I am currently level 21 on my WD, and compared to dire bats (fire bats glyphed), every other spell looks weak and pathetic.
All i do is:
- keep the gargantuan out (it never dies, so far)
- use soul harvest to get int stacks
- spam dire bats, if i oom (almost never) i use firebomb or darts as filler.
- i also have terrify and grasp of the dead on my bars if i ever need to CC, which also is almost never (gonna need these in later difficulties, i know)
The problem is, no other active nuke that costs a notable amount of mana can compare to the damage of the dire bats, and they do huge aoe as well...
Are other spells weaksauce or are dire bats simply OP at this level?
The zombie charger is useless in comparison, even after the first glyph. The range on the bats is what makes them the better choice, the zombie has barely more aoe and the range is ridiculously short.
This also goes for the "cheap" left click abilities, dart and firebomb is way better than the others by a huge margin so far, the toads are unpredictable, short ranged and weird. The spiders do crappy damage and the spider queen is slow as hell with mediocre damage.
If it stays this way all the way to nightmare (wall of zombies seem rather weak, fetish army very long cd and probably not worth it until you can get vision quest passive)
firebomb or dart
dire bats
grasp of the dead or zombie dogs
soul harvest
mass confusion or terrify
gargantuan
Go with spiritual attunement + blood ritual + gruesome feast as passives and you can spam those spells pretty hard. Especially if you glyphed mana return on soul harvest.
as for arcane orb: isnt that a targeted aoe? Fire bats do damage to everything in their path from when they leave you to 40 yards in front of you.
Well in my experience dire bats have very thin hit radius. I find it nearly as hard to hit as poison darts. Just saying what it felt like up to level 16, I need to test more after work.
My guess is that they are simply good in different situations.
I cannot say I agree, while they do probably have a thinner hit radius, I don't have difficulties hitting and simply instagibbing every pack i come over by simply using soul harvest and dire bats.
Its probably got alot to do with balancing the skills around nightmare/inferno difficulty where you will need that kind of dps to even remotely keep up with the uped HP/Damage of monsters. Normal should be fairly easy to get through in my opinion so it would appear to be OP. Though in line with other skills for WD, it shouldn't make you feel like you have to take it. I agree to that point.
wtf? how do u not oom? u can only cast firebats for a couple seconds before your mana is at zero. and direbats doesnt have as big of an AOE so i swapped them out because i was spending most of my time OOM.
now PoT - fire toads is fucking AMAZING. its exactly like charged bolt sorc on D2 except the damage is soooooo much better. mana pool doesnt even move since its so cheap to cast and with fast attack speed you cover the screen in them and they each explode in a little AOE. im plowing my way through act 2 with mostly just these at a super fast rate without even stacking dmg. now it requires a bit more survivability to use them though since there random pathing makes them most effective close up. so grab a shield
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Nearing the end of Act 1, and I agree, Direbats are OP. I switched to unruned bats and having more fun, plus I like the play style regular bats attack vs direbats. Also I took Jay Wilson's suggestion on not having ANY summons, except for Circle of Life. Makes the game more challenging and then you actually need to collect health vials instead of kicking back and recasting the Dogs. There are more powerful builds, but this one is fun, challenging, & rewarding. Off to work.
Nearing the end of Act 1, and I agree, Direbats are OP. I switched to unruned bats and having more fun, plus I like the play style regular bats attack vs direbats. Also I took Jay Wilson's suggestion on not having ANY summons, except for Circle of Life. Makes the game more challenging and then you actually need to collect health vials instead of kicking back and recasting the Dogs. There are more powerful builds, but this one is fun, challenging, & rewarding. Off to work.
the dogs die so damn fast. hopefully in 2 lvls once i get zombie handler it will be better with another dog and 20% health. i still need to test out if your armor directly effects your pets. i THINK it does considering soon as i equipped a shield it SEEMED like my dogs were able to stay alive longer. but will have to test thoroughly to find out
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
wtf? how do u not oom? u can only cast firebats for a couple seconds before your mana is at zero. and direbats doesnt have as big of an AOE so i swapped them out because i was spending most of my time OOM.
now PoT - fire toads is fucking AMAZING. its exactly like charged bolt sorc on D2 except the damage is soooooo much better. mana pool doesnt even move since its so cheap to cast and with fast attack speed you cover the screen in them and they each explode in a little AOE. im plowing my way through act 2 with mostly just these at a super fast rate without even stacking dmg. now it requires a bit more survivability to use them though since there random pathing makes them most effective close up. so grab a shield
You use 2 mana passives and you can spam firebats all day long. Just finished act 3 with only using direbats and hex w/ heal rune. Everything is so damn easy.
With my slow 2 hander, I 1 shot pretty much any group unless it's a very high HP mob.
You use 2 mana passives and you can spam firebats all day long. Just finished act 3 with only using direbats and hex w/ heal rune. Everything is so damn easy.
With my slow 2 hander, I 1 shot pretty much any group unless it's a very high HP mob.
you mean blood ritual and spiritual attunement:? even with those its still impossible to spam firebats.
but ya GL with that strategy hell-inferno. whats your 2 hander damage?
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
You use 2 mana passives and you can spam firebats all day long. Just finished act 3 with only using direbats and hex w/ heal rune. Everything is so damn easy.
With my slow 2 hander, I 1 shot pretty much any group unless it's a very high HP mob.
you mean blood ritual and spiritual attunement:? even with those its still impossible to spam firebats.
but ya GL with that strategy hell-inferno. lol
lol I never said I'd do it in hell-inferno, I'm doing it now to cruise through normal quickly. If I wouldn't have quit my game to sell my legendary drop I'd be mostly done with act 4 instead of stuck out of game
With those, you can spam firebats until everything is dead... trust me.
You use 2 mana passives and you can spam firebats all day long. Just finished act 3 with only using direbats and hex w/ heal rune. Everything is so damn easy.
With my slow 2 hander, I 1 shot pretty much any group unless it's a very high HP mob.
you mean blood ritual and spiritual attunement:? even with those its still impossible to spam firebats.
but ya GL with that strategy hell-inferno. lol
lol I never said I'd do it in hell-inferno, I'm doing it now to cruise through normal quickly. If I wouldn't have quit my game to sell my legendary drop I'd be mostly done with act 4 instead of stuck out of game
With those, you can spam firebats until everything is dead... trust me.
oh nice, which legendary did you get? and how much did u sell it for
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
I got a +15% damage one though so maybe it will sell. I think I put it at around 50,000 so we'll see if it sells.
ya i tried selling a couple rare amulets and rings for 15-20k. they had like 35 dex 32 str n other stuff. very good for like a lvl 15 item. hopefully those sell too cuz holy shit money is like water... every dime i get i funnel into the BS. also found rare scoundrel dice with good stats
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
it's insane how quickly damage scales... I'm already doing 1000+ damage non-crits on my dire bats. I remember back in Act 1 where 100 was a good number. I can only imagine the numbers we'll put up in Inferno.
But yeah... I hear you on the money department. I spent it all on jeweler and blacksmith but now I'm stone walled by the steps that require pages and I've yet to encounter a single page... maybe they don't drop until nightmare.
it's insane how quickly damage scales... I'm already doing 1000+ damage non-crits on my dire bats. I remember back in Act 1 where 100 was a good number. I can only imagine the numbers we'll put up in Inferno.
But yeah... I hear you on the money department. I spent it all on jeweler and blacksmith but now I'm stone walled by the steps that require pages and I've yet to encounter a single page... maybe they don't drop until nightmare.
ya the pages dont drop till nightmare+. but you can still make like lvl 40 gear maxing the blacksmith with just money cant you? or at least mid 30 range
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
Nearing the end of Act 1, and I agree, Direbats are OP. I switched to unruned bats and having more fun, plus I like the play style regular bats attack vs direbats. Also I took Jay Wilson's suggestion on not having ANY summons, except for Circle of Life. Makes the game more challenging and then you actually need to collect health vials instead of kicking back and recasting the Dogs. There are more powerful builds, but this one is fun, challenging, & rewarding. Off to work.
the dogs die so damn fast. hopefully in 2 lvls once i get zombie handler it will be better with another dog and 20% health. i still need to test out if your armor directly effects your pets. i THINK it does considering soon as i equipped a shield it SEEMED like my dogs were able to stay alive longer. but will have to test thoroughly to find out
They do die fast, but it makes it more fun to have to dash over to the heals b4 losing a pup. During Beta, I would run it without potions and armor. Why, cuz it was more fun that way. At least until Nightmare, I'm going to play with the game mechanics that are the most fun for me..
Nearing the end of Act 1, and I agree, Direbats are OP. I switched to unruned bats and having more fun, plus I like the play style regular bats attack vs direbats. Also I took Jay Wilson's suggestion on not having ANY summons, except for Circle of Life. Makes the game more challenging and then you actually need to collect health vials instead of kicking back and recasting the Dogs. There are more powerful builds, but this one is fun, challenging, & rewarding. Off to work.
the dogs die so damn fast. hopefully in 2 lvls once i get zombie handler it will be better with another dog and 20% health. i still need to test out if your armor directly effects your pets. i THINK it does considering soon as i equipped a shield it SEEMED like my dogs were able to stay alive longer. but will have to test thoroughly to find out
They do die fast, but it makes it more fun to have to dash over to the heals b4 losing a pup. During Beta, I would run it without potions and armor. Why, cuz it was more fun that way. At least until Nightmare, I'm going to play with the game mechanics that are the most fun for me..
ladies and gentlemen, THIS IS HOW TO ENJOY THE GAME FOR A LONG TIME.
All i do is:
- keep the gargantuan out (it never dies, so far)
- use soul harvest to get int stacks
- spam dire bats, if i oom (almost never) i use firebomb or darts as filler.
- i also have terrify and grasp of the dead on my bars if i ever need to CC, which also is almost never (gonna need these in later difficulties, i know)
The problem is, no other active nuke that costs a notable amount of mana can compare to the damage of the dire bats, and they do huge aoe as well...
Are other spells weaksauce or are dire bats simply OP at this level?
This also goes for the "cheap" left click abilities, dart and firebomb is way better than the others by a huge margin so far, the toads are unpredictable, short ranged and weird. The spiders do crappy damage and the spider queen is slow as hell with mediocre damage.
If it stays this way all the way to nightmare (wall of zombies seem rather weak, fetish army very long cd and probably not worth it until you can get vision quest passive)
firebomb or dart
dire bats
grasp of the dead or zombie dogs
soul harvest
mass confusion or terrify
gargantuan
Go with spiritual attunement + blood ritual + gruesome feast as passives and you can spam those spells pretty hard. Especially if you glyphed mana return on soul harvest.
as for arcane orb: isnt that a targeted aoe? Fire bats do damage to everything in their path from when they leave you to 40 yards in front of you.
I cannot say I agree, while they do probably have a thinner hit radius, I don't have difficulties hitting and simply instagibbing every pack i come over by simply using soul harvest and dire bats.
now PoT - fire toads is fucking AMAZING. its exactly like charged bolt sorc on D2 except the damage is soooooo much better. mana pool doesnt even move since its so cheap to cast and with fast attack speed you cover the screen in them and they each explode in a little AOE. im plowing my way through act 2 with mostly just these at a super fast rate without even stacking dmg. now it requires a bit more survivability to use them though since there random pathing makes them most effective close up. so grab a shield
the dogs die so damn fast. hopefully in 2 lvls once i get zombie handler it will be better with another dog and 20% health. i still need to test out if your armor directly effects your pets. i THINK it does considering soon as i equipped a shield it SEEMED like my dogs were able to stay alive longer. but will have to test thoroughly to find out
You use 2 mana passives and you can spam firebats all day long. Just finished act 3 with only using direbats and hex w/ heal rune. Everything is so damn easy.
With my slow 2 hander, I 1 shot pretty much any group unless it's a very high HP mob.
you mean blood ritual and spiritual attunement:? even with those its still impossible to spam firebats.
but ya GL with that strategy hell-inferno. whats your 2 hander damage?
lol I never said I'd do it in hell-inferno, I'm doing it now to cruise through normal quickly. If I wouldn't have quit my game to sell my legendary drop I'd be mostly done with act 4 instead of stuck out of game
With those, you can spam firebats until everything is dead... trust me.
oh nice, which legendary did you get? and how much did u sell it for
I got a +15% damage one though so maybe it will sell. I think I put it at around 50,000 so we'll see if it sells.
ya i tried selling a couple rare amulets and rings for 15-20k. they had like 35 dex 32 str n other stuff. very good for like a lvl 15 item. hopefully those sell too cuz holy shit money is like water... every dime i get i funnel into the BS. also found rare scoundrel dice with good stats
But yeah... I hear you on the money department. I spent it all on jeweler and blacksmith but now I'm stone walled by the steps that require pages and I've yet to encounter a single page... maybe they don't drop until nightmare.
ya the pages dont drop till nightmare+. but you can still make like lvl 40 gear maxing the blacksmith with just money cant you? or at least mid 30 range
Is the crafting different based upon the character class you choose? Maybe it was just Beta, but seems like I had more crafting options before.
They do die fast, but it makes it more fun to have to dash over to the heals b4 losing a pup. During Beta, I would run it without potions and armor. Why, cuz it was more fun that way. At least until Nightmare, I'm going to play with the game mechanics that are the most fun for me..
ladies and gentlemen, THIS IS HOW TO ENJOY THE GAME FOR A LONG TIME.
This is the build that everyone will use for farming.
It abuses the damage of Dire Bats and mana regeneration of Vision Quest.
Enjoy!