82 replies to this topic

[Ulto]

baron01, on 07 December 2012 - 08:42 AM, said:

Strafe builds require certain level of gear customization in order to make them work. If you have average gear but tailored for Strafe build, ie. less IAS, additional Strafe crit chance and some pick up radius on gear, it will perform well for you. I have build my DH in a traditional way, use HA/BL/CA, therefore, Strafe does not perform that well for me. Im at a gear level where swapping pieces is very expensive if I want to maintain same damage output. I could accept drop in my DPS to get some of those Strafe-supporting affixes but that is not something I want to do since I have worked hard and paid a lot to get where I am.

I do consider option to farm MP0 with a Strafe build this weekend and equip Leoric Signet I have found on my monk alt to see how it goes. Paragon leveling past lvl75 slows down a lot so I want to see if extra 25% EXP, lower MP and Strafe build make it more bearable. If not, I will start optimizing my gear for higher MP to farm items and ignore EXP efficiency once I hit plvl80.

I doubt Drifting Shadow can compare to builds using Vault and Tactical advantage in terms of speed.

Getting items with bonus to Strafe is not that expensive.
I recommand getting Natalya's chest and Stone of jordan.
You can find a good Natalya with 80 vitality, 8 maximum discipline and 7% critical on Strafe for only 10M, and a good Stone of Jordan only costs around 5M.

I don't think that Leoric Signet is a good choice as you should already have at least 235% normal XP (25% from helmet, 35% from hellfire ring, 75% from MV) if not more so 25% will only give you something like 10% bonus on top of that. The DPS loss is not worth it.

Edited by Ulto, 07 December 2012 - 11:21 AM.

[Perseu]

Idk how you can say that vault is faster than gloom with speed, i can perma gloom the entire run and clear MP2 so fast as MP0, faster than any barb, maybe what you are lacking is skill.

But as some said here, the rune for strafe is demolition even with the lack of speed will kill everything a way faster, shadow power for move speed, bat for regen of course, preparation can be used with punishment or plan B wont change too much, in my opinion get plan b since i kill everything before i run out of hate. For passives, the best choices to make the run faster are vegeance with nightstalker, archery helps with damage and damage is always good for fast runs.

The last 2 skills i would say that is optional, choose what you feel better, smoke screen with chocking gas is something cool, catrops with jagged spikes is one of the best options for those who have much disc, rain of vengence is good for those who doesnt have extra disc and extra hate to spend, chakram with shuriken cloud is another good option too, fan of knifes with retaliate is good for those with extra hate.

Edited by Perseu, 07 December 2012 - 05:36 PM.

[Ulto]

Perseu, on 07 December 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Idk how you can say that vault is faster than gloom with speed, i can perma gloom the entire run and clear MP2 so fast as MP0, faster than any barb, maybe what you are lacking is skill.

But as some said here, the rune for strafe is demolition even with the lack of speed will kill everything a way faster, shadow power for move speed, bat for regen of course, preparation can be used with punishment or plan B wont change too much, in my opinion get plan b since i kill everything before i run out of hate. For passives, the best choices to make the run faster are vegeance with nightstalker, archery helps with damage and damage is always good for fast runs.

The last 2 skills i would say that is optional, choose what you feel better, smoke screen with chocking gas is something cool, catrops with jagged spikes is one of the best options for those who have much disc, rain of vengence is good for those who doesnt have extra disc and extra hate to spend, chakram with shuriken cloud is another good option too, fan of knifes with retaliate is good for those with extra hate.

You do not make a lot of sense.
If you can perma gloom the whole run, you would be faster using Vault with Tactical Advantage.
Besides you don't know anything about me, so it is just stupid to assume you are faster than me.
On the other hand, I can say that you have never actually used a Strafe build if you feel punishment not to be mandatory or suggest using caltrops...

Edited by Ulto, 07 December 2012 - 11:02 PM.

[DiegoF]

Ulto, on 07 December 2012 - 06:11 PM, said:

Perseu, on 07 December 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Idk how you can say that vault is faster than gloom with speed, i can perma gloom the entire run and clear MP2 so fast as MP0, faster than any barb, maybe what you are lacking is skill.

But as some said here, the rune for strafe is demolition even with the lack of speed will kill everything a way faster, shadow power for move speed, bat for regen of course, preparation can be used with punishment or plan B wont change too much, in my opinion get plan b since i kill everything before i run out of hate. For passives, the best choices to make the run faster are vegeance with nightstalker, archery helps with damage and damage is always good for fast runs.

The last 2 skills i would say that is optional, choose what you feel better, smoke screen with chocking gas is something cool, catrops with jagged spikes is one of the best options for those who have much disc, rain of vengence is good for those who doesnt have extra disc and extra hate to spend, chakram with shuriken cloud is another good option too, fan of knifes with retaliate is good for those with extra hate.

You do not make a lot of sense.
If you can perma gloom the whole run, you would be faster using Vault with Tactical Advantage.
Besides you don't know anything about me, so it is just stupid to assume you are faster than me.
On the other hand, I can say that you have never actually used a Strafe build if you feel punishment to be mandatory or suggest using caltrops...

I use Strafe and I can't see this fully working without punishment. I really dont know how fast one is against another build, the truth is, I do Mp1 - 2 pretty fast and have a load of fun with it....

[Perseu]

the only one that cant make the build work is Ulto.

Even with a little more speed vault isnt better than shadow glide since you can shoot with shadow glide all the time, and you cant during the jumps from vault, and you lose more disc cause you have to jump more and use shadow power at same time

Punishment its not mandatory if you have gear, just a moron to assume that is mandatory, maybe you should change games since what you say makes no sense, or maybe all the others in this post are wrong and just you are right. Could be, lol

Edited by Perseu, 08 December 2012 - 02:42 AM.

[baron01]

I cant imagine perma Shadow Power: Shadow Glide without either legacy 4P Nats or a lot of custom gear tailored for Strafe builds--pick up range, extra crit on strafe and similar

I tried Strafe build with Emberstrafe run but it did not work well for me. I was running out of hatred and I was significantly slower killing elites. Vengeance fixed the issue with hatred but it was further slowing me down because I have 0 pick up range on my gear.

This topic is a good discussion about alternative builds that can be beneficial and bring fresh air into rather boring still waters of DH builds.

[flexxi]

there is three options if you feel punishment is mandatory: your attackspeed is too high, your dmg is too low, or both. with the right setup you really dont need punishment and you can run drifting shadow on mp1 instead. i manage around 9min mp1 runs with drifting shadow which isnt so bad i think but i dont focus on plvling anymore anyways as i dont see the point in rushing it when im already at mfcap. also what perseu said is right. vault ta needs alot more disc than shadowpower runspeed at least if u dont have any ls or loh. shadowpower is superior in that way as itserves as our permadefense and our sprint all in one spell for 14 disc. not to mention as long as you are not interrupted strafing you only have to use a single shadowpower for a whole elitepack due to the way shadowpower works with channeled spells. i would just say overall strafe is very efficient both in resources and in the effort you as a player have to put in(you only need to press one button every 5 secs and plow through the map with one mousebutton pressed) also iirc i never said strafe was the fastest spec in the op, i just said its a funspec that makes leveling/farming much more bearable and i wanted to share it.

[flexxi]

baron01, on 08 December 2012 - 07:17 AM, said:

I cant imagine perma Shadow Power: Shadow Glide without either legacy 4P Nats or a lot of custom gear tailored for Strafe builds--pick up range, extra crit on strafe and similar

I tried Strafe build with Emberstrafe run but it did not work well for me. I was running out of hatred and I was significantly slower killing elites. Vengeance fixed the issue with hatred but it was further slowing me down because I have 0 pick up range on my gear.

This topic is a good discussion about alternative builds that can be beneficial and bring fresh air into rather boring still waters of DH builds.

a lot of crit and backup plan b is the answer. i have ~58% crit +7% strafecrit from natschest and nightstalker at that point is like legacy nats. you can watch my drifting shadow vod in the op where you can see me perma sprinting without legacy nats so it definitely is possible

i dont even use nats 4piece anymore i use an andys and still dont run out of disc thats how strong nightstalker+vengeance is

Edited by flexxi, 08 December 2012 - 07:27 AM.

[baron01]

flexxi, on 08 December 2012 - 07:26 AM, said:

a lot of crit and backup plan b is the answer. i have ~58% crit +7% strafecrit from natschest and nightstalker at that point is like legacy nats.

As I said in my post, it is either Legacy 4P Nats or gear that support strafe build. I dont have either of those, legacy Nats is out of question and Im not willing to pay loads of gold to sidegrade in order to support Strafe build.
All Im saying is that Strafe builds need specific gear in order to work well. Compromises will lead to being inefficient, slower than expected or unable to kill due to lack of hatred or discipline.

Perseu, on 07 December 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

... maybe what you are lacking is skill.

I find this quote hilarious, if it was meant as a skill to play the game and not skill as in Vault or Shadow Power.
Mentioning skill as a factor in D3 is already a far-fetched statement on its own. However, putting it to the context of this discussion is pure win. Skill as a factor for a build where one of the proclaimed and argued benefits is "EFFORTLESS KILLING" is just hilarious--you know how it is, "Press that one button, dont snooze too much, and you are there! As fast as barbarian.

Good one!

[Perseu]

Agreed with flexxi, when you have more than 60% CC you wont run out of disc, Specially if you have more than 20 disc bonus from your gear, what is easy to get. Dont forget about vegeance too and globes that gives you more disc.

I keep saying shadow glide is faster than vault, specially if you are playing with the rune demolition that need you at the right place or you will miss the granades. Sometimes if you put vault with tactical advantage you will jump through mobs and will have to come back, or you will have to strafe without the bonus speed if you are in the middle of the pack, little things like that make you slower, while shadow glide will let you with 30% speed bonus all time.

By the way flexxi i would like to thank you, after seeing your build i changed mine a little, specially shadow glide, was a rune that i never used.

For those that like 1 hand crossbows, the build works too, i tried with 2 crossbows and 1 crossbow (calamity) + quiver both works, i like calamity with dead legacy more since you will get more chance to crit, more hate regen and more disc. Remember that if you have rings and neck with bonus damage, with a high damage calamity you wont need a 2 hand crossbow, more atack speed = more granades with demolition of course, but you will need more bonus hate regen from your gear.

And again all those things that i say works in Mp0, Mp1 and Mp2, same speed, faster than barbs but you need gear of course.

Good luck and have fun, the build is really fun, if you enter in public games playing right and fast you will see barbs mad lololol

Edited by Perseu, 08 December 2012 - 09:37 AM.

[Ulto]

flexxi, on 08 December 2012 - 07:21 AM, said:

there is three options if you feel punishment is mandatory: your attackspeed is too high, your dmg is too low, or both. with the right setup you really dont need punishment and you can run drifting shadow on mp1 instead. i manage around 9min mp1 runs with drifting shadow which isnt so bad i think but i dont focus on plvling anymore anyways as i dont see the point in rushing it when im already at mfcap. also what perseu said is right. vault ta needs alot more disc than shadowpower runspeed at least if u dont have any ls or loh. shadowpower is superior in that way as itserves as our permadefense and our sprint all in one spell for 14 disc. not to mention as long as you are not interrupted strafing you only have to use a single shadowpower for a whole elitepack due to the way shadowpower works with channeled spells. i would just say overall strafe is very efficient both in resources and in the effort you as a player have to put in(you only need to press one button every 5 secs and plow through the map with one mousebutton pressed) also iirc i never said strafe was the fastest spec in the op, i just said its a funspec that makes leveling/farming much more bearable and i wanted to share it.

That's a very good point, I did not think you could perma life steal by continuously strafing.
Not to run out of hatred without punishment, I think you need a very high dps and most people who read this won't have enough gear for it.
Besides, do you really think Nightstalker has a significant impact on your discipline regeneration ?
I find it quite useless and I don't really see how getting high amount of CC can make a difference.
Also, have you considered using a soj ? It looks perfect on my demon hunter.

After some further testing :
- Rockets are cool , maybe better than demolition.
- I sometimes run out of hatred without Punishment
- Even with Vault and no night stalker I almost never run out of Discipline, and if I do I just have to stop vaulting for a while and it is ok.

Edited by Ulto, 08 December 2012 - 07:43 PM.

[flexxi]

Ulto, on 08 December 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

That's a very good point, I did not think you could perma life steal by continuously strafing.
Not to run out of hatred without punishment, I think you need a very high dps and most people who read this won't have enough gear for it.
Besides, do you really think Nightstalker has a significant impact on your discipline regeneration ?
I find it quite useless and I don't really see how getting high amount of CC can make a difference.
Also, have you considered using a soj ? It looks perfect on my demon hunter.

After some further testing :
- Rockets are cool , maybe better than demolition.
- I sometimes run out of hatred without Punishment
- Even with Vault and no night stalker I almost never run out of Discipline, and if I do I just have to stop vaulting for a while and it is ok.

nightstalker has a huge impact for me. i only run movspeedstrafe because its such smooth gameplay, i have 214k archerydps though so i can easily do mp1 with it. i briefly ran with soj but its just too much dpsloss for me so it doesnt make sense to use it. besides with nightstalker i dont need + max disc, the only i have is the +10 from the chest. i built my char around this: highest possible dps and max disc regeneration and i achieve that through high crit and things like andys visage. ofc potentially i can run out of hatred without punishment due to a streak of globes not dropping but that happens like once every 10 runs for me.

tl/dr: nightstalker with high enough crit = legacy nats and makes any +disc obsolete.

[Lixo]

flexxi, on 08 December 2012 - 09:05 PM, said:

Ulto, on 08 December 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

That's a very good point, I did not think you could perma life steal by continuously strafing.
Not to run out of hatred without punishment, I think you need a very high dps and most people who read this won't have enough gear for it.
Besides, do you really think Nightstalker has a significant impact on your discipline regeneration ?
I find it quite useless and I don't really see how getting high amount of CC can make a difference.
Also, have you considered using a soj ? It looks perfect on my demon hunter.

After some further testing :
- Rockets are cool , maybe better than demolition.
- I sometimes run out of hatred without Punishment
- Even with Vault and no night stalker I almost never run out of Discipline, and if I do I just have to stop vaulting for a while and it is ok.

nightstalker has a huge impact for me. i only run movspeedstrafe because its such smooth gameplay, i have 214k archerydps though so i can easily do mp1 with it. i briefly ran with soj but its just too much dpsloss for me so it doesnt make sense to use it. besides with nightstalker i dont need + max disc, the only i have is the +10 from the chest. i built my char around this: highest possible dps and max disc regeneration and i achieve that through high crit and things like andys visage. ofc potentially i can run out of hatred without punishment due to a streak of globes not dropping but that happens like once every 10 runs for me.

tl/dr: nightstalker with high enough crit = legacy nats and makes any +disc obsolete.

But SoJ is only a dps loss against white mobs against which DPS does not matter that much...(at all if you play mp1)

[Ulto]

Soj gives a lot of boosts :
- 6% damage
- Up to 30% damage on elite packs ( I don't have exact figure but I think at least 25% of your damage is done on elites)
- Up to 7% crit
- Maximum discipline
I think it gives more dps than any other ring.

Regarding Nightstalker I don't have the exact figures (I don't think anyone except Blizzard has them) but I doubt it gives mores than 0.2 disc/sec.
I usually get hatred issues while fighting small enemies that do not drop globes (like scorpions or fallens)

[dao72785]

ive been using the strafe build ever since i had a dh... the problem is though that you will need plenty of dicipline and crit chance, especially if you are going to use a 1h and +IAS, i also run with a calamity which i feel is way better than any 2h, even manticore, for this build. but whenever i need to life steal i run gloom + bola shot and it works well. i also use bola shot for huge mobs.

this is my build i run, as you see i dont have a lot of dps and sometimes my profile isnt going to show my real dps because i swap my witching hour with my wiz but im 80k dps with this build.

http://us.battle.net...7/hero/24158004

vault, bola, archery, ballistics, and the rune for strafe are not necessary but the rest are mandatory for this build

but to me i would say bola and archery are very important... bola for gloom/large mobs, and archery with a 1h for 10% chc. also you should look into getting 2 pieces of the nat set to get the 10% chc bonus, and also maras/cloaks/soj have strafe chc%

Edited by dao72785, 08 December 2012 - 11:38 PM.

[LordPoekel]

Ulto, on 08 December 2012 - 10:59 PM, said:

Soj gives a lot of boosts :
- 6% damage
- Up to 30% damage on elite packs ( I don't have exact figure but I think at least 25% of your damage is done on elites)
- Up to 7% crit
- Maximum discipline
I think it gives more dps than any other ring.

Regarding Nightstalker I don't have the exact figures (I don't think anyone except Blizzard has them) but I doubt it gives mores than 0.2 disc/sec.
I usually get hatred issues while fighting small enemies that do not drop globes (like scorpions or fallens)

Don't forget Cull of the Weak if you are using a Cold SoJ.

Regarding Nightstalker you have to remember that it does proc based on Proc Coefficient. Skills with a 100% Proc Coefficient will proc Nighstalker with every critical hit, Strafe Demolition will proc Nighstalker with a 50% chance on critical hits.

[Ulto]

LordPoekel, on 09 December 2012 - 04:35 AM, said:

Don't forget Cull of the Weak if you are using a Cold SoJ.

Regarding Nightstalker you have to remember that it does proc based on Proc Coefficient. Skills with a 100% Proc Coefficient will proc Nighstalker with every critical hit, Strafe Demolition will proc Nighstalker with a 50% chance on critical hits.

That's true, however I see no way to include Cull of the Weak in my build as I already have Tactical Advantage and Vengeance and that Ballistics gives me more damage than Cull of the Weak would.
Are you sure about the figures you give for Night Stalker ?
I wonder if there is an hidden cooldown between two Nightstalker procs.
If there isn't the coefficient should not be higher than 5%

[LordPoekel]

Ulto, on 09 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

LordPoekel, on 09 December 2012 - 04:35 AM, said:

Don't forget Cull of the Weak if you are using a Cold SoJ.

Regarding Nightstalker you have to remember that it does proc based on Proc Coefficient. Skills with a 100% Proc Coefficient will proc Nighstalker with every critical hit, Strafe Demolition will proc Nighstalker with a 50% chance on critical hits.

That's true, however I see no way to include Cull of the Weak in my build as I already have Tactical Advantage and Vengeance and that Ballistics gives me more damage than Cull of the Weak would.

That might be debatable as Rockets do hit slowed targets as well and in that case would get the 15% bonus as well. One important thing to consider is that you get 4 strafe shots per second and 2 rockets per second. It very much depends on which passive allows you to 1 hit more enemies. If your damage is high enough to 1 hit most enemies without Cull of the Weak using your standard Strafe attack, Ballistics would be the better choice (it would allow rockets to 1 hit as well). If you would need Cull of the Weak for that, this would probably the better choice. With Demolition and a SoJ Cull of the Weak is a No Brainer though.

Quote

Are you sure about the figures you give for Night Stalker ?
I wonder if there is an hidden cooldown between two Nightstalker procs.
If there isn't the coefficient should not be higher than 5%

I did some tests about this. It looked that there would be a hidden cooldown but this only seems to apply to the Nightstalker animation. The animation will not pop up at the second crit hit. I then looked at discipline regeneration (using a 100% proc coefficient skill, attacking Azmodan while hovering my mouse over the discipline globe. Recorded it and watched the video in slow motion to make sure to disregard normal discipline regeneration) and you will actually get 1 discipline for every critical hit.

[Ulto]

LordPoekel, on 09 December 2012 - 02:47 PM, said:

Ulto, on 09 December 2012 - 01:49 PM, said:

LordPoekel, on 09 December 2012 - 04:35 AM, said:

Don't forget Cull of the Weak if you are using a Cold SoJ.

Regarding Nightstalker you have to remember that it does proc based on Proc Coefficient. Skills with a 100% Proc Coefficient will proc Nighstalker with every critical hit, Strafe Demolition will proc Nighstalker with a 50% chance on critical hits.

That's true, however I see no way to include Cull of the Weak in my build as I already have Tactical Advantage and Vengeance and that Ballistics gives me more damage than Cull of the Weak would.

That might be debatable as Rockets do hit slowed targets as well and in that case would get the 15% bonus as well. One important thing to consider is that you get 4 strafe shots per second and 2 rockets per second. It very much depends on which passive allows you to 1 hit more enemies. If your damage is high enough to 1 hit most enemies without Cull of the Weak using your standard Strafe attack, Ballistics would be the better choice (it would allow rockets to 1 hit as well). If you would need Cull of the Weak for that, this would probably the better choice. With Demolition and a SoJ Cull of the Weak is a No Brainer though.

Quote

Are you sure about the figures you give for Night Stalker ?
I wonder if there is an hidden cooldown between two Nightstalker procs.
If there isn't the coefficient should not be higher than 5%

I did some tests about this. It looked that there would be a hidden cooldown but this only seems to apply to the Nightstalker animation. The animation will not pop up at the second crit hit. I then looked at discipline regeneration (using a 100% proc coefficient skill, attacking Azmodan while hovering my mouse over the discipline globe. Recorded it and watched the video in slow motion to make sure to disregard normal discipline regeneration) and you will actually get 1 discipline for every critical hit.

Ballistics gives you around 14.3% overall damage against single target and far more against multiple damage.
I would thus say that it is better than Cull the Weak which does not increase damage from first shot (at least I think so).

Besides, have you manage to find the proc chances of some abilities for Night Stalker ?
I would be interested to know.

[baron01]

Ulto, on 12 December 2012 - 03:20 PM, said:

Ballistics gives you around 14.3% overall damage against single target and far more against multiple damage.
I would thus say that it is better than Cull the Weak which does not increase damage from first shot (at least I think so).

Besides, have you manage to find the proc chances of some abilities for Night Stalker ?
I would be interested to know.

Cull the Weak bonus damage to slowed targets works on the first shot--ie. the same shot the cold/slow effect is applied--as long as you have a cold damage on weapon or other piece of gear (SoJ ring is the most common).

Here is the link to a topic in Theorycrafting section on these forums where is a full list of all abilities and their proc coefficients, this applies to Nightstalker as well.

Edited by baron01, 12 December 2012 - 04:25 PM.