Hullo all- thought I'd share a build I've been having moderate success with in inferno. And best of all, gearing for it falls on the cheaper side of things, so it's great for those fresh to inferno.
Nothing special with the build really, standard dire bats stuff. I like the 3 CC / Spirit walk combo for elite packs, as it basically lets me take on anything. Rotating those four cooldowns, things should rarely get to you.
Where this build stands out is using an incredibly slow 2Hander, ignoring attack speed, and stacking crit chance and crit damage. With what I consider mid tier gear (26K player damage / 30% crit chance / 240% crit damage) my dire bats are smashing groups, critting between 130 and 150K damage - no soul harvest. I also get 40K splinter crits on a single dart. I find this type of burst to be somewhat game changing when taking on packs of elites.
Some things to note-
It will feel like you are casting incredibly slow, and that's because you are, but don't give up until you try it on a few packs. Nothing beats the feeling of launching off a few bats, starting to kite, and then realizing nothing is chasing you because you strung together a few crits.
The idea that attack speed increases your mobility is somewhat true, but not as much as you think. A higher attack speed build will finish it's cast animations quicker, but it will also have to turn around and stop to cast more often since the damage per cast is lower. This build can afford to take a few more steps and still drop groups in about the same amount of time.
The mana is one of my favorite aspects of having a slow attack speed. I cast fewer dire bats because they have a greater impact when I do cast them. It feels like the mana resource blizzard intended for the class originally, as I don't go oom spamming my primary ability that is supposed to allow me to regen. A healthy mix of darts and bats will keep you pretty comfortable, without the need for vision quest (really dislike having my abilities on cooldown in inferno).
My other favorite thing is that the build is relatively cheap to gear for. If you can afford the attack speed, more power to you, I'm sure the build will only increase in power, but every class is currently obsessed with attack speed on gear, and the AH prices are getting pretty outrageous.
I tried the build with 1H/OH weapons thinking the 8% crit on an offhand would be too good to pass up, but I found myself out of mana and with direbats that didn't really hit hard enough to have the kind of impact I was looking for. There is a real sweet spot in damage for our class, involving killing things in a certain number of casts (mana) and a certain number of seconds (the intertwining of spirit walk / spirit vessel) and I think this build falls into that spot quite nicely. I realize people have been ignoring the mana issue by going only splinters dart build but I just can't seem to bring myself to take on the minions of hell only armed with a spit ball.
So grab yourself a 2 hander (crit damage with an empty socket is a must) and let me know how it works for you.
1
The build - http://us.battle.net...URXk!VWb!aaZZbb
Nothing special with the build really, standard dire bats stuff. I like the 3 CC / Spirit walk combo for elite packs, as it basically lets me take on anything. Rotating those four cooldowns, things should rarely get to you.
Where this build stands out is using an incredibly slow 2Hander, ignoring attack speed, and stacking crit chance and crit damage. With what I consider mid tier gear (26K player damage / 30% crit chance / 240% crit damage) my dire bats are smashing groups, critting between 130 and 150K damage - no soul harvest. I also get 40K splinter crits on a single dart. I find this type of burst to be somewhat game changing when taking on packs of elites.
Some things to note-
It will feel like you are casting incredibly slow, and that's because you are, but don't give up until you try it on a few packs. Nothing beats the feeling of launching off a few bats, starting to kite, and then realizing nothing is chasing you because you strung together a few crits.
The idea that attack speed increases your mobility is somewhat true, but not as much as you think. A higher attack speed build will finish it's cast animations quicker, but it will also have to turn around and stop to cast more often since the damage per cast is lower. This build can afford to take a few more steps and still drop groups in about the same amount of time.
The mana is one of my favorite aspects of having a slow attack speed. I cast fewer dire bats because they have a greater impact when I do cast them. It feels like the mana resource blizzard intended for the class originally, as I don't go oom spamming my primary ability that is supposed to allow me to regen. A healthy mix of darts and bats will keep you pretty comfortable, without the need for vision quest (really dislike having my abilities on cooldown in inferno).
My other favorite thing is that the build is relatively cheap to gear for. If you can afford the attack speed, more power to you, I'm sure the build will only increase in power, but every class is currently obsessed with attack speed on gear, and the AH prices are getting pretty outrageous.
I tried the build with 1H/OH weapons thinking the 8% crit on an offhand would be too good to pass up, but I found myself out of mana and with direbats that didn't really hit hard enough to have the kind of impact I was looking for. There is a real sweet spot in damage for our class, involving killing things in a certain number of casts (mana) and a certain number of seconds (the intertwining of spirit walk / spirit vessel) and I think this build falls into that spot quite nicely. I realize people have been ignoring the mana issue by going only splinters dart build but I just can't seem to bring myself to take on the minions of hell only armed with a spit ball.
So grab yourself a 2 hander (crit damage with an empty socket is a must) and let me know how it works for you.