Melee splash - infernal blow : Tank build

- Passive tree
Passive tree summary


Offensive skills :
Glacial hammer for single target / alternatively Lightning strike (Work in progress, need help to choose)

Solo
Infernal Blow (16Q) - melee splash - Increased elemental damage with weapons - increased area of effect
Party
Infernal blow (16Q) - Melee splash - Multistrike - Culling strike

Movement:
Shield Charge

Defensive skills
Enduring Cry
Warlords Mark

Auras:
Clarity
Determination
Purity

I have been trying to level this build for a couple of days - and feel that progress is going well. I have reached Act III cruel, and problems have appeared. A large portion of this misfortune is undoubtidly that I have mediocre items, and 16 unspent talent points. I am here - hoping for some pointers, from more experienced players, that can tell me which skills would make this build optimal (especially if blood magic is recomendable!).


Build rationale

The infernal blow + melee splash damage combo, is pretty straight forward. Kill one, watch a lot explode. For parties, I argued with myself, that multistrike + culling strike is better than me trying to kill the mobs. Keep tagging as many mobs as possible, and hope for just 1 to be below 30% hp, in order to start the chain reaction.
As a Tank - I am also interested in nerfing the mobs - so the rationale was glacial blow + melee splash, to chill/freeze as many as possible, then start with infernal blow.

I Like to play tank, and since infernal blow - is really close and personal, I went for as much survivability as possible. High armor + 4 endurance charges (the one from Oak and 3 from the build) + as much HP as possible + +20% block and stun immunity.

But I am doing this by myself, and I was hoping someone would share some tips and tricks - and point out where I have gone wrong, and what I can do to redeem my mistakes.

All help will be greatly appreciated.
Best regards

PS: I know a lvl 80 build, is fairly high, but - I wanted to share my thought :)
I have some wealth from my other characters, so I can maybe get a dream fragment, but should I?

"

Hatefullangel wrote:

which skills would make this build optimal (especially if blood magic is recomendable!).

I'd say ideally to get a blood magic support gem for your attack skill so you can continue to use your auras. (Can't use any percentage reserved auras with blood magic keystone)

You will need a lot of life plus some leech and regen to go this route due to the BM support gem increasing the life cost of your attacks.

Hi Hatefullangel,

i just started an infernal blow - splash build myself. I'm only level 43 so far but already start to have some problems. My damage/survival rating is low. I think i'm quite tanky but i barely do any damage with my infernal blow. All my gear is lvl 40+ and i went to aeras of my level.
To be able to spam IB i linked it to blood magic (and splash). I thought since splash gimps the physical dmg i should go for some weapon elemental damage.

Here is my passive tree so far:

Now i don't see you picking any dmg nodes like elemental weapon damage or the 30% fire weapon damage, how do you make them pop? Also because i feel i lack damage i want to run the 3 dmg auras on top of other survival auras so i won't go for blood magic (passive). I linked blood magic gem to my anger aura already and will link some other not percentage based auras with the same blood magic gem.

My infernal blow is quality 17 and still i think the radius is too small. I plan on going to the witch tree to grab some more radius area and then if somehow i still have points go to the duellist to grab the amaster of arena + life nodes.

Can you show me the gear you have or do you remember what gear u used on my level? I have mainly resistances, life and armour. And my weapon is a mace with 100% phys inc and +10-100 elm dmg

Hi :)

Well, now I have hit level 64 with this build. And I am progressing pretty well. I feel very tanky.

I too, was struggling around lvl 44-55. But there is a major difference between our builds, and that is the endurance charges. I currently use 2x enduring cry gems - so I get the endurance charges up very quickly, I also use a sword and board. I just shout twice, and have between 2 and 4 enduance charges - and that 25% phys reduction really comes in handy. Now when I kill oak on mercy - I will have 30% - and 1 more will come from passives. Combined with my completely awful armor (roughly 28%) I get 63% damg reduction, coupled with 3.2k HP, and 48% block. So I can survive pretty well. And when I pop an granite - I nearly hit 80% damg reduction, if not more. 80% res all elemental.

I make them "pop" - by shield charging into the middle, then kicking the living shit out of them. I use - Infernal blow (16%) - increased area of effect (lvl 15 ish)- item quantity, and melee splash. When I find a 5 link, I will add melee damage to it. Tbh, I feel, that I have more then enough area of effect. But I feel my damage is pretty low - 700 dps with item quantity, but if I put in the melee damg - I go to 1000 dps, and when I add elemetal damg, I go to 1300 ish. That on the contrary works out pretty well, and because I use a slow 1 hander, I actually kill stuff pretty well. But for the time, I use my 700 Dps combo, for the addet quantity.

My gear is horrible, and when something nice starts dropping, I am sure my DPS will go a lot higher.

I took the melee damg nodes, I figured - you need to divide the elemental ones by 2. (you only deal half your damage as elemental, so increasing that by 50%, will only increase 50% of your damage with 50%)

I am very unsure about this though, and if someone could shed some light on, what will work better - I would be very gratefull.


Regardimg the BloodMagic support gem. I havent needed it yet, and think that mana regen + a few % mana leech, do the job pretty well, I am rarely OOM.

A gear upgrade might be one of the shields that add spell block... becaus casters are the nemesis! Church was a nightmare :P as was chamber of sins, but I did it - slow, but I did not die... :)
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast :P

Instead of the witch tree, think of maybe taking the 12% increased area of effect near the mdidle of the tree, since there are 3x3 life nodes there :O

You miss out on a few % of aoe, but you have a more solid route down the duelist tree. IMO

I choose the increased melee damage over elemental damage, because my build is very strength heavy. I "figured" that the increased phys damage, from strength, scale better with the increased phys nodes :)

After mindf*cking myself over this for a few hours - i decided to do some numbers.

If I hit someone with infernal blow, and my damage gets split into 50% elemental and 50% physical. What happends.

We assume 1000 dps.

500 DPS get converted into fire - which get reduced at a flat rate of x%. We assume 50% = 250 damage goes through.

500 DPS get remain physical - which get reduced by armor. Damage Reduction = Armour / ( Armour + (12 * Damage) )

I think Kripp used 8000 armor in one of his videos.

DR= 8000/(8000+(12*500)) = 8000/14000 = 0.571 = 57% meaning that 43% of damage goes through!
500*0.43 = 215

250+215 = 465 damage hit. on a mob with 8k armor, 50% fire resist. Damage got reduced by - 53.5%

-------------
The base remains 1000 damage

With +50% fire damage =

500x1.5 = 750* 0.50 fire resist = 375 fire damage that goes through.

physical remains unchanged.
= 215 damage.
375 + 215 = 580 = 42% damg reduction by mobs, of the 1000 base damage.

--------------

With +50% phys damg = base damage becomes 1500dps and half of that becomes elemental.

1500*0.50 = 750
750*0.50 = 375 fire damage that goes through

Physical damage is now 750
Damage Reduction = Armour / ( Armour + (12 * Damage) )
8000/(8000+(12*750))= 8000/17000 = 0,47% damage reduced - meaning that 53% goes through

750*0.53 = 397

397 + 375 = 772 damage = 23% Damage reduction of the 1000 damage base damage.

So to recap:

Using infernal blow - and hitting a mob with 8000 armor, and 50% fire resist. - with your 1000 dps weapon.

using the passive points on health = your hit will be : 465 damage to the mob

Using the passive point to increase elemental damage = your hit will be: 580 damage to the mob.

Using the passive on points to increase physical damage = your hit will be: 772 damage to the mob.

Disclaimer (I dont know wtf I am doing, and took the armor, and resist numbers out of my ass - I did this in 5 minutes, so someone help me please)

Also - fire damg on weap and stuff is not included... :)

Nice working together on this ^^

So I'm level 56 now in act 1 merciless. I will update my skill tree here, but let me just say how its going. I understand the importance of Enduring Charge so i also play with it now. Basically i use Warlord curse, then i Cry and it hase a HUUUGE range so normally i get 2-3 charges, then i wait a bit till i am surrounded and use a 4k armour flask and start hitting Infernal Blow, now for white Mobs it takes 2 hits, for blue ones about 4-5 and thats starting to get dangerous, so i will invest more into defense now that i got the aoe.

I went full elemnt damage on my gear, my infernal blow tells me 1500 dps, the glacial hammer 2k
But the numbers don't matter. All what matters is, how many hits do i need to make them pop. If i need more hits than i should be tankier, if i one hit them than i guess its ok to bee a bit more squishy.

Atm my gear isn't good, although i use 5 auras and have 82% resist thanks to Purity and 1-2 Endurance charges, my Armour sucks and i even use the Determination aura. I got almost 3k HP.

So here is my Skill tree now:


Now i still have the option of 3 healths nodes and the Inner force to make stronger use of my 5 auras. But i really want to go down the duellist tree to get arena master and the health from there too.

Oh my gems are: IF + splash + elemnt weapon dmg + blood magic (if i get 5L i want to add fast attacks)

Can u post your current skill tree?

About the dmg calculation: i'm not sure if it fits, but i think i made a major thinking error, when i thought that there is no use in going physical damage since i will be only doing 50% of it anyway. Somehow im getting along with my weapon and 3 auras who all add elemtnal dmg, but maybe your passiv tree is better since it doesn'T require a good elemental weapon or other items.

PS: I'm thinking about taking elemental weakness curse with me for those ele resist packs

Oh one more thing: How can u play with shield charge? It gets suck everywhere and stops on the first target. I'm using leap slam, since i also like to jump up and down some walls or jumping right into the midde of a low pack. But thats probably just taste.

I went slowly through your dmg calculation and have to say it makes a lot of sense. It really seems that its more important to boost the initial physical damage than to boost the elemental portion of it. BUT! I think its a bit easier to get higher % nodes on elemental damage (or fire) compared to physical damage. I would say the 6% one hand physical compares to 10% element and 18% pysical (like a mace node) to 30% element or fire weapon. Moreover i thought that the elemental nodes also boost the auras and extra element damage that comes on weapons in general.

So basically your example is correct, but you should start off with a different baase damage, like: 700 physical 300 elementl. Thats what a normal weapon could have.

Of course you can argue that you find a weapon with only super high physical % for the same price as a lower physical weapon + element nodes

Im a level 70 templar tank on that kind of build.
Im equiped with lioneye shield and the "cant b chilled and incresed chilling duration" as chest and trielemental weapon. I used that kind of build pretty much till now.
I worked a lot on it and I´ve finished the game already.
My main atack were Glacial hammer for single target. But i added to the multistrike and the elemetntal weapon an extra with "ELEMENTAL PROLIFERATION" wich allow me to freeze or at lest chill most of the enemys around even if im not in melee with them.
If u go for a boss, switch it with cold penetration (blue socket)
I never deal critics in order to hit all my atacks cos theres not so much dextery and acurracy around, i hate to fail hits and is the best way to save some points, but... that made me use some extra skills to trigger burning with the infernal blow.
That´s cos shock, burn and freeze only triggers when u deal a critical hit or with some special stuff like passives, curses, habilities, quality on some gems...
So my main atack is, Infernal blow + multystrike + elemental weapon + splash damage + chance to ignite + increased burning damage.

Anyway right now im trying to rebuild everything up so im thinking how to improve my damage by pasives. Still not sure about how to do it but. after reached level 70 I can give some tips around.

1st one. Get all the stuff that say % armor and energy shield. and the one next to that one saying stuff about shield.
With that I have right now like. "6k armor without any aura or any stuff"
Get the mage stuff that gives resistance and elementa damage at once. With both of them i reached the 75% to all pretty easy without expending lot of exalts in resistance items. in order to base them in damage or other stuff.
Ialso have like 2,5k life and almost another k of energy shield. especially if u use discipline wich give u like 600 extra energy shield. (mana reduction on it)

Im always using anger and the lightning one with mana reduction 2. 1k dps for free is 2 much to say no :p
I spam molten shell as much as posible wich gives me like another 2k of armor wich make me have no need for endurance cry or the armor aura, and explodes in fire damage wich helps a lot when u r surrendered. IT could b improved with chance to ignite asswell or chance to flee... it depends of what u need.

Reached this point I have no idea about how to improve my damage. I dnt know if i should go for improve all the trielemental stuff - or - phisical and fire to the maximum posible to improve the infernal blow and use glacial hammer with cold to fire...

I just tryed the combo with lightning strike + multystryke + chain + greater multiple elemental damage + splash damage.
Not working as i wanted.
I were thinking that with the melee splash it will b like 200 lignings around with shock but... :-S
the lightning only triggers from the place where u hit. not from the target so is just working in one of them. Not usefull enought to get life stealing for hit working properly in a hight rate. Sh*t. Anyway is not a bad atack. If u include that point that make them explode in 33% of life in fire around works pretty much as the infernal blow but in lightning.

So... :-S I have no idea about what should i do.
I´ve reached the tank goals but is hard to get lifesteal with no phisical damage. U have to be bassed on life per hit.

Most of the times minions do "0" damage to me with 40% block and 6k armor. Im pretty safe but Id like to get some lifesteal and manasteal. I also want to know wich option is better. the lightning strike one with 20% pasive shock chance and minions inestability or the infernal blow with chance to ignite (40%) and icnresed ignite damage.

Opinions..?