[0.8.5 updated] Kryce's Manifest Armour & Shield Throw | Simply Unethical damage

Sentinel
1

Introduction

This build is based on a single minion, manifest armour and its interaction with shield throw to do disgusting damage.

Pros:
-absolutely INSANE damage
-very good scaling, there are always upgrades to be chased
-very tanky, >3k life with base ~40% damage reduction from armour (scaling higher during combat)
-mobile with near permanent uptime on haste

Cons:
-no on-demand movement skill, we use javelin which is a combo skill and it has a 6 sec CD
-clear is better than traditional minions but still pales in comparison to things like reign of winter/lightning blast etc
-requires at least a suloronā€™s step to get the build running

A little video showcase :slight_smile: The last 5 seconds of the video ā€œ3 Ricochet mechanic demoā€" will be explained in ā€œkey build interactionsā€ later so ignore it for now.

Disclaimer: this guide is TEXT-HEAVY. You can click on the link below to my current character if it proves too wordy for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuYT1KrQorI (legendary maw, 180 corrupt orobyss, T4 Julra)
https://youtu.be/5RB2jXm6b0M (no legendaries, arena echo gameplay, 200 corrupt crit avoid orobyss)
https://youtu.be/ZaXK71BKZls (Mono gameplay showing clearspeed, 240 corrupt)

How does the build perform, moving from 0.8.4 to 0.8.5?

Absolutely nothing changed.

Iā€™m surprised the devs did not at least do some numerical changes to the nodes. At the same time, 2 builds that could compete with this build for high dps (reign of winter bowmage & poison umbral blades) were nerfed in this patch. Bowmage in particular was hit HARD. As of the time of this edit (20/3/22), this build, along with crit squirrels, is probably the highest dps in the game

How does the build handle the new dungeons and arena champions?

T4 Arena champions
The build absolutely rips apart tier 4 arena champions. However, you have to be careful doing T4 arena champs since the damage modifiers can scale upwards of 600%. If you do not have at least 3k life with sufficient armour and maxed resistances, you may find yourself getting blown out of the water if you encounter dangerous monsters on the last 10 waves.

Soul Fire Bastion
With the keys being bugged atm, I have not managed to get enough keys to enter T4 :frowning: but from what I have seen from T1 and T2, the mechanics do not seem as punishing as the lightless arbour. Will update again once keys are fixed.

Lightless Arbour
Iā€™ve thrown upwards of 10 keys at T4 and I have no idea how tf youā€™re supposed to do this boss. I think youā€™re supposed to keep the light on the boss during his attacks and move it to the kindling in between his attacks (his abilities absolutely melt you if you dont, the falling rocks which might as well not have an indicator given how fast they fall, chonk me for 1.5k-ish, the slam is a straight up one-shot).

This is probably a mechanical problem and from what Iā€™ve seen from T3, you should have no problem dpsing his heart if you can nail down the fightā€™s mechanics.

Are there any new uniques relevant to the build in 0.8.5?

No.

The new uniques in this patch are generally lacklustre with the exception of Dragonsong (basically fire version of RoW). That being said, the devs have hinted that more new uniques will be arriving in the coming weeks so I will update this section once we have more info.

My current character (updated 20/3/22)
Key build interaction (PLEASE READ, esp if you have never played a similar build)

Shield Throw and Manifest Inspiration

The entire build revolves around the shield throw node: manifest inspiration. This node causes our manifest armour to perform a spinning attack with a moderate AOE whenever our shield throw projecile hits it.

This is essentially an extra attack with 360 degree AOE with no cooldown. I say extra attack because it does not cancel our MAā€™s default attacks when it procs this.

Therefore, we can essentially jack our MAā€™s attack speed to the moon using generic attack speed and throwing attack speed.

Abusing the difference betweenw hit and ricochet

Manifest inspiration procs on shield hit and not ricochet.

Our shield throw projectile hits everything in its travel path as it ricochets. Therefore by speccing our shield throw for 3 ricochets and using careful positioning, we can proc 3 AOE attacks with a single shield throw. You can see a demo of me doing this on the training dummy in the last 5 seconds of the video above.

Even more in depth explanation of how/why the 3 ricochet works

Why do you need 3 ricochets and how are ricochets counted?

First of all, just think of ricochets as the number of targets that the projectile can land on before it has to return to you. You can also think of it as how many times it can travel between 2 targets before it returns to you.

1st ricochet (travelling from you to the enemy, with your minion in between). This procs 1 AOE attack, but not because it ricocheted off your MA but because it hit your MA on its way to the enemy

2nd ricochet (travelling from the enemy to your MA). This procs 1 AOE attack because it ricocheted to your MA.

At this point, if you do not have a third ricochet specced, the projectile will return to you from your MA, resulting in only 2 proccs.

However, with a 3rd richochet, the projectile will now ricochet from our MA back to the enemy. This will NOT proc a third AOE. However, the projectile will now return from the enemy back to us. If our MA is hit by the projectile on its return, it will proc a third AOE attack.

TLDR: position your character behind your MA, in a straight line with the enemy and watch healthbars go poof

Required/relevant uniques?

Suloronā€™s step is the only required unique to get this build going.

Everything else like a legendary apathyā€™s maw or prismatic gaze are purely upgrades and sometimes conditional depending on what is available to you. I have extensively detailed relevant uniques in the gearing section and will continue to update them as more are added to the game

Gear
In the gearing section, I will not be listing suffixes. You will be getting flat health/ hybrid health/ % health/ resistances / crit avoidance in these slots. Where and what to get completely differs based on idols and your items so there is no point in stating exactly what to get for most suffix slots (outside of gloves or exalted weapons). This also applies to sealing a 5th affix.

Helmet & Weapon
3 different scenarios here depending on what is available to you. Listed from highest dps to lowest

Scenario 1: You have a legendary apathyā€™s maw with flat crit on it
Ideal base: myrmidon (crit chance, offensive) or winged (crit avoid, defensive)
Ideal prefix 1: +2 Manifest armour
Ideal prefix 2: Either level of rive or level of vengeance

Scenario 2: You have a well rolled/legendary maw with no flat crit but still want to use it
Unique: Prismatic Gaze (a 3% base crit roll will be sufficient if you have enough crit chance on armour and gloves, otherwise 4% would be ideal)

Scenario 3: You do not have an apathyā€™s maw or have a god tier exalted 2h sword/axe
If your god tier weapon has flat crit, follow scenario 1. If it does not, follow scenario 2.
Either way, the suffixes you want here are:
Chill on hit/Armour shred/Minion Melee Dmg

Chest
Ideal base: myrmidon (crit chance, offensive) or winged (crit avoid, defensive)
Ideal prefixes: any increased skill level that has accompanying % melee damage
Sealed: same as prefix, there are more than 3 skill affixes granting melee damage

Gloves

If you are using ribbon of blood

Ideal base: Solarum (crit chance, offensive)
Ideal prefixes: throwing attack speed & crit chance
Sealed: Attunement/Minion damage
Either suffix slot: armour shred. This is the best place to get a source of shred. Since we do phys/fire/void, armour shred is a significant boost to our damage. Getting it here also means that our shield throw hit AND our manifest armour hits will shred (with our MAā€™s hit having 300% increased shred chance)

If you are NOT using ribbon of blood

You MUST get melee damage leeched as health as a glove prefix, it does not have to be high tier due to the amplify from MA and the increased leech rate from maw, assuming you use it. Without a source of leech, your MA will absolutely get shredded due to the amplified negative phys res from suloronā€™s step

Boots
Unique: Suloronā€™s Step
Hands down BiS, feel free to slam more affixes if you get 1 with LP.
If you do not have 1, you can use any generic move speed/life boots but your MA will hit like a wet noodle.

Belt
Ideal prefixes: minion damage and cleanse on potion use.
Cleanse will absolutely save your ass on high corruption, donā€™t underestimate it.

Rings
1st slot
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: Ribbon of blood
This gives MA flat phys and a source of melee leech to sustain it. The value isnā€™t very high but keep in mind our MA has increased leech rate from maw (if youā€™re using it ofc)

2nd slot
Ideal base: Turquoise (offensive) or coral (defensive)
Prefixes: throwing attack speed + minion damage or attunement

Amulet
Uniques & Legendaries: The Claw/The Fang/ Death Rattle

Otherwise
Ideal base: Jade/Turquoise/Bone
Prefixes: Minion damage & Mana regen
If you are struggling to get armour shred on gloves, you can get it here as a budget version. Also consider getting fraility on hit for extra survivability.

Relic
Ideal base: Heretical Script/ Mournful Pennant/ Argent Crest
Prefixes: Attunement/Minion Dmg
You can also go for sigils of hope here if a good crafting base presents itself.

Idols
Health and resists, plain and simple. You can also get armour shred on throwing hit, if a good idol presents itself.

Passives

Sentinel


The blademaster node is why weā€™re locked into swords and axes. You can technically use spears or other melee weapons but you will be missing out on 30% generic atk spd which means less shield throw speed

Forge Guard


If you wish to be more tanky, put the first 10 points into battle hardened instead of weapons master. This is probably a better choice overall.

Paladin


Grab more attunement/heal eff/necro res and health here. These pics were taken at lvl 99. The last point would go into holy symbol.

Skill Trees

Manifest Armour


This is a 22 point tree, requiring tier 5 + lvl of MA on your helmet. If you do not have the required affix tiers, which points to take out will depend on which piece of gear is the shittiest at that time. E.g. you have a crappy helmet, then take 2 points out of the helmet stat node.

Otherwise the tree is straight forward and thereā€™s nothing to explain here.

Shield Throw


The left and bottom side of the tree is mandatory for the build to function.

On the right side, you can choose btw what is shown here (3 ricochet setup) OR if you feel that its too much effort/not worth it/canā€™t be bothered, take 5 points off Hemrinā€™s Technique and Iron monger. Put 4 of these into armouring aegis and the remaining can go into polished steel or fleet of foot. This will make you more tanky and speedy/less taxing on your mana.

Sigils of Hope


Standard 5 sigil dmg setup. If you opt for extra sigil levels on your relic, put the points into decree of flame.

Void Cleave


Top left of the tree is mandatory for molten infusion.

If your MA is crit capped you can spec out of crit vuln in the bottom and put points into armour shred on the right. I prefer to keep these points to be able to do crit avoid nodes in echoes.

I suggest you do not take points out of the AOE node to make it easier to hit your MA since he is one hella zoomy boi.

Javelin


This is specced to give dmg, armour and healing for both us and our MA. It is also our movement ability. This will take some getting used to as it is a combo ability and may cause you to die to Julra if youā€™re not used to it (nope, definitely didnā€™t happen to me).

Blessings

I will not be specifying any of the drop rate blessings as these are purely individual choices. In fact I havenā€™t done a couple of them at lvl 99 since I donā€™t think theyā€™re worth it.

Blacksun: Health/Health on kill
Ending the storm: Lightning res/Mana/Health regen
Reign of dragons: crit avoid/all res
Age of winter: phys or cold res/chill on hit (at least 40%+)
Spirits of fire: minion dmg/fraility on hit

Change Log

0.8.5 release (20/3/22)
-edited intro, included pros and cons of the build
-edited rings and amulet under gearing, prioritizing throwing attack speed, armour shred
-added section on how the build performs in 0.8.5
-added section on required/relevant uniques
-added change log
-updated the link to my char

FAQ

Can you provide a loot filter?

No, I have already detailed which prefixes you should get be getting on your gear. All you have to do is translate them into the in-game filter, which is very intuitive to use.

Why do you not use forged weapons?

The biggest reason: they require 2 skill slots. One for forgestrike and another to actually summon them reliably (either warpath or multistrike). Not only is this inefficient, they do not provide enough value for taking up 2 whole skill slots. On top of that, it would significantly reduce how much time we have to use shield throw on our MA.

Why do you stack so much attunement on passives and gear?

Due to us using battle standard, each point of attunement gives us:

10 health for our MA (MA innate scaling)
4% increased MA damage (MA innate scaling)
4% increased damage and armour while standing in battle standard
2 Mana, to help us cast sigils and shield throw with 7 mana cost, more reliably.

While each of these values are low, they add up to give significant returns per point of attunement. I have been using this strategy for my devotion lightning smiter as well and it is even more busted on that build.

Can I use leviathan carver instead? It seems to be a great weapon.

From Apathyā€™s Maw we get:

101 flat phys (implicit)
90-120 flat void
150%-220% increased physical (combined implicit, both modifiers increase our damage)
Access to doom with up to 50% increased effect, for a total of up to 24% more melee damage (This is a multiplicative modifer)
50%-100% increased generic melee damage (this scales all added void and fire damage)
50%-100% increased leech rate

Comparatively, leviathan carver gives 180-210 flat phys, 200%-280% increased phys, 6-12% phys penetration. We can see that flat dmg and % increased damage are generally similar across the two weapons but access to doom, which scales all our melee damage multiplicatively and increased leech rate (helps with MAā€™s survival) makes the maw a clear winner.

Additionally, the maw is also easier to farm for LP compared to leviathan carver

My MA keeps dying?

Do you have leech for your MA? We get this from glove prefix or ribbon of blood (assuming youā€™re using maw). If you do not have leech then your MA will get blown up due to suloronā€™s step negative phys res being amplified.

If youā€™re one of the few ones who read the entire guide, thank you for reading this insane wall of text :slight_smile:

This is my first guide on last epoch so if you have any questions or feedback, do let me know below. Alternatively, you can PM me in game and I will answer your questions if I am free. Ign: Kryce

11 Likes
2

Interestingā€¦ I love playin my Captain America Pally, but it seems to have reached its limit offensivelyā€¦

From your video, I cant tell what Corruption levels for Orobys or Dungeon level with Julra, but those are some fine damage numbersā€¦ I have tried the MA/Shield throw proc before and its been okish especially to help with single targets - but definitely never got the numbers you are postingā€¦

You should do boardman21s test to kill Abonomation and get him to add your build to the build guide.

A legendary Maw with crit might be a bridge too far, but its interesting enough to give a bashā€¦

Nice first guide postā€¦

3

Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile: I have included a second video showing gameplay with a non-legendary maw and prismatic gaze so that people donā€™t get turned away at the mention of a legendary crit affix maw.

The orobyss fight in the first video was approx 180 corrupt iirc and the julra was T4, you can probably tell by the numerical modifiers on the right, i dont think tier 3 and below have values that are that high. Andā€¦ theres also the fact that her cold seekers hit me for 1.5k when I have 70% res and a good 50% further reduction from armour.

1 Like
4

Hi, thanks for the great build idea. Howā€™s the AOE clear / monolith clear speed. Single target looks divine, but howā€™s the farming potential.

5

You can see some mono gameplay in the 2nd video for some idea of how the clear is like. I generally use my minion command to send the MA into a pack and hit it with the shield, that causes it to pretty much delete the entire pack.

Movement wise, we get 1.5s (you can spec for 2s if youā€™re willing to give up some armour on shield throw richochets) of haste on shield throw cast, there is no hit requirement. We wonā€™t have rogue or shield rush levels of zoom zoom but it is definitely not lacking in clear/farming speed

6

After playing a variation of this for a while - its actually a fairly nice build to level/farm as you go because there are lots of different ways you can go as you find better gear. You can even use a weapon/shield till you find a decent 2h or if you are feeling a little squishyā€¦ Grief, I used an exalted dagger for many empowered Mono levelsā€¦ Lots of combinations I have tried workā€¦ and even at 100+ corruption you dont really feel like you are not doing enough damageā€¦

And the health leech on melee - that should be in big bold letters in your guide - the MA is virtually indestructable with that.

The one major downside to this is the silly AI controlling the Manifest Armour. It really has no clue most of the time and while the natural choice is to deal with X that is nuking you from afar, it will continually race off to attack Y on the opposite side of the screen forcing your to spam A and waiting for him to get to where you need him.

If there was a way to more easily direct the MA other than A, this would be a really really good build to playā€¦ A simple node in the skill tree to make it attack what you attack without using the A would make this fantasticā€¦

7

Thanks for the build guide, I canā€™t wait to try it out! The T4 dungeon boss has been kicking my butt, so Iā€™m looking forward to taking it down in a few seconds :slight_smile:

I donā€™t currently have a forge guard, so Iā€™d be leveling a new one, how would you recommend leveling this build?

8

This how i typically level my sentinels:

Lvl 1: Hammer of lorent, use vengeance until you get rive.

Lvl 1-15: Either keep using hammer of lorent or craft yourself a slightly better 2hander. Once you hit 15, get dream thorn. Spec your rive for void dmg on the left side of the tree.

Lvl 19: get darkstrides and continue using rive.

This setup will stay the same till you get your mastery. For your second skill specialisation, get multistrike and start speccing it for forge weapons generation i.e. Attack speed and the node that says ā€œusing forge strike at max armament stacks consumes all stacks to summon forge weaponsā€.

Once you get your mastery, unspec rive, spec forge strike for forge weapon dmg. i.e. the right side of the tree and any other nodes that say they affect forged weapons as well. However, depending on how much damage you have, you might want to wait for your 3rd skill slot before you do this as losing rive is a big dmg loss.

From here on you will be a hybrid summoner, doing dmg yourself and through your minions. Continue upgrading your gear since your forged weapons depend on it.

This will continue until you get manifest armour specced. At this point, you should at least have these 3: multistrike/forgestrike/manifest armour.

You now have 2 choices depending on your gear.

If you have good gear for your MA to excel, get shield throw as your fourth skill spec and start switching to a pure minion play style.

If you do not have good gear yet, keep the above 3 skills. Put points into paladin and unlock sigils to buff you and your forged weaponā€™s dmg, until you have decent gear for your MA to become the star of the show.

After you get your 5th skill specialisation, your skill bar should look like:

Multistrike-forgestrike-manifest armour-shield throw-sigils of hope (early game minion playstyle). This setup is mana intensive, make sure you get mana on multistrike use from sentinelā€™s tree and spec out of it when youā€™re transitioning out.

If you have farmed gear on another character, then you can switch to the endgame skill setup shown in the guide and get javelin as your 5th skill.

9

Yep, i was using an exalted odachi in 0.8.3 and it was by no means lacklustre.

Regarding the leech, i prefer to use ribbon of blood because glove prefixes are a big source of damage for us. Crit chance, melee attack speed, throwing attack speed are insane for this build. So having to give one of them up for a source of leech that you can get on a ring, which doesnā€™t do that much offensively, didnā€™t feel good to me.

But it definitely can be an interim measure till you get a ribbon of blood. And Iā€™m pretty sure i put a big bold ā€œMUSTā€ in the glove gearing section talking about leech lol.

How i tackle the bad minion AI: i run past several packs and pull them to me, this causes my MA to catch up to me since i moved off screen. I then stop moving and let my MA go ham in the, now bunched up pack while i shield throw from a distance.

10

Question about damage scaling in this build: the ā€œincreased damageā€ on chest etc. all apply to the minion at a multiplied value - what about the ā€œincreased minion damageā€ on helm? Does it only apply to the minion at a 1x value, or is that also multiplied to provide extra value?

Second, ideally would we have throwing attack speed on rings (23% t5, and legendary on the ribbons) for a lot more procs? Would the next best prefix be attunement/minion damage?

I also had a question about shred: do you currently have any sources of armor shred, or phys or void shred? With maw it seems like the damage is maybe 40/60 between void and phys so not sure how to approach resistance shred. However if you donā€™t have any sources of armor shred, perhaps amulet suffix, or a +3 manifest helm would allow 1 pt in the armor shred node (is there anywhere else youā€™d put that pt?)

Lastly, is there anything you think we could do to improve clear speed? Any possible sources of minion movement speed maybe, or some other stat?

11

Greetings pounder of posteriors!

For the helmet, the minion damage is applied at 1x, i use that affix for +2 skill points. Taking more melee damage here might be worth it but Iā€™m no math wiz so Iā€™m not sure how the math checks out. With 20 points, you will not be able to max all the stat effectiveness nodes.

For rings, stats priority is throwing attack speed-minion dmg-attunement. First 2 have 100% uptime while attunement only gives all its benefits when we stand in the banner.

Shred wise, I am intending to get it in glove suffix since it will be multiplied. Getting it on amulet is not worth it imo as only we apply it instead of our minion (which hits more than us). Another reason is also bc it is hard to sustain 3k life while having max res on this build (i still donā€™t) so every suffix slot must be efficient.

Of course this is provided that you like staying alive. I also intend to push high corruption so I made the build with some semblance of defence in mind. If meeting hades is a hobby of yours, you can get shred on both ammy and gloves, as well as getting void shred from black sun and phys shred from heorot.

For a +3/+4 MA helm, yes definitely put those in shred, Iā€™m working towards that as well.

Clear speed wise, i suggest you run through a few packs to draw aggro, bunch them up then send your MA into them. This makes it so that enemies are coming from 1 direction and you can easily obliterate them by throwing shields from safety instead of having your MA do 360s between each pack on your screen.

Move speed wise, MA alr moves so fast that I have trouble keeping up with my eyes, but hey if you want more, feel free to farm for LP on suloronā€™s and slam movement speed on it.

I donā€™t think theres any other stat that can get clear up.

Now go and pound those posteriors with your MA!

12

Yipā€¦ I am doing that nowā€¦ In an Arena environment, I virtually run loops around the map, stopping every so often when I see the MA is in a bunch of mobs then I tag him, and start running againā€¦ not a great way to play, but it does workā€¦ can be an FPS killer thoā€¦

I have found it fairly flexible - I use ribbon on blood and leech affixes elsewhereā€¦ If you are min/maxing then yes, gloves have way more important affixes, but there is so much ā€œspareā€ damage that I have found you dont need the build to be perfect before it worksā€¦ The general concept of taggin your MA and it mowing down mobs/boss/rares seems to work no matter what you doā€¦ Sure, you might not 5s Orobyss but lets face it a 20s kill is just as goodā€¦ :wink:

13

Ok yeah the armor shred suffix on gloves would be a huge spike to your damage, with t5 youā€™d maintain at least 40 stacks Iā€™d guess, so ~60% more damage multiplier on bosses after a bit. I was just asking about res shred since I donā€™t usually play mixed shred.

For the t6 helm, I do think that t5 on a myrmidon or winged would be better than t6 on a worse base since the 60% shred isnā€™t worth the loss. Not sure if I have an exalted MA on a top base.

MS on boots was basically what I thought as well. a t6 roll would translate to 100% increased minion speed. t6 attack speed on gloves if possible would also help the build feel smoother, and also be a lot more damage - if thatā€™s the only source of MA increased attack speed, a t6 23% would be almost 20% more damage than a 15% roll, and a t7 almost 40% more damage.

To cap crit, we would need ~400% increased crit chance (15% roll) - 450% crit ch (13% roll). Gloves alone can get you up to 360% in a perfect world, but with the way shaping runes are right now thatā€™s not happening. I guess you could use a Solarum or Dawn plate if you had exalted crit on solarum gloves (100% total) and you didnā€™t have exalted AS. That would offer 11-15 more flat phys for the MA as well from the skill tree node.

The damage is already great so I wouldnā€™t want to sacrifice tank or clear for single target - in fact the opposite would be true. I was wondering how this build might tank up to survive in higher corruption being a 2h build. Iā€™ve played only shield-using builds in high corruption so far (400+) so Iā€™m not sure what youā€™d do to beef up a minion 2h build here besides stacking armor and ~3k hp. The attunement banner armor is also insane but itā€™s not reliable when clearing. Would this be more of a t4 Julra farmer instead of a high corruption mono farmer?

14

Thanks for doing the wicked math!

I have played my smite pally to 400+ and while this build only has life, res and armour, i think its definitely capable of farming 400 corruption since you can easily get to max armour dmg reduction if you have enough throwing atk spd.

The problem at high corruption levels would be that you need to adopt a safer playstyle i.e. send your minion ahead to draw aggro and blow up packs individually. This ofc gives you slower clear.

But i think this is rly just how it is at high corruption since some combination of mods and dangerous monsters will straight up rip you a new one, no matter what build youā€™re playing.

15

I donā€™t mean to downplay anything, in fact I am trying to build a forgeguard for the first time just to play your build because I really think it could be something great. I have level 80 characters so itā€™s not like I donā€™t know the game and am a newbie but I *just noticed something that I wanted to bring to your attention. At the top you mention having Level of Rive or Level of Vengeance as an Ideal prefix 2 on the helm. Rive is Body only. Vengeance and Smelterā€™s Wrath both work for helm and have melee damage attached to them as you mentioned. No offense intended. Speaking of Legendary Apathyā€™s Maw, after seeing your build, I raced to get a monolith to 50 corruption, which is required to get the maw to drop according to Tunklab (which is how I found out about Rive) (thankfully I have a helm that has +1 MA +1 Smelterā€™s Wrath on it with enough FP to build up MA) anyhow. Maw dropped first time and I had a two handed axe purple with crit chance on it that was Tier 6 so I risked it and Heck yeah thatā€™s what moved over! I feel so good lol. I have a lot of good gear for this build. The only catch is leveling up. I have a mid 80ā€™s void knight that just crushes everythingā€¦ period but am always looking to try something different. This looks great.

As a side question: I see you have Attunement on two itemsā€¦ I know you say health, resists, and crit avoid are the ones to go for. Is there any reason to look for Attunement or was that a side effect of getting items with the other stats? Iā€™m building my loot filter and wondering if I should add attunement.

16

First of all, congrats on hitting the T6 crit on your maw, it is undoubtedly one of the biggest upgrades you can get for this build.

No worries, no offence taken at all :slight_smile: Good catch on the helm affix. Unfortunately, idt i can edit the original post any further for some reason. Anyway, i think its quite intuitive that we get the skill affixes for the associated melee damage so it shouldnā€™t be too much of a problem.

I believe i have attunement on rings because i couldnā€™t get throwing speed/minion dmg rings. Similiar to my reply above, the stat priority for rings is throwing speed-minion dmg-attunement.

However, having too much throwing speed when youā€™re low level without having too much attunement on the tree may result in you losing your mana pool too fast so adjust accordingly.

17

first of all, absolutely love this, I was looking for a reason to level a forge guard and this build fit the bill 10x over

a question though, how important would you say javelin banner is? Iā€™m so used to zoom zooming with shield rush iā€™ve been doing normal echos with that specā€™d instead, but iā€™m worried if Iā€™ll need the extra oomph from banner for Jura/high corruption shades or if I can get away without it for the sake of clear speed

18

Chipping in hereā€¦ I am running Empowered Monos with 130+ corruption and I havent needed to use javelin during normal play at allā€¦ I proc it in Orobyss or boss battles for the def but it really doesnt seem neccessary based on how I am playing right nowā€¦

ps my build is not near the OP in damage/ehp yet (no maw not enough health) but its critting 200k+ on the dummy almost every shot and Armour is 80% Health 2000. I do however have lucky rings with minion damage.healthā€¦

19

There is a couple of reasons why I chose to take javelin:

  1. There is a lack of skill points for us to put into our passives once we reach the end of the FG tree and get the 150% minion health node. Most of the other nodes on the FG tree straight up donā€™t benefit us. Sure we could put points into some armour nodes, but we alr get so much armour from shield throw that i find it inefficient. This is a big reason why i decided to stack attunement.

  2. Javelin provides us with a source of healing. This was important to me bc prior to this build, i was playing life based melee abom which solely relied on life pots to sustain. That felt like absolute shit so I absolutely wanted a healing skill since there is no minion dmg leech for players.

So basically, javelin is not just a solution for sustaining our life, amping dmg and armour, movement skill, but also for us to have an efficient skill point investment.

But I am curious about which skill yā€™all are interested in picking up over javelin.

20

I agreeā€¦ there is very little left in the passives to help this buildā€¦ I figure at least 5 points (maybe more) at lvl 100 have no real purpose in this buildā€¦

Javelinā€¦ I have it for those moments when it helps against big hits (healing you) but I honestly am struggling with alternativesā€¦ I tried Ring Of Shields but that takes the richocet so thats annoying trying to tag the MAā€¦ Still works, and it does make you effectively godlikeā€¦
I tried lunge and shield rush but again - they dont really do anything for the buildā€¦ Other skills either waste mana or I found that I didnt even bother activating themā€¦

I am thinking of Rebuke as an oh sh!t save skill but I dont think I will need it if I get my health up closer to 3k.

Honestly I think that for most of the situations, this build is fine just with MA, Sigils & Shield Throwā€¦ The others seem to be entirely adjacent to the main purpose of the build.