[3.4] DarkSageX's Molten Strike Glad - 7k life, Tanky, Delve and Shaper viable, Balls to the Wall




Introduction

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Playing several Bringer of Rain glads, I wanted to change things up a bit. I like the idea of a tanky build that can dish out decent damage and not rip every 5 minutes in maps. I saw several videos of Juggernauts using Molten Strike, but I fell in love with block and decided to make a version for the gladiator. Needless to say, I am pleasantly surprised by the results and proud to showcase the build.



Pros:

7k+ life
80 max resistances
Works on a budget, gets better with more investment
Great DPS
Tanky and resilient, 74+ block
T16/Shaper/Delve 400+ viable
Balls... Balls everywhere


Cons:

The gear for the high budget is expensive
Clearspeed is ok, but not top-tier
Chaos damage over time hurts


Gear:
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Mandatory:

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x2

Explanation: Grelwood Shank and the two Wildfire jewels are pretty obvious. They are what makes the build go. Can be expensive the first week of league, so a budget option would be a high DPS Sword or Axe.



Budget
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Explanation: build can scale very well with a budget and makes for a good league starter. If not taking Xoph's, we have to sacrifice 8 passive points to go up to Avatar of Fire. I used a Tabula Rasa in the budget video I posted just to showcase the build. Other budget options would be a Belly of the Beast or a rare with life and resistances. Belly gives me 650 more hp versus my current endgame setup. If Kaom's Roots are too expensive early on, a rare with high life and resistances will do until you can afford them.



High Budget

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Loreweave is a great in every regard. 80 max res, stats, life, dps.


Helmet with +3 projectiles and -9% res is also BiS, as more balls mean more damage and the minus res allows enemies to take more damage.


Tombfist with two sockets and a curse are icing on the cake. Free intimidate gives us more damage, maim slows enemies, and the curse on hit frees up slots, not to mention having two abyss jewel slots for life and damage. Best corrupts are Enfeeble (defense) or Elemental Weakness (offense).


Ring with Life Gain on Hit gives us a very nice leech aspect to help top off our HP. I crafted this ring with 20c, but I realize if you're buying the prices might be higher. Best would be two of these, if you can manage to get stats elsewhere. Other than that life, int, res, added fire.


When breach came out, Surrender was nuts. For the past two leagues, I have been trying to get a better shield and with the new shaped options, this is possible. I bought my shield early on for 7c. The potential 5% recover on block as well as the 96 gained on block translates to roughly 450 life gained on block with 7k life, which is a very nice passive way of gaining life back on top of the leech factor on the ring. It's great for standing in delves while in the darkness and gaining hp back. I do realize this shield has low block and am currently sitting at 74/74 passive block. with a few hits, however, we reach our 79/79 cap. A shield with better block will put us always at 79/79


Xoph's Blood is BiS here. The Avatar of Fire allows us to save 8 passive points on top of giving us Ash and a ton of life.


Red Nightmare gives us 13% attack and spell block. Absolutely great for a glad. The Watcher's Eye was a few ex, obviously the more Anger mods the better. I would first go for Phys as extra fire damage, for a second mod penetration would be best.


High life, Unwavering, I like the attack speed enchant for more fireballs


Life, resists, elemental damage and a free jewel slot. Try to get a bit of chaos if possible.



Tree at 96:

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Tree at 96 no Xoph's:

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Videos:

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T16 corrupted Phoenix, average mods, in very bad gear, 5 link Tabula, no Red Nightmare, no Avatar of Fire. This is simply a showcase of what the build can do on a budget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvLU2m09skQ&t=1s

Deathless Shaper
https://youtu.be/73HbhfyJfpE

Corrupted T15 Basilica
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEa5OltnUIE&t=42s

400+ Delve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3OIEPZXBLA&t=5s



Gem Links:

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5-6L Main Skill


4L Movement Skill


3L Utility
(swap Vaal Haste for Culling for boss fights)

3L Utility


2L Auras




Bandits:

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Kill all



Labyrinth:

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Painforged - Versatile Combatant - Outmatch and Outlast - Violent Retaliation



Pantheon:

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Major:
It's honestly a personal preference between Lunaris and Solaris. I use Lunaris for delves and general mapping, Solaris for T16s and tough bosses.

Minor:
Upgraded Soul of Shakari for poison immunity. If you are doing bosses Ryslatha is also an option for flask recharges during long fights.



Map Mods to Avoid

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Elemental Reflect - undoable
Block Reduction - doable, risky



PoB
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Not a POB wizard, open to tips and suggestions.

https://pastebin.com/vAJAm6QN



Useful Corruptions/Staying safe
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Since we are using two unique jewels, at some point in the league we can buy corrupted versions of the jewels to help with immunities.


Corrupted blood can be nasty if you're moving around or in delves, and Kaom's Roots do not protect us from maim/hinder.

Having Resolute Technique saves us two passive points on the tree, which can be put in more life or more dps.


Please let me know if I am missing anything. Thanks for your time :)
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Last edited by Darksagex on Oct 27, 2018, 12:36:04 PM
Last bumped on Jan 6, 2019, 4:40:36 PM
This is a very well put together guide. I'd like to see a clear speed video, though. Just to see how it runs in maps.
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WSLaFleur wrote:
This is a very well put together guide. I'd like to see a clear speed video, though. Just to see how it runs in maps.


Thank you :)

Added a video of a corrupted T15 Basilica. The whole run took about 4 minutes, with the boss taking about 1:20 (Innocence and his phases lol) and a bit of lag. I think the speed is ok considering how tanky the build is.

I'll add a video of a 400+ Delve Vaal Outpost soon.
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Your video (T15 Basilica) does not work. :( You probably have private mode enabled.
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Qswyk wrote:
Your video (T15 Basilica) does not work. :( You probably have private mode enabled.


Thanks for the info!

I fixed the video and added a 400+ Vaal Outpost delve.
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Add POB link. Impossible to see if that build is worth something or not as is...
A section for leveling (unique used etc), making it so your character page isn't private so the character may be imported to Path of Building (It's set to private by default) would all be great additions to the guide. Please and Thank you!


Edit: a Skill Tree version which includes the budget version w/ Avatar of fire would be good too.
Last edited by Djentlemenleon on Oct 17, 2018, 4:51:33 AM
POB and corrupted items added.

Will add an uber elder video soon :)
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So I followed this guide for a while, and while it's my first league and first serious character, I was able to down Shaper yesterday! Went a bit slowly but steadily, and ripped only one time because I've misplaced the cold ball puddles right under Zana in the center and died to them in the end...

Anyhow, by trial and error I found that this can handle most of map mods reliably well, aside from ele reflect and maybe sometimes vulnerability, and while I read somewhere that you shouldn't try Shaper if you can't kill guardians in a couple of seconds, surprisingly I had no issues with killing them whatsoever, was kinda a breeze.

My small goal of 150 atlas/Shaper is complete now and I'll proceed to do something else. Thank you for putting this together! :thumbs_up:

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