The Whistling Fist
Fist/Chaos Survival
A Blue Mountain Special, by Ryahl
This is the second part of a fist/chaos build that was assembled based on a discussion with a board reader. The “My First 60″ version of the build has been a reasonably successful build and its time now for it to grow up into a 400 point Blue Mountain build. With the Whistling Fist, you develop fairly significant damage and turn escalation into even more of a multi-effect ability.
**UPDATE** I have played around with this build on test. Wearing green QL10 gear and using this build, ghouls and vampires in Besieged Farmlands were quite simple. Impair immune targets were harder, but very survivable. Additionally, as soon as you have the points, dump Gunsmoke for From the Abyss. Your DPS meter will thank you!**
Active Abilities
- Escalation
- Four Horsemen
- Tear ‘em Up
- Surgical Steel
- Domino Effect
- Armor Fati
- Helter Skelter
Passive Abilities
- Intensity
- Hot Iron
- Healing Sparks
- Shoot ‘Em Up
- Paradigm Shift
- Gunsmoke
- Salt in the Wound
Export to Viper’s Deck Manager
(copy this code into Viper’s Deck manager, exports are a function of Drakashi’s wheel)
VDM%-%6388290%-%7094295%-%6942572%-%6942615%-%6389397%-%7094289%-%7094287%-%6390136%-%7094296%-%6942834%-%6850557%-%6399186%-%6371955%-%6942578
Key Features
This build takes advantage of the fact that Escalate currently brings a ton of utility in a two skill package. The core attributes of Escalate include a frenzy PBAOE damage that quickly stacks up the exposed weakened state. 10-stacks of exposed will increase your damage by 30%. Further, the Intensity passive means subsequent applications of escalation give you the minor ward ability, extending your soloing ability just a bit. Paradigm Shift assures that each of your escalate hits increase your hit rate, reducing your likelihood of glancing or missing. Finally, Gunsmoke piles on a bit of damage each time you escalate.
The build goes VERY deep into assault rifle to pick up a single skill, Shoot ‘em Up. SeU turns your escalate into an affliction starter in addition to its already stacked up pool of benefits. Since escalates are now adding afflictions, Tear ‘em Up will give you a 10% damage boost on usage. Also, Salt in the Wounds is piling on damage every time you apply an affliction, helping scale your escalation damage upwards.
Your chaos finisher is Four Horseman, a burst ability (Call for Eris works well here too). FH as a burst triggers Healing Sparks, keeping a heal over time running for most of your damage rotation. You will also use Surgical Steel periodically as a self-heal, which will also trigger Healing Sparks. Surgical Steel starts stacks on Hot Iron, adding to your heal throughput and additionally adds a heal component to Tear ‘em Up.
The build features three utility abilities, you have Helter Skelter, a dash with a built in impair. This lets you start every fight against an impaired opponent. When that impair runs out, you can use Domino Effect to lock down targets again with another impair. Finally, you have Armor Fati as a buff to make sure you land hits (removes glancing and evasion for 10 seconds).
Rotation
This is a stun lock build. Open with Helter Skelter to shut down your targets. Even though you have fist resources on charge in, your fist consumer needs afflicted state, so follow up your charge with Escalation to set the correct state. Then, use Tear ‘em Up followed by a weak Four Horseman (only one chaos resource built, but the 10% damage boost is better on FH than on escalate). Your first impair is likely over, so a quick Domino Effect can lock the targets down again if you wish.
Your standard rotation is Escalation x5, Tear ‘em Up, Four Horsemen. Rotate in Surgical Steel early in place of Tear ‘Em Up.
Armor Fati can be used one of two ways. On harder fights, throw it at/before your initial charge. This makes sure everything hits and helps you get paradigm shift stacking. On easier fights, toss it at a point where you just want to finish off a target.
Alternatives
You may find that life is too risky with just a fist consumer to heal. If so, swap out surgical steel for cauterize and you have a spam heal.
Build Instructions
This build goes very deep into AR with very little to show for it. Do NOT spend into the AR tree until you have most of this build assembled.
However, you don’t need Salt in the Wounds until you get Shoot ‘em Up. Additionally, you might as well use Wild at Heart as your fist closer until you get Shoot em Up. The nice things in TeU require affliction and this build needs SeU to set that.
Gear Needs
Paradigm shift helps you with your +hit budget, but you will probably find you need some additional +hit as you level up. Armor Fati doesn’t have enough uptime to ignore +hit.
Your damage bursts are probably best coming from critical rating and critical power. Since you have passive and self-heals in this build, penetrate has a bit less utility. You can’t penetrate heal, but you can crit heal. I would recommend either a 1:1 or a 2:1 crit rating to crit power investment.
You need all three types of talisman in this build. You need some high hitpoint gear, some attack power gear and a bit of healing gear. I would probably use a tanking headpiece (20% HP), three majors and a minor attack power (60% damage) and two minor +heal pieces (20% healing). Use the attack power minor (10%) as your “fiddle with” piece. If you need more HP, swap it to tanking, more healing swap it to +heal.
