[3.5] Soul Mantle Dark Pact Totems - League Starter - All Content

"

Luna7007 wrote:

Hi Shep

You previously gave me advice on choosing between life & MoM builds. I went MoM & am now lvl 90 & have been progressing up to tier 14/15's (furthest I've ever gotten!).

I wanted to touch base again as I'm reading posts where people are pulling massive numbers & blitzing through end game bosses etc (& at much lower levels than me). I'm confused as I my stats seem so much weaker than others e.g. life / es & the main one is my dps.

I'm only reaching around 25-40k dmg (can't recall what it is with diamond flask proc'd). This seems a lot lower than what others are saying. I tested using Apep's wands & my dps went up but I felt a bit squishier.

I've made my profile public so if you have time, are you able to look at Khaeliya & give me advice on what I need to improve?

I finally have currency to buy a 6 link chest but wasn't sure if there was something else I should prioritise e.g. a helm with dark pact 40% dmg enchant (or diff e/c??); going with 2 x void batteries & Inyaa's boots; investing in diff jewels; something else entirely?

I honestly have no idea why my numbers seem so low!

Other notes:

* I'm not using Kaom's currently as I need the resistance & like the speed boost, altho I do have an enchanted pair I can use.
* I manually cast my golem.
* I run with Arctic Armor & Clarity (I have Haste socketed but don't use it).

I would appreciate any advice that you can give.
Thanks Luna :D

Here's what I found, in an estimated order from cheap to expensive.

-You can level your arcane surge a just little bit (level 10 ist 4% extra damage)
-Your Atziri's flask does basically nothing but heal your totems. The best damage flask besides diamond would be a silver flask, otherwise use what you think is useful (I like a second life flask).
-Get a better Self-Flagellation jewel. I recommend at least 18%.
-Get 20/20 support gems for your dark pact, a 21/0 dark pact gem and a 21/0 or 21/20 (might be very expensive) added chaos damage gem.
-Get a belt, a helmet, gloves (and boots) with life and three resistances, everything with high rolls. Your rings are really good, so I suggest using blessed orbs to get 28-30% lightning resistance. That way you can get an amulet with damage stats. Definitely cap your resistances (75%).
-The amulet should have life, crit multiplier and/or cast speed. You can also get (chaos) damage but that will net you less damage overall.
-Lab enchants. The helmet enchant is hard to get and not that strong so don't worry too much about it, but you should definitely get enchanted boots (you can use the Kaom's after you get resistances I guess).
-Get jewels with a life roll and 2/3 of the other listed stats (the list is from strongest to weakest).
-Your dagger and shield are relatively weak. Perfect ones will obviously cost a lot but you should be able to get an upgrade depending on how much you want to spend.
-6link.

The current tree is adjusted for an allround-playstyle, so the damage won't be as high as on some of the posts you saw (including some of mine). My character has the same tree as the MoM-version right now so you can import it and do some comparisons if you want.

can the Flask use
20% chance to gain a flask charge when you deal a critical strike
I'm not sure if Dark Pact on Spell Totem Support deal the critical can gain a charge on flask

It does not work because of this part:

20% chance to gain a Flask Charge when you deal a Critical Strike.

Thanks so much for taking the time to do such a thorough review for me. You've given me a lot of useful things to work on.

I really appreciate all the ongoing help & advice, not just to me but everyone else following this build & forum.

- Luna :D

Thanks for the guide. This is my second league, and the first time to hit maps - I really like the playstyle, and the fact that you can clear everything no matter the mods is great.

I run a MoM Powercharge version - MoM just increases my EHP by so much, and Powercharges mean I have to run Orb of Storms-PCoC, but i feel like it has immensely increased my boss-killing.


Essentially, i run 5 Powercharges on my main-weaponset with dagger+shield (+shieldcharge to move), and double void batteries in my secondary weaponset (+flame dash to move).
The Batteries have improved my killspeed enormously, and I can only suggest it for higher tier maps if you have the spare money - i grabbed 2 well-rolled ones for 100c each.

I also changed the gem-setup for the utility-skills a bit. I am currently running:
CWDT(1)-IC(2)-Enfeeble(5) in the offhand - this setup is easy to double for the weaponswitch
Shield Charge-Faster Attacks-Fortify in the mainhand (dagger)
Flame Dash-Faster casting-vaal haste in the mainhand (void battery)
Orb of Storms-PCoC and CWDT-Lightning Golem in boots
and
CWDT(1)-Ball Lighting(1)-Blind Support + Clarity in my headpiece.

I really like the Blind-setup, as the lack of relevant armor or evasion makes me feel like the greatest threats are attack-based (huge mobs of ranged mobs with some stupid combination of mods or strong melee-rares), and the blind feels like it helps a lot there.


I still need to upgrade some of my jewels, as well as my trashy gloves and amulet, and get to work on getting some useful enchantments (life&manareg or movementspeed on boots i guess, and eventually a DP-enchantment on the head).

If there's any other suggestions you have for me, i'd appreciate it :)

- Linyah

What about tukohama shield?will work well?

"

EF_Balduin wrote:

If there's any other suggestions you have for me, i'd appreciate it :)

Well those are some really good adjustments for someone that new.
If you're regularly using the Void Batteries it's worth getting the 3-point power charges aswell; and with that many charges you might aswell get Inya's Epiphany (as mentioned in an earlier post) when you can afford them.

I don't know if you've noticed it, but the CWDT - Ball Lightning will generate charges because of the synergy between your Assassin ascendancy and Ancestral Bond, which is really good for mapping because you don't need to use the PCoC. I'd definitely keep that.

Blind is really good but the support gem has the problem that the chance is only 10%. With a Ball Lightning (5 hits per second) you'll have a 41% chance to blind 1 second after you took damage.
This is essentally a 20% damage reduction against attacks, which is still really good.
The problem here is that anything but bosses will deal the majority of their damage before that second and usually die after it, so the actual effect of blind is a lot weaker in practice.

I'd personally exchange the blind for an increased duration support on Immortal Call/Enfeeble (you should be able to adjust your gems) because it's a lot more reliable. Additionally you can use a Rumi's Concoction and an "of Iron Skin" flask to boost your defense against small attacks.
You can't really mitigate large hits on this build without sacrificing too much so it's best to avoid them.
Note that IC/Armour only work against physical damage, but the majority of attacks are small, physical hits. The only time this hurts is when maps start to roll multiple elemental damage mods.

"

garsijok wrote:

What about tukohama shield?will work well?

It's not good in this build. Read the FAQ.

Hi,

Another vouch for this build. It is really good! I used the tree as-is and most gems as well. I'm able to easily kill the guardians and shaper, which was my end-goal for this league. This not so end-goal is now replaced with killing uber-atziri, but I think it is doable.

I replaced the whirling blades with shield charge, as for some reason I'm much more comfortable with it. It is slightly slower though.

Another change I made is replacing flame dash with arctic armour. I wonder why this is not used in the original description. Shepuuurd , is it because of mana issues in your version?

My gear:

"

Shodan_xl wrote:

Another change I made is replacing flame dash with arctic armour. I wonder why this is not used in the original description. Shepuuurd , is it because of mana issues in your version?

I'm assuming you're not running the MoM version (I made some slight improvements to the passive tree over time btw).

Well, mana isn't exactly an issue, I just found it a lot more comfortable at 50% than at 25%.
I made most of my currency early in the league by farming corrupted T16 maps and needed my build to reliably kill guardians on every mapmod. That's why I didn't use MoM in the first place.
I suppose no-regen maps would be a lot harder at 25% mana?

I made some builds with arctic armour this league but I don't like it that much anymore. The chill nerf in 3.0 hit it pretty hard (along with vortex/arctic breath).

"

Shodan_xl wrote:

I replaced the whirling blades with shield charge, as for some reason I'm much more comfortable with it. It is slightly slower though.

It's the opposite for me, I hate how shield charge gets stuck all the time and prefer whirling blades for dodging ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
Shield charge can actually get faster on this build if you build around it correctly. It scales with attack and movement speed, which means that MS-boots and a quicksilver flask can greatly increase it's speed.

I'm indeed not running the MoM version. I have 6.5k life and 0.9k es, which is enough to tank most stuff.

When I run a no-regen map I drop the arctic armour and bring an extra mana pot. But those maps are not my favourite.

I actually just killed uber atziri on my first try, deathless. So basically cleared all possible content with it!