Greetings Exiles



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First off: This is a 'fair' character. Classic 1.3 damage scaling, no doubledipperino or similar.

This means bosses like guardians take some effort to kill and are not down after 10sec of facetanking like my BV char does ;).



Why Wildstrike?



I always wanted to squeeze something out of the skill, its mechanical very interesting for me.

For many Leagues i wanted to make something with Wildstrike and now i started theorycrafting again.

Discovered the AoE enchant (i mean, who searches for wildstrike enchants), saw my kitavas in the stash, put one and one together and created a build with those components.



More details about it in the mechanics.



My Character









Skilltree lvl 90



Itemswap for tougher bosses to get manual overkill leech, replaces Dying Sun

Itemswapfor tougher bosses to get manual overkill leech, replaces Dying Sun

Videos

AoE demonstration and explanation

Some Strand showcase with melee physical dmg and later multistrike. no vinktar on boss up ;)

Abyss T15, again forgot to swap in Ele Focus on the boss :P

Static Strike Strand run w/o helm enchant



Mechanics

So the main idea is to use wildstrike with kitavas feast (included melee splash), the helm enchantment (36% aoe) and some aoe nodes/gem/dying sun to get a huge melee splash :P



Wildstrike is so only skill with such a big aoe enchant.

It converts 60% phys to an element so i focused on physical damage with good elemental scaling on top (like Elemental focus/overload/weapon elemental damage).



Tooltip dps doesnt show the proper dps since the 60% elemental conversion is NOT included, which is a huge part with stuff like elemental focus, elemental overload, weapon elemental damage and elemental damage in general.



Melee physical damage gem and similar will increase the melee hit's physical and converted damage, but will not increase the damage of the secondary elemental effect.

This means it doesnt increase all parts of the damage and is not an optimal gem.

However it increases the singletarget damage and splash damage, so its still useful in the build!



Interesting is also that the melee splash and wildstrike trigger stuff overlap (except the targeted enemy). This means targets around your main target take more damage the the target itself.

This is the reason why the melee damage gem is still good in the build... the aoe damage is already insane even without wildstrike trigger scaling.

With enough aoe the melee splash can hit targets behind you!



Some Aoe Math:



Melee Splash has a radius of 14



Let sum up all the aoe i got on my char

30% dying sun

39% AoE gem

36% Helm Enchant

15% Skilltree

15% Slayer on kill stuff

19% Wildstrike AoE (gemlevel 20)



= 154% aoe > 2.54



Also a lvl 25 melee splash of Kitavas grants 24% MORE aoe.



(14*2.54)*1.24 = 44.09 radius!



This can potentially increased more with a Carcass Jack, Belt Corruption and the skilltree



Really tryhard AoE

30% dying sun

39% AoE gem

36% Helm Enchant

15% Skilltree

15% Slayer on kill stuff

19% Wildstrike AoE (gemlevel 20)



6% aoe belt corruption

15% aoe slayer impact

25% skilltree (witch, scion)

20% aoe carcass jack

11% dying sun flask effectiveness (nodes + jewel)



231% aoe



(14*3.31)*1.24= 57.46 radius





So the main idea is to use wildstrike with kitavas feast (included melee splash), the helm enchantment (36% aoe) and some aoe nodes/gem/dying sun to get a huge melee splash :PWildstrike is so only skill with such a big aoe enchant.It converts 60% phys to an element so i focused on physical damage with good elemental scaling on top (like Elemental focus/overload/weapon elemental damage).Tooltip dps doesnt show the proper dps since the 60% elemental conversion is NOT included, which is a huge part with stuff like elemental focus, elemental overload, weapon elemental damage and elemental damage in general.Melee physical damage gem and similar will increase the melee hit's physical and converted damage, but will not increase the damage of the secondary elemental effect.This means it doesnt increase all parts of the damage and is not an optimal gem.However it increases the singletarget damage and splash damage, so its still useful in the build!Interesting is also that the melee splash and wildstrike trigger stuff overlap (except the targeted enemy). This means targets around your main target take more damage the the target itself.This is the reason why the melee damage gem is still good in the build... the aoe damage is already insane even without wildstrike trigger scaling.With enough aoe the melee splash can hit targets behind you!Some Aoe Math:Melee Splash has a radius of 14Let sum up all the aoe i got on my char30% dying sun39% AoE gem36% Helm Enchant15% Skilltree15% Slayer on kill stuff19% Wildstrike AoE (gemlevel 20)= 154% aoe > 2.54Also a lvl 25 melee splash of Kitavas grants 24% MORE aoe.(14*2.54)*1.24 = 44.09 radius!This can potentially increased more with a Carcass Jack, Belt Corruption and the skilltree

Gems

- Leap Slam + Faster Attacks + Fortify + Blood Magic



This setup is to move around smoothly



- Hatred + Herald of Ash + Blood Rage + Enduring Cry



Hatred and HoA are great for dmg, bloodrage gives nice speed and dmg and enduring cry is for charges on demand.



- cwdt + vortex + vaal haste + duration



vortex's chilled ground with duration is nice for melee namelock chars.

Vaal haste is nice to have, but not a must have for me, could be swapped with immortal call, arctic breath or vaal lightning trap (w/o vinktar).



Immortal call is mainly needed for porcupines (those thorns on kill). But kitavas destroys corspes and those will not explode.



- Wildstrike + added fire + weapon elemental damage + [blue socket] + [red socket] are the important ones.



for the blue socket i use elemental focus and increased aoe. AoE is nice on easier maps like strand, elemental focus for the harder stuff.



the red one is for multistrike and melee physical damage.

Melee physical damage DOES NOT increase the damage of the Wild Strike triggers (chain, explosion and projectils), but the singletarget damage and melee splash.

Multistrike works for all parts but it feels smoother for me to map with melee physical damage (1hit 1kill).



6 link is debateable.

Faster attacks makes multistrike smoother

Physical to Lightning is a good damage increase for all sources on the skill, but absolutely requires the manaleech nodes below duelist to work!

Melee Phys/Multistrike together



concentrated effect does not work well, it does not increase the singletarget dmg.



Bandits

Normal = help Oak

Cruel = help Kraityn (atk speed rules)

Merciless = help Kraityn or Oak (dmg vs defence there)



Skilltree

This is the basic skilltree



with non optimized gear you might lack dex/int. Specc 30 dex/int nodes or the hybrid accuracy/stat/atk speed nodes in templar/marauder.



This is the skilltree later on



After that point its up to you.

More damage is aviable via the axe cluster or Martial experience.

More defensive specc life below the marauder socket or 3 endurance charges.



The manaleech/lifeleech below duelist is mandatory with physical to lightning gem.



with non optimized gear you might lack dex/int. Specc 30 dex/int nodes or the hybrid accuracy/stat/atk speed nodes in templar/marauder.After that point its up to you.More damage is aviable via the axe cluster or Martial experience.More defensive specc life below the marauder socket or 3 endurance charges.The manaleech/lifeleech below duelist is mandatory with physical to lightning gem.

Gear



Weapon



Kitavas Feast of course, the build is made around this unique + wildstrike.



Kitavas has great damage, included lvl 25 meleesplash, destroys corspes (no proliferation but also porcupines are no harm) and 1% physical mana/life leech.

The manaleech is enough to substain skills.



Chest



Kaoms Heart for me. Gives tons of life and i dont really need the extra links.



Alternatives are Carcass jack for bigger aoe, belly of the beast or tons of other unique/rare chests.



Gloves



Rare Gloves eith life, attacks speed, accuracy and resists.



I use a pair with elemental weakness on hit and its awesome (cost me 2ex + 4 vaal to color it).



Without ele weakness on hit gloves i recommend using a curse on cwdt instead of vortex.



Boots



Standard 30% movementspeed, life and resists. Either two-toned boots or enchanted ones (atkspeed on kill is sweet)



Helmet

First the enchantment. 36% wildstrike aoe also increases the melee splash aoe, this has priority.

Devotos Devotion is a commonly enchanted helmet and has goos stats for the build. Dex helps A LOT with gem requirements, atkspeed/movementspeed are good and chaos resist is always good.



A rare helmet is doing the job, too.

You could craft weapon elemental dmg on it and get an accuracy roll.



Belt



Rare belt with resists, weapon elemental damage and maybe flaskstuff.



IF you, and only then, go full conversion with phys to lightning, dyadian dawn is reasonable. Leech against chilled targets (vortex) with the good life/resists is not bad.



Rings and Amulet



This is the place to get Life, Resists, accuracy, weapon elemental damage and stats to level gems to 20 or 21.



Overall goals for the gear



- 169 elemental resists in the hideout. -12% if you keep endurance charges up, even less if you specc charges.



- at least 500+ Accuracy. This build does not use RT in favour of Elemental overload. You need accuracy on gear. At least many nodes on the skilltree include huge %accuracy.



- stats to use gems. 155 dex (lvl 20 bloodrage) and 111 int (lvl 20 aoe/ele focus. +4 dex/int for lvl 21 gems. Strength is not a problem.



- ~50-60% chaos resists are fine for the most situations. basically devotos + 1 item.



+ Any missing stats/resists can be compensated with jewels or ststs on the skilltree.





Flasks

Still testing around a bit, but thats my most used and satisfying setup:



- Dying Sun gives tons of aoe for the splash + one wild strike procc and extra projectiles for another wild strike procc. I replace it with writhing Jar for harder bosses.



- Taste of Hate. The build has much elemental scaling based on phys damage, this is the perfect flask.



- Basalt/Granite/Jade Flask with Freeze/Shock removal. A basalt is great, but harder to roll (23% reduced flask charges or +20 chargs are required for 2 uses). Freeze or shock removal on this flask or the stibnite is mandatory for me.



- Stibnite with Freeze/Shock removal.



- Vessel of Vinktar with Physical to Lightning. I dont care much about the leech, but the conversion is a huge dps gain as well as the shock! The overkill leech of the slayer alredy caps the leech!



also:



- The writhing jar for stuff like UberLab. pop worms, kill worms, enjoy tons overkill leech. Better than any lifeflask.



I dont use any lifeflasks because they are pretty useless with ~7.5k hp. The Jar is just way better



If some unique flasks are not aviable just pick utility flasks like jade, granite with %armour/%evasion or even a lions roar/azziris promise.



Jewels

I was searching for count 3 (three of mentioned stats have to be on it) while checking for a useful but not that great 4th stat. The prices of my jewels range from 5c to 20c, average around 10c.



The stats we are looking for:



Two handed atkspeed

Two handed physical dmg

axe atkspeed

axe physical dmg

attack speed

physical dmg

life

generic damage



So 3 of those should be on a jewel since those are the most useful ones.

I prefer atk speed since it not only increases our dmg, it increases the movement too... so faster/smoother mapclearing



As a 4th i checked for stuff like:



accuracy,

crit with fire/cold/lightning/elemental/melee...

IIR

resists

mana on hit/leech

melee damage

accuracy + crit

OR one additional of the 'great' rolls



Accuracy is probably the best one of those, but i just wanted 4 stat jewels with overall good stats.



Classes

For me the Slayer is the best Ascendandy class for the build, but others are not wrong too.



Slayer offers Bleed+Stun Immunity while leeching, overall great leech via overkill dmg, a big culling strike and good damage/aoe.



The bleed immunity helps a lot with choosing flasks. No need for bleed removal flask means one more unique flask aviable or other rolls on utility flasks.



The leech is awesome. A non Vaalpact build really benefits from the leechnodes of the slayer, its insanely good to increase the leechcap and speed.





Elementalist on the other side, which i choosed first for the build had huge problems with the leech. I could pop a vinktars but it took soooo long to refill life it wasnt even funny.

The elemental penetration is on par with the slayer more damage (including cull).

The golems were more bad than good... extra targets mean more chasing for you.

Reflect is not a problem (on rares, not mapmod) and the other nodes dont work with elemental focus which is a great supportgem for bosses.



Berserker really wants vaalpact to shine with the leech, but has great offensive capabilitys. still worse on this build, berserker shines more with sweet doubledipping.





leveling

Equip a 2-h weapon, use whatever skill you like most... you are now lvl 68 and can equip kitavas feast.

you can level with wildstrike but its way more fun with melee splash included in the weapon and a helm enchantment (which is basically on 60+ gear).

Overall its not different to level than any other 2h melee char :P



Other stuff and FAQ

Which mapmods hurt?



Elemental reflect is not doable with wildstrike. If you really wanna run it use a pure physical skill like earthquake, heavestrike etc.



No leech is really bad, would only run it in very easy maps with a lifeflask equipped.



No regen is fine, but its better to have a wormflask/manaflask in the case you hit the air to often and dont leech.



lower recovery is doable, you just leech less. Take a bit more care and its fine.



Why no physical to lightning gem?



Kitavas has 1% physical manaleech included, if i convert too much physical damage i cannot leech mana back.

With three skillpoints its possible to gain generic manaleech (0,4% is enough).

In a 5link other gems are equally good or better, but a reasonable choice in a 6l.

Besides that, vinktars brings me already up to 80% conversion



Why no hrimburn/hrinsorrow gloves?



same issue as physical to lightning gem.

Gloves with accuracy and atkspeed are great, too.



Why not golem or immortal call?



Golems are annoying on a namelock melee, distract enemys and you have to run to the mob. The benefit of golems is not that great to justify a socket in this case.



Immortal call has the best use against porcupines... which dont explode on death with kitavas.

I rather have flat reduction with endurance charges than a small frame of phys immunity.

First off: This is a 'fair' character. Classic 1.3 damage scaling, no doubledipperino or similar.This means bosses like guardians take some effort to kill and are not down after 10sec of facetanking like my BV char does ;).Why Wildstrike?I always wanted to squeeze something out of the skill, its mechanical very interesting for me.For many Leagues i wanted to make something with Wildstrike and now i started theorycrafting again.Discovered the AoE enchant (i mean, who searches for wildstrike enchants), saw my kitavas in the stash, put one and one together and created a build with those components.More details about it in the mechanics. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi-NL9JevOxF-6W3n-a7o-w



My Youtube channel with builds, unique and mechanic discussions etc Last edited by Milkyslice on Jun 22, 2017, 11:13:04 PM Last bumped on Nov 6, 2017, 6:37:53 AM