Set Item: The Pallid Mask
Head
100-150 (Dex, Int, or Str)
50-75 Vit
Socket
+2 Random Properties "I cannot take off my mask, for I am not wearing one"
(Yes, decided to make the possibility of a 2-sock helm. Weapons can't have ALL the fun)
Set Item: Ragged Yellow Cloak
Chest
100-150 (Str, Int, or Dex)
Reduces duration of impairing effects by 10%
4 random properties "He came to us upon a winged beast, clothed in a tattered robe of yellow"
Set Bonus: The King in Yellow
(2): Chance on hit to drive the victim Insane, Confusing them for 10 seconds
Chance on hit to summon a Byakhee to fight by your side (a Winged Molok, can trigger the Insanity bonus as well)
Some of the players out there are not so lucky with drops. Maybe you just don't have time to play, or your WD is an alt. Whatever the case, the time may come (for example, in the upcoming Monster Power games) where you want to play with friends but just don't have the damage to support it. That is what this build is for. Please note that this is not meant for the Ubers, but rather for regular gaming. It is not a boss build, nor a soloing one.
The idea is to Hex, Confuse, and Snare enemies everywhere. Between Jinx and Slam Dance, you can greatly amplify the damage output of your allies as well. Several of the skills and runes are flexible. The Dogs run interference, though at lower gear levels a Gargantuan may be better. Those confident in their friends can probably replace the Mass Hysteria rune with Paranoia, etc.
Gearing is simple: go defensive. You want high health, resists, and armor. Damage is secondary here, the idea is that you are helping your allies do it or convincing enemies to do it for you.
Any thoughts? I have used similar builds in the past to assist on run-throughs as well as in the mentioned Undergeared scenario.
I'd love it if they replaced it with a Soul-Lasher style toad that latches on and stuns. Then again, I just want to see a Soul Lasher do something other than kill me in A3
this has been theorized to death, but I think its safe to ASSUME that player damage won't be 1:1. Lets say 1:10
The problem with this assumption is when we consider the vast majority of builds out there. Having their damage output reduced by 90% on top of player mitigation is going to render most builds completely impotent, especially against Monks and Witch Doctors.
Does anyone wonder if crit damage will even be worth anything in PVP?
I constantly hear about DHs super high crit damage and wonder whats the point?
On average players have about 30 000- 50 0000 health. So, crit might be useless, unless you only do 5000 damage.
The DH is the only class that can guarantee a potentially-lethal amount of damage, enough to reliably force a defensive cooldown. Also remember that 30-50k health translates to 61-102k EHP when you have the "weak" 70-70 mitigation I discussed earlier. Crit chance and crit damage are likely to become important in PvP even in moderate amounts, because it makes your damage spiky and unpredictable. If an enemy can predict your damage, they can properly time their defenses. For most, however, it's just a nice perk, not something to be relied upon.
As others have said before, we will need to see the numbers for how the scaling of damage/HP occurs as well as how rewards scaling works. Challenge is great and all, but farmers will always be farmers in a farming game. To be quite honest, the damage output increase is nearly irrelevant. If it goes above a certain point it will encourage glass cannons again, but that's it. The real switch will be in time-per-kill.
Assuming that 2 is as-current, then a 3 or 4 should not significantly impact farming speeds (since, almost by definition, if you have a place on-farm you're breezing through it). Beyond that, it all depends on how much additional health per level we see versus how overgeared you are for Inferno A3. What I suspect is that the very best farmers (the kind of people who have paragon 75+ at the moment) will likely tune up to about a 5 or possibly 6.
sry 2 burst ya bubble but only noob hunter w/o knowlegde of simple math would use BALISTICS
...thus my "much of it was probably just for the lulz" sentence. If I was going for damage, I'd use Steady Aim in its place (though I don't know whether Rocket Storm or Equilibrium would be better for the build atm).
What is interesting is that the upcoming 1.0.5 changes are going to greatly improve this build, especially for people who don't use Drifting Shadow. Default speed increased, Hatred cost reduced. Still not going to be the highest damage build out there, but it's going to be more viable, since the reduced hatred costs will allow for greater gear focus on offensive stats.
Disposable, you've just inspired me to work out the Hypercrit builds for each class. Just off the top of my head, Barbarians actually have the biggest problems here, as they are the only class that doesn't have a way to perform it at-range. I'm actually moderately sure that Monks will be in second place behind the Demon Hunter, due to Seven Sided Strike (Sudden Assault).
I put together the OP on Demon Hunters for one reason and one reason only: Sharpshooter. Demon Hunters are the only class in the game that can absolutely guarantee those initial crits. For anyone else, Hypercrit builds become a huge throw of the dice to see if that initial burst can deliver one or two. Then again, you've shown that a hyper-HIT build may be feasible as well. I'll have to look into that. My benchmark goal is to be able to dish out two million EHP of damage in the initial two seconds at least half the time. Below this benchmark, and the burst becomes survivable by enough "hard targets" that enemies often won't need to bust a cooldown to survive.
Despite what I say here, I am very sure that these all-or-nothing builds won't become dominant, simply because there are too many ways to blunt their effectiveness, and every class has access to something that will do it. Being able to wipe out five million EHP worth of targets in two seconds is not much good against a Jaunt or Serenity. Heck, I'm personally looking at the unconventionals, and will be posting another "musings" topic as soon as I can go do some math.
I'm familiar with a slightly different setup, which I like a bit better. The version I've seen in action featured two 1H XBows and the Archery passive, as that 10% steady crit plus the much-increased attack speed works out much better in any fight that lasts for more than about 10 seconds (which, with this admittedly low output, will be most of them). Unlike the 2H weapons, these can also have hatred regen on them even when non-legendary. He also used Ballistics and Rocket storm, ended up looking like...
I'll grant that much of it was probably just for the lulz, but he put a LOT of arrows and missiles into the air and both of his weapons had discipline and hatred regen on them. I haven't gotten the chance to test it for myself (I don't have the resources to get two appropriate weapons), but he was using it to very good effect in Public games.
What is interesting, from a WD point-of-view, is that bosses suddenly become the challenge again at high power levels. Damage past a certain point becomes ignorable to the Zombie Dogs and Garg, and anyone who is alert can deal with most ranged damage affixes regardless of EHP. The only real threats are teleporters and mobs which emulate that affix themselves (notably Phasebeasts), and any situation where your wall can be overrun or ignored.
Are there any skills other than cluster arrow that are comparable in damage in a single hit?
Because from my understanding, cluster arrow is a bit slow so it gives players time to cast a defensive spell or dodge.
Same goes for spells like seven sided strike.
Is there any instant attack that does huge amounts of damage?
Cluster arrow, though not instant, is by no means slow. Comparable attacks include Impale (Grievous Wounds or Chemical Burn), Fan of Knives, and Rain of Vengeance.
Impale deals either slightly less damage at the same speed with Grievous Wounds (though much cheaper), or deals significantly more with Chemical Burn but gives a couple of seconds to use a good defense to mitigate much of it.
Fan of Knives deals less damage, shorter range, and has a cooldown... but is an AoE for much lower cost and slows.
Rain of Vengeance is the move I believe you were thinking about, as it deals incredible amounts of damage but has either poor travel times or deals damage over the course of 5-12 seconds in a given area.
Fixed my numbers, thanks aarondf2012. The presence of a Deathmatch style actually strengthens the build to be a much greater threat, since the idea can be to come out swinging and then just dance around distracting them until you either die or have the hatred to do it again, and you can just repeat every time you get ripped apart.
Manticore: up to 100% native crit damage, plus 200% more if you get a 2-socket. Plus 50% for Archery passive
65% on amulet
50% on gloves
35% on each ring (total 70%)
50% on Witching Hour belt
50% native.
635% bonus crit damage possible. The Manticore weapon also hits very hard even on its worst DPS rolls, but read on.
Sharpshooter passive ensures that you get crits on your first two shots
Steady Aim gives an additional 20% damage.
The next technique is the killer: Cluster Arrow (Loaded for Bear) causes 304% fire damage, plus at least one of the bomblets is very likely to hit for an additional 100%. 404%. Let us assume a mediocre 1500 Agility. Assume as well a minimum damage roll on both attacks.699 damage is minimum base plus poison.
699 x 15 x 4.04 x 7.35 x 1.2 x 2 = 747,220 damage in the initial burst, minimum. Assuming that someone serious about PvP will have a minimum of 70% reduction from Armor and Resist, this comes out to 67,250 damage. Even though this assumed perfect crit damage gear, the rest of it was very conservative. More likely, against the theoretical 70-70 player, the damage will come out over 100k (max on a perfect Manticore is 1,958,379 damage for 176,254 after 70-70 mitigation). The build is unlikely to see the light of day despite this, however, due to the possibility of the attack being Dodged and leaving you wide open. The build still warps the meta, which I will discuss below.
All of this is not meant to be gripes about 1-shotting or moaning about how OP a DH is. The intent is actually to focus on the defensive side of things. To rephrase, it's to see what means will be needed to PREVENT a 1-second kill in a dueling situation given that no modifier for damage exists in PvP beyond your own defenses. I know that there is no real basis for these assumptions, but it has to start somewhere.
Every class has some kind of defensive cooldown to use which confers either true or near-invincibility for that burst, the hard part is timing it. The other end is stacking passive defenses, such that you can survive the insane initial burst with greater than, say, 15% life remaining. This means having around 2.5 million EHP, no easy trick if you want to still be able to do damage afterward.
Ironically, the class most vulnerable to this is the DH themselves. They are the only ones not capable of stacking long-term defensive abilities in a pinch and have no native damage reduction. The main defensive Discipline spenders are going to be huge, and timing them will be everything.
Barbarians will almost certainly be forced to use Warcry and Superstition to mitigate this assault, or hit Wrath of the Berserker and pray for a Dodge. This is counting their 30% native reduction.
Witch Doctors are going to be heavily reliant on several stacked passives and skills, though there are plenty to choose from in their lists. Jungle Fortitude, Spirit Vessel, Spirit Walk, and Life Link are just a few of the examples
Wizards can use Energy Armor (Force or Prismatic), possibly also stacking on Archon depending on build to have some TRULY nasty damage reduction to cut through... for a time. They also have several good options for shorter-term defenses, but have to be wary of magnitude (Crystal Shell) or dumb luck (Mirror Image)
Monks probably have it best, due to a wide variety of short invincibility bursts (ranging from Serenity to a well-timed Seven Sided Strike) and the ability to stack passive defenses absurdly high via OWE and StI. Let's not even mention what it would look like if the third passive there was Near-Death Experience.
Though the possibility of a 2-second match exists (or just the 1-shot sacrificial king), its very presence forces players to compensate or risk instant destruction. Its own presence forces its own demise, ironically, because such a build is extremely weak if the initial burst whiffs or at least fails to deal 90% or more of the enemy's health.
EDIT: Fixed a few numbers and some of the math. Though I was a bit over on max crit, I'd forgotten to include Steady Aim, so my numbers actually went up.
There is one defining reason to use a 1H XBow, that is to say its Archery bonus. Any build which depends heavily on Discipline, for example, absolutely loves getting its constant crit as high as possible for the regen passive.
Also do note that the other classes listed as DW dependent are not QUITE so, since 1.0.4. I am using a 2H Barbarian build and am helping with the theorycraft on a Monk build based around a 2H (though notably it prefers agility polearms to a Daibo)
0
Head
100-150 (Dex, Int, or Str)
50-75 Vit
Socket
+2 Random Properties
"I cannot take off my mask, for I am not wearing one"
(Yes, decided to make the possibility of a 2-sock helm. Weapons can't have ALL the fun)
Set Item: Ragged Yellow Cloak
Chest
100-150 (Str, Int, or Dex)
Reduces duration of impairing effects by 10%
4 random properties
"He came to us upon a winged beast, clothed in a tattered robe of yellow"
Set Bonus: The King in Yellow
(2): Chance on hit to drive the victim Insane, Confusing them for 10 seconds
Chance on hit to summon a Byakhee to fight by your side (a Winged Molok, can trigger the Insanity bonus as well)
0
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#WZUjQY!hae!YZabbY
The idea is to Hex, Confuse, and Snare enemies everywhere. Between Jinx and Slam Dance, you can greatly amplify the damage output of your allies as well. Several of the skills and runes are flexible. The Dogs run interference, though at lower gear levels a Gargantuan may be better. Those confident in their friends can probably replace the Mass Hysteria rune with Paranoia, etc.
Gearing is simple: go defensive. You want high health, resists, and armor. Damage is secondary here, the idea is that you are helping your allies do it or convincing enemies to do it for you.
Any thoughts? I have used similar builds in the past to assist on run-throughs as well as in the mentioned Undergeared scenario.
0
0
0
The problem with this assumption is when we consider the vast majority of builds out there. Having their damage output reduced by 90% on top of player mitigation is going to render most builds completely impotent, especially against Monks and Witch Doctors.
The DH is the only class that can guarantee a potentially-lethal amount of damage, enough to reliably force a defensive cooldown. Also remember that 30-50k health translates to 61-102k EHP when you have the "weak" 70-70 mitigation I discussed earlier. Crit chance and crit damage are likely to become important in PvP even in moderate amounts, because it makes your damage spiky and unpredictable. If an enemy can predict your damage, they can properly time their defenses. For most, however, it's just a nice perk, not something to be relied upon.
0
Just NV and MP.
0
Assuming that 2 is as-current, then a 3 or 4 should not significantly impact farming speeds (since, almost by definition, if you have a place on-farm you're breezing through it). Beyond that, it all depends on how much additional health per level we see versus how overgeared you are for Inferno A3. What I suspect is that the very best farmers (the kind of people who have paragon 75+ at the moment) will likely tune up to about a 5 or possibly 6.
0
...thus my "much of it was probably just for the lulz" sentence. If I was going for damage, I'd use Steady Aim in its place (though I don't know whether Rocket Storm or Equilibrium would be better for the build atm).
What is interesting is that the upcoming 1.0.5 changes are going to greatly improve this build, especially for people who don't use Drifting Shadow. Default speed increased, Hatred cost reduced. Still not going to be the highest damage build out there, but it's going to be more viable, since the reduced hatred costs will allow for greater gear focus on offensive stats.
0
I put together the OP on Demon Hunters for one reason and one reason only: Sharpshooter. Demon Hunters are the only class in the game that can absolutely guarantee those initial crits. For anyone else, Hypercrit builds become a huge throw of the dice to see if that initial burst can deliver one or two. Then again, you've shown that a hyper-HIT build may be feasible as well. I'll have to look into that. My benchmark goal is to be able to dish out two million EHP of damage in the initial two seconds at least half the time. Below this benchmark, and the burst becomes survivable by enough "hard targets" that enemies often won't need to bust a cooldown to survive.
Despite what I say here, I am very sure that these all-or-nothing builds won't become dominant, simply because there are too many ways to blunt their effectiveness, and every class has access to something that will do it. Being able to wipe out five million EHP worth of targets in two seconds is not much good against a Jaunt or Serenity. Heck, I'm personally looking at the unconventionals, and will be posting another "musings" topic as soon as I can go do some math.
0
http://us.battle.net...dgVS!eXh!YYYYZZ
I'll grant that much of it was probably just for the lulz, but he put a LOT of arrows and missiles into the air and both of his weapons had discipline and hatred regen on them. I haven't gotten the chance to test it for myself (I don't have the resources to get two appropriate weapons), but he was using it to very good effect in Public games.
0
0
Cluster arrow, though not instant, is by no means slow. Comparable attacks include Impale (Grievous Wounds or Chemical Burn), Fan of Knives, and Rain of Vengeance.
Impale deals either slightly less damage at the same speed with Grievous Wounds (though much cheaper), or deals significantly more with Chemical Burn but gives a couple of seconds to use a good defense to mitigate much of it.
Fan of Knives deals less damage, shorter range, and has a cooldown... but is an AoE for much lower cost and slows.
Rain of Vengeance is the move I believe you were thinking about, as it deals incredible amounts of damage but has either poor travel times or deals damage over the course of 5-12 seconds in a given area.
0
0
65% on amulet
50% on gloves
35% on each ring (total 70%)
50% on Witching Hour belt
50% native.
635% bonus crit damage possible. The Manticore weapon also hits very hard even on its worst DPS rolls, but read on.
Sharpshooter passive ensures that you get crits on your first two shots
Steady Aim gives an additional 20% damage.
The next technique is the killer: Cluster Arrow (Loaded for Bear) causes 304% fire damage, plus at least one of the bomblets is very likely to hit for an additional 100%. 404%. Let us assume a mediocre 1500 Agility. Assume as well a minimum damage roll on both attacks.699 damage is minimum base plus poison.
699 x 15 x 4.04 x 7.35 x 1.2 x 2 = 747,220 damage in the initial burst, minimum. Assuming that someone serious about PvP will have a minimum of 70% reduction from Armor and Resist, this comes out to 67,250 damage. Even though this assumed perfect crit damage gear, the rest of it was very conservative. More likely, against the theoretical 70-70 player, the damage will come out over 100k (max on a perfect Manticore is 1,958,379 damage for 176,254 after 70-70 mitigation). The build is unlikely to see the light of day despite this, however, due to the possibility of the attack being Dodged and leaving you wide open. The build still warps the meta, which I will discuss below.
All of this is not meant to be gripes about 1-shotting or moaning about how OP a DH is. The intent is actually to focus on the defensive side of things. To rephrase, it's to see what means will be needed to PREVENT a 1-second kill in a dueling situation given that no modifier for damage exists in PvP beyond your own defenses. I know that there is no real basis for these assumptions, but it has to start somewhere.
Every class has some kind of defensive cooldown to use which confers either true or near-invincibility for that burst, the hard part is timing it. The other end is stacking passive defenses, such that you can survive the insane initial burst with greater than, say, 15% life remaining. This means having around 2.5 million EHP, no easy trick if you want to still be able to do damage afterward.
Ironically, the class most vulnerable to this is the DH themselves. They are the only ones not capable of stacking long-term defensive abilities in a pinch and have no native damage reduction. The main defensive Discipline spenders are going to be huge, and timing them will be everything.
Barbarians will almost certainly be forced to use Warcry and Superstition to mitigate this assault, or hit Wrath of the Berserker and pray for a Dodge. This is counting their 30% native reduction.
Witch Doctors are going to be heavily reliant on several stacked passives and skills, though there are plenty to choose from in their lists. Jungle Fortitude, Spirit Vessel, Spirit Walk, and Life Link are just a few of the examples
Wizards can use Energy Armor (Force or Prismatic), possibly also stacking on Archon depending on build to have some TRULY nasty damage reduction to cut through... for a time. They also have several good options for shorter-term defenses, but have to be wary of magnitude (Crystal Shell) or dumb luck (Mirror Image)
Monks probably have it best, due to a wide variety of short invincibility bursts (ranging from Serenity to a well-timed Seven Sided Strike) and the ability to stack passive defenses absurdly high via OWE and StI. Let's not even mention what it would look like if the third passive there was Near-Death Experience.
Though the possibility of a 2-second match exists (or just the 1-shot sacrificial king), its very presence forces players to compensate or risk instant destruction. Its own presence forces its own demise, ironically, because such a build is extremely weak if the initial burst whiffs or at least fails to deal 90% or more of the enemy's health.
Thanks for sticking with me this far if you're still here, and feel free to add any thoughts to my random musings. The build I'm temporarily working from is http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aPXdSV!TYe!YcZcZY
EDIT: Fixed a few numbers and some of the math. Though I was a bit over on max crit, I'd forgotten to include Steady Aim, so my numbers actually went up.
0
Also do note that the other classes listed as DW dependent are not QUITE so, since 1.0.4. I am using a 2H Barbarian build and am helping with the theorycraft on a Monk build based around a 2H (though notably it prefers agility polearms to a Daibo)