[spoiler]CONCEPT
I leleved my Tactician with Forcewave and got logically bored after 80 levels with it. But my theorycrafting obsessive compulsion is back and this item always intrigued me. So I decided to make a build around it.
EQUIPMENT
All items with modifiers to Forcewave are core: Helm, Gloves, Amulet, Medal and Weapon.
Other pieces have proven to be a good addition in elemental builds.
CONVERSION ?!
As explained below (p.1 & 2 of the thread), Forcewave has 3 “100% conversion”. In short, it has 43% Fire, 43% Lightning and 14% Cold.
DEVOTION/SKILL POINTS
The usual and good RR devotions for elemental builds. The priority then is Casting Speed; that’s why I didn’t take another proc’ (Reckless Tempest or Meteor for instance). Forcewave is linked to Hand of Ultos; Blitz to Elemental Storm; Devastation to Eldritch Fire.
LOKARR
The fight is long and easy but, as seen in the video, energy leech isn’t great in long boss fights.
IMPROVEMENT
Pants and Chest Armor; Devotion Path; Energy sustain on long boss fights; DPS.[/spoiler]
CONCLUSION
This is a greenless and really solid build. All Main Campaign content is on cruise mode, all bosses are face-tankable, though damage output isn’t on top.
Edit #1: thanks to malawiglenn and USER_NAME_01: addition of Eldritch Fire (Devotion) and Blindside (Soldier) instead of respectively Revenant and Horn of Gandarr. HoG was energy-expensive for this build and the additional RR helps a lot.
Edit #2: Quick explanation on conversion.
It’s kinda el boringo to see all the elemental forcewave builds, but hey, forcewave is a funny skill.
El Edito: Why didn’t you pick Eldritch Fire (-23% fire RR)? I do understand why not the -23% cold (only ~16% cold damage) and why not Arcane bomb (enemy has to stay in place for ~2 secs), but Eldritch Fire is quite good, imo.
Yeah, Devotion Path is in the “improvement” category. Every option you mentioned has to be tested. Nonetheless, I prioritised pure elemental RR and casting speed because of the 3 simultaneous conversions on Forcewave: 33% Fire 33% Lightning and 33% Elemental if I understand the mechanic correctly. Then, Cold RR is pretty useless for instance.
When there are conflictual conversions, 100% physical to X and 100%physical to Y, then it’s 50% to X and 50% to Y. In this case, as the last 1/3 is Elemental, you add a 1/3 of the 1/3 to fire and lightning. Thus, the numbers shown by USER_NAME_02.
so conversion TO say both fire and elemental are additive, but conversions from fire to another damage type is multiplicative (like if you have both fire > aether & elemental > aether conversion on gear) or is the additive feature only relevant if you have 100% or higher total conversion?
I ask because iirc crate mentioned in a bug report that elemental conversion was a different step for each level. It was this way because elemental is considered a distinct damage type in the calculation. I think this may only have to do with converting from elemental , but I am curious.
If this occurred in the other direction, then you would see a full 33% split or only fire and lit (no cold), depending on which conversion came first.
As far as I know, it applies only to elemental -> X. I mean, you only convert physical damage. If, however, you’re right, then it’d be
33% fire damage, 33% lightning damage, 11% fire damage, 11% lightning damage, 11% cold damage, for a total of 44% fire, 44% lightning, 11% cold damage (yeah, I kinda didn’t want to bother with the last 1%, you can divide it yourself if you want :D).
if you have, let’s say, 50% fire converted to aether and 30% elemental converted to aether, you have then:
60% fire converted to aether = 50% + 10% (from 1/3 of 30% elemental);
10% cold converted to aether;
10% lightning converted to aether.
If you have, let’s say, 200% Fire converted to aether and 100% elemental converted to aether, then your 200%+100% becomes the “new” 100% :
77% = 66% fire converted to aether + 11% (from 1/3 of 100% elemental);
11% cold converted to aether;
11% lightning converted to aether.
Can the horn be dropped for Blindside?