[3.3][WIP] Fire & Lightning Melee Hit Raider



Build Overview

This build revolves around Elemental Equilibrium (EE) and Elemental Hit (EH). In short, EH can never repeat a damage type as of 3.3 which means it synergizes with EE naturally.

I’ve chosen to use one Combat Focus to eliminate Cold as one of the available damage types because it has the lowest DPS potential. It also means you can convert it to Fire through Unique items like Pyre and Heatshiver/Frostferno to boost your Fire hits. This works because EE has all three damage types, but only applies one at a time. For my build I use Pyre, but not Frostferno.

There aren’t a whole lot of options to scale damage because of the EE concept. The first thing that came to mind was Brightbeak and Crits. Since the build uses two damage types, converting weapon damage would be inefficient and using an elemental weapon would waste some of the damage because of EH’s limitation. Brightbeak’s ridiculous APS and Crit Chance makes it a great weapon for this build. You could craft or find a better weapon, but it would be very expensive. Brightbeak will carry this build well into yellow/red maps.

For ascendancy, I tried Elementalist first but rerolled as Raider. It was nice having Aoe, Heralds, and Reflect immunity, but I wasn’t happy with how it felt to play. Raider feels much better with the extra evasion on top of Acro/Phase Acro and faster movement. Inpulsa's Broken Heart makes clearing feel more satisfying and takes less effort. Without it, you can still clear fast just because of how fast you are in general.

TL:DR:
Use Ele Hit, spec Ele Equilibrium, equip Brightbeak, scale Crits/Attack Speed, and choose Raider to go super fast!

Disclaimer:
This is my first guide and the build is a work in progress! I've only gone up to Tier 15 maps and haven't gotten any expensive items to put into it yet.



The Build

PoB link: https://pastebin.com/Ms5uQidU

Pros and Cons

Pros
+Low budget
+Fairly beginner friendly
+Very fast gameplay due to high attack speed and mobility
+Strong single target
+Can achieve 500k Shaper DPS on a 5L with one gem swap
+Can shred up to Tier 15 maps
+Melts regular Atziri

Pro/con/preference/doesn’t matter
~Melee gameplay with Ancestral Call/Ruthless gem swap for single target
~No Phys damage reduction; Evasion/Dodge based
~Just over 5.5k Life without Belly; can’t face tank
~Can run Labs, but can't tank traps or Izaro; must learn/know how to dodge

Cons
-Hard to min/max for later endgame content
-Can’t do ele reflect maps
-Currently untested past T15 maps
-Lycosidae might be expensive, depending on the economy
-Item colouring can be a bit annoying
-No fancy Herald explosions with MTX </3


Current Gear




Gear Explanation
Spoiler
Weapon


As stated earlier, Brightbeak is core item for this build. In fact, the build kind of revolves around the attack speed it provides. There are also a few good Mace nodes that provide Crit Chance and Multi. You can easily level with EH once you get this.

Rare Weapon Upgrade:
Spoiler

Rare Claw
Spoiler

Rare Foil
Spoiler

If you can afford one, you could use a Claw or Foil with at least Tier 2 Fire and Lightning damage, Attack Speed, Crit Chance, Crit Multi, and Ele Damage with Attacks. This would be the most expensive upgrade for this build. Just remember that Brightbeak has Fire and Lightning Resistance and you might have to manage your other gear to compensate.


Off-hand

Life, 100% Hit Chance, and more effective Crit Chance.

Helmet

Great helmet in general. Much needed Crit Chance and Life. You could try using Frostferno for a separate clearing setup, but I haven’t tested it.

Chest

Belly became cheaper and easier to get as of 3.3 because of the new divination cards. This puts our Life up past 6k. The other choices will result in 500 less life. If you want to map faster, you could save this for tougher maps/bosses and use one of the other choices for clear speed.

Inpulsa’s is great for clear speed. It helps make up for the small AoE of EH with the explosions and increases damage. As mentioned above, you can swap chest pieces for tougher maps/bosses.

Shroud is cheaper to get than a 6L Belly, but won’t provide as much life or DPS. The build-in Ele Pen doesn’t beat a 6th link (Inc. Crits).

Loreweave is very good, but expensive for a well rolled one.

Gloves

There’s only a few slots for Rares, so this is where you get Life and Resistances. Attack Speed is also nice to have on gloves

Boots

You could go with Atziri’s Step for more Spell Dodge or Darkray for more DPS.

Accessories, Flasks, and Jewels
Spoiler

Belt

More Life and Resistances. You can use a Leather Belt at first, then upgrade later.

Amulet

Life and Resists. I Vaaled mine and got lucky with the all Resists. A better amulet would have Resistance, EDwAS, or flat Fire/Lightning Damage instead of Cast Speed.

Rings

Pyre boosts your Fire hits by converting the unused Cold damage, as explained in the Build Overview. Also provides some much needed Resistances. As a bonus it destroys corpses on Fire hits, so it helps against Detonate Dead boxes/bosses.

Doedre’s for the extra Curse. You could ditch this if you don’t want a CwdT Enfeeble setup but with the new Incursions, there are lots of rippy moments that Enfeeble could save you from (like a room full of Chaos spitters). Or you could just kill everything before anything kills you. I tried this setup but changed to Pyre for more DPS.


The other ring is for filling Life and Resistance needs. I’m using an Unset Ring to hold a Vitality for Lab Trials. I’d turn off Haste and put on Vitality when entering a Trial. It doesn’t let you run along the traps, but with Life flasks it makes them less threatening. If you’re more experienced with Lab running, you can omit Vitality.

Flasks

You can change the first two to fit your needs, but the last three are quite good to have (Instant Life with Bleed removal, Crits, and the can’t-touch-this button). The Diamond Flask should have Increased Duration. Quicksilver is pretty much for Haku missions and other indoor areas.

Jewels

Spoiler

Combat Focus is used to improve your average hit by eliminating the one with least potential. You could argue that Cold might be better than Lightning because of the low ends, but if anything it’s just more consistent. It’s hard to gauge because of how fast the attacks are. Either way, this is easily changed because you get both jewel slots. This also, again, lets us use Pyre for more Fire damage.

Rare Jewels with Crit Chance and Crit Multi are how you’ll increase DPS after getting your main gear settled. Attack Speed adds more DPS than increased damage by far. Ideally I’d have Attack Speed on all my Jewels, but they are difficult and expensive to find with all the specific mods. You can also use Abyss Jewels with flat Life, Crit Chance, and Crit Multi.



Ascendency/Tree/Pantheon



Frenzy charges and Onslaught are what makes this build cheap and fast. Chase provides more DPS than Veil and also makes the build faster. When leveling, I'd take Way of the Poacher and Rapid Assault first to speed up the process. Merc Lab could be Avatar of the Chase if you want more Evasion, or Slaughter for speed and DPS.

Tree
Spoiler

Website Tree link

PoB Leveling link: https://pastebin.com/XGcxdyrn
Spoiler

If you choose to level with EH, you’ll want to rush EE. If you need more Strength for Brigthbeak, you can pick up the Beef node (+30) and refund later. After that, just get the travel nodes so you can spec accordingly as you gear up. Get the Templar Jewel Socket for Combat Focus before you equip Pyre, otherwise you’d be nerfing your Cold hits while it’s still enabled. After that, get Phase Acrobatics. Since there aren’t that many damage nodes, you can grab the Life nodes early.

Spoiler

I opted for some of the Duelist nodes for Movespeed, Life, Regen, Attack Speed, and Attack Range, but you can save yourself some points by going above that area. It’s probably not worth it (7 points longer) going my way so feel free to just path above the Duelist area. You can then grab Berserking or an extra Jewel Socket with those extra points.

Pantheon
Spoiler



I go with Lunaris for the extra Dodge. You can go with Brine King if you feel you are getting stunned too much. Minor God is up to player preference. I went with Ryslatha for the Flask recovery upgrade.




Gem Links

Ele Hit - Ele Damage w/ Attacks - Multistrike - Ruthless/Ancestral Call - Hypothermia -
Increased Critical Strikes

Even with just a 5L, you can get over 500k Shaper damage with Ruthless in place of Ancestral Call. I use the 6th unlinked socket for quick swapping. Hypothermia applies when another gem setup gets triggered or when you spam the trap setup for bosses. Increased Critical Strike is the final link.

Immortal Call (level 10) - Cast when Damage Taken (level 8) - Increased Duration -
Haste/Vaal Haste

Just a standard Immortal Call setup. Linked with Vaal Haste to make it last longer. If you’re starting the league, you can have an unlinked Haste until you get a Vaal version. You could use (Vaal)Grace instead if you want more evasion.

Shield Charge - Leap Slam - Fortify - Faster Attacks

I use Shield Charge as the main skill, and Leap slam to cross gaps and obstacles. You could omit Shield Charge and switch this with one of the weapon links if you don’t want to have two movement skills. I just prefer the higher speed of Shield Charging. Admittedly, the insane speed makes it a bit hard to control in tight spaces and around objects, so I find myself using both equally.

Summon Flame Golem (7) - Cast when Damage Taken (5) - Cold Snap (10) - Shock Nova (8)

I went with a triggered Flame Golem for a bit of a damage boost. Level 7 because that’s when the damage increment goes up by 1. Cold Snap applies Chill and increases the chance to gain Frenzy Charges. Shock Nova has a good chance to shock for Inpulsa’s explosions. Ailments make EH deal *more* damage as well as increases the AoE for the matching element.

Assassin’s Mark - Blasphemy, Ancestral Protector

Assassin’s Mark provides much needed Crit Chance. Ancestral Protector is just for its buff.

Ice Trap - Charged Traps - Cluster Traps

This is for gaining and refreshing Charges while bossing as well as applying Chill manually. Usually, Orb of Storms linked to Power Charge on Critical is used to generate Charges, but now there’s a way to sustain both Power Charges and Frenzy Charges. Just throw out a couple of clusters and that should be enough to reset the durations. I chose Ice Trap to trigger EE and for it’s MTX :)



Thanks for reading! I'll try to answer any questions, but keep in mind the build isn't finalized and I'm still learning as I go. Good luck and have fun!
Last edited by WilyWilly on Jul 19, 2018, 7:56:00 PM
Last bumped on Jul 19, 2018, 12:47:35 AM
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