Templar Molten Strike build useless?

Hi

I've a Templar Molten Strike build, which I had mostly from a guide.
But I don't get any progress, my dmg is only 4,4k DPS and I die to often to get further in act 4 mercyless. When I'm in a farm group, I can see a massive difference with other players.

Could anyone have a look at my skills/passives and tell me what I could change or if my build is completly useless?

Thanks

Sure, set your profile to public in options and we'll take a peek.

Make sure to mention your character name as well.

Molten strike is for proccing mjolner. Otherwise it is very weak mechanically.

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Molten strike is for proccing mjolner. Otherwise it is very weak mechanically.

Incorrect. Molten Strike is amazingly powerful against single targets. Point Blank can apply to the projectiles created from MS.

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Natharias wrote:

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Molten strike is for proccing mjolner. Otherwise it is very weak mechanically.

Incorrect. Molten Strike is amazingly powerful against single targets. Point Blank can apply to the projectiles created from MS.

Every time I've used it I've found it to be rather dull and frustrating, single target or otherwise. It misses standing targets really easily and you have to be up close in melee. There's also the delay between the projectiles launching and landing giving opponents a chance to get out of the way and making it clear more slowly(melee enemies will chase you out of the balls if you hit and run). On paper it looks like it would do better than many other melee skills against stationary single targets with high life, but on the other hand it's still a melee skill and comes with the basic drawback of needing to be able to facetank everything and it performs poorly against moving targets. Compared to a good spell, trap, or bow build, I doubt it measures up in single target, and I know it doesn't even come close as a main clearing skill.

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It misses standing targets really easily and you have to be up close in melee.

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Molten strike is for proccing mjolner. Otherwise it is very weak mechanically.

Yeah. You can't really do a 180 and suddenly say the opposite.

Molten Strike does not miss its intended target unless you have increased area of effect. In that case, then yes, it does miss quite a bit.

Otherwise, Molten Strike is very effective against single targets and packs alike. Just because you don't like it doesn't make it ineffective.

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There's also the delay between the projectiles launching and landing giving opponents a chance to get out of the way and making it clear more slowly(melee enemies will chase you out of the balls if you hit and run).

That's only against certain targets, and those are painful against a number of skills. That's why things like Arc, chain, and large AOE skills win in coverage. Enemies running can't run if your AOE is big enough.

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On paper it looks like it would do better than many other melee skills against stationary single targets with high life, but on the other hand it's still a melee skill and comes with the basic drawback of needing to be able to facetank everything and it performs poorly against moving targets.

In practice it is better. If you can facetank something, which you don't need to, you can stand there. But if you can't facetank it, you attack a little then dodge out of the way.

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Compared to a good spell, trap, or bow build, I doubt it measures up in single target, and I know it doesn't even come close as a main clearing skill.

But Molten Strike isn't a spell or ranged attack, is it? It is a melee skill.

When you start arguing that MS is weaker single target than, say, Incinerate, then of course you're right. If you compare MS to Barrage, then yes, it is weaker.

But when you complain about MS' supposed inferior capability to single targets, you compare it to other melee skills.

Compared to other melee skills, MS is the single best skill to use if you are able to use it. Especially when using things like Life Gain on Hit or things that apply from your attacks, like Cast on Critical Strike.

You yourself said MS was the best.

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Molten strike is for proccing mjolner. Otherwise it is very weak mechanically.

Except that second sentence is wrong. If it were weak mechanically, like missing targets, it wouldn't be "for proccing mjolner", another skill would be used in its place.

True, not a top tier, but it has certain advantages over similar skills like frost blades, static and wild strike. A big plus is getting the secondary effect whether you hit or not, that alleviates the tanking problem somewhat by giving you the option to take a few swigs at empty air and let the more aggressive enemies run into projectiles. I've played some fairly squishy molten strikers and doing damage while being somewhere else (or being stunned) is often an advantage, so I'm liking the delay on this skill a lot more than on Static, Storm Call or EQ.

Anyway, there are three general ways to scale molten strike, you can scale all of it via crit or elemental damage and the third option is strictly focusing on projectiles, but you can also mix and match if possible. Templar is more suited for the former two, the easiest way for him to do crit is taking inquisitor for the res ignore and going staves, there's even a solid and affordable weapon option in Hegemony. You can also go non-crit, convert everything to fire, add more elemental via hatred and added fire, scale it with WED and Ele focus and take the trip to duelist for point blank, iron grip and attack leech.

If you're using Molten as your main skill taking some AoE is recommended even though you will hit slightly less with orbs and PB will work a bit worse, it will boost your clear speed and your single target will still be very good so it's worth it. Projectile supports like GMP are also recommended in that case because that's where your coverage comes from, and it will also eliminate a bit of randomness from it (multistrike helps with that too).

I don't see why I'd compare molten strike only to other melee, particularly when the OP goes into parties and compares himself to arbitrary builds. Most melee skills are weak mechanically right now. Strong mechanics are things that can be scaled to clear large packs in a single attack and preferably work well against single targets too. Earthquake, LA or KB with pierce, tornado shot, flameblast, firestorm, bladefall, ice trap, discharge, etc. These are all viable as main skills without additional single target support. Molten strike is not, its AoE is too small and it misses like crazy if you try to increase it. The only way molten strike competes as a main skill is through proccing mjolner and the reason it does that well is it can score a lot more hits per second than other skills when properly supported, it doesn't do the damage in that scenario so it's ok that it doesn't hit the whole screen.

Sure you could use it as single target support with a different main skill, but that won't be as strong as something that just goes all in on a top tier main skill that can handle both packs and single targets because having separate AoE and single target skills tends to leave you starved for links on one or the other.

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I don't see why I'd compare molten strike only to other melee, particularly when the OP goes into parties and compares himself to arbitrary builds.

...and that's an issue between melee attacks, ranged attacks, and spells. Not an issue with MS specifically.

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Most melee skills are weak mechanically right now. Strong mechanics are things that can be scaled to clear large packs in a single attack and preferably work well against single targets too. Earthquake, LA or KB with pierce, tornado shot, flameblast, firestorm, bladefall, ice trap, discharge, etc. These are all viable as main skills without additional single target support.

On the contrary, while they're strong against packs they are generally inferior when compared to things like MS against single targets.

Things like Bladefall and Kinetic Blast are as good against single targets as they are mobs.

But Molten Strike was built around a concentrated area and can make use of something like Point Blank and Iron Grip without any penalties. Free damage sources at no significant additional cost.

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Molten strike is not, its AoE is too small and it misses like crazy if you try to increase it.

The AOE isn't built for huge packs. It's meant as a concentrated attack. Not quite single target but not quite mob oriented either. Yet, with proper investment, it can be. All the AOE and Point Blank can make it quite a big AOE skill.

A perfect example of someone breaking the game. Specifically, this is what I'm referring to. Molten Strike has so much range that it can cover more than half of the screen.

Any other skill, like Freezing Pulse, Ice Nova, and any attack using CoC, cannot compare to the utility offered by Molten Strike with such massive AOE and weapon range increases.

While lacking the raw DPS of other builds, the sufficient DPS but amazing clear speed allows a skill you say is mechanically weak to compare to others. Why? It isn't mechanically weak.

Now I'm sure that GGG has likely "fixed" the game to where your projectiles cannot go through or spawn on the other side of walls. But the AOE still applies.

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The only way molten strike competes as a main skill is through proccing mjolner and the reason it does that well is it can score a lot more hits per second than other skills when properly supported, it doesn't do the damage in that scenario so it's ok that it doesn't hit the whole screen.

Same crap you've been saying, half the time, and not the other half.

Molten Strike is not for Mjolner only. One of my characters is a Mjolner build, and without any investment into damage, significant strength, or proper supports, I'm getting just over 4,000 DPS. MS + Multistrike + LGOH + GMP + Faster Attacks + Fortify.

Now just imagine if I:
1. Used a proper attack-oriented weapon, meaning proper damage and attack speed mods.
2. Allocated Point Blank, for a free 50% more damage.
3. Used proper support gems.
4. Used proper auras and heralds to support MS.

My DPS would easily go to 20k and easily reach 50k with really good gear, high level gems, and some passive investment.