3.4 Dominating Blow Low Life Guardian. All Mods. 9200 ES + 16k Armor. Shaper down.
 Introduction It's a low life Guardian build I've started Delve league with. I started it just to try both new and old rebalanced skills and now I'm sure that it's the strongest build I've ever made and played, so I just want to share it with you! I describe 2 slightly different versions of the build here. One is more defensive and is the one I used on Shaper, while another build is a little more offensive. Pros: * Robust * Can do all mods. * Build forgives mistakes so it's good for new players * High mapping speed * Can facetank bosses up to Shaper * High survivability in Delve * It might be a league starter. At least I started Delve league with it * Build can be tuned even at high levels. * You don't have to be rich to try this build. For example I've used Solaris Lorica up to red maps and some random amulet up to t16. All other uniques are pretty cheap. Cons: * No data about Sentinels stats so no dps numbers at this moment * ES build so DoTs are really annoying sometimes * You're mostly debuffer with low damage so if your Writhing Jar is empty and there are no unique monsters nearby you're in trouble (check my Shaper kill for such situation) * You always travel in company, so the build is not for lone wolfs
Ascendancy
It's obviously Guardian, with the next keys:
 I choose this progression just to add more sustain and survivability.
Bandits
Kill all
Pantheon
Without Presence of Chayula:
Major God: Brine King Minor God: any, but I mostly use Yugul for maps with ele reflect and Shakari for maps with poisonous mobs. With Presence of Chayula: Major God: Any. I mostly use Arakaali for better regen when Time of Need is active. This might be handy during delving. Lunaris is also shines during delving. On bosses you can pick any God it actually doesn't matter at all. Minor God: Any.
Path of Building
Defensive version, used on Shaper:
https://pastebin.com/TT8Q39jC More offensive version (my current): https://pastebin.com/yN0FCVw6
My current equipment and gems
Bottles: Show starter:
Some equipment, gems and stats advices
* The most important thing you have to remember: On bosses you need attack speed. So Lightning golem, Blood rage, Ancestral Protector and Silver flask are your best friends, especially on bosses with strong AoE such as Phoenix. Dominating Blow have only 10% chance to create a minion on unique mob hit so to summon all your sentinels you need as much attack speed as possible. * I highly recommend to use one jewel with "minions have % chance to blind". With all your minions up blinding a boss is matter of seconds. For example, on the title image Shaper was blind and missed me and all my minions (oooh, I love such forgiving builds!) * I've leveled up to red maps using Solaris Lorica so you can use it as a budget version of Shavronne's Wrappings as well. * Buy corrupted rings, belts and amulets with Discipline has % increased aura effect for great ES boost. Such jewelry are pretty cheap this league. * Use Writhing Jar to make some Sentinels. * By the moment you pick Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium you stop being damager and start playing as debuffer. * Mostly I use Melee Splash Support in my 6 link even at bosses because damage is pretty ok as for me. But sometimes I switch it with Melee Physical Damage Support.
Offence and Defense with/without flasks in HO
Using Arakaali as a Major God and Granite+Basalt+Sulphur while Time Of Need is up for def stats and Silver flask for offence stats.
Differences between Defensive and Offensive versions
Ok, first thing first: I actually have no idea why I called these two versions "offensive" and "defensive". The build is pretty much the same, but links and skills are slightly different. The biggest change is that def version uses Arctic Armor, while offensive version does not. So... Defensive version uses Arctic armor and link Herald of Purity + Melee Physical Damage + Minion Damage Support. Use this link in claws to boost your wolves as well, but keep in mind that you usually don't kill anyone except worms from Writhing Jar. Offensive version uses Wrath + Herald of Purity + Enlighten(2) and Rallying cry. I really love overall versatility of Low life Guard. You can stack layers of defense or offense by the price of few chromatics. So here's ideas of other gems and links: * Frost Bomb instead of Rallying Cry. * Take offensive version, get rid of Herald of Purity and put in Arctic Armor. * Use Enduring Cry instead of Rallying Cry. * Replace Desecrate in CwDT (it's for bossing) with Frost bomb and cast Desecrate manually. And plenty of other choices!
Videos
Sorry, my runs are pretty clumsy because it's pretty unusual for me to get to T16 so I have very little experience with these bosses. 1. Chimera full run + boss: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaF3OjIvphY 2. Facetanking Hydra boss with chain mod https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-xtu1i_XM 3. Phoenix full run + boss (with one flasks refill and one accidental and stupid death): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmDi4W59fs4 4. Minotaur full run + boss (temp chains, no leech and ele reflect mods) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fE4UbeAJRI 5. Shaper run. Clumsy and long because it's my second Shaper kill of all times (contains one really iconic death for this build): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN23tiqcsU4 6. Yellow Elder + guardians run. This one is pretty old, I use 5 link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PelVLn4ObYs 7. Red elder + guardians run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upZcr0tDb3k 8. Some delving (I found this build is pretty good for digging) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d4mEV2zFiI That's it. Never wrote a post before and created this one just to share such a forgiving build to help casual or noob players (as I am) to get to highest tiers of maps and do them like a breeze. I would love to hear some suggestions from you. Last edited by zenonych on Oct 5, 2018, 3:16:30 PM Last bumped on Jan 22, 2019, 6:22:11 PM
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Reserved for future updates.
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I have no idea why I reserve this, but ppl usually do that, so I reserve this post as well for some future updates.
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I'm trying to follow your guide but cannot figure out how you are running Wrath, Hatred, Herald of Purity, Discipline and Determination all at the same time???
Edit: Nevermind, i can have them all on but have very small mana pool which runs out when attacking. I'm not a fan of the Writhing Jar. Is there an alternative to this? Last edited by stark27 on Oct 7, 2018, 2:57:06 AM
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Few tips you might find useful for you:
* Use Conqueror's Efficiency. With it my current unreserved mana increases from 65 to 98 (and it's very comfort level) * Don't level your whirling blades, WB lvl 1 costs only 15 mana. * I currently use Enlighten 2. With Enlighten 3 (corrupted Enl3 is about 19c now) I'll have 115 ureserved mana. And with enlighten4 (just for min/max lovers) your unreserved mana level will be 213. I personally think that 213 is too much for this build. So Enlighten 3 is the best solution as it won't require jewel slot According to Path of Building the build which uses next auras Wrath, Hatred, Herald of Purity, Discipline and Determination has 1646 mana with 65 mana unreserved and mana regen equal to 55.2 per sec. My two main skills I always use are: 1. Whirling blades 2 lvl 0 quality (16 mana) I'd recommend to buy Whirling blades lvl 1 with 20% quality. Skill use will cost you only 15 mana and will have +10% attack speed 2. Dominating blow (46 mana) With current mana regen I can indefinitely use whirling blades and follow it with dominating blow. And as you strike mobs with dominating blow you'll leech some mana thanks to Mind Drinker node. * Very important thing you have to remember: Mana is your best friend. It gives you plenty of Armor thanks to Memory Vault and a lot of ES thanks to Radiant Faith. So feel free to take as many mana nodes as you like. My favorite among them is Mana Drinker which provide some mana leech and helps sustaining mana. Please check my delving video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d4mEV2zFiI just to have some impression how build works only with 65 mana unreserved. Personally I won't feel shortage of mana at all. Current level allows my to delv pretty deep into the darkness (at the middle of video). Anyway, thanks for your question, don't hesitate to ask if you have more, I really love this build and will try to help others to love it as well :) | |
" As for Writhing Jar. It's absolutely up to you, actually. It's a little bit clumsy to use because with no enemies around you have to kill your lightning golem by removing its gem from slot (otherwise golem will kill worms and you'll create no sentinels). I found writhing jar helpful, especially on bosses which use strong aoe (Phoenix) and while delving deep into the Darkness. Just keep in mind that with Avatar of Fire and Elemental Equilibrium your role is more like debuffer for your sentinels, so your personal damage will be low and that might cause problems with creating initial pack of sentinels. If it's ok for you, then Writhing Jar is no longer needed at all. | |
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This is a really cool build. I was wondering is it necessary to use Multistrike? Leveling it feels like multistrike gets me killed a lot.
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" You can try without it, but just keep in mind that Dominating Blow sentinels have only 10% to be summoned on hit so you need as much attack speed as possible for bosses fights. " It's really hard to be killed with 16k armor (without flask), 9-9.5k shield and enormous regen so don't worry about that :) | |
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just crafted this - kinda random, then thought to see if anyone was doing a LL or CI dom blow build. What do you think of it, and could it be used for something like this? |
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