Now, I should mention I am lacking complete set for practical testing so I am open to anyone correcting my assessment of this particular set
When one compares Ultos, Ulzuin, Markovian etc. to Dreeg Set it is easy to notice that not only did the former receive buffs due to mythical upgrades they also retained their set completion granted skills unlike Dreeg’s Set which had its proc removed from the mythical version
Below are the screenshots of both Shroud of Dreeg and Deception of Dreeg’s 5 piece set bonuses
Shroud of Dreeg
Deception of Dreeg
Now while the Mythical variant is indeed empowering the main skill i.e DEE through the skill mods it is still vastly inferior to the global buff called Secrets of the Guardian
The reason why I say this is because DoT build truly shine when stacking damage from different sources a global buff not only ensures the main skill (DEE) is strong but also empowers other DoT sources.
If I had to venture a guess the logic behind the removal of this proc then I assume you guys thought a permanent skill buff which stays up 100% of the time is much better than a temporary buff while this assessment of yours applies to most build types this however isn’t necessarily true for DoT builds
Solution:
Return the proc to the mythical variant and remove those skill mods if you want to. They’re not worth losing the proc, not to mention that 100% Pierce chance doesn’t help Dreeg Casters much who are nothing but AoE
As I already stated I am open to someone pointing out flaws in my assessment of this set due to lack of experience with actually testing it.
My main hypothesis is that the changes to Deception of Dreeg were done in order to promote the use of non-Focused Gaze DEE .
Like BWC, almost nobody was using non-transmuted DEE because:
a) DoT playstyle revolves around crits and kiting - therefore, staying in one place while stacking cast speed goes against the core idea;
b) Focused Gaze bonus to crit, poison duration and, most importantly, physical damage reduction is too good to pass.
c) 50-60% of the damage is in the form of a DoT, which will not stack with itself logically. As such, all your +% bonus duration goes to waste since you will just reapply the DoT.
There are 2 necessary modifications for the Mythical version of Deception of Dreeg to work:
increased stun chance on Terrifying Gaze;
a 10-15% physical resistance bonus that you will miss by not going Focused Gaze.
If these modifications are made, casting poison/retaliation whichblade will be optimal and non-Focused DEE will find it’s place. Also, +300% poison should be replaced with acid or…even better…acid + vitality
Poison/Retaliation WB is still more than viable though w/o using the Dreeg Set
But you used the word “optimal” I haven’t touched that thing since vanilla :eek:. So might be missing something
I like your take on them trying to promote Non-Focused DEE but imo it is essentially a downgrade for pure DoT DEE builds/ CD DEE builds
If they wanted to do it so bad then Vestments of the Great Guardian and Voice of Dreeg have spare skill mod slots.
Btw, why is it called Deception of Dreeg? What are you hiding?
It is a downgrade - a very big downgrade, actually.
The truth of all things…beyond the veil. For example, the fact that Lokarr is a pussy.
EDIT: I talked about poison/retaliation Witchblade and the “optimal” character of it because most people who go for non-transmuted DEE pick Witch Hunter or Warlock. Now, both classes have bonuses to cast speed, so that makes sense. However, both classes are on the squishy side and benefit much more from the “run and DoT” strategy of Focused Gaze than staying in one place and casting a million eyes. Witchblades, on the other hand, can stay in one place with Overguard on while casting DEE. The soldier also has ways to boost stun duration - which becomes much more important when you can cast 5 eyes/second. Focused-Gaze DEE works good for them, of course, but since neither mastery can buff cast speed, it might be the only case where the Mythical Deception set does not represent a downgrade. It will expand build diversity, since 90% poison/acid builds go for Focused Gaze.
I do agree that mythical version of Dreeg armor is made for non trnsmuted DEE builds like this one. But since for non transmuted DEE main dmg comes from vile eruption that is vitality/acid based skill, as much as 33% chance to pass trough enemies is nice, losing 400% to acid and vitality dmg is large downgrade to builds that utilize it.
If indeed made for non transmuted DEE users this sets bonuses should be revoked, ie on 2pcs set bonus should be aded +% vitality dmg and on full set given bonus + % vitality and acid dmg.
I can understand you both liking the idea of spam DEE using this set. But imo VoD or Vestments of the Great Guardian should be filling this void.
The base set is meant for CD casters it doesn’t seem right that the mythical variant is suddenly going in the opposite direction
This is actually not the only instance where the mythical version of the item or set is much worse than the base version. The Mark of the Forbidden problem was solved but I see nobody pointing out how useless Mythical Will of Bysmiel and Voidsteel Gauntlets have become.
In the case of WoB, any competent pet player takes the familiar just for the aura… so having two of them instead of an Area Denial Weapon is bad. The original WoB was practically one of the few items that allowed you to make hybrid pet builds (pyro or witchblade).
Voidsteel Gauntlets are even worse because you want to take higher armour items almost always. Unfortunately, nobody wants to convert physical to chaos, especially not on Cadence. The absence of the proc is a death sentence for Chaos AAR since now you have absolutely no radial damage source except for the Agrivix relic and Flame Torrent - both being skills with minimal radius.
So…the change to Deception of Dreeg don’t surprise me. In fact, it would still be a good set for CDR casters at 4pc and a good one for cast speed casters if, as I said, +300% poison is replaced with +300% to acid and vitality. 4pc should, however, give 10% physical resistance because the set is on the squishy side when it comes to defences.
Uh, Chaos Cadence builds? They exist. And the gloves were made specifically for Chaos Cadence and they should take Cadence into account when it comes to balancing before any other skill.
Except your example of gloves is wrong. I have no idea about WoB but Voidsteel gloves were always meant for Chaos WBs, even though other builds made use of the base item then that’s fine but the intended purpose was always chaos cadence
Same thing applies to LD Gauntlets, I liked the Lightning bolt proc on lightning builds but the mythical version doesn’t have it, I don’t like it but it’s a set meant for Stun Jacks
A better example would be Wyrmbone Gloves, I like that Electrocute Transmuter but I’d have preferred it on some other gloves. Wyrmbone went from burn gloves to electrocute gloves after loosing the proc and getting an oddly placed skill mod
I wish they move the electrocute skill mod to some other gloves Cinderouch (maybe?) and make Wyrmbone specialize in Burn again
Sure they are made for Chaos Cadence - and chaos cadence is actually decent and it was decent even without the mythical version. But here is the catch…
Physical resistance is something mobs have around 7-8% on Ultimate. Otherwise, physical damage checks armour. When we talk about physical PRM or physical Flames of Ignaffar, the results are trash, ofc, due to exactly this reason - skill has too low base damage and that goes even lower due to the armour check. This is also why functional Beronath Reforged builds are hard outside the soldier mastery. Cadence, on the other hand, can reach 100k damage. At that level, the armour part does not concern you, because the damage loss is a flat amount, not a percentage.
Chaos damage, like all other spirit-based damage types, checks enemy resistances, but not armour. These resistance can reach almost 100% on some enemies. Ppl who want to test this should try to kill Shar’Zul with a fire/chaos purifier and see how it goes. On the other hand there is no boss that has 100% physical resistance. The flat chaos part you get from gear, Solael and Possession is already amplified by the huge weapon damage component of Cadence so dealing enough chaos was never a problem. Changing physical to chaos will actually result in a net damage loss unless you go for Dying God. Otherwise, you will never be able to reach the -57% reduction you get on physical just from CoF + a t1 devotion. This is shoehorning because you want to have more armour, you want the +3 cadence bonus (which is actually rare) but you don’t want your cadence line to do just chaos + bleed + small amounts of acid/vitality.
Enemy resistances should never, never be taken into account when making items.
That’s why the mythical gloves give my Chaos WB a near 40% DPS, much more than the regular gloves. And i can kill Shar’Zul in around 25 seconds with this character and even the regular enemies with high chaos resist die fast.
That’s because they add 30% Weapon Damage + a conversion to a damage type you probably stacked to +1500%. That’s also sheet dps …
The Mythical version of Voidsteel will probably stay like that and I have no problem against it, but chaos is still a weak damage type and there is no wonder the most successful WB builds where actually physical based ones made with the Warborn set. This is also one of the reasons CoF was nerfed a long time ago.
…And Crate does take enemy resistances into account when making legendary items - they wouldn’t otherwise put a massive +30% to aetherials on Vortex of Souls or Mark of Anathema.
Then why does pretty much none of the chaos and vitality (only Demonslayer here and it’s thematic) items has damage against Chthonians? Seems to be rather bias.
I always thought that Zantai tried to maintain a balance with chaos and aether in terms of end-game. More explicitly, aether destroys BoC/Log and chaos decimates Valbury/Malmouth.
I guess one of the reasons you don’t see +% damage to ch’thonics so often is because 60% of the enemies you battle (at least, with the release of AoM) are aetherials or aetherial corruptions. This is why, on the whole, chaos builds are better than aether unless you run into some obscene mutators in the Crucible.
This is very true. I have tried (am trying I suppose, I parked the build at ultimate log for now) exactly such a Beronath FoI build and I have found that, ironically, this is one of those builds that would have benefitted a lot from an enemy armour debuff. Which was of course completely removed from the game a while back.
The build uses Blind Fury too, which ironically had the highest armour debuff in the game if I remember it right.
Slightly relevant question (sorry if this is too off-topic/misplaced, first post here!). Why are there no new relics with proper poison/acid damage? Like a level 90 version of Dreeg’s Affliction. The only Occultist relic is Eldritch Pact, but that gives chaos/vitality, which sucks for my DEE Warlock. It still works OK with Dreeg’s Affliction, but there’s still a 20 lvl gap…
Nidalla’s Outbreak with the recent buffs is decent enough for poison builds.
For acid its less useful and while not ideal due lacking a +skill bonus you still have Malediction.
On the other hand Relics for ranged cold builds kind of suck at the moment as there are no good ranged cold based relics at all. There isn’t even a single Mythical Relic that offers Frostburn damage beyond a simple % increase (like bonus Flat damage, skill or proc).
Yeah, I guess… But I really miss the +1 to skills, though. Just found it weird that the chaos/vitality of Occultist got a new relic (from Solael’s Decimation to Eldritch Pact), but the poison/acid stops at lvl 70. If they had skipped chaos/vitality at lvl 70 it would’ve made more sense. Might be I’m just too demanding, though
This is true, I too would have wanted another relic to even just for variety sake(as Dreeg’s Affliction is still quite good for DEE builds). The relic damage type could use some reshuffling as some damage types are under represented.
