So, because I really like the skills it supports – especially with those awesome new SFX for Stun Jacks (SJ) & Callidor’s Tempest (CT) – I decided to test a decent amount of build permutations the Harra’s Artifice set offers. Here are my results:
Results
PB Spellbinder is pretty much the only ‘viable’ build amongst them, clearing Crucible in ~6:30* with decent survivability (=perfectly balanced, as all things should be).
All others cleared in times varying from 7:30-9 minutes, with insufficient to terrible survivability. My testing included Sorcerers, Saboteurs & several Inquisitor combinations utilizing playstyles of both Frostburn-driven kiters, in-your-face CT/SJ spammers and hybrids between the latter.
Breakdown of individual, possibly insufficient build-components
Click for my personal experience/arguments
Everything involving Demolitionist lacked:
% Cold damage. >2000% was common, mostly due to off-damage items with important skill modifiers like Overseer Eye (offhand).
Survivability. Frostburn CD sorcerers might be ok with Blast Shield/Mirror & CT spam sorcs probably just need more dmg to carry their AdctH from CT WD.
Quick Jacks have no such luck. Much like AAR, FoI & Co., Quick Jacks are 0%WD channelling skills – with the only difference between them being that SJs have no AdctH. Thus, you die (unless you have great armor & Inquisitor’s defensive skills like with Light’s Guardian).
Everything involving Arcanist (except the aforementioned PB Spellbreaker; PB just has amazing base dmg) lacks RR. Enemies with high cold res (Kuba etc.) take 30sec+ to grind down, be it with CT or SJ.
Suggested Changes:
Defense
Add +400-600 life to Harra’s Chestguard or Shoulderguards. % Dodge chance is a nice & thematic defensive stat, but not getting hit 50% of the time doesn’t help if nemeses one-shot you during the other 50%.
Add 6-10% AdctH to Stun Jacks to the 4piece set bonus.
Add ca. -15% Cold Resistance to Callidor’s Tempest to the 4piece set bonus or to the Hood/Ward Edit: as Norzan pointed out correctly, this doesn’t work. Duh. Maybe instead you could add flat Frostburn dmg or %total dmg (cf. Vanquisher’s set) to CT to help facilitate CDR DoT builds that can make the best out of Star Pact? As can be seen with PB, with enough base dmg you don’t actually need the RR…
Nerf the amount of/remove the vit>cold conversion on PB to compensate for the above.
i was trying cold stunjacks and cold ct . I wish I didn’t do it.
Bum in the magic items have a biggest survivability and defence stats instead of Harra.
AND -%rr in the arcanist mastery supports only by OFF(which does not work LUL)
yes but do you mean that a char with just yellow items have bigger survivability and defenses compared to a build with Harra set? Harra is a caster set, so indeed it has low base armor. Many legendary items and sets are caster items.
Ah, damn, you’re right! There really isn’t a single good skill to do that here, huh. Maybe add a togglable ability to the amulet then?
Edit: such an amulet might be too dangerous considering double RR purifiers/saboteurs; I added a suggestion to capitalise more on Arcanists CDR with additional DoT. That would work, right?
I have made this thread few patches ago. Harra was gutted couple of times (thanks to my build, sorry) and nothing defensive was given in return. Cold CT and SJ are still unplayable. So yeah, something needs to be added to that part of the set.
Really? Sorry, I must have missed it; do you have a link?
I must admit that I didn’t have much time to follow the meta directly after FG hit, so I have no idea how it performed back then & just figured it always was pretty much as it is now…
I just briefly scanned/ctrl+f’d the last few patches since 1.1.1.0 for Harra stuff & couldn’t find anything but what looked like buffs to SJ/CT
Edit: so I take it you saying you still prefer Mageslayer over Harra for your Cold PB breaker was after the latter got nerfed?
Ah no, I didn’t mean it as in there is no need in another thread. I just meant that this was brought to attention of Crate already and I actually love that someone is bringing that up again. Maybe now Crate will be persuaded or at least start listening
Yes, that was the purpose of this thread. I’m glad I didn’t create it in vain, then!
I know they always have a lot on their plate at Crate, but Stun Jacks always was one of my favorite skills in the game, and I would love to see it work somewhere outside of Light’s Defender’s Purifiers
Harra’s stunjack purifier can kill dummy in 11-12 sec. But when tested in cruci, it just cannot survive and for some reason the dummy killing power cannot really be felt in killing enemies directly, IDK.
Yes, Cold Purifier was also the SJ setup that tested the best for me, with results very similar to yours.
From my experience I think the difference between dummy kill time & duration of actual cruci fights might come from the fact that the range-dependent sweet spot for a good shotgun effect with SJs is small as hell (much smaller than e.g. with Phantasmal Blades). Since the dummy doesn’t move or force you to move/kite but nemeses in cruci do, this sweet spot is much more difficult to hit – and thus is achieving max single-target dps, as well.
Nemeses with bigger hitboxes make this a little easier, but two of the biggest ones (Kuba and Moosi) both have crazy high cold res, so they take forever anyways. Killing Reaper felt pretty good though imho.
So, assuming the above is true, giving SJ spam casters more survivability so they can actually facetank stuff longer might just bump up their cruci clear times a lot, too
Hm. But the average cold res amongst all enemies isn’t higher than e.g. fire or lightning, right?
Because I have no idea what else could cause this…
