Howdy! This is my first posted build, and I’m gonna come right out and say that it’s probably kinda bad. It’s fun as hell though, so I wanted to share.
Character is only level 72, so this is more of a proof of concept than an actual guide. Please oh please feel free to take this and run with it.
I transition back and forth from Spriggan form and Swarmblade form to take advantage of that 70% DR while commanding a Swarm of bugs, thorns and vines. I only really use 3 buttons for this build, despite having two forms and 8 skills contained within.
Skills: Spriggan Form, Swarmblade Form, Thorn Totem, Summon Spriggan, Summon Scorpion.
Our rotation goes like this:
- Make sure our Spriggan and Scorpion are summoned while in Human Form, and go into Spriggan Form first.
- Summon your Thorn/Healing totems (9 total) and all your vines as you move throughout the map.
- When you hit a rare/boss/big pack, make sure you have your totems/vines down and then switch into Swarmblade.
- Summon 2x more hives, and melee them for more bugs. By the time Spriggan Form is back up, you should have about 50-60 bugs up.
- As soon as Spriggan Form is back up, swap back to it and resummon Totems/Vines.
- As soon as Swarmblade is back up, swap back to it and resummon more bugs. (Note: This will consume any Locusts near you, and do huge damage with Locust Swarm if you have the node that makes it scale with minion damage. Choose wisely if you want to keep your bugs or eat them (more come fast.)
That’s it. 3 buttons. I have my Form on Q, Totems/Hives on W, and Vines/Slash on RMB. I hit Q, alternate between W and RMB until I can hit Q again, alternate between W and RMB until I can hit Q again, repeat. When you switch from Spriggan to Swarmblade, it turns two of your Thorn/Healing totems into hives, so you only need to summon 2 more and hit all 4 of them 3 times to cap out. It also eats all your current locusts to give you a MASSIVE AoE DoT. When you switch from Swarmblade to Spriggan, it consumes 2 hives and spits out all the Locusts, converting those hives into Thorn/Healing totems - and if you have the “Summon 3 Totems per Cast” passive, it will summon 6 total totems for you immediatly when you switch.
I’m considering re-working my skill passives to include the Companion Ability Use on Swarm Strike use, just to get the Spriggan’s Rejuvenating Wind and 3 more baby scorpions, but I’m not sure if it’s entirely worth it.
As far as defenses go, I’m still not rez capped, don’t have a ton of armor, have very little dodge, but I still have only died once and that was entirely because I went AFK for like 2 seconds during a boss fight and got nuked. I blame my cat.
The defenses come from a pretty significant amount of general damage reduction, 70% from switching forms (this is up about 40% of the time) on top of Aspect of the Boar and a bit more here and there. The main survivability comes from having an insane amount of healing around you at all times. All 9 totems are healing everything around them all the time, your Spriggan pet has a natural healing aura that we boost heavily with its passives, and it also shoots its own Ensnaring Roots out that heals everything it hits as well.
I’m still working on the deets and min/maxing and figuring out the weak spots and all that jazz. I’m having a lot of fun with this build and I wanted to share, I’ve seen lots of Werebear/Swarmblade builds but nothing quite like this yet (though I’m sure there is and I just missed it) so here you go, have fun.