Elemental Buzzsaw & Static Strike - Solo the entire game, quickly and cheaply 1.1.0 update

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Altissimus wrote:

You clearly have Alpha's Howl (judging from the freeze mitigation) so I guess that contributes largely. Good to know it's possible to get decent levels without Grace.

Cheers,
A.

Actually Alpha's is must have for this build or else you cannot handle 5 auras and will have less damage.

Also, if you get hybrid armour, of course your chance to evade is going to be weak.

Try not to use hybrid armour, it's generally not that hard. I literally have zero armour and have done since I took off my last levelling unique at level 40 something.

I also took Acrobatics very early on, it's very strong if you don't try to hedge and use armour.

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Dharmatrooper wrote:

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Altissimus wrote:

You clearly have Alpha's Howl (judging from the freeze mitigation) so I guess that contributes largely. Good to know it's possible to get decent levels without Grace.

Cheers,
A.

Actually Alpha's is must have for this build or else you cannot handle 5 auras and will have less damage.

While I agree that Alpha's Howl adds some very nice DPS, mostly because of the +2 to aura gems, it isn't a "must have" for this build.

I'm currently running 4 auras without AH, and my dps is easily enough to clear packs in seconds, solo piety on Merc (which is where I've got to), etc.

I can run wrath, haste, anger, and then one of purity lightning/fire/ice/elements, depending on what I'm going up against. This works fine.

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Altissimus wrote:

I can run wrath, haste, anger, and then one of purity lightning/fire/ice/elements, depending on what I'm going up against. This works fine.

Well, good for you but if you spent just 3-4ex on Alpha's you will save a lot of currency coz you don't need to gather maximum of all three resist. Basicly i don't bother with resist at all, just looking for eva+life on gear and look at my stats i have fire and lightning capped and have 30% cold res even but its fine coz alpha saves me from being frozen and often even being chilled. Chaos is no problem also coz you attack so fast and you out heal incredibly quickly.

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Altissimus wrote:

I'm not sure about Acrobatics.

I think that when you're past level ~85 and you have nothing else to spend your points on, it kinda makes sense...but while levelling it reduces your armour mitigation from crap to even-worse-than-crap.

I'm confused... Why are you concerned about armour? This build is meant to use solely evasive gear. If you stick with evasion only, Acrobatics is INCREDIBLE early on. You don't need much life at first because you rarely get hit thanks to the skill (when you do you can leap/run out of the way and heal), and Acrobatics is extremely efficient; you don't need armour nodes, you don't need nodes that increase evasion rating because your body armour (and Grace, if necessary) gets the job done... you don't even need Phase Acrobatics and Ondar's Guile because your high attack speed and life leech will keep you alive.

I disagree completely. Acrobatics is one of the earlier skills you want to grab as long as you're sticking to evasive gear.

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Dharmatrooper wrote:

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Altissimus wrote:

I can run wrath, haste, anger, and then one of purity lightning/fire/ice/elements, depending on what I'm going up against. This works fine.

Well, good for you but if you spent just 3-4ex on Alpha's you will save a lot of currency coz you don't need to gather maximum of all three resist. Basicly i don't bother with resist at all, just looking for eva+life on gear and look at my stats i have fire and lightning capped and have 30% cold res even but its fine coz alpha saves me from being frozen and often even being chilled. Chaos is no problem also coz you attack so fast and you out heal incredibly quickly.

Oh yes, good point, why didn't I think of that?!

Oh...because I don't HAVE 3 exalt. I have one character at 69 and one at 64 and a couple in mid-30s. My total wealth is probably about 2ex right now.

Unlucky? Doing something wrong? Or simply not yet played enough? I don't know, but I get irritated by the assumption that everyone has 40 exalt sitting in their bank account.

ETA: also using 4L chest. What is a bigger DPS boost - AH, or 6L?

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Tempada wrote:

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Altissimus wrote:

I'm not sure about Acrobatics.

I think that when you're past level ~85 and you have nothing else to spend your points on, it kinda makes sense...but while levelling it reduces your armour mitigation from crap to even-worse-than-crap.

I'm confused... Why are you concerned about armour? This build is meant to use solely evasive gear. If you stick with evasion only, Acrobatics is INCREDIBLE early on. You don't need much life at first because you rarely get hit thanks to the skill (when you do you can leap/run out of the way and heal), and Acrobatics is extremely efficient; you don't need armour nodes, you don't need nodes that increase evasion rating because your body armour (and Grace, if necessary) gets the job done... you don't even need Phase Acrobatics and Ondar's Guile because your high attack speed and life leech will keep you alive.

I disagree completely. Acrobatics is one of the earlier skills you want to grab as long as you're sticking to evasive gear.

It's the last line..."as long as you're sticking to evasive gear". I'm sure you're right. However, I don't have the luxury of cherry-picking evasive gear for levelling purposes. Have to make do with what I have/can afford. I'm sure that if you're playing through for the xteenth time, then evasive gear and therefore Acrobatics makes sense. If you're relatively new, though, and you're using hybrid gear in some cases, then Acrobatics is not a good choice.

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Altissimus wrote:

Unlucky? Doing something wrong? Or simply not yet played enough? I don't know, but I get irritated by the assumption that everyone has 40 exalt sitting in their bank account.

ETA: also using 4L chest. What is a bigger DPS boost - AH, or 6L?

I'd say not playing enough. Can't really expect to have even 4 ex to play with by lvl 70. By 80-85 is when I expect you should be able to afford something like an Alpha's Howl without any great deals of luck.

A 6L is by far a bigger upgrade but it's also a lot more expensive.

Nothing in this build is really "necessary". It's just that an Alpha's Howl gives you the opportunity to run a 2nd purity aura and they're not just about capping your resists. With this spec you get 7 max resist from each purity aura. That's overpowered as fuck and I can't believe I get away with it. It's fire and lightning because that's the types of spell damage that deal the most late game and that's the damage you mostly deal so it negates reflect effects too.

For 1 item to give you all that damage, freeze immune, chill reductions and 70 to a res and 7 max res, it's unbeatable.


As for leveling and Acrobatics, I level with a Tabula Rasa these days on every new character and essentially run 0 eva/armor until I get to 65ish and start putting on real gear. It's all super easy, especially with this spec that you should be able to outplay everything with little defence. I'd usually go Acrobatics a bit later on like 50+. Up until that point even small amounts of evasion can get you 30 or so dodge, which is plenty. As you level your evasion scales worse and Acro comes in handy.

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Mathil wrote:

I'd say not playing enough. Can't really expect to have even 4 ex to play with by lvl 70. By 80-85 is when I expect you should be able to afford something like an Alpha's Howl without any great deals of luck.

Right - but I wasn't complaining about not having it, just saying you can do without it. I will get when I can afford it - I have already attempted to persuade some people to part with theirs for <2ex...sadly didn't come off too well!

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Mathil wrote:

A 6L is by far a bigger upgrade but it's also a lot more expensive.

Yes....and in your opinion is it worth spending currency on a 5l in the inbetween, or saving up and getting a 6?

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Mathil wrote:

Nothing in this build is really "necessary". It's just that an Alpha's Howl gives you the opportunity to run a 2nd purity aura and they're not just about capping your resists. With this spec you get 7 max resist from each purity aura. That's not at all overpowered and I think it's perfectly reasonable in this build, so it doesn't need any nerfing thankyouverymuch and I think it's probably just about worth the investment of points, barely.

Yep, I agree Mathil. Hardly worth going for but I am also running purity auras, and swopping them out as need be. But you're right - deffo not overpowered or anything, just about barely hanging in there. Yep.

I'd definitely get a 5L before I got a 6L.

A 5L to me is pretty much essential for the build while a 6L is a luxury. So get a 5L and use it for as long as you have to before eventually moving to 6L.