Build overview
The build explained
This is a low life Marrow Shards Lich build. Utilizing being at low life. Optimizing the use of potions, dealing high critical damage, stacking attack speed, crit mulitplier, dodge, intelligence and health.
Required unique: Exsanguinous. (random drop cannot be gambled).
What makes the build so powerful
With this build Marrow Shards is free to cast. It doesn’t cost mana nor health. We always have guaranteed crits due to Bone Curse → Illusion of Pain and we re-apply Bone Curse due to Bone Curse → Cursed Limbs.
Further more we enhance the build with smart use of potions. This is an unique approach on a low life build and makes the build a bit more challenging and interactive.
Using one of our 4 potions will trigger the following: 10% attack and cast speed for 8 seconds, 26% cast and attack speed for 4 seconds (stacking), 26% movement speed for 4 seconds, 300~ dodge rating for 4 seconds. Rotating potions will also sustain Reaper Form for bursting down bosses.
How to burst down bosses
Burst down bosses using the following rotation:
- Use Transplant to get into position (30% cast and attack speed)
- Use 1 potion (36% attack and cast speed + 300~ dodge rating)
- Bone Curse the boss (guaranteed crits and damage amplifiers)
- Use Reaper Form (30% cast speed and damage amplifiers such as Mark for Death)
- Use second potion
- Rotate through all your potions sustaining Reaper Form. Use a potion everytime the Elixir of Hunger buff falls off.
Pros & Cons
Pros:
- Absolute boss killer
- Clears all content
- High burst
- High mobility
- All the LL perks
- Crits without stacking crit chance
- 12% kill treshhold
- Easy mitigation with dodge
Cons:
- Not the best AoE
- Requires some end-game crafting to ramp up
- Requires Exsanguinous
- Glass canon (can get chunked cause of bad dodge rolls)
Passives
Acolyte
Necromancer
Lich
Skills
Marrow Shards
The main ability of the build. Picking up a ridiculous 115% crit multiplier, a ton of + Hit Damage and Bone Splinters for AoE. Makes clearing Monotliths much easier cause of the AoE.
Transplant
Transplant provides mobility, control (due to Sticky Blood and Reign of Blood) and a significant attack speed buff (30% for 4 seconds due to Acolyth’s Fervor. And some Global Damage.
Bone Curse
Bone curse if why the build works. Picking up Illusion of Pain and Cursed Limbs is most important. The biggest variation in the tree is picking up Oppressive Gaze for more single target damage. I would suggest not to, the AoE effect on Bone Curse is great for clearing Monoliths and content in general.
Wandering Spirits
We want to spawn as much spirits as possible. Spirits grant Ward and they deal quite a lot of damage with their stacking poison.
TIP: You can auto-cast Wandering spirits by binding the key to a numpad key. Hold down the chosen key + NumLock and the skill will cast on cooldown. Making the build more fluit since we don’t have to worry about casting Wandering Spirits. Auto-casting is approved by the devs and is not considered cheating.
Reaper Form
Use Reaper Form for mobility (Reap) and for extra burst to melt bosses. This is a huge damage buff and a defensive layer it being a second life pool. Sustain Reaper Form up-time with potions and Reap on trash mobs.
Equipment
Gear
I listed all of the prefered base items for the build in the gearplanner link below.
Note that the gear is rolled as “average” on a Tier 5 scale.
Notes per equipment slot:
- Helmet: Focus high tier cooldown reduction here. It’s good overall; especially for Bone Curse. With the extra cooldown you can maintain 99% uptime on Bone Curse.
- Amulet: Basic stuff with dodge added for this build.
- Weapon: High adaptive spell damage roll is what you’re looking for. Double dipping into Spell Damage + Physcial Damage is important here. Suffixes are not important.
- Body Armour: Exsanguinous.
- Rings: Pretty basic stuff + dodge rolls for this build.
- Belt: Dodge on potion, dodge and health.
- Gloves: Basic stuff.
- Boots: Can either be a good rolled/crafted rare with dodge and life. Otherwise Last Steps of the Living is a great unique.
- Relic: High Implicit roll and high Prefix crit multiplier here.
Idols
Flat health and % health.
The guide is WIP
I’ve been enjoying the power of this build and I hope you do too. Thanks for reading and I’ll update the guide some more in the near future (links, images, video’s and other sections) If you have any questions, especially as a new player, feel free to ask!