[3.1] [Theorycrafting] Volatile Dead Hiero (?) Inq (?)

Hello everyone!

This post in not a build just a theorycrafting discussion, however if we manage to get something nice going i will try to make a nice build about it.

The idea is to play around the new skill gem Volatile Dead that will be release in 3.1. I believe this skill has a great potential for map clearing and could possibly be great for boss killing as well.



Step one

At the start of the map use Desecrate + Cascade to get some corpses going:



Step two

Now that we have corpses we can start using our main new spell Volatile Dead :



We can then keep using Volatile Dead using the corpses than we killed without having to use desecrate.

If no corpse is available (for exemple during boss fight) we can always create some on demand with Desecrate + Spell Cascade.

Possible BiS Items

Body Armour : Carcass Jack (?)
Ring : Sybil's Lament (?)
Weapon : Doryani's Catalyst (?)
Helmet : Hrimnor's Resolve (?)
Amulet : Ngamahu Tiki (?)

Possible Tree :



Possible links (?):

► 6L : Volatile Dead + Cascade + Controlled Destruction + Elemental Focus + Fire Penetration + Concentrated Effect
► 3L : Cascade + Desecrate + Faster Casting
► 4L : Shield Charge + Faster Attack + Fortify + Increased Critical Chance
► 3L : CWDT + Summon Flame Gollem + Immortal Call
► 4L : Spell Totem + Unearth + GMP + Faster Casting

Aura : Clarity - Anger

Awesome post by Burmania

"
Burmania wrote:
So I was doing some theory crafting myself and came up with the following:

I was personally inclined to choose between Assassin or Inquisitor, as they are my favorite ascendancies and seemed like the best option for carrying this character from mapping into bossing (if I so desired).

Inquisitor will most likely be the better map clearer because of Instruments of Virtue, but might feel better to carry through to endgame with Assassin.

Assassin will have a great way to generate power charges for end game content (outside of map rushing) and I would expect it to feel the best because of the high crit chance.

I was also thinking about how the skill will work. The way the description explains how the damage is dealt it seems like the 3% corpse life damage will be upfront, and the fire damage will be what the ball deals. What this means to me is that this is going to end up being a great character to map with that can swap in Detonate Dead for end game boss content.

Inquisitor Setup:
6L Volatile Dead - Controlled Destruction - Inc Crit DMG - Inc Crit Strikes - Inc AoE/Conc - Faster Casting/Spell Echo (whichever ends up feeling better)

3L(?) Desecrate - Spell Cascade - Faster Casting
3L(?) CWDT - Immortal Call - Warlord's Mark

4L Unearth - Spell Totem - GMP - Faster Casting
4L Herald of Ice - Ice Bite - Curse on Hit - Assassin's Mark
4L Shield Charge - Faster Attacks - Fortify - Culling Strike(?)

Talent Tree

Uniques Intuitive Leap, Inspired Learning, Brightbeak

Shield Charge around like a madman with Brightbeak. Swap to doryani's for bosses, if necessary.
I'm hoping to be able to get some shatters and Frenzy/Power charges from Herald of Ice, although we will not know how likely that is until we get to play around with the skill.

Since we are relying on crit, we don't need fire penetration because Inevitable Judgement will set enemy resistant to 0% when we crit. From playing around in POB (using fireball as the damage skill) Crit strikes would likely be necessary to get that crit up.

Assassin Setup:
Same setup with 2 small changes, switching out inc crit and assassin's mark. Could add in blasphemies for either setup but I want to try and maximize MOM.

6L Volatile Dead - Controlled Destruction - Inc Crit DMG - Fire Penetration - Inc AoE/Conc - Faster Casting/Spell Echo (whichever ends up feeling better)

4L Herald of Ice - Ice Bite - Curse on Hit - Flammability/Poacher's Mark

Talent Tree - basically the same as inquis.
Uniques Intuitive Leap, Inspired Learning, Brightbeak, Pure Talent (new unique jewel)

With Assassin, penetration is going to be more useful for us. We switch out inc crit (as we won't need the added crit in the 6L because of all the bonus crit we get from being an Assassin) and put in Fire Pentration. We use Pure Talent for a 5% pen - I am unsure how great of a damage boost this will be versus 30% multi from a rare jewel, I'm assuming the 5% pen will be better for bosses as I would assume having a balance of multi and penetration is better than just having a large amount of one or the other.

This is just something to consider and mess around with. I was also thinking that maybe added cold would fit as the damage modifier is 120% and will benefit pretty well from flat added. That would also help for shatters and frenzy/power generation. If it turns out that Herald just doesn't work that well, then throwing Elemental Focus in would be the obvious choice and will be used for leveling.

I am going to try this as an assassin build on my stream and see how it goes. I think that using VD for leveling and mapping will probably feel clunky at first and ramp up until end game. Swap in DD for end game content (elder/shaper/atziri) and see how it goes. With the insane damage of Detonate Dead I'm expecting some decent results.


Let's make this work !

Feel free to share your ideas and thoughts about this theorycraft! I will be glad to see what you guys think!

12/8/17 : Edited the format of the post
Last edited by nocx13 on Dec 8, 2017, 2:08:30 AM
Last bumped on Dec 16, 2017, 2:27:39 AM
I'm planning to play a Volatile Dead build as well, i just can't figure out which class or ascendancy to pick.

As for the links and game play, i think Desecrate with Spell Cascade will be a lot faster and more efficient for creating corpses.

I do agree with VD + Spell Cascade + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction + Increased Critical Strikes (?) + Fire Penetration (?).

The tree you've linked is incomplete when i open it. I'm on my phone right now, but I'll try to post my build when i get home from work later.
My Supporter Pack list compensates for my small penis.
Hello !

Thanks for your input ! I fixed the tree linked.

You are right desecrate might be way faster that the the new gem Unearth.

I'm looking forward looking at your tree!



"
nocx13 wrote:
Hello !

Thanks for your input ! I fixed the tree linked.

You are right desecrate might be way faster that the the new gem Unearth.

I'm looking forward looking at your tree!





It works now!

Looks good, but I'm still not a 100% sold on the totems. That might be a personal opinion though and not the most efficient way to play the build. We just don't have enough information about the gem yet.

Also, if you're going Hierophant and getting Sanctuary of Thought, maybe it's worth going for some of the big ES nodes like Arcane Focus and Unnatural Calm?

My biggest fear of self casting is reflect though. For example Atziri and Uber Atziri will be a big problem. I was considering Elementalist for this reason, coupled with Pantheon and perhaps Sibyl's Lament you could completely mitigate it?

Edit: This is my Elementalist version. Not going crit might be a mistake, I'm not sure if the damage will be enough. Going EE so i can Shield Charge with some cold/lightning damage for bosses with a lot of hp.
My Supporter Pack list compensates for my small penis.
Last edited by Relidar on Dec 6, 2017, 8:54:26 AM
"
Edit: This is my Elementalist version. Not going crit might be a mistake, I'm not sure if the damage will be enough. Going EE so i can Shield Charge with some cold/lightning damage for bosses with a lot of hp.


This is a very interesting tree as well!

3 links :

Desecrate + Cascade + Faster casting

6 links

VD + Spell Cascade + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction + Increased Critical Strikes + Fire Penetration

4 links

Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Fire Golem

Maybe it will be wortth switching Controlled Destruction with Increased Critical Damage?

I'm not sure about Elemental Equilibrium tho.

1) Isn't going to slow the clearing speed overall?
2) Isn't the EE efefct going to be overwritten by our Volatire Dead?
3) During boss fight isnt going to be hard to selcast Shield Charge + Desecrate + VD?

Items :

Carcass Jack (?)
Sybil's Lament (?)
Doryani's Catalyst (?)
Searing Touch with Change to Ignite in the links (?)
Hrimnor's Resolve (?)
Ngamahu Tiki (?)
Last edited by nocx13 on Dec 6, 2017, 9:48:53 AM
"
nocx13 wrote:
Maybe it will be wortth switching Controlled Destruction with Increased Critical Damage?

I'm not sure about Elemental Equilibrium tho.

1) Isn't going to slow the clearing speed overall?
2) Isn't the EE efefct going to be overwritten by our Volatire Dead?
3) During boss fight isnt going to be hard to selcast Shield Charge + Desecrate + VD?

Items :

Carcass Jack BiS (?)
Sybil's Lament (?)
Doryani's Catalyst (?)
Searing Touch with Change to Ignite in the links (?)


I'm honestly not sure if ICD is worth it either, you get a lot more out of CD. But like you said, PoB will tell us more!

My way of proccing and sustaining EE is by only having added cold/lightning to gear and using Shield Charge to keep it up. Imagine any other build, you'll be using SC to get around either way. And once you get going you won't have to use Desecrate to create new corpses.

I think it will be rather easy and comparable to the ED playstyle.

Honestly, I'm still on the fence when it comes to Area Damage and Area Modifications, we'll just have to wait and see.

Sybil's will probably be a must if you go self cast, no matter the ascendancy. I haven't really looked into uniques yet though, waiting for more details before i do that.
My Supporter Pack list compensates for my small penis.
I edited my post and added some unique that looks good !

"

My way of proccing and sustaining EE is by only having added cold/lightning to gear and using Shield Charge to keep it up. Imagine any other build, you'll be using SC to get around either way. And once you get going you won't have to use Desecrate to create new corpses.

I think it will be rather easy and comparable to the ED playstyle.


Sorry but i still don't get it. Isnt EE going to be overwitten with +25% fire res everytime one of our Voltile Dead ball is going to hit the boss?

What about elemental overload? Could we use that?
Last edited by nocx13 on Dec 6, 2017, 10:02:43 AM
"
nocx13 wrote:
Sorry but i still don't get it. Isnt EE going to be overwitten with +25% fire res everytime one of our Voltile Dead ball is going to hit the boss?

What about elemental overload if we don't use Increased Critical Damage?


The EE effect stays up for 5 seconds or until overwritten. So if you proc EE and then cast VD you'll keep the effect for that hit.

EO is a good idea actually, i completely missed that. You could either use Shield Charge in a 4L with Increased Crit or just switch over to Orb of Storms.

My hope is that VD is strong enough for fast map clearing and that EE/EO/OoS only becomes a necessity for high hp targets.
My Supporter Pack list compensates for my small penis.
Great, well we are getting somewhere! Thanks for the thoughts man!

Maybe i will make a new thread in Witch section since it looks like a better option than templar.
"
nocx13 wrote:
Great, well we are getting somewhere! Thanks for the thoughts man!

Maybe i will make a new thread in Witch section since it looks like a better option than templar.


Been wanting to theorycraft with this skill since they announced it. People are very against that kind of thing (for good reasons) when we don't have any data to work with though.

Keep this thread up for now and we'll see what happens when we get more info?

I'm sure we'll see more versions of this! :)
My Supporter Pack list compensates for my small penis.

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