Ward based sacrifice build. I've pretty much min-maxed and could only get wave 230. Rats will kill you 100% of the time and currently there is nothing you can do

Acolyte
1

This build requires Exsanguinous and can be harder than some other builds as you need 2 skills just to deal damage and a 3rd to deal with elites. For a new player or for a player who just wants to farm for Exsanguinous I recommend this build:

To deal damage you need to summon skeletons and then cast sacrifice on them, meaning it can take twice as long as other builds to actually deal any damage opening you up to stun locked or attacked before you can cast.

My current Ward in town is 5380 and i usually sit at 6.5-7k in combat. This is far from min-maxed as I’ve fractured every decent piece of gear I pick up.

Skills: Summon Skeleton, Sacrifice, Rip Blood, Transplant and Mark for Death

Summon Skeleton:
https://imgur.com/a/1002DPw
Sacrifice:
https://imgur.com/a/ofLQ0tS
Rip Blood:
https://imgur.com/a/ARMkAVx
The blood rip gives massive amounts of ward i think i was getting 300 per enemy hit. It is automatically cast 3 times on all nearby enemies when you transplant. I was getting 2k+ ward just from using transplant and it was even doing enough dmg to kill the rats, only reason they kept killing me is they are immune to damage while leaping

Mark for Death:
https://imgur.com/a/89SCebS
Transplant:
https://imgur.com/a/TT03EDY
Acolyte tree:
https://imgur.com/a/F4JZHF8
Necromancer tree:
https://imgur.com/a/3m3wL3q
Lich tree:
https://imgur.com/a/LNputOl

Focus INT in the trees rest is up to you. (I will update them to show the order I got them)

Gear:
Set health>Intelligence>Added health>increased health>Health+Glancing-blow
My gear:
https://imgur.com/a/H29ohGq

Build in action:
Twitch: Twitch
I will make a YouTube video as well but I need suggestions on what content to record and post.

I have not personally tested this but the current top lich used these skills (full credit goes to Korimoor):

With Mark of Death, get the fear node and fear extended duration. This helps a ton with fast melee mobs and other twitch mobs. When the rats, archers etc pop on the screen, I fear them ASAP then Transplant out and regroup and kite.

Speaking of Transplant, take the nodes that spawn a blood skeleton on transplant. Once you Transplant away, the mobs will focus down your skeleton giving you the extra time you need to cast Summon skeleton and Sacrifice them.

Speaking of Summon skeleton, pick up the node that removes skeletal archers from the skeleton pool. This creates skeletal warriors only and they become basically a heat seeking missile. It helps on higher waves as you can kite away and summon and wait until you are far away and then sacrifice them.

2 Likes
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i have Exsanguinous, will try.

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Good guide :slight_smile:

4

welcome back (at least according to the forums)

5

First off thanks for posting this. I am having a lot of fun with it. I am currently working on a version of your build and while I have never posted a guide before I will give a couple of tips that have helped me in the Arena. I got to wave 236 last night and just quit as I had family obligations and had to stop. I didnt feel like I was in any real danger at that wave level either.

With Mark of Death, get the fear node and fear extended duration. This helps a ton with fast melee mobs and other twitch mobs. When the rats, archers etc pop on the screen, I fear them ASAP then Transplant out and regroup and kite.

Speaking of Transplant, take the nodes that spawn a blood skeleton on transplant. Once you Transplant away, the mobs will focus down your skeleton giving you the extra time you need to cast Summon skeleton and Sacrifice them.

Speaking of Summon skeleton, pick up the node that removes skeletal archers from the skeleton pool. This creates skeletal warriors only and they become basically a heat seeking missile. It helps on higher waves as you can kite away and summon and wait until you are far away and then sacrifice them.

My only question is how do you get your ward so high ? I guess with you taking a break I will have to figure it out myself but I can only get to 2k in town. Im trying to see just how you reached 5k ward. Is it really just health affixes only ?

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yeah health affixes and a lot of int. I will try the fear i dont really want to change my transplant though. If you made it that high with only 2k ward you’re going to go insanely far when you get the right equips! If i was going to min-max there are a few more offensive stats i could get.
https://imgur.com/a/oH74SJy

1 Like
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Thanks for the reply. I am also looking for which 5th skill is best with this set up. I am currently trying out reaper form as it is basically a second health pool (which again is helpful when you get to 200+). I also went full damage and cast speed on the reaper nodes along with movement speed nodes and it works really really well when the melee mobs get faster on later waves. I really think with more practice 300+ isnt out of the question. I cant compete with Werebear and other Sentinel builds but it is working well against other caster builds right now.

I cant see using rip blood in arena as I dont see its use case but I may just be missing something. I tried AoD first but I started thinking that I dont want mobs near me at all so I dropped it :smile: . Plus it getting poison resist up would take away from other affixes so I dropped it.

Im thinking of trying wandering spirits as well but right now reaper form is really a nice augment to the 4 other skills which I feel are basically mandatory in arena ( for a sacrifice build that is)

I doubt I hit 5k then as I went for 100% glancing blows and will try and get 100% crit avoidance as I think those 2 are just too good to pass on when it comes to surviving in higher waves.

8

The blood rip gives massive amounts of ward i think i was getting 300 per enemy hit. It is automatically cast 3 times on all nearby enemies when you transplant. I was getting 2k+ ward just from using transplant and it was even doing enough dmg to kill the rats, only reason they kept killing me is they are immune to damage while leaping

1 Like
9

Hmm very interesting. So you are building the skill but not casting it, just using it off of transplant…

Im sure Ill try that out then along with wandering spirits and see which can get me the furthest.

10

oops i thought i had explained that synergy in the guide, i will update that now.

11

Hi friend, I ran a chain sac lich the first race a while ago, something you may or may not know (as it isn’t clear), I used the Mark for Death node as a cool down bone wall circle for Oh Shit moments. Not only will it stop chasing enemies if they are too fast like rats but the bone wall actually counts as minions, so that is an instant 8-10 minion summon button to blow anything up when you’re in a jam. I actually misplaced it when I was getting ran down by an avalance bear in the race :frowning: .

Wouldn’t recommend trying this defensive option though unless you have another way to apply your 3 chill stacks to enemies.
I didn’t get to test it thoroughly but a neat little extra minion mechanic I discovered when preparing, Cheers.

12

oh that is cool might help with bosses for some extra burst damage

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