43 replies to this topic

[tommmmmm]

datajunkee, on 21 November 2012 - 01:43 AM, said:

I picked up a SoJ, an ammy with +Locust dmg, a Zuni helm with +Locust damage and a very sweet 2h with a min dmg amount of 1405.  I then set out to try this build with a paper doll dps of around 100k give or take.  I loved it.  The limiting factor of my run completion time was how quickly I could move through the map mostly.  Every now and then an elite pack would take 2 or 3 seconds but that was about the only thing that would slow me down.  For straight up XP farming it's awesome.

Now, the downside...

• You have to get used to not picking up ANYTHING since it usually drops behind you (except elite packs)
  
• I may have missed Legendary drops because on one occasion I retraced my path, just out of curiosity, and found a beam sitting on the ground even though I diligently watch my minimap for pings and listen for the drop notification.  it's possible I missed others and don't even know it.
  
• You don't pick up much gold, even with my pick up radius of 32, since most things die way off screen.  I know this was discussed but and the OP makes gold from flipping and all but that's not for everyone.

Despite these points I really, really enjoyed this new way of playing but it's soooo hard for me to think about the things I *might* be leaving on the ground behind me.  lol

Regardless, kudos for trying something different and sharing it with the community.

I did smth similar
I also tried the fire rune - it's more powerful but spreads only to around 85% of mobs.

Yeah, the NOT picking up is a pain. I retraced all my paths to see
1. How many mobs died
2. How many legendaries I missed

The downside I noticed was that tough white mobs (like colossus) didn't die.

If I had higher dps and could afford to miss most of the loot (to afford that, I'd have to be rich, but I am poor) then it would be my best build !

I loved this the most: "69 enemies killed with one blow!"

Edited by tommmmmm, 23 November 2012 - 09:47 PM.

[aerialus]

Aaaand, done

[Emberos]

Big grats, Aerialus.   Now go get some sleep!

[tommmmmm]

I further tested the build.... and I must say that it doesn't work AS SUPPOSED due to I think a MAJOR bug.

I used my normal (98k clean) gear at fields of slaughter (without follower/summons at all) in two ways:
1. I used locust and walked around the pack of mobs to see how much % of it dies. I concluded the test around 15 times. It killed ~98% of mobs. 2% survivors were those big tremors. I also learned that locust works 8 seconds no matter how late after the spawn new mob got it. To put it simply = each mob that gets infected gets infected for 8 seconds no matter how long ago I casted original locust. That's good news... however
2. I used locust on a big pack and the jaunt + stalker'd away from it. Number of mobs killed: 5%
That means if you walk more than 1 screen away - the locust stops to work. That goes against the casual logic, however from programmer's point of view it's simple = conserve server's resources.

I wrote official bug report here:
http://us.battle.net...051709?page=1#0

[Huminator]

Its a fun alternative indeed. But i cant get over 60m /hour using it. Im having an average of around 75m /hour with acid rain spec.

But a different alternative indeed.

[aerialus]

Too low dps.
There is a point where dps is high enough, to kill everything quickly with locust so it becomes better than acid rain.

[Huminator]

aerialus, on 27 November 2012 - 09:02 AM, said:

Too low dps.
There is a point where dps is high enough, to kill everything quickly with locust so it becomes better than acid rain.

Ran around with 230k+ dps buffed up, with 14% locust dmg on gear. Wielding a 0.9 mace with a min dmg on 1337. Im not sure why, it it just didnt go as fast as when i run 75m xp /hour with acid cloud.

[Huminator]

Also i fail to see how it could be faster. Everything dies way behind you, so even if you used grave injustice, it would not proc. Meaning you would have to wait 13-15 seconds between each spirit walk and horrify stalker.
Where on the acid cloud build, you pretty much have no cooldown on spirit walk and horrify stalker. Meaning your pretty much always under either 50% extra movement speed or 20%.

How can locust swarm build be faster?

I mean, the same route is being used. Both builds kill all the mobs in the path. Acid rain build just get you from start to finish faster, due to basicly not having cooldown on spiritwalk and horrify stalker. In such a scenario how can locust swap be quicker. When it gets you from A to B slower.

Edited by Huminator, 28 November 2012 - 11:02 AM.

[DemolitionColorScheme]

Sorry for necroing this thread, but I feel it's still a topic that's worth talking about.

I'm running this build as well and noticed this topic and wanted to chime in a little.
I'm all for the highest minimum damage thing and am doing the same, however, I do use Acid Cloud for elites with this build rather than bears. Here's why:
- bears wind up time feels really slow and the range is so small and position-based that I find it to be more of a mana drain than anything else. The damage is nice, sure, but I feel AC gives me more options:

- LoH, which I'm running with over 1600 on my Skorn and Blackthorne's pants and if I swap to a Skull Grasp I add 200. I'm at about 2100 / 2300 LoH. This enables me to run higher MPs if I want (not too high, of course!)
- AC is also great for Fallens, which can be a nuisance now and then, especially if you've got a ton of them running into you. AC = instant kill, whereas Locust is a true DoT skill by definition.
- Combine it with Widowmakers and I can spam AC on Elite packs. Takes me about 5 secs to down an elite pack (without SoJ)

Skills:
- Widowmakers (even without VQ); I prefer them now due to mana issue with PtV and not having insane enough DPS to down an elite pack with 1 or 2 ACs.
- Grave Injustice; yup! I do like it. I like the reset on SW and Horrify (Stalker). I do feel having 7 PR on as much gear as you can helps here. I can sacrifice some EHP due to my LoH amount. I also feel that the PR increase makes the run a little more fruitful since I still can pick up a bit of gold and I grab more globes quicker, which does add some damage with GF.
- No CoL and Sacrifice, which means, indeed, that I'm sacrificing some damage for speed.
- If I up my damage more (with a 6/30/12 SoJ, for instance), I might be able to down things faster with AC which enables me to to leave out Widowmakers and swap it for something differently.

Gear:
- Visage of Giyua: 14 Locust / 6 Crit / Double Intel Roll / Socketed with Ruby
- Tyreal's; 3 sock / 15 Demons / 4 Elites; I don't see a lot of people running with Tyreal's due to the fact that that it doesn't spawn with double intel rolls or vit, but the movement speed and the added demon and elite damage make it a no-brainer for me. With my LoH I can just tank. It also enables me to drop Lacuni's, which are absolutely useless for WD builds like this. I can make up the loss of EHP of the Tyreals on the bracers.
- Inna's belt: raw added 8% Holy Damage / high intel / high vit roll; perfect for this build since WH relies on Crit dmg and IAS, which is pretty much useless here. (sadly and weirdly, Inna's can't roll with 7PR and an added stat, but it can roll with vit AND intel next to the regular dex - weird!)
- Skorn: 1600+ LoH / 189 crit / 300+ intel / socketed with 160/160 Ruby (I haven't found a 2h mace with these stats, especially with LoH)
- Skullgrasp; intel / 10 Locust (bidding on one right now with 10 locust / and crit)
- SoJ; 6 / 30 / 12 (still need to see wich one I prefer; SG or SoJ)
- Tal's Amu; 5 cold / high average damage / high intel / high vit / 5.5 crit / 60+ CD
... now this one is a point of debate; I've yet to find a really good Mara's with 10+ Locust and high Intel and I feel that Tal's does give us some interesting diversity, which brings us to my next point ...
etc-etc.

CC / CD:
- For Locusts, I agree that the most important thing is the minimum base damage - so not being dependent on crit is the way to go, however, why not add it if we can? I'm using AC and I surely wouldn't mind if AC, Widowmakers or the Locusts crit. I wouldn't go out of your way to use CC and CD if you can get it, like on gloves, bracers, helm, Skull Grasp, Mara's, etc.

So, that's what I'm running. I'm really enjoying it. I feel, especially with GI, I'm doing runs extremely fast and it's just awesome to see Locusts do their thing!

So, how about our follower? I'm using a Templar right now due to the mana regen (and mine can tank really well), but I think a Soundrel with Hysteria might be even better due to the damage increase.

Edited by DemolitionColorScheme, 03 May 2013 - 11:03 PM.

[DemolitionColorScheme]

So, I did some testing to see whether Locust Swarm can actually crit or not, just to be sure, because it never shows any real numbers.

I used the Scoundrel with Hysteria to see if my damage rose when critting. With Locust, it never moved, but every time I hit a crit with Acid Cloud, my dmg went up.

I think this confirms that Locust can't crit.

Blizzard ... fix this, please! Ha!

[Orb]

From my experience I feel that locust crit roll is at the casting, meaning that if that cast is a crit, all ticks and all targets on that cast will be crit. It does not roll crit on individual tick. So maybe that's why it's harder to trigger hysteria because you only have one chance per cast to fish for the crit.

[Orb]

I just saw your new thread http://www.diablofan...blem-cant-crit/ I guess you have tested it more than enough then. It may also be just that locust crit does not trigger hysteria though

[DemolitionColorScheme]

Orb, on 03 May 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

From my experience I feel that locust crit roll is at the casting, meaning that if that cast is a crit, all ticks and all targets on that cast will be crit. It does not roll crit on individual tick. So maybe that's why it's harder to trigger hysteria because you only have one chance per cast to fish for the crit.

Orb, on 03 May 2013 - 07:44 PM, said:

I just saw your new thread http://www.diablofan...blem-cant-crit/ I guess you have tested it more than enough then. It may also be just that locust crit does not trigger hysteria though

Yeah, I was hoping it could crit on the initial cast, but sadly ... it doesn't.
I doubt the problem lies with Hysteria, I just think it doesn't crit, hence why we never see any crits coming from Locust.

[shaggy]

DemolitionColorScheme, on 03 May 2013 - 08:00 PM, said:

I doubt the problem lies with Hysteria, I just think it doesn't crit, hence why we never see any crits coming from Locust.

You never *see* crits with ANY DoT.  There are no big flashy yellow numbers with DoTs - Wyatt basically explained why when he explained exactly how DoTs work.  When a DoT crits all you see is regular old white text with bigger values.  Instead of seeing 100 damage you see 500 damage with 400% crit damage bonus.

This is because DoTs tick something like 60 times per second but they don't display that quickly because that would create massive spam of small numbers.  So, they display DoT damage in quarter-second intervals (either that or half-second intervals).  Because the display is actually the sum of 15-30 actual ticks, it is impossibly to display it in yellow numbers - would 1/15 ticks critting trigger yellow numbers, would it require 15/15, or >50%?

Hysteria PROBABLY doesn't take DoT ticks into effect.  That may be a bug, it may be by design.  Due to the frequency with which DoTs tick even with very low crit chance you'd very easily maintain 100% uptime on Hysteria which may be one reason that Hysteria might ignore DoTs.

Edited by shaggy, 03 May 2013 - 09:26 PM.

[DemolitionColorScheme]

Yup! Like mentioned in the other topic you replied to, all of this is debunked:
- Locust Swarm can crit
- Locust Swarm is a DoT skill which doesn't proc Hysteria.

Thanks for the clarification!

[seenUzehr]

/approve

Used to run this build from para 10 -> 50. Very solid and pretty fun too. Slight variation thou my setup looked something like: http://eu.battle.net...<br /> <br /> fun and fast para just run a3 forever

[aerialus]

Oh wow, necroing hard
Game changed so much since I wrote this.

Locust crits per target, so you kill stuff which received crit quickly, and rest (no crit), are barely scratched. This is why it worked so well with that min damage no crit approach on mp0.
For higher mps, impossible to do it.
I got really good gear now on my wd, switched to skorn, and I'm at point where crits from my locust actually kill trash at mp10.. but non crits do nothing. And 2h crit chance can be maxed at around 45% (with soj), which is great limiting factor to the build (in comparison to rend barbs which rock 80-90% cc buffed and one shot screens with rend, which btw deals 3x dps of locust).

[DemolitionColorScheme]

aerialus, on 04 May 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

Oh wow, necroing hard
Game changed so much since I wrote this.

Locust crits per target, so you kill stuff which received crit quickly, and rest (no crit), are barely scratched. This is why it worked so well with that min damage no crit approach on mp0.
For higher mps, impossible to do it.
I got really good gear now on my wd, switched to skorn, and I'm at point where crits from my locust actually kill trash at mp10.. but non crits do nothing. And 2h crit chance can be maxed at around 45% (with soj), which is great limiting factor to the build (in comparison to rend barbs which rock 80-90% cc buffed and one shot screens with rend, which btw deals 3x dps of locust).

Indeed, we found that out yesterday.
Thanks for chiming in aerialus! I'm running a Skorn as well and am building up CC. I'm at about 35% now. Impressive to hear you are able to kill trash on mp10 with Locust! Care to post a link to your WD? Would love to take a peek!

[aerialus]

No problem:

http://www.diablopro...malewd/10536583

[DemolitionColorScheme]

Ah, no Locust build, of course, you're already p100!
The stuff you used for the Locust runs, do you still have it?