Has anybody made a boulder build with the aspect of metamorphic stone? It turns boulder into a core skill. Im worried the spirit cost isnt worth it.
Is there any other boulder aspects out there or good spirit reduction/generation gear?
That vicious heart that uses life instead of spirit every 5 seconds helps but idk what else to use.
The spirit regen aspects are only for wolf and storm skills right?
theorycrafted this a few days ago, but i’m not enough of a lunatic to actually try it
https://d4builds.gg/builds/04590593-3de3-4280-9838-4a0722e41517/
Didn’t bother building out a paragon board though.
The trouble is finding enough ways to restore spirit to not spend most of your time using basic skills. A maxed Aspect of Umbral would have to do most of the heavy lifting in that department.
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I forgot about that aspect. If i can find something to pair with it, then will be open for business baby! Lol thanks for the tip
Umbral+Quicksand helps for spirit regen, until you run into an unstoppable. Check the below link:
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Boulder gets some love in patch on 8 august. Aspect will reduce spirit cost from 60 to 50. Basic skills will generate bit more spirit.
If you use the aspect that Boulder makes a core skill, then take a look at the shepherds aspect. With all companions out and +1 aspect, your core skills do a lot of damage. Pets also get buffed next patch.
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I decided to try Boulder as a core skill. My experience after a day trying, is that it is fun, but a bit of a struggle, since Boulder works in a line. In Helltide you get swarmed from all sides. But it can pack a punch and for those interested, just give it a try.
My setup:
Skills: all 3 companions out, earthspike, Boulder and one filler. Because you attack from afar, the wolves do most of the tanking.
Aspects: I crafted a 2-hander with a perfect seismic shift aspect (earthspike in a line with 0.5 secs cooldown), put the Boulder aspect on amulet, then shepherd’s aspect and +1 companion on both rings. One dps aspect filler for gloves. My preferred is prob +30% damage when standing still, since it also boosts your basic skill.
Gear: wearing the unique bear chestpiece and helm. These two combined give a lot of extra levels to your earthskills.
Capstone: tried nature’s Fury, Earthen might and Ursine Strength. Think I like Ursine Strength the most. I combine it with provocation skill (overpower every 16 secs) and the snake aspect (earth skill overpowers after 20 kill).
With the crafted 2hander I dont have much resource problems. I tried it also with seismic shift on ring, but the 1 sec cooldown left me resource starved to often.
You can use other aspects to improve your resource, but I tried seismic aspect since that doesn’t get much love either. And in last patch earthspike got the most love with +2 spirit.
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how does it perform against bosses now? any changes to the boulder that hit only 1 time?
This is the main reason i never bothered considering boulder. It has potential to be a specialized boss-killing machine, yet they made it trash versus bosses, leaving it with no real purpose.
Thanks for the tips, Ill definitely use a couple of theses. Im thinking creeper, wolves, spike or wind shear, hurricane, petrify, and lvl with trample then switch to bulwark. Im thinking focus on slow, immobilize, mobility, and crit damage. Ill try the stampede aspect, core skill extra dam per companion aspect, natures balance aspect, new creeper aspect, werewolf companion aspect, aspect of retaliation, crashtone aspect, and maybe use trampleslide or aspect if aftershock.
Ill definitely use the bear helm and chest, and maybe penitent greaves for speed and extra cc.
Im thinking wind shear might be more viable tho, you get 14 spirit plus 3 spirit for each enemy hit beyond the first. Well see.
I appreciate the lengthy post though.
You can cast it with natures fury that’s kinda fun
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Yeah boss damage is probably the biggest problem to solve, but thats the fun(frustration) in making builds. If you spec for crit damge tho and use the passive natural boulder(20% increased crit chance while fortified), then it might work. You can also use poison creeper passive that gives 20% increased crit chance. Stack those with some other stuff and maybe theres a boss killer in there somewhere.
Yeah thats the whole point of the boulder build.I like to find things that seem unviable and make them work. They already lowered the cost by 10 and with good basic spirit gen and spirit reduction affixes its totally possible.
It’s probably better to basically take a bear build and use boulder instead of pulverize , if you want to use boulder.
Specifically use it to proc your poison
I love natures fury. Yeah you may be right. Im currently running a claw, shockwave pulverize, and creeper build. I am doing a ton of damage to poisoned, and slowed/immobilized.
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That thing slaps lol thats a real pro bowler
Seems like fun.
When I tried it I went with with Quicksand (50% slow for 5 second), Crashstone (x60 crit damage against CCd - on amulet) and Umbral (resource restore on CC) which is great for boulder spam (due to the spirit from umbral) - natural balance is good for a DPS boost as well if you can mix in storm spells. I haven’t tried it since the update but still have most of the gear setup, will have to check it out again.
I had a lot of fun up until the bosses, since you can’t knock them back (or CC at all) boulder hits once, generates no spirit and deals almost no damage. Need to figure out how to kill bosses with something else.
How did you get companions on both rings? Hope you’re not trying to stack stampede…
I sometimes put a couple points into landslide for bosses since I was maxing out earth skill damage already
I also had chance to restore spirit on both gloves and offhand plus max resource regen and max spirit cost reduction on all items that could have it. You don’t need a lot of extra crit rate with boulder since you gain 20% while fortified
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