So, been playing this game off and on for ages now (lost a couple high level characters between shifting to a new computer so was put off for a while) but in the last couple weeks I finally got a character to level 100. Death Knight, obviously.
So, I’m in act 6 (ultimate). I can do trash mobs fine, even elites (or whatever you call them), even some bosses. BUT things like SoT final boss are a bit hit or miss.
Just just want some opinions on how to improve my build. Please.
Quick note. I know Im using a Gluttony but I sorta don’t have any better blueprints. Not for vitality anyway.
But yea, it’s sorta a vitality build with some poison damage thrown in.
I just spam bone harvest and ravenous earth for damage and throw everything else in between (over simplified but you get an idea.)
Your skills are those of a caster but your gear is that of a fighter. How are you playing that toon?
If you are using weapon attacks you should really consider Cadence, it’s the base of any fighter build using Soldier mastery.
If you are only “attacking” with bone harvest and ravenous earth you would probably get better results with either a caster off-hand (to reduce cooldown) or a big two hander for huge Bone Harvest damage.
Now, i never played a toon like that one and i’m still new to the game. Hopefully better players will show up and help you more than i could but i find the forum quiet currently as if they are all testing 1.1 changes :rolleyes: Still waiting for the patch to be released on GoG
There might be some builds in the build compendium that look like what you’re trying to do and that might help you.
I’m not exactly a master in terms of character optimization, but the main thing that sticks out to me is that your offensive and defensive ability are both on the lower end, with the offensive ability being REALLY low. Typically when i’m building my characters i try to aim for a 2.8k-2.8k for both (if possible), but if either or even both of those stats ends up around 2.6k i’m not going to lose sleep over it since i’d be ok with everyone outside of maybe mad queen and 1-2 of the AOM nemesis. Your stats are typical of the first toon that players typically take to end game. my first too ended up something like that as well. Some of it is due to limitation with recipes, some of it is simply optimization issues. Cant do much with the first except farm more, but i think there’s wiggle-room even with ur equipment as it is.
Another thing that u might want to think about is maxing out your resist reduction. U have, i think, 4 sources of them (correct me if i’m mistaken, since i might have missed some stuff since Necro is the only class which i have not yet played extensively):
-Devotion: -35%
-Weapon component: -10%
-Spectral Wrath: around -18%
-Foul Eruption: reduce reduction by 15
Adds up to about 80%, which isnt shabby, but u could add more to it by levelling spectral wrath if u want. It’s not a screaming issue, but typically if u are breezing through the mobs and elites while having exponential increase in difficulty with monster rank (especially against bosses with high resist), Resist Reduction (RR in short) and OA/DA are typically to blame.
For the Relic if u have anything that gives +1 to all skills for soldier or Necromancer it’ll do better than guttony due to the increase in bonus to vit damage from ranking skills up. If u dont have such relics then i guess u could find something to replace it but it’s hard to tell u what to do without having an idea what relics u have.
So TL;DR:
-Some issues with OA/DA -> move some points to Field command and spectral binding. And replace the 2 emeralds in your rings with components with OA/DA. Oh and put a component on your belt too while u’re at it.
-RR, maybe consider maxing out Spectral Wrath. That’s about it for RR side.
-Replace Gluttony with an upgrade. Doesnt have to be vitality damage related since gluttony doesnt give that much in the first place. The OA completion bonus is nice considering your low OA though, and u might want to find something that at least is on par with that.
I do use a lot of weapon attacks. I basically play it like you would a tank, run in, auto-attack, spam abilities. How would cadence go with this build? Would that be when physical damage converted into vitality comes into play?
Yea, I definitely feel my OA/DA is pretty low. The percentage to hit is something like 80%? It’s not good anyway. I haven’t given OA/DA much thought tbh. Thank you for the advice, I’ll move some points around and see about getting some more OA/DA and RR, play that for a while and see how much of a difference that makes before trying to change my style to a cadence build.
Hyram in Steelcap District offers a few relic blueprints which you could try.
Torment has some flat vitality damage, Juggernaut has +1 to Soldier.
As Lord Yanaek said, use Cadence as your auto-attack. Just one point will be better than the standard weapon attack but I’d invest as many points as possible.
edit: if you haven’t unlocked Hyram yet, you can get those blueprints from Vinelton in Ancient Grove as well. Might need to restart the session a few times before it’s available.
Cadence works by modifying every 3rd hit and making it much stronger. So you hit twice as normal attacks and the 3rd one is a cadence attack that at 16/16 will deal 420% weapon damage (4 times your basic attack) and add 182 physical damage on top. But it’s not all, if you have points into fighting form (2nd ability in cadence line) your attack will be a multi target attack. Here 1 point is enough for 2 targets or you want 12 for 3 targets. Finally with points in deadly momentum you’ll add flat physical damage to every attack for a short time, both your basic attacks and the following cadence attacks.
Physical to Vitality from gear will convert a portion of every physical damage you deal, be it weapon damage (your weapon deals 25 vitality but also 116-146 physical) or flat damage from cadence or other bonuses. Obviously you won’t benefit from Deadly Momentum as much as a physical damage build but the basic cadence attack is very strong.
Note that Cadence replaces your basic attacks and doesn’t proc your WPS skills (such as reaping strike), those can only proc from your default attacks but due to the way cadence works you still have 2 basic attacks for every cadence strike. Other skills such as the Shaman’s Savagery do work with WPS and multiply them.
Note that i didn’t change your gear as i don’t know what’s available. You got some advices above. I also didn’t change your devotions even thought Time Delation isn’t particularly useful for a fighter (it can help you get Mark of Torment earlier which can help you survive so i left it). I attempted to respect your build as much as possible while freeing points for cadence. There could be further changes such as swapping Harbinger of Souls for Master of Death for more OA and DA but less ADCtH and Physical -> Vitality conversion. It’s a choice and one i don’t want to make for you, especially since i’m not good enough with the game to be sure which one is better but keep it in mind.
I made the changes with the reasoning that if you’re not playing as a caster, your main source of damage isn’t your spells but your attacks so i kept Bone Harvest and Ravenous Earth to 1 point (+ skill bonuses) and instead focused on the “side effects” as those are what will really matter for your auto-attacks : the flat vitality damage from Soul Harvest, the damage reduction from Decay (i stopped adding point when the skill reached diminishing return) and Resistance Reduction from Foul Eruption (Note that against isolated bosses you might not be able to proc the RR as it requires that someone dies so i’m not sure that one is a good choice, but it was in your original build and i tried to keep the spirit of your build).
That got me enough points to max Cadence and put one point in Fighting Form for additional target. I also put 1 point into Blitz as it’s a great mobility skill to quickly close on an enemy that also attacks for more damage than a basic attack and his an area with blindside (also 1 point). I then increased Field Command and Spectral Binding for OA and DA, Spectral Wrath for more resistance reduction. I increased Reaping Strike for max proc chance as you have an item mod for that skill but if you want to use those points somewhere else it won’t make or break your build. Finally i added more points into Overguard (great defensive skill) and Squad Tactics (dps boost).
That should make the build a better fighter (and a worse caster but if you’re playing it as a fighter it should improve it for you). Further OA/DA boosts by changing components and/or augments would improve it further.
Note that i left 4 skill points unaffected, don’t know how many skill points come from FG quests and whether or not you have the new expansion.
EDIT : Just noticed that you had several points into Reap Spirit (i thought it was a 1 pointer with + skill). You’re not a pet player so it’s only there to proc Time Delation, drop it to 1 point (it will be 2 with gear bonuses) and use those points somewhere else.
Oh wow this is fantastic, I appreciate the effort very much thank you.
I’ve been playing too much League of Legends, forget there are game communities out there that aren’t complete garbage.
I will certainly give this a try. I think it makes sense, I do play like a fighter so it would be better to have a build built around being good at that.
Plus being able to kill void parasites would be nice.
Yeah, the issue with Void Parasites is their 125% Vitality Resist
You need as much resist reduction as possible against those or it won’t matter whether you’re dealing 100 dmg or 100 000
Try to kill other stuff near them to trigger Foul Eruption and then kill them as fast as possible while their resists are lowered. They are actually really easy to kill, just not for vitality builds (my cold infiltrator shreds them in seconds and it’s far from being a ultimate build :rolleyes:)
And yes, the community is quite nice here as long as you don’t start your first thread by complaining how the game is complete garbage
Took the points out of reap spirit and dumped them into decorated solider. This gave me extra elemental resistances so I was able to swap out my chest for a legendary one I’ve had in my storage. Moved some augments and components around. I don’t know why grim tools says my resistances are 11% over max because in game it says they’re bang on 80%. (yes I have all my buffs on). Also replaced Gluttony with a Juggernaut. Had to farm Hyram a bit for blueprints but no biggie. Biggest thing is probably OA/DA are now 2600. Also gained a bunch of HP. AND my damage has gone up by a fair chunk. Prior, bone harvest was my biggest hitter doing 24K, now it only does 16K but Cadence does 31K so…
