Demolitionist Gear

[Ozymandius]

I'm not sure what the best gun set is for Demo. Given that I use Snipe a lot, I think that the Assassin's set is probably the way to go.

I use the Igniters Pistol set with my Demolitionist BH to get the most out of Tracer Ammo, plus I set up my Demo BH using mostly fire damage (Rapid Fire, Magnetic Trap, and Heatseekers). I get most of my damage from Sticky Bombs (64%) and only about 10% from Heatseekers, but I use magnetic trap to pull large mobs, then Rapid Fire followed by Heatseekers to set off the chain reaction of Sticky Bombs. For me, the most fun of Demolitionist is watching big mobs all go up in flames.

If you want to keep using Snipe while still having the sticky bombs, you can just add an Assassin's Belt to your Stalker BH. I was able to push that build through TL123 in Gold5 ANB.

[Pavol Panik]

I use the Igniters Pistol set with my Demolitionist BH to get the most out of Tracer Ammo, plus I set up my Demo BH using mostly fire damage (Rapid Fire, Magnetic Trap, and Heatseekers). I get most of my damage from Sticky Bombs (64%) and only about 10% from Heatseekers, but I use magnetic trap to pull large mobs, then Rapid Fire followed by Heatseekers to set off the chain reaction of Sticky Bombs. For me, the most fun of Demolitionist is watching big mobs all go up in flames.

If you want to keep using Snipe while still having the sticky bombs, you can just add an Assassin's Belt to your Stalker BH. I was able to push that build through TL123 in Gold5 ANB.

Hi there.
I have a question, is sticky bomb damage buffed by fire or physical damage?
Thank you for answer

[Timelock]

Try this build also more fun to play
-Havoc set (6/6)
-BoM (Mag trap)
-Trapper Belt
-Igniter set weapon
-Fire lily

[Argon]

Pavol Panik I just started discovering demolitionist, had the same question and ran some tests in the TG. I suppose you've meanwhile figured it out but maybe others not yet
It's fire

[Ozymandius]

Argon thanks for posting your results. My hunch was fire damage, but I haven't had time to test it in training grounds to be sure. Now that season is over, I am finally having a chance to relax a bit. I got a couple of gear upgrades in the last ANB for my Demo set, so maybe I will try to see how far I can push the 6pc Demo build.

[Argon]

Doesn't seem to be worth it, the bug is still there and we're still getting this almost useless 6piece bonus. But this is a really awesome build, I'm totally enjoying it. I must say, all new sets are a lot of fun to play! That's why it took me so long to get started with demo.
Actually I started with havoc for the Dyoma Crown, as always switched to stalker for a few more tls and got bored with stalker really quickly. But with the drops from beta testing had 5 pieces and instantly fell in love with the 4/2 setup. Already went 10 tls higher than with stalker

[Ozymandius]

Be aware that there is a bug granting the Demolitionist 6-pieces bonus effect with only 2 pieces, or with the Assassin’s Belt. This is why you see people with only 4 pieces on the Leaderboard.

LodWig Do you know if this bug still applies? I ask because in the most recent ANB, I was running a 4 Demo:2 Havoc build to get the extra effects from the Havoc helmet and gloves. I did not progress as far in the last ANB using that setup as I had in previous ANBs, but that could have just been lower CLs or lower damage weapons.

[LodWig]

The bug is still here.

[Naktl]

Just made a Stalker build. Much easier than Demo, but I don’t enjoy it as much. I have run both 4xDemo/2xHavoc and 6xDemo. I am not very good so I dont count as a benchmark.

I do not know if the Demo bug is still active or not. I do know that I like the 6pc Demo bonus and my last build center around Lethal Shot. This helps a lot since single target is a weakness for the build. I also use Snipe instead of Heatseekers. I do this because killing single targets rapidly within a pull leverages the Demo builds with the way the bombs mechanic works, so Lethal Shot and Snipe are both useful in this way for mob pulls.

Its really not near competitive with Stalker though, particularly for a newb with few Medals, mediocre gear, and mediocre CL. Its more fun for me though, so I play it anyway.

[Argon]

It's hard for me to see how mixing in assault helps. This way you want both explosive shot and scatter shot as main primaries. While QoL and Versatile increase the overall number of attacks, they also reduce the hps of the first primary.
Multishot worked very well for me with 4/2, not because it dealt significant direct damage but because it increased sticky bomb damage, so I think it just significantly increases the tracer ammo stacks (using piercing shots too). That is what heatseakers lack, they don't add tracer ammo stacks at all.
Btw I ran this with a fire lily and QoL, QoL for the lethal shot BoM which also is the only BoM I have. I got to tl132 like that, which is all I'm going for in bronze anyway. But lily reduced sticky bomb dps, probably too even damage distribution leading to too late chain reaction, so by the time they went pooff most mobs were already very low on vit.

[Naktl]

Depends on what you mean by “help’? As far as I know there is not a build that comes close to competing with Stalker right now, so I am not trying to make a competitive build. Assault is a fun addition. Your Scatter Shot becomes huge. Add a bunch of charged ammo to that and pretty fun. I use this sort of build as an Attack only build for gold and even exp.

Have we seen any Fire Lily builds really competitive on the LB? Lily is mostly used for grinding I think?

Oh! I am also going to try a warrior build with 2xDef/2xWarlord/2xFury because the 2 piece bonuses are all activated by Leap or Charge.

[Argon]

got it. I also like experiments and usually play around with setups to find the most fun builds. So I should have seen that myself. Right now I was focussed on upcoming bronze and on efficiency with many questions and little time for experiments...

[Argon]

@Ozimandius I also ran a cheap AnB 6 series with mage, now I want to do this with 4/2 demo/havoc for push and feel comfortable to get to tl130 (because in AnB i can craft better gear than I have now), IF I get enough CLs. I didn't have a lot of time to run tests and didn't get any of my tested demo setups to perform well at grinding XP. Do you remember what those XP demos were using? And how fast did they run their trials?
I just tested an epic assault lily build with good legendary weapons, had fun and pretty good times. In AnB I will probably just add XP for a legendary lily assault XP grinder. Bronze AnBs are the perfect event to run tests anyway. Easier to get equipped.

[Ozymandius]

Argon My bet is that the Assault BH would be the best build to use with a Fire Lily set up, but I salvaged all of my Assault gear to make room for new gear sets. I use Tesla pistols on my gold farmer, and I like how the scatter shots ricochet all over the place. In Gold 6 used the 4:2 Demo with Havoc gloves and helmet with a "true" Fire Lily set up (i.e., no CR or CD on anything instead used Power, Haste and Vitality/AR as needed). I was mostly running trials that I could complete in 90 seconds or less and pulling 10-15 CLs per trial (depending on booster). I didn't have the gems or the time to make a push, so I just ran as far as TL110 to get the second CT. I am not sure how far I could have pushed because it is hard to compare stats between a Fire Lily build versus a more traditional CR/CD build.

Still not sure what my "experimental" build will be in Bronze ANB. I really enjoy Warrior again with the 4 pc Fury set (storm of swords and tornadoes) with 2pc Warlords since it lets me use my Vampiric Blade set, and I also have experimented with an ELR Mage with fire effects and trinkets using Death from Above.

[Argon]

Those warrior and mage builds a a lot of fun and very efficient at xp grinding. I will run that setup on a main account mage too and switch to SCR for pushing. That also means I will have RL time to distribute and will probably only have 6h timer time for each. That is why I'm still thinking about using lily demo4/2 for pushing. If pushing with low CLs the additional slots with lily might overcompensate the the loss in buffs of RF.