- The third change is that we've removed the innate bonuses granted by Paragon levels, and players will now earn Paragon Points every time they level up. These points can then be spent to boost up various stats in four different categories: Core Stats, Offensive, Defensive, and Adventure.
Anybody else feeling like using Deadly Reach might lead to some awkward situations?
Deadly Reach Generate: 67 Spirit per attack / Project lines of pure force over a short distance for 110% weapon damage. as Physical. / Every third hit extends 25 yardshas a 30% chance to knock up enemies.
While it will offer higher EHP, the damage is just not there. The proper use of Overawe will cause the explosions from Exploding Palm to deal 98% of their life as damage to those affected by Overawe instead of just the 50% (see the Speed Palm build post for details).
Keep in mind that - unless I'm misunderstanding the description - Essence Burn deals its explosion damage based on weapon damage, not monster HP like all other EP runes:
"Instead of bleeding, the target will burn for 745% weapon damage as Fire over 9 seconds. If the target dies while burning, it explodes causing all nearby enemies to burn for 60% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. This effect can happen multiple times."
Not that that invalidates using it, just thought I'd point it out.
I tried a build a couple months ago with Essence Burn, Fire Storm, Backlash, and Fire Ally along with the Sankis axe and wasn't that impressed. Granted, my Monk is pretty poorly geared to begin with, but maybe with the upcoming buffs to Legendaries it'll work a little better.
You are correct. I actually noticed that the other night when I was doing rune testing for Exploding palm. I think the burn from the explosion does stack though as it would explain why the groups seems to drop quicker the more that burn and boom. The Jury's still out for which rune is best for this build.
Might be a good argument for Maximus over Sankis...
I've been thinking about ways to make more skills and damage types/playstyles viable. One of the ideas I keep coming back to is the concept of bleeds. I always like to see monsters' health slowly draining away rather than dropping in huge chunks at lesser intervals, so the playstyle of bleeds appeals to me. Currently, each class has one skill (unless I've missed any) that provides a bleed (note that I've only included skills that use the word "bleed." Skills that just deal damage over time aren't included.):
Rend
Impale - Chemical Burn
Exploding Palm
Hex - Painful Transformation
Spectral Blade - Deep Cuts
Bleeds are also available as an affix on weapons, such as that on Skorn. As things stand now, I'd say that only Rend and EP are used with any frequency and the damage from the weapon affix is generally considered negligible. How might bleeds become a viable source of damage then? I'll explore the question in terms of both skills and gear.
Skills
I think if I want to make bleed builds viable, there needs to be more than one source of bleed damage for any given class. Some skills could be slightly altered to change from "deals damage over time" to "causes the target to bleed." I'll get to why I think there should be a distinction between the two and why it's important shortly. For now, a couple examples might include:
Grenades - Gas Grenades (change to "Shrapnel" or similar)
Passives could get in on the fun too. Here you'll see why I think bleed damage should be differentiated from other standard damage-over-time skills. I'm sure there's a few from each class that could possibly benefit, but I'll stick to one example for each:
Pound of Flesh - Add a flat increase to bleed damage to the skill, or increase bleed damage when you pick up a health globe, similar to the Gruesome Feast mechanic
Numbing Traps - Add "The movement speed of enemies affected by bleeds is reduced by x%"
Each time you deal damage with a bleed effect, you have a chance to gain 1 Spirit (not sure which passive I'd add this to; maybe just replace one of the plethora of useless Monk passives instead?)
Blood Ritual - Instead of regenerating 1% of your health per second, "gain life equal to x% (~15%?) of bleed damage dealt"
Add bleed tick functionality to Arcane Dynamo (at a reduced chance to gain a stack)
I feel like these changes would give players of all classes good options to build their characters around bleeds, should they so desire. But I still don't think we'd be competitive with today's standard cookie cutter builds. That's where the gear comes in to help.
Gear
Since bleeds deal damage on set intervals and can't crit, they won't benefit from CHC/CD/AS, which most current end-game builds rely heavily upon. Average Damage would be a poweful addition to a bleeder's arsenal, but I think we'll need more to be competitive with crit builds.
I'm unclear on how weapon affix bleeds work, but I think they just deal their damage as advertised (e.g. 6339 - 9562 over 5 seconds), which is clearly not worth it. I think the best solution would be to change it to a percent of the damage caused by the strike that triggered the bleed. Otherwise, it could be changed from flat damage to a percent of weapon damage and/or increased by main stat damage bonus. Either way, weapon affix bleeds need to be more desirable.
I think the only way that a bleed build would be able to truly compete with a crit build would be to add mechanics to the game that benefit bleeds. This could come in the form of both legendaries and set bonuses, and this section will borrow heavily from my ideas on set bonuses that you can read about here (and isn't as long as this post). Some of my ideas for unique mechanics that bleeders would rely on for their damage:
When an enemy is affected by a bleed, the damage of any subsequent bleeds applied is increased by x%; OR
Enemies take x% additional damage from all attacks for each bleed effect active on them
Bleed damage ticks benefit from x% of your Life on Hit
Each time an enemy suffers reflected damage, there is a chance that it will begin bleeding for x% of the damage received over y seconds
I especially like the last idea, beacuse it opens up another realm of builds concentrating on thorns damage and/or reflective skills, such as:
Overpower - Crushing Advance, Ignore Pain - Contempt for Weakness, Tough as Nails
I realize not all of these necessarily make a viable build, but I think some could.
I believe that a more passive, DoT-based gameplay is definitely missing from D3, and while it seems it's not the "ideal" strategy from the devs' point of view, I think many players enjoy this playstyle and it's certainly not without precedent in the Diablo franchise, as any former Poisonmancer can attest to. What do you think about the idea? Would you like to see DoT builds become more viable? Do you think that even with the changes outlined here bleed builds would be able to compete with crit builds? Post your thoughts and suggestions!
While it will offer higher EHP, the damage is just not there. The proper use of Overawe will cause the explosions from Exploding Palm to deal 98% of their life as damage to those affected by Overawe instead of just the 50% (see the Speed Palm build post for details).
Keep in mind that - unless I'm misunderstanding the description - Essence Burn deals its explosion damage based on weapon damage, not monster HP like all other EP runes:
"Instead of bleeding, the target will burn for 745% weapon damage as Fire over 9 seconds. If the target dies while burning, it explodes causing all nearby enemies to burn for 60% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. This effect can happen multiple times."
Not that that invalidates using it, just thought I'd point it out.
I tried a build a couple months ago with Essence Burn, Fire Storm, Backlash, and Fire Ally along with the Sankis axe and wasn't that impressed. Granted, my Monk is pretty poorly geared to begin with, but maybe with the upcoming buffs to Legendaries it'll work a little better.
It sounds like a nice idea. I surely wouldn't mind this.
However, I think the current set bonus ideas are somewhat okay; no one is forced to use the entire set, it's mostly some class-relevant stuff and really depends on your build (!). It's nice that many different classes combine 2-3 pieces of different sets with other legendaries or rares, and no one is stuck to "omfg I need my class set so bad", like in the early stages of, WoW where it was always about getting the full 8/8 class set. I actually feel that the overall idea of set bonuses is implemented quite successfully.
I don't necessarily disagree, but this idea isn't really about "fixing" sets (as I generally agree that they're in a decent place as they are), but rather about providing build diversity through sets.
I don't consider myself on the cutting edge of D3 trends, but it seems to me that a huge amount of players complete one or two 2-piece bonuses in their gear and from there the number of players putting together sets drops dramatically for each additional piece in the set, because the Legendaries and Rares just provide more value than the higher bonus tiers on sets. Now, I don't think that equipping Legendaries or Rares over Sets is a problem per se, but the fact that there's increasingly less incentive to equip a set piece the more of that set you've already completed obviously comes down to the comparison between the set item and bonus vs. the bonuses on another item and sets right now seem to lose that decision more often than not.
We could put AS/CHC/CHD on every set item and then Witching Hour, Lacunis, and Mempos wouldn't be BiS for practically everybody like they are now, but that isn't an interesting solution and doesn't address the issue of build diversity. That's what this idea is attempting to accomplish. I don't think sets should be the only choice (like they were in WoW), but they should be a viable choice 100% of the time, should you choose to use them, and they should provide the opportunity to expand build diversity.
Set bonuses are unique in D3 in that they're pretty much the only (IMO) thing that could be subject to a huge overhaul like this without dramatically affecting the fundamental item game as it stands now.
With all the discussion surrounding itemization recently, I thought I'd pop in and share an idea I'd had regarding set bonuses. Imagine if equipping multiple pieces of a set gave you, instead of a single pre-determined set bonus, a choice of maybe 3-5 bonuses (still pre-determined) that you could choose from to be your active set bonus. These could be both general bonuses and bonuses specific to the set's intended class. Let's take the Zuni 2-piece bonus for example:
Zunimassa's Whispers
(2) Set:
+130 Intelligence (the current bonus)
+50 Resistance to All Elements
Poison skills deal 10% more damage
Increases the number of toads summoned by Plague of Toads and increases the radius of Rain of Toads
5% Chance to Fear on Hit
These are obviously just examples to illustrate the point and not necessarily meant to be "balanced" (that's not my job!). Higher bonus tiers could provide increasingly powerful bonuses (something that I feel is lacking from many current sets, where the 2-piece bonus is frequently as good as or better than the higher bonuses), which would help to incentivize players to actually complete sets or make a choice between the potential bonuses and another item, without decentivizing players from equipping a couple pieces of another class's set.
As you can see in my Zuni example, this could also incorporate a variety of interesting skill effects that aren't available anywhere else in the game. This would allow Blizzard to vastly increase build diversity through the item game without having to add a ton of new items or fundamentally change existing items themselves (i.e. the base items of the sets). What if Tal's set had the option to increase the number of active Hydras by 1 on each bonus tier? Would a Hydra-centric build become viable with 4 active at once?
You could change your chosen set bonuses at any time and this would act as another good gold sink. I'd think maybe something around 1mil gold each time; not back-breaking for most players at this point, but significant enough to cause you to consider whether or not you really want to change.
What do you think of the idea? Is there anything you'd add or change? What would be some ideas for cool, unique set bonuses?
I guess everybody just blindly assumes Manticore is the best? None of those items are super high-end rolls, but let's actually look at the numbers, since all claims here are that Manticore is best for crit damage (according to the build he linked, he's not using Archery):
Manticore
81% (Bow)
70% (Gem) 151% CD
Hand XBows
60% + 51% = 111% (Bows)
70% + 70% = 140% (Gems - assuming the same quality gems in his xbows as is in his Manticore) 251% CD
So, basically, if you use your Hand Xbows over Manticore, you gain 100% CD (or 50% CD and 10% Crit Chance if you were to pick up Archery), 841 LoH, and a good bit of attack speed. The crit chance from Archery could be made up by your quiver, but you're not getting CD or LoH on a quiver, so it seems to me that your Hand Xbows are always going to be better. (Granted, I'm no expert...if you're really curious for the "correct" answer, I'd recommend finding a good DPS calc and plugging everything in there.)
Perfect +Damage (whether physical or elemental): 400 - 533
Perfect %Damage: 50%
Equals:
1588 - 1891 (1566 DPS @ 0.9 APS)
Of course, DPS can be increased further with an attack speed roll, but the weapon damage (which is what we'd be looking at for cooldown-based skills) will stay the same. (For reference, all 2H weapons with these perfect rolls are +/- 10 DPS of the hammer.) Add on to that a possible:
595 main stat + 255 Vit (2 affixes)
200% crit damage
Socket/LoH/LL/more Vit/whatever you like for your 6th attribute.
Some people are already discussing Topazes above, but the move away from MF on gear in the future has me wondering what Topaz will do in helms...
Also, I have to say I'm not crazy about the Paragon Levels portrait graphics thing. Isn't this the exact kind of thing they told us we'd be getting for our banner? Why invent some new portrait thing that lots of people are never going to see (most people are still playing single-player) instead of giving us something cool to customize our banners (which we see every time we log in)? I realize it's a small matter, but I wonder if they just forgot about banners...?
I'm assuming this refers to non-weapon offhands, so I haven't included it in the following calculations. If it can occur on shields, the 17% would outweigh the 15% dual-wield bonus, along with the considerable defensive benefits, and would probably be the better option.
Armor
This means that the maximum IAS from gear is (17*5)=85%.
I've done a little more digging over at D3Inferno and it would appear that my numbers above aren't exactly correct. From what I can tell, there are actually two separate means for increasing your attack speed:
Attack Speed %
+17% - Occurs on Amulet, Gloves, Ring (x2)
+13% - Occurs on Offhand, Armor
"Armor" includes Boots, Bracer, Gloves, Pants, Shoulder, Belt, Chest, and Helm
"Offhand" includes WD Mojo, Wizard Source, DH Quiver, and Shields
+25% - Occurs on Weapons
Flat +APS
+0.25 APS - Occurs on Weapons
+0.15 APS - Occurs on Amulet, Ring (x2)
If this information is correct (which might be a bit of an assumption; we'll have to wait and see) we could get up to 184% IAS and +0.7 APS from gear alone.
There are a couple ways this could work, I think:
Bonuses on the weapon affect it before the bonuses on other gear
In this case, we'd be looking at ((1.4*1.25)+0.25)=2 APS
Then, adding in the rest of your gear, ((2*2.59)+0.45)=5.63 APS
Finally, the IAS from skills: (15[Dual Wield]+15[Blazing Fists]+8[Transgression]+3[Focused Mind])=41%
5.63*1.41=7.938 APS
All attack speed bonuses are applied at the same time
Gear: ((1.4*2.84)+0.7)=4.676
Skills: 4.676*1.41=6.593 APS
I dunno...that seems really high, especially in the first scenario. However, it does require 13 pieces of perfectly rolled gear, so it's not exactly easy to attain at any rate. Food for thought...
Just for fun, if 7.938 APS is accurate (I have my doubts), then Faith in the Light's 30% Holy Damage per attack for 3 seconds would equate to
7.938*3*30*1.15(assuming Blazing Wrath buff from BoH is active as well)=821.614 %WD. O.o
This is my favorite Monk build that I've come up with or seen from others so far. It focuses on increasing attack speed as much as possible. Here's the build: http://us.battle.net...YiXS!YZX!ZaccbZ
Way of the Hundred Fists: Blazing Fists
This is obviously the core of the build. Decent damage at 140% and crits increase your attack speed by up to 15%.
Lashing Tail Kick: Vulture Claw Kick
This is the only "spammable" Spirit spender that I really like, and the rune changes it to a 360-degree PBAoE and bumps the damage up a little bit. Not too bad.
Blinding Flash: Faith in the Light
A pretty decent defensive cooldown, but the rune effect is great for this build, as it really synergizes with the IAS we'll be stacking. With maximum possible IAS, this defensive cooldown turns into an ability that will cause well over 300% weapon damage.
Sweeping Wind: Cyclone
Sweeping Wind is a cool "set and forget" type of ability that will hopefully be fairly easy to keep going constantly with this build's high attack speed. I'm not really sure how useful Cyclone will be, but since this build will need a decent amount of crit chance as well, it seems like a cool option. Inner Storm is a good alternative if Cyclone turns out to not be great.
Breath of Heaven: Blazing Wrath
Like Blinding Flash, this is another good defensive cooldown with an offensive upside from the rune.
Mantra of Retribution: Transgression
The key to choosing this Mantra is the Transgression rune, which ties into the build theme with an additional 8% IAS (that also extends to any party members - I like to think it'll make us popular with our Frenzy Barb friends!). It's certainly possible that Conviction could be better for this build, but I'm sticking with the theme for now.
Passives Transcendence: A nice bit of healing when using Spirit spending abilities. Resolve: Should be no problem to keep all the monsters around me debuffed at all times thanks to Sweeping Wind. Seize the Initiative: More defensive utility from increasing offensive power. 'Nuff said.
This build will likely be highly gear dependent to be fully utilized, since we'll need to stack as much IAS as possible and keep a crit chance of at least ~20% to make sure the Blazing Fists buff doesn't fall off. According to the game files, the max haste bonus is 17% and can occur on 5 item types:
Amulet
Gloves
Rings (x2)
Offhand
I'm assuming this refers to non-weapon offhands, so I haven't included it in the following calculations. If it can occur on shields, the 17% would outweigh the 15% dual-wield bonus, along with the considerable defensive benefits, and would probably be the better option.
Armor
This means that the maximum IAS from gear is (17*5)=85%. So our IAS situation looks about like this:
Solo Play
15% - Dual wield bonus
15% - Blazing Fists
8% - Transgression
85% - Gear
3% - Focused Mind (Enchantress) 126% total
Group Play
20% - Big Bad Voodoo (WD)
10% - Stretch Time (Wizard) Up to 153% total
(If I'm forgetting any others, let me know!)
According to Blizzard's game guide, all high-end fist weapons have a 1.4 attack speed, so using that as our base, we can get up to (1.4*2.26)=3.164 attacks per second in solo play and as much as (1.4*2.53)=3.542 with the correct group.
I might come back and crunch some more skill-specific numbers tomorrow, but it's getting to be about bedtime...in the meantime, what do you all think? I'd love to hear any feedback!
Well we can't know for sure, but based on precedent from WoW, taunts don't have any effect in PvP - nor should they. Unfortunately, human players have this pesky free will and I don't know of a way you could force a taunt on a player without completely removing their control of the character. In either case, Earth Ally is still a decent choice for PvP for the Life bonus. Also, I don't think Retaliation will reflect spell damage, so it will be useful against DH, but not so much Wiz/WD.
Beacon of Ytar reduces the CD on BoH by 2.25 seconds and Serenity by 3 seconds. Obviously it's up to you, but I think you could find a better use for that passive slot.
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Sure there is.
- The third change is that we've removed the innate bonuses granted by Paragon levels, and players will now earn Paragon Points every time they level up. These points can then be spent to boost up various stats in four different categories: Core Stats, Offensive, Defensive, and Adventure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7WAy8ENJ2Y
Might be a good argument for Maximus over Sankis...
- Rend
- Impale - Chemical Burn
- Exploding Palm
- Hex - Painful Transformation
- Spectral Blade - Deep Cuts
Bleeds are also available as an affix on weapons, such as that on Skorn. As things stand now, I'd say that only Rend and EP are used with any frequency and the damage from the weapon affix is generally considered negligible. How might bleeds become a viable source of damage then? I'll explore the question in terms of both skills and gear.Skills
I think if I want to make bleed builds viable, there needs to be more than one source of bleed damage for any given class. Some skills could be slightly altered to change from "deals damage over time" to "causes the target to bleed." I'll get to why I think there should be a distinction between the two and why it's important shortly. For now, a couple examples might include:
- Grenades - Gas Grenades (change to "Shrapnel" or similar)
- Entangling Shot - Shock Collar (becomes "Barbed Wire")
- Way of the Hundred Fists - Fists of Fury
More importantly, I think replacing many underused/undesirable rune effects with some kind of bleed would help with this idea:- Any of the Barb's three Primary skills could be fair game to add a bleed rune effect, as could Ancient Spear, Whirlwind, or Weapon Throw.
- Demon Hunter's Chakram, Caltrops, FoK, and Spike Trap would all be obvious candidates I think
- Monk: Crippling Wave and Tempest Rush (at least)
- WD: Poison Dart, Corpse Spiders, Locust Swarm, Zombie Dogs, Sacrifice, Spirit Barrage, Gargantuan
- Wizard: Frost Nova(?), Wave of Force, Magic Weapon, Familiar, Explosive Blast, Mirror Image
Passives could get in on the fun too. Here you'll see why I think bleed damage should be differentiated from other standard damage-over-time skills. I'm sure there's a few from each class that could possibly benefit, but I'll stick to one example for each:- Pound of Flesh - Add a flat increase to bleed damage to the skill, or increase bleed damage when you pick up a health globe, similar to the Gruesome Feast mechanic
- Numbing Traps - Add "The movement speed of enemies affected by bleeds is reduced by x%"
- Each time you deal damage with a bleed effect, you have a chance to gain 1 Spirit (not sure which passive I'd add this to; maybe just replace one of the plethora of useless Monk passives instead?)
- Blood Ritual - Instead of regenerating 1% of your health per second, "gain life equal to x% (~15%?) of bleed damage dealt"
- Add bleed tick functionality to Arcane Dynamo (at a reduced chance to gain a stack)
I feel like these changes would give players of all classes good options to build their characters around bleeds, should they so desire. But I still don't think we'd be competitive with today's standard cookie cutter builds. That's where the gear comes in to help.Gear
Since bleeds deal damage on set intervals and can't crit, they won't benefit from CHC/CD/AS, which most current end-game builds rely heavily upon. Average Damage would be a poweful addition to a bleeder's arsenal, but I think we'll need more to be competitive with crit builds.
I'm unclear on how weapon affix bleeds work, but I think they just deal their damage as advertised (e.g. 6339 - 9562 over 5 seconds), which is clearly not worth it. I think the best solution would be to change it to a percent of the damage caused by the strike that triggered the bleed. Otherwise, it could be changed from flat damage to a percent of weapon damage and/or increased by main stat damage bonus. Either way, weapon affix bleeds need to be more desirable.
I think the only way that a bleed build would be able to truly compete with a crit build would be to add mechanics to the game that benefit bleeds. This could come in the form of both legendaries and set bonuses, and this section will borrow heavily from my ideas on set bonuses that you can read about here (and isn't as long as this post). Some of my ideas for unique mechanics that bleeders would rely on for their damage:
- When an enemy is affected by a bleed, the damage of any subsequent bleeds applied is increased by x%; OR
- Enemies take x% additional damage from all attacks for each bleed effect active on them
- Bleed damage ticks benefit from x% of your Life on Hit
- Each time an enemy suffers reflected damage, there is a chance that it will begin bleeding for x% of the damage received over y seconds
I especially like the last idea, beacuse it opens up another realm of builds concentrating on thorns damage and/or reflective skills, such as:- Overpower - Crushing Advance, Ignore Pain - Contempt for Weakness, Tough as Nails
- Fan of Knives - Retaliate
- Mantra of Retribution, Serenity - Instant Karma
- Fierce Loyalty
- Diamond Skin - Mirror Skin, Storm Armor - Reactive Armor, Ice Armor - Jagged Ice/Ice Reflect
I realize not all of these necessarily make a viable build, but I think some could.I believe that a more passive, DoT-based gameplay is definitely missing from D3, and while it seems it's not the "ideal" strategy from the devs' point of view, I think many players enjoy this playstyle and it's certainly not without precedent in the Diablo franchise, as any former Poisonmancer can attest to. What do you think about the idea? Would you like to see DoT builds become more viable? Do you think that even with the changes outlined here bleed builds would be able to compete with crit builds? Post your thoughts and suggestions!
Keep in mind that - unless I'm misunderstanding the description - Essence Burn deals its explosion damage based on weapon damage, not monster HP like all other EP runes:
Not that that invalidates using it, just thought I'd point it out.
I tried a build a couple months ago with Essence Burn, Fire Storm, Backlash, and Fire Ally along with the Sankis axe and wasn't that impressed. Granted, my Monk is pretty poorly geared to begin with, but maybe with the upcoming buffs to Legendaries it'll work a little better.
I don't necessarily disagree, but this idea isn't really about "fixing" sets (as I generally agree that they're in a decent place as they are), but rather about providing build diversity through sets.
I don't consider myself on the cutting edge of D3 trends, but it seems to me that a huge amount of players complete one or two 2-piece bonuses in their gear and from there the number of players putting together sets drops dramatically for each additional piece in the set, because the Legendaries and Rares just provide more value than the higher bonus tiers on sets. Now, I don't think that equipping Legendaries or Rares over Sets is a problem per se, but the fact that there's increasingly less incentive to equip a set piece the more of that set you've already completed obviously comes down to the comparison between the set item and bonus vs. the bonuses on another item and sets right now seem to lose that decision more often than not.
We could put AS/CHC/CHD on every set item and then Witching Hour, Lacunis, and Mempos wouldn't be BiS for practically everybody like they are now, but that isn't an interesting solution and doesn't address the issue of build diversity. That's what this idea is attempting to accomplish. I don't think sets should be the only choice (like they were in WoW), but they should be a viable choice 100% of the time, should you choose to use them, and they should provide the opportunity to expand build diversity.
Set bonuses are unique in D3 in that they're pretty much the only (IMO) thing that could be subject to a huge overhaul like this without dramatically affecting the fundamental item game as it stands now.
Zunimassa's Whispers
(2) Set:
These are obviously just examples to illustrate the point and not necessarily meant to be "balanced" (that's not my job!). Higher bonus tiers could provide increasingly powerful bonuses (something that I feel is lacking from many current sets, where the 2-piece bonus is frequently as good as or better than the higher bonuses), which would help to incentivize players to actually complete sets or make a choice between the potential bonuses and another item, without decentivizing players from equipping a couple pieces of another class's set.
As you can see in my Zuni example, this could also incorporate a variety of interesting skill effects that aren't available anywhere else in the game. This would allow Blizzard to vastly increase build diversity through the item game without having to add a ton of new items or fundamentally change existing items themselves (i.e. the base items of the sets). What if Tal's set had the option to increase the number of active Hydras by 1 on each bonus tier? Would a Hydra-centric build become viable with 4 active at once?
You could change your chosen set bonuses at any time and this would act as another good gold sink. I'd think maybe something around 1mil gold each time; not back-breaking for most players at this point, but significant enough to cause you to consider whether or not you really want to change.
What do you think of the idea? Is there anything you'd add or change? What would be some ideas for cool, unique set bonuses?
Manticore
81% (Bow)
70% (Gem)
151% CD
Hand XBows
60% + 51% = 111% (Bows)
70% + 70% = 140% (Gems - assuming the same quality gems in his xbows as is in his Manticore)
251% CD
So, basically, if you use your Hand Xbows over Manticore, you gain 100% CD (or 50% CD and 10% Crit Chance if you were to pick up Archery), 841 LoH, and a good bit of attack speed. The crit chance from Archery could be made up by your quiver, but you're not getting CD or LoH on a quiver, so it seems to me that your Hand Xbows are always going to be better. (Granted, I'm no expert...if you're really curious for the "correct" answer, I'd recommend finding a good DPS calc and plugging everything in there.)
- Perfectly rolled Doom Hammer: 659 - 728
- Perfect +Damage (whether physical or elemental): 400 - 533
- Perfect %Damage: 50%
Equals:- 1588 - 1891 (1566 DPS @ 0.9 APS)
Of course, DPS can be increased further with an attack speed roll, but the weapon damage (which is what we'd be looking at for cooldown-based skills) will stay the same. (For reference, all 2H weapons with these perfect rolls are +/- 10 DPS of the hammer.) Add on to that a possible:Also, I have to say I'm not crazy about the Paragon Levels portrait graphics thing. Isn't this the exact kind of thing they told us we'd be getting for our banner? Why invent some new portrait thing that lots of people are never going to see (most people are still playing single-player) instead of giving us something cool to customize our banners (which we see every time we log in)? I realize it's a small matter, but I wonder if they just forgot about banners...?
I've done a little more digging over at D3Inferno and it would appear that my numbers above aren't exactly correct. From what I can tell, there are actually two separate means for increasing your attack speed:
Attack Speed %
+17% - Occurs on Amulet, Gloves, Ring (x2)
+13% - Occurs on Offhand, Armor
+25% - Occurs on Weapons
Flat +APS
+0.25 APS - Occurs on Weapons
+0.15 APS - Occurs on Amulet, Ring (x2)
If this information is correct (which might be a bit of an assumption; we'll have to wait and see) we could get up to 184% IAS and +0.7 APS from gear alone.
There are a couple ways this could work, I think:
Bonuses on the weapon affect it before the bonuses on other gear
In this case, we'd be looking at ((1.4*1.25)+0.25)=2 APS
Then, adding in the rest of your gear, ((2*2.59)+0.45)=5.63 APS
Finally, the IAS from skills: (15[Dual Wield]+15[Blazing Fists]+8[Transgression]+3[Focused Mind])=41%
All attack speed bonuses are applied at the same time
Gear: ((1.4*2.84)+0.7)=4.676
Skills: 4.676*1.41=6.593 APS
I dunno...that seems really high, especially in the first scenario. However, it does require 13 pieces of perfectly rolled gear, so it's not exactly easy to attain at any rate. Food for thought...
Just for fun, if 7.938 APS is accurate (I have my doubts), then Faith in the Light's 30% Holy Damage per attack for 3 seconds would equate to
Way of the Hundred Fists: Blazing Fists
This is obviously the core of the build. Decent damage at 140% and crits increase your attack speed by up to 15%.
Lashing Tail Kick: Vulture Claw Kick
This is the only "spammable" Spirit spender that I really like, and the rune changes it to a 360-degree PBAoE and bumps the damage up a little bit. Not too bad.
Blinding Flash: Faith in the Light
A pretty decent defensive cooldown, but the rune effect is great for this build, as it really synergizes with the IAS we'll be stacking. With maximum possible IAS, this defensive cooldown turns into an ability that will cause well over 300% weapon damage.
Sweeping Wind: Cyclone
Sweeping Wind is a cool "set and forget" type of ability that will hopefully be fairly easy to keep going constantly with this build's high attack speed. I'm not really sure how useful Cyclone will be, but since this build will need a decent amount of crit chance as well, it seems like a cool option. Inner Storm is a good alternative if Cyclone turns out to not be great.
Breath of Heaven: Blazing Wrath
Like Blinding Flash, this is another good defensive cooldown with an offensive upside from the rune.
Mantra of Retribution: Transgression
The key to choosing this Mantra is the Transgression rune, which ties into the build theme with an additional 8% IAS (that also extends to any party members - I like to think it'll make us popular with our Frenzy Barb friends!). It's certainly possible that Conviction could be better for this build, but I'm sticking with the theme for now.
Passives
Transcendence: A nice bit of healing when using Spirit spending abilities.
Resolve: Should be no problem to keep all the monsters around me debuffed at all times thanks to Sweeping Wind.
Seize the Initiative: More defensive utility from increasing offensive power. 'Nuff said.
This build will likely be highly gear dependent to be fully utilized, since we'll need to stack as much IAS as possible and keep a crit chance of at least ~20% to make sure the Blazing Fists buff doesn't fall off. According to the game files, the max haste bonus is 17% and can occur on 5 item types:
- Amulet
- Gloves
- Rings (x2)
- Offhand
- I'm assuming this refers to non-weapon offhands, so I haven't included it in the following calculations. If it can occur on shields, the 17% would outweigh the 15% dual-wield bonus, along with the considerable defensive benefits, and would probably be the better option.
- Armor
This means that the maximum IAS from gear is (17*5)=85%. So our IAS situation looks about like this:Solo Play
15% - Dual wield bonus
15% - Blazing Fists
8% - Transgression
85% - Gear
3% - Focused Mind (Enchantress)
126% total
Group Play
20% - Big Bad Voodoo (WD)
10% - Stretch Time (Wizard)
Up to 153% total
(If I'm forgetting any others, let me know!)
According to Blizzard's game guide, all high-end fist weapons have a 1.4 attack speed, so using that as our base, we can get up to (1.4*2.26)=3.164 attacks per second in solo play and as much as (1.4*2.53)=3.542 with the correct group.
I might come back and crunch some more skill-specific numbers tomorrow, but it's getting to be about bedtime...in the meantime, what do you all think? I'd love to hear any feedback!
Beacon of Ytar reduces the CD on BoH by 2.25 seconds and Serenity by 3 seconds. Obviously it's up to you, but I think you could find a better use for that passive slot.