Don't feel too bad, it was almost 160 hours before I found a jenka at lvl 70. I had one lvling up at 30 but needless to say it didn't work out for lvl 70 :P. Just keep going it's definitely one of the more rare shields there is I think.
I have played "ping pong" for a long time now.. And since patch it just seems so much stronger.. Everything melts on T5... T6 is doable but not worth it for me atm. (Certain affixes on elites equals deaths on T6)
However I really want to try something Different. I just don't have the luck to find any akkhan items or good weapons..
Are you absolutely positive about this? Because so often I've seen it bounce just a twice or so and then immediately return to me when there aren't enough targets in range.
Preliminary tests suggest that if you have 2 targets who are "side by side" compared to you, it doesn't do a good job but if they are "one behind the other" it seems more likely to bounce back and forth. No proof; just an impression I get. Its in the angle.
I'm using the Gryf/Jek combo (~2200dps version, 4rico shield) with a pure fire build (all fire items sans helm + aug) thinking about swapping to holy once I have 6pc, but so far holy has looked really underwhelming compared to combust's aoe.
I find that you just don't get the screen-filling madness of the holy rune when you switch to combust and I think that using that rune would be a waste of that shield.
In 2.0.5, when you use Shattering, you're splitting your 1 big shield into 3 smaller shields that ping around. With Combust, your shield hits the first target and then remains as a big strong shield that smashes into many more targets after that, each one with a chance at a decent aoe explosion (that does more aoe damage than shatters do single target.) I think that Shattering is funny, but I can't find any situation in which it is actually better than Combust. You don't get the screen filling madness because everything has already exploded.
Other benefits include fantastic AC synergy with Fire Starter, fast horsey becoming a surprisingly damaging attack (as well as transport and ohsht button.) You even get great synergy with Punish:Roar if you're a masochist and want to melee things instead of flinging shields (to be fair I do still wind up in melee a lot because it's just faster so someone might like the counterattack.)
The only thing fire doesn't really have is a good secondary single target spell. I've been bouncing between the holy beam of death + cause and bowmen (phys but 20% dmg with short mount speed) but it would be even better with fire archers (why are there no fire archers?) Obviously holy has really really good synergies too, but fire isn't lacking right now.
Also there is way more fire gear available than holy (although this becomes a bit moot if you switch to 6pc, since it kills 2-3 20% fire slots.) (Thank you Blizzard design team for not understanding how your own itemisation works -.-) Obviously it depends on what gear you have, but if you have a ton of fire gear, Combust is in no way "bad".
As a disclaimer, I haven't been a crusader for that long. I started him a little before the community buff. The only reason I made one was because gyrfalcon dropped on my wiz. I am having a lot of fun with the BS build.
I started with the holy rune but am now using fire/combust. Here are my thoughts on both
Holy: it bounces back and forth between 2 targets but is rather weak, especially on single target. My experience with it is that on whites, it damages for around 5-7m on initial hit and then 2-3m on the rest of the bounces. more damage against elites ofcourse, I believe it was something like 7-10m initial and then 4m bounces. It's fun and gives the illussion of even faster aps. you rely on mobs to kill high HP tough elites/monsters.
Fire: unlike the holy rune, it doesn't bounce back to the same enemy twice. It's stronger for single target. My experience with it is that on whites, it damages for 10-13m and can proc the combust rune for 6-7m.On elites, it hits for 13-16m with 9-10m combust proc. It takes some getting used to coming from the holy build but i find it performs a lot better than the holy rune. I run t5 easy, t6 is still too much for me.
I'm still missing better gloves and once I get a BT pair of shoes that I can reroll to have similar stats to the one I'm wearing, I'll be using 2 set at least, possibly 3(although harrington doubles all the damage mentioned so it's hard to let go). You'll also notice that my soj is int because my wiz was my main for the longest time.
Still a lot of room for easy upgrades -- especially +%BS damage -- so I'm expecting another big increase in damage over the next few days. Also crossing fingers for a Ring of Royal Grandeur, which they have been especially stingy on.
My initial shield hits for 6 - 7m and the subsequent hits are around 2m without shield glare or anything else. With cooldowns it does a good deal more and with the exception of Akarat's (which I take for rifts -- doing bounties atm) the cooldowns are relatively quick anyway, especially with fervor. I have absolutely no issues with single target dps. In fact, to my surprise, my crusader has an easier time with single target dps than my wizard does (check my profile) and I think my wizard has better gear.
All in all this build is very good.
I haven't experimented much with fire though. Without the +% fire damage gear it will obviously pale in comparison to holy, so I can't honestly test it.
In 2.0.5, when you use Shattering, you're splitting your 1 big shield into 3 smaller shields that ping around. With Combust, your shield hits the first target and then remains as a big strong shield that smashes into many more targets after that, each one with a chance at a decent aoe explosion (that does more aoe damage than shatters do single target.) I think that Shattering is funny, but I can't find any situation in which it is actually better than Combust. You don't get the screen filling madness because everything has already exploded.
Other benefits include fantastic AC synergy with Fire Starter, fast horsey becoming a surprisingly damaging attack (as well as transport and ohsht button.) You even get great synergy with Punish:Roar if you're a masochist and want to melee things instead of flinging shields (to be fair I do still wind up in melee a lot because it's just faster so someone might like the counterattack.)
The only thing fire doesn't really have is a good secondary single target spell. I've been bouncing between the holy beam of death + cause and bowmen (phys but 20% dmg with short mount speed) but it would be even better with fire archers (why are there no fire archers?) Obviously holy has really really good synergies too, but fire isn't lacking right now.
Also there is way more fire gear available than holy (although this becomes a bit moot if you switch to 6pc, since it kills 2-3 20% fire slots.) (Thank you Blizzard design team for not understanding how your own itemisation works -.-) Obviously it depends on what gear you have, but if you have a ton of fire gear, Combust is in no way "bad".
I thought that was what was meant to happen with Combust, but even if stuff was still alive I did not get the same amount of bounces when using combust even with a +6 Jek, whereas shattering was far more ready to ricochet and improved my clearing times in those situations even though I was using far more +fire than +holy gear. I'm not saying combust is bad by any stretch of the imagination, it is a clearly superior rune under normal circumstances, but I just don't think it takes full advantage of a Jek.
As far as Phalanx not having a fire option, it doesn't have any elemental damage, it might just be the case that blizzard didn't want people to feel forced into using a particular one depending on their choice of element. A more reasonable complaint might be HF not having different elemental options, but if you are looking for a fire attack, having you considered falling sword as it has a fire rune, gives you another mobility option and had a decent damage buff in the last patch.
As far as having to give up fire gear if you want to use the 6pc bonus, this is not a case of blizzard not understanding itemisation so much as you having to make choices between the two gearing styles and not be able to expect everything to slot together exactly as you'd like as otherwise the eventual endgame gearing of every crusader would end up being the same for everyone which is something they have said they wanted to avoid in the past.
One under-rated bonus to going holy despite less +holy gear would be all the extra healing you get from holy cause.
I use holy cause with HF, figuring that the ticking of that will be enough to proc the heal continuously (since it doesn't matter how much holy damage you do, just how often. Obviously I imagine it heals a lot more with shattering.
Just got my 5pc bonus, so I'll start testing holy since I can't use my cindercoat or magefists right now anyway. I can't give up 95% uptime on AC, if only for the CC immunity.
Also my issue isn't not being able to combine fire and sets (that's fine) my issue is that there is no alternative to the Cindercoat for other elements and they said it's just flavour stats when it's clearly so build changing, but only ever for fire. Stick 10% cost reduction to holy on a belt, 15^ lightning on gloves, whatever, and it would open up many more builds for all classes.
I've tried falling sword, and while it's great for repositioning/shortcuts, I feel that you need harringtons + a big 2h to make any real use of it. Our builds are using fast 1h so falling sword damage becomes mediocore, and in the time it's in the air I can easily do as much with shields. For fire, your best options seem to be bows+horsey passive, or HF+cause for the heal. At least you get some sort of synergies going that way.
After testing it some (mostly T4) I don't think holy gryf+jek is that great at all, and am not that big a fan of 6pc holy or fire. The set bonus is great for 2h builds, but I think we're wasting a lot of it while losing a ton of potential fire damage that is just stronger than the small window that we have AC down and 6pc doesn't. I've tried 2h with the same gear and honestly flinging endless shields is way more fun to me. So back to % gear.
Now using 2pc Akkhan + 2(3)pc aug + 2(3)pc crimson with magefist cinder, rorg+soj or unity. I'd like to be able to ditch the crimson set and shuffle things around for an andarial's, but rng is rng and all that, and I'm already down to 36% cdr which makes me sad. Overall though I feel a lot more effective with this setup using gryf+jek fire.
Whether the shield is actually necessary for fire is another story. I think it does more damage on groups, but you already do insane damage on groups and the shield doesn't return ping the way Shattered does. I'd probably swap it out for an Akarat's if I had one, while keeping the Gryf because endless shields are fun.
Does Holy Cause have an internal cooldown? It seems okay with just HF, but I didn't notice a big improvement when I was using Shattering as well. Maybe it's just how healing works compared to the damage of T4, but it wasn't exactly life changing and I got much more out of making the effort to walk to a health globe :/
Personally this has been one of the most fun build i have ever played. Offers alot of flexability and movement while you can still deal lots of damage. I have found that IAS for this build is the best with a high bounce shield. My shields are hitting for 6-10M for first target and 2-5 to 3M on the bounce. large packs just melt. My gear is still a work in progress but here is my profile.
Finding Holy damage is one of the biggest challenges on this build due to specific items that have to be used. And yes my SOJ is not holy, just havent been lucky in that catagory as of yet.
As a side note to those gathering gear. The 6 piece could be good I suppose but at the moment I don't have it and am having great success with this combo:
RoRG - Reduces the requirements for sets by 1 2 pc - Cain's gives attack speed, gold find, and magic find (attack speed being the key)
2 pc - Aug - Gives tons of dmg reduction from regular and elites also gives plus dmg vs elites
3 pc - Blackthorns - Gives lots of extra dmg reduction, gives +dmg to elites, gives immune to desecrate, plague and molten which is awesome especially if you have a immunity neck on top of it.
With this combo I run holy +dmg with holy cause and never have problems. Im only doing t4 atm, but Im pretty confident I can move up into t5 solo with the RoRG I found this morning before work as it boosts the set bonus of all three sets which makes each awesome.
I have played "ping pong" for a long time now.. And since patch it just seems so much stronger.. Everything melts on T5... T6 is doable but not worth it for me atm. (Certain affixes on elites equals deaths on T6)
However I really want to try something Different. I just don't have the luck to find any akkhan items or good weapons..
Would you mind sharing your battlenet profile? I'd like to compare to see howfar I am gearwise minus the flail and the shield
However I really want to try something Different. I just don't have the luck to find any akkhan items or good weapons..
Other benefits include fantastic AC synergy with Fire Starter, fast horsey becoming a surprisingly damaging attack (as well as transport and ohsht button.) You even get great synergy with Punish:Roar if you're a masochist and want to melee things instead of flinging shields (to be fair I do still wind up in melee a lot because it's just faster so someone might like the counterattack.)
The only thing fire doesn't really have is a good secondary single target spell. I've been bouncing between the holy beam of death + cause and bowmen (phys but 20% dmg with short mount speed) but it would be even better with fire archers (why are there no fire archers?) Obviously holy has really really good synergies too, but fire isn't lacking right now.
Also there is way more fire gear available than holy (although this becomes a bit moot if you switch to 6pc, since it kills 2-3 20% fire slots.) (Thank you Blizzard design team for not understanding how your own itemisation works -.-) Obviously it depends on what gear you have, but if you have a ton of fire gear, Combust is in no way "bad".
Here's a link to my profile:http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Robbie-6838/hero/44148807
I started with the holy rune but am now using fire/combust. Here are my thoughts on both
Holy: it bounces back and forth between 2 targets but is rather weak, especially on single target. My experience with it is that on whites, it damages for around 5-7m on initial hit and then 2-3m on the rest of the bounces. more damage against elites ofcourse, I believe it was something like 7-10m initial and then 4m bounces. It's fun and gives the illussion of even faster aps. you rely on mobs to kill high HP tough elites/monsters.
Fire: unlike the holy rune, it doesn't bounce back to the same enemy twice. It's stronger for single target. My experience with it is that on whites, it damages for 10-13m and can proc the combust rune for 6-7m.On elites, it hits for 13-16m with 9-10m combust proc. It takes some getting used to coming from the holy build but i find it performs a lot better than the holy rune. I run t5 easy, t6 is still too much for me.
I'm still missing better gloves and once I get a BT pair of shoes that I can reroll to have similar stats to the one I'm wearing, I'll be using 2 set at least, possibly 3(although harrington doubles all the damage mentioned so it's hard to let go). You'll also notice that my soj is int because my wiz was my main for the longest time.
Here's my profile:
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Nayto-2723/hero/39066191
Still a lot of room for easy upgrades -- especially +%BS damage -- so I'm expecting another big increase in damage over the next few days. Also crossing fingers for a Ring of Royal Grandeur, which they have been especially stingy on.
My initial shield hits for 6 - 7m and the subsequent hits are around 2m without shield glare or anything else. With cooldowns it does a good deal more and with the exception of Akarat's (which I take for rifts -- doing bounties atm) the cooldowns are relatively quick anyway, especially with fervor. I have absolutely no issues with single target dps. In fact, to my surprise, my crusader has an easier time with single target dps than my wizard does (check my profile) and I think my wizard has better gear.
All in all this build is very good.
I haven't experimented much with fire though. Without the +% fire damage gear it will obviously pale in comparison to holy, so I can't honestly test it.
Just got my 5pc bonus, so I'll start testing holy since I can't use my cindercoat or magefists right now anyway. I can't give up 95% uptime on AC, if only for the CC immunity.
Also my issue isn't not being able to combine fire and sets (that's fine) my issue is that there is no alternative to the Cindercoat for other elements and they said it's just flavour stats when it's clearly so build changing, but only ever for fire. Stick 10% cost reduction to holy on a belt, 15^ lightning on gloves, whatever, and it would open up many more builds for all classes.
I've tried falling sword, and while it's great for repositioning/shortcuts, I feel that you need harringtons + a big 2h to make any real use of it. Our builds are using fast 1h so falling sword damage becomes mediocore, and in the time it's in the air I can easily do as much with shields. For fire, your best options seem to be bows+horsey passive, or HF+cause for the heal. At least you get some sort of synergies going that way.
Now using 2pc Akkhan + 2(3)pc aug + 2(3)pc crimson with magefist cinder, rorg+soj or unity. I'd like to be able to ditch the crimson set and shuffle things around for an andarial's, but rng is rng and all that, and I'm already down to 36% cdr which makes me sad. Overall though I feel a lot more effective with this setup using gryf+jek fire.
Whether the shield is actually necessary for fire is another story. I think it does more damage on groups, but you already do insane damage on groups and the shield doesn't return ping the way Shattered does. I'd probably swap it out for an Akarat's if I had one, while keeping the Gryf because endless shields are fun.
Does Holy Cause have an internal cooldown? It seems okay with just HF, but I didn't notice a big improvement when I was using Shattering as well. Maybe it's just how healing works compared to the damage of T4, but it wasn't exactly life changing and I got much more out of making the effort to walk to a health globe :/
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Darkness-1251/hero/47510948
Finding Holy damage is one of the biggest challenges on this build due to specific items that have to be used. And yes my SOJ is not holy, just havent been lucky in that catagory as of yet.
Cheers
RoRG - Reduces the requirements for sets by 1 2 pc - Cain's gives attack speed, gold find, and magic find (attack speed being the key)
2 pc - Aug - Gives tons of dmg reduction from regular and elites also gives plus dmg vs elites
3 pc - Blackthorns - Gives lots of extra dmg reduction, gives +dmg to elites, gives immune to desecrate, plague and molten which is awesome especially if you have a immunity neck on top of it.
With this combo I run holy +dmg with holy cause and never have problems. Im only doing t4 atm, but Im pretty confident I can move up into t5 solo with the RoRG I found this morning before work as it boosts the set bonus of all three sets which makes each awesome.