Guardian Faith, Exposure tournament dual claws Phoenix Striker

[jiansonz]

Somewhat belated (but not nearly as much as the next one I am going to write...), I present to you my second Guardian of my favourite build. Many of my Phoenix Strikers have been killed in assorted tourneys, but this one lived.

The rules in Morathi's Exposure tourney are not complicated. Other than some minor details, it can pretty much be summed up as: No merc, no summons and no shield. I first started a Poisonmancer in this tourney. Progress was slow for him in early Act V Normal so I ended up creating a second entrant, even though I apparently was hesitant at first:

If there was a jack of all build... Aoe and boss killer without immunity problems. That didn't go by the name hammerdin.

Phoenix Striker fits this description...but not in this tournament. I want both merc, Shadow and shield for that build.

Here is my first report for Faith and you can read all of them in the tourney thread. Quite a few screenshots there as well.

Fists of Fire use with my claws (Katars, then Cesti, then Blade Talons) carried me to late Normal, where Phoenix Strike was built to high levels. The lightning synergy was the first to be maxed, because the lightning charge needs more synergy help to be powerful (no continous damage like the fire charge).

The weapon switch (my Blade Fury switch) first held some different javelins (used with Throw, not BF), later a 'Black' Maul, then The Meat Scraper and finally Fleshrender in second half of Hell. I simply did not hit with Blade Fury often enough for the Black knockback to be reliable, so it was hit-and-run bleeding against the enemies I could not safely tank. Well, unless I could kill them with Meteor flames from earlier fighting, or with Death Sentry explosions.
Enemies that were BF-bleeded on the run on Hell difficulty include Mephisto (with moat trick), Hephasto, Thresh Socket, a nasty spider boss in Ruined Temple, Berserker spearwoman in an ice cave, Korlic, Talic, Berserker and Champion Assailants on the Throne level, Lister and all his seven minions, Cow King and a whole bunch of others.

I found a Lem rune in Nightmare and could thus make a Treachery armor. This armor freed up skill points and gear choices (that would otherwise have gone towards resist gear and Fade) which allowed me to go all out +Martial Arts skills on gear and to max both main PS synergies and get a large radius Death Sentry. Of course, getting the Fade to trigger often enough was not easy in some areas. Not when you mainly try to play in a way so you don't get hit...
Many were the times I left a wussy monster somewhere so I could go there, have the monster beat on me and get Fade to trigger again. Sometimes I could use traps - the physical damage ones (spiky ball traps, spear traps) were my favourites. Fire traps hurt a bit much when my resists were bad. However, fellow player felixbavaria pointed out that I could get some claws and have a castable Fade of decent level. A very good suggestion that I made use of - I kept two claws in my stash so I could buff with level 8 Fade when needed.

I had planned for higher level Mind Blast but never actually pumped it beyond the first point (giving me level 3 MB). There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, Cloak of Shadows and Phoenix Strike's third charge (cold) were enough crowd control for most situations. Secondly, sometimes I just wanted to push some monsters back with MB and not convert them. Too high level MB would have made this harder.

There were a bunch of nasty NDEs. The two worst happened in Act V Hell and they are described in the last reports in the thread. Colenzo's pack very nearly scored a kill. That can't have happened often...:badteeth:


Guardian Faith, dual claws Phoenix Striker
Level: 87
STR 80, DEX 79+3, VIT 346, ENE 25
Life 1446, Mana 228
Weapon block: 49%
Resists with level 15 Fade triggered: 75/75/75/0
Resists without Fade: 28/36/26/-60 (so usually no need to panic if it timed out)
Phoenix Strike Attack Rating: 8078
Phoenix Strike damage numbers

Skills
Phoenix Strike 20+14
Fists of Fire 20+14
Claws of Thunder 20+14
Dragon Flight and prereqs 1+14

Death Sentry 12+2
Blade Fury and prereqs 1+2

Weapon Block 7+2
Claw Mastery, Burst of Speed, Cloak of Shadows, Mind Blast and prereqs 1+2

Primary Gear:
* Kenshi's Circlet of the Vampire (7), 'OrtThul'
* Kenshi's Amulet
* Rare Greater Talons 'Eth' with Fool's ability, 30% IAS and 20% Resist Cold
* 'Treachery' Cuirass
* Kenshi's Blade Talons 'Eth'
* Kenshi's Gauntlets of Charged Bolt
* Rare ring with 22% Fire Resist, +3 DEX, +100 AR and +74 mana
* Crafted Mesh Belt with +51 life, 10% OW, 10% FHR and 3% life steal
* Rainbow(10) Ring of the Wolf (17)
* Amber(33) Greaves of Acceleration

* Steel (115) Grand Charm of Life (8)
* 2x Garnet (22) Grand Charm
* Grand Charm of Vita (37)
* Amber (15) Large Charm of Life (7)
* Ruby (14) Large Charm
* Coral (8) Small Charm of Greed
* Garnet (8) Small Charm
* Sapphire (11) Small Charm
* Azure (5) Small Charm of Life (10)
* Small Charm of Vita (18)
* 2x Small Charm of Sustenance (13)
* Small Charm of Sustenance (12)

Weapon switch (used with Blade Fury)
* Fleshrender unique Barbed Club

In stash
* Triumphant Greater Talons of Ease with +3 Fade (for prebuffing Fade)
* Shadow Blade Talons of Blight (for boosting level of prebuffed Fade)
* Amulet of Teleportation (for separating Hell Ancients)


Monsters parked: none!

Highest runes found: Ist (Hell cow level), Mal x2 (one from Hellforge), Um, Lem (used for Treachery)


(and what about that Poisonmancer? Killed by a pack (including Champs) of Black Raptors in NM Far Oasis.
I am very impressed by OldSoldier who made it all the way to Guardian with the same build in the tourney)

 

[pharphis]

Congrats!

Did meph cast any blizzards on you? I've only rarely seen it happen to me and even though only when I've tried to sneak around while fighting him.

 

[jiansonz]

Did meph cast any blizzards on you?

Don't remember but I don't think he did. I lured him down towards the moat, then I quickly ran through Maffer's room. He may have cast one there, before I reached the moat trick position.

 

[HC Gunther]

Congrats! How would you compare the difficulty of this tournament to most that you have done?

 

[khuzgan]

Well done! Nice condensed writeup (and ofc good one in the tournament thread).

 

[jiansonz]

Congrats! How would you compare the difficulty of this tournament to most that you have done?

Depends a lot on the build. With the build described in this thread, not that hard but my Necromancer had a really tough time and did not get far. I usually depend a lot on my merc the first two difficulties (and often on all three).