💀3.15💀 iLL3aT’s Cold Skeleton Warriors/Archers/Mages ❆ League Starter ❆ All Content ❆

OK. I did a bit of math to help @ill3at out.

1. Damage nerfs.

Here are the lines that affect our build currently:

"

Elemental Damage with Attacks:
Supported Attack Skills now deal 20-34% more Elemental Damage (previously 35-54%).

Minion Damage:
Now has a 150% Cost and Reservation Multiplier (previously 130%).
Minions from Supported Skills now deal 25-39% more Damage (previously 25-49%).
Now has “Minions from Supported Skills have 25% less Maximum Life”.

Predator:
Now has a 150% Cost and Reservation Multiplier (previously 130%).
Minions from Supported Skills now deal 6-12% more Damage (previously 15-25%).

Melee Physical Damage:
Now grants “Supported Skills have 10% less Attack Speed”.

If we're not using multistrike, in a mapping setting (with melee splash), this accounts for a 35.38% difference in damage.

Running around with 2/3rds our power is NOT a big deal. Let's be real, this build never did super well in maps, compared to other builds. It really, really shines when it comes to bossing, and our damage is BONKERS on bosses. Nerfing our damage by 35% will not have a dramatic impact on our ability to kill bosses. It sucks, sure, but it's not yet in the realm of "dead build".

However, the mana multiplier changes might. It's hard to calculate without an updated POB, but losing Skitterbots hurts us significantly. WIthout skitterbots, we're looking at a 48% damage decrease, which, in my opinion, brings us into the realm of "Dead Build".

Therefore, we will have to weave in mana reservation nodes (the two in Sovereignty and / or the Influence one) at the expense of defenses / life.

One thought is that the unbound ailments buff could potentially increase the effectiveness of Skitterbots significantly (at the expense of mana reservation, of course).

2. QoL nerfs

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The Labyrinth Boots Enchantment that grants Increased Mana Regeneration if you’ve cast a Spell Recently now grants 15/25/35% (previously 30/50/70%).

We don't really care that much about this nerf. Yeah, we'll run out of mana a little bit more often, but this is a very minor QOL decrease which we can likely make up for on a ring.

"

Minion Damage:
Now has “Minions from Supported Skills have 25% less Maximum Life”.

Though this minion damage line appears bad, it simply means that we want to prioritize getting "Renewal" from a cluster jewel ASAP. Renewal solves this problem completely.

3. Defensive nerfs

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Granite Flask now grants +1500 to Armour Rating (previously 3000).

Basalt Flask no longer grants 15% additional Physical Damage Reduction and 20% of Melee Physical Damage taken reflected to Attacker. It now grants 20% more Armour and Taunts nearby enemies on Use. Now lasts 5 seconds (previously 4.5).

Quartz Flask now grants 6% chance to Dodge Attack Hits (previously 10%), and 6% chance to Dodge Spell Hits (previously 10%).

These three flask changes hit us pretty hard. We'll be squishier than we ever were, esp. if we're going around trying to pick up mana reservation things to allow us to maintain Skitters.

My prediction is that we'll likely be running around with 500-750 less HP, and will get one shot slightly more often due to the loss in armor + spell pen we're getting via Granite + Quartz nerf.

4. TL;DR

We got hit. ~38% damage nerf if we leave the build as is. Still viable, but the damage hurts us the most as we map since things won't go down as fast, so we might get one shot.

If we can't figure out how to weave skitterbots through mana reservation, then the build is dead. But figuring this out shouldn't be hard.

No major QoL decreases, just minor annoyances.

We will be squishier than we will ever be.

Thanks Gneerox, appreciate the commends - I slept on it some more and I guess I'm less biased now. My thoughts in response to yours since you did such a good job:

My quick estimate was that we do 60% as much damage from support gems so yeah, close to yours. Then they hit us from multiple angles:

-Loss of intimidate (10%) at the mid-high end from woke melee phys
-Loss of easy 21/23 vaal summon skeletons gems
-Bottled faith at high end (10%)

2. QoL/Mana
Agreed on the -life on minion damage support. Naked renewal is a priority early now.

Mana on bonechill is ridiculous: issue than before now though since there is a larger reservation (35% x 1.4 = 49%, + 50% from hatred = 99%). Reservation nodes and maybe -reservation on amulet instead of an extra skeleton may counteract this (haven't done the math). Otherwise it's devouring diadem for skellies in the chest or vic's influence if skellies are in the helm.


About 100-150 unreserved mana is required. Skelly costs ~100 mana with multistrike (probably dead gem) & flesh offering at level 28 is about 100 as well (trigger wand).

3. Defensive Nerfs:
-Agreed - these suck horribly. Basalt would get replaced by a mana flask for sure to counteract the above.
-Another defensive nerf. Less damage = less freeze and chill

4. Conclusion:
Did we get hit hard? Yeah. More than any other high end build? I don't think so. We still have the advantage of being a minion player (ranged with meat shields). Agreed that there will be a LOT more dying, but that is for all players.

I really should do a full history of the build when I have time and figure out how strong/weak we were each patch. This isn't even the first damage in half nerf...

Personally im thinking on this: https://pastebin.com/z98HzNWA for my late game plan, any thoughts?

just fyi to throw some more info out there...

Did a pure physical skelly build in 3.13 to lvl 98 with 80ex in wands.
In POB i had 1.32 million dps per skelly.
When i convert it to 3.15 gems it drops to 790k. A whopping 44% decrease!
https://pastebin.com/Hn5w8MnF

Good luck to everybody this league!

"

sacoroto wrote:

Personally im thinking on this: https://pastebin.com/z98HzNWA for my late game plan, any thoughts?

Seems good, but what stands out is 4.5k life. With the loss in defense from flasks, that might be a bit too low.

"

Tallion99 wrote:

just fyi to throw some more info out there...

Did a pure physical skelly build in 3.13 to lvl 98 with 80ex in wands.
In POB i had 1.32 million dps per skelly.
When i convert it to 3.15 gems it drops to 790k. A whopping 44% decrease!
https://pastebin.com/Hn5w8MnF

Good luck to everybody this league!

Yeah I think I see a similar decrease. I recall level 3 was like 1m a skeleton - it's about 600k now.

Funny enough, build is still mostly unchanged from 3.13 for now: left side of the sovereignty cluster solves the mana reservation issue and leaves 133 unreserved. Basalt flask replaced by a mana one.

Multistrike should probably be replaced since it's a 160% mana multiplier.

Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/mysvD6kZ

"

iLL3aT wrote:

"

sacoroto wrote:

Personally im thinking on this: https://pastebin.com/z98HzNWA for my late game plan, any thoughts?

Seems good, but what stands out is 4.5k life. With the loss in defense from flasks, that might be a bit too low.

True, still with ailment inmunity cast on death portal on gloves it should be enough for mapping. Syndicate operatives on a hungry loop should clear nicely. On bosses, its mostly mechanics with enough damage.
Still, i always played 4-5k ish life and did all content. If you want more life, give up elemental ailment inmunity and you go to 6k. Give up a large cluster entirely and you still go to 3m per skelly and you can get to 7k life or something like that. maybe that defensive banner is worth something? i still got 38% unreserved mana.

"

sacoroto wrote:

True, still with ailment inmunity cast on death portal on gloves it should be enough for mapping. Syndicate operatives on a hungry loop should clear nicely. On bosses, its mostly mechanics with enough damage.
Still, i always played 4-5k ish life and did all content. If you want more life, give up elemental ailment inmunity and you go to 6k. Give up a large cluster entirely and you still go to 3m per skelly and you can get to 7k life or something like that. maybe that defensive banner is worth something? i still got 38% unreserved mana.

If you have that much unreserved, definitely do something with it (defensive banner, spider aspect). I need to play with my end game builds more eventually, but that can wait.

Elemental immunity is probably nice this league - it's never been an issue for me before but the heat flask is a shadow of its former self now...

Always cool to see different takes.

You've only talked about Skeleton Warriors, what about Skeleton Mages in the Nerfs? They would also have a better clear in maps overall.

"

Rac0on wrote:

You've only talked about Skeleton Warriors, what about Skeleton Mages in the Nerfs? They would also have a better clear in maps overall.

I'll try to get to the mage PoB tomorrow. I feel like they probably got hit a little less, but chain might be out of the question due to its mana multiplier now.