[0.4] PhazePlays SANDSCORCHER — Disciple of Varashta Endgame Destroyer

PhazePlays SANDSCORCHER Build Guide for 0.4!

This build utilizes the brand new ascendancy Disciple of Varashta to command the Djinn Kelari, the Tainted Sands and Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword. It destroys all content in the game, even on a budget!

It's extremely fun to play, has incredible burst damage, and has a surprisingly unique playstyle. Despite commanding minions, this build feels entirely like a spellcaster — the ascendancy is fantastic

• Tons of damage, a comfortable mapper, and a unique playstyle
• This build deletes bosses and it's a blast to play!
• The playstyle feels like a spellcaster — minions are for passive damage

Be sure to watch the attached build guide video!

Campaign Leveling Guide HERE!

Loot Filters Here (0.4 Minion)

Djinn Command Skills

Kelari, the Tainted Sands

Kelari's Brutality

• Throws a volley of knives at your cursor, then 12 knives erupt
• Applies multiple stacks of Critical Weakness to boost crit chance
• Use this before a big burst damage combo for extra crit chance
• Great damage for both mapping and bossing
• Holds 2 charges — 2.4 second cooldown (endgame setup)

Kelari's Deception

• Creates a blast at your cursor, which also briefly leaves behind a clone
• If cast consecutively, the clone also creates a duplicate blast
• Chained blasts deal 50% more damage
• Holds 3 charges — 2.4 second cooldown (endgame setup)
• Save up 3 charges, then triple cast it for huge burst damage
• Deletes rare enemies, and it's also huge damage for bossing

Brutality → Deception Combo

Casting Brutality then Deception also causes a duplicate blast. The duplicated blast will always occur where you initially cast Brutality. This can be a minor gain in some cases and is slightly more efficient for damage at the cost of more complexity and a positional requirement

• It's most useful in these two cases:
• • when in melee range of a boss and want to deal damage efficiently
  • deal damage around your character and another target at range

Utilizing this combo isn't required but it can sometimes be useful

Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword

Ruzhan's Trap

• Sword throw that places 8 Ground Runes scattered around your cursor
• If an enemy steps on a rune, it erupts in a fiery tornado for 4 seconds
• Tornado damage can overlap
• This is fantastic for map clear and also solid for boss damage
• Roughly 3.3 second cooldown (endgame setup)
• Fantastic combat opener

Ruzhan's Brand

• Attaches to an enemy (similar to Living Bomb)
• Explodes after 3 seconds, or when the enemy dies for moderate damage
• Maximum of 3 active brands — multiple can attach to the same enemy
• Spammable, has no cooldown
• Occasionally useful for bossing if everything else is on cooldown
• Entirely optional: don't use it if you prefer a more relaxing playstyle

Mapping

• Ruzhan's Trap and Kelari's Brutality handle most clear while mapping
• Use Trap on cooldown — use this as your opener
• Weave in Brutality when Trap is on cooldown
• Triple-cast Kelari's Deception on dense monster packs
• Combo to delete Rare enemies: Brutality, 3x Deception

Bossing

1. Maintain Elemental Weakness and Frost Bomb
2. Cast 3x Deception at 3 charges (or Brutality → Deception combo)
3. Cast Trap and Brutality on cooldown
4. Optional: Cast 3x Brand during downtime

• For Pinnacle bosses:
• • Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword: swap out Magnified Area II for Rearm II or Prolonged Duration II
  • Convalescence is an option

Weapon Swap

• Weapon Set 1: General Gameplay
• Weapon Set 2: Curse Magnitude — Elemental Weakness with Master of Hexes and Lingering Whispers

How to Assign Djinn Skills to a Weapon Set

Right-Click Kelari's Deception and Ruzhan's Trap on the skill-bar in the bottom-right, then check the box for weapon set 1 and make sure weapon set 2 is unchecked. Currently Kelari's Brutality and Brand can't be assigned to a weapon set but that's not a big deal. Set Frost Bomb to weapon set 1, and set Elemental Weakness to weapon set 2

Ascendancy Order

1. Barya of Kelari
2. Kelari's Deception
3. Barya of Ruzhan
4. Ruzhan's Trap
5. The Fourth Teaching
6. Sacred Rituals

Leveling

Campaign Leveling Guide is Here!

Damage Scaling

• Minion Levels — this also increases minion survivability!
• • +4 Sceptre
  • +3 Amulet
  • +2 Helmet
  • +2 Focus (abyss desecrate mod, can't be targeted)
• Increased Minion Critical Hit Chance and Critical Damage Bonus
• • Jewels and Sceptre are the best source of crit mods
• Increased minion damage
• Cast Speed is nice quality of life as it speeds up the cast time of Command Skills

Annoints

• Earlygame: Long Distance Relationship
• Lategame: Warlord Leader
• Alternatives:
• • Gigantic Following, drop Hulking Minions
  • Spiral into Depression

This Build Without Minions?

• While this could be played without minions, you'd lose a large amount of damage from Muster, At your Command, and all of the passive damage from minions — so it's not recommended

Minion Resistances

With Crystalline Flesh and the entire Living Death wheel: Minions have 78% elemental resistances with a maximum of 86%. Either spend 1 point on the 8% elemental resistance pathing node inside of the Lord of Horrors wheel, or get 8%+ minion elemental resistance from a Sapphire jewel

Attributes

Attributes will likely be tight on this build as we have an extra two ascendancy skills worth of support gems — keep an eye out for attributes on gear!

Chaos Innoculation

After reaching somewhere around 6000+ energy shield is a good time to start thinking about pathing to Chaos Inoculation. This will let you ignore all chaos damage, chaos resistance, bleed, and poison entirely.

NOTE: Unspec Heavy Buffer when you take Chaos Inoculation. If you don't, you will die instantly when you get hit by any damage — this is not ideal, especially in Hardcore!

Lategame Additions

• Add Brutus' Brain to Skeletal Cleric
• • Drop Meat Shield II & Last Gasp
• Uul-Netol's Embrace on Kelari, the Tainted Sands allows us to drop Splintering Force, however it's rare and expensive
• Xoph's Pyre on Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword, swap out Hulking Minions or Magnified Area II, however this is also rare and expensive
• Tecrod's Revenge may have some potential for bossing if runningSkeletal Reaver

Varashta's Blessing appears to currently be bugged and doesn't work correctly, if it gets fixed it'll be worth using

Time-Lost Jewel

Sacred Rituals could be dropped for Baryanic Leylines if more damage is desired lategame at the cost of physical mitigation, however the best mods on these jewels are very expensive:

• The Ideal 3 mods on a Time-Lost Sapphire:
• • Notable Passive Skills in Radius also grant Minions have (5—10)% increased Critical Hit Chance
  • Notable Passive Skills in Radius also grant Minions have (6—12)% increased Critical Damage Bonus
  • Upgrades Radius to Large

Any good 4th mod is a bonus

It'll usually be placed in the center jewel socket directly above the starting area. It's worth grabbing the three infusion notables for 4 points: Shocking Limit, Infernal Limit, and Frozen Limit as they'll be in the radius

Limb Upgrades

Inside Vaal Temple in Flesh Surgeon (Tier 3) rooms, there are options that grant your character stat bonuses. These stats are lost on death! You can have a total of 2 Arm upgrades and 2 Leg upgrades

From best to worst:

• Arms:
• • (6—10)% increased Cast Speed
  • (15—25)% increased Presence Area of Effect
  • (12—16)% increased Curse Magnitude
• Legs:
• • (5—10)% reduced Movement Speed Penalty from using Skills while moving
  • (6—10)% increased Movement Speed while Sprinting
  • (15—25)% increased Stun Threshold
  • (20—30)% increased Mana Regeneration Rate while moving

• Dec 16: Added Loot Filters at the top
• Dec 17: Added Campaign Leveling Guide
• Dec 18:
• • Changed Armour/ES gear to Pure ES — armour isn't high enough to justify it, and it's not adding enough value to Sacred Rituals
  • Slightly reworked the passive tree to account for the above change
  • Added an Elemental Weakness weapon swap tree and a section about it in How it Plays
  • Info about Brutality III, Kurgal's Leash, and Uul-Netol's Embrace
  • Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword: Changed Bidding II to Bidding III
  • Skeletal Frost Mage: changed Projectile Acceleration III to Concentrated Area
• Dec 19:
• • Updated the Weapon Swap section with a much better solution
  • Added Bind Spectre (Powered Zealot, spark variant). Check the Minion Setup section for how to find them
  • Removed Short Fuse II from Frost Bomb for Magnified Area II. Was running Magnified Area II but didn't update it. Frost Bomb is still bugged, try to place it slightly away from bosses to avoid the exposure being overridden by Ruzhan's Attack
• Dec 20:
• • Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword: Added Xoph's Pyre as an endgame option
• Dec 21:
• • Added an easier way to get the Powered Zealot spectre
• Dec 23:
• • Changed Projectile Acceleration III to Projectile Acceleration II on Bind Spectre since III decreases damage
• Dec 24:
• • Added Allies have increased Cast Speed to the Sceptre to speed up Djinn cast time
  • Added a Time-Lost Sapphire section for Baryanic Leylines
• Dec 26:
• • Elemental Weakness: Changed Rapid Casting II to Cursed Ground
• Dec 29:
• • Helmet: Greater Iron Rune changed to Idol of Ralakesh
• Dec 31:
• • Added best Limb options from Flesh Surgeon (Tier 3) in Vaal Temple
• Jan 8:
• • Added a Chaos Inoculation section — unspec Heavy Buffer!