If you’re interested in delving as deep as possible, you’ll know that you need a build that can handle the content. No matter how strong your build is, it’ll reach a point where things will kill you in a single hit. This build avoids that by taking the other approach of simply accepting that everything will kill it in one hit.
If this build is ever hit, it dies. This makes depth 300 much more dangerous, but allows you to handle delve 4000! This is the build used by all of the deepest delvers in Blight League, at least two of whom have passed depth 5000 as of writing this.
You’ve probably gathered by now, but this will not be a super cheap build. I’ll cover budget options, but I wouldn’t bother if you have less than 30 Exalts. That said, if you’re ready to delve to infinity, let’s delve into it!
Build Concept
As I mentioned, this build is based around having one health. You also have negligible energy shields. This is done by using Chaos Inoculation on the tree. The benefit to having CI is that you won’t fall over from chaos damage. This becomes a big deal on certain delve paths, as the zombies that you kill leave desecrated ground behind, which will instantly kill you without chaos immunity. This is just another decision to give up forms of tradition defense in favor of pure avoidance.
The rest of the avoidance comes in the form of traditional evasion and dodge. By making use of Phase Acrobatics, high dexterity gear, a Jade flask, and temple modified boots, you can easily get both your dodge chance and your evasion chance well above 50%, leaving mobs with only a 10-20% chance of hitting you, depending on your gear. While that’s a fairly low chance, it’s not low enough to rely on it entirely. Most of the rest of your defense comes from brute force strength.
Because you don’t have to get life or resistances on gear (your resists are also 0%), you can easily shoot your damage through the roof. Once you have nuts damage, you simply run through the mine shooting forwards and not getting too close to mobs. With your huge damage and high freeze chance, you get through most paths fairly unscathed.
The last bit of defense comes from the addition of Frost Wall. While it’s not particularly useful on the pathways, having Frost Wall for the actual fight at the end of the node adds a huge amount of defense. If you simply stand behind the wall and shoot into the area, you’ll be able to finish most events without any issues.
Required Gear
Let’s start with the most expensive piece: the bow. In order for this build to function you’re going to need a dexterity stacking bow. These can be crafted by using a Shaper bow above item level 75.
The mod that you absolutely need is “Adds X to X Cold Damage to Attacks per 10 Dexterity.” You also really want “20% chance to deal double damage.” If you’re able to get those two modifiers together, you’ll be great. This is done by using alterations on the base so that you can have as few other modifiers as possible, so that you can multi-mod it and add Elemental Penetration, Increased Cold Damage/Chance to Freeze, and Added Cold Damage, ideally.
To buy a fully crafted bow will run you in the realm of 25 Exalts. One without the double damage modifier will be considerably cheaper, but you’ll need to upgrade at some point down the line.
The next expensive piece is the ring. You’re going to want to get a ring with “Curse Enemies with level 12 Assassin’s Mark on Hit.” This can only be done by crafting a shaped ring of at least item level 80. Ideally you’ll want an Opal or Diamond ring, and have only that stat on it. Then you can multi-mod it for maximum damage. A good second ring that’s very cheap is Mark of the Elder.
For your helmet, you want Fractal Thoughts. You’ll want the enchant that says Scourge Arrow fires an additional pod when fully charged, but it isn’t necessary to begin the build. Your amulet will be a Marylene’s Fallacy, with a Heart of Ice anointment. The rest of your gear is just whatever you can get for high damage and high dodge chance.
You May Like
Best Gear
Apart from the aforementioned items, your ideal gear will include a Headhunter as the belt. Your quiver would be a Voidfletch with the “Bow Attacks Fire an Additional Arrow” corruption. Your gloves would be tombfists with +1 to maximum Frenzy Charges and “Attacks have +% to Critical Strike Chance.” If you can hit this double corruption you’ve made a ton of money, meaning it will also cost an arm and a leg to purchase.
Your boots will either be well rolled temple modified boots for additional dodge chance, or two-socket Bubonic Trails. You’ll want a Watcher’s Eye with good Hated mods, and potentially some Precision mods. Lastly, you’ll want a Bottled Faith flask as well.
Everything listed here, as well as a few of the above items, will run you anywhere from 20 Exalts to a mirror, each. Luckily this build can make you a ton of money if you push it deep enough!
Skill Tree
Here’s the skill tree that I use. It’s fairly basic, although some others choose to take the typical Lioneye’s Fall cluster instead of going to Weapon Artistry. It depends on your personal preference.
Why Bother?
This build is a ton of work and money, so why bother with it? Well, once you get past 1000 depth, fossils start becoming very common, and only increase in frequency. And I’m talking about the rare fossils, the ones worth over an exalt each. At some point fossils are every other node, allowing you to make incredible amounts of money in a very short period.
Obviously the downside is that you won’t be making much money until you get quite deep in your delve, and the build is also not built for mapping. Personally I have a different character that I use for mapping and collecting sulphite before swapping to my delver.
This build is crazy expensive, and can be a pain to play. But if you’re like me and you love delving, it’s the route to go if you want to push really far down. And it is a ton of fun to melt things with the equivalent of Shaper’s health bar in a single shot!
