Want to fly through monoliths bobbing and weaving between Reap and Transplant with almost no downtime between cooldowns? Want to shred packs of enemies with a nuclear detonation of bodies each time you transplant? Want to tank huge amounts of damage with high sustain and leech? I present you my transplant build.
Arena leaderboard: https://i.imgur.com/j2FzhKx.png
Gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s0z_IHvCp4
Link to the build: Last Epoch Tools - Bear’s Transplant Nuke Build
How it works: The build relies on reaching a negative mana state to utilise transplants Forced Fruition to add +90% damage to each detonation. You should have seven detonations when you max out transplant. We will look for idols with Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed for Transplant and get the Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed on our helmet to bring Transplant down from a 4 sec CD to between ideally 2-2.5 seconds. Essentially, the build will revolve around abilities that require no mana (almost). Bone Curse will put us into the negative state by manipulating it to be a costly mana skill. Reaper Form and Death Seal will amplify our damage greatly and improve our survivability. Death Seal requires 1 mana to activate so mana will be allowed to regen above 0 momentarily before Bone Curse puts you back in the negative.
Indepth analysis:
Gear:
The gear was selected due to implicit resistances. This is the best combo I could work out to reach 75% resistance for all damage types. For people struggling to max out resistances the rings have optional critical avoidance that can be substituted with a resistance of your choice.
A one handed wand + offhand catalyst is preferred over a two handed weapon because Unread Scroll gives you the option for resistances, gives you base +x% spell critical chance that isn’t obtainable any other way on Lich’s apart from these scrolls, and you have access to the Wands of the Fallen passive.
Idols need to have Cooldown Recovery Speed for Transplant and you’ll need the Increased Cooldown Recovery Speed prefix on your helmet. The result brings the 4 sec cooldown of transplant down to between 2-2.5 seconds ideally. It doesn’t sound like a lot but considering Transplant is a core damage dealer and mobility skill for the build you’ll feel that faster cooldown immensely.
Some of the items have +2 to skills which is pretty easy to craft once you have the shards. It’s not essential but gives you more damage/survivability with those skills.
Blessings:
You have a lot of options here. In fact, some of them I don’t have on my character because my build hasn’t caught up to my theory crafting. One example is Grand Rhythm of the Tide for extra health regen - that blessing could open up some passives for extra damage such as Unclosing Wounds as the regen and life drain may balance out a bit. But I may be wrong since our life pool is so large the % drain from passives with life drain may be counterintuitive.
Skills:
Transplant:
Transplant has been specced in such a way to increase the number of detonations, and leave some regen potential. Sticky Blood + Siphon allows you to heal up to 9% from each Pool of Blood left by each detonation. That’s potentially 7x9 = 63% HP healed from a single transplant. Dance of Blood allows you to use Rip Blood on two enemies for an additional 20 hp per transplant cast. You could take the points out of these nodes and invest into Bone Armor and Apostasy if you prefer the armor and -% damage received.
It’s not worth investing into Rip Blood to proc on Dance of Blood because the build relies on you being in a negative mana state and so Blood Splatter will never proc if you’re below 0 mana, essentially gimping Rip Blood.
Bone Curse:
Bone Curse has been specced to curse/debuff enemies, allow it to persist for a few seconds after activation with Cursed Limbs, and has nodes that make the curse costlier to use (Ruptured Corpse/Bone Eruption). The prohibitive mana cost will allow the skill to be spammed a few times before it dips you into the negative. Once in the negative you maintain this state while balancing the requirement for Death Seal at a 1 mana cost. Be sure to pick up Acute Infliction and Oppressive Gaze for a significant damage boost (Credit: Llama8).
Death Seal:
Death Seal has been specced to put is into a low life state on demand (giving us damage modifiers from the skill and passives) and enhancing the damage output of the skill itself. Death Seal amplifies our damage output immensely.
Reaper Form:
Reaper Form has been specced to amplify our damage output and allows us a second chance at life when your HP reaches 0. It has increased mobility range and lower CD on Reap that allows us to be highly mobile with Transplant. Mistress of Decay is such a jebait node, there’s no need to max it out. The duration between level 2 MoD and Level 4 MoD is a few seconds.
Aura of Decay:
Aura of Decay has been specced as a means of increasing sustain. It has been specced to slow and chill enemies, reduce armor and heals up to 12% missing health per second. It increases the duration of Reaper Form greatly. I’m two-ways with Decrepify if it should be there or not. On one side it doesn’t poison yourself but lowers your armour, I have to test it out more if it’s better to accept the self-poison rather than armour loss.
Passives:
Passives have been specced to increase survivability (vitality nodes, no drain life). By all means you can select damage nodes to increase your damage substantially but the frequency you die will increase greatly with a smaller HP pool and passives draining your life/regen.
Some gameplay tips:
You almost have no cooldown between Reap and Transplant so you can zoom around maps. Against tanky enemies/bosses you just hug them to maximise the number of detonations that hit the enemy on departing and arrival. I wouldn’t say it’s the fastest killer of bosses but it shreds packs of enemies and moves fast. It’s fun seeing packs of monsters disappear instantly after your FPS takes a hit.
In arena dive in and out of mobs and try to travel of your blood pools to heal.