Wait, so you're telling me explosives are good for more than just taking out teammates?
Explosives are a natural pick for clearing mobs with their big AOEs. But for bosses, they're a mixed bag. Against bosses with reliable weakspots, they're a little under-par - while they tend to have good AOE and base damage, they either lack any weakspot modifiers at all (e.g. Helix) or can only bring some of their damage (the direct hit) onto a weakspot, meaning the AOE misses out on that juicy multiplier.
However, for bosses with no weakspots or elusive weakspots, they can really excel, which makes Nightweaver a perfect test subject for this build.
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Archetypes:
- Our best sources of explosive damage are from mods, so we're going with Archon Prime with Chaos Gate again for maximum modspam.
- While Summoner has the next highest mod damage bonus, we don't want to worry about friendly fire, so Alchemist is a more natural fit. Frenzy Dust boosts our firerate, which in turn boosts how quickly we can generate mod power with our guns.
Weapons & Mods:
- Starshot is an obvious pick, having explosive damage on both its mod and primary fire. While we could go with a mod mutator like Harmonizer, I really like Bandit as the direct hit and AOE damage each have their own chance to proc Bandit. Big Bang brings that big damage here, you can spam single charges though both in terms of total damage and animation time, it's going to be more efficient if we only let loose when we're at full charge - and at a safe distance from the target!
- For our other explosive mod, we're going with Helix. What it lacks in terms of AOE, it makes up for with good damage to cost ratio and ease of use even at point blank. We're slotting this into the Scattergun, another R1 classic for mod builds. Shotgun damage in general is balanced with its damage falloff at range in mind, with general higher DPS to make up for it. However, since mod generation only looks at base damage, this ignores falloff and means we get the most bang for our buck(shot). The large damage pool across the magazine and ability to reload shots individually while rolling also make it very useful for putting out a lot of mod charges in one magdump - even more so with the Failsafe mutator.
Trinkets:
- R2's answer to Vulcan's Detonator, Detonation Trigger gives us a chunky 25% boost to explosion damage as well as a nice Burn DoT that not only helps us generate some mod power, but also lets us proc Singed Ring for its 1.1x multiplicative damage boost.
- Blasting Cap Ring offers another nice little boost to our damage - Akari Warband would technically be better for average DPS, but it's nice to have a flat damage boost especially in phase 1, where you might get quite a few attacks off before you ever get to proc the perfect dodge.
- Our main source of crit will instead be Burden of the Gambler - since we're going to get limited returns on hitting weakspots anyway, we might as well trade that in for extra crit instead.
- Burden of the Follower rounds things off for a chunky boost to our mod generation, with Frenzy Dust helping to offset the firerate penalty.
Traits:
- Spirit is a must pick as we're going all out on modspam. Expertise can be nice too but isn't essential as we're not relying too much on our skills.
- For survivability, Vigor, Fortify are good picks, and you'd be wise to take Kinship as well to minimise any...unfortunate accidents. Bloodstream is also useful to help offset the drain from Reprocessed Heart.
- Handling I'm taking to tighten up the spread on the Scattergun so it's at least useable at mid ranges.
- We're keeping Amplitude at 0 so we can still use Starshot in relative close quarters. In longer-range fights, you might want to take this up to 5 and you can still use your explosives relatively safely. 10 is just asking for trouble though.
Relic:
- Reprocessed Heart, as always our top pick for modspamming. If you want something a little safer and with a little bit of healing, you can go Runed Heart as well. For a less spammy route, Tormented Heart is a nice fit with all our explosive buffs.
- Mod Damage and Mod Cost are obvious choices, and Firerate boosts not only our DPS but our mod generation as well.
Consumables:
- I didn't take any for this run, but Bottled Shaedberry would be a natural choice for a modspam build.
Armour:
- Your choice really, pick the encumbrance you're comfortable with, then get as much armour as you can within that weight class.
Playstyle:
- Pretty simple playstyle - pop your skills and relic, then go to town. Use Big Bang at full charges whenever the target is far enough away, and Helix the rest of the time. Reload your Scattergun during rolls, and pump out Helixes whenever they're ready - also make sure not to keep your mod selected if you're not firing it, as that will halt any passive mod generation. Don't blow yourself up, and you're good!
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00:00 Intro
00:05 Nightweaver
01:50 Build
