Why no Litany of the Undaunted Builds? (patch 2.6.4)

aaronsan · February 14, 2019

This set was buffed, right? I’m not crazy, right? 750% damage increase per ancient legendary vs 100% from before? So…is anyone trying this out?

Oh, hi, I’m a regular D3 player and user of Icy Veins, but I wouldn’t say I’m an extremely experienced player. I play almost every season, and I get top tier builds completed (all the main items, not all ancient or augmented, etc. though), but typically don’t rift beyond about 60. That’s usually when I give up, it gets too click-intensive for me, or I am waiting on one drop and it just won’t freaking come so I move on to another build. Probably about 200 hours of play per season.

So that’s me. I logged in 2 weeks ago, noticed a new season started (sorry I was busy playing POE), and pretty quickly I got The Wailing Host and noticed that Litany of the Undaunted had gotten a huge buff. So, I thought it out, and noted that a full gearing (13) of ancient legendary now gives:

52% Damage Reduction constantly

9,750% Damage Boost to ALL damage constantly – this is really important to keep in mind with some of the gear and legendary gems, it means some uncommon choices are possible.

Now, I thought…that seems on par with the top tier sets in the game. Right? I mean, unless I’m missing something. And it comes in just 2 rings, nothing else. So it seemed finally playable at top tier, I thought. And I think I was right. So, here’s what I’m building and it’s working great so far. But first, here’s some pros and cons to Litany builds in general and this one in particular:

Pros:

- Constant damage reduction (52%) and boosting (9,750%) regardless of game play

- No set driving your skill choice, freedom as long as you can deal enough damage

- Ability to use so many legendary items for their extra buffs

- Easy gameplay with no need to activate damage or damage reduction

- Two buttons control your character at all times (at least so far)

- Boosts pets and minions a lot (was having fun with Witch Doctor and Necro before)

Cons:

- Slower to collect than any 6 item set

- All gear must be ancient before you can enter the top tiers

Maybe there are other pros and cons, that’s what I’ve got so far, and IMO the Pros have it.

Now. You need a base skill that does a lot of damage, right? And obviously you need a lot more damage reduction, but that’s true with any of the 6 item sets. I finally settled on Disintegrate (and Energy Twister but that’s secondary, you can probably guess how) because it and twister deliver damage to a lot of enemies, fast, and are ready to be amped up by a lot of legendaries available to the wizard.

So here’s what I’m doing. And by the way, it’s a TWO BUTTON build. I’m not kidding. Maybe that turns some people off. It turns me ON because I can’t be flailing around clicking all that *filtered*, sorry folks. You still have to think, you still have to place your character and avoid stuff, but it saves my shoulders from all the tension of two-hand play.

I use disintegrate – convergence as the main damage (wide beam) generating Energy Twister - Raging Storm, and diamond skin over and over for extra protection. Rune selection on diamond skin depends on difficulty, I’m sure it will change. I’m using enduring skin for now but if it stops lasting the full duration I’ll choose the higher life option.

Before I tell you my other skills, let me show you the gear I think is best. I’m cruising up easily into the top tier now (remember, I don’t have much play time, and started late), I’ll tell you where I’m at later, but I don’t even have all this gear yet. Not ancient like I need it, at least, but I am using all ancients as gear as of last night when I reforged my &$^# wailing host ring 5 times until I got it ancient. So I know I will be stronger. All of these need to be ancient, obviously.

Weapon: Deathwish (250-325% increase to all damage during disintegrate) or The Twisted Sword* (Energy twister damage 125-150% per Twister out)

Off-Hand: Etched Sigil* (125-150% damage increase and casts another mana spender [Energy Twister – Raging Storm] every second, during channeling)

Rings – Litany, duh

Amulet – Hellfire with one of these passives: Blur, Conflagration, Galvanizing Ward, Dominance (mine is Conflagration)

Hands: Magefist* (15-20% fire damage) or St. Archew’s Gage maybe for defense, not sure about later tiers

Pants: Anything…open to ideas

Head: Leoric’s Crown, Amethyst socket (yup, just pure toughness)

Boots: Boots of Disregard* (40,000 life per second while casting)

Now a note on the rest of the armor…it depends on what you get ancient first and thus what you put in the cube, but in the end I think you want 2 belt effects so you’ll have to put one in the cube)

Shoulders: Mantle of Channeling* (duh)

Wrists: Ranslor’s Folly* (225-300% energy twister damage, pulls in enemies)

Belt: Hergbrash’s Binding (50-65% reduction in Disintegrate cost) or String of ears* (25-30% melee damage reduction) – I don’t have both of these going on yet, just the binding.

Armor: Aquila Cuirass (50% damage reduction on high mana, which you will have) – I know this is often cubed but I haven’t found I go below 99% mana so that’s not necessary

Cube: The twisted sword* (Energy Twister 125-150% damage for each twister out)

String of ears or Hergbrash’s binding because I want both belt bonuses

Unity (also on Templar follower obviously)

Legendary gems: Gogok of Swiftness, Taeguk, and Mirinae Teardrop of the Starweaver! (yes, not kidding, it slams for SO much damage over and over and provides healing)

So in case you haven’t guessed, all this build does for attacking is cast disintegrate which generates energy twisters. That’s it.

Now, All of the gear that is asterisked above, I do not have right now as ancient legendary! And I just did Tier 70 easy over coffee this morning. This is the easiest I’ve ever had it in D3, and the highest I think I’ve ever been, and even without the rest of the gear I can go a few higher I think. As you can see, I’m missing 6 specific items for my build, and two of them will give me a SIGNIFICANT damage boost. I know I will clear much higher tiers easily once I get those ancient legendaries. Just to be clear, I am using 13 ancient legendaries, just not the asterisked ones yet.

For example, I have etched sigil in the cube and the ray of frost boosting orb in the off hand, not even close to ideal.

And thanks to Dominance and Galvanizing Ward, damage output actually provides defense too. The faster you kill the better you keep up that shield based on your life (2 mil+)

So. Why not meteor? I dunno, it might be good. I don’t like meteor with the time delay, and the fire meteors that synergize with disintegrate’s fire damage have that, and I think the energy twister boosts are higher than the meteor one through the boots. I know there’s another piece of gear, weapon or off-hand, that boosts Meteor too but I just didn’t think it would be as good.

Oh right, what other skills? Well, first get ready to cringe, because I use familiar AND magic weapon! LOL. I laugh because I rarely see them in any builds.

But they’re all I need. Maybe much, much later I’ll have to get to teleport or something else, but not for now.

On my left mouse (yes, for movement too, I know it’s a little sloppy) I have familiar – Sparkflint for the damage boost. Gotta be careful not to click on an enemy when moving and drain down your mana! Hasn’t happened yet, familiar is really low mana, but beware.

Right mouse, disintegrate – convergence – this is what you will hold down every time you meet enemies. Yes, this build kills everything, doesn’t farm for elites. That’s just how you need to play, as far as I can tell. Never drains your mana, Aquila in constant effect.

Skill 1 (mouse scroll for me) – Diamond skin – Enduring skin – this rune WILL change depending on your needs, as I said before

Skill 2 – Magic Weapon – Force weapon – may change to deflection, later

Skill 3 – Energy Armor – Prismatic armor – pure defense

Skill 4 – Energy Twister – Raging Storm – I think this is the highest damage output option

All of this I’m really hoping will get picked apart and I’ll get some better ideas. But overall it’s working really well for me.

Basically, if after about 60 hours as Wizard a scrub like ME can do tier 70 easily, I know this build can be really near the top. Maybe not THE BEST, but…I’ve told you my pros and cons so there you go.

Thank you to everyone who read and also everyone who replies. Even if you reply that you think this build will fail me soon.

I'm happy to work on a formal guide for this when it's polished, by the way. More than happy to.

Knutsanity · February 15, 2019

I'd love that conversation to start, don't hear much about LoN rings because they aren't top builds. Wave of Light monk did me pretty well recently, up to GR lvl 80 or so, 12 ancients though so not that impressive. But on hardcore. There were more perfect fire damage variations out there I don't have the perfect gear for. Agree with your reasoning about the pro's, have been thinking about making a LoN build for each class. Just sounds like freedom. However inevitably I'll want to progress, the buff wasn't quite strong enough by the looks of it. Can come close on a lot of skills with multiple legendary bonuses though, like Wave of Light, Meteor, Seismic slam, Multi Shot, etc, etc, even the twisters I'm sure.

For meteor you need the 2 handed weapon in the cube, The Grand Vizier. Nilfurs Boast boots in the cube, or wearing it is fine. 1 handers seem better for weapons after gaining more experience lately, by a long shot too. They fit nicer into all the great builds it seems. Like this one. What you need more than anything, what's helping your energy twister, and what helps the meteor builds is the combo you have, Deathwish + Etched Sigil. As long as you are holding down disintegrate (could use arcane torrent instead, it also I think has a damage boost you could wear, I think, not sure, because I never tried it because I love disintegrate too) you get the 300% dmg bonus. And every second you hold it down, etched sigil will send out an extra arcane spender free of charge. If you only use one arcane spender it will give that one every second. You can't fit both into a build, but once you have the pieces and want to progress further, meteor will absolutely be the better choice than twister by a long long shot. You may not see it now, but that's because you've tried the twister(with both legendary bonuses), and certainly not the meteor (with both legendary bonuses) in combo with the Deathwish/Etched sigil. I'd always suggest the ring that can give you 80% dmg reduction, if you switch to storm armour and stay a bit back from enemies, in the cube of course, for any wizard build. A belt can make your chanelling less than your renewing pace of resources, so effectively free of charge too, so maybe the aquilla curass in the defensive cube (huge dmg reduction when at full resource) if you are wearing the boots, or if still twister the bracers.

So I'm assuming I'm missing something, not the best judge of this. Figured someone would cook up a great build with the LoN, but it hasn't so much happened that I know of. I can't think of much either. My meteor Tal Rasha, who I haven't played with in a while, can have an 8000% bonus when I'm playing properly from the main set bonus after the update. Not as much as the 9000% for LoN(I'm out to lunch or there is only 12 gear slots so 9000% dmg and 48% dmg reduction) and the defensive buffs for Tal Rasha escape me, probably because they are under whelming, not 48% dmg reduction anyway... But this is where all my ideas have been foiled even when they look like they will work out because the set bonus isn't as nice. No other sets, no traveler's pledge and compass rose, no other set rings obv, no set weapons. The endless walk set, the TP and CR, it goes with most of the other top sets so nicely. It takes them from not as good as LoN now, too still much better. The travelers pledge alternates between another 100% dmg boost when standing( so Tal Rasha is now 8000% X 2 =16000% at max now, not additive so no 8000% + 100%, but multiplicative), and defense (50% dmg reduction) when you are moving, which is fitting to almost every play style, sit and do damage, get in trouble, leave. Works for all walks of life really.
So now with the endless walk Tal Rasha's bonuses are 16000% bonus dmg, 50% dmg reduction and whatever else the first 2 set bonuses of TalRa are. Although I do realise the Endless walk bonuses are only ever full of one or the other, usually partial of both, but in a situation that calls for it long enough, the right bonus is there. It just works so well.

However, could be some combination I haven't thought of, could take one of the skills with LoN and make it way better. I didn't even understand what Rabid strike was trying to tell me it was going to do, then next thing you know I was firing out 2 waves of light at once. Wave of light wasn't even in its oddly worded description of a legendary ability. But then it was basically twice as good, so what do I know. Then I read about ways to add 40% dmg, I didn't think of, to my build, and reduce the resource cost 27 odd %. Plus you can always find great other abilites to the 5 or 6 you need for a build at most, for more dmg reduction or complimentary skills. Maybe there is one we just didn't hear of yet that takes the cake. But so far, that Wave of light sounds closest to top, and it's not as good as sunwoku or inna Wave of light, no matter how close.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Knutsanity

Valks · February 15, 2019

So, LoN. The ignored/overlooked child of Blizzard's balancing team. I'll start by looking at some of these pros:

Constant damage reduction/increase - while this is true, to what extent do you actually require this? How much of a rift is spent kiting, stacking mobs, looking for packs, etc. If it was a insanely packed rift, then I could see this being a plus, but in a normal density rift (especially at higher levels where you need to skip/group), the constant buffs doesn't make things much easier than ones that only occur on specific skills.
No set driving your skill choice - eh, to some extent yes, but realistically, you're still bound to certain skills because they have the highest base damage, meaning you get the most from your multiplier. Some skills are just really bad in Diablo unfortunately, and their base damage is super low compared to others. Crusaders, for example, used to always use Bombardment, because it had crazy high base damage.
Using legendaries to get skill buffs - this is definitely cool, but there are a lot of useless legendaries that give very minor buffs. Bombardment Crusader basically uses Death Watch Mantle because other shoulders are pretty weak. Same goes for St. Archew's Gage.
Easy gameplay - I wouldn't say LoN is particularly easier than other builds. Try playing the LoN Fan of Knives build and you'll truly want to just quit the game. It is extremely difficult, since your free slots allow you to use Shi Mizu's Haori, which means you need to hit low HP to be able to get a guaranteed crit on your 30-stack FoK. It's really tough gameplay. The alternative that uses 2-piece Marauder/2-piece Shadow's is far easier to play.
Two buttons - see above.
Boost pets and minions - you mentioned Necro, so let's not forget Rathma's is basically permanent 4000% buff assuming you have the set, Jesseth's is another 400% or Cycle for 300%, meaning you end up with 12000%+ damage increase, which surpasses anything LoN could give already, even using Cycle which is 100% less than Jesseth's.

The biggest issue with LoN is that it is basically just worse performance-wise in every single way compared to the alternatives of the builds. I know that sounds harsh, but it is multiple GR levels behind, even as far as being called irrelevant in terms of progression. You could probably clear a GR 100 with very good gear, but it will be far more difficult than doing it with another build. Top Wiz clear currently is 122 for EU seasonal, so you're pretty far behind in terms of clearing power as LoN. This also doesn't include 4-mans, where LoN is really, really weak. Top seasonal 4-man is currently 144 and there isn't a LoN in sight of the top clears.

It can definitely be played. Any build can clear up to GR80, LoN can likely go to 90-100, but it is definitely not strong compared to current "meta" builds. LoN has been left behind by all the buffs to sets and, even though they buffed LoN, it just wasn't enough to make it properly competitive.

February 15, 2019

18 hours ago, aaronsan said:

Basically, if after about 60 hours as Wizard a scrub like ME can do tier 70 easily, I know this build can be really near the top. Maybe not THE BEST, but…I’ve told you my pros and cons so there you go.

Thank you to everyone who read and also everyone who replies. Even if you reply that you think this build will fail me soon.

Sorry to disappoint you ?

I do not say your build is bad. And if the build is fun for you that's great.

But "fun" is nothing you can put into numbers.

You can only judge a build about which GR you manage / if it is usefull for farming / bounties...

And your build is not "really near the top".

That you can do GR70 easily doesn't say anything. Nearly every build can do GR70 easily, without need for ancient items, enhanced items...

If you like the playstyle - that's great! Stay with it.

There is no difference if you do GR 80 or if you do GR 100 or if you manage GR 120.

No difference at all, it plays exactly the same.

That's why use the build you like, not the one that will grant you access to the hightes GR possible.

But LoN build can't be painted as "great" or "very good", because other builds are just "better" when it comes to clearing GR.

Yolo · February 15, 2019

To be honest, LoN is a great choice for experimentation, but falls behind in GR progression because you lose two ring slots, limited only one ring in cube, while most builds can simultaneously use at least two rings (defensive like unity or Band of Might, and offensive like CoE duh.)

To polish your build, i suggest the following:

-Raging Storm rune - which provides most of the damage - is arcane, but you use Fire rune Disintegrate and passive. Arcane rune is 15% more Arcane damage taken, and passive is a 80% slow. If going this way, obviously have Arcane damage Elemental bonuses on bracers and Neck.
-There are far better choices for wizard for defensive ring than unity, and one of them is Halo of Karini, because you use storm armor, and the bonus is far greater. (80% vs 50%, or 1/5 damage taken versus 1/2 damage taken)
-Mirinae of the starweaver provides nice upfront damage, but really isnt much in terms of your total damage output, and you should use something that affects that. Gogok is nice, but you dont really need Cooldown reduction with the skills you are using. I would suggest Zei's and Bane of the Stricken - one that provides increased damage increased with distance - in turn, you will keep distance in really high GRs because the damage will become unsustainable. The other helps with RG kill, one thing which an aoe build like yours really struggles from. Another strong contender is Bane of the Trapped - Procced by the arcane passive mentioned above,
- As mentioned above, you really need to keep distance in High difficulties. Nothing Does that better than Teleport - with Safe Passage, you also gain 25% damage reduction after teleporting. Replace Diamond Skin with it.
- If you go down the movement hole further, consider using Ice climbers for freeze and immobilize immunity, and maybe Kremls Buff bracers for Knockbacks and Stuns immunity in cube, because at that point, mobs really should not hit you with melee attacks.

Valks · February 15, 2019

Just further to the suggestions above, I also would add that you need Illusory Boots since you're not running teleport. Having that extra mobility to skip/kite is huge if you don't have a movement skill to reposition.

RayShimley · February 15, 2019

Have you checked your class leaderboard? This is the top ranked wizard right now at GR 128 using a LoN build:

https://us.diablo3.com/en/rankings/era/11/rift-wizard

https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/Archael-1701/hero/107133489

aaronsan · February 15, 2019

So as not to spam I'll kind of reply to everything at once. First, you all are awesome, thank you for the support, the advice, even the "bad news", this is all really great. Since I posted this I got the ancient legendary energy twister bracers I wanted, and I gotta say I really do think twister is the way to go, not meteor. All white enemies are essentially unable to control their movement, which is great for survivability. Once I get the twister sword on the cube (need ancient etched sigil first, working on it), I think the damage will be there.

Illusory boots are what I was running with, just thought maybe a bit more heal would be good.

To Yolo and Blainie, those are excellent tips, I'll work towards those in my build instead of what I have now. I'll need a different hellfire amulet but that's probably the absolute easiest thing to do, T13 is a breeze so I can farm as much as I want. I have the halo, I can try switching over and see.

Blainie: I had a question about your damage percentage numbers. I've been wondering how D3 works, I really only understand POE as far as "increased" vs "more" vs "additional", have no idea if everything in D3 is additive, or all multiplicative, or some mix. And obviously, what mix?

So, for example, you write that Rathma plus cycle is 12,000%. But LoN is 9,750% and then what about all the multiplicatives from other gear? How do I think about, for example, the 150% from Etched and the 350% from the sword, and then what about the energy twister boosts. Do they all multiply? Or is some of it 9,750 + XXX + XXX? This is what I've really been wondering. It makes ALL the difference as to how high this can go.

Wedge, thank you for being so polite. I agree with most of what you said, but let's see how high I CAN go before we conclude. I think no one is trying this so no one really knows. Right?

And I reiterate: if ***I*** am breezing through GR70 without even being nearly finished, and I'm higher now, that *does* mean something. I am a freaking noob, and I suck at both builds and gameplay compared to any of you all.

Anyone have time to try this? Trust me it's really easy and fun. You'd know right quick just how optimal you could get it. I bet any of you could have the gear in like 2 hours XD

OK back to work. Away this weekend...damn.

Knutsanity · February 15, 2019

I promise you, and these guys will back me up, the meteor is much better dmg than the twister. Better base dmg, better multipliers. The thing about your p[rogression and GR lvls is that they go up exponentially. You will need about twice as much dmg to go from lvl 70 to 75, probably more. So when you get all ancient gear, get all the right stuff, it doesn't get all that high in lvls. Like another said, what matters is that you enjoy yourself, not GR lvls. So you do you of course.
My buddies wizard has 5 tal rasha, the TP/CR set ring and amulet, and 2 firebirds. So 2 death perks, and when stationary twice the dmg of the tal rasha set. he has both meteor modifiers and also the twister bracers, he also likes twister for the defensive aspects of it, even uses black hole for that too. I don't complain if he sacrifices dmg for both our survive ability obviously. And his twisters still get 1 of the dmg perks. But end game wise, pushing as far as you can go, you do end up relying on your best dmg skill like blainie said, no matter the build. He should just do meteor at some point. Then every free spender from the Deathwish/ etched sigil combo is his highest dmg skill. But when solo I could see it being awesome to have the twister, since he doesn't have me to distract enemies. Since you like it, consider using the 2, it will still be a good build. But meteor absolutely trumps twister in dmg, not even close, if you want to get as high as you can use 2 meteor buffs, and then the one bracer buff for twister. You wouldn't need a different bracer anyway, and the twister can help a bit with dmg and give you the control effects for safety...

dmg is always multiplied, the legendary abilities are always multiplied, the sets are multiplied on top of that. only repeating bonuses are additive. Like if you gain 15% meteor or Twister dmg on your gear, twice it will add 30% dmg, not the slightly better 15% than another 15%. Or for the LoN each one adds, before the total multiplies right. So the 400% meteor weapon, and 600% meteor boots are not X 10 dmg, they are X 4 X6 The leg abilities are not the exact same bonuses(slight differences), so they multiply. so X24. X 3 ish for deathwish while channelling. X97.5 for LoN (Or X 80 for TR X 2 for EW = max X160 with Tal Rasha's and Endless walk set) Convention of elements would add another X3 damage a quarter of the time, but I've always Used the endless walk, ring of grandeur and Halo of Karini instead on Hardcore.

I am going to try this build out I think, it seems closer in dmg to it's competing set than the Wave of light one. Some of the pieces work a little better for it. Here's how I'll do it:

Kanai's Cube:

Weapon Slot: The Grand Vizier or for you if no Meteor The Twisted Sword

Armor Slot: Aquila Cuirass

Jewelry Slot: Halo of Arlyse

Gear
Helm: Leoric's Crown or maybe Dark Mages Shade, which casts Diamond skin when below 35% health
Shoulders: Mantle of Channeling
Gloves: Magefist fire dmg %
Chest: Cindercoat or if not fire, user's choice, they all suck ?
Belt: Hergbrash's Binding or if resource reduction is enough from cinder coat, and toughness is good enough, maybe Witching hour for more offence.
Pants: Swamp Land Waders (Not much for legendary pants, this one rolls 15-20% of in my case here, fire dmg, but pick your poison)
Boots: Nilfur's Boast
Bracers: Ranslor's Folly for you, I'd choose if no twister. (But I'd also consider twister for the rune that gives 15% extra fire dmg to those hit by the twister, and the crowd control effect)
Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer
Amulet: Hellfire Amulet
Ring 1: The Wailing Host
Ring 2: Litany of the Undaunted
Weapon: Deathwish (You can always channel before a meteor comes down in time, same with extra twisters you put out there)
Offhand: Etched Sigil (Works right away and then every second, seems to alternate if more than one skill)

So 13, lol I am out to lunch. so 9750% extra dmg, better than the 8000% dmg from tal rasha's and 52% dmg reduction, which is awesome. No Endless walk set for the 100% dmg or 50% dmg reduction multiplier though. Made up for by the dmg reduction, by the extra fire dmg of 40%, by the reduced cost of meteor (can maybe replace belt with Witching Hour?) The aquilla curass gives another 50% dmg reduction, and the ring choice in cube gives a huge 80%. I do envision a little less maximum damage but way more survive ability, which for me on hardcore is awesome. I think I'll give it a try.

For Leg gems, for me Esoteric is a Hardcore staple, even for intelligence classes. For others I'm not sure. But teaguk of course for this build, and Bane of the Stricken for any build to max out, maxing out means hitting something a tonne of times right.

For skills
Arcane Torrent Flame Ward (Or incinerate, but this one is always the recomended one, not so much, for dmg, important though)Teleport Safe Passage1Meteor Meteor Shower2Magic Weapon Ignite( or force weapon for doubling dmg bonus) 3Frost Nova Bone Chill 4Storm Armor Power of the Storm

You can add 2Energy Twister Raging Storm for Teleport or whatever you'd like. If I add it I'll use the gale force rune, and take out teleport or magic weapon. But I think I'll stick with only Meteor so to maximise my damage.

I'm pretty excited to try it, While likely only almost as good for dmg as the firebird ( never tried,) or Tal Rasha sets, seemingly much better for toughness. Up my alley on hardcore. And much easier play style, don't have to cycle through skills to max out your dmg. Can someone point out where I may be wrong?

Edited February 15, 2019 by Knutsanity

Knutsanity · February 15, 2019

If not fire dmg, there are cold dmg gloves, and twister has a cold dmg rune. So you could roll cold Dmg on Pants, gloves, bracers and amulet. Instead of cinder coat you could wear the aquilla curass as well, and choose yet another armour cube option. Like melee dmg reduction belt, or a lot of half decent options. Wizards are awesome for keeping arcane resources way up there. But some effort towards that will be needed. On a piece of gear, or using astral presence, or both. Then aquilla curass is always viable, even can quickly get it back up there after a well timed resource dump, fairly quickly.

For passives, I'll use
AudacityBlurUnwavering WillIllusionist

But I'd probably replace Illusionist for astral presence.

Edited February 15, 2019 by Knutsanity

aaronsan · February 16, 2019

14 hours ago, Knutsanity said:

I promise you, and these guys will back me up, the meteor is much better dmg than the twister. Better base dmg, better multipliers. The thing about your p[rogression and GR lvls is that they go up exponentially. You will need about twice as much dmg to go from lvl 70 to 75, probably more. So when you get all ancient gear, get all the right stuff, it doesn't get all that high in lvls. Like another said, what matters is that you enjoy yourself, not GR lvls. So you do you of course.
My buddies wizard has 5 tal rasha, the TP/CR set ring and amulet, and 2 firebirds. So 2 death perks, and when stationary twice the dmg of the tal rasha set. he has both meteor modifiers and also the twister bracers, he also likes twister for the defensive aspects of it, even uses black hole for that too. I don't complain if he sacrifices dmg for both our survive ability obviously. And his twisters still get 1 of the dmg perks. But end game wise, pushing as far as you can go, you do end up relying on your best dmg skill like blainie said, no matter the build. He should just do meteor at some point. Then every free spender from the Deathwish/ etched sigil combo is his highest dmg skill. But when solo I could see it being awesome to have the twister, since he doesn't have me to distract enemies. Since you like it, consider using the 2, it will still be a good build. But meteor absolutely trumps twister in dmg, not even close, if you want to get as high as you can use 2 meteor buffs, and then the one bracer buff for twister. You wouldn't need a different bracer anyway, and the twister can help a bit with dmg and give you the control effects for safety...

dmg is always multiplied, the legendary abilities are always multiplied, the sets are multiplied on top of that. only repeating bonuses are additive. Like if you gain 15% meteor or Twister dmg on your gear, twice it will add 30% dmg, not the slightly better 15% than another 15%. Or for the LoN each one adds, before the total multiplies right. So the 400% meteor weapon, and 600% meteor boots are not X 10 dmg, they are X 4 X6 The leg abilities are not the exact same bonuses(slight differences), so they multiply. so X24. X 3 ish for deathwish while channelling. X97.5 for LoN (Or X 80 for TR X 2 for EW = max X160 with Tal Rasha's and Endless walk set) Convention of elements would add another X3 damage a quarter of the time, but I've always Used the endless walk, ring of grandeur and Halo of Karini instead on Hardcore.

I am going to try this build out I think, it seems closer in dmg to it's competing set than the Wave of light one. Some of the pieces work a little better for it. Here's how I'll do it:

Kanai's Cube:

Weapon Slot:  The Grand Vizier or for you if no Meteor  The Twisted Sword

Armor Slot:  Aquila Cuirass

Jewelry Slot:  Halo of Arlyse

Gear

Helm:  Leoric's Crown or maybe Dark Mages Shade, which casts Diamond skin when below 35% health

Shoulders:   Mantle of Channeling

Gloves:  Magefist fire dmg %

Chest:  Cindercoat or if not fire, user's choice, they all suck ?

Belt:  Hergbrash's Binding or if resource reduction is enough from cinder coat, and toughness is good enough, maybe Witching hour for more offence.

Pants:  Swamp Land Waders (Not much for legendary pants, this one rolls 15-20% of in my case here, fire dmg, but pick your poison)

Boots:  Nilfur's Boast

Bracers:  Ranslor's Folly for you, I'd choose if no twister. (But I'd also consider twister for the rune that gives 15% extra fire dmg to those hit by the twister, and the crowd control effect)

Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer

Amulet:   Hellfire Amulet

Ring 1:   The Wailing Host

Ring 2:  Litany of the Undaunted

Weapon:  Deathwish (You can always channel before a meteor comes down in time, same with extra twisters you put out there)

Offhand:  Etched Sigil (Works right away and then every second, seems to alternate if more than one skill)

So 13, lol I am out to lunch. so 9750% extra dmg, better than the 8000% dmg from tal rasha's and 52% dmg reduction, which is awesome. No Endless walk set for the 100% dmg or 50% dmg reduction multiplier though. Made up for by the dmg reduction, by the extra fire dmg of 40%, by the reduced cost of meteor (can maybe replace belt with Witching Hour?) The aquilla curass gives another 50% dmg reduction, and the ring choice in cube gives a huge 80%. I do envision a little less maximum damage but way more survive ability, which for me on hardcore is awesome. I think I'll give it a try.

For Leg gems, for me Esoteric is a Hardcore staple, even for intelligence classes. For others I'm not sure. But teaguk of course for this build, and Bane of the Stricken for any build to max out, maxing out means hitting something a tonne of times right.

For skills
Arcane Torrent Flame Ward (Or incinerate, but this one is always the recomended one, not so much, for dmg, important though)Teleport Safe Passage1Meteor Meteor Shower2Magic Weapon Ignite( or force weapon for doubling dmg bonus) 3Frost Nova Bone Chill 4Storm Armor Power of the Storm

You can add 2Energy Twister Raging Storm for Teleport or whatever you'd like. If I add it I'll use the gale force rune, and take out teleport or magic weapon. But I think I'll stick with only Meteor so to maximise my damage.

I'm pretty excited to try it, While likely only almost as good for dmg as the firebird ( never tried,) or Tal Rasha sets, seemingly much better for toughness. Up my alley on hardcore. And much easier play style, don't have to cycle through skills to max out your dmg. Can someone point out where I may be wrong?

Thanks, I'm really excited to see how well it does! I do wonder, maybe I made a HC build by mistake, since this build doesn't aim to run through and kite and sometimes die (firebird, passive). But again this is the first time I'm grifting over 70. At 75 now waiting for ancient etched sigil, grr.

Yolo · February 16, 2019

1 hour ago, aaronsan said:

Thanks, I'm really excited to see how well it does! I do wonder, maybe I made a HC build by mistake, since this build doesn't aim to run through and kite and sometimes die (firebird, passive). But again this is the first time I'm grifting over 70. At 75 now waiting for ancient etched sigil, grr.

Not dying is a concern not to be overlooked even in softcore, since it adds a time penalty to the Completion time after the first.
Toughness still has value, because there are jumping mobs, Juggernaut elites and so on. But do not do the mistake of sacrifing too much damage in favor of gaining little more difference in your survivalablity: after all, the whole Greater Rift system is about the speed of killing minions and Greater Rift Guardians. But you need not to be oneshotted in "oh *filtered*" situations.

As far as i can see, your whole build's purpose is something akin to Condemn Crusader: Continously CC a plenthora of white minions and kill them with high damage AoE ability. This is a viable alternative of elite hunting as long as you have high mobility, but falls behind in the GRG fight.
I think i will do some tweaking and try to provide alternatives while conserving the original idea of the build (not switching to Meteor) in the future. Until then, i highly suggest you to use a site or program to simulate your damage with (I prefer to use D3planner), and try out different things to see how it would affect your damage output.)

Edited February 16, 2019 by Yolo
typo

RayShimley · February 16, 2019

17 hours ago, Knutsanity said:

I promise you, and these guys will back me up, the meteor is much better dmg than the twister. Better base dmg, better multipliers. The thing about your p[rogression and GR lvls is that they go up exponentially. You will need about twice as much dmg to go from lvl 70 to 75, probably more. So when you get all ancient gear, get all the right stuff, it doesn't get all that high in lvls. Like another said, what matters is that you enjoy yourself, not GR lvls. So you do you of course.
My buddies wizard has 5 tal rasha, the TP/CR set ring and amulet, and 2 firebirds. So 2 death perks, and when stationary twice the dmg of the tal rasha set. he has both meteor modifiers and also the twister bracers, he also likes twister for the defensive aspects of it, even uses black hole for that too. I don't complain if he sacrifices dmg for both our survive ability obviously. And his twisters still get 1 of the dmg perks. But end game wise, pushing as far as you can go, you do end up relying on your best dmg skill like blainie said, no matter the build. He should just do meteor at some point. Then every free spender from the Deathwish/ etched sigil combo is his highest dmg skill. But when solo I could see it being awesome to have the twister, since he doesn't have me to distract enemies. Since you like it, consider using the 2, it will still be a good build. But meteor absolutely trumps twister in dmg, not even close, if you want to get as high as you can use 2 meteor buffs, and then the one bracer buff for twister. You wouldn't need a different bracer anyway, and the twister can help a bit with dmg and give you the control effects for safety...

dmg is always multiplied, the legendary abilities are always multiplied, the sets are multiplied on top of that. only repeating bonuses are additive. Like if you gain 15% meteor or Twister dmg on your gear, twice it will add 30% dmg, not the slightly better 15% than another 15%. Or for the LoN each one adds, before the total multiplies right. So the 400% meteor weapon, and 600% meteor boots are not X 10 dmg, they are X 4 X6 The leg abilities are not the exact same bonuses(slight differences), so they multiply. so X24. X 3 ish for deathwish while channelling. X97.5 for LoN (Or X 80 for TR X 2 for EW = max X160 with Tal Rasha's and Endless walk set) Convention of elements would add another X3 damage a quarter of the time, but I've always Used the endless walk, ring of grandeur and Halo of Karini instead on Hardcore.

I am going to try this build out I think, it seems closer in dmg to it's competing set than the Wave of light one. Some of the pieces work a little better for it. Here's how I'll do it:

Kanai's Cube:

Weapon Slot:  The Grand Vizier or for you if no Meteor  The Twisted Sword

Armor Slot:  Aquila Cuirass

Jewelry Slot:  Halo of Arlyse

Gear

Helm:  Leoric's Crown or maybe Dark Mages Shade, which casts Diamond skin when below 35% health

Shoulders:   Mantle of Channeling

Gloves:  Magefist fire dmg %

Chest:  Cindercoat or if not fire, user's choice, they all suck ?

Belt:  Hergbrash's Binding or if resource reduction is enough from cinder coat, and toughness is good enough, maybe Witching hour for more offence.

Pants:  Swamp Land Waders (Not much for legendary pants, this one rolls 15-20% of in my case here, fire dmg, but pick your poison)

Boots:  Nilfur's Boast

Bracers:  Ranslor's Folly for you, I'd choose if no twister. (But I'd also consider twister for the rune that gives 15% extra fire dmg to those hit by the twister, and the crowd control effect)

Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer

Amulet:   Hellfire Amulet

Ring 1:   The Wailing Host

Ring 2:  Litany of the Undaunted

Weapon:  Deathwish (You can always channel before a meteor comes down in time, same with extra twisters you put out there)

Offhand:  Etched Sigil (Works right away and then every second, seems to alternate if more than one skill)

So 13, lol I am out to lunch. so 9750% extra dmg, better than the 8000% dmg from tal rasha's and 52% dmg reduction, which is awesome. No Endless walk set for the 100% dmg or 50% dmg reduction multiplier though. Made up for by the dmg reduction, by the extra fire dmg of 40%, by the reduced cost of meteor (can maybe replace belt with Witching Hour?) The aquilla curass gives another 50% dmg reduction, and the ring choice in cube gives a huge 80%. I do envision a little less maximum damage but way more survive ability, which for me on hardcore is awesome. I think I'll give it a try.

For Leg gems, for me Esoteric is a Hardcore staple, even for intelligence classes. For others I'm not sure. But teaguk of course for this build, and Bane of the Stricken for any build to max out, maxing out means hitting something a tonne of times right.

For skills
Arcane Torrent Flame Ward (Or incinerate, but this one is always the recomended one, not so much, for dmg, important though)Teleport Safe Passage1Meteor Meteor Shower2Magic Weapon Ignite( or force weapon for doubling dmg bonus) 3Frost Nova Bone Chill 4Storm Armor Power of the Storm

You can add 2Energy Twister Raging Storm for Teleport or whatever you'd like. If I add it I'll use the gale force rune, and take out teleport or magic weapon. But I think I'll stick with only Meteor so to maximise my damage.

I'm pretty excited to try it, While likely only almost as good for dmg as the firebird ( never tried,) or Tal Rasha sets, seemingly much better for toughness. Up my alley on hardcore. And much easier play style, don't have to cycle through skills to max out your dmg. Can someone point out where I may be wrong?

Yeah this looks similar to the LoN build I posted above which has cleared GR 128 (from leaderboard, not my build). They used frostburn gloves and rolled pants to arcane and some other changes (wore Aquila). It doesn’t look like that build was even optimized yet as the run was a month old.

Knutsanity · February 17, 2019

Sorry of course I meant the halo of karini for the jewlery spot in the cube, copy and pasted the wrong one.

Halo of Karini,. The arlyse one with the extra frost nova when you take a hit is awesome too though in a different way. Just 80% dmg reduction is wild, and it triggers plenty if you stay back like you should.

Yolo · February 17, 2019

https://www.d3planner.com/459829221
This is the Build i tought of.
The Strongarm Bracers are interchangeable with Ranslor's Folly, depending on your better rolled item. Hellfire Amulet of Intelligence with a strong passive and well rolled stats is superior, but - as with other builds using it - you can deviate into ranged damage reduction Eye of Etlich, immunities Mara's Kaleidoscope, or use the rare Moonlight Ward. While the latter's Unique property is rarely beneficial, It rolls naturally with 20-25% Arcane Damage increase and 8-10% Critical Hit Chance, making it somewhat easier to perfect.

aaronsan · February 18, 2019

On 2/16/2019 at 9:01 AM, RayShimley said:

Yeah this looks similar to the LoN build I posted above which has cleared GR 128 (from leaderboard, not my build). They used frostburn gloves and rolled pants to arcane and some other changes (wore Aquila). It doesn’t look like that build was even optimized yet as the run was a month old.

Wow so LoN has cleared grift 128? I looked on the leaderboards for this season and didn't see 128 for anyone yet, Demon hunter at 125 I think. Are you talking about non-seasonal? I guess with an eternity to refine, you can get pretty high on most builds that make any kind of sense. Seems like they almost made it top tier viable but maybe missed it by a tiny bit. Perhaps if the bonus was 900% or certainly 1000% per ancient legendary, it would be there. But at 750% it's still juuuuuuuuust shy, eh?

RayShimley · February 18, 2019

2 hours ago, aaronsan said:

Wow so LoN has cleared grift 128? I looked on the leaderboards for this season and didn't see 128 for anyone yet, Demon hunter at 125 I think. Are you talking about non-seasonal? I guess with an eternity to refine, you can get pretty high on most builds that make any kind of sense. Seems like they almost made it top tier viable but maybe missed it by a tiny bit. Perhaps if the bonus was 900% or certainly 1000% per ancient legendary, it would be there. But at 750% it's still juuuuuuuuust shy, eh?

Yeah, that was a non-seasonal character I posted, but since LoN doesn't benefit from the Season of Grandeur the build should still work in S16. Looks like highest LoN I could find on S16 leaderboard was GR 117, running a very similar setup.

Edited February 18, 2019 by RayShimley

Knutsanity · February 20, 2019

I was thinking 1000% dmg bonus per item, and 5% or 6% dmg reduction. Since you can't use other sets for dmg reduction. But it depends eh. The fire WoL Monk, the fire Meteor Wizard, at least math wise, seem to add up to close to as good as their competing sets, then there are other builds we maybe haven't thought up. The monk, demon hunter, barbarian have amazing dmg reduction leg bonuses, so I suppose the dmg reduction is good enough for the, but better than the sets? The wizard Tal Rasha just has resistances bonuses, the least of their worries, so the LoN Meteor with the halo of karini and aquilla curass sounds amazing for the wizard comparable offence and better defence, especially since the build here doesn't include the Traveler's pledge and compass rose set unless in the season of G.

But there are likely more perfect builds you could make. Much like the WoL Monk where you can include the Rabid strike like with the Inna's variation. The cindercoat and fire dmg gloves can make a huge deffierence to fire skills. The pants that can roll any type of elemental dmg. The gloves that can do cold. So fire dmg skills have a litany of chances to get extra fire dmg%, cold has a decent amount. Those little tweeks that open up. So, maybe as it should be, the LoN has become viable to compete but only in certain situations. Basically all the builds, to be optimal, would need an incredibly rolled Hellfire amulet with a great passive, and with that the more impressive ones we dream up could be the best builds. As of now, because I have only seen 2 decent builds, It looks like 1000% dmg and hopefully more dmg reduction would make a lot of options more viable, but if we create any more then it is fine as it is, and it would make those best options so far maybe too good... Maybe 800 or 850% dmg per item would've been ideal. I plan on trying to add up a demon hunter build and see how it looks on paper, a barb, a witch doctor, and maybe a few others. But these seem very contingent on having dmg reduction options on leg items, to me so far.

Edited February 20, 2019 by Knutsanity

Knutsanity · February 20, 2019

I think that that LoN Meteor is great, but I want to weight the pro's and cons vs Tal Rasha, again I've never used firebird, and the math is far from simple, so I don't want to weigh vs that. I'd like to know if you guys see if I got anything wrong here. In the season of G, or with a RoRG and the Endless Walk set Tal Rasha might be better, with a follower Unity is nice, but in co op less so. But I'm thinking past this season. in group play, co op or otherwise.

LoN vs TR, Damage, sets are 9750% dmg for LoN vs 8000% for TR, you lose the 25% resistances per stack, so 100%. You lose the 4 extra free meteors every 8 seconds if optimised. You gain 52% dmg reduction. So I think the dmg is comparable, ranging from slightly better to much better for LoN, depending on how much 1 extra meteor every 2 seconds is. Also dependent on how much extra meteors you can do with the belt and cindercoat helping your resource costs, and how well you can balance dumping at the right time and keeping the dmg reduction of aquilla curass, or maybe you can dump meteors non stop somehow while keeping the channelling bonus going with the LoN cost reduction. However, no unity, no CoE, only one ring skill with LoN so it has to be the 80% dmg reduction of HoK. So no CoE extra dmg 1/4th of the time. No up to 100% dmg from EW. But up to 100% fire dmg now. Gloves, Chest, Pants, Bracers, Amulet 20% each. Again, dmg reduction LoN wins in my view on paper. 80% HoK, 50% AC, 52% LoN. Vs 100% resistances, 80% HoK for TR, or 100% resistances, 50% AC, 80% HoK and max 50% EW if you use RoRG and EW.

If you are really good with CoE, Tal Rasha's likely goes incredibly well with it compared to other builds which only use 1 main dmg type. So there is that. Suppose ease of play goes to LoN for simple minded folk like me, not having to cycle through skills for CoE or TR... An Ancient Hellfire Amulet with a great passive gives you a 5th passive, and since all builds are measured at optimal gear, that should be considered part of this LoN build, and a huge bonus.
I imagine resources under this fire LoN build are easy to come by, and the aquilla Curass almost always viable. Using the Passive for resources, and crits give resources roll on the Etched Sigil, and the reduced cost on the belt and coat I think would even be too much resource regeneration, may only need 3 of those to keep the AC dmg reduction going. Maybe you don't need the belt if using a fire channelling skill. Can find more offence or toughness with another belt. So to me, I give the edge to LoN Offensively and defensively. It will be hard to keep channelling going, and dump at the same time, but I'm sure you can get enough extra meteors in there to make up for the 2 set TR bonus and even some of the EW or CoE bonus. Add in the extra Fire DmG % and I think it's slightly better offence. The 52% damage reduction for LoN is not as good as the 100% resistance bonus combined with the max 50% dmg reduction of EW. But it is superior to one or the other. Throw in the Helmet and Bracer options for toughness, or I'd actually use Nemesis Bracers, and the LoN build may be better and easier to use.

Super hard to weigh, considering EW, which is never at full bonus one way or the other, but fits the game so well giving you more of one or the other at appropriate times. But endless walk takes away CoE or unity anyway for your solo build(worth it to me). Looks like LoN fire meteor is more well rounded and easy to use, has almost as good dmg but at all times, not contingent on optimising CoE. Can free up a 5th passive and more rolls due to possible resource impunity and the hellfire amulet, which should free up more options for offence and toughness, taking it from almost as good to as good, more consistent and easier to use for offence, and more consistent and better toughness.... Outside of the season of G, I think it's better on paper.

But I don't know how to weigh it with all those options, and until I try it and see. Wizard might be my favorite, but I'm saving it for last, got 5 others ready for T13, 4 ready for Gr80+, want to get the WD there too. Gonna do Necro next which will take a while, then finally wizard. Don't even have a deathwish. May break from my lessers and pound the Crusader for higher GR's and paragon too. So if someone capable of it could check on this build I'd appreciate it.

Knutsanity · February 20, 2019

Suppose the simplest way I can think of to weight it.:

TR + EW = 1 ring bonus, HoK and the RoRG. Plus endless walk bonus of up to 50% DR or 100% D. + extra meteor every 2 seconds and 100% resistances.
TR without EW = All 3 ring bonuses HoK, CoE X3 dmg 1/4th of the time, and Unity 50%DR. + extra meteor every 2 seconds and 100% resistances.
LoN = 1 ring bonus HoK, can give 60% extra Fire Dmg chest, gloves, pants. Extra Passive. 52% DR. Extra defensive helmet. Extra dmg from sets (9750% to 8000%) and possibly the Aquilla Curass 50% DR bonus for all 3 builds is easiest to maintain with this one. So you can manually do more meteor and/or replace some resource helping rolls with extra dmg or toughness rolls. Like the crits give 4 arcane power on the Etched sigil, can be something very useful. Or channelling belt replaced with Witching hour. Or astral presence replaced with another passive. So 1.6 (60% extra fire)X Dmg could be more like 2X. More if capable of more meteors while still taking advantage of Deathwish channelling. and 2X 9750% is better than 2X 8000%(EW), or 3X 8000% part of the time, no matter how good you are with it (CoE).
CoE when fully utilised is more than the X3 dmg a 1/4th of the time, for those who time meteor dumps well with it. But I'm slow so for me its akin to 1.75 X dmg(random average X3 1/4th of the time). Endless walk can be kept close to max offence if you mostly move with teleport, so pretty much X2 dmg lets say 1.9X. and X2 toughness if or when you need it, so TR/ EW is preferable to me.
In the season of G TR/EW is better than LoN, with an extra ring buff, but outside that I think LoN should do better or equal dmg with easier play and better toughness, than TR or TR/EW. Those crazy enough to demand perfection of themselves can even use CoE instead of HoK for the LoN jewlery cube spot for insane dmg bursts. But i doubt it's reasonable to expect yourself to never get hit.

One area I think I may be wrong is the 100% resistances. that is for doubling your resistance numbers correct? like 1500 poison resistance becomes 3000, which is actually only like an 8% or so increase in reduction %'s? say 76% at 1500 to 84% at 3000? That's a guess, I've noticed the first 800 or so is very large then the higher you get the less difference the resistances make. It includes physical I believe which is big. and even that 8% extra is large, the 24% remaining of the dmg you would take in this guesstimate, is knocked down 33% to 16% damage you'd take. Not as good as the almost 12% the 52% LoN dmg reduction would have you take, but not nothing.

Knutsanity · February 21, 2019

Also curious about the Akkhan set. It sounded like the sets were all buffed to catch up to this one. Yet its bonus is only 1500% dmg and 50% dmg reduction bonus. A 50% cooldown reduction of AC and 50% resource cost reduction while in Akkarats Champion. So the 35% damage bonus, 150% armour bonus, and 5 extra resource a second in AC is awesome, and you can then be in it more often. So lets include the AC bonus with the set bonus. making the dmg bonus 1500% X 1.35 = 2025% dmg bonus, 50% resource cost reduction and 50% dmg reduction plus the 150% armour, which is comparable to a 75% dmg reduction if I am correct, which would be a total of about an 87.5% dmg reduction? 50%, then 75% of the remaining 50% so 37.5% of the remaining 50%. Plus the endless walk set bonus that easily goes with it if you use the akkahn boots instead of amulet, So the dmg bonus becomes 2025%X2 so 4050%. and dmg reduction can further from running. Or instead, the Focus/Restraint ring combo does the same for damage, nothing extra for Defence.
So These builds for Condemn, heavenly shield, Heaven's fury, all great skills with great leg bonuses, which is what I figured is the reason they are top builds, as much as the set itself. All are gaining only 4050% dmg bonuses from AC Akkhan's set and the 2 piece jewlery sets. Paling in comparison to the 9750% dmg bonus they would get from LoN. Lets say the 50% resource reduction mean twice as much dmg, because really it does for any build that can run out of resources, can do your skills twice as often. so let's call it 9750% vs 8100%.

This makes LoN sound superior to Akkans in all its builds offensively. Not at all defensively, but remember while you are in AC less often you still have it sometimes to add some dmg and dmg reduction and resource gain. You could If you are worried about AC cooldown, with the condemn build, can replace the furnace with Akarats Awakening, using the condemn 2 hander, with both the condemn shield and Ak Aw in the offhand and weapon cube slot. Not quite as good as 50% cooldown, but likely better than the furnace at least. But would need the 30% block passive, maybe the 11% block helmet and also provokes 40% block rune. AkAw would also help all cooldowns.

That quick math for dmg says to me LoN is better than Akkhans even if you consider the AC bonuses 100% of the time, assume full bonus from the jewelery sets, and assume zero AC time in LoN. Defensively it's 2% better at full 52% dmg reduction, but of course not in AC as often, for this argument although not true, we are assuming not at all in AC, and 100% in AC for akkhans, so no 150% armour bonus and 2nd death perk, so much worse for overall toughness. Not a tonne worse though if truthful and assuming only 70% in AC in akkhans and 30% in LoN. Could choose between more dmg of CoE or more toughness of Justice lantern, maybe more cooldown in a resource spender. I'd always assume toughness with LoN is necessary, since there is no other good toughness buffs for a crusader on gear, I'd go Justice lantern and a block build. With the fire dmg possibilities of LoN gear and lack of resource spending, the fires of heaven on blocks, with a block build might make the holy shotgun heaven's fury build even better than akkhans too.

I don't want to spend too much time thinking about this, because it seems I must be missing something terrifyingly obvious about the top set in the game. I've only used Invoker. So help me out before I dream up LoN crusader builds. I'd have to be wrong, I mean all these sets got buffed for this one. A quick look at the Unhallowed essence set tells me at a max of around 100 discipline, the set bonus is 35,000%, the Marauders with the 5 sentries and extra pets would also blow LoN out of the water. The Leap/earthquake or seismic slam barb also has unruly set bonuses that LoN can't compare too. So what am I not understanding? If it is just because these are top skills with top leg bonuses, and akkhans doesn't discriminate against them, and the AC up time, then LoN is better for them offensively no? Even assuming full time in AC with akkhans, and no time with LoN in AC, even assuming 50% resource reduction means X2 damage, and the jewelery sets are at full X2 dmg.

I will add that LoN has made a tonne of options for Money/Gem farming builds. The extra gem helmet, the money leg gem, the money gear, secondary money% rolls, can all be implemented with skills with leg bonuses good enough to thrash T13. So for bounties, regular Rifts, and puzzle rings and the like. So if you really want variety and fun and customisation, you can make use of those GR down times at least with LoN and any decent skill buffs.

Edited February 21, 2019 by Knutsanity

aaronsan · February 21, 2019

21 hours ago, Knutsanity said:

I think that that LoN Meteor is great, but I want to weight the pro's and cons vs Tal Rasha, again I've never used firebird, and the math is far from simple, so I don't want to weigh vs that. I'd like to know if you guys see if I got anything wrong here. In the season of G, or with a RoRG and the Endless Walk set Tal Rasha might be better, with a follower Unity is nice, but in co op less so. But I'm thinking past this season. in group play, co op or otherwise.

LoN vs TR, Damage, sets are 9750% dmg for LoN vs 8000% for TR, you lose the 25% resistances per stack, so 100%. You lose the 4 extra free meteors every 8 seconds if optimised. You gain 52% dmg reduction. So I think the dmg is comparable, ranging from slightly better to much better for LoN, depending on how much 1 extra meteor every 2 seconds is. Also dependent on how much extra meteors you can do with the belt and cindercoat helping your resource costs, and how well you can balance dumping at the right time and keeping the dmg reduction of aquilla curass, or maybe you can dump meteors non stop somehow while keeping the channelling bonus going with the LoN cost reduction. However, no unity, no CoE, only one ring skill with LoN so it has to be the 80% dmg reduction of HoK. So no CoE extra dmg 1/4th of the time. No up to 100% dmg from EW. But up to 100% fire dmg now. Gloves, Chest, Pants, Bracers, Amulet 20% each. Again, dmg reduction LoN wins in my view on paper. 80% HoK, 50% AC, 52% LoN. Vs 100% resistances, 80% HoK for TR, or 100% resistances, 50% AC, 80% HoK and max 50% EW if you use RoRG and EW.

If you are really good with CoE, Tal Rasha's likely goes incredibly well with it compared to other builds which only use 1 main dmg type. So there is that. Suppose ease of play goes to LoN for simple minded folk like me, not having to cycle through skills for CoE or TR... An Ancient Hellfire Amulet with a great passive gives you a 5th passive, and since all builds are measured at optimal gear, that should be considered part of this LoN build, and a huge bonus.
I imagine resources under this fire LoN build are easy to come by, and the aquilla Curass almost always viable. Using the Passive for resources, and crits give resources roll on the Etched Sigil, and the reduced cost on the belt and coat I think would even be too much resource regeneration, may only need 3 of those to keep the AC dmg reduction going. Maybe you don't need the belt if using a fire channelling skill. Can find more offence or toughness with another belt. So to me, I give the edge to LoN Offensively and defensively. It will be hard to keep channelling going, and dump at the same time, but I'm sure you can get enough extra meteors in there to make up for the 2 set TR bonus and even some of the EW or CoE bonus. Add in the extra Fire DmG % and I think it's slightly better offence. The 52% damage reduction for LoN is not as good as the 100% resistance bonus combined with the max 50% dmg reduction of EW. But it is superior to one or the other. Throw in the Helmet and Bracer options for toughness, or I'd actually use Nemesis Bracers, and the LoN build may be better and easier to use.

Super hard to weigh, considering EW, which is never at full bonus one way or the other, but fits the game so well giving you more of one or the other at appropriate times. But endless walk takes away CoE or unity anyway for your solo build(worth it to me). Looks like LoN fire meteor is more well rounded and easy to use, has almost as good dmg but at all times, not contingent on optimising CoE. Can free up a 5th passive and more rolls due to possible resource impunity and the hellfire amulet, which should free up more options for offence and toughness, taking it from almost as good to as good, more consistent and easier to use for offence, and more consistent and better toughness.... Outside of the season of G, I think it's better on paper.

But I don't know how to weigh it with all those options, and until I try it and see. Wizard might be my favorite, but I'm saving it for last, got 5 others ready for T13, 4 ready for Gr80+, want to get the WD there too. Gonna do Necro next which will take a while, then finally wizard. Don't even have a deathwish. May break from my lessers and pound the Crusader for higher GR's and paragon too. So if someone capable of it could check on this build I'd appreciate it.

This all seems right to me, although I think the delay on meteor (fire variants) is always going to be a problem IMO. The twister is just so much simpler and I'd need to see the damage difference to be certain. The pulling of all the whites is SUCH a survivability boost, which you don't get from meteor. Also you aren't getting to use the arcane damage slowing and the damage boost from the arcane passive, and that needs to be considered.

Are we POSITIVE that meteor gives more damage, and significantly so, in light of all of this, and that survivability isn't enough of a factor.

I agree with this, though, that after this season LoN could be really competitive with the other builds. Depending on what they give us next season of course. I'm sure there are other bonuses besides RoRG that would fail to benefit LoN, just not thinking of them right now.

Glad you found my little experiment exciting! Thank you for all your interest!

aaronsan · February 21, 2019

19 hours ago, Knutsanity said:

Suppose the simplest way I can think of to weight it.:

TR + EW = 1 ring bonus, HoK and the RoRG. Plus endless walk bonus of up to 50% DR or 100% D. + extra meteor every 2 seconds and 100% resistances.
TR without EW = All 3 ring bonuses HoK, CoE X3 dmg 1/4th of the time, and Unity 50%DR. + extra meteor every 2 seconds and 100% resistances.
LoN = 1 ring bonus HoK, can give 60% extra Fire Dmg chest, gloves, pants. Extra Passive. 52% DR. Extra defensive helmet. Extra dmg from sets (9750% to 8000%) and possibly the Aquilla Curass 50% DR bonus for all 3 builds is easiest to maintain with this one. So you can manually do more meteor and/or replace some resource helping rolls with extra dmg or toughness rolls. Like the crits give 4 arcane power on the Etched sigil, can be something very useful. Or channelling belt replaced with Witching hour. Or astral presence replaced with another passive. So 1.6 (60% extra fire)X Dmg could be more like 2X. More if capable of more meteors while still taking advantage of Deathwish channelling. and 2X 9750% is better than 2X 8000%(EW), or 3X 8000% part of the time, no matter how good you are with it (CoE).
CoE when fully utilised is more than the X3 dmg a 1/4th of the time, for those who time meteor dumps well with it. But I'm slow so for me its akin to 1.75 X dmg(random average X3 1/4th of the time). Endless walk can be kept close to max offence if you mostly move with teleport, so pretty much X2 dmg lets say 1.9X. and X2 toughness if or when you need it, so TR/ EW is preferable to me.
In the season of G TR/EW is better than LoN, with an extra ring buff, but outside that I think LoN should do better or equal dmg with easier play and better toughness, than TR or TR/EW. Those crazy enough to demand perfection of themselves can even use CoE instead of HoK for the LoN jewlery cube spot for insane dmg bursts. But i doubt it's reasonable to expect yourself to never get hit.

One area I think I may be wrong is the 100% resistances. that is for doubling your resistance numbers correct? like 1500 poison resistance becomes 3000, which is actually only like an 8% or so increase in reduction %'s? say 76% at 1500 to 84% at 3000? That's a guess, I've noticed the first 800 or so is very large then the higher you get the less difference the resistances make. It includes physical I believe which is big. and even that 8% extra is large, the 24% remaining of the dmg you would take in this guesstimate, is knocked down 33% to 16% damage you'd take. Not as good as the almost 12% the 52% LoN dmg reduction would have you take, but not nothing.

Yes this is my undertanding about the Tal Rasha bonuses. It's diminishing returns...and that's only elemental resistances too, right? Not really the same deal, but I can't say beyond that.

aaronsan · February 21, 2019

16 hours ago, Knutsanity said:

Also curious about the Akkhan set. It sounded like the sets were all buffed to catch up to this one. Yet its bonus is only 1500% dmg and 50% dmg reduction bonus. A 50% cooldown reduction of AC and 50% resource cost reduction while in Akkarats Champion. So the 35% damage bonus, 150% armour bonus, and 5 extra resource a second in AC is awesome, and you can then be in it more often. So lets include the AC bonus with the set bonus. making the dmg bonus 1500% X 1.35 = 2025% dmg bonus, 50% resource cost reduction and 50% dmg reduction plus the 150% armour, which is comparable to a 75% dmg reduction if I am correct, which would be a total of about an 87.5% dmg reduction? 50%, then 75% of the remaining 50% so 37.5% of the remaining 50%. Plus the endless walk set bonus that easily goes with it if you use the akkahn boots instead of amulet, So the dmg bonus becomes 2025%X2 so 4050%. and dmg reduction can further from running. Or instead, the Focus/Restraint ring combo does the same for damage, nothing extra for Defence.
So These builds for Condemn, heavenly shield, Heaven's fury, all great skills with great leg bonuses, which is what I figured is the reason they are top builds, as much as the set itself. All are gaining only 4050% dmg bonuses from AC Akkhan's set and the 2 piece jewlery sets. Paling in comparison to the 9750% dmg bonus they would get from LoN. Lets say the 50% resource reduction mean twice as much dmg, because really it does for any build that can run out of resources, can do your skills twice as often. so let's call it 9750% vs 8100%.

This makes LoN sound superior to Akkans in all its builds offensively. Not at all defensively, but remember while you are in AC less often you still have it sometimes to add some dmg and dmg reduction and resource gain. You could If you are worried about AC cooldown, with the condemn build, can replace the furnace with Akarats Awakening, using the condemn 2 hander, with both the condemn shield and Ak Aw in the offhand and weapon cube slot. Not quite as good as 50% cooldown, but likely better than the furnace at least. But would need the 30% block passive, maybe the 11% block helmet and also provokes 40% block rune. AkAw would also help all cooldowns.

That quick math for dmg says to me LoN is better than Akkhans even if you consider the AC bonuses 100% of the time, assume full bonus from the jewelery sets, and assume zero AC time in LoN. Defensively it's 2% better at full 52% dmg reduction, but of course not in AC as often, for this argument although not true, we are assuming not at all in AC, and 100% in AC for akkhans, so no 150% armour bonus and 2nd death perk, so much worse for overall toughness. Not a tonne worse though if truthful and assuming only 70% in AC in akkhans and 30% in LoN. Could choose between more dmg of CoE or more toughness of Justice lantern, maybe more cooldown in a resource spender. I'd always assume toughness with LoN is necessary, since there is no other good toughness buffs for a crusader on gear, I'd go Justice lantern and a block build. With the fire dmg possibilities of LoN gear and lack of resource spending, the fires of heaven on blocks, with a block build might make the holy shotgun heaven's fury build even better than akkhans too.

I don't want to spend too much time thinking about this, because it seems I must be missing something terrifyingly obvious about the top set in the game. I've only used Invoker. So help me out before I dream up LoN crusader builds. I'd have to be wrong, I mean all these sets got buffed for this one. A quick look at the Unhallowed essence set tells me at a max of around 100 discipline, the set bonus is 35,000%, the Marauders with the 5 sentries and extra pets would also blow LoN out of the water. The Leap/earthquake or seismic slam barb also has unruly set bonuses that LoN can't compare too. So what am I not understanding? If it is just because these are top skills with top leg bonuses, and akkhans doesn't discriminate against them, and the AC up time, then LoN is better for them offensively no? Even assuming full time in AC with akkhans, and no time with LoN in AC, even assuming 50% resource reduction means X2 damage, and the jewelery sets are at full X2 dmg.

I will add that LoN has made a tonne of options for Money/Gem farming builds. The extra gem helmet, the money leg gem, the money gear, secondary money% rolls, can all be implemented with skills with leg bonuses good enough to thrash T13. So for bounties, regular Rifts, and puzzle rings and the like. So if you really want variety and fun and customisation, you can make use of those GR down times at least with LoN and any decent skill buffs.

You should make this Akkhan post a separate thread like I did, bro. I think you and I are the only ones left here. XD

If you make it like a full guide with all the gear you think is right, that could spark enough interest. I was honestly shocked at how much feedback my little attempt got. Really helpful tweaking and people coming in and running the numbers for me.

Knutsanity · February 21, 2019

Yeah I've spammed the forums enough here hahaha ? so they can check in here and there here and let me know what they think. As far as the Akkhans goes, the only way I can see LoN not being better, is if it's a matter of having CoE and Justice lantern for the ring abilities, only getting to choose one for LoN, and being in AkCh most of the time. Meaning the offence because of CoE and more AkCh becomes comparable to LoN, and the defence is through the roof better. Because Math wise it looks like offensively LoN is better than Akkhans even given X2 dmg for 50%resource cost reduction, X2 for another jewlery set, and full AkCh bonuses. Which should at least balance the CoE bonus offensively, and defensively wouldn't be that terrible with justice lantern choice. Given you can still use AkCh some of the time.
Not a big Blessed shield guy. I'd rather not feel like I'm trying to be Capt America. But I Guess yeah, I'll throw a Heaven's Fury and Condemn build together in here at some point today. Because it does appear the reason Akkahns is so good, is because it doesn't discriminate against those very good skills with very good modifiers, and fully utilises AkCh. Where as LoN doesn't discriminate against them or any other skill, and can still likely utilise AkCh enough given the much higher base dmg.

As far as Twister and Meteor goes, the delay is fine, actually all the better given the channelling necessity in the build from deathwish. Of course you get em free every second without even pressing it either way, but when you want to dump extra you get about 2 seconds to start channelling again before they hit for the extra dmg multiplier. The only comparison for the 2 is in the skills themselves really, the rest multiplies the same way afterwards anyway.
Twister- Energy Twister Icon Unleash a twister of pure energy that deals 1525% weapon damage as Arcane over 6seconds to everything in its path.

Meteor- Meteor Icon Summon an immense Meteor that plummets from the sky, crashing into enemies for 740% weapon damage as Fire. The ground it hits is scorched with molten fire that deals 235% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds.

Sounds like a little higher dmg from twister over an a period twice as long though. Then we go through the runes.

Twister:

19	Mistral Breeze Reduce the casting cost of Energy Twister to 25 Arcane Power. Energy Twister's damage turns into Cold.
24	Gale Force Enemies hit by Energy Twister take 15% increased damage from Fire for 4 seconds.
36	Raging Storm When two Energy Twisters collide, they merge into a tornado with increased area of effect that causes 3200% weapon damage as Arcane over 6 seconds.
41	Wicked Wind Energy Twister no longer travels but spins in place, dealing 835% weapon damage as Arcane over 6 seconds to everything caught in it.
52	Storm Chaser Each cast of Energy Twister grants you a Lightning Charge. You can store up to 3 Lightning Charges at a time. Casting a Signature spell releases all Lightning Charges as a bolt of Lightning that deals 196% weapon damage as Lightning per Lightning Charge. Energy Twister's damage turns into Lightning. The following skills are Signature spells: Magic Missile Shock Pulse Spectral Blade Electrocute

Meteor:

29	Thunder Crash Removes the delay before Meteor comes crashing down. Meteor's damage turns into Lightning.
34	Star Pact Expend all remaining Arcane Power. Each point of extra Arcane Power spent increases the impact damage of Meteor by 20% weapon damage as Arcane.
43	Comet Summon a Comet that deals 740% weapon damage as Cold and freezes chilled enemies for 1second upon impact. The impact site is covered in an icy mist that deals 235% weapon damage as Cold over 3 seconds.
48	Meteor Shower Unleash a volley of 7 small Meteors that each strike for 277% weapon damage as Fire.
58	Molten Impact Greatly increases the size and increases the damage of the Meteor impact to 1648% weapon damage as Fire and the molten fire to 625% weapon damage as Fire over 3 seconds. Adds a 15 second cooldown.

Some solid options for both, I had used the Arcane expend all remaining arcane power to make the meteor way more powerful (20 dmg per AP) along with the Incinerate with the rune where enemies hit take more dmg from arcane. But to be honest I'm not sure the free meteor every second gave me the +20% weapon dmg bonus per AC on the free ones. The meteors I brought down myself, that were actually expending all remaining AP seemed more powerful. The 277% X7 worked best, huge AoE and 277% X7 is around 2K% weapon dmg. More than the big cooldown one. However of course the big cooldown one is best for single targets or small bunched targets...

For twister, the dmg is not twice as good, and takes twice as long to do it, not a big deal when you consider a couple of the more powerful runes, like thinking of the lightning one with the lightning builds, the manalds heal, the paralasis.... The two combining into 1 giant one for 3K weapon Dmg. And the effect of pulling in all the white enemies. Once you can spam them, the length of time in which it takes to do the dmg is less of a problem. So yeah Twister is the better skill likely. So I stand corrected, didn't bother looking at the numbers or considering it even. Just assumed I knew better.

But now the modifiers.

Twister: Ranslor's Folly The Twisted Sword
300% dmg max and that pulling in enemies we mentioned as a defensive plus. + 150% for each twister you have out, up to a maximum of 5. Lets say you can always have 5 out, because you can with the free ones included very easily I'm sure. That's 750% dmg bonus and 300%. So X3 X7.5 = +22.5% when at 5 or more, I'd maybe avoid the rune that combines the 2 into a bigger one, depending on whether that affected the ease of getting 5+ twisters going at all times.

Meteor: The Grand Vizier Nilfur's Boast

Reduce cost 50% increase dmg max 400%, Increase dmg 600% and max 900% when hitting 3 or less enemies. Reduce cost lets forget about for now, lots of them will be free and you can always gain back you AP as a wizard quicker than other classes, with any effort put into it at all really. But yeah X4 Dmg and X6 dmg. or against RG or even just 3 or less at a time targets X4 and X9. So a slightly better X24 at all times, and a much better X36 against RG's, with the occasional finishing off of the last of pack quicker..

The big thing to me, let's call these equal otherwise, is the aiming, the successful percentage of total potential dmg actually hitting the enemies for the most possible hit%. The Twister can pull them in and hit 100% of the time. The meteor especially the delayed ones can miss. But against elites More often than not your meteor will hit, and your twister will be lucky to hit half the time. I find The meteor much higher of a hit %, maybe a little less against white masses, but much more against elites and above which do matter more. I find the dmg is closer than I thought but ranging from equal against white masses to much better for meteor against elites and above. Against single targets it's not even close, the rift guardian in particular will leave you frustrated once you are reaching higher levels, by avoiding your twisters for the majority of those 6 seconds. Usually only by teleporting do they avoid the delayed meteors all that well.

It's way closer a comparison than I thought actually, so I'm glad you kept asking and I bothered to look into it. So by all means go with twister, Maybe even consider a lightning build with it for fun with the manald's heal ring bonus and the paralasis. Could be crazy. But once you get to the lvl where it takes 30 seconds of mad twisters to kill elites, that's when you should make the switch to meteor to test the difference.

And remember you can do 2 meteor and 1 Twister while still holding onto the awesome Deathwish and etched sigil combo. You have to use the less awesome twister dmg bonus, but it's the one with the pulling lesser enemies into it ability at least. So at those higher levels you'll like the defensive ability even more. No Wizard, and I mean no wizard is safe by the time the twisters stop demolishing everything in their path. And there is no important bracers, so you might aswell, half your free spenders will be twisters instead of meteors which will hurt, but you can spam meteors plenty in these builds anyway and get back up in AP to gain the Aquilla Cu bonuses back very quickly.

If manalds heal turns out viable with the build and does crazy lightning damage, which it may, then I could see twister working as well as meteor and you could 2 twisters and 1 meteor bonus if you wanted too, the lightning meteor is even the instant hit. Or even leave meteor out maybe. You could wear the aquilla curass instead of cubing it, and then the stun bracer options are likely very useful. So you could use one of them in the cube, or wear it and cube the twister bracers. Depending on whether paralysis is considered stun, which I figure it is the way it's worded in the passive for it.

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