I hate to put my own chars up here (they are actually all “test” chars based on one single char I ran legitimately, in hopes of keeping–can’t do that now because it sucks–before copying it and wiping it clean), but it seems I have no choice due to the fact that my chars keep getting screwed at ultimate. I wanted a glass-cannon type of char that could depend on ADCTH, but that didn’t go well on both counts: a tri-elemental build, and a chaos-y type that isn’t optimized fully (was supposed to be tri-element, too, but it appears that switching to a chaos weapon actually does MORE damage despite having all devotions in elemental damage–you’ll see if you download it). Also, as one may guess: low health. Yeah. Really low. And OA/DA isn’t very good despite relatively high damage.
I have a feeling that this game depends a lot more on OA/DA with devotions focusing on defense more than anything else. I’m not sure–it feels as though the more +% to damage you get, the more it gets weaker (i.e., +300% fire damage has a better damage gradient than +1000% fire damage… or, in simpler terms, +300% fire damage may give an actual 300% damage boost, whereas 1000% fire damage may only give a 500% damage boost because of scaling). Again, I say this with the caveat that this is what it SEEMS AS. But there’s SOMETHING wrong. I can’t get any character to survive in ultimate. I’ve tried several that I ran half-way through Elite without issues, but then hits Ultimate and BAM: build dies over, and over, and over. And adding more elemental damage (say 20% in addition to the 1000%) is only giving 5 more DPS. LOL. (I know; it’s cumulative, not multiplicative.) I surmise the problem lies in the fact that there’s not enough flat damage and you can be adding all the +% damage you want, but the char is going to, ultimately, be unviable past Elite difficulty.
From my experience important for melee builds are the following:
Health: I’m sitting at 10k atm with my dw spellbreaker which is decent. Kinda hard for that class combination to stack insane amounts but I’d really not drop below that. Aiming for 15k, if that doesn’t hurt my damage too much.
DA/OA: My DA is quite high, never get crit which is good. Unless there are some major DA debuffs from certain enemies I don’t think you need to stack obscene amounts.
Resistances: Really important, especially the basic resistances because of burst potential. Secondary resistances are also nice, especially stun reduction but with careful play it’s not much of an issue. Bleed might be the least important because afaik bleed only comes as damage over time. I’m at 50% something at Ultimate and it feels alright.
Physical Resistance: Feel like this one deserves special attention. Kinda hard to aquire but it’s important because the heavy hitting dudes won’t die that easily to your damage.
ADCTH / Health regen: I focused on the latter, which might be easier but in any case you need some way, or multiple actually, to replenish your health.
I feel like ADCTH is actually bad for squishy characters because you want to attack and if you take huge amounts of damage all the time you can’t really do that. At least build semi-tanky. Pure squishy characters are usually ranged imo.
I’ll check out your characters and see if I find anything.
Okay. Let me know. I’m interested in making a 2h build (chaos) or a 2h rifle build (phys), but it’s not easy. I’m not really sure how to go about it. It seems health regen would be better, yes, but I’ve heard from various people on forums that it’s “weak.” I’m not really sure, to be honest. If you have any suggestions for how to go about it, please let me know.
But 3k DPS? That’s oddly low. Hmm. I will take a look at that, though. See how it plays. I like weird/unique builds that have heavy damage, low defense, but good sustainability.
I’ll try to salvage my character and give that spellbreaker a shot. Thanks for the share.
Alright, I checked out the spellbreaker Amnvex. What I noticed:
Armor & armor absorption: I know it can be a pain in the ass, but I feel like playing without 100% absorption as melee hurts. I’d also try to get your overall armor value above 1100 or more.
Components: Not a big fan of Ancient Armor, think it’s pretty weak. I’d also remove one Beronath (only need one), Spellwoven Threads and Dense Fur.
Skills[ul][li]I can recommend Blade Spirit as a one point wonder, they proc Elemental Storm quite frequently and I think the damage actually stacks if you have 2 or more out. Resist reduction sadly does not stack.[/li]
[li]Get Pneumatic Burst to 12/12 and pick the transmuter. Shadow Dance is decent, could give it a try.[/li]
[li]Night’s Chill is pretty good, I’d max it even if you play elemental spellbreaker.[/li]
[li]Definitely max Olexra’s Flash Freeze. Crazy good CC spell, decent damage and reduces fire resistance. I put 1 point in Absolute Zero.[/li]
[li]I’d get the weapon pool skills. What are you playing dw for? :p[/li]
[li]Anatomy of Murder feels kinda weird to pick. I’d remove the points[/li]
[li]I’d also remove all the points from the Shadow Strike line and keep the skill itself at level 1.[/li]
[li]Maiven’s Sphere is really good, would spent 12 points there. Or less, if you have +skills. Conversion is also best kept at 5, so if you got any +skills you can save skill points there because it falls off after 5.[/li]
[li]You didn’t pick Mirror :D[/li]
[/ul]
Devotions
Remove all the points from Crab, since you have no shield and therefore it won’t proc
I haven’t tried Elemental Seeker, so I’m not sure how good it actually is. The main problem though is that it requires you to pick stuff you don’t really want or need.
Behemoth is still a great constellation, although I guess it supports the regen playstyle, not ADCTH.
Unless you already have access to % elemental reduction, Viper is pretty good to pick.
I can upload my character if you want and you can see if you like playing with it or not. Too lazy to write everything down haha
Sure, I’ll take your char. And thank you for the feedback!
So armor and absorption is most important? And regen is better than ADCTH?
Useful advice! I will attempt to rebuild using your guidelines.
Edit - Weapon pool skills (I take it the chance-based strikes?) I chose not to get because they decrease attack speed/damage (or at least that’s how it feels).
I also went with crab because of the +% to elemental damage.
Question: why reduce shadow strike to 1? Doesn’t it severely weaken the skill?
Question 2: Why mirror? I was mostly looking for dishing out damage
Okay, update: went all defensive and HUGE difference. Even with just 3-4k DPS instead of 30k (I honestly can’t tell the difference between 3-4k and 30k), the character becomes a TANK. Apparently that’s the issue: lack of defense, and DPS doesn’t really matter that much. But would like to know the other stuff asked in the post above ^
