This 1.0.0.8-ready method is intended for those upset about the nerf to Markovian 5pc or are turned off by the damage penalty imposed by Markovian’s Defense. It leverages the power of Time Dilation combined with 20% CDR to allow up to 70 consecutive seconds of Overguard with minimal gear changes.
Mechanism
With 20% CDR, Overguard’s cooldown reduces to 16 seconds. With Time Dilation, that further reduces to 10 seconds, allowing back-to-back usage of Overguard. Let’s go over how 20% CDR and Time Dilation can be achieved with a physical shield build:
20% CDR
A shield with the Supercharged or Chronomancer’s prefix alone can provide up to 15% CDR. Ideally, the suffix should be of Redoubt/Valor/Shattering/Torrents to maximise block chance, which synergises well with Overguard. The most efficient way to obtain a shield with your desired affix(es) is to spare Isaiah Reddan and repeatedly shop from him. The 5% CDR remaining can be met entirely through Markovian’s Visor, which is the only shield-focused legendary helmet with CDR and is craftable to boot.
Time Dilation
It is entirely possible to get Time Dilation while also getting Assassin’s Mark, Targo’s Hammers, and the two shield block chance nodes. There will be some sacrifices compared to your ideal setup obviously but this setup should be entirely workable. Time Dilation should be bound to Clean Sweep which yields a 100% proc rate. With enough +Soldier, Clean Sweep itself can make up for the opportunity cost of a delayed Cadence hit through extra DoT and AoE.
Net Cooldown Disparity
While Overguard can benefit from Time Dilation, Time Dilation cannot benefit from itself. At 10/10, Time Dilation has a cooldown of 15 seconds which is reduced to 12 seconds via 20% CDR. But, 12 seconds is longer than Overguard’s 10 seconds. How do we manage this disparity? Through two ways:
Short Cycle (10-2)
The most basic way to leverage this setup is to activate Overguard and use Clean Sweep (with Time Dilation attached) immediately afterwards. Then, repeat after Time Dilation’s cooldown ends, which is 12 seconds. This yields an uptime of 83.3%.
Long Cycle (70-6)
This is where the fun is. Through perfect timing, you can achieve up to 70 consecutive seconds of Overguard. The timing schedule is as follows:
Time Elapsed (s) / Skill to use (OG = Overguard, CS = Clean Sweep)
0 OG, CS
10 OG
12 CS
20 OG
24 CS
30 OG
36 CS
40 OG
48 CS
50 OG
60 CS, OG
76 Repeat Cycle
This yields an uptime of 92.1%. Note that technically, you can activate CS + OG at the 72nd second, but then you’re forced to switch to a Reversed Short Cycle of CS + OG every 12 seconds.
Warcry
With 20% CDR, Warcry has a cooldown of 6 seconds, which is just 1 second longer than its duration. If you’re particularly anal about Warcry uptime, you can try to activate Warcry just before doing Clean Sweep.
Blood of Dreeg
BoD benefits greatly from this setup as well, but I wouldn’t try to time BoD with Clean Sweep. Just let its cooldown get organically reduced and use BoD when you need to, which probably won’t happen very often.
Commando vs. Witchblade
Demo doesn’t have any active skills with long cooldowns suitable for a physical shield build, so it benefits a bit less from this setup than Witchblade. Witchblade also has Fevered Rage which can be used to convert excess defence into offence. If you want to fully exploit Fevered Rage offensively, you can try this devotion setup. If you want some Life Steal you can try this setup instead.
Closing Remarks
It’s pretty remarkable how all of this was available to us prior to 1.0.0.8, but we never really considered it. We were complacent with the good times. It goes to show how despair can drive creativity and innovation.
but u dont get the heal :undecided:
w/e i still dont understand why people wanna run perma overguard in builds anyway…