Seriously look at clear times across the board and the ridiculous 110 shard on infiltrator. I feel like spellbreaker if going same spec on infiltrator just missing out too much. The best soulrend CDR was gutted when mirror got nerfed and now it feels just inferior to what infiltrator does in general.
Infiltrator is tanky, has seal, has damage reduction, can go full shattered duelwield set without losing damage, can still grab run of hargarrd for extra damage, have more RR than spellbreaker, have an extra heal that come with aether/chaos res, doesnt really need mirror if you’re already taking so little damage, have one of the most ridiculous relic in the game in the form of ignaffar’s combustion. While spellbreaker is squishy, cant chain mirror anymore, suffer from fumble if soulrend, no extra RR, no additional heal, no additional res.
Yeah, I love my deathmarked spellbreaker but I am leveling an infiltrator an retiring him as a bank. It sucks as I think the arcanist tree’s nerfs were uneeded, especially the hit to Mirror. I was using the hourglass CD reduce proc to chain shadow strike / mirror. That option is borked now and there is no standout skills in arcanist anymore for SB or BM…
Yeah the mirror nerf hurt really badly. Spellbreaker was always the high skill high reward class particularly because your timing on CDs and double mirror. But since that is not possible now you just straight up dead as soon as CD is on.
Also the existence of Gravathul and Kuba, or how about both of them spawning then kiss your run goodbye in SR.
I hope,that’s not the idea.As pure DPS Tricksters can challenge and even beat Infiltrator,for survivability Blademaster can be even tankier,so why nerf specifically Inquisitor?
Now if the OP had covered all the cold builds the highlight would be on spellbreaker standing apart. But as things are we have infiltrator being placed up on a pedestal and its listing of benefits being read off as if they are excessive, abnormal, or otherwise unusual.
What is actually in need of nerfs is the subject of another discussion, though it is questionable to be comparing spellbreaker to only the premier option.
Can you confirm my suspicions that the mentioned trickster is not a ‘forum friendly’ build?
I can confirm it of course, even with lag times are crazy good.Even forum friendlier Trickster will achieve great times.Chillstrifes are easy and fast for target farming and with big RR,ability to convert all that flat lightning with Korba you’re doing WPS damage,but also you have monster auto attack.
I am not sure of pure DM build,but I suspect even there Trickster can hold it’s own.If you compare times from DM BM and Infiltrator,they are not that different.
If you want full analysis,one need to compare all possible combos.Spellbreaker or Saboteur even with double RR,can’t match prior three combinations.
I wholeheartedly agree on chillstrifes being easy to farm, however crate has demonstrated they’re not going to be balancing around MIs for the most part. This leaves us mainly at Deathmarked and other variants that are liable to make a showing.
Soldier stands out with its universal bonuses (and attack speed, the one thing inquisitor fails to provide). With plusses everywhere it’s not hard for the blademasters to chase down whatever stats their hearts desire because all sections are partly covered from the start.
Shaman provides not quite passive RR, attack speed, and a slew of other benefits that have been growing with recent patches (slow res, two resistances, stun res, OA DA, this is starting to sound like the benefits you get from going soldier!) and the all important auto attack replacer with massive %WD to pump WPS through compared to bero shard or cadence.
Demo provides nothing in the way of secondary resists (slow, freeze, stun etc) and against a majority of enemies there simply isn’t enough time for mines to fly through the air before you smacked your target into popsicle bits. OA,DA and total speed are helpful and an auto attack replacer is great, but the overall glaring flaw of Demo is how all of its potential contributing secondary abilities suffer from flight time and the need for constant recasting (you’re also not getting near 200% cast speed, so these become a serious time penalty). You’re also screwed on exclusives.
Arcanist checks off OA and some CC res but beyond that there’s no reliable DA, no RR, no attack speed, and next to nothing in the way of extra primary resistances (the value of the recent additions of DA to Arcane Will and aether res to overload is solely that of one point wonder. The stat density isn’t there for these to be priority purchases and quite often you are tight on points so there’s no way they’ll ever be anything beyond 1 point wonder). Star Pact’s CDR needs more CDR sources to ramp up with, and a low cooldown Shadow Strike is heavily devalued since the debut of movement runes (seriously, this skill hasn’t gotten a single boost since the launch of AoM and now PRM can match it on dummy times). Aside from the CDR for caster based things, star pact is just some % damage and frostburn that will tickle things that don’t die instantly. Oh right, nullification is amazing but you don’t have the points to get it on a short cooldown.
Inquisitor provides OA, DA, resistances, CC resistance, racial benefits vs. some noteworthy types, hands free RR, hands free reduced target’s damage with basically 100% always up coverage, and more damage + an absorb conditional on parking themselves in place. Look back to soldier - just a bundle of hands free always up bonuses. Glance at demo - held back by the constant recasting and travel time of abilities. Inquisitor has a mechanical advantage beyond what the stats suggest, everything it does is always on without a single time consuming button press (with the exception of seal, but casting seal at the right time is a time savings by allowing you to remain stationary and maintain DPS).
There’s also something to be said for the statistical density of the bonuses. How many skill points do you need to sink to get all these benefits? Segments of arcanist have desirable stats but themselves are undesirable due to how far spread out everything is.
What does it cost them to get this?
Soldier
10/10 military conditioning
12/12 field command + 12/12 Squad tactics
X/8 decorated soldier + X/8 scars of battle
1-x pt fighting spirit
12/12 war cry (if you even need it)
12/12 oleron’s rage
total: roughly 6 abilities worth give or take. 8 if you’re going for cadence
Demo
12/12 firestrike
12/12 explosive strike
12/12 flame touched
12/12 Temper
??/12 (probably 10?) blast shield
11/16 vindictive flame
10/16 mines… but that’s only as good as a wind devil. 16/16?
12/12 flashbang
total: upwards of 7 abilities worth in most cases
Shaman
16/16 savagery, 12/12 boar, target 13/12 storm touched or w/e breakpoint you hit with + skills
12/12 raging tempest
12/12 Stormcaller’s pact
X/12 heart of the wild and X/12 oak skin
total: 5-7 abilities worth
Arcanist
12/12 inner focus
12/12 maiven’s
7/12 or 12/12 mirror
12/12 (or 11/12 if it gets you an odd number through plus skills) star pact
12/12 elemental balance
up to 10/10 conversion
want aether res? that’s more or less all you get pursuing X/12 overload
want conditional DA for some reason with what’s probably going to be sub 50% uptime? X/10 arcane will
total: 6+ and you’re not getting a whole lot for it
Inquisitor
X/12 word of renewal
sum to 9/10 vigor if desired
1pt wonder or 10/10 steel resolve
12/12 censure
sum to 12/12 deadly aim
X/12 in seal and arcane empowerment as desired
total: could be as low as 3 with some one point wonders, 5 if you ignore seal, 7 if you max everything
necro is one of the clear winners on point efficiency, you just need sufficient WPS for 100%, max spectral binding, max soul harvest, breakpoint on the exclusive and 6/10 or whatever in mark if you even care for it.
More like Infiltrator being both ahead of everyone in terms of damage and Defense. Infiltrator can show fastest Crucible clears and deepest SR runs. I am talking about Deathmarked specs ofcourse. And DM Infiltrator > any cold Trickster.
By the way, try Deathmarked Trickster it might be on par with your green + Korba spec in terms of damage or even above it.
Infiltrator is not faster than Trickster,I am confident in that.If I can achieve that kind of time,imagine John,maybe will be faster than your DM build test.
But DM Trickster,I have not tried that recently.Super good idea to test it with Night’s embrace,I am sure will be crazy good.
well, fastest John’s time was 5:14 pre-nerf. If your Trickster can beat that, then kudos to you and your Trickster, but I just don’t think it can. You can try and send John your Trickster and maybe he will test it. Meanwhile, I can send you Deathmarked Infiltrator folder and maybe you can test it for yourself and see if it’s faster then Trickster or not after some practice with it.
I am honestly rooting for Trickster (you know I love making Trickster builds), but Infiltrator is just so obscenely strong I can’t see how Trickster beats him. Or maybe he will, gotta test it. BTW, send me your Trickster save folder, I will try it out too.
I am on phone,later will send you files and will ask John to test it.I watched the 5.14 video,that’s why am confident he’ll beat it.My previous best time with DM was over 6 minutes,your version is better,so I have to see.
My green Trickster time was 5.25 with absolute luck.I lose at least 20-30 seconds from better times even with extra buff and aetherward oil.So potential to go 5 minutes even after slight Nerf to amulet.But we’ll see
im not sure about blademaster being tankier than infiltrator, i can make my blademaster very tanky against physical attackers but against ground aoe’s and magical attacks, DoT’s etc. infiltrator is much tankier due to the strong absorb from seal and constant damage reduction debuff from aura of censure. as a BM warcry has a 2.5 second downtime where we will take full damage if hit.
