So little argument started here. I claimed that Witchblade can’t do stuff Warlord can’t, mainly kill Callagadra in full facetank mod and do that well in SR. Superfluff and Norzan disagreed.
So I have tested two specs, spec 1 (Warlord) and spec 2 (Witchblade). I left gear/constellations unchanged for the sake of the fairness of a test. I did had to change augments on Witchblade and redistribute augments to get 3k DA, because otherwise Callagadra was just wrecking me pretty fast with crits.
Here are the results (click to watch videos): Warlord
That was my 8th try and I kept dying. I felt like kill was possible given better piloting, although I was trying my best to hit timings with all the buttons basically looking only at buff icons and not on what was happening on the screen. To me it looked the spec itself is a bit unoptimized and few tweaks with augments/gear/devotions and it could easily do it.
So about 4th try in, and it’s certain that Witchblade can’t do full facetank. One of the obvious reasons is mana, it doesn’t have enough, so I had to run back to wait for a potion’s cooldown. But that doesn’t really count. Overall, it’s tankier then I expected, but it just doesn’t do enough damage. And after a while something happens to Callagadra and she just snaps and kills me when she is at ~50-55% hp.
So with this gear, even with some tweaks to Witchblade, Warlord wins without a doubt. Yes, I died with both but it felt like Warlord was the one who could do it with some patience and bit more skill whereas Witchblade doesn’t have enough cushion when Calla enrages.
I will try to tweak Witchblade a bit to see if there is a spec that allows you to facetank Calla, so to be continued I guess.
I think the problem with this is that Warborn shouldn’t be best on Witchblade. Witchblade provides 0 useful flat damage and only offers CoF and aspect of the guardian. OK on the other hand gets -phys res on a better devotion proc skill, flat phys, armor, armor% and shattering smash AoE.
The itemisation from the Warlord build also offers more life steal with a bonus on shattering smash and naturally gets more +skill.
I think a more common reason for going witchblade is using beronath reforged for conversion, then using empowered essence of beronath and osyr’s temper augments.
Edit: I guess 3 piece warborn + beronath reforged might be optimal for a witchblade rather than the full set.
Duh, obviously, but my point was that Witchblade can’t do the same stuff Warlord do. Dual-wielding Warborn WB is a common spec, but obviously you can’t hope to kill Callagadra with it in full facetank mod or go into deep Shards.
And as far as my tests tell me, I was right.
I actually managed to kill Callagadra in fullfacetank mod with Witchblade.
Difference with Warlord’s kill of Callagadra of KmK (from his guide where whole argument started) is huge. First of all, took me about 15 minutes, second of all, I did have mana problems (although bearable with Arcane Spark) and I also used healing pots quite a bit. Thirdly, that spec I used with Witchblade is only good for Callagadra (and probably Ravager). It lacks Aether/Chaos/Elemental resists and lacks cc-resists and probably too slow for Shattered Realm.
So yeah, Warlord >>>>> Witchblade and I don’t think it’s close.
Author of the build claims that he used no potions. I think it’s true,you can tell it from the video. And he did with somewhat underoptimized Warlord in 6:39 minutes with a jack-of-all-trades spec that he uses for everything (he also has like 90 points in Cunning and 2850 DA or something). I did it after specifically min-maxing Witchblade to fight Callagadra in 15 minutes or so using healing pots with a spec that is only good for Callagadra and Ravager.
Even if he does chug potions (he did seem to use it there), does it really change anything? You kinda ignored my other arguments after I replied to your “I don’t know if I’d call this a big difference” by cherry-picking least important one.
Duh, obvious that a set better suited to WL mastery combo works better than the less optimal WB variant; intended design realised. And it is a given that going dual wield Witchblade isn’t going to be able to survive on this kind of content.
A better comparison would probably be 3pc warborn + bero reforge + shield or markovian + bero reforge WB vs warborn WL.
I don’t think 15% is going to cut it. My HP pool literally gets sucked away. Despite the impressive armor/phys res, the crazy amount of DA, the OA shred, and damage reduction, I cannot facetank very effectively.
If cadence touches 1 reflection enemy, I’m forced to back, because half my HP is gone in 2 or 3 seconds.
EDIT: Only solution I can think of is to give up osyr’s temper for kymon’s fury (-10% reflected damage), but I really don’t want to do that.
Yeah, I know armor does nothing for IT, I’m just saying that I would’ve thought my armor would help me negate damage dealt by enemies, but I was clearly wrong.
Titan plating is GENIUS though. I might try it in stepwise increments start with titan plating, 1x kymon’s fury, etc. etc.
First time I’ve built something too powerful for its own good.
The OP didn’t even used the correct spec for Witchblade, which is Beronath + Gladiator. That’s well over 100 flat physical completely lost and that’s counting losing the flat in Oleron belt.
He still didn’t managed to kill Calla with both Warlord and Witchblade with the same spec used by Kmk, but Warlord is somehow still more tankier than Witchblade, for some reason. Sounds more like Kmk got lucky with crits from Calla more than anything else.
Also, funny that he only mentioned me in the first post while you also argued with him about Witchblade also being able to do Calla.
Last, he also claimed Death Knight is tankier than Witchblade. So, is Death Knight also broken now?
