[3.3] HeiroFat: the Pen Is Mightier (HC, All Content, Perm IC, Boss Killer)

Added a new video of Red Elder using a Pen swap for higher single target.
https://youtu.be/7Io2zkrr9OI
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pkownzs wrote:
Hello im linking the gear that i have and i would like to ask what i should focus now to get to make build more stronger?
Spoiler


VD Helmet enchant would be the first, Wise Oak flask for the fire pen, a Stygian Vise belt for the extra abyss jewel slot, and if you're not at the 40% Life/Mana mark pick up an Atziri's Foible if you can get one cheap.

After that you should be set for most content.
So reading through all of the posts was kind of confusing. What is the APS breakpoint that we want to hit? 3.8 / 4.8 / Just max it out? Is there a point above where dps goes down? Messing around with haste and some AS jewels I did feel a difference going between 3.8 and 4.2.

Do the order of gems from top to bottom in the poet's pens matter? Does it matter which are in the main and offhand?

Sorry if these have been answered already.
"
slowmath wrote:
So reading through all of the posts was kind of confusing. What is the APS breakpoint that we want to hit? 3.8 / 4.8 / Just max it out? Is there a point above where dps goes down? Messing around with haste and some AS jewels I did feel a difference going between 3.8 and 4.2.

Do the order of gems from top to bottom in the poet's pens matter? Does it matter which are in the main and offhand?

Sorry if these have been answered already.


3.8 is a reasonable target. If you go over 4 aps (with ping and other mechanics details) you lose a large chunk of damage. Cooldown belts and other endgame gear can change that, which is what the discussion was about earlier.

Been running this build in HC and it's my all time favorite build for what it's able to accomplish and how safely it does it. 11/10 my dude.
"
slowmath wrote:
So reading through all of the posts was kind of confusing. What is the APS breakpoint that we want to hit? 3.8 / 4.8 / Just max it out? Is there a point above where dps goes down? Messing around with haste and some AS jewels I did feel a difference going between 3.8 and 4.2.

Do the order of gems from top to bottom in the poet's pens matter? Does it matter which are in the main and offhand?

Sorry if these have been answered already.


I do think Mainhand/Offhand matters, but I can't remember why, Usually i have Unearth/Bodyswap in the Mainhand, VD pen in the offhand.

I'll try to flesh-out the Cooldown/APS situation for you, but note that this info is just pieced together from reddit and such.

Poet's Pens have a 250ms cooldown PER Spell gem, so in theory your capped at 4 APS without any cooldown recovery on your gear for a single spell, and not taking into account Server Tickrate. If you go Over this APS count you'll see a considerable loss in DPS as you'll start to miss casts as you're attacking while the spell is still on Cooldown.

This is in theory, However in reality as you get nearer to 4aps you'll start missing casts anyway, I'm not going to claim to know why this happens as there are a few theories, but i'd suggest using 4 APS as your starting point and working backwards from there. In my case when i hit 3.85 APS I started missing a cast every now and then, and when I finally got 3.92 APS I noticed i was missing a cast of VD almost every cycle which really killed my DPS. I then dropped my APS down to 3.75 and i've not missed a cast since.

If you have cooldown recovery you can figure out what your new APS "max" is like so (Lets assume you've got 25% cooldown recovery)

Original Cooldown / % faster recovery = New Cooldown.
250 / 1.25 = 200ms cooldown
1000 / 200 = 5 APS.

So if you had 25% cooldown recovery, 5 APS would be your Max, although in practice it may be around 4.8 APS.

Finally since it's a per-spell gem cooldown, the 4 APS cap is for a single spell in each of your pens, if you wanted to use Two spells in a single pen you need double the APS (or triple if using 3).

This however doesn't really matter for this build. Unearth itself has a travel time and as such casting Bodyswap before Unearth has landed wastes an attack, And Immortal Call has it's own cooldown so whenever IC is on cooldown the Pen won't attempt to cast it and instead will just skip over it and cast Volatile Dead instead. So this rule doesn't effect this build.

Hope this wasn't too confusing and helped out.

Very helpful, thanks. I am going to stick around 3.75, I don't have any CDR on my gear yet.
"
Deadscale wrote:

I do think Mainhand/Offhand matters, but I can't remember why, Usually i have Unearth/Bodyswap in the Mainhand, VD pen in the offhand.

I'll try to flesh-out the Cooldown/APS situation for you, but note that this info is just pieced together from reddit and such.

Poet's Pens have a 250ms cooldown PER Spell gem, so in theory your capped at 4 APS without any cooldown recovery on your gear for a single spell, and not taking into account Server Tickrate. If you go Over this APS count you'll see a considerable loss in DPS as you'll start to miss casts as you're attacking while the spell is still on Cooldown.

This is in theory, However in reality as you get nearer to 4aps you'll start missing casts anyway, I'm not going to claim to know why this happens as there are a few theories, but i'd suggest using 4 APS as your starting point and working backwards from there. In my case when i hit 3.85 APS I started missing a cast every now and then, and when I finally got 3.92 APS I noticed i was missing a cast of VD almost every cycle which really killed my DPS. I then dropped my APS down to 3.75 and i've not missed a cast since.

If you have cooldown recovery you can figure out what your new APS "max" is like so (Lets assume you've got 25% cooldown recovery)

Original Cooldown / % faster recovery = New Cooldown.
250 / 1.25 = 200ms cooldown
1000 / 200 = 5 APS.

So if you had 25% cooldown recovery, 5 APS would be your Max, although in practice it may be around 4.8 APS.

Finally since it's a per-spell gem cooldown, the 4 APS cap is for a single spell in each of your pens, if you wanted to use Two spells in a single pen you need double the APS (or triple if using 3).

This however doesn't really matter for this build. Unearth itself has a travel time and as such casting Bodyswap before Unearth has landed wastes an attack, And Immortal Call has it's own cooldown so whenever IC is on cooldown the Pen won't attempt to cast it and instead will just skip over it and cast Volatile Dead instead. So this rule doesn't effect this build.

Hope this wasn't too confusing and helped out.




This is a nice writeup. Do you mind if I add it to the front page with an attribution? This question comes up a lot.
"
SilverSequence wrote:
"
Deadscale wrote:

I do think Mainhand/Offhand matters, but I can't remember why, Usually i have Unearth/Bodyswap in the Mainhand, VD pen in the offhand.

I'll try to flesh-out the Cooldown/APS situation for you, but note that this info is just pieced together from reddit and such.

Poet's Pens have a 250ms cooldown PER Spell gem, so in theory your capped at 4 APS without any cooldown recovery on your gear for a single spell, and not taking into account Server Tickrate. If you go Over this APS count you'll see a considerable loss in DPS as you'll start to miss casts as you're attacking while the spell is still on Cooldown.

This is in theory, However in reality as you get nearer to 4aps you'll start missing casts anyway, I'm not going to claim to know why this happens as there are a few theories, but i'd suggest using 4 APS as your starting point and working backwards from there. In my case when i hit 3.85 APS I started missing a cast every now and then, and when I finally got 3.92 APS I noticed i was missing a cast of VD almost every cycle which really killed my DPS. I then dropped my APS down to 3.75 and i've not missed a cast since.

If you have cooldown recovery you can figure out what your new APS "max" is like so (Lets assume you've got 25% cooldown recovery)

Original Cooldown / % faster recovery = New Cooldown.
250 / 1.25 = 200ms cooldown
1000 / 200 = 5 APS.

So if you had 25% cooldown recovery, 5 APS would be your Max, although in practice it may be around 4.8 APS.

Finally since it's a per-spell gem cooldown, the 4 APS cap is for a single spell in each of your pens, if you wanted to use Two spells in a single pen you need double the APS (or triple if using 3).

This however doesn't really matter for this build. Unearth itself has a travel time and as such casting Bodyswap before Unearth has landed wastes an attack, And Immortal Call has it's own cooldown so whenever IC is on cooldown the Pen won't attempt to cast it and instead will just skip over it and cast Volatile Dead instead. So this rule doesn't effect this build.

Hope this wasn't too confusing and helped out.




This is a nice writeup. Do you mind if I add it to the front page with an attribution? This question comes up a lot.


Feel free dude, happy to help out.
Just a quick gear check. Currently level 85 and doing up to Tier 13 pretty easily. Very budget gear to the point where the most expensive part was the chest and it was less than 40c. Took out essence wurm because I feel I didnt need the anger damage at this point yet.

How should I rank upgrades in terms of priority?

1. Helm +1 enchant
2. Abyss Belt
3. CDR Boots / Deaths Door / Bubonic?
4. Xoph/Indigon?
5. That flask that costs like 19ex...
6. Actually using other skills in my gear besides just VD/UE/BS/Frenzy


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