[3.12] high budget low damage Fate of The Vaal DW Cleave - just dont...

EDIT:
just found out about these:

And this changes things A LOT.

have redone the build (gloves, ring, warcry setup) and.. it is still junk (cleave is to blame). the biggest issues are: cleave is GARBAGE and bosses you cannot reliably freeze/shock/ignite take like 10% damage. freezing Hydra tho.. was surprising. these gloves are 100% mandatory to make this IDEA work. build as a whole is hot garbage as an idea compared to alternatives so DO NOT replicate it.

EDIT2:
the green socket in my boots used to be Berserk (its now green because i tried out delving with Withering steps - not recommended). Berserk is an absolute staple of this build..



NOTE: this build is a showcase of just how bad balance in current game is. This build is very weak, quite costly and has absolutely no upsides. I dont believe it can be saved without simply changing main skill and weapons. This build is not 'viable' and sadly due to no fault of my own.

DO NOT REPLICATE IT.

Content compatibility: I killed one conqueror (redeemer) - melee sucks when you cannot burst a boss in one go. it took 3 deaths but only because i just didnt bother to sidestep at all. imo this build IS a8 sirus capable but youll need at least 4-5 'clone' phase in final phases to do it if not more. damage is simply too low and you are too melee. (why only 1? i leveled exclusively in incursion temples to see just how bad incursion is - it is bad)

Pastebin:
https://pastebin.com/zwZqeFPn

General Premise:

I wanted to make a build around two concepts:

Dual wielding these:


Stacking LGOH with Alt Qual Cleave (sadly, wasnt able to get one in Standard.... this build sucks so much im not going to play HC to gather resources, buy it and rip to standard. not worth it)

Idea:

- stack '%effect of non-damaging ailments'
- base around cleave hitting twice to make use even of very short shocks/chills
- double the LGOH thanks to cleave hitting twice
- usual (and boring) crit melee stuff with focus on attack speed (ele overload is strictly worse than crit way)
- no abyssus. this one item being on most melee builds is just sad

Tree:


Gear:


Gear is bit limited in standard (and expensive). 'thanks' to this, one experiment I wanted to make (EE) is off the table: ring with LGOH and EleWeakness sadly has flat cold ruining my plans. wasnt able to find a replacement and didnt want to regear and get corrupted gloves.

I would consider the investment moderate: esp the cluster jewels and watcher's eye might be difficult to get for <1ex.

On the other hand - without replacing weapons with something like 400pdps crit foil there arent that many MEANINGFUL upgrades. +1.5 crit chest hardly does anything, explody chest doesnt affect clear very much (tested both, would have to re-gear to balance wise oak).

30% corrupting weapons gives like 3% more damage, not worth the trip to menagerie.


Playstyle:

Painful. Just painful. Cleave is THE WORST skill in the game (excluding memes like conversion trap). And I mean it. It has no upsides but plenty of downsides:
- terrible damage effectiveness
- low AOE (threshold jewel doesnt change things)
- built in attack speed penalty
- threshold jewel that is both mandatory and sad. free fortify used to be nice when fortify wasnt a 'more' gem. nowadays it is more like 8% more damage (less if you are rich).

Clear is ok. It is better than SOME strike skills. The single target is a piano setup:
- Infernal Cry / Intimidating Cry / Ancestral Protector / Ancestral Warchief / flasks / few hits (i have to admit: strong ones), repeat. it is tiring, easy to mess up (totems die easily, i have nothing invested into them nor i have build-space to do so) and it is simply dangerous casting it all in front of an angry mob.


Misc stuff:

No helmet enchant - few %more lost here (Cleave has an attack speed one, pretty good for this build). Didnt want to waste my time on that.

I have a weird reservation setup. This is pure laziness. Needed HoI for clear (alternatives: explody chest or Inpulsa) and wanted to squeeze in Heraldry cluster notable (failed, maybe someone can re-do the passive tree to make it happen?). I presume Hatred + Supreme Ego might be the better way.


Stacking 'non-damaging ailments %effect' is both harder and weaker than I expected. In fact i should drop the medium cluster and drop this idea altogether (but this makes it another build).

Biggest problem?

"

Big bad enemies cannot be reliably frozen nor shocked. That cuts the damage in half or more. This alone kills Fate of the Vaal as an endgame weapon.

How to upgrade this build:
- replace Cleave with anything. BladeStorm sounds good even tho it has no synergy with elemental damage.
- replace weapons with real crit swords
- drop some damage investment and put into defences.
- redeemer boots with non-damage ailments effect and maybe one more similar piece - i forgot this mod existed and balanced wise oak without it. not worth my time trying.
- 3% more from 30% corrupt, 5% from enchant, maybe 2% from these boots - in all maybe 10% more damage with cheap, easy fixes. but it needs 100% more to be comparable with even 'meh' builds

if anyone knows how to make it stronger sticking to 'non-damaging ailments' and dual Fate of the Vaal Cleave concept - please let me know.


Videos:
just imagine very slow, not tanky at all, melee character. not worth my time recording nor your time watching.

I don't have anyway to add to this, but I do appreciate you doing a write up for anyone googling this to see if it works. Who knows - maybe someone around here can make it work.

"

sidtherat wrote:

if anyone knows how to make it stronger sticking to 'non-damaging ailments' and dual Fate of the Vaal Cleave concept - please let me know.

Since you asked.

https://pastebin.com/qZTJ0qw3

Just by fixing a bunch of core issues with the build i got ~80k more DPS, 5k more physical EHP, 2k more ele EHP across the board and 3 or 4k more chaos EHP as well as 500 more life/second from leech/loh. Didn't change a single item, could probably get quite a bit more out of the build by replacing a bunch of weak pieces.

It's honestly no wonder you think melee is shit if this kind of nonsense is your idea of a melee build.

It starts with the core concept, forcing an elemental/ailment gimick on a skill that has absolutely no elemental synergy what so ever but oh well, those swords aren't bad and do most of the work for the build in that regard so it's not that big a deal, though you could probably double your dps by going the generic physical impale route that Cleave is designed for.

But you aren't stopping there with nonsensical choices. It's a dual wield build seeking to abuse lgoh which scales with attack speed, so you go the crave the slaughter for aps, makes sense. Only to then jeopardize everything by allocating War Bringer which ruins the attack speed part by forcing you into warcries and it ruins your Rage by burning it for exerts so double anti synergy here.

Might have still been saveable after that if you were at least consequent on the Warcry thing, but no, you didn't allocate a single war cry node, no extra exerts, no warcry speed/cooldown recovery nothing. I don't even want to imagine what a horrible gameplay that must be. To top it of, one of your war cries isn't even linked to second wind cuz reasons. That you didn't use seismic cry while complaining about low AOE is probably just sarcasm i guess?

Then there are those 23 skill points you waste on bad cluster jewels that provide little to nothing to the build while leaving a whole bunch of nodes mostly unallocated on the tree after pathing for them like the Scion life cluster. Like if you at least used those clusters to push your ailments but no, there was like 1 notable on all those clusters that actually did something in the ailment department. Why you allocated the 20 freeze damage notable on a build that picks it's element at random is also beyond me. You also waste precious points and gear slots for increased AOE on a Gem that scales AOE via threshold jewel, all you need are monsters nearby and you have an AOE radius of 37, even without investment.

As for the topic itself it feels like a trolling attempt. You make a slow attacking glasscannon zerker build and refuse (admittedly) to sidestep Veritania cuz reasons and then say you died 3 times. Wow, what an argument.
If i wanted i could go and make up a similarly messed pob for a summoner that can't handle white maps, wouldn't be hard.

This topic literally just proves what i was already suspecting, you just know jackshit about char building, at least as far as melees are concerned and there is no way for GGG to balance around players inability to properly utilize the tools they are given. You can take any Gem and any build and mess it up to the point of it becoming unviable by just making enough stupid choices during it's creation. This has nothing to do with Cleave, it's entirely on you.

PS: Don't expect further replies from me in this topic, the only reason i even bothered to post here was to avoid some new player stumbling about this nonsense and thinking there was actual truth to it.

I think Baharoth summarizes everything SO WELL except the Seismic Cry thing (Warcries only work with slam skills). I managed to get these numbers as an Elementalist during Incursion on a couple ex budget. Just looking at your tree, clusters, and your choice of gems make this build far worse than it should have been.

"

Baharoth15 wrote:

"

sidtherat wrote:

if anyone knows how to make it stronger sticking to 'non-damaging ailments' and dual Fate of the Vaal Cleave concept - please let me know.

Since you asked.

https://pastebin.com/qZTJ0qw3

Just by fixing a bunch of core issues with the build i got ~80k more DPS, 5k more physical EHP, 2k more ele EHP across the board and 3 or 4k more chaos EHP as well as 500 more life/second from leech/loh. Didn't change a single item, could probably get quite a bit more out of the build by replacing a bunch of weak pieces.

ill sum up these 'core issue fixes' so others can see them:

- you have dropped ALL the ailment scaling. that is pure PoB warioring aka waste of time. that bit actually worked - it could perma-freeze T16 bosses THANKS TO THESE NODES (cluster jewel). by that you not only changed the core concept but made it worse.

- you have mangled the warcries because you have no idea what and why they do - you slammed Call to Arms and call it a 'fix'. so no more intimidate, no more cover in ash (safety, far bigger than extra 200HP). again - you tweaked the numbers in PoB without having a clue what you are doing and why.

- you have dropped Intimidiating Cry's double damage. that double damage did funky things to converted damage (aka seems to be double dipping like eternity shroud does) - again, you droppped it without having a clue. play the game/build for once to see what you do. POB numbers are worthless without an experience

- youve allocated 'imbalanced guard'

- youve allocated life/mana leech node (that i already had from cluster jewels)
- you have allocated one extra endurance charge

- you have allocated Blitz.. with an effective 15% chance to crit. have you actually played Blitz berserker with 15% effective crit chance? you know how that feels? like sh.. damage is like 'wet noodle attack'. it is f.. paper dps

- you have cut +10 max rage. do you know that skill: Berserk? It sat in that empty socket in my boots. check it out, youll reconsider you hasty decision


on the other bs:

"

But you aren't stopping there with nonsensical choices. It's a dual wield build seeking to abuse lgoh which scales with attack speed, so you go the crave the slaughter for aps, makes sense. Only to then jeopardize everything by allocating War Bringer which ruins the attack speed part by forcing you into warcries and it ruins your Rage by burning it for exerts so double anti synergy here.

you have no clue. read up on how much power bosses have. if you know how warcries work youll be at 50-60rage constantly AND get benefit from warcries. oh and i do not care about exerts, i do care about Berserk i can pump with timed Warcries - read up on that

"

Might have still been saveable after that if you were at least consequent on the Warcry thing, but no, you didn't allocate a single war cry node, no extra exerts, no warcry speed/cooldown recovery nothing. I don't even want to imagine what a horrible gameplay that must be. To top it of, one of your war cries isn't even linked to second wind cuz reasons. That you didn't use seismic cry while complaining about low AOE is probably just sarcasm i guess?

you have no clue. Seismic Cry does not work with non-slams. nonlinked because it is not needed - you havent played the build but bulldozed it anyway and pretend to know what you are doing.

"

Then there are those 23 skill points you waste on bad cluster jewels that provide little to nothing to the build while leaving a whole bunch of nodes mostly unallocated on the tree after pathing for them like the Scion life cluster. Like if you at least used those clusters to push your ailments but no, there was like 1 notable on all those clusters that actually did something in the ailment department. Why you allocated the 20 freeze damage notable on a build that picks it's element at random is also beyond me. You also waste precious points and gear slots for increased AOE on a Gem that scales AOE via threshold jewel, all you need are monsters nearby and you have an AOE radius of 37, even without investment.

do you even have a clue?
Blast Freeze is an AMAZING safety during clearing. it is literally one of the best node for ANY build using cold damage able to freeze. you honestly dont know that? no wonder your caster builds are what they are

ailment effect was good enough to cut the freeze threshold low enough to freeze T16 bosses with 'intimidated cry' hits. things you do not know from your armchair. POB is not an oracle, you have to actually do your own research

and if you are happy with '37 aoe' cleave then.. like wtf we are talking about? you havent played this skill so spare that

"

PS: Don't expect further replies from me in this topic, the only reason i even bothered to post here was to avoid some new player stumbling about this nonsense and thinking there was actual truth to it.

if only your suggestions were legit good i would implement them.

but all you did was to mess up a build without knowing how and why it works based solely on PoB numbers and that glorious ehp numbers you pulled from a dark place

you gained 80k paper dps (on a 1.000.000 dps build) - congrats! (it needs 2mil+ for cleave to be comfortable.)
youve removed all that made it actually work - amazing!
youve allocated few armour nodes and imbalanced guard - congrats, youve achieved absolutely nothing worthwhile, big phys is still scary

what remained is cleave that is pure garbage and ~1mil dps build that simply peaked due to sub 300pdps swords and ailment scaling that simply isnt strong enough without going ALL IN (albeit might be with 4 medium clusters, it was very close already) and a number of bosses that are simply immune/highly resistant to ailments

you tried to prove something, youve failed BADLY as all your changes are pure armchair type of stuff - game is more than just POB numbers and inflated 'ehp' numbers you wave around.
play the game some more, youll understand that at some point being able to freeze shit half screen away is much more important than 300 more elemental ehp or whatever

i hope you learned something from your mistakes this time. my biggest hint: play the game more, POB less. youve missed like half of what makes this build actually work (albeit at sub-meta level due to low dps) and your fixes not only ruined that (lol at that warcry mangling and completely ignoring rage+berserk combo, biggest lol at Blast-Freeze removal) but all you were able to achieve was sub 1% dps increase and meaningless ehp statistics that werent even needed


elementalist is a legit choice, sadly the melee witch leveling is ass (i always do level up 'as' the build, no speed leveling setups). sadly 'incursion elementalist' had free prolif we do not have today - it is strictly worse than before and i doubt you can replicate its power 1:1