[2.6] Phys/Chaos EK Nova Berserker

Hi all,

So here is a small update to my guide. I've moved it from WIP/theorycrafting stage to actual build guide now, as I have made some progress and currently got my marauder to lvl 73 (i know its nothing special, but I dont have all the time in the world to play).

Firstly just want to mention that there are still some changes that will most likely happen on the way, as I test it more and more, to see where the build fails, and how I can address it.

So the build revolves around the new threshold jewel - ring of blades:
10-15% increased physical damage
with 40 dex in radius add 10 ek proj
with 40 dex in radius ek shoots in a nova

mandatory items:

and of course the Ring of Blades jewel


2.6.0 tree final:



my current tree:


From my original design I changed few things as I was leveling the char. Firstly in my tree I had to path a bit different as getting 212 int required for apep rage is...well hard. Ideally I would drop the int nodes and the pathing around shadow and ranger area for int on gear to compensate.

Second most important change was taking the pierce nodes. The EK is fine, but once you need to cast it several times, lack of piercing its getting really annoying and slowing you down.

Another changes is in the skills selection.

my shitty gear (bear in mind that this is what I scrapped over the course of 3 days (not playing all that much)


Videos:



skills:
6L: EK - added chaos - spell echo - controlled destruction - pierce - void manipulation/poison

4L: single target/boses - bladefall - spell echo - conc effect - controlled destruction/poison

Poison would be really strong for this build, hence I list it here. After some testing I must say that ideally using a Cospri's Will chest and corrupted Winds of Change gloves with vulnerability on hit would make for perfect combo

support:
CWDT (lvl 5) - Immortal call (lvl 7) - vulnabarity (lvl 8) - increase duration (max lvl)

vaal haste - increase duration - decoy totem

Flame golem - flame dash - faster casting

you still have space for another gem setup. I will most likely do another CWDT setup to help with defenses. I will think about it but for now I think.
CWDT - GMP - Artic Breath - lightning trap (not sure if CWDT can cast a trap, if not Vortex or ice nova)

Feedback and any tips on how this could be improved will be greatly appreciated.

OLD WIP PART:

How about using victarios amulet and the projectile speed gloves, dropping the faster projectiles gem for pierce gem and getting the pierce cluster on the tree to get more aoe, get a lioneyes armour for free pierce?

cospris armour + tempchains on hit gloves for single target, because poison op?

"

SteamHämmer wrote:

How about using victarios amulet and the projectile speed gloves, dropping the faster projectiles gem for pierce gem and getting the pierce cluster on the tree to get more aoe, get a lioneyes armour for free pierce?

cospris armour + tempchains on hit gloves for single target, because poison op?

yeah some of these could work for sure.

Grabbing the pierce nodes, could work as well especially with pierce gem, I suppose I could drop something to make space for it. My bigger problem would be to to rearrange the tree to get these 6 points for the pierce cluster


The Victario's Acuity - would not be a bad choice, but would not help in boss fights to much. so will have to think it though, as the build is not orient towards crit, mostly going for high damage and aoe. and with current setup I would get 15% more dmg and speed from this. I think I could find an amu that would benefit me more (although I would not find proj speed anywhere else - excl kauri ward)

Winds of Change (gloves) - well these are a no brainer imo :) I would have to be silly not to take them

Lioneye's Vision - is a great chest choice, but getting the right colors on the armor based chest is a b*tch, and you know it :)

cospris and tempchains gloves - yeat thats a decent setup too, I personally never tried it, but I know its pretty op.


From my views, I can say that I was thinking about these uniques:
Belly of the beast
Brinerot Whalers - Proj dmg boots
Essence Worm - with a defensive aura (determination maybe) - but this is a big maybe
Ventor's Gamble - well rolled (lol)

With this setup you should surely go with Cospri's Will since you're scaling a lot of double dip chaos on tree. Curses would be temp chains and vulnerability for maximum damage. Witchfire Brew is nice for a 2nd curse setup and you can corrupt temp chains on hit if you really want to be blood magic. (altough 110-170 mana per cast could be clunky af)
If you go with poison, which should be best, use void manipulation certainly, and slower proj gem would give a huge dmg boost if you go with it instead of faster proj. (could swap out for boss)
Devotos would be great for the helm slot if you plan on walking most of the time because of dual wands.
Could also look at hidden potential jewel for poison double dip if not planning on wearing too many uniques in armour slots.

Im actually thinking of doing a chaos focused ek as well but I'm thinking of dual wielding the swords that convert physical to chaos. I crunched some numbers on poe builder and with decent gear it should hit about 200k dps. I think about 150k will be chaos. Also this is not taking into account what a wither spell totem would add for bosses.

"

The_Islander wrote:

Im actually thinking of doing a chaos focused ek as well but I'm thinking of dual wielding the swords that convert physical to chaos. I crunched some numbers on poe builder and with decent gear it should hit about 200k dps. I think about 150k will be chaos. Also this is not taking into account what a wither spell totem would add for bosses.

cool, I'm glad to see others are thinking about this sort of thing as well. I havent done any math so far, I really should :) but im waiting for the new tree to see what was changed, and what I need to adjust on the proposed tree.

im guessing you plan to use a pair of Innsbury Edge swords for 50% conversion.

If you will post your build on the forum, drop a link in this thread too, I would gladly check it out :)

I've done EK Pathfinder last league (character "KitchenKnives" in my char list). Similar concept but ES and Flask heavy.

Here is my couple of thoughts into the pool.

1. Single Target - EK sux, always did, always will. At 70-80k dps of my build it's at 100-120k in your case , you will probably notice in T12+ that you don't get bosses down that fast. Till then it's kinda bearable. Wither Totem will compensate from time to time, but it's just not that clean in boss kills - i hated quay boss :)

2. Mana cost = Life cost. with cast speed from Appep's rage, I had 0.14 cast speed without Vaal Haste, 0.11 with Vaal Haste, At 150 mana per cast , I think the echo does not count, so it would be 8 cast/s down by 2 with Echo = 4 * 150 mana = 600 life /s. In some maps you will have problems (my ES PF had double Vaal Clarity to compensate)

3. Hidden Potential - as Clear Mind, Hiddent Potential could do BIGGLY in this build.
Potentially you can go with 8 blue items (altho it would be hard to cap resists for Red maps, regular 135 res cap should be easy to achieve with enough life pool), since only mandatory gear is the double Appep's Rage wand. Everything else can be Blue. This could boost your dmg up to Shaper Viable level.

4. Innsbury Edge - useless . 2 reasons - EK has 100% dmg efficiency, so any additive dmg is very efficient. Whirling blades are not enough to trade for the 60% cast speed.

5. Warlords Mark on CWDT = shit. Witchfire Brew all the way.
and which is the most insane thing for this build


Unless Marauder Ascendancy with Vaal Pact gets nerfed to the ground, this is most likely a build i will go as well. It would be also quite easy to convert into something else in case of a failed build.

"

Marxone wrote:

I've done EK Pathfinder last league (character "KitchenKnives" in my char list). Similar concept but ES and Flask heavy.

Here is my couple of thoughts into the pool.

1. Single Target - EK sux, always did, always will. At 70-80k dps of my build it's at 100-120k in your case , you will probably notice in T12+ that you don't get bosses down that fast. Till then it's kinda bearable. Wither Totem will compensate from time to time, but it's just not that clean in boss kills - i hated quay boss :)

2. Mana cost = Life cost. with cast speed from Appep's rage, I had 0.14 cast speed without Vaal Haste, 0.11 with Vaal Haste, At 150 mana per cast , I think the echo does not count, so it would be 8 cast/s down by 2 with Echo = 4 * 150 mana = 600 life /s. In some maps you will have problems (my ES PF had double Vaal Clarity to compensate)

3. Hidden Potential - as Clear Mind, Hiddent Potential could do BIGGLY in this build.
Potentially you can go with 8 blue items (altho it would be hard to cap resists for Red maps, regular 135 res cap should be easy to achieve with enough life pool), since only mandatory gear is the double Appep's Rage wand. Everything else can be Blue. This could boost your dmg up to Shaper Viable level.

4. Innsbury Edge - useless . 2 reasons - EK has 100% dmg efficiency, so any additive dmg is very efficient. Whirling blades are not enough to trade for the 60% cast speed.

5. Warlords Mark on CWDT = shit. Witchfire Brew all the way.
and

which is the most insane thing for this build


Unless Marauder Ascendancy with Vaal Pact gets nerfed to the ground, this is most likely a build i will go as well. It would be also quite easy to convert into something else in case of a failed build.

thank for the feedback.

you put down some good points.
1. I'm aware that ek single target sucks, had sucks and will sucks ;) I'm still thinking what would I use (im tempted to try 4L bladefall: BF-conc-echo-added chaos/poison) im not sure it that would be enough for single target

2. I'm aware that mana cost will skyrocket, and this is why i gone for BM. There is still option to spec out of it if I would get a pair or really decent chaos dmg wands (from essence crafting), this would allow for auras/curses but mana would be a bitch to sustain.

3. Hidden Potential is on my list too - i know how good it can be, but at the same time unless I will really really struggle I prefer to go more tanky than dps glass cannon. Still if I would be able too, I will try the setup.

4. Im not planing to use swords, The_Islander is.

5. It most likely true, still its much easier to put a cwdt setup (or two) than to get a witchfire brew or sin rebirth :)


I'm also waiting for passive tree changes and especially changes to VP to see if I will be able to pull it off or not.

How's this coming along? I was planning on running something similar but instead chaos damage and the two unique wands use Pledge of Hands and Kaom's Heart for a free spell echo and just stack a boat-load of strength.

Links would be

EK > Controlled Destruction > Pierce > Iron Will > Added Fire Damage > Faster Projectiles

And here's a tree that gets more health and skips chaos stuff.

Oh and it'll go jugg instead of zerker - stacking a bunch of endurance charges. (This will be for HC)

"

Edzilla wrote:

How's this coming along? I was planning on running something similar but instead chaos damage and the two unique wands use Pledge of Hands and Kaom's Heart for a free spell echo and just stack a boat-load of strength.

pretty well so far. it was a pain to level up until lvl 62 when i could use dual apep's rage.
I was thinking about pledge myself for a while. With Kaoms, Im guessing you would go fire conversion to benefit the fire damage or not ??