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

" primaeva wrote: " IceColdPorkSoda wrote: https://pastebin.com/L7B19phx Here's my take on the build. Single brand set-up. EB/MoM. I need to improve my gear a lot but I like the way it feels to play more than I did when descerate and VD were on separate brands. It makes mapping way smoother when I'm not lagging incredibly hard. Hey! GeForce Now actually launched yesterday in my country! While it actually performed worse for me because I have a relatively up-to-date rig, my friends actually got it to hold at 50FPS on a TABLET. I'm not sure if that's a solution for you (be silly to pay a sub just to play PoE) but I'm thinking it's not a bad interim patch till you save up for a next big upgrade. P.S. On single brands - it will do fine for mapping, but, how do I put this - you will be DPSing at 1/2 damage on bosses / single target, just by the nature of the fact that Brand 1: Desecrate - VD1 - Desecrate - VD1 - Desecrate - VD1 Brand 2: ... Desecrate - VD2 - Desecrate - VD2 - Desecrate - VD2 Do you see - there are times where there is a max of 12 corpses on the floor, then VD 1 eats all 12. VD 2 casts, but nothing happens. The only way around this is to drop brands at a frame within 33ms (server tick rate IIRC) so VD1 sits RIGHT atop Desecrate 2. ... On top of dropping a link for a single brand setup, you're actually doing about 33% of the damage of a double-brand setup. Now, that could feel fine because the build with Leadership absolutely wrecks some other builds even at a third the power, but it's still not the maxmimum you can squeeze from the build!! So as it turns out I misunderstood a fundamental part of the core arcanist brand mechanics. I thought the arcanist brand cast every linked spell on every activation, but after rereading the wiki I realized that it alternates the linked spell in the normal top left to bottom right order. I might keep the single brand setup for mapping because it feels so much smoother and I don’t need more damage, but I’ll use a dual brand setup for bossing. This would also explain why I had such an easy time sustaining ES with eldritch battery. With the dual brand setup I’ll have to probably use energy leech support in addition to the light eater cluster.	Posted by IceColdPorkSoda on Aug 16, 2021, 4:02:48 PM Quote this Post
" Diacred wrote: Do you use MoM with it? Because when using MoM I am permanently out of energy shield, but without it practically never goes down which just solves all the mana problems, but I lose quite a bit of survavibility (1800 ES) Okay so the big difference was my single brand setup. Now that I’ve switched to the dual brand setup it’s tough to maintain my ES.	Posted by IceColdPorkSoda on Aug 16, 2021, 4:45:41 PM Quote this Post
" IceColdPorkSoda wrote: Okay so the big difference was my single brand setup. Now that I’ve switched to the dual brand setup it’s tough to maintain my ES. That explains it, but with the boot enchant + mana reduced on flask + ES leech it might be fine with EB. I farmed the lab a few hours yesterday to get the reduced mana boots enchant and I can safely say that I have no more mana issue, it feels so much smoother. But I am not using EB so I have my enduring mana flask + 300 mana regen as well	Posted by Diacred on Aug 17, 2021, 4:28:50 AM Quote this Post
" Diacred wrote: " IceColdPorkSoda wrote: Okay so the big difference was my single brand setup. Now that I’ve switched to the dual brand setup it’s tough to maintain my ES. That explains it, but with the boot enchant + mana reduced on flask + ES leech it might be fine with EB. I farmed the lab a few hours yesterday to get the reduced mana boots enchant and I can safely say that I have no more mana issue, it feels so much smoother. But I am not using EB so I have my enduring mana flask + 300 mana regen as well Oh my god, a few hours of lab gagging it took that mana runs?? 💥💫BB Unloader 1000% AoE 70m DPS🗡️🔪🔫: view-thread/3466787 FlickerCoC Ice Nova / Spear Assassin: view-thread/3225536 🔨⚡CWC Lightning Conduit Mjolner Trickster: view-thread/3300148 VD Arcanist Brand Necro: view-thread/2911667	Posted by primaeva on Aug 17, 2021, 6:42:04 AM Quote this Post
" ducminh1712 wrote: Actually I've bought all the gear and will start leveling a necro tomorrow. I just need some explain about the tankiness of the build. We do have 50% spell block and attack block capped, however in POB, effective HP against phys is only 15k which IMO kind of low. Is it lying number on POB or am I missing something? Firstly, small hits will NEVER kill us because of CWDT-Ball Lightning. E.G. I was perma frozen here but just couldn't die. It will happen a lot if you play the build: https://streamable.com/aegb8x For Phys hits, who better to test big hits from than our friend Shaper with his slam. https://streamable.com/cuhjco The tankiness comes probably from Fortify (20% Less Hits) + Plaguebringer (Enemies Deal 10% Less) + Sap (Enemies Deal up to 20% Less). Combine that with a rapidly replenishing pool of 7-9k HP + ES, and you could effectively tank many many more medium hits than a 6.5k pure life but phys reduction char. In one of the slams, Shaper hits me for 2.7k damage, lol. And then, because of Life + ES on HIT, we regen to full. There are a LOT of builds out there without instant on-hit or rely on slow ramping leech. We do none of that shit here. Full tank again baby! Hope you enjoy the build! It's in a very good place in 3.15 compared to a lot of builds I reckon. 💥💫BB Unloader 1000% AoE 70m DPS🗡️🔪🔫: view-thread/3466787 FlickerCoC Ice Nova / Spear Assassin: view-thread/3225536 🔨⚡CWC Lightning Conduit Mjolner Trickster: view-thread/3300148 VD Arcanist Brand Necro: view-thread/2911667 Last edited by primaeva on Aug 18, 2021, 1:34:59 AM	Posted by primaeva on Aug 17, 2021, 7:56:35 AM Quote this Post
" primaeva wrote: Oh my god, a few hours of lab gagging it took that mana runs?? Yup, I got pretty unlucky there :'( Found the mana regen at least 4 times before I found the mana reduced too	Posted by Diacred on Aug 18, 2021, 2:33:14 PM Quote this Post
Would you please explain how the cwdt + ball lightning bit improves survivability so much?	Posted by SoulGambit on Aug 18, 2021, 9:33:24 PM Quote this Post
life gain and es gain on hit combined with rapid hits from ball lightning. edit: also have an uber atziri kill and a sloppy maven I can share later too, idk if we need more boss footage since its just faceroll after a certain point tbh but gonna get a feared soon at least. uber atziri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuiU30un-0A&t=1s scuffed maven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QXBmuqIfBo Last edited by Manadrained on Aug 19, 2021, 12:28:27 AM	Posted by Manadrained on Aug 18, 2021, 9:56:11 PM Quote this Post
" Manadrained wrote: life gain and es gain on hit combined with rapid hits from ball lightning. edit: also have an uber atziri kill and a sloppy maven I can share later too, idk if we need more boss footage since its just faceroll after a certain point tbh but gonna get a feared soon at least. uber atziri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuiU30un-0A&t=1s scuffed maven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QXBmuqIfBo Ugh, Maven. Aside from the fact that she isn't profitable at all, I can play as clean as a fiddle but screw up memory game EVERY. DAMN. TIME. I should only do her in the daytime when I'm awake. (seriously is my memory that bad) 💥💫BB Unloader 1000% AoE 70m DPS🗡️🔪🔫: view-thread/3466787 FlickerCoC Ice Nova / Spear Assassin: view-thread/3225536 🔨⚡CWC Lightning Conduit Mjolner Trickster: view-thread/3300148 VD Arcanist Brand Necro: view-thread/2911667	Posted by primaeva on Aug 19, 2021, 12:44:21 PM Quote this Post
Maybe its just been too long since I played brands, which was before the duration and recall changes, but I am struggling a bit understanding the play style for mapping... I could swear that I have everything setup right it just feels a bit clunky having to stop to cast both brands, wait a tick for the balls to get up and moving. Then, when it kills stuff, is recalling the best bet or just recasting it on the next pack since the duration seems to be pretty low? I am betting most of this is just not playing with the build long enough but figured I would ask, how do you guys play this? Is it alot of brand recalls or alot of just recasting both brands on each pack?	Posted by wtsmith on Aug 19, 2021, 7:34:19 PM Quote this Post