flasks with heat suffix help a lot, when you're stuck in the ice storm and they start shooting lasers. I use PoL to get to 83% lightning res and vitality for auras. I don't use RF in this fight as the regen is crucial for my survability here. I also switch my contagion to a level 10 one and support it with a level 1 CWDT. The allies the vaals summon will periodically trigger this gem, so you won't need to waste your precious time to cast contagion, and can wipe them with a single ED (and usually spread the ED on the vaals as well).

Trio

I only use vitality aura, to have a higher mana pool to mitigate huge damage spikes here. Also no RF, the life regen helps a lot more. I also use the low-level contagion-CWDT setup similar to the vaal fight, auto-contagion helps a LOT when fighting with the cycloner at the end. I also use a level 3 immortal call + level 1 CWDT combo, it's a must have to be able to survive when you get caught by the spike rain of the titty bitch. The kill order is: titty bitch -> dual striker -> cycloner. Flasks for this fight


Atziri

Vitality + PoF here for auras and I use RF as well. Flasks for this fight

With ruby flask up I have 98% fire res, it's enough to shrug off flameblasts (not the double one of course) so I have to avoid the storm call and try to avoid spears as best as I can. I was trying out vaal lightning trap for the split phase, but in the end I decided not to use it. The shocking ground makes that stage a bit shorter, but it also made evading stuff a bit harder for me with it's visual effect.

After a few runs I got used to the fights and got to Atziri typically deathless and finished her with losing only 1-2 portals.


Leveling

I leveled this character as my first one in the talisman legaue. Generally iron will casters are not too powerful while leveling, as the damage is gained from gear mostly, not from the tree. I also didn't know what to expect from the new chaos spells and didn't have a tabula (ofc) which is really required to do good damage whit the ED setup. That's why I decided to level the character as a general 2H melee RT one. This had these benefits:
- nice damage because of 2H weapons and lots of good dps nodes on the tree
- lots of general 2H nodes, so no need to specialize in a weapon type. You can use the best weapon you find.
- nice amount of life and resist from the tree
- not too many nodes to be respecced. I used 3-4 regrets and the 24 respec points gained from quests.
- easily doable in a new legaue

When I got to merciless act4 I started to farm aqueduct for humility cards (and also bought a few of them). When I got my tabula I respecced to the spellcatser build.

24 points - heading for RT

43 points - into the duelist area

62 points - get more life, dmg and res

84 points - respec example (the one socket I added is for clear mind)
Last edited by MorgNThorg on Mar 15, 2016, 1:15:34 AM
Last bumped on Apr 2, 2018, 1:01:55 PM
Why not use RF?
"
Pirt wrote:
Why not use RF?


I expected this question, maybe I should add a section regarding to this question. There are three main factors:
- I like to run my maps as hard as I can (and don't like to reroll lower level maps), with RF I'd exclude myself from a lot of mods.
- Most of my armor comes from my shield which I would loose with RofP.
- The insane life regen is so huge defensively, I just don't want to give it up.
Just put your auras in your rotf when you want to destroy shit. Put your defensive shield on when you want to be more tanky. :)
Please add a leveling tree with the points at 20 -40 - 60 -80 I really wanna play your build. Please :)
"
kryptozx wrote:
Please add a leveling tree with the points at 20 -40 - 60 -80 I really wanna play your build. Please :)


Added a leveling section, however it's with a 2H melee setup :) I hope you still find it usefull, good luck with the character!
thank you so much! I really wanted to level as the caster version of the build and less of the 2h wep style, would it be also possible to add a caster version leveling tree? im spending my 4ex on this build haha
"
kryptozx wrote:
thank you so much! I really wanted to level as the caster version of the build and less of the 2h wep style, would it be also possible to add a caster version leveling tree? im spending my 4ex on this build haha


I started a character with this build in the talisman HC legaue and I tried to level with spells this time, level 55 in early merciless ATM. As I wrote in the OP, the main problem with this route that the damage won't be amazing while leveling. I'm using seraing bond + flame totem + firestorm, it's ok, but not powerleveling or something like that :) But the tree is really defensive, I had nice amount of life and no problem to cap resists yet. You'll need int on gear as well. My tree was something like this:

36 points - 1st get Arsonist, then BM and bloodless

62 points - a lot more life and some ele dmg at templar

86 points - planned something like this when speccing into essence drain
I also got my hands on a level 4 empower :)



I hope I can create my 21/20 essence drain this time as well. The first 8 tries didn't go very well, I'm leveling 9 for the second round, whish me luck :)
Thanks Morg! Looks good and I was looking for something different to change my IW Incinerator into besides RF.

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