[3.11] Molten Strike Pathfinder || Lab Runner || 5m+ DPS || 80% evasion+ || 58/60% Att/Spell Dodge

[3.11] Molten Strike Pathfinder || Lab Runner || 5m+ DPS || 80% evasion+ || 58/60% Att/Spell Dodge

Intro
When I first started playing PoE I didn't know what to play or how to make currency. That's when I saw people carrying others for currency in the labyrinth and thought I could do that. But not being very good at the game, I needed someone who could face tank all the damage Izaro put out. In comes molten strike juggernaut. Best in the business. It had everything I wanted except the speed. In comes my molten strike pathfinder to take care of every worry I had.

Pro's
+ Fast Lab Runner
+ Molten Strike
+ Can get upwards of 250% move speed
+ Great at delving
+ 5M+ dps
+ 80+% evasion and 58/60% attack/spell dodge
+ Room for other variations or improvements


Con's
- Probably not a league starter
- Evasion based & not a lot of life
- Can be one-shot if not careful
- Switching gems in some situations
- Can't do ele reflect
- Hitting alot of potions and abilities can be annoying to some
- not THE fastest, but still fast

POB
Spoiler
https://pastebin.com/B3qkMmqG

Included I have put the according tree's that I used to level up(35, 70, 100, FUll Build), note that the tree can be played with for more life or an armour+life build utilizing Iron reflexes if wanted but you would need more life

Also note, molten strike dps is not correctly calculated in path of building due to the AOE/# of projectiles also playing into effect. There is a website with an image I will paste at the bottom that shows the correct DPS


Gear
Queen of the Forest-> perfect chest piece for everything we want. Gives huge evasion, absurd amounts of movement speed, and resists as well as some life.
Atziri's Step-> +30% movespeed, +15% spell dodge, some life, lots of evasion
Xoph's Blood-> A must have for molten strike. Molten strike already converts physical to fire, and this converts the rest. Throw in Pathfinders natural high ele pen and it just keeps adding up.
Devoto's Devotion-> Extra attack speed, evasion, and 20% movement speed.
Finally the bread and butter: Beltimber Blade x2 -> 1.8 attacks/second, 80% increased evasion while moving, 2 additional projectiles, and nice physical damage increase.
Rare gear-> for belts you want projectile/elemenetal damage, attack speed, and flasks increase.
-> for rings you want inc fire damage, evasion/life, resists, and ele damage w/ attacks
-> for gloves you want gripped gloves, with attack speed, life/evasion, and lgoh.



Gem Setup
Molten Strike+Multi-strike+Elemental Damage with Attacks+Concentrated Effect+Immolate+Combustion

Whirling Blades+Faster Attacks+Fortify

Steelskin+Increased Duration+Dash+Second Wind

Armageddon Brand+Curse on Hit+Flammability

Anger+Herald of Ash+Blood and Sand+Enlighten

IMPORTANT! WHILE LEVELING/MAPPING/DELVING (but for single target switch back if needed)-> Use Ancestral Call instead of Elemental Damage with Attack

Still working out the kinks but you could also throw in:
Wave of Conviction+Spell Totem Support


Utility

Flasks:
Dying Sun-> Gives you two extra projectiles and increases the AOE giving you a better chance to hit more molten projectiles. Also makes up for any lack of fire restistances.
Cinderswallow-> 10% increased damage taken by enemies you ignite. Also replenishes mana+life when killing those enemies.
The rest is up to you: my personal choice is: jade flask+quicksilver+quartz, but running lab I use a Blood of the Karui to heal any damage from traps/izaro.

Bandits: Help Kraityn -> I know right? Who helps Kraityn... At the bottom I cover me wanting to go off meta and be different from anywhere else and this is one of those. But after all, it gives a boost to attack speed, attack dodge, and movement speed? So it's actually really good for this build.

Anoint: Lava Lash -> this is a huge DPS boost for us and saves us 7 passive points on the tree. I have looked at some other nodes, but this one is the most convenient in the end I felt.

Pantheon:
Major: Soul of Lunaris-> 10% chance to avoid projectiles, as well as any that have chained. The rest are useless for this build with the purpose I have intended.

Minor: a couple of options exist here: Soul of Ralakesh-> bleeds can be sometimes annoying since I don't like running bleed flasks. Generally Blood flask will out heal most of them or you can get explicits. But in pesky situations it can be helpful.
Soul of Ryslatha-> if you use the Blood flask like myself, this can help ramp up it's generation.
Soul of Garukhan-> could be potential since the move speed bonus pairs well with evasion since we don't get hit often.

Stats/Pictures
Spoiler
Note: I play on steam and hadn't set up an account when I did, thus making that account inaccessible on the forums. The name is fieldonfire. If you go to the profile page for them, you can see the name NewKindofSun, which Nukindasun is a different way of saying but with some life meaning behind it. For purposes: I will be referencing pictures regarding that.


Spoiler

3 of my many runs in harvest for different days/layouts:




The low amount of health I've been running it at:

This should go to show how good and clean evasion+dodge actually is. Out of the 50+ times I've run it, I have maybe gotten hit by Izario twice. So let's do some quick math. 58% chance to dodge, and ~82% chance to evade.

As you can see, the odd's are just about right. And if someone gives you a 92% chance of winning, those are betting odds. (To simplify that math, the odds of either dodging or evading is 92%, so you have an effective 8% chance to get hit or so I believe)

My current setup in Harvest:

As you can see I'm not even fully decked out yet. There is 1-3 link I've been ignoring, and 1-4 link I've also been ignoring. The 4 link is for my auras, to which I've just been running herald of ash and anger. The weapon is where you would put wave of conviction+spell totem+multiple totems, but I've yet to test that out. Currently it just holds my ancestral call/elemental damage with attacks gem so I can switch it out faster/at Izaro.

This is the actual calculation of molten strike DPS:


Lab Running/Farming Guide:
Spoiler
Pending

Video of me running two Uber labs on character:
https://youtu.be/v8Zsomb-kk4
In the video, I utilize a Redblade Banner shield in my offhand setup to enable enduring cry which just helps occasionally with bad trap layouts when I'm out of my health flask. But is by no means required. I also ran 2 Uber Lab runs today, @JUL06, as requested by a comment, and to make sure everyone knew the first run wasn't a random whiff of good luck. You'll also see me WB/Dash before/during Izaro fight and that's to procure the Beltimber blades effect of having extra projectiles after using a movement ability as well as possibly dodging anything bad. You'll also see in the second lab run, that I took a slam however evaded/dodged it.

Below is the quicker time of the two runs in the video. There's a lot of different things you could be doing to make it slightly faster. In the video you can see me missing doors and making a slightly wrong turn a couple times as well as killing Argus.



Leveling:
Spoiler
Included in the POB is the tree that I used while I was leveling up, for 35 points-70-100-and full. I spent early points getting to the evasion+life nodes, but I refunded the points getting there since we go to the shadow tree from the right side anyways.

There's a lot of uniques that are very cheap and can help you level up until you get to 65-69 when you can finally use beltimber blade-xophs amulet-qotf.
item(level needed to use item)->item you can additionally use.

weapons: dual wielding-> princess(10)->lakishu(28)->insburry(47)->ichimonji(58)
boots: wanderlust(1)->windscream(33)
gloves: lochtonial(1)->slitherpinch(27)->winds of change(47)
chest: tabula rasa(1)
helm: goldrim(1)
amulet: karui ward(5)->karui charge(24)
rings: blackheart(1)->praxis(22)->thief's torment(30)
belt: meginords/wurms(8)->belt of the deceiver(20)

I'd say thief's torment is the most important for leveling other wise you'll be very mana hungry. Praxis will help until you can get it. I skipped innsburry and ichimonji due to their prices at the time. Otherwise that's all the gear I used till I got to the level needed for the main gear. NOTE: I did not league start this, and used the currency I generated from lab farming on my trapper, but he is just too slow through the lab I feel.

Gem setup for leveling->
molten strike(1) + ancestral call(4) +combustion(8)+concentrated effect(18)+faster attacks(18)+ elemental damage with attacks(18)

I also heavily recommend:
dash(4)+second wind(31)
whirling blades(10)+faster attacks(18)
steelskin(4)+increased duration(31)---- (you will eventually link dash(4)+second wind(31)+steelskin(4)+increased duration(31) together)

Make sure to grab anger(24) + herald of ash(16). You should be able to run both with praxis x 2 or thief's torment until you finally get mana gained on hit rings. If you have Enlighten(LEVEL 3/4) feel free to throw in blood and sand(4). Use blood stance for bosses and sand stance for clearing.

You will definitely need to get and upgrade your mana flasks along the way till you get the thief's torment ring. Once you get to (38) switch elemental damage with attacks(18) with immolate(38) and also switch faster attacks(18) with multistrike(38). Feel free to also use added fire damage(8) and onslaught(1) in your tabula if you can keep up with the mana costs. But definitely get rid of these two for the ones listed above.

That being said, take out ancestral call while leveling against single targets(bosses) if you need the damage boost. But if you have that elemental damage with attacks(18) that you took out for the immolate(38) put that in it's stead. Just make sure to keep EDWA in another gem slot to keep leveling as it will be very important later.



OUTRO

The sole purpose I made this build for was lab running. However I have been able to delve deeper than I have on any of my other characters as it's evasion based, as well as zip around maps(although I do die occasionally inside maps). But when you go to the lab website, all of the builds there are outdated. 3.2, 3.8, 3.6 etc... So I needed something fast and fresh. I found most of the quicker builds, were evasion based so I decided to give it a shot and here we are. [Can remove life nodes(not evasion life nodes) to increase damage to 8M, as well as adding opal rings increases it even further if you don't care about resists].




[Reserved]
Just kidding. I skipped it.
Last edited by Drinch on Jun 30, 2020, 1:10:09 AM
Can add a leveling gear?
"
Drinch wrote:
Just kidding. I skipped it.


You're welcome back anytime :)


"
Can add a leveling gear?


I created a leveling section underneath the -pending- lab running guide. You can find the gear/weapons/gems I used to level up with it. Hopefully it helps :)
Are you going to add any videos to the build? I love molten strike and I kept thinking about making a lab runner, so this build would be amazing for me. Wanna see it in action tho.
"
sorceone23 wrote:
Are you going to add any videos to the build? I love molten strike and I kept thinking about making a lab runner, so this build would be amazing for me. Wanna see it in action tho.


I've been busy with work projects lately so just haven't had time. And I also don't stream or normally post videos on youtube. So I will have to figure out a way to record a couple runs for you. I'll get something for you as soon as I can though!
"
"
sorceone23 wrote:
Are you going to add any videos to the build? I love molten strike and I kept thinking about making a lab runner, so this build would be amazing for me. Wanna see it in action tho.


I've been busy with work projects lately so just haven't had time. And I also don't stream or normally post videos on youtube. So I will have to figure out a way to record a couple runs for you. I'll get something for you as soon as I can though!


I went ahead and added a video of two back-to-back Uber lab runs today shortly after posting this comment for you/everyone. If you have any questions or concerns feel free to let me know :)
Hi, I'm liking the build concept and is in the process of levelling her. Any tips to make the qotf into 3r-3b sockets?
"
StevenYuki wrote:
Hi, I'm liking the build concept and is in the process of levelling her. Any tips to make the qotf into 3r-3b sockets?


Absolutely! That's definitely a complex part since it's an evasion based chest, BUT harvest is the league to do it. The way I did it, was by using the crafting bench to put on 2 blue(or red, and I guess you could do the recipe for more red/blue) and then using the harvest crafting for:

<Reforge the colour of a non-red socket on an item, turning it Red
Reforge the colour of a non-blue socket on an item, turning it Blue
Reforge the colour of two random sockets on an item, turning them Red and Blue>

Which come from the seeds: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Harvest/GlbeRPYUb

Eventually, you will get to the point where they are all red/blue from this and then you just need to hit the sweet spot of 3r-3b. The bench crafting 2r/2b will just help hit that all red/blue early on, and then you need to use the harvest option to fill the rest in. But I got mine with relative ease from this method(you can see it in the video). But that is how. Until then, you can look for elder influenced helmets, that have the mods:

<Socketed Gems are Supported by Level # Immolate
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level # Concentrated Effect>

And put your molten strike setup in the helmet until you get the qotf colored right, then I would suggest switching to devoto's helmet for the move speed+attack speed. Hope that helps.

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