by Hotstreak - 9 years ago     show comments

Books have often been society’s only bastion of light for passing along knowledge that would otherwise be lost to time or convoluted by the oral tradition. In order to provide new and old adventurers with as much knowledge of what to expect on their journey in Sanctuary, we created this tome of knowledge – Ars Arcanum. We will regularly feature a Legendary weapon or armor piece, discussing its stand-alone powers and capabilities, as well as how it may synergize with new builds or other item

This week’s Ars Arcanum is the first article of a two part series that will talk about two items from the new Seven Sided Strike build. We will start by going over one of the new Monk weapons, Lion’s Claw. If you’ve ever dreamed of a viable and fun seven sided strike build for your Monk, then Season 4 is the season 4 you (heh). With patch 2.3, Monks have been given a lot of tools and synergy items to make a SSS build a viable option and the results are very positive as this is the most fun build I have ever played on a Monk. Even though the build is really fun, you need to farm for a lot of items to make it work if you plan on pushing Greater Rifts.

Why is it good?

Lion’s Claw itself is pretty self explanatory, it increases the amount of hits for SSS by 7 for a total of 14 hits. It’s a very powerful item for this build and synergyizes very well with a few of the items in this build. So were going to go over each one and see just how they all work together.

Uliana’s Stratagem

So I was debating on whether or not to do this article on Uliana’s or Lion’s Claw since they are the two center pieces of this build. Then I came to the conclusion that it doesn’t really matter since these two items need each other in order for the build to work. So lets get into how Uliana’s benefits from Lion’s Claw by looking at the set bonuses.

• 2 Piece Bonus – Every third hit from your Spirit Generators applies Exploding Palm.
• 4 Piece Bonus – Your Seven Sided Strike deals its total damage with each hit.
• 6 Piece Bonus – Your Seven Sided Strike detonates your Exploding Palm

It’s a strong set with a ton of damage potential but without the extra seven hits from Lion’s Claw, it would be pretty mediocre. Lion’s Claw amplifies the effectiveness of this set ten fold with the extra seven strikes. When combined with the 4 piece set, each of the 14 Seven Sided Strike’s deal 5677% weapon damage for some very good single target damage against Rift Guardians and Bosses. This combo alone can propel you into some of the higher torment difficulties to help speed up the farming process for this build.

A long with that, it also has amazing synergy with the two and six piece bonuses as the extra seven strikes really shine in big AoE situations when you need to blow up enemies with Exploding Palm. You will make some really huge explosions with this combo and it gets even crazier when you’re in a game with another Monk running the same build.

Binding of the Lost

This new Monk belt gives you 3% damage reduction for each hit with SSS for seven seconds. This is a great item when paired with Lion’s Claw since it give you a potential 42% damage reduction. Without LC it would still be an alright item but it’s effectiveness would be halved. This gives you some much needed survivability when pushing Greater Rifts and other harder content.

Flow of Eternity

This daibo has an amazing affix as it lowers the cooldown of SSS by 60%, this is a great item to put into your Kanai’s Cube and use as a passive. With a good amount of CDR, this affix paired with LC is highly effective.  I still don’t have as much CDR as I need yet, but with 52% from gear and the 60% from Flow of Eternity, I am able to use SSS every four seconds which is pretty insane and just melts Bosses and Rift Guardians. This is a must have for your Cube’s weapon slot if you are wanting to run this build.

Bane of the Stricken

With the 25% extra damage to Rift Guardians and Bosses along with the 1.05% extra damage enemies take every time you attack them, it almost seems like this Legendary Gem was made with the SSS build in mind. This causes the SSS build to do some serious single target damage which is huge for pushing Greater Rifts.

All in all, these combos with Lion’s Claw really take Seven Sided Strike to another level and is an extremely fun build to play. But I know what you’re thinking, Seven Sided Strike isn’t the only skill that makes this build good. So next week, part 2 of this series will go over one of the new items that synergizes with Exploding Palm.

Who is it good for?

Since this is a fist weapon, it’s only usable by Monks who want to run a Seven Sided Strike build.

Where can I find it?

Lion’s Claw is a Season 4 exclusive, so it can only be found on a seasonal hardcore or seasonal softcore character.

The Fluff

[blupost]

The ferocity of Uliana’s unrelenting attacks was often compared to that of a lion.[/bluepost]