Siralim Ultimate: Bargain Bin Builds

I had a lot of fun making these, and you might too. So, you know, consider for a bit if you really want to read these or dive in blind and try making your own.

The rules I’m using to make these builds are:
1. nothing that requires a depth greater than 120 or so (not sure where common creature unlocks stop, I think it’s here?)
2. builds tested on instability 2 against enemies twice the level of my creatures, around 10 runs per class or until I’m satisfied
3. nothing particularly hard/RNG to acquire like exotic creatures
4. artifact level 40 and no artifact traits (I also don’t use trick slots unless I need to squeeze in a couple more spells)
5. no relics
6. nothing from god shops (arena and gambling dwarves are allowed)
7. one exception allowed to either artifact trait or god shop restrictions if I judge it extremely valuable (Wormhole!)

(For the newbies out there, remember that artifact spell gems care a lot about what kind of artifact you use – this guide isn’t using them, but don’t sink a rare material into a helm for a build that never provokes)

War Priest+Raving Storm initiator
Pit Guard+Lip Animation
Ebony Ent+Efflorescent Ent defender
Aaxer Apocalypse+Nature Shapeshifter
Death Guard+Chaos Guard
Phase Knight+Leper Plaguespreader
Spells: two Curse of the Swarm, two Summon Horde, one shared Recharge, one shared Astral Dimension, one River Against the Current, one shared Requiem, one shared Panic Attack

Spinning a lot of plates here. Your highest-health guy gets kicked to the top of the timeline, so there’s our initiation. Raving Storm means he can’t be silenced, War Priest clears the rest of the team (except against Mana Vortex). Pit Guard makes sure our other two casters have the stats they need, Lip Animation echoes their spellcasting.
Both the Raving Priest and the Efflorescent Ebony have both Curse of the Swarm and Summon Horde, one set to manual cast and the other to end-of-turn cast; this helps against spell gem sealing and charge reduction.
Because we auto-kill enemies in ‘normal’ fights (apparently meaning anything that isn’t a boss, mimics included) and have high attack ramp built-in, we can focus everything on reducing the damage we take (and it still gets hairy quickly on higher difficulties; no built-in damage reduction). Death Guard, Chaos Guard, Ebony Ent, Efflorescent Ent and Phase Knight all help us survive with damage reduction. Leper Plaguespreader does too, if you get your debuffs off.
The Ent gets the highest defense and speed, so he’s constantly provoking and striking back, and as the second to act he can cast your two big spells.
You can and will insta-kill your allies with Confusion and the like; Nature Shapeshifter prevents that.
Aaxer Apocalypse is a very noteworthy creature. There’s an all-too-common nemesis (the name of which escapes me right now) that shuts down stat-gain. But stat-gain is not stat-have, and Aaxer is stat-have. Even in those fights you’re still ramping.
Our casters aren’t supposed to lose spell charges, but somehow it still happens sometimes, so a shared Recharge to get things back on track.
Our mix of classes is carefully balanced to get good use out of both Curse of the Swarm and Summon Horde.
Astral Dimension clears gem sealing, River Against the Current if enemy buffs get obnoxious, Requiem if one of your guys dies, Panic Attack to clear enemies quick as possible once you have your minions. Your third caster can cast whatever – Transcendance is a possibility; all your races have nice traits on other creatures. Stampede is probably better than Panic Attack, but only a bit and it’s a god shop spell.

And as you can see here, Discount Drazhya’s Bargain Bin Builds doesn’t always include a Nix Informer (this is generally a bad idea; start-of-battle casts are scary)

The one thing that really shut me down with this is some bad luck with an Ahnkol Tremor, and a Consuming Vortex would be worse. Nothing I can think of to do about that though.

For more expensive things, Nether Boss Andrick’s first trait drop, (Andrick’s Royal Decree), will give you an abundance of buffs as you gain minions, and Dryad Proliferator will translate that into more stats. A Crystal Smith on your defender can be nice too.

Uralos Healer+Soulflayer Peacemaker
Uralos Trickster+Transient Spectre
Uralos Spellslinger+Chaos Salamander
Uralos Spearmaster+Phase Knight
Uralos Knight+Pit Guard
Uralos Savage+Mummy Lord
Spells: shared Duel

This build came together like a dream. I want all of my guys provoking immediately because most of my damage as well as defense is baked into that. Okay, looks like Soulflayer Peacemaker is the only reasonable way to make that happen, so I need to pick a race. Doom Fortress is the provocation race, but it’s a god shop race, so not allowed. What else do we have? Uralos actually looks pretty good.
Okay, so now they provoke all at the same time, but how do I kick that off? The spell Duel will do that, and Chaos Salamander will fire it off. Neat. Now what?
Indirect damage doesn’t trigger Retribution, which is what this class is all about, so prevent as much of that as possible. Phase Knight, done. I’m provoking constantly, so Transient Spectre to ruin enemy defenses quickly, nice. And what if I want to make them hit me? Mummy Lord, cool. And maybe if I’m making one of my guys get hit, I should beef him up a bit. Pit Guard, nice.

Your perks are adding defense to health and adding your highest stat to Retribution damage, so I recommend shields (you defend every time you provoke) with all health+defense gems. After a couple of the ol’ instability 2 + double my level runs, I went to instability 3 and triple my level and it still sails smoothly. Spell initiation without silence immunity means vulnerable to Nix Informer, but oh well – I’m not seeing a cheap solution to that.

A glass cannon, weather forecast is turn 0 victories, it’s win or die in this sunset city!

I think I may have ♥♥♥♥♥♥ this up somehow, but it still works.

Apis Defender+Nix Informer
Unicorn Vivifier+Lip Animation
Bhasa Cherub+Slurping Bat
Thunder Salamander+Imp Incarnate
Fire Salamander+Occultist Spellbinder
Chaos Salamander+Magnificus Sanctus
Spells: shared Recharge, shared Improvised Recitation. Can also throw in Requiem and/or Forbidden Unity.

With no built-in damage reduction or initiation, I figured that trying to survive would be a wasted effort – so instead, we revive if needed, but mostly we alpha strike.

Apis Defender keeps enemy attacks in one place, mostly. With the Fire Salamander, when he goes down, he casts spells. Because he’s next to the Lip Animation, when he goes down, Lippy also casts spells. Because Rune spells trigger on-attack effects and Lippy is in a Vivifier, when he casts spells, he raises the dead. Not as consistent as I would like, but oh well – we have other ways of bringing creatures back.

Nothing ends a Rune Knight as thoroughly as the spell Luck’s Gambit, since all your Rune spells are ethereal (For this reason also, Vulpes aren’t helpful). If you don’t have Nix Informer… it’s usually not too bad, really. But sometimes…

Bhasa Cherub and Magnificus Sanctus are a pretty strong duo. Not as much on this class as on Doombringer, but they’ll keep you in the fight for a while.

Slurping Bat actually gives us a lot of staying power – not very reliably, but usually all your Rune spells that go off at the start of the fight will result in a lot of debuffs, and they’ll stack up further if the fight drags on.

Chaos Salamander is how we initiate. The only way I can think of, really, without Mimic. He’s how most fights end before you can even do anything.

Thunder Salamander and Imp Incarnate are about +1 cast per cast. Not as good as it might sound – we’re already spamming out a ton and hitting some caps sometimes. But even if our spells fail to do damage, they’re still ticking up all our numbers that scale with number of Rune casts.

Occultist Spellbinder is such a nice fit – you’re trying to cast the same gem as many times as possible on each creature, and with the Spellbinder, your numbers get very big.

We could just run with no equipped spell gems, and that’s what I did initially – however, along comes a Sapphire Paragon and 6 Rune casts total is not enough.

Aaxer Apocalypse+Necro Grimoire
Watchful Inquisitor+Dragon Guardian
Inquisitor Weaver+Inquisitor Countess
Blood Hound+Horror Hound
Terror Hound+Panic Hound
Inox Apocalypse+Cold Cockatrice
Grimoire should have Summon Horde and Indiscriminate Summoning (he can start-of-battle cast them without charges, but needs charges to double-cast them if you add that property. You can arrange a shared Recharge to keep him topped off, but it’s not necessary)
Stone Ward somewhere and that’s all you really need. Ritual of Summoning, a shared Summon Horde, Mass Mutilation (trigger your Writhelings) and Requiem are all good as well.

This Necromancer is basically immortal. Your minions give you tons of damage reduction, plus a high resurrection chance immediately. You keep getting minions and they keep adding damage. Even if you lose a creature or two, they’ll keep coming back until you get your turn, and you can use Requiem to patch up any holes that probably won’t appear. There are spells that get rid of your minions, but I’ve never seen the enemy have or use them.
Downside is it’s slow – there are no fast clears here. You ramp up until they’re dead. Dragon Guardian helps a lot in speeding this up, and the Apocalypses will guarantee that, eventually, you get through.
Necro Grimoire is your initiation and gives you 7-14 rolls for new minions before anything happens. Inquisitors beef up your minions and give you buffs when your writhelings debuff – which you an trigger with Mass Mutilation. Hounds give you an extra starting minion – more damage reduction, more damage, more resurrection – and a bit more damage. The Cold Cocka gets your Summon Horde working good.

I was a bit surprised at available creatures for this specialization – there aren’t all that many minion creatures, even fewer that are cheap, and then even fewer that are cheap and good. But then, this here minion specialization doesn’t even need any more to clear rooms, if slowly.

Trading out the Cockatrice for Sphinxes later (Justicar and Elder) is recommended – a bit more flexibility in your party arrangement and a crazy-high stat boost. Bloodfang Gargoyle is something I randomly slapped on an item, but actually fits pretty well – you’re always casting Apocalypses once you have your minions up. And then there’s a variety of exotic creatures and backer traits to keep an eye out for, like Nox Sinon and (Synthesis). Leper Plaguebringer and Dryad Proliferator fit okay as well. You’re not going to get turn 0 victories with anything I’ve dreamed up here though.

Shambler Rescuer+Pit Wraith Redeemer
Shambler Benefactor+Phase Knight
Shambler Recruiter+Cosmos Vulpes
Shambler Juggernaut+Efflorescent Ent
Lugubrious Shambler+Dragon Guardian
Innocent Shambler+War Priest+(Master of Sea Shamblers)
Spells: Fermented Hops on everyone, Stone Ward on someone, one Fermented Hops shared, shared Recharge, shared Improvised Incantation, shared Requiem, shared Curse of the Swarm

Maybe there’s something peculiar you can do with some other race, but Discount Drazhya’s Basic ♥♥♥♥♥ Builds ain’t doing that. Shadowbringer is the Blighted specialization and Sea Shamblers (starts with Sea, not Sha! If you sort by race, you’ll need to remember that) are the Blighted race and they fit together quite fine.
We’re spending that rule exception on the Sigil of the Sea Shambler from the Master of Sea Shamblers. Without it, it’ll play the same except you’ll die way more often. 72% damage reduction when you need it most (when 6 enemies are alive) is extremely good.
Fermented Hops is the spell that makes this specialization’s world go ’round. All enemies take 35% of their max health as indirect damage, multiplied by all the things you have to increase Blighted damage – and Cosmos Vulpes can cast it. This Shadowbringer is all in on killing his enemies with what a gaslighter might call kindness. All in… can’t handle things that are immune to debuffs at all. Thankfully there are, like, three. One is the Laughing Wisp, which you can mostly avoid and if you do see it, you can technically spend a dog’s age hitting it until it dies as fatigue stacks up. Another is the Raving Storm… which I don’t think I’ve actually encountered with my Shadowbringer, but I think it’s Immune will stop your Blighted? And the last is the Treasure Golem, which is kind of funny – one of the most cruel specializations in the game, can’t kill the Treasure Golems.
You can squeeze in something like a Raven Bloodmage with a Finger of Death spell if you want an answer to these targets, though it’ll usually be too slow to catch the Treasure Golems.

I tried a on-heal party composition, but you don’t have the Cleric’s perk for triggering on-heals when at max health, so in practice it’s not great.
The Shamblers together will heal you when you deal Blighted damage, increase Blighted damage by 50% and then by 25% per debuff, cast Minor Healing on them when they take Blighted damage, add a 50% chance to deal Blighted damage twice, and increase Blighted enemy healing received by 50%. I’m not hot on all of these – you mostly want bigger hits here, not more of them – but it gets us our racial trait and it’s all valuable.
Pit Wraith Redeemer is bigger Blighted hits and will slow down the enemy a bit if your alpha strike isn’t so hot. Phase Knight will blunt the teeth of Mutated Pulse Bats and the like – the many things that hit your entire party when x or y happens. Cosmos Vulpes is your initiation, and will sometimes end fights before they begin – it can cast your Fermented Hops. Efflorescent Ent is a good chunk of damage reduction since you’ll always have Mending. Dragon Guardian is mixed in after a miserable encounter with a Pumking – high defense will kill your damage when combined with very low health. If you can’t quite get the numbers you’re looking for, smack one of them with Stone Ward. And finally, War Priest – which should be your fastest guy – will give you an opening to recover from Nix Informers or if your enemy pulls off an opening salvo of bad debuffs.

With slightly more expensive things, I removed the Pit Wraith Redeemer and War Priest for a Nix Informer and Mimic, and slapped a (Stand Alone Complex) from the first Aspect of Meraxis Nether Boss on the Mimic guy. First couple turns, enemy can’t Cast and every enemy Attack misses, plus heavy damage reduction for indirect damage. Works quite well.