If you are like me, I considerably enjoy theory-crafting new builds in D2, and I believe TU10 is going to add a LOT of options here. It's very tempting to look at one thing or another and be unhappy, but I thought that I would share at least one Status Effect build, which appears to be quite viable in TU10, if constructed appropriately:
Eclipse Protocol Burn Build
- Vile Mask
- 4-piece Eclipse Protocol (Holster + Chest + Gloves + Kneepads)
- Wyvern backpack with Creeping Death Talent
- Perfect Perpetuation Rifle (Everlasting Glaze / SCAR) giving +50% Status Effect Damage and Duration
- Any mid-to-long range weapon with the new talent Future Perfect, ideally the new SIG 556 with Future Perfection
- Firestarter Chem launcher + Assault Turret as skils
- Maximize Skill Damage and Status effects on every slot, in order to increase skill damage and length of the satus effect itself. * Note - skill duration does not appear to increase the length of the status effect, so don't make this mistake in your build.
- Firewall Specialization (for extra Burn damage)
- Skill Tier 6 for Yellow
So, in order to optimize this build, you follow these steps:
(1) First, setup your Assault Turret in a good spot, and use your Perfect Perpetuation Rifle to land a quick headshot. This triggers a +50% Status Effect Damage AND Duration on your NEXT Status Effect.
(2) Use your Firestarter Chem Launcher and quicky ignite an individual or small group of NPCs
(3) Your Creeping Death Talent AND Vile Mask are now fully triggered, giving you immediate concussion grenade damage as well, and ideally the burn is spreading to any NPCs within 8 meters as well.
(4) Use your SIG 556 (or other weapon with Future Perfect) to go for a quick concentrated kill, which will BOTH trigger the Indirect Transmission Talent AND Overcharge for 15 seconds. This will have the effect of setting every other NPC on fire within 20 meters, AND your overcharge on your skills will now be active, which is critical for your turret to get some incredibly strong damage in Overcharge, AND then your Firestarter Chem Launcher is almost done with its cooldown or ready already. NOTE - I have not tested if Creeping Death further extends Indirect Damage by an ADDITIONAL 8 meters, and I am assuming it does in order to optimize the burn radius, but if it does not, it may be better to use a different Backpack talent like Perfectly Wicked for the +18% weapon damage for 27 seconds.
(5) Switch quickly back to your Perfect Perpetuation Rife (as it has only a 16 second cooldown), and take another quick headshot, to trigger ANOTHER +50% bonus to Status Effects.
(6) Now in overcharge, use your Firestarter Chem Launcher AGAIN, this time with even greater effect than before, which in turn allows you create an even more vicious cycle of burning, and skill damage, etc.
You can repeat this process over and over again, and in a Team, you can offer your team considerable synergy if they bring a Pyromaniac, or other talents like Perfectly Wicked for all DPS builds.
I should highlight that status effect resistance was increased very materially in Heroic and Legendary missions with Elites and Named units, but the Perfect Perpetuation actually grants +50% duration, thereby ensuring that you have enough duration in your status effects to still cause material burn damage on these NPCs, at least long enough to get a concentrated kill on ONE of them, in order to trigger the Indirect Transmission talent over and over again.
OK, I hope that you like it. I have not tested this in the PTS yet, and solely theory-crafting, so please feel free to recommend any changes.
I think that TU10 does open up a variety of new build ideas. One that I am going to try is using Perfect Intimidate + Perfect Adrenaline Rush + 4 pc System Corruption with an Optimist Tactical Vector and Sweet Dreams. It will be focused on playing close range with Adrenaline Rush to proc bonus armor for Intimidate and System Corruption medkit to get emergency bonus armor if needed. In addition, System Corruption increases weapon damage by 1% for every 5% bonus armor so procing Adrenaline Rush with 3 enemies give 12% weapon damage. The armor on kill attribute from the System Corruption will also aid in sustain, making it less risky for CQC.
I answered a call for help yesterday and got plopped into a heroic with my half baked blue/red build and it actually did surprisingly well. Didnt feel good by any means, but that I was actually able to still put up 143m and 19 kills in just the 2 final rooms of the Viewpoint Museum was at least somewhat satisfying. I only caught the tail end of the mission when they put out that call.Originally Posted by Sgt.Danielle Go to original post