The increased -cdr to outcast’s secret is a welcome change.
It allows for a much better uptime of devastation between packs & for actual useful dmg on bosses together with the aether dmg that was added to decree of aldritch.
Overall dmg on it could still be a bit higher imo & a small minus radius be welcome to help with single target dmg while still being useful for clearing.
Removing the -20% tdm mod was a good change and now the aether rune finally deals some decent dmg.
If there’s anything left I could wish for it’s some form of more +levels to RoH to some aether related items.
Decree of Aldritch for example could have a +2/+3 to it.
The addition of a +15% tdm modifier similar to what the aehter RE conduit offers is a great addition to make up for the loss and/or greatly weakened decay.
It also makes the sigil deal some fair dmg while providing fair extra sustain.
The added bleeding dmg & rr to certain items was rly nice and the dmg on bleeding pox is decent. (not a meme anymore yay!)
However the sustain is barely just in the OK range on the 1st & awful on the 2nd so imo it could use improvements.
How exactly I am not sure.
Extra cdr is very nice, helps with needed sustain & smoothens overall gameplay.
While this change is nice I would like to remind that valguur could rly use this change as well & that fire caster toons are in need of some more energy regen on their devos and/or gear.
I also tested this Virtue Paladin and there imo are many things that need work on it.
For starters it is extremly clunky to play.
The sustain feels iffy, dmg is mediocre to alright at best & that’s thx to a lack of burning dmg & duration for a set that tries to advocate aegis burn.
I suggest increasing the burning dmg on some parts & add burning duration to either set parts or as set bonus.
Some additional OA % as bonus wouldn’t hurt it either.
The buff to additional targets was very helpful & useful.
However while playtesting this build another issue became obvious to me and that is the lack of attacking & casting speed to make the build feel good & not clunky to play.
I’d like to suggest two things: Either add as & cs % to the already very rare soulrend (always surprised me that it didn’t have it tbh) or please consider adding it to Morgoneth’s gloves.
That is all for now.
As usual, if you have anything to add, questions and such feel free to post them bellow!
Cheers, Mergo!
I think this is more a flaw in the specific build rather than the Virtue set itself. Without a spammable skill to fill in the CD gaps and provide a source of sustain I’d be surprised if it didn’t feel like crap to play. Obviously you were trying to focus on the burn and I’m no specialist in that at all. But I disagree that the set pushes burn in particular. It adds burn to Aegis in one place, that’s all. Between the flat fire and reduced CD I feel the flat damage is favoured more than burn. I’ve used this on live for reference and it works wonderfully even pre-9.8 buffs, so much so I was surprised the set was getting buffs at all. It’s not fast on DPS but solid enough, very tanky and the kiting playstyle keeps it out of trouble, making for perfectly reliable SR75-80 runs in my experience. If you shored up the DA, improved lifesteal and slotted in even a marginal filler AA skill you might be surprised how well it can do. Though perhaps SR favours the set more than Crucible?
The build mergos shared is actually mine, and i wanted him to test it for himself. I also had a setup with stormfire as filler (+ a whole bunch of passive sustain procs) but to my sadness it didn’t have good sustain at all in the end. The gameplay with it isn’t fluid at all as opposed to most feedbacked builds/sets that received the necessary buffs (not you bloodrager). Even deathguard reaper in its current form performance better at everything than virtue despite it being a single rr acid build. This setup right here is just another test of mine to see how the build performs as a rotation caster/attacker relying on healing procs instead of direct life steal, and i can honestly say, that in order for this set to be on par with others, it needs 6% more cdr, 5% more da and oa%, global adtch on some set pieces, attack speed and casting speed on the shield and flat global burn and burning duration (more than just the shield) added on items, and aegis flat cdr lowered slightly more.
Everything went in the right direction but there’s still journey towards the good spot.
Regarding vit and bleed pox, i believe its worthca shot adding adtch to boneblade for some form of sustain.
Regarding sigils, i think some crit dmg added to Destruction will also make them at least noticeable. I even considered suggesting increased tickrate but its probably too much.
Agree to disagree then. The filler setup has worked for me in 9.7 i.e. even before the buffs it’s getting now. Not blazingly fast (partially cause oof that movespeed) but good enough. Got plenty of other builds (set-based and custom) that wish they performed like this.
Obviously not gonna say no to buffs but I don’t feel they’re truly needed here.
How about you provide some real numbers and not just this particular case , like win/death ratio in buffed crucible runs, win/death ratio in naked extra spawns, can it facetank ravager, yay or nay, same for callagadra and crate, and win/death ratio on sr75-76 runs, timers included too. And lets us further take that info and compare it to other existing builds and find out where the build is sitting at.
EDIT: Also… * Virtue’s Defender: added 100% Burn Duration and added 40 Fire damage modifier for Aegis of Menhir
Can’t do that cause I don’t play Crucible. I’ve also killed all the Superbosses just enough times to get all of their gear, but past that, I don’t make a habit of fighting them so I can’t tell you if the build can facetank them.
My version of endgame testing is SR75-80 runs within timer, that’s the content I enjoy. And in those it has successfully completed 10/10 of them and done so very comfortably (actually, I also did some testing with a previous version of the build with a slightly worse gear setup and it completed 5/5 so technically the build is 15/15 across all iterations). I don’t track completion times on those, so I got no numbers to provide (nor would they probably tell you much cause most people track 75-76 times, not 75-80) but the build has a 100 % success ratio already in 9.7. That’s prior to set buffs, prior to healer nerfs in SR, prior to enemy res gear nerfs, prior to across-the-board enemy 2 % fire res nerf. It’s an extremely safe build (though not the fastest) with a perfect success rate and it’s already getting buffed in a number of ways regardless. I don’t think it needs more, not when there are other builds that can’t even do what it does now in 9.7.
I hope you don’t feel bothered by my statements, but i just brought my input on it. Z already has lots of feedback from me eith numbers, videos and issues about the build provided since forever ago. I used to feedback deathguard a lot back in the days, but now the set is finally good and i moved onwards to virtue, iskandra and others. So under no circumstance do i intend to make anyone look bad. Im just comparing the capability of other builds using +2 mastery skills sets vs this one, and to my sadness, this one is still clunky if played in the intended way. In its current form, im maintaining my opinion about the 3pc bonus needing to be bumped to 20% hp, 5% da and 5% oa added, while the set pieces should have burn damage and the helm should get cdr too while the shield needs casting speed and attack speed. To those who might be curious i even tried a setup based on cinderscorn axe, rotating aegis, vire and judgment. Despite these 3 sources having huge burn, ticks were around 250-300k, and the setup overall was clunk because of the missing speeds and cdr further causing leech dips. Here’s the example of an extremely slow ravager kill (bamboozled title name)
Average crucible runs of 5.10, runs being ranged between 4.45 and 5.20, unavoidable deaths in between too, highest outlier being a 5.35 run with horrific mutators, lowest being the example bellow.
2 random consecutive runs to show real performance after buffs. Damage is somewhat nicer, adtch could be better, but as you can see, cooldowns are way too long. Its 5% on amulet + 12 % on set bonus. Meanwhile bleeding lultos has 6 on amulet, 6 on helm and 19 on axe while being a dedicated set for AA spam. Suggest adding cdr to helm and shield too, and reducing aegis cd by 0.2 more than it already is. Also consider adding/increasinf flat cdr to vire and judgment on axe too.
Same case happens to Trozan set setup (which misses electrocute)
In terms of performance its very underwhelming. I have 2 examples of best runs, one with iskandra relic, one with eternity relic as following:
In the end, the damage is not enough to make up for the fact that its an elemental build. The rr proc on the offhand is inconsistent, offhand misses casting speed and support from secondary items to get + thermites or full bwc line with agonizing flames is nowhere to be found. Last but not least the set really needs a bonus with % reduced ele rr to TSS. If you go for ultos the damage goes down even more.
EDIT* here’s another, more offensive example with ultos, pheonix, torch, behemoth.
Here’s some more suggestions from the top of my head based on what i’ve noticed here and there related to items:
Mythical essence of the grim dawn and mythical aethereach gloves. these two grew to be generic for aar builds, excepting for the lightning version, all builds will end up using these items thus why i thought suggesting the % dmg on them switched to % all damage
Aldanar’s Vanity offhand. Can we get some casting speed and also 200% fire damage to ascension here?
Vestments of severed faith: gorgeous armor with gorgeous stats, excepting that +30 OA that seems to be out of line to the rest. Maybe increase that a bit?
Spelldrinker and Warpfire: what’s the purpose of aether damage on these two? Spelldrinker needs dot ele dmg%, warpfire has base aether damage yet the %dmg is very small which asks either to readjust the % aether dmg, or remove it and change base to fire.
Iskandra set: increase +2 to x skill to +3, add casting speed to offhand, give meter radius to offhand proc
Regarding Iskandra, after several testing done this morning with this build…
Performance was 5.10, 4.40, death, death, 5.05, death, 4.38, death, 5.15.
On all the runs i had issues with health sustain and damage output, damage being somewhat mediocre, probably caused by lack of dot dmg% (mentioned earlier about ele items and affixes) and not enough TSS damage (or cooldown) provided by the set.
Needs better sustain, casting speed on offhand, changing +2 to x skill to +3 to prevent cheesing affixes, and more damage (or less cooldown) to TSS. Consider adding some adtch to ele devos (or even directly to filler skills components). Also very important aspect regarding ele builds in general, check the %burn, frostburn, eletrocute. Most ele devos have big issues with this stat. Please consider adding dot damage to elemental items (e.g. spelldrinker - what’s the purpose of % aether damage on it?) and elemental affixes (scorched ends, runecarved, tempest and so on).
Ah yes, forgot to mention. Please consider adding phys to fire for RF on ignaffar gloves so fire builds that use RF as a filler can actually sustain, while also adjusting that absurd amount of fire res on them gloves and ignaffar pants too.
A very fun, stable and consistent build, everything fits very well, but if you check the GT link in the video desc you’ll notice an aspect that is common to all (or almost all ele builds), and that is the absurd elemental overcap and the lack of dot%. Like i already mentioned on iskandra reply, we need %dot damage for elemental everywhere. I’d dare suggesting adding flat dot damage as a skill mod to spelldrinker aside with the flat and ofc dot% dmg on the weapon instead of the useless % aether damage. Regarding strictly the build, i dont think there’s anything that can’t be done to improve it buff wise since every possible buff will improve other bonemonger or wop builds that already perform very well, excepting one possible buff… Hyrian’s shield could really make use of a facelift to enable several elemental builds, and the only things i can think of after several tests is… grant the shield casting speed, increase its %ele dmg, increase the skill’s flat damage, add crit damage to it, increase its range and width, replace the DR% on it with % ele reduced, and last but not least…remove its cooldown .
Forgot to mention seeing this just now, voidrend talons need their belgo shears conversion readapted to pierce to chaos since the shears got changed to pierce. Might as well add a mod to whirling death too to either them or fang of chthon.
, like win/death ratio in buffed crucible runs, win/death ratio in naked extra spawns, can it facetank ravager, yay or nay, same for callagadra and crate, and win/death ratio on sr75-76 runs, timers included too. And lets us further take that info and compare it to other existing builds and find out where the build is sitting at.
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