Teleport helps soo much for me in act 2 w/ CM/WW build

I'm running as blizzard/hydra, currently pushing my way through act2 inferno with only 28k dps/4.8k armor, its so sluggish and makes me feel useless :P

Been contemplating to completely switch over to the cm/ww build, but I just simple dont have the cash and its either bad luck or just bad economy to make a few mil to switch :/

Posted by shniggies at 08/13/2012 02:07 PM

I've been trying a melee/cm build and for the most part has been pretty successful. However, plague, desecration owns me... i don't have much loh, and i know that i need better gear in that respect, but man its painful... i'll try teleport, but that ruins my rhythm, but i guess its better than dying...

I have WW on left click and teleport on right click. I'm holding the 3 keyboard keys constantly and left clicking repeatedly. When I want to teleport I start clicking right click until it casts, then switch back over to left click. I never notice any interruption in the rest of the skills as long as I have tornadoes going before I teleport. Even if the mobs get an extra half second to move, the armor bonus is worth it to me.

Thanks for the suggestions, got some good pointers out of that.
I have a some crit gear hoarded from grinding; why do you prefer source over shield? I feel pretty paper thin right now, wouldn't a shield be more useful than a source?

Well the idea as a blizz/hydra type build is not to get hit, or if you do get hit to have Diamond skin up. A source will give you more damage which is a good thing :)

Now for a CM build you should DEFINITELY start with a shield till you get the stats where you can use a source and storm armor. Thats when the build REALLY shines.

Posted by shniggies at 08/13/2012 02:07 PM

I've been trying a melee/cm build and for the most part has been pretty successful. However, plague, desecration owns me... i don't have much loh, and i know that i need better gear in that respect, but man its painful... i'll try teleport, but that ruins my rhythm, but i guess its better than dying...

Teleport - Fracture. It will get you out of the desecrate/plague and give you a few seconds to get twisters going again while they smack your images. Typically I will teleport, start twisters while they bash my images, wait for teleport cd to refresh, hit explosive blast, tp back in and freeze. Shielding is the only affix that is a real issue with this build. I actually run it with storm armor which means more deaths but stuff dies sooo much quicker!!!!

thanks for the tips.. i was using slowtime for extra damage, but i'll try switching it up with tele and see if it helps...
im trying to not spam buttons, but its really hard to see wtf is going on sometimes and i don't see my life quickly draining away

Posted by sabin at 08/14/2012 05:32 PM

Posted by shniggies at 08/13/2012 02:07 PM

I've been trying a melee/cm build and for the most part has been pretty successful. However, plague, desecration owns me... i don't have much loh, and i know that i need better gear in that respect, but man its painful... i'll try teleport, but that ruins my rhythm, but i guess its better than dying...

I have WW on left click and teleport on right click. I'm holding the 3 keyboard keys constantly and left clicking repeatedly. When I want to teleport I start clicking right click until it casts, then switch back over to left click. I never notice any interruption in the rest of the skills as long as I have tornadoes going before I teleport. Even if the mobs get an extra half second to move, the armor bonus is worth it to me.

i need the resist so i use prismatic
can you link me to your build or your hero profile? Id love to compare skills
im using ww on left, and expl on right... i feel like im gonna break my mouse :D

Posted by shniggies at 08/15/2012 12:25 PM

i feel like im gonna break my mouse :D

That's my point, I am holding EB/nova/DS on the keyboard so at least I only need to mash 1 mouse button at a time, since I never need to teleport and cast WW at the same time. And when you need to give your mouse a rest, you can hold down left click and mash the keyboard (I rarely need to do this so I'm not sure if it works as well). I use prismatic as well as my last skill.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sabin-1838/hero/17607223

I currently have mostly MF gear on, but my crit% / APoC / AS / skills aren't any different than my normal setup. Normally I have around 20k DPS, and buffed 7.5k armor / 800 AR.

I had to change to a CM Build for ACT3/Act4 since the kiting build wasn't working for me. I got about 40% crit chance and 200% crit damage plus some AOH and LOH and was able to do inferno all the way through. Still have some issues with affixes which involve a little bit of kiting but overall is doable. For ACT1/2 i was able to run with 800-900 resist gear plus stats and kite quite well but ACT 3 was owning me since i needed more resist but didnt have the moola.

Sorry if i missed it, but does anyone have a recommended minimum for armor and resist for Act 2/3? I have about 6.3k armor and my lowest resist is 684 buffed with 26k health. I have 27k dps but I feel like its a bit low and i was wondering if i should sacrifice some armor/resist for more dps

Posted by sabin at 08/15/2012 01:19 PM

Posted by shniggies at 08/15/2012 12:25 PM

i feel like im gonna break my mouse :D

That's my point, I am holding EB/nova/DS on the keyboard so at least I only need to mash 1 mouse button at a time, since I never need to teleport and cast WW at the same time. And when you need to give your mouse a rest, you can hold down left click and mash the keyboard (I rarely need to do this so I'm not sure if it works as well). I use prismatic as well as my last skill.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Sabin-1838/hero/17607223

I currently have mostly MF gear on, but my crit% / APoC / AS / skills aren't any different than my normal setup. Normally I have around 20k DPS, and buffed 7.5k armor / 800 AR.

how will a proc of .125 affect this build in the new patch? cant be 50% less crit chance right?
how do we find the proc values of the different skills?

I think there will be a significant impact considering this means less CM procs, less effective APoC and LoH. EB isn't getting a nerf so you're not looking at exactly 50% less chance. I think we won't know for sure until the update where we can play around with it. With the meteor buffs, it might be good to change over from WW. Or maybe we'll just need better IAS and APoC to continue the WW option.

I'm still excited to see the actual patch notes. I like ray of frost and disintegrate - wondering if either will see a buff. I wouldn't mind a non-CM build if it was interesting (more than just playing tetherball with hydra).

I really hope Disintegrate gets a buff! Although you have to be stationary when using it, it's definitely one of my favourite skills. I use it atm to do A2 Gob runs and I always have fun doing so

Interesting testing here regarding this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6352685335



As @sabin mentioned, I believe we'll do fine by increasing our IAS and APOC.

Posted by Khan at 08/16/2012 09:04 PM

Interesting testing here regarding this: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6352685335



As @sabin mentioned, I believe we'll do fine by increasing our IAS and APOC.

please forgive my ignorance, but is the OP trying to prove that with lower crit chance he can still use a CM build? But these videos are on the current patch, not 104 right?

i don't know if the lowering the proc and crit chance are exactly the same thing, but someone can correct me if i'm wrong... but my understanding is that they are not DIRECTLY correlated

Yeah, I don't think it can properly tested until the patch is released, but they're changing the proc coefficient from .25 to .125--so it seems fitting that the OP in the thread has been testing the build with an extremely low Crit Hit Chance rate and prove that the build still works. I'm currently at about 42% Crit Chance when I farm Act 3 (w/ Scoundrel). So if the OP can farm A3 with 16% Crit Chance (which is less than half of my current Crit Chance), then hopefully I'll see similar results when the patch goes live.

I currently run 40% crit chance without using the Scoundrel (prefer Enchantress for her buffs) and A3 elites with invulnerable minions or just plain shielded with frozen AND desecrator/molten/firechains (take your pick) are the only things that make me want to throw my mouse into the wall. Everything else is pretty much diamond skin recharge spammable. Meteor may be the next better alternative since it procs will. <Shrug> I guess we'll just have to see.

@euggie halving your crit chance in the current patch versus the proc rate being halved in 1.04 should give the same results from energy twister in theory, but who knows how it will actually play out. Halving your crit chance however is going also nerf EB, which isn't getting a new proc rate.

@Khan If you haven't seen the patch notes just released today, the specifics of the shielding nerf are pretty sweet. Only 1 mob can have a shield at a time, and a lone mob cannot shield. This combined with the complete removal of invul minions makes me more optimistic that the CM build will still have a few viable options.

@sabin Completely agree. What's also intriguing is this for Archon: "Skill Rune - Arcane Destruction
Weapon damage increased from 450% to 1600%"

1600%. Bloody crazy.

Posted by sabin at 08/20/2012 06:50 PM

@euggie halving your crit chance in the current patch versus the proc rate being halved in 1.04 should give the same results from energy twister in theory, but who knows how it will actually play out. Halving your crit chance however is going also nerf EB, which isn't getting a new proc rate.

@Khan If you haven't seen the patch notes just released today, the specifics of the shielding nerf are pretty sweet. Only 1 mob can have a shield at a time, and a lone mob cannot shield. This combined with the complete removal of invul minions makes me more optimistic that the CM build will still have a few viable options.

i haven't had a chance to play much recently, but from the little i did play.. its been difficult to say the least, to crit using ww now...

@sabin @euggie If you haven't already tried it, the Storm Chaser rune works on it. The procs for it were not nerfed and the things travel and bounce off walls like little doom smurfs. Definitely better.

@khan I've heard the same thing about storm chaser. Lately I've enjoyed Iimproved Archon for farming A1. I only have around 20k DPS but with force weapon and sparkflint it's comfortable. With CM, spectral blades/deep cuts, and diamond skin, it's usually not a problem resetting the CD quickly and safely.

Posted by Khan at 08/28/2012 08:43 AM

@sabin @euggie If you haven't already tried it, the Storm Chaser rune works on it. The procs for it were not nerfed and the things travel and bounce off walls like little doom smurfs. Definitely better.

thanks for the tip, i tried storm chaser and it does seem to be ok... i switched weapons and im not leeching as much life, so im trying to balance that aspect now with some other gear...

@khan @euggie Storm chaser actually works better for me now than WW did before the patch. The extra DPS and .5 proc rate are really good. I find bouncing them off walls works well on melee enemies, and letting them go in random places makes the kiting mobs way easier than they used to be.

I don't remember if anyone mentioned already, but the new wizardspike is pretty nice. Bought a 920 DPS one for around 1.5-2 mil yesterday.

@sabin Yeah, I really like Storm Chaser! I'll checking the wizard spike. If its only a couple million, then I'm willing to experiment with it. If your resists and armor are high enough switch out your prismatic for storm armor/shocking aspect. Its very fun and melts things quickly. Not as robust as prismatic but things die much quicker.

Posted by sabin at 08/30/2012 03:53 PM

@khan @euggie Storm chaser actually works better for me now than WW did before the patch. The extra DPS and .5 proc rate are really good. I find bouncing them off walls works well on melee enemies, and letting them go in random places makes the kiting mobs way easier than they used to be.

I don't remember if anyone mentioned already, but the new wizardspike is pretty nice. Bought a 920 DPS one for around 1.5-2 mil yesterday.

i think i'm going to ditch my mid gear with mf and go back to my "high end" stuff with more resist and int and just try to get paragon lvls... i'm dying a lil too frequently still, esp with my lowered LOH... i may just go back to my old weapon tho... decisions, decisions... i need a new chest piece... 35 AR is not cutting it for me