So DEE set received a few tweaks some patches ago, mostly vitality and chaos conversion. And I’ve seen a lot of negativity about the set of late. I personally have not tried it but in the spirit of making it a thing, let’s start a dedicated discussion.
This is the best spam DEE that I could put together with the DEE set at present:
I did the devotions this way to see if I could fit Abomination for the 75% conversion and regen …which is probably gimmicky. Bat with 1/2 conversion is about as good as Guardians gaze with practically full conversion and is a better color assist, which is also the case for Revenant’s RtD vs Manticore imho…
Pros:
The 2 main AoE damage nodes of Blood Burst and Vile Eruption are capped and Vile should see 100%conversion
The weapon damage element at 63%WD sees about 2-8K acid max. The chaos and vit conversions see some influence on the WD. Note that this is not efficent and even at 63%WD your damage/skill point investment increase is small; it does help health-leech via WD, though.
The DEE various flat acids amount to ~24K acid (with conversions and just using base VE’s base values -ie. no fragment extras)
so, in theory …let’s say 28K acid at 2500% global acid. (4K WD whether DW or this offhand or whatnot)
reasonable RR: 30+30+30+25=115.
And DEE has a associated amount of poison damage that ticks every second that can support the spam bit. ~20K/s (~100% in-skill poison boost from maxed terrifying gaze + at 2500% global poison)
Cons:
Even though the set has some of these stats: it is still low on OA/DA/energy regen/health/various resistances.
Set has no stun or slow resistance, which means boots like Final March are better than an acid boot and possibly the pants would be better as Tranquil mind, if not for the lacking resists that venomskin helps.
Armor is really low and health is very squishy (general occultist problem, so probably should added to this set). Obviously much of this is due to the limited base class investment in Nightblade, and OK does solve this and energy regen at a loss of cast speed. But DEE takes a ton of skill points.
DEE takes a ton of skill points, even with +2 set and various bonuses.
Using the transmuter means a 125% damage boost (which mostly impacts the poison aspect). This ultimately produces a damage of ~70% of the clunky Spam DEE at 200% cast speed and without transmuter. (See numbers above for comparisons). Meanwhile you have time to thrown in another damage skill while the poison dot does its thing for 10+seconds. The Wretched Tome offhand increases this transmuted DoT damage to equal or greater than spam DEE at 200% cast speed (WT adds another 100% poison in-skill boost)
Discuss: What would make you want to play some variant of a DEE spam with the DEE set? Also you can just comment on the general topic of how to make the DEE set better.
Edit: added a spam vs transmuter comparison in the cons section.
Man…I’ve made so many comments about acid builds, but just to recap:
It’s not a problem of the DEE set, it’s a problem with everything else around it
e.g. Only scraps of DA to be found in acid devotion pathing, with 0 CC-res. This means you’re forced to play a (surprise, surprise) sentinel and use Aeon’s for permascension.
Same problems with acid items - rings, shoes, pants, etc. Most acid items with solid OA/DA stats are greens (e.g. viloth rings)
Acid items tend to give acid resistance. So you can forget about trying to patch up DA using augments.
Moving on to the actual skill itself:
I don’t think vile eruption shotguns the primary target (it might indirectly do so if DEE can pass through targets like dagallon).
You have no casting speed in acid based gloves/masteries (few exceptions exist).
DoT on spammable skills is a waste. Period. Since a massive amount of DEE’s damage comes from DoT, you’re just better off taking the transmutor, and using something like acid purge, or biting blades as a support skill.
What would DEE take to become spammable? I haven’t a clue. Perhaps the base skill should be a DEE nuke, and the transmutor should reduce the DoT damage on it, in favor of increasing its flat damage.
You could also support DEE spam by improving all the other variables limiting non-permascension centred acid builds.
Believe me, my foray into the realm of non-OK acid have yielded nothing but disappointment. Especially my experiments with the acid RE/sigil radaggan cabalist
EDIT: On paper, it should do more damage than the dark one’s ritualist, but it doesn’t translate across because of poor stats.
I have OK fatigue (well…ascension, PoV, Mandate, Judgment and Vires to be precise). Much like there was Inquis fatigue with the 4 overshadowing skills with AoM.
Humor my OCD and let me add some clarifications to that statement:
The OK is fine as it is. TBH, it doesn’t need nerfs. If you nerfed the OK, acid damage as a whole would not be able to compete with other damage types.
My opinion on the matter (and it’s just that, an opinion) is that the problem lies with acid devotions/itemizations.
For example, because acid items give acid resistance, you’re automatically going to be less inclined to include the occultist in it. This is why I think you see acid dervishes popping up left, right, and centre.
Then there’s all the benefits of permascension + PoT3 which trivialises one of the biggest problems faced by non-OK builds, etc. etc.
Don’t nerf the OK. Diversify acid items/devotions.
EDIT: It’s worth noting too, that for some reason, most quality acid items provide skill points for the OK mastery, and not others.
The one which bugs me the most is the pack of treacherous means. It freaking belongs to nidalla, a legendary nightblade, yet it has +1 to all OK in it.
Well, I did question that decision in the forums and Z basically said “thanks for stopping by” to paraphrase. But tbf I was the only one so it can’t be too much on the top of most players’ concerns. OK is immensely popular.
Items tend to be tweaked more than skils/devotions. So I’m going to suggest adding this to the DEE set:
Armor pieces: add stun/slow and increase OA, DA and pierce and elemental resistance on the armor. (note that 30% of elemental resists on the build above comes from using arcanum dust!- intended for arcanist)
Dagger: add cast speed and %cdr - as this dagger will not be used for anything other than the set ( I can almost guarantee it).
Amulet: add energy regen and some physical to acid convert.
Set bonus: increase DEE pass-through chance to 100% (To compare…the crazy Desolator allows for spam FS with this), add %RR to set proc
As this is a 5 piece acid caster set covering both weapon and amulet, imho some fairly substantial additions are needed. Unlike some of the other “psuedo-caster” sets that don’t have minimum Spirit requirements, this one does - which means even a non-offhand build will have a certain investment requirement.
Those are extremely reasonable suggestions, my concern, however, is that they’ll serve to push that set further into OK territory.
If the root cause of the problem isn’t addressed, my guess is that any buffs will serve to widen the divide between OK acid builds, and non-OK acid builds.
EDIT: For example…adding +1 to all NB, and +1 to all necromancer on murmur’s kiss belt would be a great start. Acid reapers are already suffering, and honestly? Necromancer’s have shit belts.
Aside from the lunal’valgoth one, and maybe a handful of pet builds, I’ve never seen a build use a necromancer belt.
OK on the other hand are spoiled for choices when it comes to belts:
Crimson lotus
Avenger
Infernal knight
deadly means
It is the class with the most number of belts
Another change I would suggest: make Dreeg’s affliction actually comparable to meditation. Or better still, move the +1 to all skills in occultist from dreeg’s affliction to death stalker, and swap their crafting bonuses accordingly…that would go a long way in overcoming the CC-res problem faced by non-OK acid builds.
If everything around it is the problem, couldn’t one design DEE set so that it solves those problems? Most other acid builds don’t seem to have that big of a problem.
Right. But you get my point though. That’s one out of a dozen or so acid builds. And it took a massive redesign of the set to make it work
Because of the innate problems faced by acid builds, the OK will always be the better pick unless such radical changes were made to each and every set.
And that may still be insufficient.
According to fluff, despite all the buffs given to acid-based radaggan cabalist, the sentinel still looks better on paper.
EDIT: and IIRC, some playtesters like valinov have confirmed this in their testing.
Just seems easier to me to add a few plus skills and OA/DA to more generic acid items, than it is to redesign a whole bunch of sets.
Yup, it’s tough to make even Witch Hunter shine, a mastery with dual source of RR and synergetic damage but even more for class without. So Oathkeeper will be often better support mastery just because of juicy CDR, Ascension, automatic RR and Mediation relic and gearing as whole.
It’s permascension. Because acid classes lack %OA and %DA. Stacking these flat values without those % bonuses is quite…underwhelming.
But with permascension, you’ve overcome that hurdle.
Same thing with CC res as mentioned earlier. Itemization/devotions don’t give sufficient CC-res/
Boom. Problem solved with permascension.
EDIT: For the record, I’m not suggesting we nerf the OK. Because it’s not like these acid builds are overperforming. I’m suggesting we buff other acid masteries.
But without perma ascension allowed by Oathkeepers you will suck even more. Basically Dervish is the only strong acid mastery with more than one viable options. I tried for example 2h RF Sentinel and results were underwhelming. And Sentinel is a nice class too.
The nerfs to Venomblade were slight but they immediately made the Dervish second tier and were reversed. See how fragile balance is. And to make something like whole damage type to have multiple viable builds requires massive undertaking and re designing of gear. And then some builds will still struggle and some will be overpowered as hell.
I tried non set DEE spamming and it’s sucks. As nuke isn’t impressive but is lot better than spam. Fire DEE spamming is big no too. Never tried vitality, but doubt the results will be sufficient.
Right, permascension is fine. I agree that the OK needs it.
What I’m saying is that other non-OK acid builds don’t have anything which is competitive with permascension because they are so starved of other valuable stats.
Does possession with perfect chaos/acid conversion rival PoT3? Of course.
But not if you can’t fix your OA, and CC-res.
Because OA, and CC-res is more critical to how well a build performs, you’re just going to take the the OK (aka permascension) over other masteries.
And that’s just one thing which pushes acid builds that direction. The other which I have mentioned repeatedly is how acid items have acid res.
This immediately makes you less likely to pick the occultist.
Funnily I often find Occultist a great solution for stats problem for secondary class, except Acid where needs to shine and sometimes chaos.
But I often have on my acid build something like 100% acid overcap. And then toggle BoD…
I agree about resistances. Had an idea posted in the section for change regarding resistances on Plaguebearer of Dreeg amulet. Same problem is for relic, armor, belt, medals. Everything gives acid resistance to infinity.
Yup. It’s everywhere. And you can’t find those resistances in your devotions, which means you need to scramble to fix them with augments/components (and greens if you GDstash).
And that in turn means you can’t patch up your shitty OA/DA with components.
Basically, most non-OK acid builds are only allowed to pick 2 of the 3:
OK is just a superb supportive mastery for acid damage, kinda like Inquisitor for elemental imo. That’s why you pretty much only see sentinels and dervishes around nowadays.
Could give you a similar quest: Name me a solid build that uses Dreeg set. Bonus: Name me a solid build that uses spam DEE.
Ofc you are right that OK is very powerful for acid, but (spam) DEE and Dreeg set are just as weak as OK is powerful imo.
Pre-FG, mad_lee made a pretty decent WH using dreeg set. (EDIT: Not sure if it’s dreeg’s set, or if it was DEE nuke. I could be wrong).
I don’t think it’s fair to bring up spam DEE because that skill has been poorly designed right from it’s conception. I don’t think it’s ever been used outside of levelling.
I certainly don’t disagree that the DEE set needs improvement. But the question I’m trying to ask is this - How can we improve it without catering it for the OK?
This right here is the issue. It’s not just a superb support mastery for acid damage. It is currently the only viable supportive class for acid damage because of permascension.
And lore-wise, it just doesn’t make sense. If any class should be given that role, it’s the occultist.
Which brings me to my point about the inquisitor. It makes perfect sense to me that the mastery designed to excel in the elemental be the best supportive class for elemental builds. That being said, solid competitive alternatives do exist - The arcanist, and the occultist both support elemental builds pretty damn well too.
