How to play the build?
A usual algorithm is:
- Jump/Lunge at enemy,
- Cast Warcry to summon 4 stacks of Maelstrom,
- Use Maelstrom and receive another 4 stacks via the node Beneath The Waves 3/3 in Maelstrom's tree,
- Do damage and keep up stacks of Maelstrom between 12 and 16 via Warcry or another use of Maelstrom, but watch for the mana's level.
- BE CAREFUL! As I do not use any crit mitigation affixes because of Serpent Venom 1/2, ranged targets should be prioritized to put the venom on them first and after that damage melee mobs, when they come close. Be mind of ice goliaths casting an avalanche on you, that can crit before you reach them, so or jump at them or avoid. A rule of thumb is to strike first.
- Use potions to trigger the relic's ability when mobs use poison, void, necrotic abilities to receive an additional damage mitigation and summon zombies.
- If the amulet's ability triggered, play safely.
Mobs to prioritize
- Any ranged mobs
- Fire-fenixes and ice-bats (be careful of their dot fire and ice aoe, jump at their sides and kill fast)
- Bug-riders, shooting blast arrows
- Ice goliaths, casting avalanche (not falling boulders)
- Cobras, making poison twisters.
Resistances
As you can notice covered all resistances except Void. But resistance to void is only needed when doing with Orobyss or in arena. For the former I have 3 2-cell idols with 2-3 Vitality and 17% resistance to void and put them instead of 4-cell horizontal idol and 2-cell idol with resistance to Necrotic damage, for the latter the resistance to void is not needed so much.
Dodge scaling and Endurance Threshold interactions
The interaction between the ability of Serpent Strike increase the character's dodge rating, while using it, and the boots Foot of the Mountain ability to convert dodge rating to Endurance Threshold (ET) is the main defensive mechanism of the build.
During the fight when you start using Serpent Strike, the node Slither 3/3 starts working building up your dodge. You can reach the dodge ceiling (80%) just with 8 stacks of Maelstrom. When you stop moving, all the received dodge rating converts to Endurance Threshold (because of the boots' ability), which cover up to 6k health. If you just stay on place and spam Serpent Strike, casting Maelstrom, your ET also increases.
So mapping comes down to the decision, when you should move around the mobs and when you should stay on place.
- If there are a lot of mobs, for example on arena, you should move around them, summoning zombies to clear packs.
- If there are few mobs(less than 5), you can stay on place, tanking damage.
- if you have ticking dots on the character, its better stay on place and let endurance provide additional 60% damage mitigation for all HP pool.
- You can mildly face tank bosses abilities staying on place, especially if they are of necrotic, void and poison origin, after using a potion, but some abilities can one shot your anyway (like T4 Julra's big AoE or Orobyss' big blue crystal smash) on high corruption maps(above 500).
Few words about gear
Weapon
The spear Lethal Concentration is better then another poison-themed spear, Draalsting, for more minion-inclined builds, where the most part of damage comes from pets. It has more base attack damage (78 vs 49), also increases your melee damage up to 210%. The both affixes greatly increase leech effect, because it comes from melee damage. It increases minion damage up to 210% and, the main part, it provides them a great survivability, because 8% of their poison damage leeched as health. And they do a lot of poison damage because of maxed out Viper Fangs 10/10 and Rattlesnake Rattlesnake 10/10 in the Beastmaster class tree and the node Claws of the Forest 7/7 in the druid class tree.
The weapon's LP should be used for increased SuffixDamage Over Time for Minions, PrefixMelee Damage Leeched as Health as primary affixes.
Affixes to consider:
- SuffixAll Attributes - Serpent Strike has a dual-scaling origin (Strength, Dex), Vitality is the third best stat to scale to boost character's damage because of the node Spirit Viper (after Poison Penetration and Increased Aspect of Viper Effect), Harmony needs for mana pool and also boosts Maelstrom. Only Intellect is used slightly by the amulet, when it summons ward.
- PrefixParry Chance - the affix works beautifully on two-handed weapons because T6 and T7 affixes have more % (T6: 15-18 and T7:18-22) than on 1-handed weapons. That means, when you tanking damage, staying on place, on average every 5-6 hit can be parried. When you move, for example, having > 12 stacks of Maelstrom and dodge chance is close to 80%, mobs can break through dodge on average on every 5th hit, T7 Parry Chance =20% decreases the probability of being hit by additional 4%, so on average only every 6 or 7 hit can reach the character. There are a lot of different magic effects, that are considered as hits and can be parried. Also Parry can ignore corruption levels: all mobs and bosses, on 100 corruption level or 1000, have the equal chance that on average every 5th their hit could be parried (if you have T7 parry = 20%).
- SuffixPoison Penetration and Minion Poison Penetration : the current setup displayed has, if my calculations are right, 86% poison penetration, which means, taking in mind the fact about monsters do not have any resistances, except rare cases, the character and the minion deal 86% more damage multiplicatively.
Body armor
The Titan Heart provides damage mitigation with two-handed weapon, melee damage increase and boost to health and armor.
Primary affix:
Affixes to consider:
Gloves
The Wing Guards provides huge bonuses for the build: up to 40% increase of attack speed, up to 200 flat value of dodge rating and additional chance to gain haste from attacks which stacks with the bonus from Hawk Wings 3/10.
The gloves does not let us deal critical strikes, that's why the idol Singularityis used.
Primary affixes:
PrefixDexterity - boosts damage from Serpent Strike, provides dodge rating.
SuffixHybrid Health - greatly increases health.
PrefixMelee Damage Leeched as Health - boosts the percent of leech effect from the melee damage dealt. You can consider take it if you are unlucky with crafting the leech effect on the weapon.
Affixes to consider:
PrefixStrength - boosts damage from Serpent Strike, increases armor value, boosts scorpion's damage and health.
PrefixExperimental Armour applies to Damage over Time- provides mitigation from damage over time and additional armor
SuffixIncreased Leech Rate* - leech Rate determines how fast your leech applies. 3 seconds is baseline. So, for example, with 30% Leech Rate your Leech would take 2,307 seconds (Base Leech Time/(1+Leech Rate); 3/(1+0,3) = 2,307
*IF you have it on gloves you can consider to take another blessing from the monolith "Black Sun", for example flat HP bonus up to 70.
Belt
The belt Vipertail provides additional slow effect on mobs, summons additional pet, gives more dodge rating.
Primary affix:
PrefixExperimental Volatile Zombie on Potion Use: the affix has a great synergy between overall increased minion damage that the build has, relic's special ability andHunter's Emanation 3/5
Here few words about zombies: despite the fact it has only 3 potion slots, you can summon zombies at any time, because potions drop very often, even when you fight a single boss.
Affixes to consider:
SuffixHybrid Health- greatly increases health.
SuffixDodge Rating, SuffixDodge Rating - the build is hungry for dodge rating to sustain comfortable levels of dodge chance.
Also you can consider any resistances your current setup is lack of.
Helm
Artor's Legacy provides additional skill points for minions, a chance to chill enemies on hit reducing their attack speed by 6% by stack up to 18%, additional attack speed.
Primary affix:
Affixes to consider:
Rings
The ring Ribbons of Blood greatly boosts minion's survivability and also increases health up by 10%.
Primary affix:
Affixes to consider:
Relic
The Grimoire of Necrotic Elixirs gives raw 64 HP points (4ViT*6+40 with max base values). Its second base passive do nothing as the build does not use health regeneration because of the body armor. Its another negative affix can hurt if using potions without hitting mobs, because leech effect easily overcomes the negative health drain.
Damage mitigation from the relic let survive through poison, void and necrotic damage, especially dots. Also it provides the opportunity to facetank some bosses, for example the Emperor of Corpses if use a potion before his large AoE and stay on his sides.
Additional necrotic damage is ~ T6 affix with flat damage increase, which boosts leech effect.
Primary affix:
Affixes to consider:
Amulet
The amulet Bleeding Heart is a good start unique amulet for that build. It is common and its LP1 version drops with the probability of 31.29%, so you can easily find it or buy on the market.
It provides attack speed and health leech from all the damage you dealt, damage over time included(but not your minion's damage). The health regeneration decrease affix is not important for the build because it does not use it.
The amount of bleeding it put on the character from using spells (casting Maelstrom) is negligible and easily can be compensated with the amount of health leech the build has.
Later in the game you can consider another amulet, more rare, Aurora's Time Glass. Its marginal utility rises along with the increase of the level of corruption (above 500), where monsters and bosses start to deal a big amount of damage and one-shot you more often. Basically, the amulet provides a "second life chance" every 20 seconds, its ward effect scales well with the amount of health you have, it also provides a flat health increase and additional attack speed.
It can be farmed only in the monolith "Age of Winter" from the nodes with special rewards, while Bleeding Heart is a common drop and can be farmed everywhere.
Some rough calculations:
Bleeding Heart with 2 legendary potential drop chance according LE tools: 6,01%, so mathematical expectation of the number of mobs to kill before the amulet drops is 1/(6,01/100) = 17.
Aurora's Time Glass with 1 legendary potential drop chance according LE tools: 6,12%, and reroll chance 80% has total probability of 6,12% * (100-80)% ~ 1.2%. The tomath expectation in this case is ~ 83 number of attempts to complete special nodes to get the amulet.
Affixes to consider:
SuffixHealth - provides flat value of health increase that consequently boosted by the percentage increase from the class tree, armor and idols.
PrefixPhysical Damage - provides the increase of spear's melee physical damage boosting health leech value.
SuffixChance to Shred Armour on Hit - with high attack speed that allows to make, on average 4 attack per second, you can reach a relatively high number of stacks of shred armor. For example, tier 5 affix with good roll can provide 20 stacks on average, which increase extra physical damage taken by 37% from your and your pet melee attacks.
SuffixChance to apply Frailty on Hit - if you do not have it on gloves or relic you can consider this affix as a good damage mitigation tool in your arsenal.