Dragon's Immortal Tank (Updated for 1.2)
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Thanks for the great advice you gave me a few posts back :D
I am still currently the 40% block chance low lvl shield at lvl 66 and was wondering if it would be good to switch to a good rare shield or the unique posted below/or any cheap unique. I will not be able to afford Aegis for a long time unless I get lucky when I start maps :D EDIT: I did some testing with both shields and surprisingly I still prefer my Crest of Perandus as I really noticed the loss of reduced block chance/HP/Leach Life. Once I get some more shield node's then it might become a better option but for now I think sticking with the crest is my best option. Last edited by Godsdragon#6438 on Jul 1, 2013, 1:32:23 PM
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" Yeah, even with the wealth to do so, you still have to find an Aegis Aurora for sale (which is a real pain in hardcore/onslaught) >< Last edited by westbryan#7618 on Jul 1, 2013, 1:47:54 PM
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Aaah finally i've almost got everything as it should look like, boots are still from my old ranger and they're on the to-do-list, need to upgrade once i get currency and find some nice booties.. I went for block-nodes before life-nodes, so there's yet ~30% and +30max life still coming, sitting on 3954 hitpoints now..
Temple Piety was insanely bad with -23% resistances + elemental weakness curse map mods, almost 1 shotted me (400hp left after first hit, second hit Kuramuuri goes daon!!), twice. Next time i'm going there, i'll get another ring with huge lightning resistance. So far everything else has been kinda easy. One other harsh thing was Elemental Equilibrium in lvl 75 Necropolis, Blackguard mages with lightning thorns, cold shooting skeletons and fire shooting dogs, that kinda hurt, but managed to handle it with a bit of kiting, which i really don't enjoy :) 3950 HP 9000 DPS 620 Energy Shield 8000 Armor Resistances 78-80-78 -8% :/
Spoiler
Last edited by Juhazzz#5503 on Jul 1, 2013, 5:37:08 PM
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Good evening gentlemen! I see I have a few questions to answer so lets get started!
" Taking a look at your passive tree I noticed that you have missed 2 of the 1% hp/sec nodes. Those are HUGE for this build. You are running your attack from you hp in addition to taking damage. You NEED your hp/sec to be as high as you can get it. Looking at your gear I can't see any major problems other than some concerning links. Are you trying to run auras using a blood magic gem? If you are, then I would advise that you only run 1-2 MAX. Trying to run 4 auras from hp without using one of the blood magic uniques will cost you double the HP and is not worth it unless you have an extremely high health pool. I would suggest grace and wrath on hp if this is the case. Also your shield concerns me. Even though it has some pretty good stats on it, it is only 24% block chance. This is really bad for a build that stacks block chance. " Crest of Perandus is an amazing shield. It has to be used to be truly appreciated. Just for giggles last night I put my Crest back on and ran some lvl 69 maps with it and felt as Immortal as ever. Aegis Aurora is an amazing shield, but imho crest of perandus is a close second. I also gave lioneyes remorse a try and it performed quite well also. " There are FEW builds/people that will even attempt Temple Piety with ele weakness and - max resists. She is SO dangerous even without those mods it is insane. One of the things to strive for after you get the essentials is to become overcapped on resists. This is a really big advantage for running maps. If you can nullify the ele weakness curse completely, even if you have to stack end charges, then you win :) As for facing Piety, I have learned to NEVER go up against here without these I have also heard people using Saffells Flame when they get to piety. I would LOVE to be able to do this, but I have yet to find one of these shields. If you have one, you really should bring it along and put it on vs piety AFTER you clear the trash around her ofc :P Congrats on the gear man, some really nice stuff you have there. If you ever have the chance, I urge you to find some rings that also have +2 life gained on hit. With 2 of these rings you can see a surprisingly huge difference. Most people don't believe me, but with only 4 lgoh and 4% physical leech I can run an entire stasis map (no regen) without using a single hp flask. Boss included. I feel so bad for those of you that are trying this build in the new leagues. Especially Onslaught. The popularity of Aegis Aurora is growing very quickly and I feel your frustration in trying to find one. If I made you guys believe that this build was easy to gear and level and I am incredibly sorry. It has been so long since I leveled my mara that I have completely forgotten the early days. The only memories I have of it now are the good ones :) in which I plow through almost any map with ease and fearlessness. So I salute you guys, and I beg you to keep going until your gear is as good or better than mine. You have seen the videos, you know what the build can do with gear. It certainly is not pure skill that makes my mara such a joy to play, since I am just an average player. -Dragon DISCLAIMER! The views and expressed opinions of Dragon are solely those of a drunken redneck and are not necessarily those of a sane person. Any likeness of intelligence is strictly coincidental and should not be taken seriously. His posts should not be read... by anyone. Last edited by Dragon585#3483 on Jul 1, 2013, 6:53:01 PM
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My hat's off to you once again, Dragon. I know people have mentioned it before in this thread, but it truly is incredible the way you check in here and go out of your way to answer everyone's questions. I've seen so many build threads posted around here in which the OP puts up the build and then seemingly forgets it exists. The frequency of your replies, the willingness to help out players trying to follow along, and the humility you display while doing it are exceptional.
Gaming communities in general need more people like you, sir. Would that I could count myself among the ranks of those as helpful. You are the person of the testicular persuasion, good sir. /salute |
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" Okay thanks a lot, those Topaz pots were exactly on my thoughts earlier today, could take 3-4 of them with extra charges and dispels shocked, just in case the fight is going to last longer. And should / could get 20% quality life leech gem, i've used this selffound for ages now, but does that 20% recovery rate help how much ? I've just in case switched Melee Splash -> Life Leech in bossfights, against map Kole it wasn't that bad idea with unlucky blocking :p This build / char is just so awesome to play, all the damn stuffs exploding and flying around the place, drink a Quicksilver and rush for the next big monsterpack etc, that's just awesome! I've never really enjoyed playing ranged classes, it's just plain boring, but that's just me, didn't enjoy ranger either in this game, i played it to 83 lvl. Marauder with this build is from whole another world i must say :) Just hoping to find good parties ingame to do the higher maps, leveling is so slow now on Lunaris and it's a lot more fun to play with other people. And about finding the items.. I can't even imagine how hard it is to find like Aegis on new leagues and well propably many other items are very hard to find too. I've kept searching poexplorer for days to find a chest like you have Dragon. There ain't but one chest, named Viper Pelt and the guy is not responding to messages :/ edit. And yes, I also totally agree to the post above me, it's very nice to see such helpfull people, mostly people are so selfish and so on. It's good to have atleast one of your kind around :p Last edited by Juhazzz#5503 on Jul 1, 2013, 7:12:23 PM
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Thanks a lot gentlemen. I am not sure I deserve such a nice complement since I have tendencies to be a jerk sometimes too :P
I just love this build, and am thrilled to see that others are taking to it as well. I have a lot of free time this last year, so I find that it is nice to keep up with the thread to keep my time occupied. Unfortunately, that is going to change in the next week or 2. I passed my drug screen and physical today and will be returning to my job as a railroad conductor in the next week I hope. I will do my best to continue to answer questions and help out, but my posts may be less prompt than usual. Thanks again for the nice words, I appreciate them and hope I can live up to the nice guy image. ^_^ edit: On the subject of 20%LL, I have only just recently acquired one for myself and am in the process of leveling it. So I honestly don't know how much of an impact it will have, but it definitely cannot hurt! I am hoping it will save me 15% exp the next time I face off against a super hard mod piety map. DISCLAIMER! The views and expressed opinions of Dragon are solely those of a drunken redneck and are not necessarily those of a sane person. Any likeness of intelligence is strictly coincidental and should not be taken seriously. His posts should not be read... by anyone. Last edited by Dragon585#3483 on Jul 2, 2013, 2:43:50 AM
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Ignore this. Just recording my thoughts and theorycrafting for the day that the BM trick gets fixed.
IGNORE THIS
I told you to ignore this.
Seriously... Go away!
Why can't you respect my wishes?
You'll be sorry...
So I have been stricken with worry about the day when GGG fixes the mechanic that allows us to stack auras on hp without incurring the 200% modifier of a BM gem. This has gotten me theorycrafting and trying my hand at math.
At first I had thought to seek out all 4 of the 5% reduced mana reserved nodes. But if my math is correct (and I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't) the seven points spent to reach all 4 of those nodes are better spent in 6% hp nodes. It appears that with all 4 of the 5% reduced mana reserved nodes, I will be able to run either anger or wrath on mana in addition to what I currently run on mana. So that saves me 232 hp. Then, a 20% reduction in the remaining bm gem'd auras would only amount to a savings of 168 hp. So in total, those 7 points save me 400 hp. And being that I stack hp on my gear, 7 6% hp nodes would give me more than 400 hp and also provide additional benefits, such as more hp regen and a higher maximum health pool to protect against status effects. I hope I did that right. The extreme downside of all this is, where do I find 7 points? The only answer I could come up with sadly was... less block Q_Q So, in preparation for the inevitable fix to the bm uniques, I have theorycrafted a build for the day this happens and am in the process of testing it right now to see just how the build is effected by less block and more hp. I'll keep updating as I experience it with some maps. Well then, it appears that 7 points are indeed better spent on 6% hp nodes rather than chasing the 4 5% reduced mana reserved nodes for me specifically. Each 6% node gives me 91 hp. If I had to BM gem my 4 auras that are on hp it would increase hp reserved to 1052. 7x6% hp nodes gives me 637 hp which more than covers the additional hp reserved by the 196% modifier on BM gem.
Dragon's Hilarious Attempt at Math
As far as I could figure, the 4 5% reduced mana nodes would allow me to switch 1 of my auras currently on hp to mana. Which leaves 3 auras at a base cost of:
164 anger 213 grace 215 discipline .71 represents a max level reduced mana gem .8 represents the 20% reduction to mana reserved via passives 1.96 represents a max level blood magic gem So if I did this right, 164+213+215=592 592 x .8 x .71 x 1.96= 659 hp reserved to keep auras with 7 points to get to reduced nodes. vs. 164 wrath 164 anger 213 grace 215 discipline 164+164+213+215=756 756 x .71 * 1.96 = 1052 full price of BM gemming all 4 auras OR 7 x 6% hp nodes which I tested with regrets to amount to 91 hp each. So... 7x91=637 hp gained My current hp rests at 4473 With 7 points to reach the 4 reduced mana reserved nodes 659 of my hp will be reserved leaving me with 3814. With 7 6% hp nodes my maximum hp will rise to 5110 and will have 1052 reserved leaving me with 4058 hp and the perks of a higher maximum health pool (higher hp regen and increased defense vs status effects). So how bad do we need these auras? Well I can't speak for everyone since gear is a factor, but for me losing wrath and anger results in a dps loss of 2180 which is HUGE. Losing discipline is something I have yet to determine as a problem or not. For me, it won't hurt nearly as bad since I have ES on my chest. But for others that only have es from AA and discipline, it could prove to be a huge loss. Losing grace is not even an option. The armor it adds is worth it. Tempest shield, although awesome, is likely to be removed from the build in the future. 4% block vs 232 less hp reserved was a hard choice, but I think with 2 passives to gain that 4% back, it can be a small gain in the right direction. The key to preparing for this fix is going to be perfect optimization. And that is likely going to mean only taking the nodes that give higher bonuses. Which also means that block capping will no longer be an option until late 90s. One thing is for certain. None of these auras are easy to give up. My current testing build will try to maintain all 8 auras at the full cost of BM gemming them, while sacrificing some dps (I know, I don't like it either) and block. My control will be the Map version of Piety. If I can still beat her and feel in control for the majority of the fight, then that is good enough for me. If not, then more tweeks will need to be made. I don't know when this fix will get implemented, but it has become clear to me that it WILL be fixed eventually. So it is best to prepare for it. edit: Actually, rather than work myself up I am going to just test how the build performs with less block first. Baby steps. I hope to be at least level 90 by the time this fix reaches us. That will give me more options than I currently have. DISCLAIMER! The views and expressed opinions of Dragon are solely those of a drunken redneck and are not necessarily those of a sane person. Any likeness of intelligence is strictly coincidental and should not be taken seriously. His posts should not be read... by anyone. Last edited by Dragon585#3483 on Jul 2, 2013, 8:33:59 AM
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i really want to try this build out, it seems awesome!
but i don't know how is gonna be when they fix the aura stack with unique's bm. :< |
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" Even more gear dependent =( but still fun as hell. I have already determined that we will be able to keep all 8 auras even after the fix. It is just going to cost us double the hp. Making hp on gear even more mandatory (is that even possible?) than it is currently. Sadly, this will become a build that will require tremendous effort to gear properly. But it will live on! DISCLAIMER! The views and expressed opinions of Dragon are solely those of a drunken redneck and are not necessarily those of a sane person. Any likeness of intelligence is strictly coincidental and should not be taken seriously. His posts should not be read... by anyone. Last edited by Dragon585#3483 on Jul 2, 2013, 6:49:11 AM
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