As you all know, Crushing Flames is the most powerful set affixes for PvE, due to the fact that it increases Crushing Blow’s Damage for 50% per rank. But how did I use it for its full potential? Well here is my Skullshield Build.
And the secret my build is having high hit frequency with average damage. Now you might be thinking why would I invest in damage when I already got high hit frequency to proc Crushing Blows. Well, the answer lies to the crushing blow’s description.
Now as you can see Crushing Blow only takes up the current HP% of the enemy, not max HP%. Sure you may proc Crushing Blow many times but as you go higher and higher floors, monster’s HP would go up and it will definitely slow you down as you hike because you would need higher damage to finish mobs off.
And now I shall discuss the the set affixes I used:
Crushing Blow (The main set for this build obviously)
Demonic (One of the best suited Set affixes for Crushing Flames, lowers enemy healing and increases my damage output as their HP goes to the threshold)
Masochism (Increases my damage as my HP goes lower, definitely helpful in Alchemy Mythic for more damage)
Defiant (Gives me more damage and damage reduction)
Inferno (Increases fire damage% and speeds up Damage over Time, making cleaning mobs easier)
Now for my mythics:
Alchemy (The best resource mythic combined with as it increases my damage as my HP/MP% is lower, the damage reduction is not so good though as my HP/MP% is low always due to Masochism)
Ruptured (I added this for more damage on Immolated enemies due to Blistering)
Effective (Nah I just added this due to the fact that I got Weaken Affix)
Sanctuary (Definitely helpful due to the fact that this build is a Glasscannon build)
And as for the other affixes, it just add up my damage, so I’ll not be discussing them (too lazy to type btw sorry )
You could improvise this build, just remember the secret of building a Crushing Flames build, a high hit frequency with average damage. And that’s all that I can say and thank you for reading this guide.
Added tip:
I would recommend to build this in your hireling if you are into farming.
that’s a nice Crushing Flames Build. I tried a straight CB Build when I finished Ascending, but my Crafting skills were not very good. I still have the items, but I am going to wait until I am ready to start climbing floors again before I start tweaking them again. that Blistering on top of the insane Immolation Boost from the CB Bonus will be nice when Demonic kicks in. ohh! just took a look at your Talents, nice DoT boosting you have!
I was using a CB Farming/Climbing build up to floor 800’s, and I felt I was killing the poor defenseless helpless monsters too fast, and went on to Ascending another Character while I think of another build. but CB is so good, I know it will be worth having it at higher floors. I have seen the threads on other builds for high floors, but CB seems the easiest to craft, at least for my lazy crafting style.
I have similar build like this one with exactly same set affixes though i used it with my ninja rogue build . I have a hard time with clearing higher floors when using my ninja rogue before because the build really sucks in damage output, but now i can hike floors with ease.
I’ve made a similar build since Crushing Flames set release (it’s so op on PVE, lol). The difference is that instead of using damage affixes, I just make it full farm affixes (luck, gf, item drops, etc.), cos crushing flames do all the work and you just need some damage to finish off enemies when they’re low.
Ah, Also I don’t use skull weapon, I just take level 20 Reclaim Talent (20% + a lot of hits is enough to proc it often). For MH Special Skill, Twister is good because of taunt effect, so you can spam careless about aiming, LOL.
No block? Or dodge? You must die a lot. I try full dps and always die without block or dodge. It’s kinda annoying always die a lots the dps is useless if you die constantly.
Updates on the build:
I found the perfect pet (Slime Demonic Pet, increases my fire dmg% by 10%) for this build and just changed it a little bit on the affixes on the pet and also swapped the set affix on the skull offhand.
MH:Change it with berserker axe and add it +50 GC,+ED,+WP Dmg and make its set Inferno
OH:Remove Alchemy and add +50 GC
Armor:Change +10 SS with +5 all skills
Head:Change it with Aether Cover add +5 all skills instead of +10 SS
Ring:Change it with Cognition Affixes wont change without Effective(already useless)
Amulet:Nice.
Pet:Change it with Lilith and add +10 SS & +10
Twister instead of HP & MP.
Change Demonic with BloodMagic.
And complete missing CF.
Skill tree:
+20 SS
+20 Twister
+20 STR
+20 DEX
+20 Fortune
Stats 98 HP
no, those +5 All Skills only go on the MH & OH items. so that would mean putting the GC on the Head and Chest items instead. and Blood Magic with 2+ Glass Cannon not a good idea, maybe one GC and 1 Push the Limit, but would still need Dodge, Block, and Sanctuary for survival, since one GC could possibly cut the Total HP of that doubled HP from Blood Magic by 50%. with 2 GC on Blood Magic, couldn’t use Skills, as HP is the Resource, and 2 GC would leave you with 1 HP, if you had them both maxed out. most threads say to only go up to 80%-90% GC, depending on how much resource you need for your Skills.
GC increases the damage by a % at the cost of your own HP by the same %. so a GC of +50% Damage is a -50% to your HP.
Barbarian increases the damage by a % at the cost of your MP. so a Barbarian of +50% Damage is a -50% to your MP.
both of these have a 100% cap.
Push the Limit increases the damage by a % that increases your Spell cost by the same %. so Push the Limit +50% Damage increases your Resource Cost by +50%.
I think you can only get this up to +250%, as only 5 different items have PL on them. one of the Set Items has a total of 4 PL on them, and when I did a check of all items from all classes that have PL, there were 5 different items that could give a total of 5 PL. but that means a +250% increase to Resource Cost.
no, there is a Item Set with 4 PL, so that is a +200% cap right there…I think I might have to look at the Codex again. it has been a few months since I was looking for PL items.
)
. I have a hard time with clearing higher floors when using my ninja rogue before because the build really sucks in damage output, but now i can hike floors with ease.
most threads say to only go up to 80%-90% GC, depending on how much resource you need for your Skills.