Lightning Buzzsaw CoC

Mh, I will wait if there is a bigger benefit with the new spell combo for a witch then the old '40% regen node'. At the moment I have a shadow at 88 1/2 and it would be a pain to relevel this :D
Especially since the build crushes everything I try up to this point (well except hard map bosses).
But there is always the need for the perfect version :D

"

Shotgun_Surgeon wrote:

"

Zelos666 wrote:

I don't know, I tried Freezing Pulse on Merciless Act 1 (every related gem maxed out for my level) with a Weapon that gave about 60% more spell damage and I feel like I'm not doing any damage. I need like 20 casts or more for a group of monsters.

I used Freeze Pulse for a lot of the levelling process, but yeah, at about Merciless it really wasn't doing it for me, then I had a 200 pDPS dagger drop, and I just used Molten Strike to level until I could effectively use CoC, which was about level 65 for me. If you already have a bit of currency, then I'd take that as a lesson and just level as Facebreakers/Pillar, it requires gear like a Meginord's Girdle to clear Merciless content easily, but it should feel a little better I think, and does just require gear, as opposed to a particular set of passives to support the build like Freeze Pulse kind of does.

You can also give EK a try, I found levelling with that to be very easy as well, but if you haven't been levelling one of those already, then switching to a new spell isn't really viable part-way through levelling.

Thanks, I'll be giving it a shot. I think I can ramp up some currency for that.

"

Poerger wrote:

Mh, I will wait if there is a bigger benefit with the new spell combo for a witch then the old '40% regen node'. At the moment I have a shadow at 88 1/2 and it would be a pain to relevel this :D
Especially since the build crushes everything I try up to this point (well except hard map bosses).
But there is always the need for the perfect version :D

Yeah, my Ranger's already level 83, so I'm definitely not going through all the work of relevelling a Witch just to make the same build, I like each of my characters to do something completely different. Ranger's good enough, and that extra 8% attack speed is a nice touch. So I don't feel too strong of need to switch over. But if I had never tried the build before, I would probably pick a Witch to start now. I mostly just picked the Ranger because I already had a Shadow and Witch over level 65, and wanted to check off Ranger for the Challenge.

Tried Arc + FP for the few minutes the realm was online. Preeettttttyyyyyy goooooooooooooooood.

Still gotta use Ball lightning in place of FP on high cold resist mobs/maps though. Easy to swap spells in/out for max effectiveness.

"

Mathil wrote:

Tried Arc + FP for the few minutes the realm was online. Preeettttttyyyyyy goooooooooooooooood.

Still gotta use Ball lightning in place of FP on high cold resist mobs/maps though. Easy to swap spells in/out for max effectiveness.

This doesn't really effect me, since I've been using PCoC in my 6th link, but what's your thought on what to do with the Lightning Pen slot now that you're using a mix of elements, got any plans to replace that with something else?

"

Shotgun_Surgeon wrote:

"

Mathil wrote:

Tried Arc + FP for the few minutes the realm was online. Preeettttttyyyyyy goooooooooooooooood.

Still gotta use Ball lightning in place of FP on high cold resist mobs/maps though. Easy to swap spells in/out for max effectiveness.

This doesn't really effect me, since I've been using PCoC in my 6th link, but what's your thought on what to do with the Lightning Pen slot now that you're using a mix of elements, got any plans to replace that with something else?

Possibly crit damage. Maybe life leech, or cold pen. Yea not sure and haven't been online since it went down but I doubt I'll get a 6L any time soon so not something I have to worry about yet.

I'll post my update and my thoughts.
My witch is now 86. She absolutely destroys everything in up to 76 maps, I haven't gotten any 77 or 78s to drop yet. She's pretty tanky to everything except for exceptionally chunky chaos or physical damage... and lightning thorns. ...because eff lightning thorns.

I've gotten myself geared up pretty well at this point.




Some notes on gems:
Arc - staple in every setup I use, Mmm Mmm shock.

Second spells:
Fireball: my new favorite, it shotguns at close range, has very high damage effectiveness (you'll understand my quip about this in a moment), burn is decent, and the far ranged dps is great.

Freezing Pulse: I really like FP, but I'm going to need to get a 20 quality one to see if I really love it as much as I've started to love fireball.

Ball Lightning: What I started using with the build, since it's what the OP uses. It's decent but it's laggy and the slow projectile speed slows my clearing speed.

Storm Call: I would love this paired with something like arctic breath or freezing pulse, so we could hold things in place while they go off. I would worry about ripping to reflect with this, though.

Arctic Breath: I love AB almost as much as fireball but there's a few significant drawbacks, the base crit is lower (5 vs 6), and it's laggggggggggggggy. (did I mention it's laggy?) I run on an overclocked i7 with a gtx 680, by no means a godly machine but certainly pretty decent and I've brought myself <1 fps on multiple occasions using AB.

Ice Spear: I haven't played with it a lot yet, still leveling mine (it's 15 atm). Seems like it could be pretty decent but it doesn't shotgun like fireball or AB.

The support slot:
In the case that you use two of the same element, your support should be that element's penetration.
In any other case, you should absolutely use Added Chaos. It's an immense amount of FREE damage. When I say free, it's multiplying with projectile/spell damage, and is reflect proof damage on a resist that most mobs/bosses don't have very much of. Also, it sort of double dips. You get the chaos damage added to your spells, and to your insanely fast spectral throw. (You laugh, but my ST's dps is ~1200 with 6 power charges, and most of that is chaos damage).

I could see arguments for using crit multi or crit strike, but you should have enough of the latter to make the build work without a gem, and the former is just going to get you killed to reflect.

I will entertain other support suggestions if anyone has them, but I really strongly believe the added chaos is by far the best if you're mixing elements.


Passive tree notes:



Notes on the passive tree: I've forgone the % elemental damage nodes in the Shadow section in favor of the spell damage nodes, because I swap elements a lot and I use added chaos, which doesn't scale with elemental damage nodes, but does with spell/projectile.



Theorycrafting:
I've contemplated an extra layer of defense for this build. I've come up with two primary ideas.

1. We could introduce a small amount of spell block to the build at minimal expense. We would spend 4 points to grab the spell block cluster in the witch section, giving us 10% spell block and 2% extra block, and our shield would be a rathpith globe.
Best case scenario: We would obtain (30+2)*(0.6) + 10 = 29.2 -> 29% spell block. Not bad.
Rathpith has most of the goodies we're looking for, and the loss of mana regen on that piece shouldn't be a problem once you're using CoD for a chest.

2. We could spec phase acrobatics.

Here, our investment is 5 points instead of four. With the routing I came up with, we spend one more point to path around to get to where we need to, but it's in the 8% projectile damage node in the shadow area, instead of a +10 stat node. Not a bad tradeoff for one point, it's a point well spent. Unfortunately, we lose the +10 node below the shadow tree for pathing.
What this means: With my setup (and having that +10 str node), at least, I had to use the +str on my belt as well as at least 13 str on my neck which means I can use an onyx. Without the +10, we would be limited to either using an Amber amulet or actually having a strength roll on some piece of jewelry.

I'm not sure how badly the mana situation would pan out when using acrobatics, but I bet it wouldn't be that terrible. We could forego increased ES on the shield in favor of a + mana mod and not really lose much mana from ES at all. This build doesn't really have a whole lot of ES nodes to begin with. (You could toy with the idea of even dropping EB, but I think that's going too far).


Further insanity:

I came to the realization tonight that we could make Ele Equilibrium work with this build. Pick your two spell elements, make sure you have NONE of those types of damage added from your gear, and get an added elemental roll of the off-element on a ring/amulet/weapon. The spectral throw hit/crit would proc EE and lower the resists of the mob to you incoming spells.
I definitely want to play around with the tree and see if I can come up with a reasonable way to try it. If I'm having some oversight here, and this actually wouldn't work, please tell me why. I haven't actually ever played an EE character, I just know mechanics pretty well and it seems like it would work.



I think that's about it for now, sorry for the super long post.

PS. a CWDT setup is godly for this
PPS. Starkonja's is highly underrated, props to Mathil for remembering about it.

"

Mathil wrote:

"

Shotgun_Surgeon wrote:

"

Mathil wrote:

Tried Arc + FP for the few minutes the realm was online. Preeettttttyyyyyy goooooooooooooooood.

Still gotta use Ball lightning in place of FP on high cold resist mobs/maps though. Easy to swap spells in/out for max effectiveness.

This doesn't really effect me, since I've been using PCoC in my 6th link, but what's your thought on what to do with the Lightning Pen slot now that you're using a mix of elements, got any plans to replace that with something else?

Possibly crit damage. Maybe life leech, or cold pen. Yea not sure and haven't been online since it went down but I doubt I'll get a 6L any time soon so not something I have to worry about yet.

Would be great if you could check that out though :o
For those of us running a 6l and are terrible at this theory-crafting stuff :D

Sam eto the tree: If we use FP most of the time I feel the lightning dmg nodes could be better invested

I tried FP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA0tI3YnI38

And I must say the bosses went down quicker than with LB

I forgot one other major point about fireball in my post. We use Arctic Armour, so reflect is much less of a problem with fire than it is with any other element, maybe aside lightning, but it depends on the damage dealt and the level of AA that you have.