My main issue is that I constantly need to drink Energy pot, even though I was using the crucible buff. So the current version is completely unusable in campaign, for the Ravager for instance.
Could someone help me find a solution for my energy starvation without sacrificing too much OA/DA ?
I tried many things, including the following, without good result:
3 ectoplasm instead of the Runebound topaze
the Harp constellation
the Orb of the Black Flame
I think I need around 20% more spirit cost reduction, or something like 20 flat energy/second in order be able to sustain PB blades.
Is there a cheap devotion or gear I may have missed ?
I could use something like a Demonic Groble effigy of the Oracle, but we all know this won’t ever drop
I have the same issue with my Spellbinder. I mean, I don’t need any more mana unless I fight a boss. I can walk and clear everything without losing more than 20% of my mana, but if it comes to bosses my mana goes sometimes to 0.
I have the same issue with my Spellbinder. I mean, I don’t need any more mana unless I fight a boss. I can walk and clear everything without losing more than 20% of my mana, but if it comes to bosses my mana goes sometimes to 0.
Well, I also have huge energy issue on pack. This build is currently unusable in campaign as it is, although trading DA for energy wouldn’t hurt for campaign (except for Lokarr/Ravager I guess).
The Harp was not enough for the sustain. I would need at least twice it’s effect to be able to sustain the energy cost. Moreover, I will need to loose the Wendigo and the Menhir constellation, both of them giving great support.
I doubt that the Tree of Life itself would be enough, and the consequence on the devotion tree will be catastrophic, like loosing Hungering Void and/or Rattosh.
I’ve come to the conclusion that PBlades, FoI, and AAR are not meant to be sustained. As in they are supposed to be enormous burst damage (they aren’t). With AAR, I mix in the use of Devastation, and Soul Siphon, with FoI, I let its DoT do its thing, and PBlades probably needs to be played the same. The only way to play PBlades with enough sustain is with a Spellbreaker and lots of Mental Alacrity, but then you’d suffer with Vitality debuffing.
As madlee said, arcane spark would be great. It should solve your energy problems on its own, and you lose like only 100 da. In general, if your build is either an autoattacker (cadence, savagery, fire strike) or a weapon damage skill spammer (PB, Thunderous strike, forcewave 2h) then energy leech from arcane spark is autoinclude, unless you’re arcanist, which already has lots of leech and might not need it.
Btw, nice build. You should consider making a build thread for it once you’re done polishing. It’s pretty unique.
There are 6 projectiles, though and it passes through enemies, so it should help a lot. But I kinda want to take back what I said about singlehandedly solving the problem. I forgot that leech scales with weapon damage
My PB Witch Hunter uses a pretty similar Devotion set up to you except I have opted for Tree of Life and Scales instead of Veilwarden. I don;t use any ectoplasm and don’t really have any issue with Energy only requiring a potion occasionally on LONG fights, but the time between is longer than the potion cooldown.
I’ve focused more on OA than DA as I don’t really play crucible anymore, but this is my devotion set up.
It’s less offensive than yours, so you’ll likely lose some damage which may be a dealbreaker, but this works for me to retain energy:
But obviously the loss of Veilwarden would be a pretty big change a probably not be worth it for you, as I understand it’s a very valuable offensive devotion for this build.
Remove some physique points for cunning to compensate OA stats. DA over 3500 is good enough.
Circle of Slaughter should be used to interrupt any melee attack especial you only have 3 % PR.
170+40+32 is your minimal use of energy cost at every throw… So your final energy is far away from being enough .should consider increasing it and also using energy cost -% items …
my 2 cents … some obvious changes ,there should be more .
You can slightly lower your pneumatic burst, shadow dance and elemental wakening, spend points left on phantasmal armor, it has energy leech retailation.
Gonna give energy retaliation a go you’re right, I just fear the way the build work (mass DA) would prevent these from proccing enough.
I used to play this build http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63314 from janodal, and it can spam PB blades (almost) all day long. It’s really doable I assure you, I just need to figure the best way to make it work with my build.
Never thought of trying this one since 45 energy leech / second seems quite low, considering I’m spending something like 400 energy/second. Gonna give it a try, thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks, although I must admit it is based on the build I previously mentionned.
Yeah, I will try Uldana, but the Tree of Life is way too far from my route. Loosing Rattosh would be a pretty big deal, I’d rather loose Hungering Void, and I don’t want that neither
Even for the Ravager ? I heard he is tough, but never tried to fight him because my previous version of the build was much squishier. Maybe I went too far on the DA side even for the toughest boss of the campaign.
Thanks for your suggestions. I much appreciate it since I was inspired by your own thread.
I don’t think Harbinger is better. You lose 120DA and 200OA for some ADTCH that I don’t really need with PB. I don’t need any casting speed neither, the conversion is useless here, and 135% vita is only a 7% damage increase.
Circle of Slaughter seems good, but since I already have like 30% chance to be hit from DA in the worst case scenario, plus 20% chance to avoid melee attacks, adding another ~20% doesn’t seems like much. Do you think it is really worthwhile in this kind of already highly tanky build ?
Actually, my base energy cost is (170+40+32)/2 so 121 per cast, around 480/s (because of the transmuter). I know I clearly need some energy sustain.
is bloodboil really a dmg dealer or do u use is as debuff?
u already got 4500 DA and need that -180 offensive debuff?
i would undo foul eruption and take decay instead.
(i thought foul eruption only works, when the spell kills the mob?!)
mark of torment 1 point
i would prefer anatomy of murder and maybe phantasmal armor.
without bloodboil u’ll have enough points
(remove elemental awaking to 1 point and 1 point in shadow dance)
ill omen is a great 1 pointer vs big mobs. u wont need circle of slaughter … but u could take both ;D
One of the recent patches changed how much energy was used. They took away some of the energy reduction from the skill, while making a couple other modifications. They said in the notes it shouldn’t have made much difference, but my PB build immediately started having energy issues after the patch.
Maybe there is a magic fix, and in the crucible, energy absorption is often enough, but I’m not convinced that there is an easy fix since the patch.
First of all, thanks for your reply. I’m gonna try to explain my choices point by point.
The way DA works make it very worthwile IMO. For instance against Moosilauke, without the debuff he has 22.9% chance to hit me, 17.1% with it. So he also deals 33% damage without and 24.4% with it.
i would undo foul eruption and take decay instead.
(i thought foul eruption only works, when the spell kills the mob?!)
You just broke my world Indeed I tested it on the dummy and it just doesn’t work like I thought, the target needs to die for it to work, making it almost useless in Crucible during boss waves. Thanks a lot for pointing this.
mark of torment 1 point
Why not, but I’m already very tanky like it is, and the buff would only last 3s every ~14s or so at 1 point.
i would prefer anatomy of murder and maybe phantasmal armor.
without bloodboil u’ll have enough points
(remove elemental awaking to 1 point and 1 point in shadow dance)
I disagree here, shadow dance DA and 20% chance to avoid hit is just way better than the meager 5oa/point and 8% vita damage from Anatomy of Murder.
ill omen is a great 1 pointer vs big mobs. u wont need circle of slaughter … but u could take both ;D
For the -15% movement speed ? In my modest experience, bosses in crucible either run to you without any possibility to kite (Iron Maiden, Fabius, Kupacabra) or are just slow enough that it’s not needed.
i’d prefer to skip panther + scales of uluma
take lion
take manticore
Indeed, I will need to follow your Manticore advice since Foul Eruption just doesn’t work sadly.
I just tested Scales of Uluma, the energy leech works quite great against normal monsters, but bosses have such a huge energy leech resistance it’s not working at all.
got a WH and dont have much mana issues O_o
cheers
Yeah the WH version doen’t have so much issues, thanks to the Stolen Dream belt, the Orb of the Black Flame, and Occultist mastery over Necromancer.
I remember the patch note buffed the damage output, but didn’t saw any energy cost change. Sad if it’s the case, but I need to figure a way to make this work !
mkay … i should go way more DA on casters ;D
u got a post / thread where armor / DA scaling is explained?
You just broke my world Indeed I tested it on the dummy and it just doesn’t work like I thought, the target needs to die for it to work, making it almost useless in Crucible during boss waves. Thanks a lot for pointing this.
u’r welcome
I disagree here, shadow dance DA and 20% chance to avoid hit is just way better than the meager 5oa/point and 8% vita damage from Anatomy of Murder.
u missunderstood. 12/12 in shadow dance … 13 gives u only 8 DA
and anatomy gives u a hugh impact on iron maiden and fabius
at least u can easily reach 8/12 anatomy of murderer without missing bloodboil etc.
For the -15% movement speed ? In my modest experience, bosses in crucible either run to you without any possibility to kite (Iron Maiden, Fabius, Kupacabra) or are just slow enough that it’s not needed.
its not the slow. and its not for bosses.
its for mobs and its the 100% 2s terrifying
Yeah the WH version doen’t have so much issues, thanks to the Stolen Dream belt, the Orb of the Black Flame, and Occultist mastery over Necromancer.
well yeah … the belt is not that bad for occultists ^^
I just did the “tests” myself after seeing ABCBarbecue builds focusing on DA.
The game formula :
((((Attacker’s OA / ((Defender’s DA / 3.5) + Attacker’s OA)) * 300) * 0.3) + (((((Attacker’s OA * 3.25) + 10000) - (Defender’s DA * 3.25)) / 100) * 0.7)) - 50
Don’t also forget that, in addition to less chance to be hit, ennemies deal less damage with more DA. The formula is {chance to hit}/70 = percentage damage taken.
By playing with the numbers, you’ll see that reducing ennemy OA is a little better than increasing your own DA. in my case, decreasing 180 ennemy OA is like increasing my DA by 210.
You’ll also see that DA scales exponentially, meaning you’ll have a lot more return on investment going from 4K to 4K5 than from 3.5K to 4K
Indeed I tested it on the dummy and it just doesn’t work like I thought, the target needs to die for it to work, making it almost useless in Crucible during boss waves. Thanks a lot for pointing this.