Dominion's Hardcore Dual-Spark CI Witch - UPDATED for 1.0.1

Meh my 82 witch just died so i suppose i might aswell try yours out instead of the frost version :)

Thanks for sharing that.

Excuse me, may I ask a few naive questions please? Thanks in advance for your patience. Don't take my questions for criticism, I'm simply an idiot.

1. Why do you use Minion Speed as a support (instead of Damage, or something else)?
2. How do you survive without Skellies as a meat shield until you get your elite EndGameSetup?
3. Why 3 Bear Traps?
4. Why the Templar Armor+ES nodes if you have no armor? (I've done this too for lack of an alternative...)
5. At what stage could you afford to run Purity?
6. Is there a reason you don't like the Hex nodes very close to you (you seem to like curses)?
7. Could you be kind enough to edit your passive URLs with a URL tag?
EDIT 8: Just curious, if you had to make a choice between Lightning Penetration and Faster Casting, and owned both gems, which would you take?

Thanks so much!

I made a dual totem build but now i find my totems die sooo fast
How do u keep your totems alive?

"

onomastikon wrote:

Thanks for sharing that.

Excuse me, may I ask a few naive questions please? Thanks in advance for your patience. Don't take my questions for criticism, I'm simply an idiot.

1. Why do you use Minion Speed as a support (instead of Damage, or something else)?
2. How do you survive without Skellies as a meat shield until you get your elite EndGameSetup?
3. Why 3 Bear Traps?
4. Why the Templar Armor+ES nodes if you have no armor? (I've done this too for lack of an alternative...)
5. At what stage could you afford to run Purity?
6. Is there a reason you don't like the Hex nodes very close to you (you seem to like curses)?
7. Could you be kind enough to edit your passive URLs with a URL tag?
EDIT 8: Just curious, if you had to make a choice between Lightning Penetration and Faster Casting, and owned both gems, which would you take?

Thanks so much!

Ill do my best as im sure dude is busy being ranked above everyone on hc ladder.

1. minion speed is great if you only use them for meat shields because they get out in front to protect you faster. Which is what we use them for with this build, not for damage.
2. By all means, use skellies while leveling. i did. actually i still do.
3. This is so he can spam them on tough enemies. With the cool down timer on bear trap, you have to wait after casting your 3 traps. With 3 bear trap gems, you have 9 you can chain throw.
4. Those nodes affect ES.. if its the nodes I think youre referreing to in the templar area that add to armor/es. As ES is our life, you want those.
5. Probably late game as i didnt until end of cruel.. but you really dont need it until merc if you grind for decent gear.
6. There are way better uses for those points.. I.E. The ones he chose for the build. This dude methodically plotted this build for efficiency over and over again as is clearly seen from the evolution from his primary lvl 70 to what hes running now. He has used a bunch of regrets, and you dont do that unless you have perfected what you want out of a build. Also seeing his rank on the ladder, i'd say his point allocation is decent to say the least.
7. I have no access to that but that is a strange request brother.

8. I had to make this choice when i was running 4L and faster casting hands down. Especially early game when your cast speed sucks. I think he addressed this question already.. Cast speed is amazing in this build.. faster cast means sparks come faster which means light stacks faster which means, game. blouses.

hope i helped. Dom dont get mad if i messed this stuff up. i had to guess your response based off my experience with your build while leveling.

-K

"

onomastikon wrote:

Thanks for sharing that.

Excuse me, may I ask a few naive questions please? Thanks in advance for your patience. Don't take my questions for criticism, I'm simply an idiot.

1. Why do you use Minion Speed as a support (instead of Damage, or something else)?
2. How do you survive without Skellies as a meat shield until you get your elite EndGameSetup?
3. Why 3 Bear Traps?
4. Why the Templar Armor+ES nodes if you have no armor? (I've done this too for lack of an alternative...)
5. At what stage could you afford to run Purity?
6. Is there a reason you don't like the Hex nodes very close to you (you seem to like curses)?
7. Could you be kind enough to edit your passive URLs with a URL tag?
EDIT 8: Just curious, if you had to make a choice between Lightning Penetration and Faster Casting, and owned both gems, which would you take?

Thanks so much!

4. was answered in a previous post by OP. The armour multipliers are chosen because they affect the armour you receive from granite flasks.

What do you think about support gems on debuffs?
From my point of view they might be used even without support gems at all.

Thank you in advance

Thanks for that build.

"

zzxc wrote:

"

onomastikon wrote:

Thanks for sharing that.

Excuse me, may I ask a few naive questions please? Thanks in advance for your patience. Don't take my questions for criticism, I'm simply an idiot.

1. Why do you use Minion Speed as a support (instead of Damage, or something else)?
2. How do you survive without Skellies as a meat shield until you get your elite EndGameSetup?
3. Why 3 Bear Traps?
4. Why the Templar Armor+ES nodes if you have no armor? (I've done this too for lack of an alternative...)
5. At what stage could you afford to run Purity?
6. Is there a reason you don't like the Hex nodes very close to you (you seem to like curses)?
7. Could you be kind enough to edit your passive URLs with a URL tag?
EDIT 8: Just curious, if you had to make a choice between Lightning Penetration and Faster Casting, and owned both gems, which would you take?

Thanks so much!

4. was answered in a previous post by OP. The armour multipliers are chosen because they affect the armour you receive from granite flasks.

To be precise - Dominion said the Body & Soul nodes are chosen over the Nullification nodes in the Shadow tree due to the armor bonus on flasks.

The primary reason to pick up either in the first place is the +ES and +resists. We are already spending points on plain +8% ES nodes, so it should be obvious that the B&S nodes (which add up to 11% ES/armor and 2.5% resist per node) are great.

Hiya Dominion (and other experienced dual spork users)...

I've been following this thread closely and have taken the last week to get to 58 in default.

is my build at 58, I've pretty much followed Dominions skill tree's to some degree in the OP.

I'm wondering where I should go from here? I'd like more damage, and my survivability seems fine atm (farming fellshrine). Do I go into the templar starting area for +elemental damage and some cast speed first? or do I head down towards the shadow starting area and start working on crit now as I'm in default and Dominion has hinted towards default players taking crit earlier.

Also, should I finish off the cast speed nodes in the witch starting area sooner (next 2 levels?) or later (after crit)? As Dominion has stated cast speed is king, but is 6% cast speed better than heading towards, for example, the bloodthirst passive just next to static blows?

Anyway, any advice would be great. I'm really enjoying the build atm.

I did some quick calculations on my gear level yesterday, by swapping in/out various pieces and noting the DPS increases. I just wanted to make a short-term rule of thumb for determining the value of gear and passives. This was the simplified output:

1% cast speed = 2% spell/elemental damage = 7.5% crit multiplier = 30% crit chance

Note that this does NOT hold true for everyone. This was specific to my level of gear and passives (level 70, with full focus on survivability in passives and gear). For each of these stats you increase, its value will decrease relative to the others. Also, the value of crit chance and multiplier will skyrocket when you start stacking them. This is why Dominion talks about "switching to crit" - you need to go all in, or it's not as good as just picking straight damage talents along with your survivability. Furthermore, crit is undervalued in the calculations above, since tooltip DPS does not take shock damage into account.

If you just want a simple rule of thumb around level 60-70, the above will be roughly accurate for most people.