[3.16 - RETIRING BUILD] VD Brands: S-Tier Bosser, A-Tier Map! -- MURDERED BY GGG_INTERN SOMEWHERE--

https://streamable.com/fm42fk

Well that was a nice surprise.

Do note I'm STILL running a 6L Helm and am refusing to buy a Bottled Faith. I don't know what I'm holding out for really. Probably wanting to get a free Bottled from Zana mission like the last few leagues. xD

I'll say one thing though, for multiboss fights, as Star demonstrated.. The "cleave" from DD is just so massive. It's hands down the best Feared/Maven Arena/Guardian setup to use.

Hey there, I am totally enjoying the build so far but I need help. I know you suggested to switch to the build around 85 but I got a little bit impatient and switched earlier (76).So ..in short my problem is that I have literally 0 boss damage. I spent 30 second trying to take 1/20 of t4 metamorph hp pool and just moved forward without trying again. I can see on your and other people videos that you guys are literally obliterating bosses, which makes me think I am messing something on the very fundamental level but not being able to understand what. I saw you created a video with some tips, thanks for that by the way and at least I believe I am not messing with the rotation. Would be glad if I receive some help! Thanks in advance.

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cektahta wrote:

Hey there, I am totally enjoying the build so far but I need help. I know you suggested to switch to the build around 85 but I got a little bit impatient and switched earlier (76).So ..in short my problem is that I have literally 0 boss damage. I spent 30 second trying to take 1/20 of t4 metamorph hp pool and just moved forward without trying again. I can see on your and other people videos that you guys are literally obliterating bosses, which makes me think I am messing something on the very fundamental level but not being able to understand what. I saw you created a video with some tips, thanks for that by the way and at least I believe I am not messing with the rotation. Would be glad if I receive some help! Thanks in advance.

Hi. There are multiple warnings to NOT go the build before 85 - it's not a 'suggestion' - it's a prereq. I hate to be harsh but you literally just level to 85 and then spend the 9 extra passive points matching the PoB provided as closely as possible, in items as well as Mastery spread.

There's nothing I can recommend that can catch up 9 passive points worth of power aside from recommending you spend an obscene amount of currency for the current power level, so it's a rather unfair ask that you say the build is not performing when it has been stressed that 85 is the minimum for it to pop.

If you DO have the currency, Awakened Spell Cascade would fix most of it. If you don't have the currency to get one, then you will just have to soldier on and power up via passives.

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primaeva wrote:

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cektahta wrote:

Hey there, I am totally enjoying the build so far but I need help. I know you suggested to switch to the build around 85 but I got a little bit impatient and switched earlier (76).So ..in short my problem is that I have literally 0 boss damage. I spent 30 second trying to take 1/20 of t4 metamorph hp pool and just moved forward without trying again. I can see on your and other people videos that you guys are literally obliterating bosses, which makes me think I am messing something on the very fundamental level but not being able to understand what. I saw you created a video with some tips, thanks for that by the way and at least I believe I am not messing with the rotation. Would be glad if I receive some help! Thanks in advance.

Hi. There are multiple warnings to NOT go the build before 85 - it's not a 'suggestion' - it's a prereq. I hate to be harsh but you literally just level to 85 and then spend the 9 extra passive points matching the PoB provided as closely as possible, in items as well as Mastery spread.

There's nothing I can recommend that can catch up 9 passive points worth of power aside from recommending you spend an obscene amount of currency for the current power level, so it's a rather unfair ask that you say the build is not performing when it has been stressed that 85 is the minimum for it to pop.

If you DO have the currency, Awakened Spell Cascade would fix most of it. If you don't have the currency to get one, then you will just have to soldier on and power up via passives.

I got really bored of arma brand and took a look at the PoB and removed the right side of the tree, crit passives and so on, and found out the bare minimum, passives wise, you can get at lvl76.

So i swapped at 76. But I did have most gear/cane of kulemak (but no woke cascade) which helped.

Honestly it was fine, not by far the power level it has now at higher level - but still a lot better than arma brand.

If you run arma to 85+ you kinda need to go elementalist or it falls off hard after 70.

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falagar112 wrote:

If you run arma to 85+ you kinda need to go elementalist or it falls off hard after 70.

I didn't have that experience, at all.

I ran arma to 85 as a Necro and was breezing through reds in SSF gear. Was lucky enough to spot Prima's post about his leveling experience unascended early enough to respec from Elementalist by second lab saving me a lot of regrets when in limited supply.

Briefly contemplated sticking arma much longer given how strong it was at setting up Crema kill zones for scourges that should have been melting me.

It's funny how our experiences are so different.

I had big issues mapping with arma brand, yet arca brand/vd was a breeze even at 76!

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primaeva wrote:

What do you think about the overlap theory? (I also realise why DD really sucks for mapping - the "cascade part goes off when the mobs are already dead, entirely wasting extra "procs" - whereas VD at least the balls go off into the next packs.)

Yeah, the overlap theory seems to explain a lot of the rng-ness we're seeing.

I haven't got an Awakened Cascade to play with the variance at an extreme, but even with just normal spell cascade I can see the impacts of it pretty clearly. It goes from a permanent 3 pops on every single DD cast to a consistent 6-9 swing on VDs.

Messing with VD quality (comparing Divergent with no added AOE to normal with AOE), spell cascade quality for AOE and even throwing in Inc AOE/Conc changes the averages ever so slightly, but not enough for a meaningful difference so clearly not hitting any significant breakpoints with those changes alone (or I just didn't try the correct combinations).

I had dived in trying to get figures for the offsets on Spell Cascades and Awakened Cascades to try and draw a proper picture of it, before giving up with no success.... but from all of our limited testing experience I think it's safe to say VD much better for mapping and DD much better for bossing (and FPS) without having our exact figures to back it up.

Currently just leveling up my bossing gem now and even at lvl15 DD was blasting through maps thanks to all the corpse scaling.

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primaeva wrote:

I've also been experimenting with "WEE" (Desecrate VD VD) and its working magic - on principle that the monsters you kill are innate corpse generation, so a WEE sort of clones the effect of a recall when pushing really high density 300 Scourge situations (and its instant cast at that point anyway so you're limited by dexterity and not cast speed.)

That's one that hadn't even occurred to me, I was too busy training my muscle memory, but that would be huge for clear. Bonus points for the specific three letter acronym too.

"For the best speed you have to make sure you WEE with your balls."

For stuff like blasting lower level T10 scourge in ~T5 maps you're generating so many corpses with corpse explosions, explody chest explosions, VD balls and even cyclone/WoC kills you'd probably get away going for a WEEE or WEEEE on those.

New memories to be trained. And time to hunt through the DD MTX store I fear :P

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klaymored wrote:

As far as the initial Arma/Cremo build, I'm assuming I should use something similar to the Imexile leveling guide from the OP's original post?

Literally what I used.

At a certain point when I was happy with where the build was and already farming relevant content I ignored imexile's tree and just started taking the more relevant points from Prima's budget/dual wield tree instead to save me some regrets when I made the transition.

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klaymored wrote:

As far as the initial Arma/Cremo build, I'm assuming I should use something similar to the Imexile leveling guide from the OP's original post?

Literally what I used.

At a certain point when I was happy with where the build was and already farming relevant content I ignored imexile's tree and just started taking the more relevant points from Prima's budget/dual wield tree instead to save me some regrets when I made the transition.

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falagar112 wrote:

It's funny how our experiences are so different.

I had big issues mapping with arma brand, yet arca brand/vd was a breeze even at 76!

Fascinating.. Do you have a snapshot of your 76 setup somehow?

- Did you have Awakened Spell Cascade?
- Were your gems 20/21? (particularly Desecrate)
- Leadership's Price, which would be crazy, or... Just Dual-wield?
- What chestpiece? I imagine Inpulsa would be the cheapest, biggest QoL at that price point.

If we can replicate your process maybe we can help all these people trying to transition so early..