82 replies to this topic

[baron01]

LordPoekel, on 15 November 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

Just out of curiosity: How long do you need for a standard Alkaizer run (this probably is a relative good benchmark for efficiency?

I do not do pure Alkaizer runs, ie. Arreat Core, Tower of Damned 1, Arreat Crater 2, Fields of Slaughter and Keep2, rather I do an extended map list with added Arreat Crater 1, Keep 1 & 3 and Stonefort until keywarden.
I also pick every rare item and any gold piles over 2k but Im considering to remove some items from my pick-up list. I need to clear my inventory at least 2 and sometimes even 3 times per my extended run. I die rarely, usually I blow myself up against reflect damage pack where I miss health link affix or I jump into molten bomb when trying to pick up rares from the ground.

My extended full-pick up run takes me between 30 to 35 minutes now. I will time original Alkaizer without picking rares/gold tonight and post my results--I assume I should get it down to 15 minutes or so on MP2.

PS. I prefer ranged mobs elites/champions, spearman or archers are my favourites, becuase they tend to stick together at start, which is enough time for me to blow them in 2 or 3 CA into smithereens.

[LordPoekel]

baron01, on 15 November 2012 - 12:16 PM, said:

My extended full-pick up run takes me between 30 to 35 minutes now. I will time original Alkaizer without picking rares/gold tonight and post my results--I assume I should get it down to 15 minutes or so on MP2.

Hmm this sounds pretty similar in the efficiency departement though (might do a simple run as well and time it; I'd assume it would be around 15 minutes as well). Might take a bit longer though (but I am running around with 114k screen damage instead of 280k )

[flexxi]

baron01, on 15 November 2012 - 09:53 AM, said:

I watched the video and tried the build last night. I honestly cant get the feeling for the build nor it seems to be working with my lack of hatred regen and no pick-up range. I run out of discipline way too often, therefore, I have to take Preparation: Punishment to keep the Strafe going.

On the performance: I have slightly better gear than the OP. I use standard HA/AE/CA build. I compare OP video against my MP2 farming and my limited experience with the build.

I still kill elites/champions faster even being on MP2 compared to MP1 in the video--it takes me between 3 to 10 seconds to kill most elite packs (rare cases where it can take longer, ie. tremors & phasebeasts with bad affix combo). I also kill large pack of mobs faster with BL/CA then Strafe can. Same situation is for mobs with high HP. Strafe is probably slightly faster on clearing small packs because you can keep moving.

My current position is that standard build with Vault:Tumble and Tactical Advantage passive will be as fast or even faster than Strafe build. Gear requirements for Strafe build are not too high but still represent certain obstacle.

I will stay with standard build until further improvements to Strafe are done by Blizzard or some breakthrough finding appears to make Strafe build clearly more efficient than standard builds.

i dont have +pickup radius either, you have to strafe through the globes it just takes a while to get accustomed to. it took me a few runs as well. on the matter of clearing elite packs and large waves it is definitely true that the standard build cleares them faster thats because strafe does not do any aoe damage unless you pick the grenade rune(in which case i think you would kill melee elites much faster than with ea) or the fire path rune. still though im fairly sure there is a set gear level on each mplevel on which a strafe build beats out the ea build speedwise when aiming for max xp gain although i assume this gear level in terms of damage to be pretty high. another thing though is to have a very high uptime on your shuriken cloud. i also sometimes let it fall of and when clearing big waves you willbe much slower without the chakrams. again as i said this spec might not be able to compete with a ea build on my dmg level but i felt like sharing it because its a much more relaxing way to farm. most of the time you only need one hand, u dont need to time your shadow powers because its perma active unless u get interrupted strafing. that to me is a much more appealing way to farm as i find farming itself pretty tedious and want to keep it as unstressful as possible and the strafebuild helped me greatly in doing so. i can even say its fun or at least i can do a lot more runs strafing than ea before i get bored and that in the end at least for me nets me more xp just because i can play longer:D but thats all personal favor of course

Edited by flexxi, 15 November 2012 - 02:43 PM.

[TenhiKauan666]

This is my build in action:



Cheers

[baron01]

LordPoekel, on 15 November 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

Just out of curiosity: How long do you need for a standard Alkaizer run (this probably is a relative good benchmark for efficiency?

I timed 3 pure Alkaizer-style runs (MP2) last night with a standard build (HA/EA/CA): (1) picking only legendary/set drops, rings and amulets; (2) no backtracking, no deaths, no identification of items during run; (3) I still did not use Tactical advantage.

I have clocked following times: 14:30; 14:15; 14:40.

Due to being always on the move and buring mobs as fast as possible, hatred was major limiting factor as I frequently ran into an elite pack with low hatred, which resulted in a delay.
I believe I could push the time to or slightly below 14 minutes if I use Tactical advantage passive. Using TA, however, comes at a price of one offensive passive, for which I would like to add another 15-20k DPS to compensate for the loss.

I also found these runs to be quite stressful and unrewarding, except EXP gain, which was high. I will stick to my extended runs that are more relaxed and feel more balanced in terms of EXP and item gains.

I will also give another try to Strafe build over the weekend.

[LordPoekel]

I timed 2 runs with a bit of backrunning and was at 16 and 16:30 minutes at MP 2. Overall I'd say that this is not that much worse in the efficiency department. Considering that I run around with 114k onscreen DPS (probably about 150k if you take Strafe crit bonus and Cull the Weak into account) I'd think that Strafe is pretty viable (not OP or best build but fine). As Flexxi already pointed out one of its strengths is that it's not very stressfull. Just strafe around, use Preparation every few seconds and when you encounter Elites use SP.

Uploaded a vid as well:
https://www.youtube....h?v=iUT8-sUGNhY

http://eu.battle.net...407/hero/231168 (high crit chance build using Nightstalker instead of Vengeance)

[flexxi]

TenhiKauan666, on 15 November 2012 - 10:23 PM, said:

This is my build in action:



Cheers

sick dude. i tried your spec its pretty cool...demolition mechanic still annoying though but the constant shadowpower movspeed makes up for it definitely. +pickup radius greatly enhances the efficiency of this spec though...i managed a sub10min alkaizer run with this spec on mp1. sweet!

[TenhiKauan666]

flexxi, on 16 November 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

TenhiKauan666, on 15 November 2012 - 10:23 PM, said:

This is my build in action:



Cheers

sick dude. i tried your spec its pretty cool...demolition mechanic still annoying though but the constant shadowpower movspeed makes up for it definitely. +pickup radius greatly enhances the efficiency of this spec though...i managed a sub10min alkaizer run with this spec on mp1. sweet!

Cool, glad you liked it, yea demolition bounce delay is annoying, but the damage is crazy,
Combination of +pickup radius , vengeance , night stalker , punishment and high crit chance is the key for have constant hatred and discipline.
Shadow power with run speed rune and 24% on gear means you have 54% run speed all the time.
Smoke screen really help in this build to avoid crowd control and high damages and burn the elites much faster, in MP5 that I'm farming this one is really help , especially with stupid reflect damage.
it is better to have as much as discipline you can have for this build, although I think 60 is super enough, 50 is great , 40 is good, but 30 is low.
another problem with demolition is the range is smaller than rocket. I can't beat uber boss Siegebreaker on MP5 , I had to switch to rocket storm rune. good thing about rockets is they are guided and will hit the target for sure.
My problem with rocket rune is when you fighting lots of mobs that are increasing ( like act 1 bat nests) but in low MP it is fine.

[TenhiKauan666]

LordPoekel, on 16 November 2012 - 03:59 PM, said:

I timed 2 runs with a bit of backrunning and was at 16 and 16:30 minutes at MP 2. Overall I'd say that this is not that much worse in the efficiency department. Considering that I run around with 114k onscreen DPS (probably about 150k if you take Strafe crit bonus and Cull the Weak into account) I'd think that Strafe is pretty viable (not OP or best build but fine). As Flexxi already pointed out one of its strengths is that it's not very stressfull. Just strafe around, use Preparation every few seconds and when you encounter Elites use SP.

Uploaded a vid as well:
https://www.youtube....h?v=iUT8-sUGNhY

http://eu.battle.net...407/hero/231168 (high crit chance build using Nightstalker instead of Vengeance)

Great video , just one thing that I'm confused about your build is how you slow the mobs that you can have Cull of the weak?

Edited by TenhiKauan666, 17 November 2012 - 05:09 AM.

[LordPoekel]

TenhiKauan666, on 17 November 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

Great video , just one thing that I'm confused about your build is how you slow the mobs that you can have Cull of the weak?

Cold SoJ. Strafe (even with Demolition) does not convert your damage so every attack will have 6% cold damage. The slow effect from the cold damage is applied before the actual damage (there have been some tests on incgamers.com) so you will always get the Cull the Weak bonus for Strafe (there may be some cases where you won't get the bonus for your Chakrams but these should be neglible).

[TenhiKauan666]

LordPoekel, on 17 November 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

TenhiKauan666, on 17 November 2012 - 01:03 AM, said:

Great video , just one thing that I'm confused about your build is how you slow the mobs that you can have Cull of the weak?

Cold SoJ. Strafe (even with Demolition) does not convert your damage so every attack will have 6% cold damage. The slow effect from the cold damage is applied before the actual damage (there have been some tests on incgamers.com) so you will always get the Cull the Weak bonus for Strafe (there may be some cases where you won't get the bonus for your Chakrams but these should be neglible).

I see, cool, thanks for the info.

[Chazzamuffin]

Just wanna say thanks for posting builds like this.

It's easy to get disenfranchised with D3 and trying out stuff like this puts the fun back in.  Farming mp1 no probs:
profile/ChaZzza-2367/hero/5455313

[flexxi]

i switched to mp0 to test strafe with the runespeed rune

http://us.battle.net...XVhg!bXe!cZccZc

i managed sub10min (9,4m xp ~9min40) alkaizer runs with it and made a video

http://de.twitch.tv/...ter/b/341239725

have fun

[baron01]

I did some test runs over the weekend as well to check how I fare on MP2 and MP1 with my standard build. My results on MP2 ranged from 40 to 42m EXP/hour. When I switched to MP1, also added Tactical Advantage instead of Grenadier, I was able to reach 51 to 52m EXP/hour.
EXP/hour figures are calculated from single run time and exp gained so the real gain for hour played will be lower due to times identifying loot--I still pick pretty much all except 2hnd weapons, shields and 1hnd crossbows (except ilvl63 versions, the later also include ilvl62) and follower items.
I wonder how much I can clock on MP0 since the drop from MP2 to MP1 has given me extra 10m EXP/hour.

[DiegoF]

I'm using the first post build and I am having loads of fun. I still need a little more DPS to make it faster in MP2 but its helping me already to up my paragon lvls. Thx dude, its amazing!

[DrShell]

Got bored with my wizard, got my DH out, friend gave me a offhand quiver with hatred reg and I bought a manticore for 10m.
Now I am strafing around on MP0-1 and it works ok and most of all IS FUN to play.

I don't use Smoke Screen I just do the Flips
I don't have Preperation, I have Rapid Fire, just in case 1 golden mob just does not want to die

Pretty fun and it seems like the Flips break the Jailers, so Reflect is the only worry atm

I don't wanna play my barb, it's just to OP.
Wizard also stunlocking everything in sight - boring.
DH is fun atm

Edited by DrShell, 22 November 2012 - 03:06 PM.

[flexxi]

DiegoF, on 22 November 2012 - 02:04 PM, said:

I'm using the first post build and I am having loads of fun. I still need a little more DPS to make it faster in MP2 but its helping me already to up my paragon lvls. Thx dude, its amazing!

you're welcome glad u like it

[NeutroNova]

I dont know anything about DH's, but it looks like the farm speed is slow to me.

[flexxi]

NeutroNova, on 22 November 2012 - 11:48 PM, said:

I dont know anything about DH's, but it looks like the farm speed is slow to me.

i bet you play a barb

[baron01]

Well, I tried Strafe builds provided in this thread. I gave it few days to get used to it.

I simply cant get anywhere close to how fast I can clear Alkaizer route with my standard build while using Strafe build. I got it work, especially OP build with vengeance works reasonably well even without specialized gear.

The main issue is in Strafe itself. The performance is sub-optimal in both single and multi-target scenarios to other skills DH has available. If I select Strafe with Drifting Shadow rune, I will be moving at my max speed but I will lack the damage output because Strafe on its own is doing pitiful damage. If I choose to use Rocket Storm or Demolition rune, I will significantly increase Strafe damage output but I will be moving slower, a lot slower.
Im disappointed with Strafe performance with my level of gear, it simply does not deliver the punch I would expect from skill description.

I could never get over 40m EXP/hour with strafe build even on MP0. I can easily get to 55m EXP/hour on MP1, which means I can probably add a bit more If I want to purely focus on EXP grind.