User:Evil4Zerggin/Build guide: Pyroclastic Flow

Summary
Offense: Use and  to. Melee supports both increase the number of spirits and their individual effectiveness.

Defense: High block and spell block; Eldritch Battery and ; and.

Passives
Passive tree. This is built for 1.2. Originally I built this as Scion, but I think it would work better as Witch.

Bandits:
 * Normal: Oak (+40 maximum Life). We need all the base life we can get.
 * Cruel: Kraityn (8% increased Attack Speed). Attack speed is the bread-and-butter of our offense, along with...
 * Merciless: Alira (+1 maximum Power Charge). ...critical strike chance.

I recommend heading for the Shadow area first, as clear speed tends to be more important in the early game. Save Power Charges for last since it takes a while for to become effective at generating charges. Any leftover points can go towards Life, attack speed, or weapon-specific nodes as desired.

Mandatory

 * . With up to 60% block chance applied to spells, this is one of the best broad-band defensive items in the game.
 * . Another source of spell block, Rainbowstride also has decent resists and Energy Shield.
 * . The increase to block helps cap things out, and the block perks are immense. At 75% block with Mind over Matter, we will regain 180 hit points on average per hit we take. To get past the movement penalty, we will use (or  if using a dagger or claw) to move around.
 * . With so much ES gear involved in spell block, and given that the Mind Barrier passive is near Eldritch Battery, Mind over Matter is a natural choice to get maximum mileage out of all that mana.
 * The weapon. A dagger (ideally a top ) offers the best offense both directly and via the Nightstalker cluster, but high-end daggers tend to be expensive, and daggers cannot so we will need to use . Claws can offer a helpful life gain on hit (ideally ) but are also limited to  for movement. If we want to  we will want to use a sceptre or sword (ideally a, , , or similar). We really only need attack speed and critical strike chance, though damage can be nice in situations where our Spirits are less effective.

A good weapon can be gotten for a few. is cheap unless we're going for a corrupted spell block version. A decent and  can be gotten for about one. The major cost is thus a linked, though we may be able to get by with a lesser chest armour for a while.

Recommended

 * . implies a fast attack rate, and the life and mana gain on hit from  gives extreme sustain and utterly trivializes half/no regen maps. The curse resistance is also very helpful in mapping. We will give up quite some potential resists and life, however.

Leveling

 * . Dual-wielding these can get us a long way while we build up access to enough shield nodes to approach the cap.
 * , . Delivers lots of crits, and allows us to . Meanwhile, the Crest is one of the best and earliest defensive shields in the game.
 * . Useful for spell block before we have a.
 * . Like all builds, this build is highly dependent on links. A  can tide us over until we can acquire a 5- or 6-link.

Skills

 * ,, . Top supports are:
 * . Increasing the accuracy of the Spirits is very effective, and it saves us from having to find accuracy on gear.
 * . Although it does not apply to the magma balls, and 's cooldown prevents each splash from triggering more than one cast, the increase to effectiveness of the individual Spirits is immense.
 * . More attacks mean more procs, and this will make our Spirits attack faster as well.
 * . Ditto.


 * ,, . This allows us to gain Power Charges automatically. At lower levels, may be helpful in bootstrapping the charging process.
 * or, . For movement, is out of the question because we are taking a duration cluster.  in swap is not a viable option since swapping turns off.
 * ,, , . The standard CwDT setup. With a duration cluster, this ensures that every physical hit above 440 damage that we take will either trigger or be blocked by it.
 * ,, . We can use instead if more offense is desired.
 * . If we have an extra link, we can use or mix it in with, but this is not strictly necessary.
 * . We may consider with this.

Offense

 * The key to this build's offense is that melee supports can both increase procs of as well as the effectiveness of the individual Spirits.
 * Since the game is balanced around 75% resists and Raging Spirits don't resist anything except Fire, they tend to die a lot against non-Fire damage. In this case, Minion Instability helps ensure that we get at least a little value out of them.
 * Reflect is a non-issue, since our direct attacks do little damage, can cause life and mana gain on hit, and are likely to be blocked on reflect.
 * This is definitely a defense-focused build. The offense is solid but not exceptional, and does take a while to spool up. If we want a more offense-focused build of this type, I would suggest using dual, , and , and reach the block cap using something like this Scion or this Duelist as the core.

Defense

 * Mitigation is very strong. Regular block is 78%, and spell block can easily reach 70% with good gear and 78% with perfect gear. Against most threats, offers a strong supplement to our Life pool.  gives further mitigation and chilled ground. With movement skills, the mana drain is quite manageable since we are only technically moving about half of the time.
 * The build is nearly immune to rapid-attacking monsters. Every block gives us life and mana, returns damage to the attacker, and can give us power charges. The bosses of and  will suicide themselves in seconds.
 * The weakest defensive aspect of the build is that it uses a large number of uniques, leaving few slots for flat life on gear.
 * Degeneration is the most dangerous damage since none of blocking, Mind over Matter, and are effective against it. Corrupting Blood, desecrated ground, and, among others, can all be scary.