I’m shooting in the dark with this build, and made it from scratch. I went with a Druid. Currently level 53. Shaman secondary mainly for the Briarthron pet, and Mogdrogen’s pact. I thought about going with soldier, but the what made me choose shaman was I could get survivability (HP + regen) AND a pet from shaman, when soldier could only provide me with 1 of those.
I got mediocre to decent gear, 2 legendaries, but I’m still using magic items in a couple slots. Most of my rares are single affix or suffix. And I do over 15k DPS with Aether Ray. Got enough mana pool and regen to do a constant stream for about 20 second before my pool runs dry. 6kish mana pool with 130/sec regen. HP is over 5k with 160/sec HP regen.
For the devotion focus, I was planning on heading for spear of the heavens, and getting as much stuff to benefit my build on the way to that. Got Aetherfire, Arcane Bomb, and flame torrent. Arcane bomb is linked to Aether Ray, Aetherfire is linked to haunt (from relic), and flame torrent is linked to Briarthorn pet.
I’m using Dread Mask of Gurgoth in my head slot, and the lightning bolt proc does a ridiculous amount of damage. Constantly procs when I use haunt on groups, and is a very viable way to pick off a few trash mobs, or stragglers rather than use Aether Ray. So Haunt is definitely my clean up skill, and/or the first skill I use on a pack of mobs. Not only that its spammable with no c/d. Haunt is the reason I didn’t get Callidor’s Tempest. Although I might get it later.
I’m already at around 15k DPS with Aether Ray, how much more could I expect to get at level 85 decked out with gear? I’m not seeing a massive amount of potential for DPS growth at the top end considering I already got Aether Ray at 19/16 with gear, and got a pretty good amount of damage % increase. I’d be surprised if I could squeeze out another 10k DPS at the top end, or maybe I’m missing something here?
Well, my lv 85 sorcerer has a “sheet dps” of 45684 for AAR with my ray at 26/16, but disintegration only 8/12. I have 1336% aether and 999% fire bonus. so there is still room for you to grow as well.
I do have some pretty decked out gear… I have spear of the heavens and Ulzuin’s torch… Reckless power also really helps that out… You’ll need closer to 250 energy regen to maintain the beam. Putting points into Isk Engery exchange will help that, especially paired with Mog pack. Elemental Balance won’t show up in your sheet dps, but is a large boost as it ups your crit damage (really the only thing you’ll get from it as a AAR build).
Remember though, “sheet dps” doesn’t tell the whole story… Crit damage makes a big difference and so does resist debuffs, which are not factored into your sheet DPS…
Haunt is a awesome relic, I used that for a long time myself. The resist debuff is nice on that as well!
What’s the devotion combo you used to get spear of the heavens and ulzuin’s torch? I’m running way short on points to get both no matter what combo I tried.
I don’t have the proc in SoH as even with the buff, it seems meh compared to my other damage. Also don’t have two nodes in the torch, but the burn doesn’t help much. Mainly wanted meteor shower, that thing is awesome… The +100% fire would be nice and was running it by taking fiend over behemoth, but decided in the end, HP and the heal was a better option than the higher DPS. Couldn’t find a great devotion for Flame Torrent either as it triggers around you. I’m not usually in the mix with too many monsters… Especially bosses would the higher DPS would actually make a difference.
I used a trainer to (fully) respec and try other secondary classes out for the Aether Ray build. I found the added utility of having the briarthorn pet + mogdrogen’s pact to be more useful IMO than what demolitionist, arcanist or soldier offers.
Mogdrogen’s pact also gives you a bunch of HP, regen, armor and pierce resist you get from oak skin as well, that combined with the pet getting some aggro allows you to grab mostly DPS devotions. That and you only really need 25 invested into shaman to get what you need out of it, freeing up 25 points you could place elsewhere. Although at level 85 it might be a good idea to max out the mastery anyway after you get a bunch of +skills from gear. And you could get a 2nd pet as well.
The ground slam attack with the briarthorn is very good. I’ve seen the pet land that attack and hold aggro on a boss for a good amount of time while I’m spamming devastation + aether ray on it.
I’m not 100% committed to my devotion setup, and am looking into some better DPS options, if anyone wants to recommend an alternative to what I posted.
I was messing around last night and came up with something almost identical, but I used fiend over behemoth. But looking at the comparisons, I’ll admit that behemoth looks better overall. Flame torrent really doesn’t do that much damage, and the increase to fire damage that fiend gives is negligible. So that’s extra survivability without sacrificing any noticeable DPS. Although my current fire % is only about 450%, but with the skill maxed out and near 1000% it might actually be decent to use on the pet and allow the pet to eliminate some trash mobs. But as of right now, I’m gonna reroll and use behemoth instead.
Well with a druid, you can get a LOT more HP thanks to heart of the wild, one of the better buffs out there… So Behemoth may not be as critical, but as a sorcerer, the HP help a ton! Plus the Giants Blood proc helps heal…
Yeah, I would image there wasn’t too much you can change if trying to get SoH and Torch…points are pretty thin… I don’t usually complete behemoth, but need the affinity to access the torch. Couldn’t find a way to keep fiend and still get giants blood. At least with keeping the must haves in the imp, viper and widow…
Yeah, putting flame torrent on a pet is a good place for the devotion…
Its strange. This build has more HP and better resists on Elite than my blademaster did, but my Druid gets hit for 500-1k by trash mobs. My blademaster might have had a little more armor, both had around the same DA within 100 points or so. Blademaster wasn’t getting hit like that by trash mobs. Would squeezing in 200 more points of armor make that huge of a difference in damage mitigation?
100 extra armor & +8% more armor absorb made mobs that used to hit me for 500, now hit for 100-200. I wasn’t aware that armor had that much of an impact on damage mitigation.
Also, I got 3 pieces of gear now with “of the arcane blaze”, each with a 5% proc for aether bolts, and its ridiculous how often these proc. It basically turns Aether Ray into a cone attack with the procs. Between the aether bolt + lightning bolt procs, I can take most groups out with a single cast of haunt and let the procs do the damage. I’ve been neglecting using devastation except for bosses, because haunt + procs takes groups out just as well most of the time.
My blademaster had quite a bit faster killing speed on bosses than this Aether Ray build does. And that’s with me using every ounce of DPS I got on the bosses, haunt + devastation + aether ray. Blademaster still killed about 2x faster with comparable gear at a comparable level.
But the Briarthorn pet WILL keep boss aggro for a good amount of time. I have to wait and allow the pet to build up some threat first. I usually wait on the ground slam attack to go off before I start pumping spells in. The pet face tanked Darius Crowley, and allowed me to blast him for 1/2 his bar before he turned toward me. I’m curious to see how the pet will do vs nemesis mobs. I’m not expecting it to survive for more than 5-6 seconds. But I could be surprised.
Just started Ultimate Mode, level 72 now. Here are my stats + DPS:
Found Wrath of the Ascendant & Clairvoyant’s robe in BoC (Elite). Had a Hammerfall Girdle in one of the bags on my Blademaster, and forgot all about it. That gave a pretty sizeable armor buff + armor absorb.
AAR builds can melt bosses early, but do slow down late game without some crazy good gearing. some more pieces of the clairvoyant’s set, like the hat and shoulders would help a lot. Also Aetherech gloves are awesome! Empower aether lord rings are nice as well…
Are you also building in CT to use normally (beside just one point for the knockdown)? Seems like an odd pairing with an AAR build. If you’re adding it to just use for TD, then you’re going to be taking a hit elsewhere for DPS/survivability. TD will give you 8 seconds to do as much damage with CT as you can…if that is not enough then you may find yourself in trouble…
What is your second mastery? You’ll need a nice HP pool and/or some extra back up heals to reliably use TD. It can be tricky trying to hit that 1-50% health range to trigger it in time before you die…
I played around with TD on my sorcerer for a bit. It was ok, but found myself missing that window too much and dying. I had mush better luck sticking with Ulzuins torch and meteor shower. Was just too difficult to add a DPS skill to an AAR build in order to utilize TD for anything more then longer mirror. I personally did not try CT, so maybe that would help. I tried TSS (which isn’t that greatest) but I also have a warpfire that converts 88% cold to fire, so it does make TSS a little better for an AAR build (around 1000% bonus to fire damage). When I was testing it out, I found just the extra time that I could stand there and channel AAR, was usually the best way to go. Just need to be ready with a pot to keep the energy up… If you time it right, again, very tricky, you can get mirror up for almost 14 seconds with TD. 14 seconds of the beam is a lot of damage…
Shaman secondary, so good HP all total and wendigo totem once it hits. I had planned on 12 points total investment for Calidors, but gear would put it well above 16. the 150% total damage modifier, plus 50% WD increase seems super strong with dilation, but its theory at this point. I doubt i would use Callidors much unless swarmed, and want knockback with its 6 second recharge normally after wrath of agrovix.
Here is what im tentatively planning. Will have +5 all arcanist and +1 shaman skills, a bunch of other enhanced skills as well. http://grimcalc.com/build/h46bsT8
It is worth a shot, in theory. Just costs a few iron bits to respect if it doesn’t work (as long as you’re on SC…costs a bit more if you’re on HC and trying this kills you…).
I assume most your gear is + aether and + fire damage and you’re using a 1 H weapon? The weapon damage may not be that great if you’re using a 1H… I think with wrath of Avgrix, it would probably out damage spamming primal strike. PS will give you a lot more WD, but adds physical and lightning instead of Fire/Aether. Mostly likely a lot less synergy there. That is where CT will probably help you out most…at least depending on how much WD you do…
CT is probably based off casting speed while PS would be attack speed? I’m guessing here, others should know that. If that is the case and your a caster, you’ll probably be able to get a lot more CT’s off as well compared to PS…don’t think animation plays a large roll in this case… Again, I’m completing guess on the speed thing though. Hopefully a more knowledgeable person can comment to where that is even the case or not.
Just remember spamming those will burn through your energy… Having a few more points in IEE will help scale Mog’s Pact really well… Also if you have good OA, elemental balance adds crit damage (good in general) and weapon damage… This will help make those skills do the most damage possible when you spam it. When using TD, it is have important to push as much DPS in those 8 seconds…
With your plus 5 arcanist skills, you should definitely scale back mental alacrity, it scales very poorly after the soft cap of 10. Fabric of reality doesn’t give you the much damage bonus end game and the energy leach needs targets casting spells…something end boss generally lack… You’d probably get more damage/energy regen switching those points to IEE and EB.
On a general note, one point in nullify is typically a pretty good too. It helps debuff monsters (huge vs reflect heroes). It can also pull dots from you and save your live too.
Thanks for advice. Primal is a direction i wasnt going to go, do much distilation of bonus’s and mastery , and CT was only because i already had the massive bonus’s to aether/fire, its certainly not a must have, but might outdamage AAR significantly for boss fights, while under time dilation.
Getting a few of arcane blaze, of the winter storm, blighted, etc pieces is really fun