The big question of this thread : Does anyone managed to do a solid Forcewave end game build, and if yes, wich one perform the best fort you ?
For what I’ve seen, options are :
Physical with Stonefist Rebuke and Sigil of the Bear King, probably with 3/4 Octavius, but here Forcewave don’t have a lot of support (Warlord ? DK ? Even Battle Mage for cast speed and absorb ?)
Lightning with wyrmbone helmet who converted phys to lightning and conduit of warring who converts Pierce to Lightning. Stonefist weapon probably, or maybe Arcblade ? Warder, or Tactician maybe ?
Fire with Justice set + the shard of eternal flame as an amulet, probably bear king and stonefist again ? Warlord ? Commando ? Tactician ?
Elemental tactician with Arcanor ?
So if you guys have some ideas, experiences you want to share…
Here’s mine Warlord build [1.1.2.4] 2H Forcewave Physical Warlord It’s really great in Crucible. In SR is lacking defense in higher shards. I think with trauma bypassing armor, Stonefist build can challenge top spot.
Fire FW Warlord or freshly buffed mines(Commando) will be decent. Lightning sucks, tri-elemental is ok, but solid third behind trauma/physical and fire.
Yes but even practical results can provide some insight in where and why it sucks?
e.g. was it one of those “no green mafia” dudes that decided it or even with say 2-3 double rares it sucks?
It’s interested to try it as Warder and with perfect rolled Obsidian 2h. I tried it as Tactician and with Ultos Axe. It was 9.30 or so in Crucible with not bad mutators. I often improve my time with runs, but without green wepaon is not realistic to do 8 minute runs.
So Forcewave Lightning is behind fire and physical and by lot.
Yeah but what is missing? Raw damage, defenses? Is it because you have break a set in order to wear the helm that grants lightning forcewave? I am torn if I should level up a commando or a warder for forcewave. I know fire forcewave is solid and that there are some new toys in FG, but trying to make lightning FW work is a challenge and I like those (but do I really wanna craft that conduit for pierce > lightning conversion on FW in a legit way… hmm…)
I wanted to keep it “green free” apart from weapon just as proof of principles. I actually have that weapon legit but not since I did fresh start, I would probably have to restore it somehow, wondering if there is a tool which one can create items with? …
2/4 Octavius is already enough, and you can use Warlord or Witchblade. RR trumps everything else, after all.
Greatly lacks gear support. You will have to use gear for others builds, or without %lightning damage on them, which greatly reduces resulting clear speed and overall potency of the build.
Elemental FW suffers from same issue. Also, since you actually wont have enough devotion points to get Widow, Solael’s Witchblade and Murmur (lightning, fire & cold RR respectively), you lose some RR to damage you deal (that consists of 3 elements).
Apart from the helm, there’s no other lightning gear that gives enough skill points to forcewave. And forcewave isn’t Blade arc that can work at 19/16. You can’t cheese it with SR set cause your enabler breaks the set. 4pc ultos means no soldier skill points. And you want eye of the storm for damage which means no soldier skills again. Also, shaman is notorious for OA/DA problems without savagery and going for savagery is super clunky for a ranged caster. A good route for gdstashers could be +5BoM and non myth justicar gloves but I’m still not sure of that.
It might be not “set in stone”, like in D3, but still, many legendaries & sets provide bonuses to skills and damage types with certain builds in mind, not just random boosts here and there (that’s how Crate designs items). When you convert “natural” skill’s damage (physical) into “non-natural” (lightning), all “great” legendaries, like Mark of Bear King, or Octavius set become “not so great”, cause their physical damage bonus no longer works. And if you’ll use some “generic” items for spell lightning-based skills, those wont have bonuses to Forcewave and other skills, favoured by Forcewave build. Instead, it would grant bonuses to skills you dont use. Or stats you dont want (attack speed, for example).
So lightning- or elemental-based Forcewave ends with having less damage, tankiness, etc. Or has to rely on ultra-rare double-legendary MIs, while “normal” physical or fire FW builds do well without those.
Well if we have to bo honest fire FW can rely on excellent set like Justicar. Furthermore it can work with multiple different weapons. Physical have Stonefist Rebuke, also can use Octavius pieces and Titan pauldrons for toughness.
So where’s lightning? It have no weapons and only two items providing skill bonuses and lightning damage. Just check WD between builds, massive difference. And in physical/ trauma you can stack cunning to increase further the damage.
I’ve always felt that Forcewave with Wyrmbone Mask was better done as Electrocute and gear shows through for it somewhat now - Grey Knight and Sigil of the Bear King is an immediate +7 to Internal Trauma that can probably be pushed to +10 with skill bonuses to Soldier via relic, belt, amulet or main hand. Add on top the 50% total damage modifier as well and it’s not half bad DoT damage (2047-2574/3s base).
Saved that build ! Looks pretty solid… And mobile, wich is always something I aim for so… Thanks for it !
As a lightning I’ve done my best build with a solid 2.2k lightning, 185% cast speed, tons of HP as a warder, lots of procs with eye of storm, Temporal Arc Blade with fully converted Ather and cindertouch, but still it rarely crits at more than 120k, is less mobile, don’t have ascension, and the DoTs are good but definitely not as good as the trauma you Get with the Phys.
And this is without thinking about that +3m range and rebuke that you miss, plus you only have 19/16 on FW as it was said before, so…
I’ve tried it with Stonefist and Earthshatter, but even if I managed to Get 3.2k OA, I dropped to a bad 1.6k lightning
I think that build is good, but yeah, compared to yours…
Oh… And thanks to everyone for the answers and the interesting debate. Nice to read about aller your experiences
I tried to make such build in GT, but I ended up with way too low +%lightning and electrocute damage if I did not used some “Thunderstruck” greens. But perhaps the 50% total damage modified on FW might be worth it anyway?
I did a tactician, so that I could use the electrocute added to Horn of G.
…
Might have to cheat and use green items