Battlemage and You – useful Uniques etc.

Greetings,

was a bit bored and looked at Battlemage, the now Inquisitor node and wanted to check all those great or meme weapons for this node in particular.

Instruments of Zeal plays ofc into Insturments of Virtue as well and i wanna list everything that comes in my mind of how to use it, which items to use and which playstyles.

I won´t cover full builds, only excamples what you could do with it with the current set of items/passives/etc.

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The Basics:

Instruments of Virtue: Grants 10% more attack damage for each non-instant spell you've cast in the past 8 seconds, up to a maximum of 30%;

also grants Battlemage: Gain added spell damage equal to the damage of your main hand weapon.

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Battlemage is the more important one since it works in already existing builds.

The Attack damage part (generic for melee/ranged) is less important, but for hybrid builds or pure melee builds easy to keep up with fanaticism

Very stong if picked up early, can gain a lot of flatdmg from random weapons for your spells

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Martyr of Innocence and Disintegrator will have their flat phys/fire dmg removed and Battlemage is added, no great option for Inquisitor

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Instruments of Zeal: Gain Fanaticism when reaching max fanatic charges, gain 1 Fanatic charge every second if you've attacked in the past second, lose all charges when you reach max charges, maximum 4 Fanatic charges

Fanaticism: Grants 75% more cast speed, 75% reduced mana cost, and 75% increased area of effect

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If you are a caster you can just spam whirling blades/leap slam to ramp up charges, you don´t need to hit something. This way you can prepare 3 of 4 charges before a bossfight for excample

Inspiration or the passive tree/items/etc can further reduce the manacost to 0 which helps using usually low manacost atks with some 6+ link spell without much investment OR some bloodmagic weapon with free spells.

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Which builds are playable with it?

Phys to Ele Conversion Caster Blade Vortex, Wave of Conviction, Blade Blast, Bladefall and so on. Most weapons are phys based and Battlemage grants a lot to further convert.

Flat Elemental Dmg Caster Oro´s Sacrifice is one excample of a weapon that grants a lot of flat elemental damage for a non-conversion fire build. Triple flat Elemental weapons are a possibility with some castermods on top.

Caster in general can use their movementability (attack), frenzy and curse on hit, smite, and other debuff/buff attacks to benefit your spell and gain fanaticism

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Cast on Crit/Cast while Channeling or similar. Add more juice from the weapon dmg and maybe use selfcast for singletarget burst if necassary. Fanaticism isn´t the greatest here

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Hybrid Attack and Spells The way fanaticism works it seems best to use Spells for singletarget and attacks for clear since the more castspeed mods is more useful for singletarget.

For Excample we can use Ngmahus Flame Cyclone for Clear and Selfcast Purifying Flame/Wave of Conviction for singletarget.

You want generic damage nodes life %elemental damage, %AoE damage, crit multiplier with fire skills and so on

You don´t want many weaponnodes or spell specific nodes for some hybrid

Staves are a great option for their nice passive tree nodes often affecting attacks and spells and it´s the best option for a crit hybrid

Other weapons are better for Elemental Overload as a hybrid, you have to invest a lot for crit axes and gain not much for your spells or vice versa

You want Auras/Heralds that benefit both spells and attacks like hatred, herald of ash/purity.

25% reduced manacost or inspiration can be pretty good if you play atk for clear and singletarget spells since there can be a 4 sec no manacost window.

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In general i don´t think hybrid as great option. 30% more attack damage is not that huge if you could just use a single spell for everything instead. Sockets are a thing.

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Now the Weapons!

Rare Weapons can be pretty strong, some of em could be 1c trash atm.

The focus could be:

Prefix

Attackdmg (phys%/flat phys or flat ele dmg)

Suffix

crit multi, spellcrit, castspeed etc

for a regular caster

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Hybrids would want other suffixes like atkspeed/critchance

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Staves like mention are king in terms of crafting for Battlemage with the useful and universial implicits, generic passive nodes and possibility to have caster and attack mods like desired.

Sceptres and Dagger could a one handed option

Bows ofc are always a decent (or even best) caster option and can have some great utility with frenzy + gmp + hextouch + curse or similar on a distance

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Unique Weapon

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The most interesting part and you probably scrolled down here anyway. There is a chunk of great Uniques that are universally good for Battlemage, either for pure spellcasting or hybrid and another pair for memes and niche builds. Lets cover them:

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2h Melee

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The Cauterizer: Medium phys dmg, 70% phys as fire, culling strike, +1 strength gems (empower and some spells etc), gore shockwave for shenanigans

Ngamahus Flame: 60% phys to fire conversion, 20% firepen, decent amount of phys dmg and useful for hybrid or caster

Kaom´s Primacy: good flat phys, culling strike, phys as extra fire per rage, rage on crit with atks

Hezmana´s Bloodlust: good flat phys, attacks have bloodmagic, 100% mana reservation possible with 25% manacost reduction for fanaticism as a hybrid

Debeon´s Dirge: fat flat cold dmg, warcry synergy with 150% ele dmg. Cold caster or Hybrid.

Kitava´s Feast: good flat phys, recover 5% life on kill, enemies hit are destroyed, attackleech and meleesplash support. EO Hybrid

Hrimnor´s Dirge: Medium flat phys, 50% phys as Cold dmg. decent budget option

Panquentzalitzli: 25-50 all attributes (righteous Providence), decent flat phys, 5% life on kill, 10% of life fire explosion. Pretty nice clear weapon w/o explody chest with Battlemage. One of my favorites.

Brain Rattler: good flat phys, 50% phys to lightning, better shocks, 20% lightning pen, shock shenanigans, 5% double dmg chance, 50% shockchance.

Tidebreaker: very good phys, decent for hybrid but more of a lower tier compared to others.

Kongor´s Undying Maul: good phys, resists, onslaught, no accuracy needed. EO hybrid

Replica Kongor´s Undying Maul: no onslaught but es regen

Oro´s Sacrifice: high fire dmg, ignite, cull, frenzys and decent for hybrid

Replica Oro´s Sacrifice: same just for Cold

Stormwall: Cold and Lightning Conversion, good flat phys, high block, good hybrid or phys conversion

The Fulcrum: good phys, triple conversion and other shenanigans

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Bow

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Xoph´s Nurture: good phys, 50% phys to fire, 10% ignite, recover life on ignite. Fire/phys caster or hybrid like firearrow for clear and a chunky spell for singletarget on top

Lioneye´s Glare: good phys, far shot, hits cant be evaded, max mana. ok for a hybrid as well

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1h melee

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Vulconus: very high fire/phys dmg, 50% fire conversion, 240% global crit etc. Pretty good 1h+shield option for fireconversion BV or similar

Mjölner: it´s Mjölner.

Dreadbeak: 100% inc dmg on low life, good 1h flat phys, onslaught on low life

Hyaons Fury: high flat lightning dmg

The Rippling Thoughts: already a hybrid weapon, Battlemage makes it better for that

The Surging Thoughts: same as Rippling

Rebuke of the Vaal: fat universal damage, ignoring ele res helps with that

Beltimber Blade: Far Shot, +2 projectiles, decent phys, accuracy implicit. Decent hybrid weapon and the +proj is already good if you can skip a less multiplier

Doyanis Catalyst: Decent phys, global crit and up to 132% inc ele dmg, ele leech, castspeed etc. Good hybrid and starter weapon

Cospris Malice: adds 90-180 cold dmg on average and it´s cospris

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Wand

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Obliteration: Decent phys, explosions

Moonsorrow: Castermods with decent phys and blind

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Now the uniques for the memes or more niche:

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2h Melee

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Replica Harvest: Medium flat phys, leech, global crit, elusive. Makes it somewhat useable with a mix of speed, survivability and dmg

The Harvest: similar to replica, but flask charges instead of elusive

Terminus Est: okish phys, hybrid shenanigans, frenzy on crit

Sinvicta´s Mettle: Rampage, Aoe/frenzy for rampage stacks, okish phys

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1h Melee

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Breath of the Council: high 1h phys, aoe, chaos dmg%, chaos skill effect duration. If you wanna make a chaos Inquisitor

Daressos Passion: Frenzy on kill, 60-80% inc dmg w/o frenzy, crit multi implicit, low-medium phys and cold dmg. a good leveling weapon

Razor of the Seventh Sun: 30% phys to fire, 25% ignite, good phys dmg, 1% life for ignite, hybrid potential

Grelwood shank: like beltimber, but lower agency over +2 projectiles

Cameria´s Avarice: good flat phys, icicle burst. IIR, its okish

White wind: high flat cold dmg, high evasion, decent for hybrid

Arakaali´s Fang: High flat phys and some poison/chaos, Raise spider for utility

The Scourge: Hybrid option which enables minion dmg nodes, medium phys dmg

Touch of Anguish: +1 chain, medium phys, lgoh and 30% inc cold dmg. Statstick or hybrid

Essentia Sanguis: decent mix of flat phys and lightning, flat es, slayer es leech and ghost reaver

Dreadsurge: Hits ignore fire res if ignited, high flat fire dmg, some memery

Rigwald´s Savagery: decent flat phys. +25 rage with sword offhand. Chainbreaker builds

Dyadus: high flat fire dmg (if it works), 25% ignite, it´s okish

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Bow

Windripper: Caster IIQ farmer or some hybrid

Voltaxic Rift: good flat lightning, lightning > chaos conversion, shockstuff, niche on the class but possible

The Tempest: 100% inc lightning, some flat lightning and a good hybrid option

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Puh that was a lot.

My absolute favorite is Panquentzalitzli for clearing stuff. Rares often should end up being the best option but there are some powerhouses like Xoph´s Nurture, Brain Rattler, The Cauterizer, Stormwall or Vulconus which partially are already decent caster options with something missing. And with Battlemage it gains the something for powerful items without even being hybrid atk/spellbased (but possible).

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For Hybrid builds you would often end up being EO since most good unique Battlemage weapons aren´t Staves or your have to invest a lot for it.

Pure Caster is definetly the easiert way with some leap/shield charge/whirling blades for fanaticism charges

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If you wanna see the stuff written here on video with my nose itching and killing me while trying to be quite to not wake up the lady of the house here we go: https://youtu.be/FVgc7mycLyo