Death Must Die – How to Streak-Clear D100 with Attack Skadi

Attack Skadi Build Guide

By Patrick.

This is a guide for an attack-based build that can clear D100 pretty easily and consistently.

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Talents

First up, the talent tree:

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• Tier 1 = Dice rolls and luck. Dice are a scarce commodity, and 4% luck is better than 2% damage because this build has ZERO problems with damage.
• Tier 2 = 2x skeleton damage, crit chance, and exp range. You want the skeleton damage it makes you able to level up faster & move around the map faster. It’s also helpful for quickly deleting archers. The crit is because we’re doing an attack build, and the exp range is because your status will make stuff die further away (particularly fear).
• Tier 3 = Attack speed and refresh status. These are obvious, nowhere else to really spend the points.
• Tier 4 = Attack damage and move speed. Again, no contest. Maxing out move speed is critical for catching up to the insect ladies since if you’re going to die during a d100 run, that’s where it’s going to happen. Also it gives access to the node beneath it which is great.
• Tier 5 = Strike slot and fear chance. Once more, no contest. The strike slot is quite relevant though, because with this perk now you can take a strike from all 3 gods which we’ll go over in detail in that section.
• Tier 6 = Attack damage increased by move speed. No contest here: it’s free damage, scales with your move speed throughout a game, and we don’t care about strike projectiles in the slightest. (Plus, Flurry is currently bugged as of the time of this writing, so we can’t use it in a bugless d100 run.)
• Tier 7 = Lifesteal and status effects. 4 points into status because the point of the build is to attack fast, spread status, and use it to multiply damage with the keystone node below it. Then 1 point into lifesteal because the 40% damage buff from full health node does NOT work with the Waste belt, which we’ll be using.
• Tier 8 = More damage based on the number of statuses (stati?) the enemy has. Excellent damage scaling that combines with Untapped Potential, Krom’s God of War blessing, and Winter’s Hoarfrost blessing… as well as the chill, rupture, and curse we’ll be applying to do INSANE damage.

Gear

Next up, the gear:

These 4 uniques are basically non-negotiable.

The sword is what gives you the attack speed to let you do damage, finish the swing animation quickly so you can start moving again faster, and do big damage.

Qareen is for for triggering additional hits, which when combined with the insane attack speed from The Eagler sword, allows the build to function. With this amulet you can apply statuses much quicker, letting you ramp up your damage on dangerous enemies, and gets you to your next Sickles of Mort quicker.

Then the genie lamp and Waste belt are for those sweet, sweet legendados. You’ll want a LOT of them for this build, so you need 100% legend chance.

The rest of these pieces are just for showing what I use currently, and for ideas on what to look for. Everything but the jewel is close to perfect statwise, and most improvements would come from added skills on the gear like frost dash.

In general, stats to keep an eye out for are:

• Dice rolls. Because we’re using 4 uniques, the gearset is naturally kind of limited on dice rolls. So look to get extra wherever you can, particularly alteration, then reroll, then banish in that order.
• Extra dash charge + dash distance on boots. I don’t care what you have to do, or which demons you have to pledge your allegiance to to get these, but they’re critical to make the runs easier. The extra dash is for dodging lasers, big wolf guys, and bosses… while the dash distance helps you do that better and also catch up to those damn flying insect chicks. They’re your main run killer, so these boots help mitigate that risk.
• Some form of life-on-hit or life-on-kill. You die if you don’t hit Vampirism by the 10:00 mark, so having at least some small form of lifesteal is critical to help you stay alive until you hit vamp. The 1 lifesteal point in the skill tree helps, but you need just 1 other gear piece with it too.
• Generic defense like life, armor, revives, and evasion. Life is good, and the way the math works out you want to hit 200, then add life and armor at a 1:1 ratio. If you can get 30-50 evade too, you might as well because the ~15% evade chance will save your ass against the flying insects enough to make it worth it to go for.
• Exp gain. This stuff scales linearly now, so it’s way better than it seems. Every 10% extra exp or 1 exp per min. gives you a few extra levels which is crucial for hitting certain build optimization breakpoints before critical times like the 7:00 boss, the 11:00 insects, the 14:00 boss, and the 17:00-18:30 gauntlet.
• Everything else is gravy. Get legend offer % on your ring, then get crit, attack speed, etc.

Gods

Next up, the Gods:

Krom (Non-Negotiable):

This man is your damage scaling throughout the game. Without him, you will lose. End of story.

• Rampaging Strike – This is the damage skill you want. It’s mandatory because of the high damage and area scaling. The knockback is more of an annoying than anything. You also want this skill because Krom’s normal blessings aren’t that great so you need something to dump levels into when he comes around. If you see this at master rarity, take it over everything, even his legendaries.
• War Pact – Damage multiplier for bosses and barriers. I’ve won runs without it, but pick it up as soon as you see it adept or higher.
• Fatality – Along with the insane attack speed from The Eagler and Qareen, fatality lets you cheese elites and high hp targets. Nice barrier nerd! Too bad I attack 5.58x per second with a 21% chance before luck to kill you instantly!
• God of War – For when Fatality fails you, this perk lets you kill bosses. It’s good, and the 22% more damage is irrelevant when Winter freezes everything.
• Shuriken – More rupture = more scaling from our skill tree keystone. Put 1 point into this then ignore it.

Winter (Non-Negotiable):

Winter is how you stay alive. Nothing can hurt you if it’s permanently encased in a thick sheet of ice.

• Frost Ring – Freeze everything near you when you dash (33% of the time, it works every time). This, along with the other skills of hers you’ll take, will let you basically avoid taking damage from almost everything. Take any level of it, since it being adept or master really makes no difference.
• Dive – Makes your dash apply frost. This is your backup strategy for when frost ring fails. Take it early, and at any level, since it being adept or master really makes no difference.
• Ice Shards – A strike that chills everything near you when you proc it, this helps freeze stuff. Take any level of it, since it being adept or master really makes no difference. Then ban it afterwards so it doesn’t clog your blessing pool.
• Hoarfrost – The best damage scaling skill you have, it gives you an extra 66% damage per status on an enemy. Including Untapped Potential and the odd cursed trigger from Mort, we’re consistently applying 8 different statuses. Add that to our insane attack speed and Hoarfrost gets nutty real fast.
• Icebound – An additional 60-120% damage multiplier on anything frozen. Wait, isn’t everything on the screen usually frozen? Yes, yes it is. Take it at adept or higher.
• Thaw – 10-18% more damage per frozen enemy on screen. Which is often all of them. Take it at adept or higher.
• Other Legendaries – All freeze. Take them all in any order.

Mort (Maybe Negotiable… But Probably Not):

Mort is for Vampirism. That’s about it, but it’s pretty crucial for staying alive. And Sickles is cool too I guess.

• Vampirism – This is what you came here for. We attack a decent area on the screen 3-5x per second, and every hit heals us. Makes you basically immortal when combined with Winter’s CC. Get this by 10:00 or die. I will start spending every last dice hardrolling for it from about the 9:00 mark.
• Malady – Makes your statuses spread around. Not neccesary, but cool for stacking thaw and that one skill Krom has where it makes you attack faster for every ruptured enemy. (Bloodlust?)
• Schmeckles of Morty – Good strike, procs vampirism and statuses and stuff. Not necessary, but definitely makes the build better if you can get it. Take it at Expert or higher.
• Execution – Free exp. Good, but don’t try to roll for it. Take it at any rarity and don’t spend levels or dice on it.
• Summons – If you take a summon, take skeletons. They chase insect ladies better, and do more damage. Ravens are cool for the curse on bosses due to Hoarfrost and Mythology, but they’re useless outside of that.

General Tips & Tricks

• Most Important – Go to your graphics settings and toggle off the lighting setting. This lets you see the map better, and makes it 10x easier to spot far away threats.
• Dice – Use alterations to get the right gods. Use rerolls on the fates to look for extra dice, the extra dash, then crit damage in that order. Use most of your bans on winter, since you need more of her skills than anyone else and she has a crapton of them. I like to take 1 level of dive, frost ring, ice shards, then ban them all so they don’t crowd your blessing pool.
• Shrines – Shrine hunt like crazy. Basic minions are a distraction, but go out of your way to kill elites and big threats quickly. Then back to shrining. Always take attack speed and evasion when you see it. Take life on hippos. If you see an oasis/well/100% damage shrine and you’re within 45 seconds of a boss or the 11:00/18:00 insect lady swarms … camp it until they spawn. Take movement speed from the tent shrine.
• Playstyle – Honestly it’s pretty degenerate. You just kind of run at stuff and it dies. The big key is to spam dash at the big thicc wolf boys until they freeze, and as soon as you see an insect lady, spend all of your dashes getting to her to take her down before she can hit you.
• Attack Skill Choice – Don’t try to take Winter or Mort’s attack. You’ll think it will work, but it won’t. Don’t do it. An expert-level Krom attack is better than a master-level winter or mort.
• Dash Cancel – In this game you can dash cancel your attack slowdown, and since Skadi has an abnormally fast attack animation, you should do this with her basically on cooldown. It will really speed up how quickly you can move around the map.
• Random – Getting a gear piece with the skill Enemies deal -60% damage on it is pretty damn nice to help you survive the first 10:00, but it’s not necessary.