This time I’ll post builds and videos at the beginning and analysis them in an integrated manner.
Builds, videos and performs:
1.Lightning RtA Vines Elementalist
SR30-31 - 4:57 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHeWtQhz8KE
SR clear time is around 5:30ish. 4:57 is already a very lucky run.
2.Chaos CounterStrike Witchblade
SR30-31 - 5:43 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ3VRpVuaqE
SR clear time is definately beyond 5:30, and needs micro to achieve this speed.
3.Acid RtA ABB WitchHunter
Spec 1 (more retal damage):
SR30-31 - 5:05 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrfUaiatjk4
SR clear time is around 5:00. A little bit slow imo.
Spec 2 (more acid damage):
SR30-31 - 5:07 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ3hd0eYLtA
SR clear time is around 5:00. A little bit slow imo.
4.Acid RtA DE Oppressor
SR30-31 - 4:14 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxH8KYZt5YM
Ravager of Minds- 1:17 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_vOBW94FhA
SR clear time is 4:30ish. Decent and Moderate.
5.Physical RtA DE Deathknight
SR30-31 - 4:30 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKsCNFya_yE
Ravager of Minds - 1:33 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4Zha0c6rFk
The Councils in SR30 - 0:17 (PTR Feb13): www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBkDRlZoQo
SR clear time is 4:30ish. Decent and Moderate. Single target damage is a little bit low.
Analysis and Feedbacks:
1.Bramblevine
The 1% ADCtH buff does seem to help a little, but very limited. It did not solve its damage plight. The most serious problem is that it’s still too slow. Damage buff is an urgent need to this skill. As is talked above, I would suggest to increase its RtA mod to 8%, and probably there could be 1% more ADCtH. I believe it won’t be excessive.
2.RtA ABB
As is discussed somewhere else (New Dreegal'anore ABB mode is worhtless with this value), 18% RtA doesn’t seem to be decent. Both Specs lack damage. One farcical thing is, when fighting some specific bosses, RtA ABB is dealing even lower DPS than Dreeg Afflicted Spines (Relic proc). We know that Dreeg Afflicted Spines is only the icing on the cake but not a core skill in most cases. Yet here it plays a very important role. The reason is simply because RtA ABB itself is weak. Buffing it to something like 24-28% is appropriate, imo.
3.RtA DE
Dialing its RtA back from 23% to 22% is not bad. Along with global acid retal buffs, now both acid one and physical one is at a decent position. Its single target damage is not good though (especially the physical one). Maybe I should say physical RtA DE is still bad at single target damage. I would suggest to keep it here and if necessary, some tuning in another direction that I’m gonna put forward below.
4.Physical Retal
Tried a lot of setups but I didn’t have the energy to make them all videos. Vire’s % physical retal damage removal totally cancel out the buff to physical damage type (Assassin’s Mark buff and Monster Armor Reduction). Assassin’s Mark buff and Monster Armor Reduction increased physical retal damage by about 3% but Vire’s % physical retal damage removal reduced damage by about 4%. Another thing is it takes time to proc Assassin’s Mark but % damage is always there. Thus in practice most of physical retal builds get very slightly slower. Now that two major physical retal item, Final Stop of RtA RF and Spectral War Shield of RtA DE, are all nerfed this time, and other physical retal builds (except Stoneguard that seems to be good as well, whose SR time is 4:30ish) haven’t show their head, I think it’s unnecessary to remove the % physical retal damage from Vire. Bring it back also helps physical RtA DE on single target. If you worried about it being too good a SR farmer, then I think reducing its radius or target number makes more sense than punishing all physical retal builds or continuing reducing its single target damage.
5.CounterStrike
Thanks for the radius and activation chance buff. Radius looks and plays pretty good now. Activation chance, however, is still an issue. Sometimes I was thinking, not 100% activation chance at a low level makes sense, but when you construct a build around it and invest most of the build’s resource into it, it’s very frustrated to see it remaining silent. You can see in the video that, in shard, CounterStrike works, if not so fine, not too bad. However, in boss rooms, CounterStrike’s influence just disappeared. I’m fine with its activation chance not being 100% when it is an one-point skill, but when it was regarded as a core skill and hardcaped to lv.26 and invested a lot of modifiers, I’ll really appreciate it if its activation chance is 100%.
6.Hellborne
% RtA modifier for Grenado went from 40% to 33% to 28%, it’s finally not an easy sub-4 runner now.