Want to make a molten shell + tempest shield Templar. What will round it out?

I really like the idea of building tanky, and taking advantage of molten shell's AoE. What I'm not sure is how to go about is rounding out the skill set. Molten shell will take care of melee enemies and situations where I can utilize AoE, but I still need something to pick off ranged attackers and unique mobs.

Basically the 2 options that I see are either going with a physical skill to fill in the blanks, in which case I'll need resolute technique, or I can use a spell, which will likely lead to mana issues. Taking resolute technique will remove the ability of molten shell and tempest shield to crit, but I'm not sure that much matters if I dont build for crit. I like lightning strike from what I've seen, but it really seems like the kind of skill that you center a build around, rather than one that you fill in holes with. Any thoughts?


As for the rest of the build, it would make sense to focus on blocks, since that is the most effective way of triggering molten shield, and the only way of triggering tempest shield, but the shield block passives are spread very thin, making it quite an investment. I also figure that if I'm planning on blocking a lot, I should probably invest in unwavering stance.


Beyond that, I'm not sure what to focus on between armor, health, strength, and energy shield. My gut tells me to focus on armor, life, and endurance charges, but I'm just not sure.

I think I'd like to skip over resolute technique and utilize spells, because then I can utilize diamond flasks for elemental benefits, but at the same time I'm not really sure that would be worth it.


I suppose I could use shield bash for single targets, which cant miss, right? Are there any other options that dont require accuracy rating?

Shield bash seems pretty magical. I'm not sure how it isnt OP, because it works wonders and never misses. I've been relying on ice nova so far because molten shell isnt practical yet, but I was considering using it with life gain on hit when things get tougher.

I'm a bit worried about mana management for later on, because the passive tree doesnt have a whole lot of available added mana % available, but I can easily snag 20% mana cost reduction with 3 skill points, so I guess that should help.


Using the unique buckler with 40% block will also take some of the pressure off of landing those block nodes on the passive tree, giving me a lot more flexibility. Is there anything other than spells that bypasses block? I plan on using that unique amulet that allows spell blocking.

You could do Glacial Hammer while useing a scepter for more single target damage and focus your damage stats more on elemental damage (will effect all of your abilitys).

Whelp, my templar has reached level 38, and in my leveling, I have realized 2 things: one is that I want to skip over resolute technique and use shield bash + charge. Shield bash is incredibly effective for single target damage, to the point that if it actually hit 100% of the time (which it doesnt because it constantly provokes desync issues), it would almost be OP.

Molten shell does wonderful damage, but it's AoE is unfortunately small, to the point that even with increased area effect, it's not going to hit any monsters that arent in melee range.

That leaves me with spells to handle straggling mobs. I used ice nova for a long time until the damage became sub par, at which I tried arc. THEN... I tried spell totem, which seems ridiculously good, especially for my build, since I can tank for the totems. I feel like I'd have to be an idiot to not get the +1 totem passive.

It'll even help me tank if I use an AoE spell totem totem with life on hit and increased AoE. Right now arc totem is fantastic for tearing apart ranged enemies.


As for my passive build, it hasnt changed much other than that I'm not worried about mana management nearly as much if I'm using totems.


This is what it looks like at the moment

Hey, just wanted to point out that just above templar area there is 8% block chance within 5 point of your Build
*points*
Also, if you get the strength node between totems and elemental adaptation, you can toss the ones linking the templars starting area with elemental adaptation.

Your build, updated to save a couple points on the highways, and with more block picked up.


And as a hardcore player I have to say; you're scary low on hp.

Thanks for the advice. I dont think you posted a link to the updated versions, but I can see the areas you're talking about.

Regarding the extra 8% block, I just figured I would cut those out and take them if needed. Since I have 48% on my shield and 4% from tempest shield, that just means I need 23% from passives. I actually have 25% in my build right now, so I need to take a look at how to optimize that, since I dont want wasted points.


I guess it makes sense that 54% extra health through passives would be low for HC, but I'm definitely not ready for HC. Maybe a few characters down the line. For now, my survivability issues dont seem to stem from HP as far as I can tell. I can generally tank massive numbers of monsters that I herd from locations that are my level, but sometimes my HP just drops like a rock and I think it's the result of low armor because my gear is crappy and I dont have any +armor nodes. The other issue though is that right now I dont block spells and my block is at about 56% which is going to make a big difference from 75%, especially once I have my stone of lazhwar. I'm also not using curses, would would probably help a lot with pesky ranged attackers that wont get hit by my molten shell anyway (weakening their offense, that is).

Here is an updated version, grabbing only 23% block from passives and taking the shortcut you recommended. Any more efficient paths you can see?




So my Templar is now in Ruthless, doing quite well all in all. Against melee mobs he usually one shots them with molten shell, assuming that desync doesnt totally screw up the placement. I use arc totem to take care of everything else, but the mana cost is really starting to get out of hand. Part of that just stems from using arc with spell totem, lightning penetration, added lightning damage, and iron will. I should definitely swap out added lightning damage for cast speed, if not mana cost reduction. Shield bash is generally just a pain to use because it seems to cause desync issues literally 95% of the time. I also dont have a good weapon to use with it, and there's a lot of potential benefit to using a caster weapon anyway.

I'm still interested in the idea of using an ice nova totem with cast speed, increased radius, and life on hit, since that will help me tank.




This brings me to my next question, regarding the AoE nodes I skipped over right near the Templar's starting spot. Does increased area damage get applied in exactly the same way as +elemental damage (for the purposes of elemental skils, of course)? That is, if I have +50% elemental damage, would +8% area damage add the same amount of damage as +8% elemental damage? Considering that I use molten shell as my main source of damage output, it seems like it might be a good investment. After all, I can get +elemental damage elsewhere.

On that note, if I had 30% increased area effect through passives, would it negate the concentrated effects AoE penalty, or would it be radius x0.7 x1.3?. I know global mods tend to be additive, but I just have to check.



As far as where I can expand my build to, the nodes that catch my eye are the mana cost reduction and + armor collection of nodes near resolute technique, body and soul (only 2 nodes to invest), and lastly the reduced crit multiplier + health nodes near the Marauder starting location.



Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

"

BRavich wrote:

Does increased area damage get applied in exactly the same way as +elemental damage (for the purposes of elemental skils, of course)? That is, if I have +50% elemental damage, would +8% area damage add the same amount of damage as +8% elemental damage?
...
On that note, if I had 30% increased area effect through passives, would it negate the concentrated effects AoE penalty...

Yes and yes. Those increased AoE nodes would be among the first I'd take on a molten shell build D:

RE Arc: Some skills have a pretty crazy mana cost once linked to spell totem and a couple of supports. Have you tried spark? I alternated between spark and firestorm on my templar's totems and while both worked equally well I ditched firestorm because of the mana cost.

I think having to recast nova totems to get them in the right position is quite annoying, but that'll depend on your play style. I'd say you should keep Ice Nova as a backup to molten shell. With concentrated effect the damage is good.

Interesting way of building around the molten shell. From my perspective as a HC player, you have a frighteningly low number of defense nodes, but I guess it's fine if you make it work. I was trying a similar thing a while back, got to around level 45, build looked approximately like this:
Next nodes to get would be Elementalist, Celestial Walker, the second Body & Soul Cluster and possibly also the Inner Force cluster, now that the armor aura is multiplicative. The idea was to up both the damage and crit chance of both the molten shell and tempest shield, so they could spread the respective status ailments.

I shelved the build because I couldn't figure a way to efficiently deal with caster bosses, the best I could come up with was using spark, which does not have that stellar damage when the tree is not built around it (Vaal was a major pain, I wasn't really in any danger, but it took forever to kill him). Killing physical damage monsters with molten shell was super fun on the other hand. I may revisit this now that arc is around to see if arc totems could help.

I am also a bit skeptical how the tanky my build would be come endgame - I would have to stack +life and also armor/ES gear (plus a lot of passives are sunken into +block), all of which do not synergize very well. I guess I will have to try it just to see whether it is actually viable.

Another node you could save on is in the area between the mara and the duelist.
If you get unwavering stance by going past blood magic instead of though the endurance charge, you can save one point from the duration increase to the charges.
(charge duration)-(str)-(str)-(str)-(unwavering) vs (str)-(str)-(str)-(unwavering)


The main reason I was picking up more block chance was that perandus is a weak shield later game. Totally amazing at low levels, but if you can reach 75% block without, you're gonna want to replace it.
The sudden drops in health thing is usually caused by someone getting a lucky crit on you. It's why most pure evasion builds (which is really what block is) need to stack hp. One chaos hit with increased crit is all it takes in merciless.


You probably want to look into getting a rathpith globe when you finally get to level 70.

It has around 10% less block chance than perandus, but man is it worth it. You'd be able to reach 75% spell block with that sucker. Plus frankly, at level 50 you can get like, 500 armor off of a rare shield.
daresso's courage would be a nice upgrade too.