I've been toying around with this build in general after it was initially posted.
First I took the OPs approach and stacked very high crit modifiers both crit chance and critical damage where ever I could without a huge hit to int. The build was very fun with direbats and absolutely hilarious with Zombie wall (Pile On).
My character sheet (estimated):
30-33k damage
30% crit
209% crit damage
Direbats were critting for 150K+ virtually. The really fun thing though was Pile On it was criting for 500K and I saw as high as 750K. This skill alone totally obliterated boss packs (minus reflect damage as it would one shot me).
The problem with the build however is it sacrificed almost all my ias. My two handed weapon was staple to getting such a high crit modifier but it was slow and I was a sitting duck for range mobs. This became a huge issue for where I'm farming now... Siegebreaker.
I decided to swap out the (1k dps) two hander with over 100% crit bonus to a blue 1k dps one hander with a 300ish dmg offhand. The result is less then stunning crits but it allows me to control space better leading me to survive easier. Right now I'm running with the cookie cutter splinter build with Direbats instead of splinters and Vision Quest. The build is very good for farming. Some stated having issues over splinters, but I think splinters sucks because of it's single target nature. Face it minibosses are tough no matter your spec but direbats let me blow up entire rooms of guys almost instantly something that would take forever on a splinters build. Just last night I had a 56 kill streak on the bridge after a few casts.
Does the build have a downside? Yes your skill is by no means spammable like splinters and to get vision quest going requires skills on cooldown, but once you get to act3 or 4 you will be constantly having your utility skills on cooldown with spirit walk as backup. I love the build for farming.
Why do I not see WD using Locust Swarm? I am only in Hell Act III so things may change in Inferno but I absolutely LOVE Locust Swarm.
It's usable and actually fairly good once you get used to using it. The problem with it isn't the range it's and the DoT nature of damage. I could cast one firebat and it does immediate damage to tons of mobs or I could cast Swarm and pray it jumps to additional mobs. It's a clunky spell on how it jumps that makes it frustrating to use. I'd rather use zombie wall. It's damage in AOE is actually really good and it has the bonus of holding mobs for me to direbat them more.
This said I've seen doctors using swarm in inferno. It's definitely not a unused skill it just isn't for me. When I cast a spell I need instant results not 8 seconds of results because the longer mobs are alive the longer I'm at risk of getting 1 shot.
How is the crit modifier on items calculated (additive or multiplicative?) and what is the base crit bonus (50% or 100%)?
I did some quick math on dart choice and Spinters still seems like the best bet over Flame Dart for this type of build. Even with the mega critical bonus Flame Dart lags behind. This is assuming every third shot is a crit obviously this is just an average. Quick math if you have 35k dmg, 30% crit and 300% critical dmg...
Since Splinters came in on top this got me thinking... I bet a WD gearing for this way may cause both AoE abilities and fast hitting abilities produce more overall dmgthen with IAS. Think about it. IAS is great on spammed abilities like darts, flame bomb, etc but its terrible for our expensive spells like Acid Cloud. Corpse bomb alone would crit for 210,000 in AoE. Im also thinking about Jumping Spiders. They have been considered crap, but If you can get high enough crit bonus they may easily pull a head of most spamabble skills because they would crit the most out of any ability though this is hard to theorycraft. I think the build is worth looking into. I wouldn't go so far as to abandon a good 1 hander for a 2 hander (unless its a damage increase) as some IAS is always beneficial!
That said I think insane amounts of IAS will still be better then an insane amounts of critical dmg when it comes to large targets like bosses, but for farming hordes of mobs or co-op play a critical based build may be better.
1
First I took the OPs approach and stacked very high crit modifiers both crit chance and critical damage where ever I could without a huge hit to int. The build was very fun with direbats and absolutely hilarious with Zombie wall (Pile On).
My character sheet (estimated):
30-33k damage
30% crit
209% crit damage
Direbats were critting for 150K+ virtually. The really fun thing though was Pile On it was criting for 500K and I saw as high as 750K. This skill alone totally obliterated boss packs (minus reflect damage as it would one shot me).
The problem with the build however is it sacrificed almost all my ias. My two handed weapon was staple to getting such a high crit modifier but it was slow and I was a sitting duck for range mobs. This became a huge issue for where I'm farming now... Siegebreaker.
I decided to swap out the (1k dps) two hander with over 100% crit bonus to a blue 1k dps one hander with a 300ish dmg offhand. The result is less then stunning crits but it allows me to control space better leading me to survive easier. Right now I'm running with the cookie cutter splinter build with Direbats instead of splinters and Vision Quest. The build is very good for farming. Some stated having issues over splinters, but I think splinters sucks because of it's single target nature. Face it minibosses are tough no matter your spec but direbats let me blow up entire rooms of guys almost instantly something that would take forever on a splinters build. Just last night I had a 56 kill streak on the bridge after a few casts.
Does the build have a downside? Yes your skill is by no means spammable like splinters and to get vision quest going requires skills on cooldown, but once you get to act3 or 4 you will be constantly having your utility skills on cooldown with spirit walk as backup. I love the build for farming.
It's usable and actually fairly good once you get used to using it. The problem with it isn't the range it's and the DoT nature of damage. I could cast one firebat and it does immediate damage to tons of mobs or I could cast Swarm and pray it jumps to additional mobs. It's a clunky spell on how it jumps that makes it frustrating to use. I'd rather use zombie wall. It's damage in AOE is actually really good and it has the bonus of holding mobs for me to direbat them more.
This said I've seen doctors using swarm in inferno. It's definitely not a unused skill it just isn't for me. When I cast a spell I need instant results not 8 seconds of results because the longer mobs are alive the longer I'm at risk of getting 1 shot.
1
I did some quick math on dart choice and Spinters still seems like the best bet over Flame Dart for this type of build. Even with the mega critical bonus Flame Dart lags behind. This is assuming every third shot is a crit obviously this is just an average. Quick math if you have 35k dmg, 30% crit and 300% critical dmg...
Splinters after three casts:
35000 * 60% = 21 000 * 2 = 42000 + (21000 * 300%) = 105000 * 3 = 315000
Flame Dart after three casts:
35000 * 160% = 56000 * 300% = 168 000 + (56000 * 2) = 280,000
Since Splinters came in on top this got me thinking... I bet a WD gearing for this way may cause both AoE abilities and fast hitting abilities produce more overall dmgthen with IAS. Think about it. IAS is great on spammed abilities like darts, flame bomb, etc but its terrible for our expensive spells like Acid Cloud. Corpse bomb alone would crit for 210,000 in AoE. Im also thinking about Jumping Spiders. They have been considered crap, but If you can get high enough crit bonus they may easily pull a head of most spamabble skills because they would crit the most out of any ability though this is hard to theorycraft. I think the build is worth looking into. I wouldn't go so far as to abandon a good 1 hander for a 2 hander (unless its a damage increase) as some IAS is always beneficial!
That said I think insane amounts of IAS will still be better then an insane amounts of critical dmg when it comes to large targets like bosses, but for farming hordes of mobs or co-op play a critical based build may be better.
1