[2.0] THOR'S RAINBOWNUKE: DO ALL MAPS, UBER ATZIRI, AND EXPLOSIONS!

Second revision of my passive tree. Decided to give up some ES by the witch to take Potency of Will... the more I think about it, the more I not running Shav's ring will make me use Vaal Discipline more often, and an extra 1.3 seconds of ES regen will be nice. Gave up Champion of the Cause in order to take the flask nodes by witch.

Will be relying on Conqueror's Potency unique jewel to get to 60% increased effect of Auras so that I can get the extra % max resist.

The more I think about it... the more I think that running Blood Rage may wind up just not being worth the hassle. Blood rage is presently giving me 109% increased attack speed (20/20 gem + level 4 enhance + inner force + devotion + blood magic quality)

Blood Rage as it currently stands in the beta would only give 27% increased attack speed at 20/20 with level 4 enhance... that's not going to be worth a 4% degen IMO. A level 21 Haste would also give about the same amount of IAS.

This build is going to be a slower, harder hitting build in 2.0 it seems...

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tackle70 wrote:

The more I think about it... the more I think that running Blood Rage may wind up just not being worth the hassle. Blood rage is presently giving me 90% increased attack speed (20/20 gem + level 4 enhance + inner force + devotion)

Blood Rage as it currently stands in the beta would only give 27% increased attack speed at 20/20 with level 4 enhance... that's not going to be worth a 4% degen IMO. A level 21 Haste would also give about the same amount of IAS.

This build is going to be a slower, harder hitting build in 2.0 it seems...

It very well may end up being that, and only the life variant might be the one running Blood Rage since it will have zero issues doing so, to say nothing about the potential power of the unique chest that gives 100 life per EC spent. If so, a rare ring with %ES, Intelligence, Attack Speed, Strength/Dex, flat ES, and whatever else you might need on the build could be the best choice if BR turns out to be a bust. There is the matter of the Frenzy Charges giving you 'More Damage' for as long as they are up, and this build can generate them very fast, but still, might not be enough.

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Tanakeah wrote:

There is the matter of the Frenzy Charges giving you 'More Damage' for as long as they are up, and this build can generate them very fast, but still, might not be enough.

This build discharges frenzy charges so quickly that I don't think you will lose out much on that. Particularly when you've already got such crazy "more" multipliers between PA and Wrath.

Anyways, I have tweaked based on my assumption of not using blood rage anymore...

Planned initial 2.0 passive tree, rev. 3: Scion level 98. Adjusted for no blood rage + inclusion of haste.

Aura Calculator
Wrath-Haste-Purity of Lightning-Purity of Fire-Empower(3)-Enlighten(4)
Herald of Thunder-Purity of Ice-Discipline-Enlighten(3)

Had to give up empower for discipline and enhance for herald of thunder... bah. Could dedicate the other 4L to auras to get them back but that leaves me with 4% life unreserved which I think will be problematic. Much more comfortable with 10% unreserved as I really, REALLY hope I don't need to run a life pot.

Thinking at this point that my spare 4L will be Lightning Strike - Fortify - Curse on Hit - Warlord's Mark but I'll probably play around with different things there. Not sold on golems... they felt useless to me when I played in the beta.

Yeah, I don't think this build is going to be one that will need any of the golems for it to function properly. I might try the dual-curse route since I did manage to procure this chest piece:



Thinking I might go Elemental Weakness/Warlord's Mark and see how that works out, but the only problem is if I do that then I have to sacrifice either GMP or Faster Attacks. Now, I will be running Blood Rage on this one since I have the Shav's ring, and might be able to get some IAS on jewels to help make up for it, although I may slot out GMP and see how that fairs, too. Probably won't get as many procs, but then again, might be able to squeeze in enough speed to make up for that, or it might not even be a big deal at all.

With all the boosts we'll be getting from Wrath and the like, the extra damage may make up for the lost projectiles and it'll still run fine. ...Blah, this is honestly the only part of this that bothers me so much. Couldn't test any of this stuff on the Beta so a lot of it is left up to guesswork and unable to get anything concrete. Definitely gonna need experimentation.

If my math is correct in accounting for all the attack speed increases and multipliers, that build / setup I just posted (without blood rage but with haste) would wind up with ~83% of the attack speed that the build has presently (5.13 APS as opposed to the current ~6.16 APS).

So not as bad as it might seem at first glance. This assumes that the attack speed change on gavels will be retroactive and all our legacy mjolners will get buffed up to 1.15 APS.

IF my math on that is correct, then accounting for wrath, this build is going to get something on the order of a ~50% damage boost compared to its present state. Crazy.

You are right about the experimentation... I plan on dedicating my level 90 character to experimenting with things on this build for a little bit at first, because I don't want to risk my level 98 XP (halfway to 99!) on all these unknowns...

Slight modification to that math... didn't realize multistrike is nerfed in beta. So revise those numbers to 4.81 APS as opposed to 6.16 APS presently. So 78% of the current attack speed.

For your theorycrafting pleasure, this should give you a fairly accurate approximation of how much leech you will actually need in 2.0, assuming my current info is correct about values



The interesting thing to note here for me is that it looks as if the flask nodes may not be worth the 3 passive points if you are using the life leech gem, at least with respect to reflect. The flask nodes might make it possible to use Lightning Penetration if you can use curse on hit with Warlord's Mark, but my guess is that playing without Life Leech is going to be very risky in 2.0.

I think I'm not going to plan on using the flask nodes. Going to test first without.

So, My Passive Tree rev. 4... flask nodes --> jewel & +12% es // Lust for Carnage --> Jewel + Devotion + ES Planning on using Intuitive Leap to pick up Faith & Steel and Devotion so that's why the passive tree is weird over there...

I've spent way too much time on this today...

EDIT With respect to Jewels, it's going to be very tempting to just use a bunch of blue crimson jewels... I know you can get some sexy spell damage and such on cobalts, but it will be super cheap and effective to just throw in five "Beating Crimson Jewel of Rejuvenation" for potentially +15 LGoH and +40% Attack Speed... assuming the wiki has those values correct.

EDIT 2 After some math on it, three of those magic crimson jewel's should be sufficient to let you spec out of lust for carnage while also not needing a life pot... then two rare cobalt jewels could be used which could be more interesting.

So current jewel plans:
3x Magic Crimson (Beating of Rejuvenation)
1x Intuitive Leap
2x Rare Cobalt with some sort of combo of %ES/%IAS/%Spell dmg/%Lightning dmg

I just want 2.0 to release already so I can stop theorycrafting and actually test stuff... but things are looking very good for this build. My guess is that it's going to be roughly as good as it is now with the new mjolner and a lot better with a legacy mjolner. Given that the new high level content is supposedly super crazy hard, my guess is that it will "feel" same-y with a legacy Mjolner though.

That's some very interesting stuff, Tackle, and I agree on the Life Leech gem. It might be better overall just to have BBR in Mjolner for LL and when you don't need it you can slot in Iron Will for extra damage. Freeing up points for not taking the flask nodes might make me rethink my tree a bit and again, still might try out the dual-curse route with EW/WLM, thus allowing Iron Will to be used at all times, save for curse immune maps. In fact, not going with the flask nodes would allow me to do just that and I might be able to make up for dropping FA/GMP via jewels. I do agree that from what I'm hearing about damage in 2.0 that we might be wanting to use more LL just to be on the safe side as our damage should be ok.

With me going the regen route I might only need one jewel that has the LGoH part on it and can use whatever else I need on it aside from one Intuitive Leap, and POTENTIALLY the Specialised gem, though I think I'm going to spec for not needing that. If it does show up in some modified form and can still be used then all is well and good, but if not, I'll be using a rare jewel instead. And yes, like you I'm also getting way too anxious to want to actually test this stuff out instead of theorycrafting all day. Well, maybe not all day, but yeah. :p

Passive Tree

I have 3 different passive tree concepts that I will be testing out. One of which is a vaal pact variant. Based on my planning, it seems that the difference between starting as a Witch or Scion will be minimal, hence they are equally viable. Here are the 3 passive trees.



Auras

I have 3 major Aura Setups. I am trying to avoid putting my auras in a 6-link, so that i can achieve a -link combo of Lightning/Molten Strike + Multistrike + Faster Attacks + GMP + Fortify, whilst have a spare link which I'd probably fill up with Vaal Discipline.





Jewel Discussion

Today the 60 unique jewels that will be released on launch have been revealed, and unfortunately, Specialised is not part of that initial roster. Out of the Unique Jewels, the most beneficial Jewels seemed to be: Survival Instincts, Conqueror's Efficiency, Conqueror's Potency, Mantra of Flame, Intuitive Leap and Fragile Bloom (if you need life regen).

As discussed, the most valuable jewels, as mentioned in my previous post, will be high attack speed Jewels. It is possible to get up to 19% attack speed on a single perfectly rolled Jewel, while still having one suffix slot that can be filled up by more attributes or LGoH (if you are going vaal pact).

Blood Rage

After further testing with Blood Rage CI in beta, I am more or less set that Blood Rage is not worth the hassle. The constant degen is a huge blow to your defense. Even with a Shav's Rev, you will still lose ES over time, and all you gained is a minor attack speed buff and frenzy charges. In practice, the frenzy charges will be almost negligible as they will be consumed by discharge and cannot be sustained in boss fights. The attack speed while necessary does not feel worth the tradeoff. I will probably drop blood rage and pick up a rare ring, preferably a moonstone ring or a socketable ring like Tackle's.