Wanted to share a build I’ve been tinkering with for Auric Damnation. It’s not meta by any means, but I’ve been having a fun time with it and with putting the flamer to use.
Crits with the flamer combined with triggering your combat ability really does some amazing damage to mixed hordes. The basic attack is great for suppressing ranged enemies when you dive in. If the Cloud Radius stat is high it really has a surprisingly long range.
Need to be strategic with when you use the flamer since it’s a cumbersome. But that is where the daggers fill in. I’ve gotten to really, really, like the daggers. Being able to quickly 1-shot specials and most elites without leaving your melee weapon is amazing.
Also, a sneaky tip I leaned: When drawing the flamer if you throw a knife right as the draw animation starts, it will skip the rest of draw animation and you can start firing much quicker. Pretty interesting.
It’s been a fun build. I’ve tried out reassigning the two talent points for Thy Wrath Be Swift and I’m still debating how best to spend those point. Restoring Faith instead? Take +10% health and more wounds at the bottom? Swift Certainty? Still experimenting with the extra points
But not taking “Duellist”, probably one of the best passives in the game? Especially when choosing a lot of mobility nodes and a combat axe. “Desperation” isn’t all that great, but Duellist alone easily makes up for not taking Until Death and Holy Revenant.
Duellist doesn’t actually increase damage by 50%, I believe (I might be wrong) it increases the finesse modifier on a weapon by a flat 0.5 amount instead of increasing the total by 50% as the description suggests.
Also just adding that Thy Wrath Be Swift’s value comes from it negating all manners of hitstun, not the movement speed that it gives.
Finesse damage is increased by a flat 50%, but the critical multiplies on top of that. Critical from Duellist is also multiplicative with “Purge the unclean”. So yeah, It’s silly.
I was thinking Duelist might be good. The build uses crits so stacking more headshot and crit damage makes a lot of sense. Might need to go that way.
Thy wrath be swift is useful because you can hold down the flamer button in tight range and if you get hit it won’t break your flamer attack. But honestly can be swapped off and just play a bit more defensively to take Duelist.
If I take duelist, maybe second wind is the logical pairing with it (+15% toughness on dodge)?
Or maybe desperation? With the ascycles axe, the anti horde combo is a push attack + heavy 1, so in a long fight I’m constantly spending stamina for a push and regaining a bit on passive, so might have good uptime and give +20% more damage.
Second wind is a very strong talent and would be your only toughness regenerating talent choice in the build, besides the class ability. I’ve tried desperation but I can’t see it being good, it’s actually difficult to intentionally get my own stamina to get any value out of it. Especially when running stamina regen.
You’ll have regen toughness for you at least when you’re in the inevitable situation of facing elites without your ability. I think it’s a very good option to take.
Revised the build and tested out Duelist and Second Wind in a couple matches. That definitely feels like the way to go. Toughness on dodge keeps you topped off and compliments normal toughness from kills nicely, and the bonus damage from duelists is great too.
