Alternatives to adcth meta

[rakadewa]

Meteors / Tainted Eruption are also far better than things like Blind Sage, Leviathan, and Attak Seru, all for the same reason: nearly all Chaos constellations provide something universally useful. Are there any green devotions - outside of Hawk - that made you go “ooh, I’d really want to go for that devotion, no matter the cost?” How about any Purple devotion that isn’t Wolverine (and Shepherd’s Crook if you’re pets)?

This is one of reason (other one is murmur) why everyone including me choose Ultos instead Leviathan for their cold build. Purple and green combination is less appealing. Purple have crab but it’s require 4 yellow.

[Maya]

This is one of reason (other one is murmur) why everyone including me choose Ultos instead Leviathan for their cold build.

Everyone? EVERYONE?

Think of the puppies man, think of the Puppies!!!

[Rhylthar]

Purple and green combination is less appealing.

Mogdrogen, Huntress, Fox, Rhowan´s Crown, Empty Throne?

Edit:
Some constellations are now less appealing than they used to be because of augments imo. Before AoM everybody used Mankind´s Vigil and Empty Throne was very popular because of Chaos, Aether and Stun Resistance. Now every endgame build can get these resistances with different ways so it´s less popular.

But:
You can reset devotions and not everything is about endgame. So some are really good for leveling, etc. and can get changed later with better gear.

[Nery]

This is one of reason (other one is murmur) why everyone including me choose Ultos instead Leviathan for their cold build. Purple and green combination is less appealing. Purple have crab but it’s require 4 yellow.

I like Crab and often pick it,phoenix gives purple and for casters is fine.I like Blind sage.Leviathan is not bad,but for most builds is sub par route.Only really bad constellation is Attack seru,I mean no OA,no crit.Most of chaos are great,but you’re limited to select few,cause no T3 constellations requires more than 8.

[thepowerofmediocrity]

Too high DA and CDR were not just “powerful”, they simply broke any sane balance!
Stack 5k+ DA - and you’re literally invincible, no matter how high enemy’s damage is. You’re also invincible to almost all debuffs, CC, etc. Is it interesting to gain invulnerability, stacking a single stat? I dont think so.
I agree, nerf came a bit too far, but it’s better, than let broken mechanics exist.

CDR also broke balance. Certain builds spammed very powerful “emergency buttons” non-stop. Those emergency abilities are designed to be used only in critical situations, leaving you vulnerable for the rest of the CD time. Spamming them must not be allowed.
I think, certain abilities (emergency buttons, primarily) should NOT be affected by CDR at all! Then, developwer could buff CDR, and even allow stacking shitloads of it to spam offensive spells - as long as certain powerful CDs (mostly, defensive) will be unaffected.

The ease of spamming Stalwart everywhere and the fact that the more DA you stacked, the more invincible you were was busted and I do like the cap idea to discourage it, but now there are very few builds that even attempt to balance the right amount of DA to get facetanking reliability and damage. It would have been nice to consider the builds that have to facetank constantly to do damage (channeling builds, mortar trap builds, sigil builds) and design equipment to bolster their defenses while nerfing Stalwart spam. I’d love to see more generalist items like Mythical Sanctus Crest, Mythical Avatar of Mercy and Mythical Legplates of Valor that gives really good defensive stats for builds that rely on it so they have viable options outside of “whatever gives the most damage” (and I’m genuinely surprised that Crate has not nerfed Barbaros pants yet, it’s practically the only pants choice for every single build that even remotely does close combat)

As for CDR, what builds were really busted by it? Spellbinders and a few Cold Spellbreakers? It’s not as if Battlemages were tearing through the game with CDR mechanics. Nobody was using the CDR to spam Blade Barrier, even though you’re just as invincible using it. I don’t see how things like Forcewave spam or Callidor’s Spam get to enjoy applying face to attack button and killing things half a screen wide with no danger to themselves but classes with max overcapped Mirror / Blast Shield don’t get to enjoy the same benefits for building around that ability. Massive damage builds already have multiple advantages over pure casters, so outside of tinkering with Mirror’s duration and cooldown to get the right sense of using invulnerability when facing swarming chargers + heavy boss attacks, there wasn’t inherently anything busted with a good amount of CDR use. At least it’s a real alternative to stacking weapon damage and ADCTH.

[adoomgod]

my point is you can get 4k regen now and still kill things at a reasonable rate. Regen is no where near as bad as people are making it out to be. They just want everything to be OP so it can carry them.

The ease of spamming Stalwart everywhere and the fact that the more DA you stacked, the more invincible you were was busted and I do like the cap idea to discourage it, but now there are very few builds that even attempt to balance the right amount of DA to get facetanking reliability and damage. It would have been nice to consider the builds that have to facetank constantly to do damage (channeling builds, mortar trap builds, sigil builds) and design equipment to bolster their defenses while nerfing Stalwart spam. I’d love to see more generalist items like Mythical Sanctus Crest, Mythical Avatar of Mercy and Mythical Legplates of Valor that gives really good defensive stats for builds that rely on it so they have viable options outside of “whatever gives the most damage” (and I’m genuinely surprised that Crate has not nerfed Barbaros pants yet, it’s practically the only pants choice for every single build that even remotely does close combat)

As for CDR, what builds were really busted by it? Spellbinders and a few Cold Spellbreakers? It’s not as if Battlemages were tearing through the game with CDR mechanics. Nobody was using the CDR to spam Blade Barrier, even though you’re just as invincible using it. I don’t see how things like Forcewave spam or Callidor’s Spam get to enjoy applying face to attack button and killing things half a screen wide with no danger to themselves but classes with max overcapped Mirror / Blast Shield don’t get to enjoy the same benefits for building around that ability. Massive damage builds already have multiple advantages over pure casters, so outside of tinkering with Mirror’s duration and cooldown to get the right sense of using invulnerability when facing swarming chargers + heavy boss attacks, there wasn’t inherently anything busted with a good amount of CDR use. At least it’s a real alternative to stacking weapon damage and ADCTH.

I agree the DA cap went a bit too far. It caps out at 60% chance to hit now. I think there was a lot of room for more DA to exist so long as it came at some cost of offensive power after a point. But then there’s the issues of how easily soldiers got DA.
I have mixed feelings about how far the CDR nerf went so I won’t comment on it except that maybe it also went a bit too far on iskandra’s amulet and maybe some other places.

I would LOVE if the outcome of this thread was to lower that DA cap down further to 55% or 50% and also let that go with the dmg reduction that comes into the formula. I’m also a fan of splid efensive item options that compete with important offensive slots, more so than pants which generally don’t offer much dmg to a build. This of course is all a matter of taste but I particularly liked your comment.

[Maya]

Let us just remove all the skills, devotions and items and call it a day, guys. No need to nerf everything one by one

[somnium]

Vire’s Might, Light of Empiryon, Tree of Life, and Obelisk are all also mostly primordial devotions. The Chaos / Primordial constellations are far better than the other mainly Primordial constellations, and it’s not even close. Revenant is seen far more than Targo’s Builder, even though Targo’s proc is much better than Raise the Dead. And that doesn’t even get into how much better the nodes for Dying God / Aeon’s are than the other T3 nodes (what other T3 constellation gives things like Aeon’s 3rd node with the massive Slow resistance?)

I would agree with most of this. Except Obelisk this will likely be one of the most useful devotions considering the massive buff to retaliation and that it has a large amount of usefull nodes. Abomination also has rather lackluster nodes compared nearly all other T3 devotions, It offers nothing of value except the 10 flat acid damage and obligatory 180% acid + poison damage and bit of OA.

Meteors / Tainted Eruption are also far better than things like Blind Sage, Leviathan, and Attak Seru, all for the same reason: nearly all Chaos constellations provide something universally useful. Are there any green devotions - outside of Hawk - that made you go “ooh, I’d really want to go for that devotion, no matter the cost?” How about any Purple devotion that isn’t Wolverine (and Shepherd’s Crook if you’re pets)?

For Greens Manticore is good for any build lacking in rr and excellent for poison builds. Bat is also technical a green devotion even if it gives more reds. Magi is fantastic for fire builds, scorpion is excellent for poison builds and Raven from the stats seems quite good for pets builds (I say seems as I have yet to play a pet build). For Greens + Purples you have Rhowan’s Crown, the best devotion bar none if you are using a elemental build of any kind. For Purples you have crab(though expensive to get due the yellow) and blades is godly for piercing sword builds. Huntress while it requires red it is mostly green and purple and excellent for bleeding builds(it is frankly the best rr devotion looking purely at the stats). For T3 Mogdroge(again yet to play but I do not see how it would be a bad devotion with the massive speed buff it gives) and Blind sage are actually quite good

I do admit that there are a number of lackluster devotion in the green and purple zone. For example harpy and owl are a bit lackluster. Spider is only good for its affinity points. Empty Throne is mixture being excellent for its first node and lackluster for the rest.

That said not all red devotion are good either. Vulture and berserker are also rather lackluster and then you have Wretch which plain sucks. Behemoth while not bad is not exactly great either. Wedigo while its nodes are quite good its procs sucks for a T2 devotion.

I think part of the reason you do not notice this much is because of low the red cost of T3 devotion is which makes it rather easy to only pick the good ones.

[sir_spanksalot]

Honestly, I don’t know what people here are complaining about. With the exception of ToL (and that’s more a reflection of hp regen as a mechanic more than anything else), almost every single T3 devotion is useful depending on the build you’re doing.

Attak seru may not give you OA, but it gives a fat amount of DA, resists, +% damage, and flat damage.

Ditto with leviathan.

It’s almost always a trade off. If you want to go for devotions which stack damage without too many useful stats, than you need to balance it out with your itemization &/or skill point allocation.

The problem really lies with the T2’s as another thread has mentioned.

Some bad T2’s which pop into mind:

1. Affliction
2. Scales
3. Tempest
4. Behemoth
5. Magi (it’s the best of the lot, but still rather meh)

But given the number of constellations, it really could be a lot worse.

T3’s which I think need to be buffed due to power creep:

1. Oleron’s - especially when compared to Azrakaa or however you spell it, oleron is obsolete.
2. ToL - obviously
3. Abominable might - The on death proc is just so annoying. I would gladly trade 50% of it’s damage for a better proc mechanism.

IMO, the new Ulzaad tier 2 is better than abominable might.

[Avyctes]

IMO, the new Ulzaad tier 2 is better than abominable might.

Many tier 1 are better than that horrible excuse for a trigger. I don’t say this lightly, but I despise that one.

[Rhylthar]

Hm, with the change of Cunning (and Spirit, though only Cunning is interesting for me) some nodes in Spider and/or Vulture could be considered.

And Owl…well, I lately took Wolverine instead of Owl and now I really miss the -5 % Skill Cost. Will change Empty Throne back to Owl with FG.

[MortalKombat]

The ease of spamming Stalwart everywhere and the fact that the more DA you stacked, the more invincible you were was busted and I do like the cap idea to discourage it, but now there are very few builds that even attempt to balance the right amount of DA to get facetanking reliability and damage. It would have been nice to consider the builds that have to facetank constantly to do damage (channeling builds, mortar trap builds, sigil builds) and design equipment to bolster their defenses while nerfing Stalwart spam. I’d love to see more generalist items like Mythical Sanctus Crest, Mythical Avatar of Mercy and Mythical Legplates of Valor that gives really good defensive stats for builds that rely on it so they have viable options outside of “whatever gives the most damage” (and I’m genuinely surprised that Crate has not nerfed Barbaros pants yet, it’s practically the only pants choice for every single build that even remotely does close combat)

As for CDR, what builds were really busted by it? Spellbinders and a few Cold Spellbreakers? It’s not as if Battlemages were tearing through the game with CDR mechanics. Nobody was using the CDR to spam Blade Barrier, even though you’re just as invincible using it. I don’t see how things like Forcewave spam or Callidor’s Spam get to enjoy applying face to attack button and killing things half a screen wide with no danger to themselves but classes with max overcapped Mirror / Blast Shield don’t get to enjoy the same benefits for building around that ability. Massive damage builds already have multiple advantages over pure casters, so outside of tinkering with Mirror’s duration and cooldown to get the right sense of using invulnerability when facing swarming chargers + heavy boss attacks, there wasn’t inherently anything busted with a good amount of CDR use. At least it’s a real alternative to stacking weapon damage and ADCTH.

I would be better if they added soft cap instead of hard one for DA. Like it is with OA.

[sfbistimg]

with buff to Behemoth this is now my Regen 35% of the time

[ya1]

with buff to Behemoth this is now my Regen 35% of the time

This is quite impressive. Would you post a gt for reference?

[sfbistimg]

This is quite impressive. Would you post a gt for reference?

it’s posted earlier in this post but here you go

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lNky0M6V

[ya1]

Sorry, didn’t notice.

But look at this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62axevbN

I just wanted to compare numbers. Despite your expert attempts health regen is still a gimmick. The only reason to ever go for it is with a full DoT build where you know you’re gonna kite most of the time. For SJ spam it’s useless. Wendigo Totem gives you more heal (1000+1700/s here) than all health regen you got.

It’s not to criticize your build, ofc. Just the mechanic of health regen.

[sfbistimg]

Sorry, didn’t notice.

But look at this: https://www.grimtools.com/calc/62axevbN

I just wanted to compare numbers. Despite your expert attempts health regen is still a gimmick. The only reason to ever go for it is with a full DoT build where you know you’re gonna kite most of the time. For SJ spam it’s useless. Wendigo Totem gives you more heal (1000+1700/s here) than all health regen you got.

It’s not to criticize your build, ofc. Just the mechanic of health regen.

You realize I will still have almost the exact same amount of regen with your build right? and wouldn’t need wendigo totem at all.
And could get more -rr or DA with the points you used on wendigo.
https://www.grimtools.com/calc/gZwkQMzZ

Regen was an acceptable option before and with buffs to tree of life and giants blood it is even more of an option.

[mad_lee]

it’s posted earlier in this post but here you go

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/lNky0M6V

I mean, it’s a cool number, but with those stats and with Pyro of all classes I really doubt you are going to be able to tackle high end content with SJ spam build. Moreover, I am pretty sure that against AoM Nemesis or Mad Queen or 150-170 Crucible this shit won’t fly.

You can counter with the usual “but I don’t play Crucible”, well, then if you just play Main Campaign without fighting AoM Nemeses and super bosses than you don’t need that kind of regeneration in the first place.

So all in all, regeneration is kinda okay (with some very hard to get greens and some serious damage/defence sacrifices), but I don’t think it’s viable for endgame yet.

[sfbistimg]

I mean, it’s a cool number, but with those stats and with Pyro of all classes I really doubt you are going to be able to tackle high end content with SJ spam build. Moreover, I am pretty sure that against AoM Nemesis or Mad Queen or 150-170 Crucible this shit won’t fly.

You can counter with the usual “but I don’t play Crucible”, well, then if you just play Main Campaign without fighting AoM Nemeses and super bosses than you don’t need that kind of regeneration in the first place.

So all in all, regeneration is kinda okay (with some very hard to get greens and some serious damage/defence sacrifices), but I don’t think it’s viable for endgame yet.

I play crucible just not very well Not a good enough player to beat 160+ reliably and so I don’t try anymore since I play hardcore. But I have beaten hardcore gladiator 150 with the build twice (which was both times i played it).
as for the greens: boots are easily crafted as they don’t need to be the expensive yellow recipes and the ring was obtained in a 10 hour gollus farm session along with many other good rings (none of the m.i.'s are double rare and all 3 of them have an exact boss to farm).
Offhand and pants offer zero regen

Again I’m not saying regen is god’s gift to healing, but it is more then adequate with a little effort and unkillable with little effort, Giant’s Blood and tree of life.

[mad_lee]

I play crucible just not very well Not a good enough player to beat 160+ reliably and so I don’t try anymore since I play hardcore. But I have beaten hardcore gladiator 150 with the build twice (which was both times i played it).
as with the greens boots are easily crafted as they don’t need to be the expensive yellow recipes and the ring was obtained in a 10 hour gollus farm session along with many other good rings.
Offhand and pants offer zero regen

I wouldn’t even attempt playing Crucible with Pyro caster, but if you want to do it, you need much safer build with more DA (preferably 3,1k + for HC) and more reliable ways of life leech (preferably Ghoul + Bat bound to CoF).

I am just pointing out that regeneration focus is bringing the build down in stat department and even with better stats those regeneration numbers are not going to save weaker casters like Pyros or Elementalists.