[3.10] Bashtart's SPARK INQUISITOR * farming like a god! :)

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knoxv1lle wrote:

Hi bashtart,

first, thanks for the awesome guide!

I saw your charsheet and youre using Maligaros now? Any comments on that, please :-)

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Mr4thQuarter wrote:

Thanks for the great guide, bashtart.

I have a few questions:

1) How do you get 3 curses for Assassin's, Warlord's, and Temporal Chains? I only see +1 curses in the tree.

2) Without the Temporal Chain gloves, can I still use the following setup?
Herald of Ice + Curse on Hit + Assasin's Mark + Ice Bite
CWDT + Warlord's Mark + Immortal Call + Temporal chains (low level)

Thanks!

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VapidActions wrote:

Hey Bash,

As promised, I've dropped by as a fellow sparker to leave a couple comments on the build.

So the first thing I noticed was the use of faster projectiles. This practice was dropped back in 2.3. The reason for this is before 2.3 spark projectiles were able to "shotgun" by bouncing off of walls resetting their hit cooldown and were able to rapidly hit a target by rapidly bouncing. However in 2.3 they patched it so spark can only hit the same target once per second. With too much projectile speed spark is likely to hit the target, then bounce back through the target before its hit cooldown is reached. The increased duration helps a bit with this, but it's not really worth losing all the *more* damage modifiers you can get from other supports.

I noticed this in your videos that you have some trouble with high health targets that aren't in an enclosed area. Even with all that duration and proj speed you in "theory" can go from 3 potential hits to ... 3 potential hits per spark. All that bouncing just looks fancy, it actually doesn't accomplish much. It also doesn't offer more clear speed, because spark dissipates after moving 150 units from you. So it moving so fast may actually slow you down since you have to keep re-casting as it speeds away and dissipates instead of "riding" the sparks along. I can see your point of constantly being surrounded by sparks, but honestly something's getting hit, or it's not there to get hit with spark. Spark is purdy good at "hitting all the things".

The next thing I noticed was the Vinktars without any shock immunity flask. That's a very scary proposition. In order for it to be effective you have to be almost in melee range. The leech is nice, but taking 50% more damage is not so nice.

Winds of change have a nice chunk of increased proj damage, but that's a lot of defenses you're losing out on (see above RE: projectile speed). particularly in a CI build, you're throwing away a ton of potential ES for that proj damage. Using shield charge as movement, the movement speed also hurts (shield charge is movement speed dependent).

I mentioned the ice golem in my build thread, but lightning golem will do a lot more for you. Less so as an inquisitor with all your cast speed, but it still comes out ahead.

I think the tree looks pretty good overall. A pain on "can not leech" maps due to the lack of mana regen, but I see that's why you're running a mana flask. It's not a downside, just a trade off. Though not running Atziri's Promise for 15% more damage as chaos is a big loss. I'd take atziri's over vinktar's any day of the week in a ranged inquisitor build.
Say your base damage is 3200, with a 3.3 cast speed (ignoring crit, as crit is a multiplier that applies equally)

Vinktars: (3200+53.5)*3.3 = 10736.55 dps
Atziri: (3200*3.3)*1.15 = 12144 dps
Atziri is offering 13% more dps than vinktars. Is 20% leech taking 50% more damage worth 2% leech on 13% more damage? not to mention the costs of the two flasks. You're shocking things anyways with spark, so the guaranteed shock is meaningless.

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bashtart wrote:

-Projectile speed: I am not sure that I can agree with you on this one... because 20% quality gives 10% attack & cast speed, 69% increase projectile speed and 29% increased projectile damage. I am also not convinced that in most maps it will hit less with more projectile speed... I think that is only the case in open maps. What would you suggest taking instead of projectile speed ? Increased Crit Damage?

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bashtart wrote:

-High health targets: yeah they sometimes can be a problem... I also considered "increased spark damage" instead of "additional spark projectiles" enchant in helmet, what do you think about that?

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bashtart wrote:

-Vinktar / Atziri: I do not feel the 50% more damage is a problem while using vinktar... its normally get leeched easy. Atm I use both Vinktar and Atziri.

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bashtart wrote:

-Winds of change: I agree with you that on this item slot we have a few different options. Atm I am using Maligaro's Virtuosity because I got one cheap with temporal chains on hit.

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bashtart wrote:

-Lightning / Ice golem: I am testing it atm but I think I will go in the future with lightning golem. You kinda convinced me and also playing feels good :)

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bashtart wrote:

-Spell Echo: I am not sure about this one... but those the second cast of spark(spell echo) count as seperate cast? So when I cast it once I have two casts which both can hit the same enemey?

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VapidActions wrote:

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bashtart wrote:

-Projectile speed: I am not sure that I can agree with you on this one... because 20% quality gives 10% attack & cast speed, 69% increase projectile speed and 29% increased projectile damage. I am also not convinced that in most maps it will hit less with more projectile speed... I think that is only the case in open maps. What would you suggest taking instead of projectile speed ? Increased Crit Damage?

Added lightning damage, increased crit damage, controlled destruction, hypothermia - pick your poison. Hypothermia would be balanced survivability and damage, controlled destruction would offer the most damage, then increased crit damage and added lightning damage are kind of tied depending on your combat crit chance and base damage. The 10% cast speed isn't bad, but 29% increased projectile damage is pitiful (increased damage vs other supports more damage multipliers) and with all the cast speed you have as an inquisitor, 10% isn't adding a ton. With spell echo's "more" cast speed, additional cast speed above 58% has a quickly diminishing return - which is easy to hit as inquisitor.

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bashtart wrote:

-High health targets: yeah they sometimes can be a problem... I also considered "increased spark damage" instead of "additional spark projectiles" enchant in helmet, what do you think about that?

Changing out your support gems to *more* multipliers instead of additive increased damage will help greatly with this. I personally think the projectile count is worth it, but not as much with your proj speed build bouncing everything everywhere. Basically all you're getting with that proj speed is "coverage", the same thing increased proj count offers.

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VapidActions wrote:

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bashtart wrote:

-Vinktar / Atziri: I do not feel the 50% more damage is a problem while using vinktar... its normally get leeched easy. Atm I use both Vinktar and Atziri.

Need to look at the bigger picture. 50% increased damage makes it 50% easier to get oneshot (or one-two slapped back to your momma), particularly by a boss or a devourer. And you might say "but I have lots of ES, even with 50% more damage taken I can tank it like a boss".

You know what you don't have lots of? Life. And life is still used for stun calculations (your life before CI effects it). 50% increased damage taken also means it's 50% easier to get stunned, and 50% easier to get stun locked. And when you're stunned, you're not leeching, you're not blocking, and you're not dodging. All you're doing is dying 50% faster.

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VapidActions wrote:

You could respec to pious path to deal with shock freeze and ignite in one fell swoop (though be aware it doesn't remove these effects, only prevents them from being applied once on consecrated ground). It would also give a decent amount of ES regen, and a massive amount of mana regen (as the 4% of mana regenerated is amplified by your =% increased mana regen) removing the necessity for a mana flask. Augury doesn't extend nearly as far as spark's clearing and it's only 5% less cast speed than instruments of virtue. Sure, it's a bit slower movement from the lost attack speed while not on consecrated ground but It's certainly an option.

Keep in mind that Vinktar's leech is only lightning damage - so with your conversion it's actually less than 8% leech and spark only has a 70% effectiveness with additional base damage. Which is still a lot of leech, but you're not getting anywhere near the potential of the flask.