With WT and +40 health and Maiven, tanking is definitely not a problem, and even if it was, Wendigo mark is probably the worst thing you could use. You have no significant bonuses to vitality damage, and you don’t reduce vitality resistance. You’re not tanking bosses thx to Wendigo proc because you barely do 200 dps to ultimate bosses (the ones that matter at least, purple bosses and nemesis) with it, which translates to around 150-50 health/sec which should be barely noticeable. It’s confirmation bias, try detaching Wendigo and then tanking those same bosses.
Oh, and effective proc rate for Falcon on Primal strike with at least one point in Storm surge is 27.5% per attack because Storm surge counts as a separate damage instance on the same attack for some reason.
Finally, with any amount of lifesteal (5% form Black star for example), Falcon procs create very noticeable burst heals.
Turns out I misread Wendigo. I thought the leech applied to all attack damage against a marked monster. You seem to be implying it only applies to the vitality damage on the skill itself.
Yea, ADCTH can be confusing at first. There are two kinds of ADCTH.
When it appears on items, passives and auras, it applies to you, i.e. your weapon damage. By extension, it applies to all skills that have % weapon damage.
When it appears on castable skills and procs, it applies to the skill/proc, i.e. all damage done by it (including any % weapon damage that may appear on it afaik).
What you also need to remember is that ADCTH is reduced by resistances twice: first when calculating the damage done (any % resistance to the particular damage types associated with the skill/attack), then for the second time when calculating the amount healed (this is associated with % life leech resistance).
Life leech resistance reduction does not appear on it’s own on items/skills, but any item/skill that reduces all damage will reduce it. This is why characters that rely on ADCTH will find skills like Acid spray (Manticore constellation) and items like Black star of deceit and Open hand of mercy very valuable. Keep in mind that those kids of debuffs don’t stack, only one flat reduction (“x Reduced target resistances”) and one percentage reduction (“x% Reduced target resistances”) will stack. Some bosses and all Shaleborn chthonians (the big black guys from BoC) have 500% Life leech resistance, so you will not be able to gain life from attacking them. Btw, there is a third type of resistance reduction which is associated with an aura rather than an attack/spell (it always says “-x% [resistance type] resistance”, but the reduction is actually flat; confusing, I know!) and those all stack.
All in all, the effectiveness of ADCTH is character-dependent, not the universally best way of staying alive like in most ARPG-s I’ve played. It used to be much stronger in early betas of GD (just like it is insanely strong in TQ), but the devs decided that having something that allows you to buff your survivability by buffing your offensive power severely limits the variety of useful classes/items (duh…). I like this decision very much. There are still characters that make great use of it, like piercing-based Blademaster, and can get away without any healing/regen and relatively low health, but most chars can’t.
Thanks for the explanation. Some of the more esoteric stuff took a while (and several Aether Crystals) to figure out.
Just got my 50th devotion. Ended up with Aether Bomb on Primal Strike, Tempest on Wind Devil, and Tsunami on Grasping Vines. Falcon has better procs, but wasting pathing points on non-lightning things bothers me ;>
-% from Viper, -xx light from Aether Bombs, and xx reduced from Devils as my elemental reduction procs (I think Elemental Storm and Devils do the same type of debuff, so I didn’t bother going there).
Oh boohoo falcon doesn’t give you % lightning. I’m sure that +40% is doing you wonders when you have fricken +1000% lightning It gives you a small amount of bleed/phys nothin amazing, but it’s not like +poison either
edit: also i last i checked the damage on tsunami didn’t scale very well and primal has tons of aoe as is! i highly suggest a switch
I’m all for taking Falcon. Tsunami is only in the mix because I need blue for Spear - otherwise I don’t really care for the skill. Also, having Bomb on PS instead of Vines seems to work strangely well.
I guess you’d drop Tempest and Tsunami for Falcon? Seems like a big trade for one T2 mechanic.
I wasted several Aether Crystals since you seemed so adamant on Falcon. It basically sucks end-game compared to having Arcane Bomb on PS. I’m sure it looks really pretty when you’re overgeared, or if you have a high % of damage as physical - but for my setup, ABomb is extremely effective at chunking down bosses quickly.
Why can’t you use both?! I will say I haven’t used the actual tempest skill in a long time so I can’t comment on the loss of that. Don’t see why we need a lot of physical damage for falcon swoop to be good, any 2 hander with good damage is gonna work well assuming we have some decent lightning conversion going on
It’s a matter of devotion efficiency. My 50 pt devotion setup is pretty tight at the moment, giving exactly what I need to spec Spear and Tempest. Tempest really amps the damage on Wind Devils (as the Tempest keeps going in the proximity of the Devils, which is nice when you’re playing a ranged character). The passives on Spear are really strong for a pure lightning setup.
The other tradeoff is what you have linked to Primal Strike. Falcons add a nice small DPS boost. Arcane Bombs are a huge DPS boost to all your damage output (-xx% lightning resistance), along with reducing monster OA and dealing some little bit of damage itself. I’ve played with both a Falcon tree and a Arcane Bomb setup — AB wins hands down. Having AB on PS instead of on Vines allows offscreening. Also, the proc rate on PS is much higher than it is on Vines - improving clear speed.
I’m not sure I ever realized posting in here that this was a ranged build, kinda defeats the purpose of shotgunning falcon swoop for the massive 390% weapon damage unless you’ve got a melee weap on swap I find vines for procing bomb to be fine, but to each his own.
Love the look of this build, getting started on it now! What is your attribute distribution looking like? Also, what skills are best priortized as you level?
Cheers
Thanks for the build writeup! Looks good – I am a little confused by your grimcalc with devotions though. You are maxed out @ 50 points with spear, but only have 6 chaos ? (it requires 7)
I am assuming you are changing your crossroads to chaos?
Skill distribution was about 80% physique, 20% cunning (just enough to get to 460, to wield the weapons after the 10% discount).
I maxed out these in order:
Primal Strike, Torrent, Raging Tempest, Maiven, Stormcaller’s Pact.
[then the rest]
However, that was my first time playing. More sensible would be to spec a bit more evenly, and grab the main skills along the way (e.g. a few points into Vines earlier).
It gives you a small amount of bleed/phys nothin amazing, but it’s not like +poison either