[3.12] Cast While Channelling VD/Any Skill Chieftain - Terrific all rounder, easy A8 Sirus

"

brosmike wrote:

I started leveling this a few days ago, up to level 82 now. My notes from leveling:

* I used melee skills until 38 with vendor recipe weapons. This was somewhat painfully low damage from 20-38 or so; if you're taking this route, definitely diverge from the POB skill tree to pick up some extra damage and respec at 38.
* Use vitality while leveling, it's very helpful.
* Once I hit level 38 and did first lab, Cyclone + CwC + Firestorm felt perfectly fine until 65 with just Tabula and self-found rare stuff
* I tried using 2 Widowmakers, but I found that just using a self-found rare staff with +fire damage to spells was better
* I used a Tabula with +2 to Socketed AoE Gems (it was the same price as an uncorrupted Tabula when I bought it)
* It felt good to buy and use most of the basic gear immediately at 65 (Disintegrator, Scold's, Stampede, Soul Tether, Glorious Vanity, cluster jewels, 5-10c non-cluster jewels, non-unique flasks). This cost ~5ex, most of it in Glorious Vanity and cluster jewels.
* *Voidbringer is the exception to this!* Using Voidbringer right at 65 was way more self-damage than I could handle at that point. You want *at least* merciless lab, and it will feel much more comfortable with a "life gained for each enemy hit by your spells" ring and uber lab.
* You'll want to keep mostly using Firestorm for damage until you do start using Voidbringer to generate enough corpses for lots of VD. Switching to Disintegrator while you're in this state still feels good, the big +Physical Damage is nice.
* Maximum life is a really big deal for feeling comfortable with the self-damage, since the self-damage doesn't scale with max life but leech and recovery mostly do.
* I was initially using a Granite flask in place of the Quicksilver originally recommended by the guide; this was nice for defense but *not recommended* once you start using Voidbringer and VD, it counteracts Voidbringer too strongly to be able to get enough corpses. Maybe this would be more feasible if you got a Voidbringer with a higher mana-cost-of-skills roll (mine was 52).
* I found it easier than I'd expected to deal with dexterity and cold/lightning resistance, but low chaos resistance seems like the biggest con to me so far, that's what a lot of my recent deaths have been to.
* For body armor, I found a Skin of the Lords with Call to Arms on it, which was a *huge* quality of life boost (Enduring Cry on left click, hold it and cyclone on right click at same time). It adds so much QOL that I might consider pathing to there through the Bloodless cluster on the tree to be able to switch to a better body armor (the dream would be an explody chest with some +chaos res)
* Replica Soul Tether is only 5c; you can save a marginal amount of currency by buying it and a cheaper timeless jewel, but I wouldn't recommend it since it'll be much more expensive to get a good corruption on the belt that way.