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Build Guide

Overview

This build revolves around the reworked Manald Heal and buffing its damage the most possible. It’s basically a ranged lightning Archon build with four elements (Tal Rasha), however you have to precisely micro-manage your positioning and attacks for maximum effectiveness. It’s quite strong and will rival the Firebird Archon solo build that Wizards have been using in the past couple seasons, but it is fairly difficult to play optimally. The damage output is fairly strong, so much so that this build is able to kill rift guardians properly without Bane of the Stricken, however clearing high tiers will require some fishing for good density because you need to build momentum with your Archon stacks. It's also the strongest farming build for speed GRs below Tier 90.

Itemization

We have to combine 4pc Vyr’s with 6pc Tal Rasha, so you have to equip Vyr shoulders and boots and Tal Rasha amulet, offhand and preferably chest, then fill the rest until you have all set bonuses with a cubed RoRG. There is no weapon that is really necessary, however the best performance will be a Pig Sticker (faster attack speed, more primaries and secondary damage boost) with a cubed Starfire (extra damage based on distance). For speedfarm, In Geom + Starfire is the best choice. You should aim to have good crit chance / damage where possible, elemental damage on ONLY bracers, (elemental and elite damage don't work for MH but we need lightning on one piece to make Archon beam deal lightning damage) and strong CDR rolls on all your items excluding amulet, then fill the rest with defense and perhaps attack speed on your weapon. The equipped rings should be Manald Heal and Obsidian Ring, as they can roll the preferred stat combo, and RoRG should go into the cube. The belt is Fazula, which gives us much-needed Archon stacks along with The Swarmi in the cube. Ranslor's Folly will help us to group up monsters in solo, for speedfarming you should go with Nemesis Bracers.

Optimal item rolls: http://www.d3planner.com/354124517 (solo) | http://www.d3planner.com/692516652 (speedfarm) | http://www.d3planner.com/949751286 (torments)

Playstyle

When you enter a rift, make sure to buff yourself with Force Armor and Magic Weapon, and also remember to rebuff yourself once later on or when you die. This build is very squishy, especially with low stacks you need to be careful, with high Archon stacks you won't have to worry too much. In order to deal any damage at all, you have to keep up your Tal Rasha stacks up to 3 outside of Archon, and then up to 4 when you enter Archon.

For dealing damage, we pretty much only rely on Manald Heal procs, and sometimes you can get very lucky or very unlucky. It is important to note that you CAN proc Manald Heal on targets that are immune to crowd control, so you won't have to worry about your Black Hole or Juggernaut elites. When a skill procs Paralysis, ALL targets hit by that specific cast will be stunned and take damage. If it's a spell like Arcane Torrent - Static Discharge, you will proc Manald Heal EVERY time it deals damage after the Paralysis proc until the next "attack sequence" begins. For example, AT - SD shoots two bolts + one electrified bolt per sequence, and you will proc MH up to 3x with it if you stun on the first hit, or 2x if you stun on the second hit, etc. The “dot” nature of the Archon beam also seems to work similarly and allow up to 10-20 procs per Paralysis stun depending on your attack speed.

It requires some time to get used to, but after a while you will realize when is the best time to nuke and deal good damage. To maximize it even more, try to not kill too many targets outside of Archon, rather just get them to low hp and perhaps spawn an Oculus ring, and try to get the most kills while inside of Archon for the additional stacks.

Variations

There are a lot of possible variations for this build. First of all you can decide if you want to go with Stricken or Trapped on tiers up to 100, because this build is strong enough to kill rift guardians without Stricken until then. For torments and speed GRs, you want to run In Geom + Starfire, and perhaps switch Black Hole to Teleport and Twister to Blizzard or Frost Nova. For a more tanky and easier to play build, you can go with Halo, Ice Armor and Ancient Parthan Defenders, or for a group variation you can go with Convention.