[3.5] Alpha and Omega, Molten Strike Raider. League Starter and End Game Finisher

question, would using thief thorment ring make us face tank everything?

probably not. you'd be better off just using 2x elder rings with life gain on hit so you can benefit from other stats and stuff.

TT is probably an option for early on, i dunno. i never used it.

but ya there are tanky versions and options for this build. i may make a comeback to this build for 3.7 depending on melee rework stuff, if it comes at that point.

Doing this build again this league. It was my league starter last league and a combo of me sucking, not having a pseudo 6L helm, Kaoms, or Xophs, made me drop it at around T14 maps

Now I have all of those this league and I'm excited to get it post act-10

Just curious if you have any suggestions for mana sustain while leveling? I didn't have a problem when it was a league starter, but with Tabula and having a 6L Molten Strike in act 2 it was a bit mana thirsty

Anyway love the build and thanks for such a solid guide that got me started in my first time playing the game last league!

EDIT: nvm looking at end-game tree, leveling tree solves the problem

Thanks for the build though!

You can use paua ring maybe and sidhebreath...

Having just leveled a raider with a build that I didn't like, I saw this one and converted over.

I'm too cheap right now for Xoph's, the elder helm and watchers eye, but I had a 6L belly with the right colors and some decent evasion gear and added Starkonjas helm which I think works well here.

Anyway it plays amazingly well for lacking the end game gear. At mid 80's I have plenty of damage for red maps and bosses, and seem to hardly ever get hit. My only problem is that I suck at uber labyrinth so I've failed that 4 times getting stuck on traps. Izaro is not a problem, though.

Anyway thanks for the guide. I really like the unique playstyle of softening packs up with cyclone and them mowing them down with molten strike.

Having only used cyclone as a trigger skill in the past (with no real damage), I was surprised to find that it can actually kill stuff once you have sources of added damage to attacks.

Also I tried life gain on hit with cyclone instead of fortify. This can get me up to 63 LGoH with some +3 lgoh jewels I have, so it feels really safe to cyclone right into the middle of large packs before going to molten. Also if I get into any trouble with molten I just go back to cyclone to refill health. Saves a lot of flask charges.

thanks again, very cool build.


edit: got through Ulab easily after getting life up to 6k. Rewarded myself with a Xophs Blood. Plays really nice now. I've done mostly specialized builds before, but this is my most versatile one. Can do everything well.

I guess this thread went dead even before the nerf to Molten Strike pretty much destroyed the build.

Since I had the build, I wanted to salvage something useable from it, so I swapped out Molten Strike for Elemental Hit, and redid the tree somewhat. I kept Xoph's blood and used Combat Focus jewels to confine EH to fire.

This is no longer a projectile build, so Beltimbers are not required, but are still pretty good. I decided to change them to Ichimonji's. Not sure yet if I will miss the extra evasion while moving. If I do, I'll swap back at the loss of some damage.

As things turned out, Cyclone does enough damage to clear trash mobs pretty well, so use that and switch to EH for anything tough.

Here is what I've got so far: https://pastebin.com/U9MctkBu

I also tried Lightning Strike earlier to stay with a projectile build, but while the clear speed was good the single target was lousy. I really didn't see any skills that looked good for replacing Molten Strike other than the two I tried.

i honestly have no idea how molten strike is anymore. i've seen a couple builds that do look good still, but i think the biggest loser of this patch is raider in general