pabrt's Critical Mass Discharger 1.2 (molten strike coc)

Currently leveling a character with the double strike build, at lvl 67 right now i'm still not sold on double strike vs cyclone. I find cyclone much better overall and the only advantage double strike really has is to be run on mana (even if i had to take Mind Drinker), enabling auras which is the only thing i missed on cyclone. That, and dual wield looks much cooler than 1h + a giant wooden door.

I find that doing packs with double strike is harder, being a single target attack it doesn't proc as much and i often get interrupted (stuns, etc) as i take a lot more damage, being forced to stand still. On bosses it's a draw, though based on flask generation again cyclone seems to do more hits (or at least i had an easier time getting my flasks full). But then double strike doesn't suffer from bosses moving against a wall or desync, that was ultimately why i tried it as cyclone is a bit of a gamble and it was a bit too scary vs Dominus.

Still, i miss mostly some HP nodes and IR, gonna try to hit 80 as well and see which one i prefer. I'm hoping double strike will make farming dominus more relaxing, as i won't have to fear getting a desync or stuck at the wrong time, however it's been quite frustrating at lower levels.

I'm currently at 80,7% crit and 0.18 aps, yet i keep getting bad series and i often drop to 10% hp in the middle of a pack until i can finally land a crit and kill everything.

On another topic, don't you miss the 2% max resist on your new build ? I always liked the idea of stacking max resists with flasks and passives on this build, seems odd to get away from this.

Cyclone would be better than double strike if there were no desync. Well... Kind of. It has the problem where using multistrike cyclone means you sometimes spin around forever doing nothing, due to the way crits work. Even at max crit you have a constant 5% chance to stop doing anything for a few seconds because you're not critting, which will get you killed at endgame (due to our defenses being active rather than passive). Double strike finishes faster the more IAS you have, so it smooths out these irregularities and gives you consistent flask recharges.

Cyclone also desyncs like crazy with multistrike. Multistrike is necessary for the build, and I refuse to play with that amount of desync.

Another downside of cyclone is you can't use dual wield as it swings with both weapons. Therefore IR becomes less efficient to grab due to no twin terror nodes. You also lose the massive attack speed from offhand prismatic eclipse.

All in all cyclone (and reave) are always going to proc way more for packs. But the question is, does the build NEED to be any stronger against packs? I destroy packs as it is, so I see no reason to use cyclone. The only trouble discharge builds really have is with big single targets, which is where double strike shines.

Are you getting stunned with hp nodes and granite + jade + IR + determination + grace? I very rarely get stunned with this setup. Actually I basically take no damage from anything but bosses or chaos alchemists. Only thing I've died to with double strike build was 130% dmg 30% speed map dominus, where I would've just chaosed that shit if I knew he was the boss.

Losing elemental adaptation sucks but it's not a huge deal. 88% all resist seems to be enough from my playing last night, and the nodes you pick up in exchange for EA are amazing.

I don't have a lot of HP nodes yet, i'm at 2700 HP at lvl 69 right now, i think that build is quite a late bloomer as we need to take most of the crit and offensive stuff, then the mana related nodes early to even make it work... leaving the HP nodes for very late.

So up until lvl 66+ i ran around with around 10% physical mitigation and about 2K hp, with malachai simula to get a "free" blood magic as mana didn't work at all... needless to say, it was quite a rough leveling, still managed to do everything but merciless Dominus so far with a few deaths here and there, but nothing too bad, though the porcupines made me run quite a lot.

I now see the light at the end of the tunnel lol, seems like 70+ is really where it becomes efficient.

Is Determination really worth it ? So far i'm running Purity of lightning, both to patch up a lightning resist hole (i'd lose a lot of HP on my gear otherwise) and to prepare for Dominus. That, and i happen to have a +2 lightning skills on my dagger, boosting nicely purity.

So far i mostly have issues with big packs, i'm used to cyclone through rooms while here i'm always torn between hitting them as they come, and leaving the ranged shooting me from the back for a while, or trying to run in the middle before attacking... often a close call with my low HP.

Well I got a 6l Voll's Protector, but rolled RRRGGB. Testing out additional red supports: iron will, melee splash, empower (who has one though...)

It's hard to tell if iron will adds that much, the tooltip says the same amount when the gem is in as when it's not so...

rerolled to GGBBRR

Using lv 19 20q Inc Crit i'm getting 85% crit, 6.9 aps

Uploading a full dominus run using the 6l and increased crit. With 85% it's really smooth to play. Only wish I had accuracy on my rings!

Also the upload says it's going to take 8 hours, so, that's a thing.
edit: optimized the file, now it's 11 minutes :D

http://youtu.be/lauTrjdtDYE

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EqualsAwesome wrote:

the build is solid, and i know attack speed and crit is a must, but im pretty sure we can get more dmg if we drop a couple of crit nodes (maybe most of the nodes leading to disemboweling) to get some spell power

if you drop crit nodes, then the build does not work. i run the build with 50, 65 and now with 69% crit. There is biiiig different between. You need as much as possible crit.

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seradine wrote:

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EqualsAwesome wrote:

the build is solid, and i know attack speed and crit is a must, but im pretty sure we can get more dmg if we drop a couple of crit nodes (maybe most of the nodes leading to disemboweling) to get some spell power

if you drop crit nodes, then the build does not work. i run the build with 50, 65 and now with 69% crit. There is biiiig different between. You need as much as possible crit.

Yep that's what makes this shit work lol

nice build. small min-max: drop 4x8% life node and take the Thick Skin. total gain: +10 dex; +2% life ;)

I already did that, but thanks for lookin out for optimizations !

these my gear so far

this my items so far on nemesis im lvl 53. feel weak