Solael's Witchfire Build

[feliscon]

So I've been itching to build a character around this ability because it just seems cool :)

Initial thoughts: Soldier as secondary to take Cadence with Discord. S&B
Not sure about stat points? 2:1 Physique:Spirit for survival and the chaos/vitality damage, only concern is will I have enough cunning for the elemental blade weapons (assuming this is better than relying on the %physical to chaos conversion) and OA.
Sigil of Consumption as RMB skill, Blood of Dreeg as a heal.

Any better ideas anyone? Any glaring flaws I've missed?

[feliscon]

Anyone?

On thinking more, since the only real reason I thought of Soldier was for Discord, how would a Nightblade be for secondary mastery? Too squishy, or possible with maybe a lifesteal build? Take Bat and Vitality daggers?

Also, if Nightblade, is levelling both PB and BoD for staggered heals a completely insane idea or actually practical?

[Halcyon]

I haven't tried it myself, but witchblade is a good choice with discord cadence, one point in fighting form, no deadly momentum, then take oleron's rage and squad tactics and the soldier passives and pump the rest in SW/SR and maybe curse of frailty and hellhound or storm spirit for a bit of extra power on the field. Up to you really how to build it, but discord cadence is a solid choice.

If you go nightblade, consider tacking on poison with the nidalla's skills and using vulnerability to increase susceptibility. Phantasmal blades is rad with SW/SR too.

There's a legendary warhammer called Obsidian Juggernaut that I'd recommend you check out too.

Alternatively you could focus on vitality and be a conjurer. Wendigo totem, corrupted storm totem, and devouring swarm synergize well with SW/SR (though more SR than SW) and you can be a life stealing fiend pretty easily.

[feliscon]

Originally posted by ҉ Halcyon:

I haven't tried it myself, but witchblade is a good choice with discord cadence, one point in fighting form, no deadly momentum, then take oleron's rage and squad tactics and the soldier passives and pump the rest in SW/SR and maybe curse of frailty and hellhound or storm spirit for a bit of extra power on the field. Up to you really how to build it, but discord cadence is a solid choice.

If you go nightblade, consider tacking on poison with the nidalla's skills and using vulnerability to increase susceptibility. Phantasmal blades is rad with SW/SR too.

There's a legendary warhammer called Obsidian Juggernaut that I'd recommend you check out too.

Alternatively you could focus on vitality and be a conjurer. Wendigo totem, corrupted storm totem, and devouring swarm synergize well with SW/SR (though more SR than SW) and you can be a life stealing fiend pretty easily.

If I go soldier it'd probably be S&B with the Menhir exclusive rather than Oleron. If I'm going to go offensive I'll probably just pick Nightblade instead.

Any opinion on stat distribution/feasability of taking both PB and BoD?

[Halcyon]

My thought for suggesting oleron over menhir is that cadence is a skill that procs on every third strike, yielding the 100% increase from a maxed discord only 1/3 of the time. Attack speed buffs are therefore at a premium, and coupling that with the % increase to OA makes me say oleron first, menhir second. Just my two cents though, menhir is a great exclusive and a s&b using that would also be a fantastic build for witchblade. Grabbing a point in BoD is great for the heals but I would probably leave it at that. PB is totally viable and if you go witch hunter you should absolutely pick it up. It provides a lot of ranged power and heals as well as giving you more kiting options. Might be faster for me to just throw some links here.

If I were to build a witchblade, I'd do something like this http://grimcalc.com/build/DTardF
If I were to build a witch hunter, I'd do something like this http://grimcalc.com/build/lr64QC

Again, just my two cents. Many others have different opinions than I do

[feliscon]

Yeah, when I initially got the urge to make a SW build I immediately thought of Discord, but I'm increasingly leaning towards Nightblade as secondary instead just becuse I hate using Cadence.

Unless it's changed for release it seems pretty much flatly inferior to any other default attack replacer, and it makes the optimiser in me cringe :p

So maybe stick with the 2:1 physique:spirit, rely on Nightblade for Cunning and go for a Vitality/Chaos lifesteal build with Curse of Frailty to deal with resistant enemies? Maybe Shadow Strike for mobility/lifesteal or Phantasmal Blades for range/lifesteal instead?

Might need to sit with this one for a bit to figure it out properly, but at least I'm reasonably sure now that I can go with Witch Hunter and 2:1 physique:spirit, everything else I can respec if needed :)

Please feel free to keep offering suggestions though, at this rate I'm not likely to get to play again for a few days anyway.

[Halcyon]

The saving grace of cadence in my opinion is that fighting form multiplies its effect across several targets. If it were single target only it would suck, but with 2 or 3 times the damage output, cadence can still perform solidly. It suffers in ranged combat and really isn't worth using IMHO unless you're using heavy hitting melee weaponry. It also gives a solid base of physical and bleed damage for multiplication with things like Primal Bond.

If you're going witch hunter, you definitely definitely want phantasmal blades and shadow strike. If you have points to spare, get nightfall as well. Lifesteal will be a must because you'll be very fragile even when putting lots of points into physique simply because your masteries are not durable.

Message me if you want to discuss further, but here's a sample build I threw together for you to ponder. http://grimcalc.com/build/ms8aYi
Note the lack of dual wield, intending use of a two hander or sword/focus combo aimed specifically at vitality damage.

[Soulfly205]

I will say that there is a lot of legendary and epic drops that favor a soldier/occultist build, especially melee ones that utilize cadence, solael's and sigil of consumption.

[Aseng]

I'm using this conjurer build:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=594167503
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=594167551
I tear everything apart on veteran with it, cleared it undefeated. Unresisted (insect skill removes tons of vitality resistance), easy AoEs, good damage, and lifesteals.

[Kotli]

Originally posted by ҉ Halcyon:

I haven't tried it myself, but witchblade is a good choice with discord cadence one point in fighting form, no deadly momentum *snip*

No it not all bonuses on attack skills are applied before convertion so unless you are using a chaos dagger or sceptor discord is useless as you are throwing away 30% damage.

[feliscon]

Originally posted by Kotli:

Originally posted by ҉ Halcyon:

I haven't tried it myself, but witchblade is a good choice with discord cadence one point in fighting form, no deadly momentum *snip*

No it not all bonuses on attack skills are applied before convertion so unless you are using a chaos dagger or sceptor discord is useless as you are throwing away 30% damage.

Well Chaos dagger/s is the plan. Now I'm going to have to try all of these ideas out... Could take a while :p

[twitch.tv/GFYE]

I was playing a Witchblade earlier today on my stream. The nice thing about cadence and witchfire is that the damage does not conflict with itself. The chaos damage is additive, all of the dots compound. Witchfire does not influence cadence but the passive will increase your overall damage either way. The downside to the build is that it lacks meaningful sustain, so you will need to spec into devotion appropriately to compensate. Blood of dreeg isnt really a heal, depending on how many points you put into it consider it more of a buff similar to Fighting Spirit. Pneumatic is more of a heal than dreeg could ever be "as an example." And with enough points into the dreeg line you could forgo some poison/acid resistances on some items and get more out of a few slots.

Overall, with all of the debuffs it could be a fun build with potential. You will need to be patient for better gear into the mid game and be creative with how you build/tweak items with materials until later on. Fang of C'thon, Obsidian, and a number of other legendaries could be good with the build. I am probably gonna see it through as far as I can on stream until it either becomes less fun to play or it falls flat in elite.

I wouldnt worry about stat points until you cannot equip items, with so many passives within the soldier tree you should be able to wear most equipment until very late if you spec a full 50 mastery into both classes. Grim calc shows 425/375/350 for physique, cunning, and spirit at 50 mastery in both classes, very few stat points would be needed for legendaries. Fang requires 426 in both and obsidian requires 499 physique which means until VERY late game you dont need to worry about stats, you will be close enough to use most of everything. Worst case scenario, back up your save file late game with a hoard of unused points and see how much a number of spirit points would effect proc damage from the build. Otherwise I would just get physique and a few extra cunning if you are missing often.

It depends on if you do 1 or 2 handed and a number of other variables including how many points you put into any skill between soldier and occultist. You will need additional sustain mechanics, Sigil wont cut it in Ultimate. I dont know what or where you are putting skill points into, so just try to play around with it till you find a happy median! I could type more but I have been up 21 hours, good luck with the build! :D

[Draktok]

I have a soleils witch fire "witch hunter' build. I can show you if you'd like on stream or something. Level 47 now, I did bastion of chaos at 44 with this build, veteran.