Martyrdom Striker
Author: Mahj
This build revolves around a spell called Martyrdom, which scales in damage based on your total Health pool. See where this is going? This build will easily bring you from level 10 to level 60! It can easily beat dimensions up to late game, and you won't have too much trouble with the spell-immune Ender Dragon since putting a point into Overflowing Vitality will make the fight a breeze. Not to mention, the synergy between this build and the powerful early-game Arachnon Hammer for mining makes this a shoe-in for a prime starter build!
Put one point into Purifying Fires to help with damage. You can weave the spell in between your basic attacks. Levels 1-10 shouldn't be too difficult, you can reach level 15-20 with ease just by following the Prelude (Overworld Chapter) in the quest book (Hotkey: P).
- Martyrdom
- Generating Enrage Stacks
- Primarily Health
- Some Armor & Block Chance
You pretty much just want a ton of the following:
- Health
- Vitality
And to a lesser extent:
- Stamina
- Health Regen
- Cooldown Reduction
- Spell Damage
- Primary: Divine
- Secondary: Unholy (Damage/Health Synergy), Nature (Tank), or Ocean (Support)
Obviously, you want to specialize in Divine for Martyrdom. Start with a single point in Purifying Fires to help with leveling from 1-10. After, you'll want to save points to max Martyrdom and then Bravery ASAP, followed by a single point into Anger. Then max Enrage and then Anger. The rest is up to you - you can choose to grab Defend for extra Armor, or grab some heal spells. It's better to max Bravery before Enrage because of the large boost to Vitality and Health Regen.
Secondary choice for your Mastery is really up to you. But the Unholy Mastery is fantastic for a health-based damage build.
- We start with the left side instead of the bottom because it gives us access to Spell Damage nodes in the top while still giving us the same access to the Health nodes in the bottom!
- We want to take advantage of the fact that Martyrdom is considered spell damage. So your primary nodes of focus are Spell Damage nodes and Health nodes!
- We also take advantage of Blood Mage - this way, we don't need to worry about upkeeping mana costs.
- Vampire is dependent on your second tree. I would take it if you go Nature, just because Nature's Balm applies a regen that is not affected by the -1000% Health Regen Multi, but Ocean's Nourishment buff is (so I wouldn't take it with Ocean as a second tree).
- I personally don't like grabbing Overflowing Vitality except for the Ender Dragon fight. The reason for this is because Overflowing Vitality has a whopping -20% Multi on Health. But realistically, it's probably still good as you can weave basic attacks between Martyrdom casts. It's up to you!
- Other possible nodes: Stout Defender, Steady Hand, Power Overwhelming.
The 2.18.0 tree changes don't change this build.
- Try to craft an Arachnon Hammer early on. It'll be helpful with mining, but more importantly, the guaranteed unique will provide a huge boost to Health and all Divine spells (including Martyrdom)!
- Some other notable early-game uniques that help with this build: Stormclash and Shaftstop. They both provide huge bonuses to Health, and Stormclash even provides bonuses to all Divine Spells.
- Generally, you want your other pieces to provide large bonuses to Health.
- If you can find a good item base, Bloom [Ano + Goh] is a great Runeword that provides plenty of Health.
- Be wary not to get too many physical attack damage modifiers as Martyrdom is technically a physical spell. You would want modifiers to all physical damage.
- Because Martyrdom is an Attack Spell, you can get Spell Lifesteal and Lifesteal to gain health with it.
It's up to you really, you can choose to completely respec. as this build is relatively low budget. If you're enjoying the melee playstyle, you could transition into an Overflowing Vitality build and utilize Whirlwind, or transition into a Retribution build. If you're looking for something new, check out the builds page!