Great, just the kind of info I was looking for. I meant to ask what to gamble for so thank you.
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Diablo III: Reaper of Souls |OT3| Tyrael Looted: {[El'druin]}
- Thread starter IceMarker
- Start date
Great, just the kind of info I was looking for. I meant to ask what to gamble for so thank you.
uncredited male
Member
What build are you running?
EDIT - If you are doing Limitless Hammers I think those are holy so strength for socket there for sure.
...
Roll off Strength time, innit?
If you're a crusader and most of your damage comes from Holy skills, then yeah. If you're not using Holy skills much/at all or you're a barb, then roll off Holy.
Yeah... She's a Hammerdinette.
I was actually tossed up, because I didn't know whether to use it as a Crusader/Barb Amulet, or Crusader/Monk. Monks still use Holy, right?
They do, but I don't know if any of the more viable builds use Holy. You'd have to ask a monk player.
uncredited male
Member
There is only one I know of it is the Inna6/Uliana4. It uses the holy rune for SSS. Basically a mini Fan of Knives build.
HF2014
Member
HORRORSHØW;245733416 said:
Replace the extended servitude with bone prison and replace your reaper wrath with anciant partan defender. You might be surprise at the defence it can give you. Having somehow a different build, about 1.1 million dps, beated 91 yesterday. With 1.9m dps, a better defence might come in handy. Oh and Life from death ff you see you dont need it and survive well, Spreading malediction will give you a major dps increase.
Between the massive loss of essence regen without the reaper's wraps and the shorter uptime of mages without extended servitude, how is HORRORSHOW supposed to keep a decent number of mages up? They're essential for damage AND as meatshields.
I think some "older" Rathma builds didn't rely on devour and orbs for essence generations (using a regular generator instead). I'm not sure they're really up to date though or how efficient they really are. But if you don't use devour and orbs, you can drop Reaper's wraps for Ancient parthans.
I agree about extended servitude though, it's a must have in a rathma's build.
So, a few things that I want to confirm:
When using the Wizard, the dps of any equipped weapon affects every ability? For example, if I equip a normal axe, its dps affects disintegrate?
Intelligence is still "damage", right? If some equipment has either damage or intelligence, the overall damage output gets calculated into the same total number on the left of the character in the inventory, I'm not missing any intelligence parameter?
I think I read that dmg is "raw" damage, and intelligence is percentage damage, so I guess intelligence is more important later in the game?
Any benefits for choosing 1-hand+off-hand? So far, I don't think I have anything that surpasses some of the 2-handed weapons I have, damage-wise.
When using the Wizard, the dps of any equipped weapon affects every ability? For example, if I equip a normal axe, its dps affects disintegrate?
Intelligence is still "damage", right? If some equipment has either damage or intelligence, the overall damage output gets calculated into the same total number on the left of the character in the inventory, I'm not missing any intelligence parameter?
I think I read that dmg is "raw" damage, and intelligence is percentage damage, so I guess intelligence is more important later in the game?
Any benefits for choosing 1-hand+off-hand? So far, I don't think I have anything that surpasses some of the 2-handed weapons I have, damage-wise.
HF2014
Member
With the same set up he was using, exept that instead of blood rush, i was running land of the dead, i was always dying. Max level i was able to get was 82.
I switch Witching Hour, Reapers Wrap for Dayntee and Partan Defender
Switch Simulacrum for Decrepify.
Switch Extended Servitude and Life from Death for Spreading Malediction and Bone Prison.
Result? While being a really inferior essence generator, im now able to get close more and have tons of more resistance and less time trying to catch life bulb to get back life. Daytee give me like 45 % something more defence, it slow evemies. Partan Defender give me a constant 12% more defence per enemy stun, which always happen with Skeletons, decripify deziing curse and Bone Spikes. The role of Bone Prison? Stuck these freakin leapers and other annoying enemies. Everything in there made me die wayyy less offen and take way more hits before dying. Im just paragon 700 too.
So since there is no incredible essence regen, the game work as follow: cast out two quick Mage to have the bonus, holding constant devour and bone spike, charge, decripify then continue attacking to build up your full essence mages, while casting decripify on everything you see during that time. If you got 40 enemies on screen that are cursed, well, its a 40% damage gain. With that build, i was able to beat 91. My offence is at about 1.1M,default defence about 17m, when eveything in action, hitting 83M, not counting the defence boost i can get when stunning enemies with partan. None of my items where boost, about 9k intelligence only.
I dont know if horrowshow is dying offen or constantly running to get the life bulb, but im more standing still getting the compass rose bonus, which imo worth something.
Not sure i am cap at 91 with this build, will try 92 later. I dont have the dps horrowshow have with the intelligence and have less paragon, and honestly think im might be soon hitting a barrier where my dps isnt enough. But i can confirmed i was not getting further than 82 with old build, and its more of an easy journey now with my setup.
Yes the dps of a weapon affects all abilities unless it is a specialized bonus like +distentgrate, +primary skills etc.
Yes your primary stat boost damage, if you pull up the character sheet it will show you the breakdown.
Benefits of using an offhand is from many instances when both the main hand, offhand will have large damage boosters for certain skills and situations. Ie 20% bonus damage to slowed enemies, resources returned for grits. While a straight bump in damage is always nice, some bonuses are worth losing a little damage up front for the synergies. Synergies on gear make a lot of builds possible and rely on the bonus more than raw dps.
uncredited male
Member
Any skill that says weapon damage is scaling off the equipped weapon's damage range. Thorns is an exception.
Base weapon damage is the actual number rolled. Intelligence (or mainstat) is a modifier to base weapon damage (1% per point). Basically all damage bonuses are modifiers to base weapon damage.
So if you have a weapon that deals 2000-2200 base damage the game rolls a value in that range and then applies modifiers. If you have 10,000 intelligence that is a 10000% modifier.
2100 damage * 101 = 212,100 damage
Any +damage affix (it is a range) that rolls on offhand or jewelry is added to the base weapon damage before modifiers. So Wizard source says +300-400 damage then your actual base weapon damage range is 2300-2600.
+%damage on weapons modifies the weapon damage on that weapon only. So 10% damage increase the min and max base weapon damage range by 10%.
Dual wield does not do this. Each weapon keeps its own base weapon damage and your attacks automatically alternate weapons. So mainhand + offhand with +damage will have better base weapon damage than dual wield. However, dual wield has a 15% bonus to attack speed and sometimes two weapon legendary powers (or set weapons) are more desirable.
Two handed weapons are exactly the same they just have higher affix ranges. They are also usually slower and you have less affixes overall (and one less legendary affix) as your offhand slot is empty.
HF2014
Member
Iv put up a video of GR91 complete with Parthan Defender. It was a great run honestly!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Eil6Q714mgs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Eil6Q714mgs
Got all the WD Set Dungeons Mastered...only to find out that I hadn't Mastered all the Monk dungeons. >_>
(I apparently completed them all, but didn't Master three of them.)
Thoughts:
Helltooth: This one took me two tries. The hard part initially was just trying to draw in enough enemies to kill at least 20 with a single Wall of Death.
(The other objective is to just avoid Poison damage; cheesed with a Mara's.) Dungeon layout looks a bit complicated (it's a cave layout), but it's not too bad.
Jade: This one is sorta similar to Helltooth; get in a group of enemies, Soul Harvest at least 15+ several times, and then kill everything else with Haunt + Locust.
You really can't waste time though, since there's quite a few enemies in this Dungeon. Wasn't too bad though.
Arachyr: Easy dungeon for the most part. Toss out Toad to lick enemies (this was kinda funny) and then kill Elites with Piranhas & Spider Queen.
The second objective I screwed up a few times since I'd end up killing them before Piranahas or the Spider Queen hit. Other than that, real easy to do.
Zuni: Another easy one; The objectives are even easier than Arachyr. Just hit a lot of enemies with Grasp of the Dead and don't let anything get within Melee range.
Only bad thing is that it's a Graveyard map and there's quite a few enemies that like to get in nooks and crannies. I didn't have any issues though.
As for Mastering the Monk Dungeons...I may have to do that next Season.
(I apparently completed them all, but didn't Master three of them.)
Thoughts:
Helltooth: This one took me two tries. The hard part initially was just trying to draw in enough enemies to kill at least 20 with a single Wall of Death.
(The other objective is to just avoid Poison damage; cheesed with a Mara's.) Dungeon layout looks a bit complicated (it's a cave layout), but it's not too bad.
Jade: This one is sorta similar to Helltooth; get in a group of enemies, Soul Harvest at least 15+ several times, and then kill everything else with Haunt + Locust.
You really can't waste time though, since there's quite a few enemies in this Dungeon. Wasn't too bad though.
Arachyr: Easy dungeon for the most part. Toss out Toad to lick enemies (this was kinda funny) and then kill Elites with Piranhas & Spider Queen.
The second objective I screwed up a few times since I'd end up killing them before Piranahas or the Spider Queen hit. Other than that, real easy to do.
Zuni: Another easy one; The objectives are even easier than Arachyr. Just hit a lot of enemies with Grasp of the Dead and don't let anything get within Melee range.
Only bad thing is that it's a Graveyard map and there's quite a few enemies that like to get in nooks and crannies. I didn't have any issues though.
As for Mastering the Monk Dungeons...I may have to do that next Season.
HORRORSHØW
Member
DPS is the problem at higher grs. I cleared 93 as glass cannon with 4 mins to spare. I think a lot depends on the rift you get (pylons and no bullshit enemies like those that jump on you).
Giving rathmas a break and I'm trying to get inarius past 90 now.
Giving rathmas a break and I'm trying to get inarius past 90 now.
Nice one, grats! Didn't know you were playing on console. FYI, you're obviously welcome here, but if you'd like to discuss console-specific issues, you might want to head over to the Ultimate Evil community thread. Though I don't know that it's nearly as active as this one.
I think I had roughly the same stats as you when I cleared GR92, i.e. P700 or lower, same DPS, but I was running the squishy version. Still not sure the Decrepify version has as much GR potential as the squishy variant with Witching Hour and Simulacrum, but you can probably go up to GR100 with good stats, and there definitely are people in the leaderboards who use your build.
Speaking of, I cleared GR97 and almost cleared GR98 yesterday thanks a to a new ancient Compass Rose and... a primal Traveler's Pledge \o/. I got both after using 95 bounty mats to reforge them. They were literally the last two reforges I could do before running out of mats. Talk about clutch.
A word of warning: yes, elemental damage really is superior to mainstat on an amulet. Case in point : my primal Traveler's has 1,455int (with an augment), 10% crit chance and 100% crit dmg. Pretty awesome, right? Yet, in spite of all of this, my ancient amulet (+20% physical dmg, 10% crit chance, 58% critical hit dmg, and obviously no augment) still gives me better DPS in practice, if d3planner is to be believed.
Skeletal Mage damage:
- with the old phys%-based amulet: 5,812,499,532
- with the new int-based augmented primal ammy: 5,785,264,076
See? Even with the huge 1,455 int bonus and an additional 42% critical hit damage bonus over my old ammy, the new one still is a 0.5% downgrade in effective DPS. I would need a lvl 108 augment for the new one to match my old one. I'm using the primal version anyway because the difference is tiny enough that I'd rather sacrifice the DPS for the added survivability of +210 fire res and +40 crowd control reduction. That can save my life in some situations and help me clear a difficult GR. The difference in DPS, however, won't matter. Plus, Command Skeletons is cold-based so it's a DPS upgrade for that skill. All in all, it's a draw.
The lesson to be learned is: always prioritize elemental damage over mainstat on your amulet and bracers if you can help it and if your build is going to emphasize a specific element. Sadly I couldn't do that because I had to roll off life regen or some other useless stat for CHD. Obviously if your build is multi-element it's not that big of a deal, and in fact mainstat might be preferable.
HF2014
Member
Primal Travelers Pledge...grats! All the primal i was able to get, like last week, got about 4-5, but this week, zero, nothing at all, well they were all crappy. I manage to get a Rathma...but both secondary stats were shitty and need to reroll a primary... i was pissed.
Perhaps i need to play differently if i decide to equip Witching and drop Decripify, i dont know, i tried it yesterday, i kept dying at 85... With my set up atm, im stuck at 91. I tried yesterday..... nothing to do, i think im cap atm with the dps i got, i think i will need to start working augments to get more dps. Im thinking about what you said and i dont have mage elemental damage on helm...i think i will drop my vitality to get the 15%.
But of all the set up im seeeing, i just dont understand why people choose to keep Extended Servitude if they use reapers wrap, or even if they dont. Having longer mage doesnt imo add dps, anyway you always have the essence to summon big ones. Spreading malediction if your using curse add a lot of dps since you can curses tons of enemies. Or Blood is Power is another great one to have, cut 20% of cooldown, giving you about 2 more cast from Land of the Dead, more DPS overall. Im going to do some tryout with Blood is Power and drop Bone Prison, to see if it will help me out. But i just love bone prison, stuck an already stun enemy, make it less able to damage you.
Grats for your 97! I think im seriously a long road from there. Playing season, maybe when ill get my 800 paragon from normal + my 700+ ill get something close to 1000 , but now it just start getting harder.
Juggernaut (and maybe Thunderstorm and Frozen) can go to hell. Blizzard once removed an affix entirely (Invulnerable Minions) and severely nerfed others (Shielding and Reflect Damage), and I think they should do the same with Juggernaut. Or at least make it so that a champion can't have Juggernaut in combination with some of the deadlier affixes, most notably Thunderstorm and Frozen. A Juggernaut champion can just spam those without ever being interrupted. So you end up in these ridiculous situations where you die, resurrect and instantly have your cheat death passive triggered because of those bullshit instant affixes you can't possibly dodge. Not only does that make the cheat death passive mandatory - you would die all the time without it -, but it also makes you wonder what the point of reviving is if you don't even get a single second of respite to give you a chance. In some ways it reminds me of shoot 'em ups like Gradius where they restart right where you die with only a weak pea shooter.
I don't even know why they introduced Juggernaut in the first place. The game was fine without it. Other affixes were dangerous enough already. Seriously, pretty much all my attempts at completing GR98 were single-handedly thwarted by a Juggernaut champion with Thunderstorm and/or Frozen. Or if they weren't, low density did the rest. I distinctly remember Blizzard patching the game to improve density before, but long walks through corridors without a single mob seem to contradict that.
Generally speaking I feel there are way too many unfair elements and run-killers. I'm fine with difficulty - heck, I wouldn't be pushing GRs if I wasn't -, but there are way too many situations where you cannot see something coming (the aforementioned affixes), or the enemy will shoot you/jump on you from off-screen and/or so fast that you can't possibly react (Succubi, Winged Assassins, Punishers, Wraiths/Phantoms). Having to dodge Succubi fireballs is alright, fun even, but not when they start shooting before I can even see them. I'm also fine with great-looking maps, but not when the walls make it impossible to see what's behind. Having Winged Assassins jump on you is 'fine' too, I guess, but not when you can almost never stop them, you can't get out of the way because their jumps are too quick, and your pets can't intercept them. And, speaking of pets, I can stomach temporary mages, but not when their AI is so stupid that they'll hang around at the back instead of protecting you, or half of them won't even try to attack the enemy. No worries, guy, it's not like you only have 12 seconds to make yourselves useful - oh wait, yeah, you do. Lastly, this is more of a nitpick I guess, but the Jesseth bonus to Command Skeletons should make them automatically attack whenever they see an enemy - or allow you to set them to "aggressive mode" at least. That way you wouldn't have so many situations where they just stop attacking for no reason and your DPS goes down the drain.
So salty right now. Ugh.
I don't even know why they introduced Juggernaut in the first place. The game was fine without it. Other affixes were dangerous enough already. Seriously, pretty much all my attempts at completing GR98 were single-handedly thwarted by a Juggernaut champion with Thunderstorm and/or Frozen. Or if they weren't, low density did the rest. I distinctly remember Blizzard patching the game to improve density before, but long walks through corridors without a single mob seem to contradict that.
Generally speaking I feel there are way too many unfair elements and run-killers. I'm fine with difficulty - heck, I wouldn't be pushing GRs if I wasn't -, but there are way too many situations where you cannot see something coming (the aforementioned affixes), or the enemy will shoot you/jump on you from off-screen and/or so fast that you can't possibly react (Succubi, Winged Assassins, Punishers, Wraiths/Phantoms). Having to dodge Succubi fireballs is alright, fun even, but not when they start shooting before I can even see them. I'm also fine with great-looking maps, but not when the walls make it impossible to see what's behind. Having Winged Assassins jump on you is 'fine' too, I guess, but not when you can almost never stop them, you can't get out of the way because their jumps are too quick, and your pets can't intercept them. And, speaking of pets, I can stomach temporary mages, but not when their AI is so stupid that they'll hang around at the back instead of protecting you, or half of them won't even try to attack the enemy. No worries, guy, it's not like you only have 12 seconds to make yourselves useful - oh wait, yeah, you do. Lastly, this is more of a nitpick I guess, but the Jesseth bonus to Command Skeletons should make them automatically attack whenever they see an enemy - or allow you to set them to "aggressive mode" at least. That way you wouldn't have so many situations where they just stop attacking for no reason and your DPS goes down the drain.
So salty right now. Ugh.
uncredited male
Member
So I was looking at non-seasonal solo GRs before and it is actually a bit more unbalanced in seasons right now.
Top non-Necro solo is a 105 Wizard. Top Necro is 112 solo. I think enemy HPs are more than tripled in 112 compared to 105.
Not surprisingly the Necro has taken over the boss killing role in the meta.
Top non-Necro solo is a 105 Wizard. Top Necro is 112 solo. I think enemy HPs are more than tripled in 112 compared to 105.
Not surprisingly the Necro has taken over the boss killing role in the meta.
Dude, I feel you. This stuff just ruins your enthusiasm when pushing for a new record. You know, we ought to make HC chars, focus our mind elsewhere for a change.
Eh, not big on HC to be honest. Right now I'm looking at a Necro Thorns build that's very promising (possibly better than Rathma and worse than Bloodlancer Trag'Oul). We'll see how that goes.
Toying with the idea of rolling a wizard too. I'm getting a bit burnt out on the game I think. But I absolutely need to get to P1000 (almost done with that) and GR100 in group with you guys, and maybe solo.
I see, thanks for the explanation.
Juggernaut can f off. It is the bane of several builds I run. On smaller boss mobs it isn't fun, but manageable on large Act 4 and 5 boss mobs I have to skip them or waste a lot of time.
THe_DeiCiDe
Member
So I finally got a Witching Hour, just short of 20k shards. Mastered the UE set dungeon as well, so it's been a good run.
Question for you vets...the 50 million gold challenge, it just means in a single play session right?
Question for you vets...the 50 million gold challenge, it just means in a single play session right?
HORRORSHØW
Member
you need to get a gold streak (look at the bottom-right corner when you pick up gold). chain 50 million for the challenge. I did it at ruins of corvus with gold find gear. pretty easy.
press shift + J to check your season journey progress and cross off the tasks.
THe_DeiCiDe
Member
Thanks horrorshow.
it a way I wish there were more challenges available, While I don't play solely for achievements it certainly keeps my attention.
I generally burn out each season after about 140-150 hours, this season is no different having finished the season somewhere at the 50-60 hour mark without additional challenges I rotate to other games.
Poor RNG has made me more frustrated this season then any other, but on the flip side it made me grind a higher paragon than I have previously (although I have a suspicion that paragon this season was much easier to obtain).
I have only put about 90 hours into the necro class, but I really can't settle on how I like to play it and it might keep me around longer this season - but - right now I'm a bit burnt out.
You and me both. The GR push has really hurt my enthusiasm, as some of the design flaws of GRs become more prominent the higher you go. As I said the other day, poor map layouts, and especially low density and certain elite affixes can instantly kill your at high level. I've started another character, but even then, I don't think it's gonna hold my attention longer. I'd like it if Blizzard un-nerfed some of the more relaxed/fun-looking builds of the necro (namely the Inarius/Mirinae build and the Army of the Dead build) and buffed other classes and builds for patch 2.7. At least do something about the constant need to recast your skeletal mages. That's incredibly annoying after a while.
Also I need more Armory slots for experimentation. 5 slots isn't enough lol.
Boogalogist
Member
I kinda just started on the Necromancer last week. A friend power levelled me in an hour and I managed to get pretty far.
https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Booga-6818/hero/93286421
I'm aiming for The Witching Hour currently. Managed to solo GR50 (haven't tried higher)
I target to solo GR70 to unlock Primal Ancients. Any advice?
https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Booga-6818/hero/93286421
I'm aiming for The Witching Hour currently. Managed to solo GR50 (haven't tried higher)
I target to solo GR70 to unlock Primal Ancients. Any advice?
Almost got the Season Journey completed.
Just need the Urzael objective and one more Conquest (probably either Boss Rush or GR75 Solo).
Has to be done all in one go. (Have to have a 50 mil Gold Streak...so you can't stop until then.)
Easiest way to do it is in Ruins of Corvus with a maxed out Boon of the Hoarder gem and lots of Gold Find gear.
I did it yesterday on T12; just killed everything in my normal gear (w/no pet on and little Gold/Health Radius), then went backwards with my Gold Find gear and got a 60 mil streak.
Just need the Urzael objective and one more Conquest (probably either Boss Rush or GR75 Solo).
Has to be done all in one go. (Have to have a 50 mil Gold Streak...so you can't stop until then.)
Easiest way to do it is in Ruins of Corvus with a maxed out Boon of the Hoarder gem and lots of Gold Find gear.
I did it yesterday on T12; just killed everything in my normal gear (w/no pet on and little Gold/Health Radius), then went backwards with my Gold Find gear and got a 60 mil streak.
I've tried looking at it, but is it me or the Diablo 3 US site isn't working right now?
Yeah couldn't see his build. Guess it's down.
Juggernaut and that lightning bullshit can F off. It's nearly impossible to clear a new GR when you face that. And fuck mortar while I'm at it. But lightning most of all.
Is corpse lance a thing on PS4? I took a look at the leaderboards and I'm guessing it's not as prevalent as on PC.
Boogalogist
Member
It was down earlier. It's back up now.
Okay, finally managed to check your gear via d3planner.
First things first, the very obvious:
- Get those Rathma gloves, son. Gamble at Kadala, or if you've got duplicates of other Rathma pieces, you can use the "Convert Set" recipe from the cube to... convert one of them to gloves. Once you have them, cube your Tasker and Theo, and use that instead of Nemesis Bracers.
- Upgrade all your gems: weapon emerald and armor topazes to flawless, legendary gems to rank 40 at least (since you can do GR50 solo). That alone will make a big difference in DPS.
- Don't put a Topaz in your helm. Resource Cost Reduction isn't that great, even if it sounds like it might be. Your essence regen comes from health globes and Bone Spikes (more on this later). Put either an amethyst for survivability or a diamond for CDR.
- Eventually you'll have to replace your Bane of the Powerful with Zei's Stone of Vengeance (once it's leveled enough), but you don't have to right now. BotP is good in the early stages.
- Golem is a useless skill right now, get rid of it.
- Same with Army of the Dead, sadly. Yes, even with the 6p bonus from Rathma, it's not worth it, trust me.
- instead of those two skills, you want Bone Spikes with the Sudden impact rune (which I'd put on left click) for essence generation and the stun which procs your Krysbin damage bonus, and Land of the Dead with Frozen Lands.
- Also, replace the Voracious rune on Devour with Satiated.
Alright, gear.
Jewelry: if you can get a decent Nailuj and Compass rose, use those instead of the Krysbin's and the Ring of Royal Grandeur, and cube Krysbin's. Reason being that Krysbin's is kinda hard to roll well, and RoRG is a crappy ring anyway. Only wear the RoRG until you find a Nailuj or Rathma gloves. Your traveler's pledge is great though. If it's not enchanted yet, reroll the intelligence to physical damage. It won't show on your sheet DPS, but this is actually a huge DPS upgrade for your build. I have 1450 intelligence on my primal amulet (1,000 + augment) and it still gives my mages less DPS than a +20% physical damage stat. Generally speaking you want crit chance and crit damage (and obviously a socket) on all your jewelry (+ intelligence on rings).
Weapon: it's non-ancient, so you'll have to replace it with/reroll it to an ancient one obviously, as this is the single most important slot to improve your DPS. The damage rolls are poor, even for a non-ancient, but at least you've got decent stats (int, attack speed, socket). If you have a few Ramaladni's Gift on hand, you might consider rerolling the socket to +10% damage and use the gift to recreate a socket. If you don't know what that is or only have 1, forget what I said, the weapon is not really worth it anyway with these damage rolls. However, in that case, reroll the attack speed to +10% dmg instead. Nice, easy DPS increase right there.
Helm: reroll death nova to skeletal damage. Rathma builds should always have int/crit%/mage damage on helms.
Shoulders: reroll resource cost reduction to armor or vitality. RVR is by and large useless. I'd go with armor.
Chest: reroll Golem damage to vitality. Again, Golem is useless.
Gloves: again, replace with Rathma gloves. Not much you can do in the meantime since you've already enchanted your T&T to crit%. Ideally you'd want int/crit%/crit dmg and, after you've got all those, attack speed.
Bracers: while crit chance is absolutely a must for any decent pair of bracers, reroll it to +20% physical damage (same reasoning as the amulet). Huge DPS increase. Or better yet: craft better Reaper's. They don't cost much. A single bounty run of Acts 2 and 3 on T13 will let you craft 16 Reaper's Wrath if you have enough regular mats. You want physical damage, crit chance, intelligence and vitality.
Belt: vigilante belt is an interesting choice here because of the CDR and because it's an ancient. Nothing to reroll here. However, you might want to replace it with a Witching Hour down the line for DPS, or Dayntee's Binding for survivability if you plan to use Decrepify at some point. I'd go for Witching Hour. But your belt will do nicely until then.
Pants: reroll Siphon Blood to armor. Note: when you have the choice between armor and all resist, always pick armor for an intelligence class. Intelligence already raises your resistances, so it's inefficient to roll it on gear too.
Boots: absolutely reroll the life regen to Skeletal Mage Damage. Between this bonus and the helm, you're already looking at a +30% damage increase. Incidentally, life regen is even more useless than resource cost reduction.
Shield: reroll RCR to crit chance.
This is all advice for a fairly cookie-cutter build, to be honest. It's the one I'm running. You don't have much leeway and gear and skills.Variants you'll see include Decrepify (with Dayntee's Binding for your belt) and/or Blood Rush for skills, and Haunted Visions and Convention of the Elements instead of Traveler's Pledge and Compass Rose.
Anyway, make these changes and watch your GR potential jump by 10 GRs at least.
[EDIT] Priorities:
- skills: replace golem, army and the devour rune
- gambling/converting for Rathma gloves and cubing Tasker's
- if you have money and gems: upgrade all your gems, replace helm topaz with amethyst or diamond
- if you're short on resources (money, mats, bounty mats): do goblin vaults with friends, rifts in public games (or with friends) at a level where you can comfortably speedfarm, and bounty runs in public games or with friends.
- single biggest DPS increases by changing item: craft new reaper's wraps with +20% physical damage AND crit chance, or at least reroll your current one to physical damage; upgrade rare scythes to a better Jesseth scythe Careful, might get costly. If you can't have a good one yet, keep one in your stash that you'll later reforge to an ancient one.
- cheapest/quickest increase through enchants: skeletal mage damage on helm and boots, physical damage on bracers and amulet, crit chance on shield, +10% damage on your current weapon.
First things first, the very obvious:
- Get those Rathma gloves, son. Gamble at Kadala, or if you've got duplicates of other Rathma pieces, you can use the "Convert Set" recipe from the cube to... convert one of them to gloves. Once you have them, cube your Tasker and Theo, and use that instead of Nemesis Bracers.
- Upgrade all your gems: weapon emerald and armor topazes to flawless, legendary gems to rank 40 at least (since you can do GR50 solo). That alone will make a big difference in DPS.
- Don't put a Topaz in your helm. Resource Cost Reduction isn't that great, even if it sounds like it might be. Your essence regen comes from health globes and Bone Spikes (more on this later). Put either an amethyst for survivability or a diamond for CDR.
- Eventually you'll have to replace your Bane of the Powerful with Zei's Stone of Vengeance (once it's leveled enough), but you don't have to right now. BotP is good in the early stages.
- Golem is a useless skill right now, get rid of it.
- Same with Army of the Dead, sadly. Yes, even with the 6p bonus from Rathma, it's not worth it, trust me.
- instead of those two skills, you want Bone Spikes with the Sudden impact rune (which I'd put on left click) for essence generation and the stun which procs your Krysbin damage bonus, and Land of the Dead with Frozen Lands.
- Also, replace the Voracious rune on Devour with Satiated.
Alright, gear.
Jewelry: if you can get a decent Nailuj and Compass rose, use those instead of the Krysbin's and the Ring of Royal Grandeur, and cube Krysbin's. Reason being that Krysbin's is kinda hard to roll well, and RoRG is a crappy ring anyway. Only wear the RoRG until you find a Nailuj or Rathma gloves. Your traveler's pledge is great though. If it's not enchanted yet, reroll the intelligence to physical damage. It won't show on your sheet DPS, but this is actually a huge DPS upgrade for your build. I have 1450 intelligence on my primal amulet (1,000 + augment) and it still gives my mages less DPS than a +20% physical damage stat. Generally speaking you want crit chance and crit damage (and obviously a socket) on all your jewelry (+ intelligence on rings).
Weapon: it's non-ancient, so you'll have to replace it with/reroll it to an ancient one obviously, as this is the single most important slot to improve your DPS. The damage rolls are poor, even for a non-ancient, but at least you've got decent stats (int, attack speed, socket). If you have a few Ramaladni's Gift on hand, you might consider rerolling the socket to +10% damage and use the gift to recreate a socket. If you don't know what that is or only have 1, forget what I said, the weapon is not really worth it anyway with these damage rolls. However, in that case, reroll the attack speed to +10% dmg instead. Nice, easy DPS increase right there.
Helm: reroll death nova to skeletal damage. Rathma builds should always have int/crit%/mage damage on helms.
Shoulders: reroll resource cost reduction to armor or vitality. RVR is by and large useless. I'd go with armor.
Chest: reroll Golem damage to vitality. Again, Golem is useless.
Gloves: again, replace with Rathma gloves. Not much you can do in the meantime since you've already enchanted your T&T to crit%. Ideally you'd want int/crit%/crit dmg and, after you've got all those, attack speed.
Bracers: while crit chance is absolutely a must for any decent pair of bracers, reroll it to +20% physical damage (same reasoning as the amulet). Huge DPS increase. Or better yet: craft better Reaper's. They don't cost much. A single bounty run of Acts 2 and 3 on T13 will let you craft 16 Reaper's Wrath if you have enough regular mats. You want physical damage, crit chance, intelligence and vitality.
Belt: vigilante belt is an interesting choice here because of the CDR and because it's an ancient. Nothing to reroll here. However, you might want to replace it with a Witching Hour down the line for DPS, or Dayntee's Binding for survivability if you plan to use Decrepify at some point. I'd go for Witching Hour. But your belt will do nicely until then.
Pants: reroll Siphon Blood to armor. Note: when you have the choice between armor and all resist, always pick armor for an intelligence class. Intelligence already raises your resistances, so it's inefficient to roll it on gear too.
Boots: absolutely reroll the life regen to Skeletal Mage Damage. Between this bonus and the helm, you're already looking at a +30% damage increase. Incidentally, life regen is even more useless than resource cost reduction
.Shield: reroll RCR to crit chance.
This is all advice for a fairly cookie-cutter build, to be honest. It's the one I'm running. You don't have much leeway and gear and skills.Variants you'll see include Decrepify (with Dayntee's Binding for your belt) and/or Blood Rush for skills, and Haunted Visions and Convention of the Elements instead of Traveler's Pledge and Compass Rose.
Anyway, make these changes and watch your GR potential jump by 10 GRs at least
.[EDIT] Priorities:
- skills: replace golem, army and the devour rune
- gambling/converting for Rathma gloves and cubing Tasker's
- if you have money and gems: upgrade all your gems, replace helm topaz with amethyst or diamond
- if you're short on resources (money, mats, bounty mats): do goblin vaults with friends, rifts in public games (or with friends) at a level where you can comfortably speedfarm, and bounty runs in public games or with friends.
- single biggest DPS increases by changing item: craft new reaper's wraps with +20% physical damage AND crit chance, or at least reroll your current one to physical damage; upgrade rare scythes to a better Jesseth scythe Careful, might get costly. If you can't have a good one yet, keep one in your stash that you'll later reforge to an ancient one.
- cheapest/quickest increase through enchants: skeletal mage damage on helm and boots, physical damage on bracers and amulet, crit chance on shield, +10% damage on your current weapon.
Not really on the top of the leaderboards pushing GR. The build is reliant on long cooldowns that you use on boss packs skipping trash. You need precision picking out the boss packs from the trash when using Land of the Dead and on console aiming is all over the place aka Command Skeleton, Decrepify placement. The burst damage from that build is insane though and wouldn't be surprised if ppl can make it work.
Having a lot of fun with the Crusader this season. Found a 'speed farm' Roland build to use with the Haedrigs set, and wow, they weren't kidding it's fast. 3 of the 4 active skills are movement related, and it's really satisfying to use the secondary attack as your primary. Mowing everything down.
Also broke down and bought Necro. Only level 25 for now but it's sure fun.
Also broke down and bought Necro. Only level 25 for now but it's sure fun.
Ingeniero
Member
Amazing posts Kilrogg.
I'll return to D3 next week and want some action.
Any advice on my Necro? Need more powah.
Just hit GR70 before I stopped playing.
https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/MarKoNiO-1876/hero/92767316
I'll return to D3 next week and want some action.
Any advice on my Necro? Need more powah.
Just hit GR70 before I stopped playing.
https://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/MarKoNiO-1876/hero/92767316
I've been playing solo on Xbox since RoS came out. Always HC. Picked up the Necro pack and jumped in to see what seasons were all about it. It was a fun change of pace for sure. I hit GR70 today, which is well past what I achieved last time I played a long time ago, and the fact that you can get to that level so quickly when playing solo is kind of crazy. I'll probably leave the game be for now and hop back to other games I've been playing, but I definitely got my money's worth out of this Necro expansion.
Thank you for the compliment!
Most of what I said in my previous post provides good guidelines, but you're already doing pretty good. I see nothing in a major need of change. It's most a matter of upgrading your gems (regular + legendary), getting better/ancient versions of your current items, and then augmenting said ancient items.
For GR pushing I think you'll eventually have to drop Dayntee's Binding and Decrepify in favor of Witching Hour and Simulacrum for DPS (since you're already using Reilena's in the cube and Overwhelming Essence). Might also want to drop Blood Rush for Land of the Dead/Frozen Lands. Gives you a great burst of essence generation and freezes enemies for that extra DPS boost from Krysbin's Sentence. If you get a good Haunted Visions you can use that instead of Ouroboros if you want to make Simulacrum last 30 seconds. But your Ouroboros is really good. I don't know if it's enchanted already, but if not, reroll intelligence to physical damage. Also you'll have to replace Bane of the Powerful with a Zei gem down the line. BotP is more powerful at the beginning, but once you can get a Zei in the 40s or 50s you might consider switching.
Cereplate is good to get used to the playstyle, but once you're more comfortable and can manage essence generation better and you have a Tasker & Theo you'll have to put that in the cube instead. Your essence generation has to come from the Reaper's Wraps bracers, which you should get to crafting right now and drop the Nemesis bracers.
Note that this is all for GR pushing. Obviously your setup might be different for speedfarming.
Lastly, Command Skeletons damage on your gear is completely useless. Roll that off for armor or vit on your chest and shoulders. Command Skeletons contributes very little to DPS. Its primary purpose is the 400% damage bonus, and secondarily the freeze effect for more crowd control and, again, the damage bonus from Krysbin's Sentence. And roll off the vit for crit chance on your helm (and on your Nailuj if that isn't already enchanted)... And roll off the socket on your shield for armor or CDR if you really need that.
Remember that the Rathma build is meant to be a DPS monster. You will be extremely squishy, but that's the point: killing enemies (and especially elites) so quickly that they don't have time to do much against is what will ensure your survival. But be aware that there will always be time when you die. Par for the course with this kind of build.
Ingeniero
Member
Excellent, excellent post Kilrogg, thanks a lot.
I'll follow your suggestions.
I thought Command Skeletons was a very important part of my DPS... With the Rhatma and Jesseth bonus... Well I'll try some rerolls.
What about my weapon? It came with a socket and I have a RGift... worth it?
Oh and Tasked and Theo... yeah... I've lost count how many shards I've gambled to get those...someday...
I'll follow your suggestions.
I thought Command Skeletons was a very important part of my DPS... With the Rhatma and Jesseth bonus... Well I'll try some rerolls.
What about my weapon? It came with a socket and I have a RGift... worth it?
Oh and Tasked and Theo... yeah... I've lost count how many shards I've gambled to get those...someday...
Nah, it's tiny compared to your mages; because those Mages have the Singularity rune. The difference becomes even greater once you factor in Simulacrum/Reservoir, which doubles your max essence. Let me tell you: 4+ Skeletal Mages cast with a full gauge of 600+ essence just wreck elites. It's insane.
I forgot to mention: use the Freeze rune on your Command Skeletons, and the Satiated rune on Devour. And don't forget that the dmg bonus from Command Skeletons only works when you actually command them to attack an enemy (and when they automatically switch to a new target upon target death obviously).
It's generally not worth wasting Rama's on non-ancient weapons, unless you've got at least several. You only have 1 I take it, so save it for when you get an ancient Jesseth scythe, or at least a very well rolled non-ancient (very well = 2.5k DPS with +10% dmg).
To get an ancient Jesseth, here's my advice: craft rare scythes, and upgrade them until you get a Jesseth. If it's non-ancient, see if it's an upgrade over your current one, and use it if so. If it's worse, use the reforge recipe to try and make it into an ancient one. But it's very costly (5 bounty mats of each + 50 forgotten souls). The cheaper option is to keep upgrading rare scythes, since there are not many possible legendary scythes they can upgrade to. Obviously it's more random than reforging, but it only uses regular mats.
Desirable stats are +10% dmg, attack speed (which I think it rolls with anyway) and intelligence. If you're not gifting it, reroll whatever useless stat you got to a socket, otherwise sacrifice the attack speed. Secondary stat should be max essence ideally.