Playing 1hand with crusader is blasphemy. I am myself diasppointed by that fact but thats the way it is...Darklight may be nice (called "Firestarter" build you can find it in the build section) but its actually not worth it past T6. You can play everything and melt T6, but when you want to go past that point there are only few options... and none is fire.
The fact that myself and a handful of other players are clearing GR35-37 as fire begs to differ. Sure its not as powerful as the pony cheese, but its engaging and fun, and certainly somewhat viable.
I agree with Shiroiro on this. However, if you have a nice fire set you can still excel if you replace Darklight with Maximus. I've cleared GR37 with it so it is viable (although considerably harder to play than the cheesy pony spam spec).
Agreed that Hellskull is stronger, say you have 20% Holy damage on SOJ/Reapers/Amulet you are at 160% holy damage. If you add 20% from Hallowed you are at 180% holy damage. Comparing that to 10% from Hellskull which is 176% holy damage. Practically the same, and as mentioned you can benefit from CDR, %HF damage which can easily surpass Hallowed.
Also, you gain 1 extra primary using Hellskull over Hallowed, as Hellskull 10% damage is a secondary and the 20% holy damage from Hallowed is a primary.
As Rimeheart is a 1-hander Hellskull is not so useful.
I also have these items and have tried out a very similar spec. I found my Rimeheart and Freeze of Deflection within an hour of each other and was naturally excited to try to create a build around them. I assume part of the goal of your build is to keep enemies frozen and then proc the Rimeheart to actually damage them. Unfortunately, icebound hammer has a proc coefficient of 0.10.http://www.d3maxstats.com/?p=procrates&class=crus This means that only 1% of hits from these hammers are going to proc the Rimeheart damage.
You may want to try it out with an AE skill with a high proc coeff skill like Justice Burst, but then of course the ability you are spamming is now fire based and the non-proc damage does not benefit from your cold setup. I'd suggest using your Rimeheart on a wizard in 2.1 instead personally, Crusaders just don't have a great setup to use it at the moment (and probably never since they are removing Cold from our smart loot).
Try combining Maximus Demon with either Laws of Valor Frozen in Terror or Shield Glare. CCing mobs and then ripping into them with the fire chain works wonders, and these tactics will only become stronger when combined with Bane of the Trapped gem.
Mannercookie is an amazing player who has great videos, but I think it is a problem when people around here just say "that's the best, use that" or "Maximus sucks" because he said so without testing each weapon out for themselves (which does matter based on how each player interacts with the game). I agree with the statement that the weapons are comparable, I have also extensively tested both with over 500 hours on my crusader which I've been playing exclusively since RoS came out and have been fire specced since back when using Blazing Sweep was all the rage lol.
RD as a fellow tester of setups you may be interested in some of the single target parses I tested in PTR recently below. Test was on Azmodan with FoH/Law of Valor/Steed/Arakats standard across all specs, the 2 skills listed were the flex skills for the test:
PTR 29, 27, 30, 28, 20, 16, 20, 25, 22, 27, 19, 19, 21, 28, 25, 30 (I tested this one a few more times than the rest as tests 1-5 seemed a ton longer than 6-10 so I wanted to make sure I wasn't just sucking when I did the first few runs)
Mean 24.1 (SD 4.5)
I'm not arguing that Darklight is not strong, I'm arguing Maximus is. That 2:48 clear also has insane density, he is at 30% before the portal even leaves his minimap.
Updated, made some improvements since I posted this. Finally able to gain enough defenses to comfortably hang out in T6 and also switch to Firestarter awhile back which was a big DPS boost.
I do enjoy the game, and I play most of the play styles mentioned. I don't think that point is mutually exclusive to wanting a more balanced reward structure while choosing different styles of play!
These just my opinions on how to improve what I already consider an awesome game that I play on a daily basis. I wrote this because I consider the ideas I presented as possible options to improve the game and at least create a dialog about these ideas. If people don't like some, or all, of them, that's fine, but I've spent a ton of my life since ROS has been released playing this game and I felt the areas I discussed were ways it could be improved.
There's been quite a bit of discussion here and at the bnet forums about the pros and cons of the RIF system. I don't see these types of runs as that dissimilar to old school Baal exp runs in D2.
This is a touchy subject with a lot of people, so let me say off the bat I in no way advocate nerfing the system of RIF for people who want to use it as a targeted way to effectively play the game just by gambling.
There are pros and cons to this type of system, the pros being an (and the only) easy and accessible way to quickly upgrade a particular slot of your gear.
I enjoy RIF as an occasional play style, specifically if I am not as interested in just seeing what type of items the slot machine pumps out and instead I just really want a specific item quickly. However, I think overall the discrepancy between being a rift runner and leecher is a bit too high in favor of leeching at the moment. I don't think this should be addressed by nerfing the leeching component, I think it should be addressed by buffing the runner component.
When I am a rift runner, I typically clear T6 rifts. There are benefits to actually running the dungeon, in that you find all sorts of gear while doing so - this is slightly counterbalanced by the fact that rift leechers also tend to find quite a few legendaries off the boss kills as well. You also gain experience and paragon levels while running the rifts, but arguably when people can hop in to multiple T4-T6 rifts at the end boss and receive the 40-60mil experience reward multiple times during the 9-12 minutes it takes me to clear a T6 rift they can actually get equal if not better xp/hr leeching compared to running. I do not have a good solution for this that makes both sides of the argument happy so I won't be focusing on the experience aspect of runner vs. leecher in this thread.
I would suggest a system that awards players for actually progressing through the rifts themselves. For example, when the red bar hits 10%, 20%, etc it flashes to indicate progress. Potentially when this happens, a very mild buff that increases blood shard generation from the boss by 5% and experience gained by 1% be applied every time. This would help balance the fact that running the rifts is not nearly as efficient as leeching from them.
RIF could actually be built in to the game engine itself, so when you choose to play it offers you an automated system of finding RIF groups, checks your shard count if you join as a leecher, and automatically forces you to reopen so people cannot leave.
Regarding rift content, I think some work can be done to improve upon the actual experience. Having the exact same goal of "fill up the red bar" over and over is a bit mundane to say the least. Having a few different types of goals I think would greatly help increase the monotony of this. For example, have an ancient sword / shield / breastplate randomly drop from mobs throughout the rift as you clear them and tune it so that the average kills to acquire these items were about the same as filling up the red bar. Once all 3 items are acquired you combine them to spawn the boss.
Another idea would be similar to the goblin packs (which are awesome), have pre-determined sets of "mob armies" spawn randomly throughout rifts. One example would be an army with lines of wretched mothers with the front line having smaller versions and like 20 of them, and 5-6 lines of them with less, but bigger and harder wretched mothers in the back of the army.
Another idea would be having mini-bosses that spawn (with no indicator as to how to spawn them so they would not be exploited) as to prior to the rift guardian spawn and a certain number of miniboss kills would spawn the guardian. These are just ideas I thought up off the top of my head, trying to come up with ones that would not be commonly exploited compared to something like "seek out these 3 switches and hit them to spawn the rift guardian" which would cause people to just sprint straight through to them.
Regarding playing through the plot, I very much like of the idea that every time you reset quests the final boss will guarantee a legendary. I think this should be expanded to all bosses in all acts and that they should drop enough legendaries to make it a viable option for playing and gear/hr. I believe even if all bosses in the plot drop 1 legendary it still won't even be equal to spending the same amount of time in rifts instead. Obviously Blizzard is the one who probably has the most accurate numbers on average leg/hr doing whatever play mode so I think adding enough guaranteed legendaries to act bosses to at least make it an option worth considering would help in ensuring no particular game style dominants the field. Giving us more options as players is always a good thing in my opinion.
With the Hellfire ring, my suggestion would be to change all existing RROG to Hellfire's and allow future Hellfire rings to roll with the same stat. This would eliminate the issue of redundant items with the same stat. I also think key/organ drop rates need to progress up to 100% at T6. The new hellfire system has obviously been a huge failure, and couple this with the fact that people have to do large amounts of split bounties to gain RROGs I think you could kill two birds with one stone with this method. I used to very much enjoy farming MP10 keys / organs and crafting rings but now if its not RROG / SOJ / Unity it is pretty much not used.
Halycon amulet- ok its cute, people are fans of that artist and its a cool tribute. Its stats are garbage (I have a perfect one and its still garbage) and it has a high drop chance out of the amulet pool: If I'm supposed to be excited when I see a legendary drop, it certainly is never the case when I see the mouse shaped amulet.
Other items that have static stats that guarantee they will never be used ever: Blackthorne's amulet also comes to mind here, what's the point of this in the game, it drastically limits choices?
Blackthorne's: This is actually a descent starter set, but I get SOO excited when I see a set chest/legs etc drop only to find out its like my 1000th Blackthorne's piece. I think Torment only sets should have a new color associated with them so the game stops trolling us all with Blackthorne's.
Higher Torment Bounties: These seem worthless, my wife and I do 5-6 T5 bounties daily and I do not see a drastic benefit over T2...or even normal. I think drop rates across the board for higher torment bounties, specifically 4-6, need to be buffed to account for the fact that people run split bounties on lower tiers but cannot effectively split at higher torment levels. Should being able to farm something in the way the game was originally intended and at the hardest difficulty actually hinder you? It's not like actually finding the RROG is the end of the search: it rolls with main stat/AS/life on hit so it only has one variable stat. I'm on my 10th RROG, and farming thousands of split bounties because its the most efficient way to find this ring is a bit tiresome.
Lastly, solo play. I remember when the game released how it was completely pointless to play with other people. Blizzard did an amazing job of fixing this problem, but I think they went way too far. I love grouping with others, but I also love playing solo. I don't feel like MFing solo is even remotely as efficient as group play, which I think is a bit unfair to anyone anytime they do want to play solo. Sometimes, you want to be able to pause the game at will and play the game on your own pace (typically the groups I run T6 with run !@#$%^- fast and its practically a sprint to the finish line, then a reset and go again). If you look at say group play to solo play, the mobs only have 150% more HP so 2.5x total even though there are 4 players, player abilities synergize universally making killing a ton faster, and you gain 30% more drops form the party buff. While great, this is over killed to the point where you've effectively removed solo play as a viable way of obtaining gear at near the same level.
A long time ago, and many times since then, Blizzard has stated that it wants the players of this game to have plenty of options as to how they want to play the game. Well don't nerf anything, bring the efficacy of the underrepresented play styles (solo play, playing through the plot, higher torment bounties, running rifts compared to leeching them) up to the level where they are at lease somewhat competitive with the alternative "efficient" options. I'm not saying make them all equal, but at least closer.
All in all, I'm really happy with the direction the game has gone in since 2.0 and ROS went live, and I hope the game continues to improve.
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Also, you gain 1 extra primary using Hellskull over Hallowed, as Hellskull 10% damage is a secondary and the 20% holy damage from Hallowed is a primary.
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I also have these items and have tried out a very similar spec. I found my Rimeheart and Freeze of Deflection within an hour of each other and was naturally excited to try to create a build around them. I assume part of the goal of your build is to keep enemies frozen and then proc the Rimeheart to actually damage them. Unfortunately, icebound hammer has a proc coefficient of 0.10.http://www.d3maxstats.com/?p=procrates&class=crus This means that only 1% of hits from these hammers are going to proc the Rimeheart damage.
You may want to try it out with an AE skill with a high proc coeff skill like Justice Burst, but then of course the ability you are spamming is now fire based and the non-proc damage does not benefit from your cold setup. I'd suggest using your Rimeheart on a wizard in 2.1 instead personally, Crusaders just don't have a great setup to use it at the moment (and probably never since they are removing Cold from our smart loot).
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http://imgur.com/HYfk9MI
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RD as a fellow tester of setups you may be interested in some of the single target parses I tested in PTR recently below. Test was on Azmodan with FoH/Law of Valor/Steed/Arakats standard across all specs, the 2 skills listed were the flex skills for the test:
Provoke - Charged Up/ Consecration- Shattered Ground
PTR 29, 27, 30, 28, 20, 16, 20, 25, 22, 27, 19, 19, 21, 28, 25, 30 (I tested this one a few more times than the rest as tests 1-5 seemed a ton longer than 6-10 so I wanted to make sure I wasn't just sucking when I did the first few runs)
Mean 24.1 (SD 4.5)
Falling Sword-Superheated / Consecration- Shattered Ground
PTR 20, 24, 19, 26, 19, 19, 20, 20, 19
Mean 20.7 (SD 2.5)
Bombard-Annihilation / Consecration- Shattered Ground
PTR 20, 18, 21, 19, 26, 20, 24, 20, 28
Mean 21.8 (SD 3.4)
Bombard-Annihilation / Falling Sword-Superheated
PTR 20, 26, 20, 19, 29, 30, 27, 20, 25, 19
Mean 23.5 (SD 4.4)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Lytic-1611/hero/43964461
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Been trying to tell people that Maximus is a badass weapon around here. Clearly you've shown it without question :).
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These just my opinions on how to improve what I already consider an awesome game that I play on a daily basis. I wrote this because I consider the ideas I presented as possible options to improve the game and at least create a dialog about these ideas. If people don't like some, or all, of them, that's fine, but I've spent a ton of my life since ROS has been released playing this game and I felt the areas I discussed were ways it could be improved.
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This is a touchy subject with a lot of people, so let me say off the bat I in no way advocate nerfing the system of RIF for people who want to use it as a targeted way to effectively play the game just by gambling.
There are pros and cons to this type of system, the pros being an (and the only) easy and accessible way to quickly upgrade a particular slot of your gear.
I enjoy RIF as an occasional play style, specifically if I am not as interested in just seeing what type of items the slot machine pumps out and instead I just really want a specific item quickly. However, I think overall the discrepancy between being a rift runner and leecher is a bit too high in favor of leeching at the moment. I don't think this should be addressed by nerfing the leeching component, I think it should be addressed by buffing the runner component.
When I am a rift runner, I typically clear T6 rifts. There are benefits to actually running the dungeon, in that you find all sorts of gear while doing so - this is slightly counterbalanced by the fact that rift leechers also tend to find quite a few legendaries off the boss kills as well. You also gain experience and paragon levels while running the rifts, but arguably when people can hop in to multiple T4-T6 rifts at the end boss and receive the 40-60mil experience reward multiple times during the 9-12 minutes it takes me to clear a T6 rift they can actually get equal if not better xp/hr leeching compared to running. I do not have a good solution for this that makes both sides of the argument happy so I won't be focusing on the experience aspect of runner vs. leecher in this thread.
I would suggest a system that awards players for actually progressing through the rifts themselves. For example, when the red bar hits 10%, 20%, etc it flashes to indicate progress. Potentially when this happens, a very mild buff that increases blood shard generation from the boss by 5% and experience gained by 1% be applied every time. This would help balance the fact that running the rifts is not nearly as efficient as leeching from them.
RIF could actually be built in to the game engine itself, so when you choose to play it offers you an automated system of finding RIF groups, checks your shard count if you join as a leecher, and automatically forces you to reopen so people cannot leave.
Regarding rift content, I think some work can be done to improve upon the actual experience. Having the exact same goal of "fill up the red bar" over and over is a bit mundane to say the least. Having a few different types of goals I think would greatly help increase the monotony of this. For example, have an ancient sword / shield / breastplate randomly drop from mobs throughout the rift as you clear them and tune it so that the average kills to acquire these items were about the same as filling up the red bar. Once all 3 items are acquired you combine them to spawn the boss.
Another idea would be similar to the goblin packs (which are awesome), have pre-determined sets of "mob armies" spawn randomly throughout rifts. One example would be an army with lines of wretched mothers with the front line having smaller versions and like 20 of them, and 5-6 lines of them with less, but bigger and harder wretched mothers in the back of the army.
Another idea would be having mini-bosses that spawn (with no indicator as to how to spawn them so they would not be exploited) as to prior to the rift guardian spawn and a certain number of miniboss kills would spawn the guardian. These are just ideas I thought up off the top of my head, trying to come up with ones that would not be commonly exploited compared to something like "seek out these 3 switches and hit them to spawn the rift guardian" which would cause people to just sprint straight through to them.
Regarding playing through the plot, I very much like of the idea that every time you reset quests the final boss will guarantee a legendary. I think this should be expanded to all bosses in all acts and that they should drop enough legendaries to make it a viable option for playing and gear/hr. I believe even if all bosses in the plot drop 1 legendary it still won't even be equal to spending the same amount of time in rifts instead. Obviously Blizzard is the one who probably has the most accurate numbers on average leg/hr doing whatever play mode so I think adding enough guaranteed legendaries to act bosses to at least make it an option worth considering would help in ensuring no particular game style dominants the field. Giving us more options as players is always a good thing in my opinion.
With the Hellfire ring, my suggestion would be to change all existing RROG to Hellfire's and allow future Hellfire rings to roll with the same stat. This would eliminate the issue of redundant items with the same stat. I also think key/organ drop rates need to progress up to 100% at T6. The new hellfire system has obviously been a huge failure, and couple this with the fact that people have to do large amounts of split bounties to gain RROGs I think you could kill two birds with one stone with this method. I used to very much enjoy farming MP10 keys / organs and crafting rings but now if its not RROG / SOJ / Unity it is pretty much not used.
Halycon amulet- ok its cute, people are fans of that artist and its a cool tribute. Its stats are garbage (I have a perfect one and its still garbage) and it has a high drop chance out of the amulet pool: If I'm supposed to be excited when I see a legendary drop, it certainly is never the case when I see the mouse shaped amulet.
Other items that have static stats that guarantee they will never be used ever: Blackthorne's amulet also comes to mind here, what's the point of this in the game, it drastically limits choices?
Blackthorne's: This is actually a descent starter set, but I get SOO excited when I see a set chest/legs etc drop only to find out its like my 1000th Blackthorne's piece. I think Torment only sets should have a new color associated with them so the game stops trolling us all with Blackthorne's.
Higher Torment Bounties: These seem worthless, my wife and I do 5-6 T5 bounties daily and I do not see a drastic benefit over T2...or even normal. I think drop rates across the board for higher torment bounties, specifically 4-6, need to be buffed to account for the fact that people run split bounties on lower tiers but cannot effectively split at higher torment levels. Should being able to farm something in the way the game was originally intended and at the hardest difficulty actually hinder you? It's not like actually finding the RROG is the end of the search: it rolls with main stat/AS/life on hit so it only has one variable stat. I'm on my 10th RROG, and farming thousands of split bounties because its the most efficient way to find this ring is a bit tiresome.
Lastly, solo play. I remember when the game released how it was completely pointless to play with other people. Blizzard did an amazing job of fixing this problem, but I think they went way too far. I love grouping with others, but I also love playing solo. I don't feel like MFing solo is even remotely as efficient as group play, which I think is a bit unfair to anyone anytime they do want to play solo. Sometimes, you want to be able to pause the game at will and play the game on your own pace (typically the groups I run T6 with run !@#$%^- fast and its practically a sprint to the finish line, then a reset and go again). If you look at say group play to solo play, the mobs only have 150% more HP so 2.5x total even though there are 4 players, player abilities synergize universally making killing a ton faster, and you gain 30% more drops form the party buff. While great, this is over killed to the point where you've effectively removed solo play as a viable way of obtaining gear at near the same level.
A long time ago, and many times since then, Blizzard has stated that it wants the players of this game to have plenty of options as to how they want to play the game. Well don't nerf anything, bring the efficacy of the underrepresented play styles (solo play, playing through the plot, higher torment bounties, running rifts compared to leeching them) up to the level where they are at lease somewhat competitive with the alternative "efficient" options. I'm not saying make them all equal, but at least closer.
All in all, I'm really happy with the direction the game has gone in since 2.0 and ROS went live, and I hope the game continues to improve.