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

Hey Potatontas, you should definitely read the last 5-10 pages if you haven't, there's been a lot of talks about mana problems and a few solutions, mainly having damage recouped as mana as well as clarity. Primaeva also just suggested using Vaal clarity which I think is a great idea.

For the damage going to 0 sometimes, if you're generating volatile dead projectiles it is weird indeed, I'd say you probably went a bit ham on the block remnants and you had a lot of "shield" mobs stacked, if you have a lot of them they tend to "cover all angles" and nothing can damage them, it's quite a pain.

Yeah, there were a lot of the shield guys. Haven't noticed that on my previous build that much, so that might have been it. I think the damage drop on bosses I felt was mainly mana. I didn't have that much damage coming my way so no recoup, so only a little actual casting going on. I'll definitely check the mana convo as I feel that's the only shortcoming of what I made of the build. Thanks!



I also just realized I didn't make my STR and Int equal. Well. I guess reading was never my strongest suit.

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IceColdPorkSoda wrote:

What you say makes good sense. You’re the expert on the build, maybe I will go back to the two brand setup. Maybe I’ll make a AHK macro that casts the two brands perfectly every time :)

I do like the EB/MoM with ES leech. Since we’re using huge amounts of ES we are always leeching, so it’s 100% uptime on the 39% more damage multiplier.

Hmm there could be room for a swap however, you are absolutely right that QoL is really high on mapping. If you convert it to a white socket, you can put Desecrate in place of Inspiration when clearing normal T16 maps - then on conqs/sirus/maven, just bring the Inspiration / FirePen back and use the regular Desecrate brand!!!

This would be the best of both worlds.

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IceColdPorkSoda wrote:

Cane of kulemak might be one of the top two or three unique weapons in the game right now.
If you know what mods it can roll it can do truly amazing things for your build.

Oh dude Horrendous News (or rather, good since you, me and Mana already secured some good canes thanks to your early mentioning it) - Mathil actually started a Cane of Kulemak build two days ago. XD

The good news is, I was experimenting with a few different Canes so I actually sold some for a handsome profit yesterday, aha!!

But if we want to change Canes anymore, there is a lot of competition now.

Well, if mathil’s build is fire based, maybe I can jack my 6 link back up to 10 ex!

Haha wow, I've never been great at formatting forum replies but I guess I shoudl try to emulate your clean style!

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Diacred wrote:

That's interesting, but isn't Arcane Surge also about +20% MORE damage? It seems kind of shame to lose that much damage.

Ah! So the delta between, say a Level 9 Arcane Surge (which is my Flame Dash + Recall) and a Level 20 is only a 6% more multiplier - so firstly you have to weigh if the L20 Arcane Surge on your Desecrate is throttling your casts more than it delivers that 120/114% = (5.2%) damage.

.. and more importantly, it's a SPELL damage multiplier. This is related somewhat to the 1h+shield vs dual wield vs Staff route we have to plan around.

VD has an interesting thing to build around - spell % damage, spell more modifiers and spell crit and spell mult totally do NOT affect the corpse explosion component, which is easily 60% or more of single-target damage.

(here's the calculator for this build that will show you the theoretical breakdown, among other things) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DG38nur_Yw9yDygdiV-Wg6heSodhQJjGKPMUkPafB0g/edit

So in reality, the difference between a L9 and L20 Arcane Surge would be 5.2% * 40/100 = 2% damage, but your Desecrate drains that much more mana each tick! Once we find a miraculous mana solution (I'd keep Skitterbots around because it's quite a huge multiplier onb osses), then the L20 Arcane Surge route will make sense again.


[...]

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Diacred wrote:

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primaeva wrote:

OH! I forgot to mention one thing: here is my version of Arctic Armour preventing freezes: An Idiot-proof CWDT loop.

https://streamable.com/aegb8x

(Yes, this is T16 crit map damage being soaked xD)

EDIT: On that note, maybe Vaal Clarity is the play. The only time you truly need the mana at full pump is when unloading on a Guardian/ElderGuardian/Conqueror, so you should have Vaal Charges. Let the brands ramp to full, then pop Vaal Clarity.. Bam, 14 seconds of unlimited mana!! (9.9 * 40% skill effect duration from Ascendancy).

Not sure I understood your CWDT loop for preventing freeze? The video isn't really clear about it apart from the fact that you are indeed not getting frozen :p

And gosh thanks for the Vaal Clarity idea, I always forget about it, that's an amazing idea and will help tremendously.

Haha not exactly Look at my status bar - I was getting perma-frozen in that clip. But CWDT-Ball Lightning fires off repeatedly and instantly makes you almost immortal in a LOT of situations. Watch the health and ES globe again! It's basically Vaal Pact on drugs. :D

I know this isn't what you meant by Freeze immunity per se, but I think what I am trying to say is, you will -really- want an explode chest or Inpulsa. The build clears fine without it, but in Logbooks and max-juiced maps, Explosions are just too good to pass up. You'll see! I'll drop some vids over the next few hours :)

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Diacred wrote:

That's interesting, I might need to try this, right now I just went for the least expensive option and I'll probably try it when I'll get more currency, but right now I am theorycrafting another version using a Rune Dagger + Shield.

Yup, there is definitely room for a 1h+Shield build, especially since some shields are bonkers. The Shield Route is highly recommended for HC because some shields legit make you immortal, yes!

But in terms of raw damage, back to spell crit and spell mult not affecting corpse explosions. The Staff route was eventually favoured for this build because of Serpent Stance and Counterweight (plus Duskdawn was an amazing DPS boost and A8 Sirus-capable starter item). These provide global crit chance and crit mult which is really rare. Canes also have the mad advantage of being able to roll up to 200% Fire Damage as well, scaling both the explosion + spell!

So you may consider building around a scepter instead because of the elemental damage implicit! After all, with 15% brittle, the build is very often crit-capped anyway (or at 80%+ levels).

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Diacred wrote:

I don't like the fact that with a staff, Glancing Blow and max block is pretty much wasted, it tends to only be worth it if you have %life recovered on block.

[...]

On top of that you'd get +2 to Volatile Dead level which would compensate the loss of damage.

Yeah! Although, you kinda do have ~6% HP gained on block innately with Bone Offering + Mistress of Sacrifice!! (594 * 0.5 = 300 HP on block, 300/5000 = 6%.)

On the +2 to VD - again, it only scales the balls, not the explosions :( Map level and Raise Spectre types are the only way to scale that (along with the 30% health nodes from the Undertaker cluster.)

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Diacred wrote:

I've been also wondering if Unearth instead of Life Gained On Hit on the cyclone setup wouldn't be a good idea. It generates lvl 81 corpses that can be consumed by your VD brand, bone offering as well as Disciple Of Kitava. It also hits which means it'd give health back with the life gained on spell hit on the rings.

Would love to know what you think of it.

Cheers

Ah! Whoops! I dropped LGOH eventually because it wasn't worth a slot I reckon (if anything, put in Mana Leech now or something or just put in Wave of Conviction or Combustion for resist shred).

But as to Unearth - unearth corpses themselves have very very very little HP unless you invest scaling it up to level 28 or something. Second, it fires a miserable 1 corpse unless supported by GMP, and third, it fires once every second assuming you have Bone Offering and Flammability in the loop. So that additional 1 corpse per second may not be doing much. It WILL help a bit though because Bone Offering spam if you keep cycloning DOES eat a few corpses. Once you settle into it though, you usually learn to just Cyclone to debuff and Fortify on the boss, then you can alt-tab while your brands wreck him. (Not the most updated - I pack way more damage now - but https://streamable.com/xvdhvr).


Yep, keep those questions coming! And please try out the Shield route and post some insane immortal videos! (like Sirus Die Beam tanking) XD

Ah hey! Another fellow build player! :D

The 12ex version definitely addresses that, primarily through Mystic Bulwark! With Bone Offering up, you have 62% Spell Block. That's converted into 62% Mana Regen! On top of that, I've levelled Clarity up to L15, leaving about 200 mana in the tank.

I honestly am still tweaking / experimenting how to 'uncap' the build because any time the mana hits 0, it's a DPS loss. Right now, my only answer is Vaal Clarity on Map Boss / Guardian / Conqueror for about 12-14 seconds of infinite mana.

But for add-light bosses such as Shaper/UElder/Maven I will dedicate some time to figuring out what the play is. It could very well that we have to dedicate Lavianga's for it! To be honest, I could do with one less life flask with how tanky / replenishy the build is, so that's a good stop-gap as well.

OH! I totally forgot to answer two other things.

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Potatontas wrote:

... although millions of balls were spawning amongst them. The survi is great, I rarely die and often see that any source of dmg is immediately replenished.

Hmm, are the Balls actually spawning or is it just the animation of two Desecrates ticking on the boss? If the Balls are spawning and league content isn't dying, it's could be because you missed the "Hits Against Monsters Cannot Be Critical Strikes" mod - I see you're on Leadership, which it's possible means you start hitting them for 100% crit all the time and the damage is invalidated, or something!

A clip would be the most useful in this case for determining what's up.

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Potatontas wrote:

Would the watcher clarity mod that recovers 10% mana solve it completely? That would be either pricey or would cost the ES on hit, but technically I still get it from Spider+boots.

I tried it out, sadly, it STILL doesn't count as a "use" when the brand ticks. Bummer!!

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Potatontas wrote:

Another question: what spectres are you using this league? Primal CrushClaws or the delve ones, or something new?

Oh, you use Delve ones, they provide the highest net increase. (Stoneskin Flayers + Lithomancers). PM me in-game if I'm online and you can grab em (courtesy of ManaDrained, who solo carried us to Lithos + Flayers BY HIMSELF what a chad)

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primaeva wrote:

Haha wow, I've never been great at formatting forum replies but I guess I shoudl try to emulate your clean style!

<3 Thanks, I find it confusing otherwise :p

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primaeva wrote:

So in reality, the difference between a L9 and L20 Arcane Surge would be 5.2% * 40/100 = 2% damage, but your Desecrate drains that much more mana each tick! Once we find a miraculous mana solution (I'd keep Skitterbots around because it's quite a huge multiplier onb osses), then the L20 Arcane Surge route will make sense again.

Very interesting take on arcane surge, I ended up removing it. Not sure if I feel the difference either mana wise or damage wise, but at least I have one more gem slot available.

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primaeva wrote:

Haha not exactly Look at my status bar - I was getting perma-frozen in that clip. But CWDT-Ball Lightning fires off repeatedly and instantly makes you almost immortal in a LOT of situations. Watch the health and ES globe again! It's basically Vaal Pact on drugs. :D

On that note, I used the free gem slot and also removed steelskin, I now have a CWDT + Immortal Call + Increased duration + Ball lightning setup, I also removed Kitava's Disciple (5% life regen per second is kind of moot when you already regen on block and from ascendancy / ball lightning) and replaced it with a "Rote Reinforcement" cluster jewel (4% more block + max life + 20% chance to gain endurance charge when you block), which is great for survivability through IC and the endurance charges themselves.

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primaeva wrote:

Yup, there is definitely room for a 1h+Shield build, especially since some shields are bonkers. The Shield Route is highly recommended for HC because some shields legit make you immortal, yes!

[...]

So you may consider building around a scepter instead because of the elemental damage implicit! After all, with 15% brittle, the build is very often crit-capped anyway (or at 80%+ levels).

I went the Scepter + Shield route to give it a try, found the two items for under 1ex, they are not perfect but good enough to try my idea:


I do feel way more tanky, not immortal yet because my HP pool is too low (4.2k life and 1.8k ES) and I still get the occasional one shot from god knows where but it feels very good being this tanky. The damage while mapping is at least as good, bossing damage is clearly lacking though but it was already lacking with a staff so I might just switch to DD for bossing.
It also does help to have mana on block on the shield but sadly it's not enough, even with it my mana eventually goes down to 0 even with an enduring, it's just too much cast speed :p Vaal clarity definitely helps for those tough encounters tho.

Gonna continue experimenting with all this, might go back to a cane of kulmac when I'll have the currency but not sure either, I kind of love the tankiness, I just need to find a way to make bossing faster (might just have to go for Leadership) :D

I am missing the specters though so I'll probably try to message you IG during the day if you don't mind.

Thanks a lot for all your very clear and instructive answers!

Guys, if you can give eldritch battery a try. With energy leech support my energy shield never drops and it’s a huge 39% more damage multiplier because you’re always leeching. I’ll test build without energy leech support and take the light eater cluster instead and report back.