The Headbang Gang 2.0 - Raging Spirits madness - now with cheap version + leveling guide

Interesting that the spreadsheet lists a crit chance of 5%. I wonder if spell crit affects it.

Gonna test & post back.

Tested by seeing if they ever 1shot the zombies in twighlight merci. Seems they didnt when I added about 200% spell crit on gear.

I did notice that they miss sometimes. Additional accuracy? >_<

Unrelated: also now that we have the numbers. A plain +3 fire staff is about 534k dps with Emp L3 and a +2 fire 22% cast staff is about 510k dps with AF instead of Emp. I also bought a 5L pledge of hands to test and I can confirm it sucks unless it's 6L. The 100% max mana made my mana go something like 2.4k -> 3.6k, and unreserved pool 500->900, regen 250->310. Glad I was able to sell it quickly for what I bought it. Still not sure how to get +3 fire or +2 good cast speed. 1.4k alts for this...

and now I got a bit lucky

Please don't write to good about this build... we don't want nerf:) thx for guide

Is there any way we can make the Staff version Atziri-safe? Purity of Fire, Minion Life nodes/gem so they can tank a flameblast and keep attacking. Movespeed nodes to run around faster and manually dodge spells. Cast minions when you are safe to do so, even just having 4-5 out should be pretty good DPS.

So, I did a few cowards trial maps and they were hilarious easy. Even went in with farming gear which puts my cold at 27%.

Then I did Mao Kun with my regular gear. It went well until Fairgraves' final form. His Raging Spirits >>>>>> than us. I'd suggest staying away or getting someone to help with the final form. I know my Molten Striker didn't have a problem with him.

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Also, I noticed something that I figured would be a good idea.

If you have a 20% Culling strike gem then the quality bonus negates the penalty at level 1. By level 20 you get:

10% increased cast speed
AND
22% increased damage
AND
of course culling strike which effectively means enemies are 90% health
AND
tell me if I'm wrong but it would also carry 10% increased attack speed which because linked to SRS I believe would translate.

That's a pretty nice gem. I'd suggest it as competition against others. I don't really count Empower since it's so hard to get a level 3 empower. It would give more spirits, faster attacking, stronger and less damage required.

Only catch is that it would have to be quality OR level 20. no quality, up until level 20 there is a penalty on cast and attack speed. Full Quality negates that at level 1. Since it'd be likely a 6th gem it should be easy enough to level it by the time you get a 6 link. Seems like a great fit.

"

Madcow1120 wrote:

So, I did a few cowards trial maps and they were hilarious easy. Even went in with farming gear which puts my cold at 27%.

Then I did Mao Kun with my regular gear. It went well until Fairgraves' final form. His Raging Spirits >>>>>> than us. I'd suggest staying away or getting someone to help with the final form. I know my Molten Striker didn't have a problem with him.

-----

Also, I noticed something that I figured would be a good idea.

If you have a 20% Culling strike gem then the quality bonus negates the penalty at level 1. By level 20 you get:

10% increased cast speed
AND
22% increased damage
AND
of course culling strike which effectively means enemies are 90% health
AND
tell me if I'm wrong but it would also carry 10% increased attack speed which because linked to SRS I believe would translate.

That's a pretty nice gem. I'd suggest it as competition against others. I don't really count Empower since it's so hard to get a level 3 empower. It would give more spirits, faster attacking, stronger and less damage required.

Only catch is that it would have to be quality OR level 20. no quality, up until level 20 there is a penalty on cast and attack speed. Full Quality negates that at level 1. Since it'd be likely a 6th gem it should be easy enough to level it by the time you get a 6 link. Seems like a great fit.

Haha did you use topaz flasks at Mao Kun? I ran PoL and topaz flasks, and it was sketchy but no deaths (video in my thread).

Also in my thread where I compute optimal gems I do consider culling for 10cast, 10ias and 90% effective health. It still doesn't beat the other options.

"

MatrixFactor wrote:

"

Madcow1120 wrote:

So, I did a few cowards trial maps and they were hilarious easy. Even went in with farming gear which puts my cold at 27%.

Then I did Mao Kun with my regular gear. It went well until Fairgraves' final form. His Raging Spirits >>>>>> than us. I'd suggest staying away or getting someone to help with the final form. I know my Molten Striker didn't have a problem with him.

-----

Also, I noticed something that I figured would be a good idea.

If you have a 20% Culling strike gem then the quality bonus negates the penalty at level 1. By level 20 you get:

10% increased cast speed
AND
22% increased damage
AND
of course culling strike which effectively means enemies are 90% health
AND
tell me if I'm wrong but it would also carry 10% increased attack speed which because linked to SRS I believe would translate.

That's a pretty nice gem. I'd suggest it as competition against others. I don't really count Empower since it's so hard to get a level 3 empower. It would give more spirits, faster attacking, stronger and less damage required.

Only catch is that it would have to be quality OR level 20. no quality, up until level 20 there is a penalty on cast and attack speed. Full Quality negates that at level 1. Since it'd be likely a 6th gem it should be easy enough to level it by the time you get a 6 link. Seems like a great fit.

Haha did you use topaz flasks at Mao Kun? I ran PoL and topaz flasks, and it was sketchy but no deaths (video in my thread).

Also in my thread where I compute optimal gems I do consider culling for 10cast, 10ias and 90% effective health. It still doesn't beat the other options.

I did bring topaz, not sure I hit it. Also, I did not use purity of lightning and I almost always forget to turn arctic armor on. Really, I tend to forget far too often because it's so annoying to have to recast it on rezoning.

I had 2 tries at him since I used the other portals to carry the rares and currency back. At the time I had slightly lesser gear than I do now and slightly less life. Likely my fault but still those little guys didn't take long.

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As for Culling Strike. I think you forgot to include 22% increased damage. Kind of big. I don't see it in param I only see attack speed and cast speed nor did you mention it here.

Using your program I wasn't positive if it mattered but I added the 22% damage into minion damage to make minion damage 1.14 (0.92 + 0.22). This was SRS - Multi - Melee phys - minion d - echo - cull
With a base of 105% from tree
Solution determined by presolve;
objective DPS = 356186.5494.
DPS = 356187
NSpirit = 31.9518
Dmg = 1689.45
IAS = 6.59837

with the 80% minion damage on your tree it would be
Solution determined by presolve;
objective DPS = 332151.3262.
DPS = 332151
NSpirit = 31.9518
Dmg = 1575.45
IAS = 6.59837

both are using haste hatred also.

I would look at Added Fire too but it's not in your matlab code and I'm not too sure how to add it. Really only got this far from deconstructing what you presented.

Thanks for pointing that out. I was missing the 22% damage. I had added fire in my version of the code for a while, but I guess it wasn't in the thread version from the start. I posted a up to date version of the code.

After adding the 22% damage culling strike doesn't come into play.

In a +2 fire optimal with EE: SE - MS - MPD - AF - Splash
DPS = 407894
NSpirit = 14.1431
Dmg = 5117.73
IAS = 6.26158

In a +2 fire with EE, CS forced on: SE - MS - MPD - Splash - CS
DPS = 397768
NSpirit = 15.2152
Dmg = 3962.02
IAS = 6.59837

Not bad actually. (It still doesn't get used in optimal setup without EE)

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Also I'm sad about atziri. I managed to do vaals deathless, and I think trio can be done deathless (I managed to do it in 2 deaths for both of my attempts) using echo-ec dur-ic. But the atziri mirror phase I have no idea how to do. I feel like this may be where we need saffell's and double purities. With flasks and saffell's we could hit 100 res. Since we can't leech or refill flasks, it's a question of killing the clones until we can recharge flasks during the feeding phase. As a result it's not obvious if we should be using enfeeble or ele weakness, etc.

This build rips through normal mobs so fast that i do not see a necessity of having an arc totem, creeps die before they even get hit by arc.

I was thinking about using skelebrotem on 4L and just cast arc manually on bosses and exiles. Another possibility is going dual totems to have arc totem and meatshield that blinds everything it touches.

Also is this Spell Totem + FC + Ball lightning + Blind thing good? Seems like a lot of people are using it in one month league.

"

Teplokot wrote:

Also is this Spell Totem + FC + Ball lightning + Blind thing good? Seems like a lot of people are using it in one month league.

Sounds good if you can afford the links/gem slots. Otherwise I don't think it's necessary. Enfeeble & Totem - Arc is good combination of defense/offense imo.

"

Teplokot wrote:

Also is this Spell Totem + FC + Ball lightning + Blind thing good? Seems like a lot of people are using it in one month league.

I've started trying that today. It's not as good as Arc for applying EE (it's quite slow), but the blind sure is nice. I'm not completely convinced yet, but I will try and run it some more.
I do agree that the arc shock totem is overkill when the build it leveled out. Even without the staff, stuff just dies too fast for the totem to make a significant difference outside of boss rooms, even in 78s.
Skelebrotem is an attractive alternative, esp considering I am trying out the spec without any tanking minions atm (the MatrixFactor variant with IR/Grace/alphas, also running a Saffels for extra ele tankiness).
Selfcasting arc unsupported (or sharing FC with something else) seems like a very valid option if it frees up some sockets for something else. Not sure what yet (said skeletotem, possibly)

EDIT : ran a few maps with selfcast Arc and skele totem, I'm liking this setup a lot.