The Why's & How of Build #1

Curse of the Jungle God

Ruin

Void Armour

Riven

Amulets & Rings

Leto's Amulet

Guardian's & Mother's Ring

So, let me go over from top to bottom, my reasoning for what we're using to help you understand better the purpose of this build. Keep in mind that a lot of things here are versatile so do feel free to swap things out and try them at your own leisure. However, I have found this set-up to be the most consistent and reliable.This pistol does VERY decent damage all things considered. It's a nice secondary to have but that's not why we're taking it over something like the repeater pistol, hunting pistol or etc. we want this pistol because of its mod, tentacle shot. The way you want to be using this mod, is basically spamming it in a choke point, or create your own defensive zone by spamming it at your feet. You can have 2 out at a time. With my build, I will be dealing around 600-700 damage per attack with this tentacle. If both tentacles attack at the same time, you can do the math of how devastating that damage will be. So basically, your weapon mod acts as free area denial. If you stand within the tentacles, they will attackenemy that comes towards you. This will land a free hit on them, and potentially stagger. It makes you much harder to get to than you already are. The life leech is pretty nice as well to have on this tanky of a build.This weapon is pretty self-explanatory - especially for Nightmare mode. The weapon mod is very nice to have, but the innate DPS of Ruin is honestly the main reason we're using it. However, keep in mind that Undying will give us 10% damage reduction once revived, which stacks with the Void Armour's Power Transfer's defensive stacks as well. Negating status effects is just really nice as well, but Ruin should serve as either a tactical decision in battle, where you want to save your hearts and get that 10% defensive buff and refill health when you know you'll be able to get the mod back quickly, or as a last resort. I wouldn't really recommend one over the other, but all i'll say is just, don't get too reckless. Oh, and aif you happen to be in a squad, and you tank enemy aggro and happen to go down with Ruin active, that enemy will, more than half the time, stay focused onto you until you're fully revived and then-some. Which means Ruin lets you passively tank by just getting up in the enemy's face without fear, so your teammates can heal, put down their summons, anything they have to do, they'll have about 10 seconds of free time while Ruin is going off, so in a party, Ruin really shines. It's also just very reliable to have solo as well. Other weapons I'd recommend in the primary slot would be maybe the Assault Rifle with Song of Swords, or the Shotgun with Corrosive Aura - both are very solid replacements if you want to play a more supportive role, or a more close-range melting-focused role. Both are also pretty viable solo too. I quite firmly believe that this armour, at the current time of writing this, is the best in the game. The new passive is absolutely amazing, and I'll explain why. So, what exactly is Power Transfer, and what does it do? Well, as you can see, the damage stacks will build over 10 seconds, and this will apply to all of your weapons - and by extension, it works on your own summons as well. The defensive stack, is per hit - so if you get hit once, then 1 stack of your offensive buff will be transferred. Making the best of this armour is all about situational awareness, really. It's important to note that this armour makes us EXTREMELY tanky as well. At the moment it has the second highest innate armour values in the game at 677, only a tiny bit behind leto's - and this isn't even counting when Undying becomes active, nor are we using any Divine Nectar to buff up this value. I would recommend maxing out Bark Skin to make the most of what Void Armour has to offer you. In the event you need me to spell it out for you - this stuff givesof EHP. This armour will act as the core of our build, I wouldn't really recommend swapping it out for anything else.This melee is also quite self-explanatory, but you might be thinking "health regen on nightmare seems totally useless! why would you use this?" and the fact of the matter is that, with how tanky we are, at least with mobs, we can tank 7, or 10 hits very consistently. This means that, assuming you have Warrior maxed out, you'll be dealing a bunch of damage, and healing a majority of it back. I should also mention that, from my experience of using Riven, the amount of damage you deal seems to equal how much you heal for. So if you're not max trait level or don't have many points to spend, I would recommend making use of Warrior if you can. Don't make it a priority, though. This works well with Curse of the Jungle God as well, by the way - you just get to regen health super easily. This makes Leech Ember a pretty viable ring slot option as well, but I'll go over those later on. These are what I normally use for every encounter, and I'll explain them all individually as well. But first I want to go over alternate options, since I know a couple of the things hereare pretty rare drops and not everyone will have access to them.Cleansing Jewel, Brutal Mark, Gunslinger's Charm, Mender's Charm, Soul Anchor, Storm Amulet, and even Twisted Charm are all pretty viable options here honestly. I'm not sure I'd entirely recommend Twisted Charm but, it can be nice to have.Band of Strength, Braided Thorns, Blood Font, Ezlan's Band, Gravity Stone, Jewel of the Black Sun, Leech Ember, Stone of Balance, and sometimes Ring of Evasion and Root Circlet are all pretty damn solid options. Some are more circumstantial than others, but if you want to focus more on damage and are pretty confident, then Stone of Balance & Ring of the Admiral are pretty good to run because of the extra damage you're getting with the Void Armour will up your damage a bunch. Just make sure to position yourself properly. I think the extra survivability that mid-rolling gives you is just so useful. Mainly, you'll want to use this to keep appropriate distance, or just get out of a sticky situation. Keep in mind though, that neutral dodging has the same frames regardless of your armour value, though. I just find having Leto's to be nice quality of life, and means you can utilize the extended i-frames that Void Armour gives you, much better than if you were to fat roll. I feel like the explanation here is pretty obvious. Less damage all around, it compliments our build perfectly so we take so little damage. I think the main reason I'm able to tank so much damage is because of these rings, so personally, I would make them a priority.