That is the only thing I can see to mitigate that punch in the gut on physical resist. Just convert phys damage to another type and build resist for that.
Yeah, if you’re a mage, the other classes would probably either have to suck it up or not use the boots.
1 Like
Seem like you could get stuck in a rabbit warren trying to use these boots when a compromise would be the better overall route to go. As much as the crit multiplier is huge, that physical hit will be really noticeable late game and you can get a little of it on an ammy.
1 Like
I also had this on my mind:
Would help with static dmg and plain 10% Incoming dmg reduction. With passive buff and flame ward (Maybe), this adds to over 30-40% plain dmg reduction?
I checked the gains, and it looks promising despite -physical resistance:
Teleport gives permanent 250 armor and 25% all res.
Firebrand: +240-300 armor and 120-150% fire res on max stack
Arcane shielding: +80% armor and 16% dmg reduction
Body, Sphere+Sword give huge ele prot - especially cold/lightning
No idea how armor scales now, but theres possibility for > 1500 armor at least.
Flame ward can give additional 1000 armor (1800% with bonus), 40% dmg reduction and 75% dmg goes to mana. Which seems huge overall, and leaves lots of space for affixes on available spots!
Theory sounds so sweet. 
Given firebrand grants huge fire res, ashen crown might actually make sense too.
You cannot get Fractured crown in patch 0.7.10
Armor does not equal physical resistance…
Those are 2 different things in Patch 7.10
Just saying.
EDIT: you will definitely want to get some + phsical resistance, to at least come close to 0%
Yeah, just saying there are good ways to increase it (calculates afte phys resist), and with ele % maxxed easily, there’s lots of space for phys % 
Even if you could get Fractured Crown you’d have a melee spellblade with 0 ward, huge spell bonuses not really helping and all for 10% damage reduction. Not a good payoff imo.
For Suloron’s Step, you’d have to have huge Phys res on other items - and phys res is very important as there is a lot of phys damage in LE.
On both these items, you lose so much flexibility and options over 2 good rares with 8 good affixes that not even one of them would benefit an Alluvion build, imo.
A large part of a melee mage’s build is to generate and maintain ward - passives give it and maintain it, items give it, main stat Int maintains it, attacks that hit give it.
With the changes in 0.7.10, some player attacks are slower - especially mana strike - and they also generate less ward than in 0.7.9. So as your overall attack speed goes down, your ability to generate and maintain ward also goes down. With mana strike, the attack speed used to be 30% and multiplicative, now it is 20% and added, not multiplied.
This is easily seen at the target dummy. Ignore the damage and see how faster weapons produce more ward. And how faster weapons affect mana gain from mana strike.
I have tried Alluvion and although I can get bigger hits (and I’m not using Firebrand, btw), my ward generation is severely hampered. And bigger hits don’t always mean more damage. I use Shatter Strike as my primary damage dealer and you can’t use the 75% attack speed node with a 2-h weapon. So a 2-h stays slow, but a 1-h - already base faster attack speed than the 2-h - can become even faster.
Overall, for me, Eye of Reen generates much more ward in a shorter time, returns mana faster due to base faster attack speed of the weapon and does more damage from the ignite than I get from increasing my base hits with added cold and lightning damage on Alluvion.
I can also use a shield with a 1-h weapon which is an extra layer of defense and 4 more affixes to play with - including all resists (max 14% T5) and reduced damage on block (max 10% T5), both of which can only be found on shields. Or use a catalyst for more damage/utility.
I’m sure Alluvion has a place somewhere, but I’m not convinced it’s on a spellblade right now as 1-h and shield is far, far superior.
Well passives give 30% ats, fire brand skill tree 29%, enchant weapon 50% - theoretically, you can get another 25-30% from amulett/gloves. Unique chest gives 8% Elemental dmg leech.
I thought to actually leech to survive hit fast and hard
It does sound good on paper, but I think you’d have trouble as the difficulty increased. Mage does not have passives that help life leeching - other characters have that - we have ward to protect us, not leech.
I have 30% AS from passives, 13% on gloves and 15% on ammy. Also 75% node in shatter strike.
Alluvion gives me attack speed increase of 66% which goes to 118% with Enchanted Weapon. And I can’t get above 118% when I use shatter strike because it is 2-h.
Eye of Reen gives me attack speed increase of 97% which goes to 160% with enchanted weapon. And then I get another 75% on top with shatter strike and 1-h weapon node = 235%.
For my build - my shatter strikes with 1-h hit twice as fast as 2-h. So Alluvion doesn’t really work for me.
I have tried weaving Firebrand in between shatter strikes for more damage, but for my build and playstyle it is too clumsy. That is using any weapon, not just Alluvion.
Also, one thing to bear in mind is the more uniques/sets you have then the less items you have to play with for affixes that may matter more, so trying to pair it with other uniques while not gimping your other affix options too much may be difficult.
Boneclamor Barbute is probably one of the best uniques for a spellblade as every stat is useful with no negatives to deal with by adding affixes to other items.
Oceareon would be interesting to try with Alluvion, maybe?
I think Alluvion would better suit a char that has 2-h weapon passives/skills that can compensate for the slow attack speed.
Hm I still think firebrand with the ATS, and shatter strike as “big hitter” with the 8% Elemental leech and the Sphere could be fun. Forget the boots
Will try out soon and give review 
I would say it should apply to any Shaman elemental damage skills. I heavily invest into attunement to boost my fire Shaman damage for swipe, tornado and earthquake.
P.S: I wish we had fire penetration in Shaman skills tree as well.
Damn. and here I thought we might have been on the right track… This weapon seems so good on paper that there has to be a build it is the BIS for… There are so few uniques that are BIS 
especially weapons.
Oh well, I’m still leveling up SpellBlade & Shaman alts to be able to play around with these, maybe something/someone will find the trick to using Alluvion. 
I`m still saying, it being a 2hand, it being a Sword, shatter strike granting +200% crit Multi, shatter strike benefiting from fire Brands “multiplicative dmg” and “guaranted crit”, shatter strike benefiting from extra dmg and multiplicative dmg from Spellblades upper skill tree after 10 hits with a “under 10 mana cost melee attack”, and it being a “over 10 mana cost skill”…
Makes it the perfect Sword for a build using shatter strike as the “giant hitter”, and fire brand converted to Lightning as the “Primary hitter”.
Because this scales with the initial Damage, which is high. And its adaptive spell dmg allows for passive spells (enchant weapons Lightning, static/Lightning blast, fire aura/the elemental burst Retaliation from passives?) to scale too.
How is it not a fit?
1 Like
You might want to check that Cold Steel works with 2-h swords before getting all gooey about it.
Edit: You might also want to think about how to get the most damage out of a given number of attacks/skill-uses, because I don’t think Blade Weaver is necessarily it.
For example, in my Spellblade build I use 3 hits from Firebrand to reach the 6 stack cap, then consume them with Flame Reave then use 1 (possibly 2) Mana Strike to regen my mana. That’s 5-6 hits. If I’d gone with Blade Weaver I’d have gained 45% (3*15%) more damage from 3 stacks of Blade Weaver. But I’d have had to given up 72% more damage from Charring (12% more per stack x 6 stacks).
If I wanted to maximise my damage bonus from Blade Weaver I’d not take Conflagrate & use 6 hits to get the 6 stacks of Firebrand which would give me 90% more from Blade Weaver but a total of 6 Firebrand hits + 1 Flame Reave + 1 Mana Strike (maybe) for a total of 8 hits all for an additional 18% more damage.
The most efficient way was Charring, for +72% more damage & a total of 5-6 hits per cycle (14.4% - 12% more over the 5-6 hits), compared to 90% from Blade Weaver & a total of 8 hits per cycle (11.25% more over the 8 hits).
This has sidestepped a little into a spellblade thread!
So I’ve created Spellblade Weapon Thread to further discuss spellblade weapon selection without hijacking the Alluvion thread.
while i can’t argue with the numbers here, i chose not to go this route on my variation of your flame reave build and it has been working very well.
i chose to spec firebrand in a way that kept it free to use, and put 7 points into blade weaver (was going to go for 10 but decided i was getting enough damage from it… will probably respec one point into something else to get rid of that 7th stack that i rarely use)
this keeps mana management very simple and removes the need for mana strike entirely, allowing me to use flame ward for extra defense and a bit of extra offense. while the numbers may not be as high, i find it much less tedious to play this way. switching between two attacks just flows much smoother than trying to work in a third, and i never run out of mana. the damage was high enough that i easily made it through the level 100 timeline for the first time, so for people who want to build more defensively or prefer less rota/mana management, i think it’s a good option.
i think this setup would also work well with an alluvion variation on the build, but i would go the lightning damage route and include fire aura (converted to lightning) to take advantage of the spell damage. i think the extra damage from stacking fire aura would help make up for the lack of attack speed but i haven’t actually tried it out yet to be sure.
It’s all a bit of a moot point now since they’ve changed Charring so it no longer gets inherited by whatever skill you use to consume all of the Firebrand stacks.
Hey… Got a Spellblade to level 72… very disappointed when I swapped to Alluvion… No matter which way I try and use it, I just cannot get it to work better than the alternatives available.
A deicide sword / flanged mace or divine scepter with T5 added cold melee + lightning melee + frailty beat it hands down in the damage department when considering multiple hits and the sword with its speed for generating ward on melee is hands down better. Sure a single hit from Alluvion can be greater depending on the skill used but overal over a mono run it really doesnt make sense.
My gut is telling me that its a factor of attack speed more than anything else but even at 90% increased (with Enchant Weapon)… Alluvion still feels inadequate and it would be troublesome to stack attack speed so much.
Yes I know its silly to “make” a weapon with these two damages but I built the passive tree & skills to use cold and lightning especially in anticipation for Alluvion… unfortunately a crafted weapon - in my instance - outperforms the unique very obviously and then you have the off-hand gear slot for even more benefit.
So… Spellblade is a great class, really kicks arse and is surpisingly tanky (lvl 72 deathless so far in lvl80 mono) but as a pairing for Alluvion… not in my opinion.
Next to try is a shaman… got it to lvl 27 so I have a way to go before I can test Alluvion again…
3 Likes