I’ve been messing with Forcewave builds for a while now. A 2h forcewave witchblade was my main crucible farming build until recently. One thing that always bugged me was not being able to reliably farm 151-170. Forcewave can crush 100-150 (i have a build i will link at the end of this post), but when it comes to these last waves, the damage is just too much. My offensive phys tactician has 61 physical resist, overcapped resistances, high armor and hp and still gets butchered. Nothing works! It’s impossible! Isn’t it? Well, as a last resort, i figured it can’t hurt to try the 5k defensive method and as it turns out, it works surprinsingly well. And yes, it works for the elemental damage tactician as well, even with the very low physical resist.
The build is nothing special, just a different approach than most forcewave builds i’ve seen around. You lose quite a bit of dps, but in the end it’s worth it. You basically facetank every wave all the way up to 170. I didn’t quite reach 5k defensive, but 4.6k seems to be enough considering you have 2 more defensive boosts from Inspiration and Wayward Soul. Last time i checked Kuba had 23% chance to hit me. This combined with the insane lifesteal these forcewave builds have, makes it very safe and fun.
And as promised, my version of an offensive phys tactician https://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GP8qGV
It’s very well balanced, with 3000+ offensive and defensive ability, huge crit damage and maxed freeze/slow/stun resist. I also included Ulzuin’s torch and with 60%+ elemental to physical conversion, it’s a huge damage boost.
It’s an uninteresting approach, i agree. I wish there was any other way. But after all the testing and wasted time, i’m glad something finally works
The closest i got without DA was with a Batttlemage and TD, but it wasn’t enough.
Don’t have the MI jewelery or a stonefist, but i did save a juicy obsidian cleaver. and i honestly don’t see how the stonefist can be that much better, if it even is. The raw damage of this thing is bonkers and it does have % reduced enemy damage to make up for any defensive loss.
Well, maybe if you manage to get OC with those insane rolls… But it’s incredibly hard to obtain, it doesnt even drop in Crucible.
But with Tyrant’s prefix, why dont refund all skill points from Warcry (get Manticore as replacer, for example?).
Also, dont you think that you could have capped resists?
And i dont like Spellscorge Deflector there, Isnt Avenger of Cairn better?
You know i’m starting to think it doesn’t make much difference WHEN you abuse DA. I mean ffs the elemental one facetanks almost as good and i have like 11 physical resist. When mobs start missing hits like that, 14 phys more or less isn’t going to matter.
Thanks man.
I don’t like the obsidian. To be fair i never had one with those affixes, but you lose many skill points and most importantly a lot of casting speed. And let’s not forget the +2 range, which made a significant difference last time i tested it against Leviathan. Also Rebuke is very important since you don’t have enough points for blindside. You would give all this away for 300% phys dmg and 33% more weap dmg to forcewave. I honestly don’t know what to say.
Also about the MIs … of readiness suffix is pretty much the same as dranghoul and you don’t lose much if you craft yellow rings at blacksmith. You can basically get Stalwart of Readiness yellow rings and have the same OA and DA. The bleed and vitality res are overcapped so you can afford to lose some.
Thanks man.
I don’t like the obsidian. To be fair i never had one with those affixes, but you lose many skill points and most importantly a lot of casting speed. And let’s not forget the +2 range, which made a significant difference last time i tested it against Leviathan. Also Rebuke is very important since you don’t have enough points for blindside. You would give all this away for 300% phys dmg and 33% more weap dmg to forcewave. I honestly don’t know what to say.
Also about the MIs … of readiness suffix is pretty much the same as dranghoul and you don’t lose much if you craft yellow rings at blacksmith. You can basically get Stalwart of Readiness yellow rings and have the same OA and DA. The bleed and vitality res are overcapped so you can afford to lose some.
Well the casting speed is a moot point when damage is higher, they just balance out. And i was just tinkering with devotion points to drop the harp, so now casting speed is actually detrimental for resource management. I did manage to pick up acid spray for an additional -28 enemy resists 51% of the time when I blitz, and this ring set has another -10% resists as well. All in all quite impressed with the numbers now.
Acid spray is definitely worth picking up if you can manage your resources, which shouldn’t be a problem, casting speed isn’t that different, it’s a big boost to damage.
Yes the damage numbers will definitely be higher with obsidian, but that’s not all there is. Can you even farm reliably 170 with only 3600 DA? And i don’t mean finish once every 4 or 5 runs. I’ve been farming the last week with this char (like 5 runs per day) and i didn’t die once.
The Harp was not there for energy regen only. It’s a big boost in OA and DA, not to mention it caps your slow resist half the time. You are getting slowed very often and that equals big loss in dps and life leech. Oh and acid spray doesn’t stack with break morale afaik, both being flat reductions and all.
There’s no easy way to do that without gimping your dps even further (or something else). But why would you go with higher DA if this is enough? Tell you the truth i’m not a fan of abusing anything really. I started with your build and liked it a lot because it was a well balanced build. But Occultist gives no DA whatsoever and it was impossible to finish 170 with it.
Oh bummer, i thought the flats stacked together and the percentages stacked together. Then they both worked together, flats being subtracted from enemy resists first, followed by the % of the remainder being reduced by the percentage reductions.
And, 3600 DA isn’t accurate. My DA is over 4k because of ring procs on kills, which is up quite close to if not 100% of the time.
As for reliability, solo isn’t a problem, but i did find myself with 2 deaths from group play after the rest of the party died and i struggled to kill the nemesis’ fast enough to reduce incoming damage due to monster health being much higher. Then again, i wasn’t exactly playing that well either.
Nope the flats and -% can bring negative resist, but only -% stack. Percentage without the minus don’t stack and can’t bring negative.
Here’s a cheat sheet http://i.imgur.com/nkmlaHA.png
Right, i remembered after i posted that you’re using Judicator’s. Maybe 4k DA is enough … i will have to start testing again.
If may add my 2 cents here - Shar’zul’s Worldeater might be a much better choice of a weapon. I happen to have both and after some testing (identical skill/devotion setup) the effective damage output is about 25-30% greater.
Hey is this build somewhat newb friendly, I have only done a couple builds so I don’t have much gear. If so, what gear would you recommend while leveling and while farming until I can get the endgame gear?
What are everyone’s thoughts on the Physical build choosing Aura of Conviction as the exclusive skill over Oleron’s Rage?
Seems like all we get from the Aura is the Physical Resist and Burn Duration reduction – is that worth trading the damage and move speed? Seems like kind of a waste with the high DA, but I haven’t tested it myself.
Hi!
Oleron’s Rage provides more OA, also % Physical damage and flat Trauma, so damage output with Oleron’s Rage is better. Also lot of Soldier items provide bonuses to Oleron’s Rage, so you can wear best offensive items for Soldier and invest into Oleron’s Rage one or two points to make it 12/12.
Aura of Conviction provides only OA and Physical resistance for pure Physical characters, it needs more points to invest, so if you compare Aura of Conviction and Oleron’s Rage, Rage most probably wins.
Good example of tactician using Oleron’s Rage is here.
In this build I don’t use Arcane Empowerment at all, so taking Aura of Conviction instead of Oleron’s Rage is pure waste of skill points.
Edit: extra Physical Resistance matters, so if you desperately need it, take it. In my case Octavius already provides lots of physical resistance and actually my character is well defended, so I just took the better damage.
