I'm still really on the fence with this build. There are 3 variations that I'm not sure which would be best. I wanted to try and get a build that has massive amounts of spike damage for difficult packs.
The main part of the build is to kill things quickly to keep cooldowns reasonable. I want the dogs cooldown back before I'm down to 0 dogs.
Poison Dart - Splinters: For single target damage and low mana situations. It's actually pretty good damage with pierce the veil.
Wall of Zombies - Pile on: The goal is to keep this cooldown in the teens by quickly killing lots of monsters with my instant AoEs.
Summon Zombie Dogs - Final Gift: pretty much the only choice in a sacrifice build.
Sacrifice - Next of Kin: More zombie dogs
Mass Confusion - Devolution: Here's where I'm hesitant. I like the idea of getting even more ZDogs but it comes at a major price.... a 1 minute cooldown on my main defensive skill. Granted, I have ZDogs to tank briefly before I blow them up and the monsters I kill from sac + wall will likely get this down to 40 seconds... that's still quite high. It would however, help with the number of zdogs up by a lot.
Locust Swarm - Searing Locusts: I need some AoE damage while Wall is on cooldown. This is a really expensive one that spreads. I think it works well with pierce because I won't be spamming it... I'll cast it twice and then move on to dart while I kite.
Passives:
Pierece the veil: since most of my damage will come from sacrifice and wall (which is on a cooldown). It also gives me pretty good single target damage from dart.
Grave Injustice: I need my cooldowns lowered. It also provides a nice heal when I destroy everything.
Zombie Handler: Mostly for the extra dog but the 20% health on dogs will help them tank a bit longer before I kill them off.
So now the choices... what do you think would work better?
A.) The build linked
B.) Grasp of the Dead - Unbreakable Grasp instead of Mass Confusion: This would be much more reliable defensively and would allow me to kite better while I'm waiting on cooldowns and without dogs.
C.) Grasp of the Dead - Unbreakable Grasp instead of Locust Swarm: This would be much more defensive but my damage would be really low when I'm waiting on dogs and WoZ. Probably my least favorite choice... I'd likely want to change more things if I went this way (probably get rid of WoZ and therefore pierce as well).
I think I like B the best because it's more reliable... what sez you?
^^i prefer something like this which depends more on dogs for AOE over locusts. It has more dog producing abilities which should allow for a lot more dogs per minute; so sacrifice can be used more often. If you have enough dogs being produced i dont see the need for Locusts. Boogieman and circle of life are too good to not use for a sac oriented build imo.
With 4 dogs doing 330% damage each (/w pierce the veil) and overlapping AOE, its quite possible that targets take over 600% damage in 1 burst; up to 1320% damage if there is lots of AOE overlap. with damage like that Id prefer to just go all out dog abilities (so sac can be used more often) and not mess with zwall or locusts.
snake to the face + garg bruiser = nice stun synergy going on there for some more control.
leeching beasts make it so you are constantly getting healed while dogs are up. this build has such low mana costs and constant health regen that i dont even see the need for "final gift" over leeching beasts rune.
I don't want to rely on only Sac for damage because then you're too vulnerable to bad RNG (randomness) which will make your dps nearly 0. I want damage I can rely on and that means having a backup for when dogs fail.
The mana cost of locusts is a non-issue because I'll only be casting the spell twice and then moving on to a spell that costs basically no mana. It's not a spell that you spam.
I don't want to rely on only Sac for damage because then you're too vulnerable to bad RNG (randomness) which will make your dps nearly 0. I want damage I can rely on and that means having a backup for when dogs fail.
The mana cost of locusts is a non-issue because I'll only be casting the spell twice and then moving on to a spell that costs basically no mana. It's not a spell that you spam.
you bring up good points. again just my style yo... i like to push theme builds to the extreme and see what happens.
also poison dart + pierce the veil is still nice damage to get some kills induring those times when RNG with no dogs. Pierce the veil scales very nicely with abilities that do more than 100% weapon damage.
Pick any Primary/secondary spamable attack you like the most.
Sacrifice (next of kin), summon zombie dogs (any rune), Mass confusion (Devolution), BBW (boogie man) is pretty much fixed abilitys.
Gargantua (any rune) can be switched for any CD based abillity you prefer.
Passives: Zombie handler / Circle of life / Vision Quest pick 2/3 and take grave injustice.
as this is a heavy CD build vision quest should provide enought mana to be able to spam/semi-spam your attack spell, rest is just find a big enougth group pop everything and blow it up.
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As always, I find your build well thought Rupgu. I'm a bit worried by the lack of CC in the original build, I can't see ZDogs be enough distracting to let you nuke easily. I guess the Unbreakable Grasp + Searing Locusts version may be more comfortable. The snare can also help packing monsters in order to cast more efficient Sacrifices
Thanks! Glad you enjoy them. I usually have an idea pop into my head and then go into puzzle mode trying to make it work. If you treat builds like puzzles you'll often come up with some interesting combinations!
I think I agree, it's just not reliable enough if I have to rely on mass confusion because of the high cooldown. I'm hoping grasp+locusts can keep me alive until one of my big AoEs come back available. The good thing about locust + Grasp + dart is that I should be able to get a few grasps out there at a time since things will start dying and reduce the cooldown.... mana permitting of course... grasp isn't cheap and I have pierce.
That's a good suggestion actually. There are pros and cons to both. Since it only lasts 10 seconds I think a majority of the time it will be less damage but I bet even 1 stack is > 20 percent. I guess it will depend on how plentiful globes are in the game. It's true though, it would work well with my dogs glyph.
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The main part of the build is to kill things quickly to keep cooldowns reasonable. I want the dogs cooldown back before I'm down to 0 dogs.
http://us.battle.net...YVjS!WTd!aYZZZc
Poison Dart - Splinters: For single target damage and low mana situations. It's actually pretty good damage with pierce the veil.
Wall of Zombies - Pile on: The goal is to keep this cooldown in the teens by quickly killing lots of monsters with my instant AoEs.
Summon Zombie Dogs - Final Gift: pretty much the only choice in a sacrifice build.
Sacrifice - Next of Kin: More zombie dogs
Mass Confusion - Devolution: Here's where I'm hesitant. I like the idea of getting even more ZDogs but it comes at a major price.... a 1 minute cooldown on my main defensive skill. Granted, I have ZDogs to tank briefly before I blow them up and the monsters I kill from sac + wall will likely get this down to 40 seconds... that's still quite high. It would however, help with the number of zdogs up by a lot.
Locust Swarm - Searing Locusts: I need some AoE damage while Wall is on cooldown. This is a really expensive one that spreads. I think it works well with pierce because I won't be spamming it... I'll cast it twice and then move on to dart while I kite.
Passives:
Pierece the veil: since most of my damage will come from sacrifice and wall (which is on a cooldown). It also gives me pretty good single target damage from dart.
Grave Injustice: I need my cooldowns lowered. It also provides a nice heal when I destroy everything.
Zombie Handler: Mostly for the extra dog but the 20% health on dogs will help them tank a bit longer before I kill them off.
So now the choices... what do you think would work better?
A.) The build linked
B.) Grasp of the Dead - Unbreakable Grasp instead of Mass Confusion: This would be much more reliable defensively and would allow me to kite better while I'm waiting on cooldowns and without dogs.
C.) Grasp of the Dead - Unbreakable Grasp instead of Locust Swarm: This would be much more defensive but my damage would be really low when I'm waiting on dogs and WoZ. Probably my least favorite choice... I'd likely want to change more things if I went this way (probably get rid of WoZ and therefore pierce as well).
I think I like B the best because it's more reliable... what sez you?
^^i prefer something like this which depends more on dogs for AOE over locusts. It has more dog producing abilities which should allow for a lot more dogs per minute; so sacrifice can be used more often. If you have enough dogs being produced i dont see the need for Locusts. Boogieman and circle of life are too good to not use for a sac oriented build imo.
With 4 dogs doing 330% damage each (/w pierce the veil) and overlapping AOE, its quite possible that targets take over 600% damage in 1 burst; up to 1320% damage if there is lots of AOE overlap. with damage like that Id prefer to just go all out dog abilities (so sac can be used more often) and not mess with zwall or locusts.
snake to the face + garg bruiser = nice stun synergy going on there for some more control.
leeching beasts make it so you are constantly getting healed while dogs are up. this build has such low mana costs and constant health regen that i dont even see the need for "final gift" over leeching beasts rune.
The mana cost of locusts is a non-issue because I'll only be casting the spell twice and then moving on to a spell that costs basically no mana. It's not a spell that you spam.
you bring up good points. again just my style yo... i like to push theme builds to the extreme and see what happens.
also poison dart + pierce the veil is still nice damage to get some kills induring those times when RNG with no dogs. Pierce the veil scales very nicely with abilities that do more than 100% weapon damage.
http://www.diablofan...-dog-fun-build/
Will probably make some revisions once games hit and spells and rune effects % numbers and/or even effects are changed.
basicly: http://us.battle.net...YjQT!dTU!.ZcZcc
Pick any Primary/secondary spamable attack you like the most.
Sacrifice (next of kin), summon zombie dogs (any rune), Mass confusion (Devolution), BBW (boogie man) is pretty much fixed abilitys.
Gargantua (any rune) can be switched for any CD based abillity you prefer.
Passives: Zombie handler / Circle of life / Vision Quest pick 2/3 and take grave injustice.
as this is a heavy CD build vision quest should provide enought mana to be able to spam/semi-spam your attack spell, rest is just find a big enougth group pop everything and blow it up.
EU Season Achievement Ladder: Season 1 : #773, 7150/7880 | S2 : #742, 5970/8280 | S3 : #1000+, 810/980 | S4 #? 0/? |
Thanks! Glad you enjoy them. I usually have an idea pop into my head and then go into puzzle mode trying to make it work. If you treat builds like puzzles you'll often come up with some interesting combinations!
I think I agree, it's just not reliable enough if I have to rely on mass confusion because of the high cooldown. I'm hoping grasp+locusts can keep me alive until one of my big AoEs come back available. The good thing about locust + Grasp + dart is that I should be able to get a few grasps out there at a time since things will start dying and reduce the cooldown.... mana permitting of course... grasp isn't cheap and I have pierce.