I think it is marginally better than 65-66 and Crucible 150-170. It also depends a lot on the time spent versus rewards gained. Very few builds can actually farm 75-76 efficiently. Shards are also very random by nature, and the higher you go, the randomness increases exponentially. There is also quite a bit of cheese involved in SR farming.
I personally think that Crucible is lesser evil out of two endgames.
Thanks again.
I would probably prefer the shards stuff since I’ve already spent hundreds of hours in the crucible.
What are the best builds for doing high shards efficiently currently?
Depends on what you mean by “doing high shards efficiently”. Like for farming you need a build that farm 75-76 fast and consistently. For trying to get as deep as you can for bragging rights and just because you want to you might need a different build.
I think absolutely best builds for fast 75-76 would be Retaliation Warlords.
There’s also this spreadsheet from MikeFic_YT that compares the loot up to SR 75-76 runs across difficulties. While it’s a small number of runs per tier, I’ve found the numbers fairly accurate. I think it has to do with how the rewards aren’t that variable, so even a small number of samples gets pretty close. It’s also one of the only resources I could find with actual numbers on the different shard runs.
Is there other stuff that comes close? Like what’s the top 3 currently? All retal builds or other stuff too?
I honestly don’t know and I doubt somebody does. As a I said, Shards 75-76 are very random, it can be a breeze or it can be an impenetrable wall on some boss chunks with some mutators, so it’s hard to quantify. I guess one of the very top builds for it would my Dark One Conjurer. It will never have any problems at Shards 75-76 or Crucible 150-170.
Shitbreaker got more %damage, health, slow res, energy regen and a lot of oa and crit dmg constantly. Purifier got oa and crit boost only half the time (Deadly Aim), lots of da and more flat damage absorption more or less constantly (Seal; while shieldbreaker got less of it and half the time from Ascension) and most importantly the golden %damage reduction.
In general purifiers are tankier with a little less health, while shieldbreakers have potential for godly damage. Purifiers got best ranged builds, but for a demo caster build I’d take oathkeeper or arcanist. . Another thing people overlook; inquisitor has the Box - maybe the best proccer in the game. So for auramancers and procsters definitely inquisitor.
There’s no such thing. SR is too random and inconsistent to talk about what’s better than what. Also, depends what you mean by high shards. 80? 90? 100? World of difference between those.
However… 
I’d say the happy oupie bunch of vitality or lightning casters. That is Dark One or Light’s Defender based builds (Stormreaver - my fave - is still godly with 5:00 Crucible times and 95-ish shards). There are tankier things than these but usually they are a snoozefest. Almighty AAR spellbinder can also do 85-ish if built right and still be one of the fastest dmg dealers. For real high shards I guess some overtanked retal warlords.
Untrue. 75-76 is oodles and noodles more rewarding.
The biggest reason for this is that:
what about time you waste compared to SR65-66?
I’m trying to look at it from the perspective of the average player, I guess.
If I didn’t know the “tells” of each enemy, or their attack patterns (e.g. grava’s arm raise = nullification), I think SR is just more forgiving because I’m allowed to make mistakes.
Especially since any fatal error in Cr results in a dramatic decrease in loot, AND the fact that you’re going to need to farm tributes.
Of course if you have the right spec, and enough experience, cruci farming is most likely more efficient.
I think in the end, SR is more efficient in looting.
Basically you just need to reach 65 on one character, then all your other character can reach that. Also like spanks’ commented, SR is more forgiving.
Farming tribute in cruci is the worst and can be time consuming. Also climbing to 150 is boring. Same can be said to climbing to 75 though.
Yeah, but you can literally just do it once for SR.
In Cr, short of GDstashing, you literally need to climn to 150 for every single spec.
Basically, SR 75 > Cr 170 for the following:
Crucible have merits. Gladiator 1-150 takes less than 40 minutes even on non fully geared characters. Plus if you play legit, you don’t have more than 2 or 3 farmers. And unlocking 75 for first time is tougher than Gladiator. Plus higher waves even in lower Crucible difficulties is more rewarding than lower SR chunks. Ultimately if I started end game now and play legit, I will still pick Crucible.
Interesting…what about elite SR 65 though?
I haven’t played it on lower difficulty, perhaps it’s worth it and my theory have holes but still it’s my personal viewpoint. Game will be immensely lamer if all players prefer only SR or Crucible for farming.
I have a max level vindicator (light defender with allagasts) and It’s one of my favorites too.
Do you have a guide/grimtools for one with stormreaver? What makes stormreaver better?
[1.1.4.2] OL' REAVER (vindicator remake) is one possible setup. Do spirit dump and it can rival the fastest of the Allagasts in clear speed (can’t do much of that spirit dump though because it’s heavy armor). One advantage is that it has melee for sustain. But this can also be a disadvantage sometimes.
Another thing is full LD set is way tankier than Allagast. Allagast is a pure offense set. But LD/Stormreaver has no cdr which makes it kinda retarded a caster.
A lot easier than Ultimate and loot isn’t bad either. Definitely a possible alternative, if you can’t clear 65/66 on Ultimate.
BTW, Challenger Crucible around 150 also isn’t bad for farming. TBH, I did that a lot as a new player. It’s even better if you got a build that can do Challenger naked or with only one buff. This way, you don’t loose so many tributes if you fail. I often did something like 150-160, 140-160, 140-150 with one buff (in most cases Amatok’s or - if I ante more safety - Empyrion’s).
Another question regarding the build, what exactly makes Grim Fate better than Warpfire?
Warpfire provides 15% more RR, 100-150% burn damage and more burn damage duration (which makes your burns stack up higher?).
I don’t see grim fate offering that much, the proc seems nice for cruci and some more damage to thermite mine sure, but how is it better?
And what about fiend vs ghoul? Is the ghouls defensive proc that good/needed that it’s worth to give up the additional damage you’d get from fiend?
Single target RR
Exactly this. AoE is king in Cr speed runs.
Yes. It’s a great safety net.