Theory - Domination Chober Chaber build

Ok so, I was farming docks in Anarchy Merciless on my sporker witch when I got this.



I'd never actually expected to find myself in possession of one of these mauls so when I looked at it, the urge to create struck me again.

As we can all see, whomever created this unique has the hots for Dominating Blow. It's literally what this thing is made to do. But you can also see that this is hardly endgame potential dps. It's a level 40 weapon that does ok damage for THAT range but once we hit higher levels that quickly loses its luster.

Now at this point I'd have been a little stumped but that's when I recalled my very (relatively) young Elemental Cleave Templar coming up from act three Normal in Anarchy too. Right now he's not developed enough to really start cleaving yet so I've been playing him as a sweep templar but with an obvious lean to elemental damage. He trucks. Hard.

That got me thinking. Not only would I want to try and take some 2hander/mace passives to boost DPS, I'd likely want to lay on fire damage as well to make the weapon and attack scale better in endgame.

So as with all this in mind, this was what I came up with on the tree



It looks pretty solid from my end. At first I wanted to go EB but it was a bit of a hollow reach. Not much out there I was after aside from EB itself. I also was thinking about going with the idea of retaining critical strikes and not taking RT but then I realized how little was invested in it and decided to just say meh. Yes, there's some wasted crit and accuracy in the Galvanic Hammer circle but really, it's not much to stress to me, merely a means to an end. It WOULD be neat to gain some critical capability to make use of those wasted stats though...

I obviously don't want to really assume this doesn't need any refinement, that's what this thread is for. I'd like some other opinions on this, If there's any real way to optimize what I have as it is now.

Thoughts? It'd be much appreciated.

bump for feedback

The fun part is that dominate is an effect, so as long as you hit them - even if your minions kill them afterward - they'll convert for you.

I can't see the tree because it won't work on my work computer. However, I am currently running a dominating blow build on my level 79 Templar, using that slow 2H unique maul (the one with the weird name and high dps).

I've found that my build is very fun in solo play. I am running Eldritch Battery with a very nice piece of hybrid chest armor (600+ AR 500+ ES) and a bunch of mana regeneration nodes and rings. The advantage of doing this is that it allows me to run "always on" high level arctic armor with very little mana drain while moving and makes the mana cost of dominating blow unnoticeable. Once I get some better gear with more mana and dexterity, I'll eventually be able to run 8 auras with no life reserved, which provides a nice benefit to the converted minions. Furthermore, the build gives me access to auras that are currently unavailable with skill gems (reflect, allies cannot die, increased physical damage, etc.), by converting rare monsters with those auras. I like to convert 30 minions in Lunaris 3 Merciless, and then bull rush Piety before they expire.

The drawback of the build is that it becomes problematic when I have more than three people in my group. Because the attack alone doesn't have high dps, I rely on having a few dozen minions to make up the dps difference, and it's difficult to convert that many monsters in a larger group.

The weapon has a low dps potential and you want to use dominating blow. So what about going rt and after that focusing on the minions alone since you dont actually have to kill anything but apply the buff on the mobs only? As far as I know you can use melee splash with it so in groups you just run around converting everything into minions.

So lets come to the next point: how do you increase your usefulness for a party aside from generating minions? The gems you use with DB also apply to the minions which you can use to your advantage. Since all you need is melee splash on DB to apply the buff to as many creeps as possible you got 4 more slots for your minions exclusively.

You should definitely give minion instability a try and if this works out well enough and your minions die frequently you can spec into fire dmg nodes to increase your dmg. Otherwise spec into the minions nodes or go for pure survivability + auras.

You won´t deal much dmg yourself anyways so maybe you can go for dual totems. I myself can´t think of something useful to do with them but maybe your or someone else has a good idea. The only think that comes to my mind would be using them for shock stacking or freezing the mobs for either increased dmg or survivability.

Thats how I would go about the build. Personally I would think about rolling some other character because the templar has to take some nodes that are not too benefical for the build.

"

Ulfgaard wrote:

I can't see the tree because it won't work on my work computer. However, I am currently running a dominating blow build on my level 79 Templar, using that slow 2H unique maul (the one with the weird name and high dps).

I've found that my build is very fun in solo play. I am running Eldritch Battery with a very nice piece of hybrid chest armor (600+ AR 500+ ES) and a bunch of mana regeneration nodes and rings. The advantage of doing this is that it allows me to run "always on" high level arctic armor with very little mana drain while moving and makes the mana cost of dominating blow unnoticeable. Once I get some better gear with more mana and dexterity, I'll eventually be able to run 8 auras with no life reserved, which provides a nice benefit to the converted minions. Furthermore, the build gives me access to auras that are currently unavailable with skill gems (reflect, allies cannot die, increased physical damage, etc.), by converting rare monsters with those auras. I like to convert 30 minions in Lunaris 3 Merciless, and then bull rush Piety before they expire.

The drawback of the build is that it becomes problematic when I have more than three people in my group. Because the attack alone doesn't have high dps, I rely on having a few dozen minions to make up the dps difference, and it's difficult to convert that many monsters in a larger group.

That doesn't sound fun at all... /drippingwithsarcasm

I came into this idea knowing my personal swing dps wouldn't really be hitting very hard but that's why I went into some 2h and mace dps nodes to try and make up for that fact at least a little to make the endgame easier to manage.

So I should reconsider eldritch battery then. I had that idea, as I think I stated, but not much else on that side was really too useful allow me to rethink that angle.

"

Tiossi wrote:

The weapon has a low dps potential and you want to use dominating blow. So what about going rt and after that focusing on the minions alone since you dont actually have to kill anything but apply the buff on the mobs only? As far as I know you can use melee splash with it so in groups you just run around converting everything into minions.

So lets come to the next point: how do you increase your usefulness for a party aside from generating minions? The gems you use with DB also apply to the minions which you can use to your advantage. Since all you need is melee splash on DB to apply the buff to as many creeps as possible you got 4 more slots for your minions exclusively.

You should definitely give minion instability a try and if this works out well enough and your minions die frequently you can spec into fire dmg nodes to increase your dmg. Otherwise spec into the minions nodes or go for pure survivability + auras.

You won´t deal much dmg yourself anyways so maybe you can go for dual totems. I myself can´t think of something useful to do with them but maybe your or someone else has a good idea. The only think that comes to my mind would be using them for shock stacking or freezing the mobs for either increased dmg or survivability.

Thats how I would go about the build. Personally I would think about rolling some other character because the templar has to take some nodes that are not too benefical for the build.

Minion Instability is only affected by minion damage, not my fire damage so it wouldn't really do any good to spread myself so thin in that regard anyway. You're right about the minion supports though. I'm counting increased duration as one of the supports on DB of course and considering added fire for my own dps purposes. Past that, not sure.