Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Psyren]

personally, if you can't elite twink your follower to solo kill a rift guardian, what's the point in having one?

I'm now having flashbacks to D2 "Duel My Merc" rooms.

[Icewraith]

personally, if you can't elite twink your follower to solo kill a rift guardian, what's the point in having one?

If you have a large enough length of time, the appropriate immortality trinket for your follower, a reliable internet connection, and are really good at dodging, your follower in theory can eventually kill any RG on any difficulty without further optimization.

Of course, if the RG has ~10 trillion health, if you divide 317098 by your follower actual sustained damage per second you'll get the approximate number of years it will take your follower to kill that RG. I'm not sure what health pools are like in the 100+ GR environment, I may be low-balling it.

[Erloas]

So I tried out the charge-bolder toss barbarian build last night. It turns out I didn't have all of the pieces for both sets but a few "swap set pieces" later and I had enough to try the build. I could see it being very powerful, but right now it is also very squishy.

Only got one run in, T11 normal rift. I think I died about 10 times, but everything else died very quickly too. It was cool to one-shot the rift guardian with a full fury boulder, I think that is the first time I've ever one-shotted one. But the deaths... I'm thinking this is another fast movement thing that doesn't work as well on the console as on the PC, which is something I've noticed with fast movements on all classes. I can't say "charge to this point" I can just say "charge in this general direction" which almost as often gets me into worse situations than when I started. Including a few where it would charge me into the middle of a dozen arcane ground effects and I would be instantly dead. With a bit of practice it did get better, but I don't think I would ever try a hardcore character build relying on fast movement/teleporting.

I was also missing most of the legendaries for that build too. I swear I had some, but now that I think about it I think it was on the other account that I played with my (now) ex-wife. Kadala is giving me 2-3 set pieces for every legendary, so that's not great. But I read somewhere that some specific legendaries are easiest to get by starting a new barbarian and staying below level 70 and using the blood stones on Kadala there then reforging that to 70 on your main. Just have to be above the drop level for the item but below 70 where all the sets are. Same screen multiplayer and two accounts with decently geared 70s means that would be really easy to get to the level I want and use the 70 to farm shards.
The question though is does that actually work and work good enough to be worth the effort?

[Psyren]

So I tried out the charge-bolder toss barbarian build last night. It turns out I didn't have all of the pieces for both sets but a few "swap set pieces" later and I had enough to try the build. I could see it being very powerful, but right now it is also very squishy.

Only got one run in, T11 normal rift. I think I died about 10 times, but everything else died very quickly too. It was cool to one-shot the rift guardian with a full fury boulder, I think that is the first time I've ever one-shotted one. But the deaths... I'm thinking this is another fast movement thing that doesn't work as well on the console as on the PC, which is something I've noticed with fast movements on all classes. I can't say "charge to this point" I can just say "charge in this general direction" which almost as often gets me into worse situations than when I started. Including a few where it would charge me into the middle of a dozen arcane ground effects and I would be instantly dead. With a bit of practice it did get better, but I don't think I would ever try a hardcore character build relying on fast movement/teleporting.

That's a good point - I've never thought about that fundamental difference in console play, but the lack of precision would affect which builds are viable. Probably Wastes Barb might end up being most effective as all the others care a great deal about positioning.

How does Leap work? Does it show you where you'll land? Do you have to move a reticule?

I was also missing most of the legendaries for that build too. I swear I had some, but now that I think about it I think it was on the other account that I played with my (now) ex-wife. Kadala is giving me 2-3 set pieces for every legendary, so that's not great. But I read somewhere that some specific legendaries are easiest to get by starting a new barbarian and staying below level 70 and using the blood stones on Kadala there then reforging that to 70 on your main. Just have to be above the drop level for the item but below 70 where all the sets are. Same screen multiplayer and two accounts with decently geared 70s means that would be really easy to get to the level I want and use the 70 to farm shards.
The question though is does that actually work and work good enough to be worth the effort?

AFAIK reforging a pre-70 item leaves it at the same (read: useless) level you found it at. Console might be different though.

Pre-70 legendaries are useful for cubing though, because the cube doesn't care about the statistics on the item you put into it, only the legendary power.

[Erloas]

With leap (and all others similar) if you have a monster targeted it will leap onto them, if you don't have a target it will just leap the maximum distance in that direction. But picking specific targets is not really possible, if I push "left" it will target the first person in that direction. Being the analog stick you can rotate slightly and try to pick specific guys out of a group but it is never really possible to pick someone on the far side of the group. With something like charge, especially in the middle of a group, you'll target someone right beside you and you'll charge out through them and keep going in that direction. It wasn't uncommon in a very busy screen to hit buttons a bit too fast and end up charging through 3 different groups in quick succession.


I can't specifically remember reforging a sub-70 items so I don't know how it acts. But at least right now the majority of the legendaries I need are for the cube anyway.

It doesn't look like the Wastes build requires much for legendaries specifically. Mantle of Channeling is easy since everyone gets that, and I do have a skull grasp. Some builds show Bul-Kathos and others show Little Rogue/Slanderer, I know I have the latter, and I have several of the former but I can't say for sure if they are all the same one or if I actually have one of each.

[Psyren]

Yeah, if targeting specific enemies is that difficult and hitting specific landing spots is impossible, I'd pretty much aim for a Wastes build if you like Barbarian. That will move you in shorter increments and keep you from landing in hot water. Don't get me wrong, I love Leapquake, but being able to jump out of trouble is just as important as being able to jump into a pack.

Also, be sure to include Ignore Pain in your build - both for the DR and the ability to escape from movement impairing effects like Jailer and being Frozen.

[Lord Torath]

I can't specifically remember reforging a sub-70 items so I don't know how it acts. But at least right now the majority of the legendaries I need are for the cube anyway.

I do. I tried reforging a level 14 Faithful Memory because it looked cool, but it stayed level 14.

Still no primal ancients since the end of the season. The RNG must hate me.

[Erloas]

So I have 3 copies of Bul-Kathos's Warrior Blood and 0 Solemn Vow.
Slanderer/Little Rogue were monk drops so I need to farm a few bounties to reforge them if I want to go that way.

I tried charge with seismic slam instead of bolder toss and while it seems like seismic slam should have similar damage it feels like it doesn't do nearly as much as bolder toss. It also seems like the Shattered Ground rune hits a wider area than Rumble, I see no indication of that on the skill info and maybe its just the animation, but it just feels like it is a narrow path out. I had the relevant legendaries for both, so it should be a fair comparison. I guess the other part is, is there a dead zone right in front of the barbarian before seismic slam hits? It seems like the back and forth charge against a single enemy and then hitting seismic slam that it seems to "miss" the monster a lot.

I also tried the whirlwind build. It was... lackluster. Unless the weapons are going to make a huge difference, and the implied 20% damage increase from Bul-Kathos's set isn't going to do that, I'm not sure what was wrong. The constant health regen made it not so squishy but it just seemed like it wasn't killing anything. Although I guess I am missing two of the legendary gems, Taeguk and Pain Enhancer.
I guess maybe I just farm GR50ish until I get both of those up and get a few more ancients.

[Psyren]

So I have 3 copies of Bul-Kathos's Warrior Blood and 0 Solemn Vow.
Slanderer/Little Rogue were monk drops so I need to farm a few bounties to reforge them if I want to go that way.

There is also the IK/Wastes whirlwind build that uses the maul and belt if you have that.

I tried charge with seismic slam instead of bolder toss and while it seems like seismic slam should have similar damage it feels like it doesn't do nearly as much as bolder toss. It also seems like the Shattered Ground rune hits a wider area than Rumble, I see no indication of that on the skill info and maybe its just the animation, but it just feels like it is a narrow path out. I had the relevant legendaries for both, so it should be a fair comparison. I guess the other part is, is there a dead zone right in front of the barbarian before seismic slam hits? It seems like the back and forth charge against a single enemy and then hitting seismic slam that it seems to "miss" the monster a lot.

I personally did much, much better with SS than with BT so not sure what to tell you.

[Erloas]

There is also the IK/Wastes whirlwind build that uses the maul and belt if you have that.

That is what I started with since I didn't have the other set weapons. That was the first time I've had the ancients die, that build takes a lot of damage it seems.

I personally did much, much better with SS than with BT so not sure what to tell you.

Is there any other changes to the build? I guess I missed the Fury of the Vanished Peak weapon, or more accurately I didn't think the prefix was relevant to the build, but it would be the 100+% increase to damage that would be the reason to equip it rather than cube it.

[Psyren]

FotVP is pointless because Rumble rune eats all your Fury anyway. The SS damage boost is good, but ultimately loses to the 4-piece(3-piece) IK bonus.

If you or your pets are too squishy (you're using Enforcer, right?), try running Striding Giant as your Wrath rune instead of Insanity, that will double your toughness and therefore theirs, and so Together As One won't kill them as quickly.

[Erloas]

That was the first time I've had them die, at least that I noticed. And since they were there mostly for defense rather than offense I never really thought about using enforcer in that build. The main issue with the whirlwind build was that it seemed to take forever to kill anything.


So with your charge/SS build you use RoRG to fit both sets on? None of the builds I found showed that, though it would be easy enough to do. Would pretty much assure that you're never without Wrath. Combining that, or the charge/bolder build, I could definitely see Striding Giant as being worthwhile because that was never hurting for damage, just survivability.

[Psyren]

So with your charge/SS build you use RoRG to fit both sets on? None of the builds I found showed that, though it would be easy enough to do.

This is the build I use, that does exactly that. You can go for the 6pc Raekor variant (very high damage BT/SS, lower everything else) or the 6pc IK variant (High damage everything including pets, lower BT/SS.) Basically, you choose 5/3 or 3/5 and play accordingly.

I use Insanity rather than Striding Giant, but I also have more precision due to mouse control to avoid bad things, so SG might be better in your case - slower, but less chance of dying.

[The_Jackal]

This is the build I use, that does exactly that. You can go for the 6pc Raekor variant (very high damage BT/SS, lower everything else) or the 6pc IK variant (High damage everything including pets, lower BT/SS.) Basically, you choose 5/3 or 3/5 and play accordingly.

I use Insanity rather than Striding Giant, but I also have more precision due to mouse control to avoid bad things, so SG might be better in your case - slower, but less chance of dying.

Is it possible to make a solo-capable sword and board barbarian? I don't need to crush the highest possible rifts, but good enough to solo GR 70 and get a crack at primal ancients would be nice.

[Psyren]

Is it possible to make a solo-capable sword and board barbarian? I don't need to crush the highest possible rifts, but good enough to solo GR 70 and get a crack at primal ancients would be nice.

I have no idea - if you're not a Crusader, there are basically no shields in the game worth using.

[tyckspoon]

Is it possible to make a solo-capable sword and board barbarian? I don't need to crush the highest possible rifts, but good enough to solo GR 70 and get a crack at primal ancients would be nice.

I honestly have no idea if these ideas would be capable of going that high, so this is mostly spitballing, but:
Legacy of Nightmares: Your shield is Wall of Man or Defender of Westmarch, probably. You're restricted to one-handed weapon, so we're looking for good legendary properties there.. The Barbarian basic attack legendary is a one-handed Mighty Weapon (Oathkeeper), so that's a possibility. There's also a belt that gives Frenzy all runes. LoN Frenzy, with Oathkeeper, Depth Digger pants, and Simplicity's Strength might be worth playing around with. Frenzy and Oathkeeper are going to give you a very silly attack speed, so anything that triggers on attack is probably worth looking at as supporting stuff (Cube Sash of Knives and Stalgard's Decimator, throw up to three weapons at nearby enemies with each attack with Frenzy's Sidearm rune effect? Probably giving up too many necessary other effects by devoting two cube slots to that, but it sounds like fun.)

Dishonored Legacy is another one-hander that gives bonus damage to Cleave based on having low Fury. Might be able to make a variation on one of the Focus/Restraint builds with a rune that dumps all your Fury (Ancient Spear - Boulder Toss or Seismic Slam - Rumble.) There's also The Three Hundredth Spear, but that's a relatively small bonus to only two abilities, and I don't think it's enough to try to make a build around.

Most of the Barb sets don't have an obligatory weapon, so you could probably do variations of everything except maybe Wastes, which really wants to be using a secondary set of weapons. They won't be ideal - the best supporting legendaries for these sets are two-handers with hefty non-cube-able skill damage bonuses- but you could probably work out something with Might of the Earth, Raekors, or Iron King. IK would require using Royal Ring to avoid having to equip the weapon, of course.

[Lord Torath]

Looking at my LoN Blessed Shield in Diablo III (Inventory Screen -> Details), it says my Physical Resistance (1209) means 77.55% + 75.98% damage reduction from level 70 enemies. By my count, that adds up to 153.53% damage reduction, which, to me, means I should be getting healed by physical damage. My non-physical damage details are similar. What does that really mean? I mean, I'm obviously not getting healed by getting hit, so what's going on here? Should those values be "multiplied" together (The physical damage I take is reduced by 77.55%, and that amount is then reduced by 75.98%, for a net damage taken of 5.39%, or 94.61% damage reduction)? Is there an error in the tool-tip for that stat? Or is something else at play here?

(Just cleared GR70 with that build - thanks, Psyren! - but still no Primals)

Edit: I just realized I have Blunt up, when I should really have Towering Shield! That could make a difference in my damage output... Also, I'm still trying to get Ancient Ice Climbers.

[The_Jackal]

Looking at my LoN Blessed Shield in Diablo III (Inventory Screen -> Details), it says my Physical Resistance (1209) means 77.55% + 75.98% damage reduction from level 70 enemies. By my count, that adds up to 153.53% damage reduction, which, to me, means I should be getting healed by physical damage. My non-physical damage details are similar. What does that really mean? I mean, I'm obviously not getting healed by getting hit, so what's going on here? Should those values be "multiplied" together (The physical damage I take is reduced by 77.55%, and that amount is then reduced by 75.98%, for a net damage taken of 5.39%, or 94.61% damage reduction)? Is there an error in the tool-tip for that stat? Or is something else at play here?

Yes, all resistance is multiplicative.

[Psyren]

Is that Blunt passive supposed to be Towering Shield?

[Lord Torath]

Is that Blunt passive supposed to be Towering Shield?

Looking at my LoN Blessed Shield in Diablo III

Edit: I just realized I have Blunt up, when I should really have Towering Shield! That could make a difference in my damage output... Also, I'm still trying to get Ancient Ice Climbers.

Yup! And it did make a decent difference in my damage output. Still not on par with my Blessed Hammer build, but that one has more gems "Caldesanned" in.

[Starwulf]

When did the bounty system change from prioritizing an act before others being done and giving "bonus" chests for doing so? Got the Necromancer, leveled it(Solo) from 1-70 in about an hour or so(go go gem of ease and cains set), then started doing bounties, and quickly realized that that system was no longer in place, which sucks, lol, I liked getting the bonus chests :)

[Psyren]

When did the bounty system change from prioritizing an act before others being done and giving "bonus" chests for doing so? Got the Necromancer, leveled it(Solo) from 1-70 in about an hour or so(go go gem of ease and cains set), then started doing bounties, and quickly realized that that system was no longer in place, which sucks, lol, I liked getting the bonus chests :)

The new chests contain both the normal and bonus content for every act. All this change did was make it so one person can't troll the group by turning the bounties in out of order. In short, it's a good thing.

[Lord Torath]

When did the bounty system change from prioritizing an act before others being done and giving "bonus" chests for doing so? Got the Necromancer, leveled it(Solo) from 1-70 in about an hour or so(go go gem of ease and cains set), then started doing bounties, and quickly realized that that system was no longer in place, which sucks, lol, I liked getting the bonus chests :)

The new chests contain both the normal and bonus content for every act. All this change did was make it so one person can't troll the group by turning the bounties in out of order. In short, it's a good thing.

They changed it last season, and made it so you always get the bonus chest, regardless of the order you complete the bounties. Which is nice for if you're low on one type of crafting material, and you don't need the rest.

[The_Jackal]

Well, here is what I've managed to put together thus far. I've also got a more prosaic Helltooth build, but neither one is ready to push past GR 60ish. Obviously I need a better ring and a third legendary gem in lieu of the ancient short man's finger I'm rocking now. I've got a pretty decent Ring of Emptiness, and I'm kind of contemplating Simplicity's Strength to beef up my damage versus bosses, since Locusts/Haunt/RoE takes care of most of the trash. And, of course, I need to start bulking up my ancients with stat bonuses. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree, and I'd be better served with a firebats build with non-ancient gear. Feedback? Thoughts?

[Psyren]

Some thoughts:

1) You seem to be on the fence between Firebats vs. No Firebats. Your gear isn't clear either - you have the Firebats bracer on, but you don't have the skill itself on your bar, and you're also missing the Firebats staff. Which are you going with?

2) Either way - for pure A6, Gargantuan does nothing (the set doesn't boost it at all, making it a wasted skill as its damage will be far, far behind everything else), so I would remove the Short Man's and take Garg off your skill bar entirely. Garg is for Helltooth and/or Zunimassa builds, not Arachyr (or Jade, obv).

3) If you go Firebats Actually, either way - remove Corpse Spiders, it actually isn't that useful. Moving the big spider around is unnecessary; it will go where you need it to on its own, and it also slows enemies automatically (triggering your BoT) so the snare on your spider dagger is also superfluous. Hex and Haunt also trigger BoT. CS isn't a bad skill mind you, but the problem is that every second you spend throwing out jars is a second you're not channeling.

4) Either way - A6 boosts Locust's damage but not Haunt, so it's only half as effective here as it is on a Jade Harvester build. It's not bad but there are better things you could probably fit in here, like Mantle of Channeling or Cindercoat (if you go Firebats).

5) Either way - Swampland Attunement actually gives you more toughness overall than Jungle Fortitude, but your first toughness passive above all others should be Spirit Vessel.

If you end up going Firebats, you can focus the build as a whole around fire damage, thus letting you drop Bad Medicine for Confidence Ritual or Grave Injustice. If you don't go Firebats, I'd probably go Angry Chicken God with Manajuma instead. Either way though, without Jade Harvester, there's no way to make Locust or Haunt do "burst" damage, leading to a dps loss overall as you wait for those two to "tick." Either way, I would ditch both Corpse Spiders and Gargantuan as mentioned above.

[The_Jackal]

Some thoughts:

1) You seem to be on the fence between Firebats vs. No Firebats. Your gear isn't clear either - you have the Firebats bracer on, but you don't have the skill itself on your bar, and you're also missing the Firebats staff. Which are you going with?

That's just the best bracer statwise in my possession. I'm not sure of any bracer with passive benefits for Corpse spiders. I guess the logical thing would be to use Lacumba's Ornament and Soul Harvest, I just don't have one that's not garbage.

2) Either way - for pure A6, Gargantuan does nothing (the set doesn't boost it at all, making it a wasted skill as its damage will be far, far behind everything else), so I would remove the Short Man's and take Garg off your skill bar entirely. Garg is for Helltooth and/or Zunimassa builds, not Arachyr (or Jade, obv).

True, that's what I'd drop for Soul Harvest, I imagine. Just lacking the items. I suppose the optimal thing to do would be to dump the Spider Queen's grasp for a Sacred Harvester, but at that point I feel like I'm running away from one of my favorite things: Throwing Spiders at people's faces. I do like the gargs for a bit of distraction, more than anything else, but yeah, that's a holdover from my Helltooth build.

3) If you go Firebats Actually, either way - remove Corpse Spiders, it actually isn't that useful. Moving the big spider around is unnecessary; it will go where you need it to on its own, and it also slows enemies automatically (triggering your BoT) so the snare on your spider dagger is also superfluous. Hex and Haunt also trigger BoT. CS isn't a bad skill mind you, but the problem is that every second you spend throwing out jars is a second you're not channeling.

Yes, absolutely, if I go with Firebats, I need the firebats bracer, mantle of channelling, and the firebats staff. This is kind of where DIII developers annoy me: Itemization pretty much makes or breaks builds. By that I mean, not the items that I find in-game, but rather, there's simply nothing in the entire item pool which would let Corpse Spiders compete with Firebats. Basically, if you can't find 3 legendaries that empower a skill, it's questionable whether you should use it at all.

4) Either way - A6 boosts Locust's damage but not Haunt, so it's only half as effective here as it is on a Jade Harvester build. It's not bad but there are better things you could probably fit in here, like Mantle of Channeling or Cindercoat (if you go Firebats).

Haunt is there to trip Ring of Emptiness, which is exactly how it is on the Icy Veins S11 build.

5) Either way - Swampland Attunement actually gives you more toughness overall than Jungle Fortitude, but your first toughness passive above all others should be Spirit Vessel.

Ugh. So heres's my problem with Spirit Vessel: It's crummy game design. Instead of actually tuning monster abilities, let's just put in a load of 'you die but without the penalty' effects that let us get away with insta-jib monster abilities. That said, you're probably right.

If you end up going Firebats, you can focus the build as a whole around fire damage, thus letting you drop Bad Medicine for Confidence Ritual or Grave Injustice. If you don't go Firebats, I'd probably go Angry Chicken God with Manajuma instead. Either way though, without Jade Harvester, there's no way to make Locust or Haunt do "burst" damage, leading to a dps loss overall as you wait for those two to "tick." Either way, I would ditch both Corpse Spiders and Gargantuan as mentioned above.

So let's assume that I'm NOT going to go Firebats, because if I wanted to play a 'stand and channel' build I'd be playing a Wizard. Any ideas for making corpse spiders actually work? Because I'd sooner collect ancients at T11 and put together a LoN SB build than do Firebats.

[Psyren]

That's just the best bracer statwise in my possession. I'm not sure of any bracer with passive benefits for Corpse spiders.

That's because there isn't if you're ever stuck for a bracer for your build however, a good default is Nemesis.

True, that's what I'd drop for Soul Harvest, I imagine. Just lacking the items. I suppose the optimal thing to do would be to dump the Spider Queen's grasp for a Sacred Harvester, but at that point I feel like I'm running away from one of my favorite things: Throwing Spiders at people's faces. I do like the gargs for a bit of distraction, more than anything else, but yeah, that's a holdover from my Helltooth build.

The issue I have with the spiders is that their damage - which looks great on paper - is TOTAL damage, i.e. it's divided amongst the individual spiders and spread across the duration of the effect. Spamming it does not add up the damage the same way that, say, poison dart does, and against groups the spiders will spread that damage far and wide rather than focusing down targets. It's like all those terrible "random damage" runes, as a baseline skill.

Haunt is there to trip Ring of Emptiness, which is exactly how it is on the Icy Veins S11 build.

I know full well why Haunt is there... It's the Quetzalcoatl (in your cube) I was questioning, an item you'll note is not present in the Icy Veins link either.

Ugh. So heres's my problem with Spirit Vessel: It's crummy game design. Instead of actually tuning monster abilities, let's just put in a load of 'you die but without the penalty' effects that let us get away with insta-jib monster abilities. That said, you're probably right.

They exist because actively dodging is more fun than passively soaking (see also games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne) but in an online-only game dodging isn't reliable, so a cheat death minimizes that sort of frustration.

They also exist because of hardcore, but I don't think either of us play that.

Yes, absolutely, if I go with Firebats, I need the firebats bracer, mantle of channelling, and the firebats staff. This is kind of where DIII developers annoy me: Itemization pretty much makes or breaks builds. By that I mean, not the items that I find in-game, but rather, there's simply nothing in the entire item pool which would let Corpse Spiders compete with Firebats. Basically, if you can't find 3 legendaries that empower a skill, it's questionable whether you should use it at all.

I sympathize, but at some point, something does have to be "best." The point of those legendaries that push you towards X skill is so that you can climb to those dizzying heights (GR70+). But if all you want to is bum around and, as you say, "throw spiders at people's faces" - well, you don't need to be running max difficulty to do that. So what endgame do you have in mind? What do you define as "making it work?" That's the key to D3, because the difficulty is theoretically infinite.

So let's assume that I'm NOT going to go Firebats, because if I wanted to play a 'stand and channel' build I'd be playing a Wizard. Any ideas for making corpse spiders actually work? Because I'd sooner collect ancients at T11 and put together a LoN SB build than do Firebats.

Er....how do you feel about frogs?

[The_Jackal]

The issue I have with the spiders is that their damage - which looks great on paper - is TOTAL damage, i.e. it's divided amongst the individual spiders and spread across the duration of the effect. Spamming it does not add up the damage the same way that, say, poison dart does, and against groups the spiders will spread that damage far and wide rather than focusing down targets. It's like all those terrible "random damage" runes, as a baseline skill.

How do you figure that spamming doesn't add up the damage? Each cast does the damage. Yes, it takes a small amount of time for the damage to be applied, but I don't see any evidence that spamming spiders truncates or overwrites the effect of a prior cast. My understanding is that one cast of corpse spiders will throw 4 spiders, each one of which can hit up to 3 times, doing 645% damage / 12 on each hit. I use leaping spiders, so hopefully the number of 'dead casts' shoudn't be that great, because the spiders will be better about getting stuck in to their targets.

I will concede that the total spider damage is relatively weak, because it is, in effect, a single-target spell that will divide itself up among up to 12 different targets. It was, however, my hope that I could close some of that gap with Simplicity's Strength. SS ignores proc coefficients, so I'll get 4% life on every cast, which can't suck, and with a rank 60 gem, I'm doing 55% more damage. Based on d3planner, it seems to be multiplicative with the legendary benefit from Spider Queen's Grasp.

Look, you may be right, and I'm just better off going with Helltooth with Mask of Jeram.

I know full well why Haunt is there... It's the Quetzalcoatl (in your cube) I was questioning, an item you'll note is not present in the Icy Veins link either.

Right, but the whole point of my build was to try and maximize DoT damage, as opposed to turn DoTs into nukes with Jade, or turn my build into a Arachyr Firebats build.

They exist because actively dodging is more fun than passively soaking (see also games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne) but in an online-only game dodging isn't reliable, so a cheat death minimizes that sort of frustration.

They also exist because of hardcore, but I don't think either of us play that.

Yet they stack the game with tons and tons of passive damage reduction and life gain, such that 'standing and passively soaking damage' is entirely possible. After all, that's what the Firebats build is all about: Stacking DR perks so you can blast packs of creeps at point blank range.

I sympathize, but at some point, something does have to be "best." The point of those legendaries that push you towards X skill is so that you can climb to those dizzying heights (GR70+). But if all you want to is bum around and, as you say, "throw spiders at people's faces" - well, you don't need to be running max difficulty to do that. So what endgame do you have in mind? What do you define as "making it work?" That's the key to D3, because the difficulty is theoretically infinite.

I'm not asking that all builds be equal, just that the gulf between the top-tier build and some niche builds be not so vast. GR70 isn't dizzying heights, it's the bar you need to clear to get primal ancients. I'm not specifically on about spiders, either, there's plenty of skills on plenty of classes that get ZERO love on ANY itemization. The developer mindset seems to be driven like this: Release game, do little if any balancing. Wait to see what builds the community minimaxes, based on those skills. Determine whether they like the playstyle of said build, ie: Is it mechanically interesting and complex or could the gameplay be accomlished with an electric toothbrush leaned against the keyboard. If so, create a set and buff the pants off that build. If not, nerf it into the center of the planet.

Er....how do you feel about frogs?

Oh, the homing frog build? I hadn't tried it, but it seems interesting. Isn't the damage on toads incredibly weak, though? I'm not sure how doing ~200% weapon damage in a tiny radius is going to compare favorably to the spider thing. I could be wrong.

[Psyren]

How do you figure that spamming doesn't add up the damage? *snip*

At a certain number of spiders, the old ones die as you throw new jars out, with the new spiders having target acquisition lag.

Right, but the whole point of my build was to try and maximize DoT damage, as opposed to turn DoTs into nukes with Jade, or turn my build into a Arachyr Firebats build.

If you want to maximize dot damage without Jade's burst, you'll need Helltooth instead. Arachyr ignores Haunt, so it will never get particularly good output out of that mask relative to other options.

Yet they stack the game with tons and tons of passive damage reduction and life gain, such that 'standing and passively soaking damage' is entirely possible. After all, that's what the Firebats build is all about: Stacking DR perks so you can blast packs of creeps at point blank range.

The items can do that, sure, but the passives can't be that strong. Thus, at most difficulties (especially the higher ones) the cheat death provides the strongest defense overall.

This is not to say that you can't take the others too - just that they are usually secondary. However, it's also a playstyle thing - if dodging isn't your thing, you can stack defensives instead of cheat death.

I'm not asking that all builds be equal, just that the gulf between the top-tier build and some niche builds be not so vast. GR70 isn't dizzying heights, it's the bar you need to clear to get primal ancients. I'm not specifically on about spiders, either, there's plenty of skills on plenty of classes that get ZERO love on ANY itemization. The developer mindset seems to be driven like this: Release game, do little if any balancing. Wait to see what builds the community minimaxes, based on those skills. Determine whether they like the playstyle of said build, ie: Is it mechanically interesting and complex or could the gameplay be accomlished with an electric toothbrush leaned against the keyboard. If so, create a set and buff the pants off that build. If not, nerf it into the center of the planet.

Suffice to say I disagree, but us continuing to bicker about itemization philosophy isn't going to help your builds.

Oh, the homing frog build? I hadn't tried it, but it seems interesting. Isn't the damage on toads incredibly weak, though? I'm not sure how doing ~200% weapon damage in a tiny radius is going to compare favorably to the spider thing. I could be wrong.

With Renho Flayer it at least has a chance at viability - if flinging animals at faces is indeed a thing you want to do (and firebats are unpalatable for reasons.)

[The_Jackal]

[QUOTE=Psyren;22206397]At a certain number of spiders, the old ones die as you throw new jars out, with the new spiders having target acquisition lag.

Huh... So there's a maximum total number of spiders you can have down? Seems plausible. Got any link to testing data to confirm?

If you want to maximize dot damage without Jade's burst, you'll need Helltooth instead. Arachyr ignores Haunt, so it will never get particularly good output out of that mask relative to other options.

Locusts and Haunt aren't affected by Helltooth at all. You just get a third DoT: Necrosis for 1500% damage, but the majority of your additional damage comes from Helltooth 6-piece, making primaries, pets, etc., doing 15x damage.

The items can do that, sure, but the passives can't be that strong. Thus, at most difficulties (especially the higher ones) the cheat death provides the strongest defense overall.

Eh, the passives are better than any individual item. I'm not sure if there's a single item that can increase your @RES by 15% unless you're nekkid. Maybe I should look into Swampland Attunement and Thing from Below, with Gruesome Feast.

This is not to say that you can't take the others too - just that they are usually secondary. However, it's also a playstyle thing - if dodging isn't your thing, you can stack defensives instead of cheat death.

At no point did I suggest that not dodging at all was a good idea, or made for good gameplay. I'm not asking for defensive passives to be buffed, I'm suggesting that 'die but don't die' mechanics are irritating, to me, because they present a kind of Sophie's choice: You can get tougher, or you can be less tough but occasionally not die. See what I mean?

Suffice to say I disagree, but us continuing to bicker about itemization philosophy isn't going to help your builds.

This isn't an itemization philosophy thing, it's a build diversity thing, it's just caused by itemization. How we got here is sheer conjecture on my part, I'll admit. Can you come up with some other reason why they added three legendaries and a set which all boost Firebats? (Arachyr, Bakuli Jungle Wraps, Staff of Chiroptera, Coils of the First Spider*) It was a really effective spender already, so the devs though, I know, I'll pour some more kerosene on this fire.

With Renho Flayer it at least has a chance at viability - if flinging animals at faces is indeed a thing you want to do (and firebats are unpalatable for reasons.)

Yeah, I'll have to get one. I must have cubed a few hundred CKs and haven't seen one yet. If I do, I'll try it.

* For that matter, why is a spider-themed item buffing Firebats at all?