Any viable obliteration wander build these days?

That doesn't involve BV or other nonsense? I miss the old days of kinetic blasting mobs to hell and back. Elemental wanders don't feel as satisfying.

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Ghoulz666 wrote:

That doesn't involve BV or other nonsense? I miss the old days of kinetic blasting mobs to hell and back. Elemental wanders don't feel as satisfying.

I've been trying to come up with one - I desperately want a Volley Fire Barrage Obliterizer and would adore doing it as a Raider. Sadly, wand support on the tree is nigh-nonexistent - there's, like...two clusters that matter, and both of them have a relatively heavy emphasis on elemental damage. Any tree I build runs shy of crit chance and ends up looking like an incredibly low damage mess. Sucks, really - I really like Obliteration and keep coming back to it.

You can probably do it as Assassin, get all the generic Phys/Chaos/Crit in the Shadow start and use Assassin Asc. nodes to beef up your deepz, but Assassin is kinda boring as hell. Been considering Raider or Occultist variants but both have issues with finding enough damage, especially on a budget of less than a billion exalts. Ugh.

I feel your pain, man.

There might be something interesting poison-focused that uses kinetic blast, because of the added chaos damage. It'd have to use barrage for single target, though, and while poison on barrage isn't exactly bad it's not going to break any records either.

I'm working a somewhat different angle, so I've only put this build on paper, not planning to test it.

With the 3.0 changes I had the idea of using the Ascendant as a ranged totem spammer with that power charge buff. But would totem damage scale chaos damage?

Seems like a bad call to be depending on poison with 3.0 around the corner.

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Ghoulz666 wrote:

With the 3.0 changes I had the idea of using the Ascendant as a ranged totem spammer with that power charge buff. But would totem damage scale chaos damage?

Seems like a bad call to be depending on poison with 3.0 around the corner.

"Totem Damage" scales any damage done by a totem, the same way "Minion Damage" scales any damage done by a minion. That's actually one of the big reasons why Facebreaker Warchiefs works so well; 'Totem damage' can be had all over the place in the tree and becomes one of the most reliable/prevalent ways of scaling your flat unarmed damage.

So yeah, KB Totems could be one way to do it. Your single target would still blow every goat in Creation though, unless you use the Asc. Heirophant node without taking Ancestral Bond, so you can do your own Barraging. Which...actually might be viable, since two KB totems should be more than enough. Either that or run Barrage in a totem as well, since you're working on scaling Totem damage.

Hm. Y'know, I may go poeplanner this and see what the numbers look like. Totems aren't what I was hoping for on an Obliterizer, but they're certainly better than nothing. Thanks for the notion, man!

SO. Roughed out a First Draft of an Ascendant Wander tree, as follows:

https://poeplanner.com/AAgAAP8ACBAbAHzYTZSg2mIYVmh0-ehBh7c-g8w8LcauEMz-h3sg-JODX_4K8kU64aZXTeP-jzWS2L0LYa9saPLwH6IABLPAZjwF73yf30VHhX0WQGaeWOUqE1oro_L60hZv42okqjbpMtHr7nyDp5ReXdH9pwjYJDbFg_NOrrE2rhIabJ2uHwIEB4PbVcY6WFAw7-s7DREPTC0UsJphP3Ns5wmgznDCc_bnc3CfiLXybqpkhAag-b2smNtesNii2cgU9W9qjBa_JpVh4lVLjDaJ03BSKgtd8isK44QN0WNDAx4fQREvtUh1_YRv1EJYF6I-PEukoLFbpjIDBKhyqUjS6AAAAAAA

Note: this tree assumes the +2 skill points from the 'Path of the Shadow' node which Grinding Gear has said we're getting, but which isn't reflected in the poeplanner beta skill tree. Thus it shows as a lvl 91 tree but should actually be lvl 89. Important for folks who have a very hard time breaking 90

Damnit poeplanner, fix your shortlink tool! Ugh. Anyways. SUPER low on life, which is weird for an Ascendant build, but...actually potentially quite poppy. Key numbers:

134% Life Super Ugh. Definite candidate for Belly of the Beast, methinks. There's more life around, but in weird-to-reach spots that make it inefficient to get to if you want ALL THE DEEPZ. This is one of those builds where you rely on positioning and good play to avoid dying, not a 10k life pool. Totems should help with that.

~69.8 Crit Chance Assuming an 'average' crit chance roll of 9 on one's Obliteration(s), the 100% Global Crit Chance bonus from Shaman's Dominion (i.e. when totem has been summoned recently), and all seven power charges from tree/quest. A max-rolled Obliteration pushes it up an extra couple of points. Not too shabby for standing crit chance.

141% Crit Multi (not as huge as nonsense like Assassins with Opuses, or Abyssus builds, but this is also pre-gear. You can find some crit multi gear and pump this, but frankly even without it this is an effective ~98% 'More' modifier given a 69.8% crit rate.

132% Totem Damage
112% Increased Physical Damage
76% Increased Chaos Damage**
57% Increased Wand Damage
42% Increased Wand Damage Again (6% WD per power charge)
30% Increased Projectile Damage
20% Area Damage**
12% Increased Attack Damage
Total: 385% Increased Wand Totem Physical Attack Damage, before gear (discounting ** options as not applicable to primary damage sources)
That seems like a whole lotta kaboom out of JUST the tree. The Area damage bolts onto that for Kinetic Blast totems, and the Chaos damage bolsters both of Obliteration's secondary effects.
With some nice jewels in your three sockets, some projectile damage on gear where applicable, and good linking, this should be loooots of nice kerblammo.

7 Power Charges Cool
3 Jewel sockets Less cool...
290 Int, 100 Dex, 185 Str Gem requirements for everything but Dex handled. Problematic given Dex is the main gem requirement, but nothing two good Dex rolls doesn't solve.

Y'know...I kinda like this idea. The life issue bothers me, but I'm sorta used to running perilously low life characters, and this could be a great alternative to Warchief totems for an Ascendant build. KB totems in the headpiece for mobslaughter coverage, rig a 5l/6l Barrage totem in the chest for boss destruction, and go to town. If you take the build to very high level you can also consider swapping to Asc. Deadeye for the extra Barrage projectile and Pierce chance and go north to Shadow from the Ranger start. Less crit that way, but the projectile nodes sort of wash with the Shadow's Phys/Chaos start nodes. Less efficient given six nodes of travel as opposed to Money Shot choices, but that extra barrage projectile's a really nice boost to your single-target damage and the Pierce chance helps with KB coverage.

level with Flame Totems or the like until you can switch into Obliterations, maybe take a swing at OP Warchiefs for mid-to-late leveling until all that crazy damage from the Shadow area starts coming online in late Merc-ish.

Lemme know what you think.

The goddamn uber lab is preventing that build from being complete. That's what pisses me off most about this stupid ascendant.

To be fair, the build has a bit of regen and so isn't helpless to trap gauntlets, and totems are usually a pretty safe bet for Izaro fights. Especially if you keep a Decoy totem handy; yeah it'll cut your DPS, but you can throw it in your helm so it stacks with two Barrage totems (I think? I'm not sure how "1 Totem from Helm" interacts with different totem types, would need to test), then drop the Decoy on his face before shoving Barrages up his butt.

if the build works at all, I don't see Uberlab being the breaking point for it. If it is? Well, consider a 5c Uberlab runner's fee part of the build cost, I suppose? Does anyone charge more'n 5c or so for an Uberlab run these days? I dunno, never bothered paying for it myself. I'm one of those filthy heathen nerds who actually kinda likes the Lab, so that's never been a concern for me.

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1453R wrote:

To be fair, the build has a bit of regen and so isn't helpless to trap gauntlets, and totems are usually a pretty safe bet for Izaro fights. Especially if you keep a Decoy totem handy; yeah it'll cut your DPS, but you can throw it in your helm so it stacks with two Barrage totems (I think? I'm not sure how "1 Totem from Helm" interacts with different totem types, would need to test), then drop the Decoy on his face before shoving Barrages up his butt.

if the build works at all, I don't see Uberlab being the breaking point for it. If it is? Well, consider a 5c Uberlab runner's fee part of the build cost, I suppose? Does anyone charge more'n 5c or so for an Uberlab run these days? I dunno, never bothered paying for it myself. I'm one of those filthy heathen nerds who actually kinda likes the Lab, so that's never been a concern for me.

Never figured out how to find these people who do these services.

So far as I hear, it's all Global 820. That or poke the Market sections of this forum looking for runners. Or even just post a thread asking where to find runners. You'll probably get a number of offers right there.

THAT SAID:

Rigged up a basic-bitch version of the core mechanics of the Scion Totem build on an old busted mid-level Scion I'm not likely to ever use again. Oblits, Barrage and KB totems, and the Templar half of the tree, just to see if the basic mechanics worked.

First things first: I'm stupid. The "Enemies You Kill Have a Chance to Explode" modifier on the Obliterations does, in fact, explicitly not work with totems. Which would've been obvious if I'd thought about the wording for half a second. So no Obliteration kabooms off a totem kill. That probably sinks the build concept for most, given that Obliteration is not a terribly ferocious pDPS wand outside of its kerblammos and added chaos damage.

Second things second: I actually really like this playstyle. Everyone keeps saying that Totem builds are boring and blah because you don't attack or use skills directly, but I don't have a clue what they're talking about. Especially with this build, reliant on constantly summoning new totems to generate Powers and refresh your Shaman's Dominion buff, you end up weaving in and out of fights all the time, constantly repositioning your totems for better angles against enemies, deciding on the spot what mix of KB and Barrage you want and where to place them, tossing some Frenzy shots out there for charges (and eventually phys-damage-increasing Maims, in 3.0. Frenzy > GMP > Maim is like CoH Vulnerability in a 3-link that doesn't eat your curse slot!)...I honestly find it to be a very dynamic and engaging playstyle. And also just super fun to watch, given the stupefying number of KBs that three RAT Totems can throw out there.

Even if the basic-bitch version of it on that old dead Scion performed quite poorly because her gear was atrocious and she had only half the tree/Ascendancy.

Nevertheless! I could see this concept going somewhere, though it feels more like it should be a Taste the Rainbow-style build with stuff like Hatred, Herald of Ash, and other phys scalars rather than trying too hard to be pure phys. If, primarily, because pure-phys wands that aren't Obliterations cost the Earth, the Sun, and all the stars in the sky. Getting decent pDPS rolls and using those to scale as much everything-else as you can is probably the ticket. Perhaps that new Immolate gem in 3.0.0 that adds huge flat fire damage to attacks against burning enemies, at least on Barrage.

Ah, speaking of which! Rain of Splinters is a goddamned super hero in this sort of build, and possibly a reason to go totems all by itself. Taking a 'Reduced' penalty instead of a 'Less' penalty on Kinetic Blast for extra projectiles is a huge bonus to clearspeed, and the exact same single jewel bumps Barrage from four to six projectiles. That's the very same bonus that costs a girl ten exalts when it comes on a Lab enchantment! Get both of those going and you're really cooking! Not as ridicu-potent as Death's Opus, of course, but realistically what is? And Opus doesn't give you access to Kinetic Blast.

I'm already working out tricks for this thing, too - swap the RAT gem in your helm for a Decoy Totem against Ridicu-Bosses and you lose your Kinetic Blast totems, but you also gain the ability to drop a Decoy on top of something without interfering with your Barrage totems since the Decoy's coming from your helm. Tested that last night while working on the BBV, works like a treat.

There may well be a future for this idea somewhere. Especially after I figured out I was being a total derpwalrus and had forgotten the Quick Recovery cluster in the tree. Grab that and you get up to right around the 150% Life mark, which is my usual minimum benchmark for "Won't get instasquished by random Bonestalkers or junk". Yeah, you still need to get out of the way of telegraphed slams, but frankly the era of Immortal Siggervup ES characters have spoiled people anyways. Those slams are telegraphed for a reason, damnit.

Anyways! Figured you'd want some updates on the concept, and to know that you'll probably need a new idea for a proper Obliteration build. Sorry, man.