Owned for a while but just got to empowered monoliths for the first time in 1.2 and my homebrew build is getting wrecked.
I’ve peaked at build guides but don’t want to follow one. I do see that I seem to be missing some principles of buildcraft, comparing my build to popular ones.
I’m here seeking advice on how I can tweak/respec my Current Build to be more viable in endgame content as close to pure void knight as possible.
Thanks!
Welcome to the Forums first of all 
,
Would be nice to tell us what your actual problems are and in what direction you want to go or what you need.
For example if you die a lot it would make sense to invest in the bottom line of the void knight because World Eater is pretty OP to keep you alive. IF I’m not completely wrong you miss a few % to get to 100% slow chance what would give you some % more DR if you put it on the enemy always.
Personaly I would at least remove 18 points from the sentinel tree because you have much better and more potent choices in the VK tree. On top of it I would get rid of one offensive skill, most likely abyssal echos, to implement Anomaly into the mix for a buff to yourself that is less mana intensive.
To me it looks like you want to build a Time Rot DoT build for this you have a lot of crit stuff in your build that is “completely” useless and you should either get rid of it and go for more void dmg or time rot specifics if you can or you should turn everything arround and go for a direct dmg crit build. Having both isn’t working that well of each other.
That’s just a first glace. If you could tel us where your problems are and what you want to achive ppl could help out more.
Thanks for the welcome and some already good tips.
My problems are both survivability and damage in the initial empowered monoliths. It is taking a lot of work to clear an echo and I’m chugging potions and dying a lot.
This is kind of exactly what I needed to hear, re: build feedback. Dropping Abyssal Echoes for Anomaly sounds great. And once I got into empowered monos I did feel like my damage fell off a cliff, I assume this split/confused build is why.
I would like to go for a direct dmg crit build, I just thought the DoT would be a nice cherry on top but seems to be holding me back.
How would I go about moving in this direction?
First of all wait for someone who toyed arround with time rot 
. I’m not a sucker for time rot builds.
Falling down a cliff from normal ro emp monos is something you’ll struggle with for some time.
if you want to transition from a DoT build to a direct dmg build you need to regrind most of your gear pretty much. then you have to throw passives and skillpoints arround and you end up on a meta build 
. Maybe someone else got some insights for you. IIRC @Heavy toyed arround with time rot builds maybe he did so this season.
I just want to point out that you don’t have to jump from normal to empowered if you’re having trouble with it. You can increase corruption in normal monos as well. That will give you a smoother curve.
Hey Narcicero, welcome to the LE forums.
Couple of things jump at me at first glance:
Damage: You need to decide if you are a Hit/Crit based build or a DoT based build, you are all over the place and many things you take only scale on portion.
I don’t want to dicate you what you should take, so if you give us a couple of cornerstones, like what is your favorite skill and if you rather would want to go Hit/Crit or DoT then I can give some more targeted suggestions without persuading you.
Survivability: First and foremost you have somany points in the Sentinel base Tree and have not maxed some of the most potent Void Knight Passives.
Abyssal Endurance
Abyssal Fluctuation
World Eater/Unending Hunger
Doom Knight
Dark Maw
Eternal Form
You have no points or just very few in these.
Also you only have minor leech from the passives and only a Spell Leech Blessing. You should get more generic Leech from some of the very strong VK passives I mentioend above.
Then, why are you dual wielding? This gives you an incoming damage penalty, but can lead to higher damage. But with the skills you took you don’t really utilized dual wielding than much other than Rive maybe.
Depending on whic hdirection you want to Go Hit/Crit or DoT based you should switch to 2H or 1H + Shield.
If you thematically really want to go Dual Wield that is fine and I understand that, but then you need to take extra care for some defense.
Furthermore, you are lacking Health affixes severly. Void Knight is THE Health stacking class together with Druid. Belt, Boots, Gloves, Body Armor and Helmet are the slots with the biggest Health Affixes (Either Hybrid Health or %inc Health). None of the mhave any Health Affixes, except the Belt and that is only Added Health.
You are also using onyl class specific Idols and many of these are all over the place, reducing that to onyl the ones that really benefit your build and use more of the small 1x1, 2x1 and 1x2 idols with good resistances and/or damage affixes can really help you, especially aleviate resistances budget on the rest of your gear if you switch to more health gear.
Here is a planner I updated just based on the survivability for the passive tree, I left a lot of the damage nodes out, because I don’t know yet what route you want to go.
Once yo ustart to also get Health on your Gear all the Health passvies wil lstart to scale you incredibly high.
Just wanted to point out that he already decided on the route
Most likely Heavy was typing while he put out that info given the times of the posts . Non the less I feel like a Heavy summoner now .
On the topic: He’s making good points stick with them OP. I sadly can’t log in right now but my VK build right now is ass anyway because I just test how I get to the erasing strike build at best… and simply made a paladin to farm .
Thanks, I’m working on internalizing/incorporating all this. I did want to go hit/crit based so will be switching to 2h. Working on updating my loot filter as well for these tips. <3 for the planner as well
Woops, I had this thread open for liek an hour because I was doing soem other stuff and when I started typing I didn’t check if there are more posted already
Lets see what Narcicero has to say and then I can give more concrete advice
What you would like for your “main skills”.
Rive/Erasing Strike? You want to spam Erasing Strike or only use it every few seconds?
There are a lot of different routes you can go even within Erasing Strike.
rive/erasing strike. I don’t mind erasing strike having a CD. i like pressing buttons and don’t mind a complex rotation
i am into dual wielding thematically but not married to it, i think 2h are just as cool but thought having 2 sets of affixes would give me more room for more… affixes.
what about intrinsics? im currently filtering for subtypes with more void damage/crit chance, should those be health too?
Also it’s just really great to have more of an idea of where I went wrong in my own build. I’ve been meaning to analyse and respec but sort of overwhelmed by all the potential options.
edit: omg wait a second you’re THE heavy, thanks for teaching me how to filter loot <3
Good to know. I planned to dip back down into regular monos to relevel skills and get new gear after respeccing, nice to know I can still progress in smaller increments while doing it.
The big issue damage wise was, going Void, Melee and Damage over time all at the same time.
Defensewise you compeltely neglected health, while playing a class that sclaes with health the best
So then I will put down the planner here again. Mind you though this is only a suggestion and no “final build”, there are a lot of things you can do differently, especailly with Erasing Strike. A great example is the Implements of Destruction Node, this really defines how you use Erasing Strike.
My suggestion would be the “Big Bonk Crit”, but you could go with a Sword and have a much more agile fast playstyle, because a 2H Sword can give 100% CDR. 2H Hammer gives 60% more damage.
Here is a intermediate planner that you should be able to swap to realtively easily.
I ordered the importance of affixes by their Tier, so T5 has most priority.
I left a lot of suffixes empty and you need to fit in resistances. The idols can also be used complementary for resistances, especially early on when your gear is not perfect yet.
https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/QWeVEGEo
Then when you want to get a bit more aspirational you can slot in some incredibly good uniques, some of them are fairly easy to get with 1 or 2 LP, I just added 2 affixes to each of them, but 1LP is super easy. You oviously can get even more fancy, but those few uniques are easy to get, easy to target far,m and provide incredibly power.
https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/oPPE4dzo
if you like the big bonk playstyle you can also go Event Horizon, but that is a different playstyle and requires some changes to Erasing Strike and your overall playstyle.
Thanks so much for putting this planner together and your in-depth responses.
Working on implementing this today, didn’t get another chance to play last night. Will report back with results. I already have a few of these uniques as well! Feel like getting this up and running will do a lot of heavy lifting in me learning how to build properly.
Sounds good, if you have any questions or concerns just feel free to ask.
And remember, if something doesn’t suit your playstyle, especially on the skill trees, you can very easily adapt a few nodes to make it feel better for your, while retainign the core skills.
So after the full respec, and with the only gear change being swapping to a 2h sword while I hunt down new gear, AND only 10 points in all the skills–I was able to jump right into a level 90 echo I had previously failed and the difference in survivability was astonishing.
Thanks so much.
Was doing less damage but I figure with only 10 points invested in skills and the wrong gear/idols that will sort itself out fairly quickly. Current Status
Oh yeah just the skill tree poitns are the biggest source of Damage. I didn’t really put the points in the right order.
For ES try prioritizing 1 point in Prophet’s Onslaught, so it can’t be dodged, then focus Implements of Descturion and Obliteration.
I just realized I did a mistake on the planners. I was going 5/5 Erasure of the Living and only 1/5 Obliteration, they changed/buffed Obliteration this patch. you should priorize this and get Kill Threshold from the Passive VK Tree instead. Erasung of the Living is still a good more multiplier that you can get past 20 Skill Points
Would you say I don’t need points in Erasure of the Living at all until/unless I get a + Erasing Strike piece?