Theory-crafting builds for solo high-level Delves

So, scourge/bloodseeker dom blow/blade flurry + spectres necro/glad ascendant, max block with bone offering, haemophilia for %based bloodsplosions, stacking minion damage to scale everything including the explosions, and using a loreweave it is.

There's no way GGG won't see the issues with monster life % scaling setups, and will hopefully fix that by using scaling like monsters take %less/reduced damage instead of just adding more life.

And we already know (Ziggy mentioned it in Ziz's stream) that monster level is capped, as it would make Spectre scaling too absurd.

Complete immunity detonate dead poets pen pathfinder. 100% all res 100% phys taken as ele/ic and CI. Look up Shinra's RF build if you wan't info on how to get complete immunity.

I think we're gonna see some super tanky builds being theorycrafted, since there is no time limit, you can take your time killing stuff, much like when Atziri first came out, people on Hardcore did the most tanky builds they could think of. On second thought, damage might actually be needed so you wont get overrun by monsters, and that's where %max health explosions come in handy, but we'll have to wait and see.

%HP based abilities will be as strong as they are now if GGG chooses to scale monsters in other ways than just giving them more HP (like giving them %reduced damage taken, or maybe block/dodge etc.)

People are underrating the good old RF Jugg. You can almost reasonably have permanent up time on immortal call and you can get 10k hp with 84/84/79 resists (2 lvl 23 purities + saffels). DPS is about 500k on average but then tripled to 1.5M for ~6-7seconds when you activate vaal RF.

I think by the time you get to a floor where rf jugg actually starts taking dangerous damage the monster hp is going to be so high that other less tanky but higher dps builds won't be killing monsters before getting hit, and when they get hit they'll be getting one shot guaranteed.

Two underused skills in the current game might see some play, frostwall+phase run can keep monsters away from you and reduce the range you are spotted at by 80%

combo this with something like an elementalist golemancer where you have a bunch of 20k+ health golems that are immune to elemental damage and you can be effectively invisible/unreachable

and when the golems start getting dying too quickly you can always put on minion instability to make em pop

it might be a cheesy way to push some deeper delves

also for % life damage you can use abyssal cry, but the taunt aspect might get you killed

Pathfinder poets pens

Romiras + volls devotion + immortal call in your unearth - Gmp pen. 100% uptime when you get a 4th charge. Ideally +1 res volls devotion too.

And then there's two setups, the most optimal depends on how relevant chaos damage is

1. Chaos damage hardly exists in delves

• go life based, use RF to degen your mana pool to 0, use zerphis flask and divine distille (yes they both work at once), put frenzy on blood magic as your mana is 0, use 3 resist flasks. You can achieve 94% ish resists without purities. With permanent immortal call. You can reserve the majority of your mana pool meaning you can fit in triple purities too. Upside is that nothing can kill you, except chaos damage. Downside is that chaos damage does exist, meaning you need to stack some life and can't completely ignore all life on tree.

2. Chaos resist is relevant

CI, perma IC through same method, use indigion to drain mana to sustain your diviniate distille. Unfortunately can not run purities on this setup so you're going to be at 94% ish resists. Meaning you need to stack some ES, can't completely negate it. But immune to chaos, phys and 94% resists and probably wise oak + pathfinder take 8% less ele damage.

So unfortunately both setups require you to invest into either life or ES on the tree, limiting your total dps. If you had a triple purity mana guardian support for the CI version, then you could have actual full damage immunity. You won't need to take any life or ES on the tree whatsoever and stack full damage. The downside is that you now have a support character that isn't full damage immune and may die. Though you can build most of the same defences on a guardian and get nearly damage immune.

A duo like this will push the furtherest I think. It'll go as far as you can push the guardian before he gets one shot with 95% resists instead of 100%.

Also this assumes there is no resist penetration. If mobs penetrate resist, this fucks over the whole strategy

Temp Chains and Enfeeble. Should be highly valuable, especially when combined with aura effectiveness and Enhance support gem.

Shouldn't that be curse effectiveness?

I doubt it'll be as hard as people here imagine it to be. It'll probably just be more of one shot extravaganza where you kill monsters quickly enough or they'll kill you.

• Vaal Double Strike and Blade Flurry, for melee builds.

This one sounds like a suecide later on if they scale delve by adding damage and hp to monsters melee range will sucks much. And that lightning mirrage mod..... FFS who even design that.

They already stated that they're reworking pathfinder. If 100% resists with 100% uptime still works, then "daaaaamn".

To be perfectly honest, 100% resist pathfinder will probably be the best for reaching new depths by following the cart, but will probably be absolute trash for farming side paths due to darkness. Even with the high movement speed.

I will go for some chieftain blade vortex with some CwDT and the razor of seven suns, can get over 100% life regen per second, deal 3 million shaper dps and have ton of defense. Plus you can use that essence to get the fire explosion on kill that scale with enemy life.

Once you get deep enough that even an enemy sneeze is a one-shot, switch to using a basalt flask and Bramble jack for 60% reflect melee phys, unequip everything else, pop immortal call and charge the enemies. Their hits do near-infinite damage to your soft naked body, you reflect 60% * infinity back (check my math there), and immortal call keeps you alive.

What's that you say? This plan can never actually work? Pish posh, then why are these beers telling me it's such a great idea?

Arc will be nerfed before BV. Idk how they plan on nerfing EH w/o just completely making the light/cold versions unplayable (ppl play them i think?).

Heirophant has loads of survability with Perm immortal call 5% reduce ele damage taken and 40%+ MoM (easy to get 60%). Relatively easy to get a WLM oh ring for leech. Could go crit for more damage. Essence craft ammy for % chance to gain 10% mana on skill. This can be done with any ascendancy with Indigon.

Personally I think totem's will be in a good spot since you'll be trying to maneuver in the corridor with a pair of elder gloves with global blind. Attack based totems are even better with Blind and taunt coming from abyss jewels. Possible option for chief-slayer ascendant with 3 totems for leech. Troll timber is enough for spell based totems.

Personally I think the only builds going super deep are crit based builds. Even with indigon you might as well go crit since it's easy.

If EH isn't gutted I'll be going Crit EH totems. If it's dead then probably either a Crit indigon build or a Reave/BF ascendant.

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I would say with decent gear Indigon ED could cover both damage and survivability. At least if you can get ED to 800k tooltip you will get 4k life regen per mob and MoM.

I feel like eventually no matter how tanky short ranged builds like BV etc. will just get oneshot and the only way to survive is gonna be being ranged.

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EQ, worm flask, slayer overleech, feelsgoodman