So I take it you were able to confirm that +% Damage over time applies to the void aura damage? What about +% Throw Damage, does it affect the aura or just the physical hammers?
Throw damage applies to everything and DoT applies to the Void Aura.
Added an updated video for 7.0e Hardcore. Feel free to ask questions:)
Hey Sirris,
Would you mind telling us the order in which you leveled your active and passive skills for us newbies?
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Sentinel - I put 2 points into the vit nodes then 2 into the block nodes. 7 into strength node, then finished off the other 2.
Next, Void Knight - Progressed up to max void bolts.
Since I’m HC I went paladin next because I wanted holy aura, for sc I would recommend getting fresh from the forge first.
After paladin i got fresh from the forge asap.
As far as skills go I basically highlighted the order in which i got the nodes with the mouse in the video. Will provide more detail later but I have to go to work:)
Hc waves rank 6 at the moment by the way.
Great. Any additional detail would be appreciated. Thanks.
Hammerthrow: I rush to disintegrating aura asap. Then get 2 to 3 points into rapid disintegration before maxing weighted hammers. Then I get rapid disintegration to 5 and save up 3 points so i can take the nodes leading to iron spiral without the drawbacks. From there just get the 2 points in catapult and finish up ballista.
Volitile Reversal: I start by getting ancient reversal max to make everything even worthwhile:P 2 points in time sap then 3 in catching up so i can go fast (gotta go fast- hit volitle reversal after youre standing still for any period of time for the movement speed boost). From here the order doesnt matter much. I get a point in each of the void rift nodes then get food for wyrms maxed. 3 points into warped time then finish off with dark expanse in hopes the rifts hit stuff:P
Devouring Orb: Pretty straight forward. Get abyssal emission first off. Four points in void adept to unlock abyssal juggernaut. However many points you feel you need in that, then get like 3 points into dark torrent. Max Void adept and abyssal juggernaut(the whole reason for getting this skill). Then the other three points into dark torrent to finish it up.
Holy Aura: Its kind of up to you based on what you need defense in but I go for the dodge nodes first because I feel they are the most helpful for when you unlock holy aura for this build. Max them. Unlock shelter from the storm and put a few points in it(based on how bad you need vit/ele protection at the time). Add 3 points or so to punishment, max shelter, then finish off by maxing punishment.
Mission Successful.
Got to number 2 on ladder without dying and with pretty mediocre gear(although i got some nice upgrades on the way).
Going to stop for now and come back with a reroll for number 1 spot after I make a couple other builds i want to try:)
Great Guide/shared Experience, really appreciate your work here!
Im using a very similar build, currently lvl 88 and like 340 waves in sc (i die to laggs… :D)
I have some toughts/questions, which could hopefully start a conversation about how to build a hammerdin to its limits.
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Holy aura is currently bugged, the +vit and e-res from “shelter” overrides the natural buffs from the aura. So u eihter dont invest into it or max it. Default is like 5 vit and 25 e-res. shelter is 5 vit and 75 e-res, so i still max it to get +50 e-res.
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Why arent u using the 25% increased throwspeed from “fanatism” (holy aura)? I found it to be quite nice, especially with the 100% increase on use. So u go like aura -> reversal and start melting with 86% increased throwspeed. Is the dodge-rating rly worth it? I found it hard to get dodge on gear, while keeping glancingblow and healthpool as high as possible. With all the leach from world eater (which is finally working as intended) i feel like we only die to high dmg spikes, so our goal should be to increase the max amount of dmg we can survive and not getting 1-shottet. What are u toughts here?
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As i stated above i dont get much dodge so i respeced into paladin to get the 12% block from “shieldwall” (instead of the 5% block from forge guard tree). Sadly “staunchdefender” (block protection) is bugged and gives no value at all and with the bugges to holy aura “aura of devinity” (%stat increase from holy aura) isnt worht it either. So u have to spec some extra health and e-/necrotic-res to get there. But i found it to be worth the trouble as u can get the 10 points into “fresh from the forge” anyway. Especially with the new improved base items. Im currently at 86% blockchance with 1570 blockprotection! What are ur toughts about the maxed out passivetree anyway?
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Is juggernaut stance w/o a skilltree rly worth loosing the mobility lunge profides? Lunge gives 60% armor as well so the only gain from stance is 15% reduced dmg. This is obviously huge but lunge gives 8 str and 100% e- and void-protection and u dont lose 15% throwspeed. U can also stack the buff from lunge if u go for “double strike” to have 2 charges. With reduced cd from “tactician” u have 1 charge of the buff always aktive, 2 charges (200% e-/v-res, 16 str, 120% armour) most of the time and for a short duration even 3 charges! So i cant imagine the overall defense-loss compared to stance that high if even existent.
I think the mobility gained is worth to lose out on some dmg mitigation. I dont die to meele mobs, i die when i drop down to 10 fps while nuking 1 range camp + meeles and getting shot from the other ranges. After the crowd dies u dont have ur leach up and the other range camps kill u. Charging to these ranges while beeing invincible (“unstoppable” perk) is soooo helpfull. I actually cant imagine playing arena (and the keyfarming in timelines!!!) w/o lunge, how is ur experience with the stance? -
Why are u maxing “punishment”? Is my understanding of this passive wrong? I read it like 1 point is enough to get the full bonus from the negative aura, while further points only increase the reduced movementspeed.
As i stated above i want to start a conversation about the toughts i have, maybe you (or any other hammerdin out there :D) find the time to share your opinion. Please dont understand my post as a critic on your build, u are obviously quite succesfull with it and i´m very gratefull that u share ur experience with the rest of us!!
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Hey Immaniz:) Nice to see a well thought out and knowledgeable reply. No offense taken at all.
I’ll start by saying that a lot of my build has to do with a “league starter” or minimal gear mindset. Especially given the hardcore aspect. A lot of my choices were based on what I needed at the time/what a low geared character would need. If I had a fully optimized set of gear my build choices would have changed(like a wonderfully rolled kite shield for example which I never found).
Ill simply say I wasn’t aware of the holy aura bug, that does explain some things:)
Hopefully they will fix that soon.
As to the next point, I think it will help to explain the hardcore play style at high arena waves. For me with the gear I had I didnt want to use volitile reversile just whenever. It was sort of an emergency button overall. Beyond that at high waves with my fairly shitty gear I spent a good portion of the late waves kiting backwards away from a fairly large group of diverse enemies. Thus making volitile reversal a tactile risk when used indiscriminately. Related to that mana issues would have arrived had i popped holy auras active.
As to fanaticism, thats another gear thing. I had a few gear pieces that just happened to have %increased throwing speed on them and also had enough throwing speed to effectively kite and maneuver as needed. But certainly is a very good choice if you have some great gear that doesnt happen to have throwing speed on it.
I’ll have to flat disagree with you about the dodge though. Was able to get about 40% dodge rate even at wave 300+ with the aura nodes helping. I also think that dodge is very important for suriving “oneshot” like damage spikes. Especially 300+ projectile waves.
For me the choice to avoid dodge on this build came down to me only finding a decent shield that had 700ish block protection. As briefly mentioned above had I found a sick kite shield with high block protection rolls i would invest more heavily into block % on the passive tree. However I would still maintain math wise that dodge is better protection than block when optimzied(which mine certainly wasnt). Remember blocks still have stun effects where as dodges do not at all. But yes with enough block protection its certainly a very viable alternative.
As for lunge I’m gonna have to flat disagree with you there. First of all theres a minor delay after lunge lands. Also armor is not an issue at all. Had around 1500 without really trying that hard. Also my void defense was enough. That coupled with the way damage scaling works makes juggernaut stance the better choice in my opinion. The 15% adds with the 50% less from a 100% glancing blow stat as you probably know.
The superiority of juggernaut stance is a very hard thing to prove with math though. But consider I’m in hardcore. Cant really risk lunging through mobs very often. Although being invincible in between is great, but the risk at the end with the slight delay isnt worth it to me. Even if it is the “right” move its still a risk. The mobility factor for me is not relevant for lunge because only quick movements to dodge attacks (just enough to avoid the damage then resume dps) are important to me at high waves. I’m typically kiting away to be extra safe(when you can lose all your gear from one simple mistake you start to play that way haha). That may be a matter of play style but I prefer control of the situation over sweeping wins of a battle field.
I play at minimum graphics setting for maximum preformance. I pretty much dont have any issues with fps drops anymore.
I get punishment precisely for the movement speed debuff. A critical component to my success in this build. Reducing enemy movement let me survive all those waves in some sense. I’d like to point out the actual dps boost you get from not having to move as often as often. I even wear vipertrail to further that effect even though its redundant (but thats mainly because I never found a super good belt and it gives a nice dodge bonus - if I found a sick belt I could craft to multi t5 i would use that instead- the most limiting factor was not wanting to use my precious supply of glyph of guardians). But yes I also like punishment because it applies bleed/poison etc periodically to any enemy nearby and I have a non world eater leech item to fully top off in between using it.
Those are my thoughts. Really great reply though. Top Level stuff, Appreciate it=D Again with different gear my thoughts would change I’m sure of it. But as mentioned in the thread I basically built this character as I progressed through arena with what I had.
What character are you on the sc ladder?
Hmm Nevermind - I used my dective skills:P Immadin - Wave 347- Level 88:) Solid work. Now come to the dark side cough I mean hardcore.
Also in reponse to what you die to and to just passively brag like a cocky jerk. I don’t know what thats like;) But seriously my suggestion to you there is to invest into ring of shields passive. Its much more powerful than it seems. Especially if you clip packs of fast attacking range units , throw a couple hammers, get some shields going then move in to to finish them.
Side note: Are you sure holy aura active is bugged? My understanding is it only doubled the stat increases from the holy aura itself. Not total stat increases.
The whole aura is bugged, not only the active part, there is a post somewhere in this forum about it as well. You can try it out (i did…), have aura with no points in “shelter” = 5 Vit 25 E-res, then putting 1 point into shelter leaves you with 1 Vit and 15 e-res. So shelter simply overrides the default passive bonus. Activating aura indeed doubles all stats gained from aura passives, so also +throwspeed, etc.
I see how hardcore changes ur playstyle and gear choices, i still like the lunge playstyle in sc.
Maybe i need to try to get some dodge items and respec my aura in order to give dodge a chance and can have a better opinion about it. But i dont have the ressources to do so atm.
The 15% dmg reduction is of course very nice, i considered dropping reversile but then i get issues with my mana (i use it on cd for mana management and dps increase).
Im pretty sure tough, that if the stances gets a passive tree lunge has no chance of beeing competetive to it.
I played with the ring of shield passive at the beginning cuz i rly like having those cool shields around you 
I droped it since i didnt saw any1 using it and felt guilty of using it just because its cool, maybe ill try again. But then i need to reconsider going into paladin…
Im very very unsure of how the maxed passive tree should look like for sc with “best in slot” gear…
I play on very low as well, with everthing disabled, updated windows, drivers, etc. Still drop to under 10 fps sometimes. Especialy the necrotic projectiles are a issue for my grafic. So there is no chance that i will start playing hc
I only did 1 “hard try” to climb the waves so far, which ended due to laggspikes at 347, so i dont rly know if stance or dodge could help my build. So far i have no chance of dieing while having leech targets in range, mobs die very quickly (so i can “wait out” the initial freeze when everthing dies and the rifts from the orb start popping with my 2 lunge charges and its invincibility) and with lunge i dont have to kite and kill 1 range camp after the other with invincibility in between. I died to laggs -> lunge not activating while poison/necrotic ranges at W100 yesterday. while farming some crafting mats. So my real enemy is the performance - no stat to focus on to help with this
Why Devouring Orb? I haven’t min-maxed my guy yet but the damage is already more than enough with pretty mediocre gear at lv75. Taking Lunge with the big defensive bonuses + mobility seems like a better choice to me.
That said we have an extra open Specialization slot so you can actually take both and switch between which you keep on your bar!
The main reason for Devouring Orb is the Abyssal Juggernaut node which gives 60 flat elemental and void protection as well as 60% increased void and elemental protection. Unlike Lunge you can easily keep it up all the time.
I shy away from because lunge it’s a somewhat risky skill especially at very high waves where you spend a lot of time kiting a distance.
Fair enough, makes sense for very high level arena. For Monolith Lunge feels better for me for the mobility, offers more protection (100% inc void and elemental protection), and has basically 100% uptime. I have both skills specialized now though so I can swap between them.
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