OVERVIEW
Using 4L Hydrosphere + Hydrosphere + Battlemage's Cry + Autoexertion, with melee splash and +1 strike, we can get double damage by attacking the boss 1x with our attack, and melee splashing off of the hydrosphere with the additional strike.
This interaction is proven to work. See videos:
Video by me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6TDXoeZXBg&t=723s&pp=0gcJCQMKAYcqIYzv
Video by poopbutts2000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUVe5cnyZf4
Therefore, by getting 100% uptime on Battlemage's Cry, we can guarantee double damage every hit. In addition, every time you attack, you create a new hydrosphere, so you never have to worry about positioning, as the hydrosphere will always be on top of the enemy.
Note that you MUST use EXACTLY the 4L described above.
The following WILL NOT WORK:
Battlemage's Cry + Hydrosphere (only one): this will MOVE the hydrosphere rather than creating new hydrospheres, which means you will only be able to hit the hydrosphere every 1 second.
CWDT + Hydrosphere: this will spawn the hydrosphere ON YOU, which means your additional strike WILL NOT TARGET IT and you will get no damage increase. Battlemage's cry, conversely, spawns the hydrosphere on top of the enemy, where your additional strike can successfully hit it.
Note that if you are too close to the hydrosphere, the additional strike may not target it. So, sometimes you have to reposition yourself so there is a small distance between you and the enemy. (It's like playing Lightning Strike, in terms of the spacing).
Getting 100% uptime on Battlemage's Cry is very easy: simply take Berserker's "War Bringer", the Measured Fury wheel, anoint Deep Breaths, and get 20q on all warcry gems.
With this warcry scaling, we can efficiently use a standard "slam-like" warcry setup with Intimidating Cry, Overexertion support, etc., which gives us a HUGE amount of damage.
However, we will start losing warcry uptime if we scale attack speed too high.
That is why we use Boneshatter of Complex Trauma, which allows us to get optimal damage with a lower attack speed.
We also run Less Duration support, so that we can get more attack speed which makes the build feel better, and the result is a build with 3.22APS that is permanently at 8-9 stacks of trauma when continuously attacking.
(Note that you can either run 0q or 20q less duration support, depending on how much attack speed you have. More attack speed = you need more quality.)
All of this results in a huge amount of damage for rather low investment, meaning that we can invest much more heavily into DEFENSE than usual.
This build has following defensive layers:
- 70k+ armor
- 85/83/83 res (with more if you run triple ele flasks), and a good enough amount of chaos res. More maxres is possible if you have elevated eldritch implicits.
- 20 fortify
- 4 endurance charges
- Delirious bloodline "That didn't happen!" giving effectively 40% less damage taken from hits (because this build has huge recovery)
- Molten Shell
- 2k life leech per second, a couple thousand ES regen per second from Divine Shield, and 25%+ Life Recoup (this allows you to sustain trauma)
NOTE: in order to see your correct leech value, you need to set "Exerted/Boosted calc mode" in Config to "Average". However, you should set that to "Max hit" for your real practical DPS, because even though you don't have 100% uptime on intimidating cry, in bosses you will move around a lot so it's basically 100% uptime while hitting.
- 7k EHP pool between Life/Es due to Corrupted Soul
- 10% phys taken as fire, and 6% PDR on chest.
With this damage and defense, this build does T17's with ease, and can easily kill Ubers as well (although Ubers are not free, and you still have to play well).
PRIDE VS DETERMINATION
- You can swap between Pride and Determ as you wish. I used determ for all mapping content, but swapped to Pride for certain Ubers and T17 bosses.
- Note that if you have low armor/PDR, or don't have delirious bloodline yet, you should probably use only determination.
- I highly recommend farming multiple reservation small cluster jewels, so you can have one with determ and one with pride.
MAPPING VS BOSSING
- This POB shows a bossing setup.
- For mapping, I recommend taking "destroy enemies" axe mastery, +1 strike mastery, +0.3m strike range mastery, and the rage movement speed mastery, and using a 30-35% MS boots with crafted reduced effect of chill and shock.
- You can even do a glove and boots swap for mapping vs bossing.
- Mapping gloves implicits: +1 strike, exerted attacks damage. Bossing gloves implicits: pinnacle impale chance, +1 cold res.
- Mapping boots implicits: movement speed, exerted attacks damage. Bossing boots implicits: pinnacle intimidating cry cooldown, +1 fire res.
- For mapping, you can put Molten Shell in the CWDT. For bossing, I recommend taking it out, so you can press it at the right time. (just swap Molten Shell and Rallying Cry gems)
PROGRESSION VARIANTS
This build has several progression variants, starting at the most simple, and progressing until the most complex. If you are playing this in SSF at league start, I recommend progressing linearly through each of these variants. If you have gear farmed already, you can obviously skip ahead.
1. Normal Boneshatter
- This is your normal boneshatter SSF league starterbuild. See my youtube channel for a guide on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hBgPBCs60I
- This variant requires 0 specific gear, and sustains trauma using Gore Dancer.
2. Complex Trauma + Divine Shield + Crystal Belt/Soul Tether/Burden of Truth
- With Divine Shield, you can sustain trauma without Gore Dancer, allowing you to take War Bringer instead.
- With War Bringer, you can completely transition into the Complex Trauma exerts version of this build, with all the warcries, hydrosphere, etc.
- You can enable divine shield at a low budget by simply using a crystal belt with ~200ES, or Burden of Truth belt (drops from sirus).
- A Soul Tether will disable divine shield, but it gives overleech, so it should still be good.
- Note: Make sure you have really high armor at this stage, because Complex Trauma ramps a lot of trauma damage really quickly.
3. Glorious Vanity Doryani (Corrupted Soul) in Eternal Youth spot
- With Corrupted Soul, you get a huge amount of ES, and split damage 50/50 between life and ES, enabling Divine Shield to its fullest potential.
- Then, you can drop your belt for some other good belt.
4. Replica Soul Tether (1 in 98 grand heist wings drop rate, it has higher chance to drop in bunker and underbelly).
- Replica Soul Tether is INSANE on this build because it enables you to:
- Drop timeless jewel and save many points
- Anoint Deep Breaths (timeless jewel @ eternal youth will overwite Deep Breaths node)
- Run Delirious Bloodline "That didn't Happen!" to get huge defense (timeless jewels are disabled if you run this).
- Efficiently take good nodes such as Berserking and Unwavering Stance
5. Echoes of Creation
- In late endgame, when you have a lot of armor, PDR, and ideally Delirious Bloodline as well, you can use this helmet to get a huge amount of damage.
- Using this helmet will also give you more recovery via life recoup and divine shield.
GEAR
Weapon
- any high pdps 2h axe. Despot axe is the best base, Ezomyte is fine too but a little slower, Vaal axe maybe ok too but will be quite slow.
Helmet
- Echoes of Creation optimal in late end game
- Otherwise, use Giantslayer Helmet with life/armor/res. Use Essence of Loathing and blue ichors to get ideally 15+ reservation efficiency. Use red embers to get reduced manacost of attacks.
Body
- Royal Plate with high armor, ideally 4k+. Use Essence of Insanity until you hit PDR, then lock suffix reforge def until high armor. Eldritch implicits +1 or +2 allres, and taken as. Don't get a life mod on this, use life mastery instead.
Gloves
- Leviathan Gauntlets with high armor/life/res. Attack speed is optional, depends on trauma stack uptime. Eldritch implicits +1 or +2 cold res, and ideally "impale chance on pinnacle boss".
Boots
- Leviathan Greaves with high armor/life/res. Craft movement speed and cannot be chilled. Eldritch implicits +1 or +2 fire res, and ideally "intimidating cry cooldown on pinnacle boss".
Amulet
NOTE: between Amulet and two Rings, you will need two crafts of -7 mana cost, and 1 craft of "warcries cannot exert travel skills".
- Turquoise Amulet with life/all attributes/+1 phys gems. +1 phys gems is hard to get, so it's optional, but gives you nearly +1m damage and also some armor from levels on Boneshatter and Determination. All attributes is really important here; ideally you get enough attributes on Amulet so you don't need to worry about it anywhere else.
Rings
- 2x Amethyst Rings with life/res. If you can land high recoup (suffix), it's optimal, but then it will be harder to cap res and meet attribute requirements.
Belt
- Replica Soul Tether optimal in endgame
- Normal Soul Tether or Burden of Truth is fine for midgame
- Crystal Belt is fine on a budget
- Don't play this build if you don't have any of these (play normal boneshatter instead).
Medium Cluster
- Ideally, 4 or 5 passive Exert cluster with Warning Call and Mob Mentality. Warning Call gives lots of armor, and Mob Mentality gives you good uptime on frenzy and endurance charges. Note that it may be annoying to test your trauma stack uptime if conditional frenzy charges from Mob Mentality are used, but 3 frenzy charges = 12% more damage.
- On a lower budget, you can just use 4 or 5 passive Exert cluster with only Warning Call.
- On a super low budget, you can just not use this cluster at all.
- As a (suboptimal) sidegrade, you can also use Lead by Example to get perma onslaught, and then you don't need to get onslaught on your body armor
Small Cluster
- Ideally, 2 or 3 passive Reservation cluster with Determination node (depend on how much reservation you have on other gear). You can also use Pride node if you are running Pride instead of Determination.
Graft #1
- Uulgraft with "Violent Desire". This will give you a big damage boost.
- Implicit: impale chance is optimal
- P1: life, global physical damage, impale chance all OK
- P2: graftblood gained is optimal
- S1: graft skill CDR or skill effect duration both OK
- S2: doesn't really matter, but you probably don't want attack speed because that could mess up your trauma sustain
Graft #2
- Uulgraft with "Seize the Flesh". This skill does huge damage, and impales the enemy.
- Implicit: ideally impale chance
- P1: life, global physical damage, impale chance all OK
- P2: graftblood gained is optimal
- S1: graft skill CDR is optimal
- S2: graft skill deal increased damage is VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!
Flask 1: life flask with bleed immune
Flask 2: quicksilver
Flask 3: ruby
Flask 4: sapphire
Flask 5: topaz
- HIGHLY RECOMMEND getting +3 charges on hit on ALL flasks as this build has 0 avoidance
- note that you can also bench craft 3% life regen, which will help offset Rite of Ruin's degen.
- you can also run reduced shock effect on flask, as it's challenging to get shock immune on this build (we only have 60% from garukhan pantheon)