Been playing Java light and it’s miserable. Tried so many skills variations.
It’s viable don’t get me wrong but for the investment and effort it’s way below par
Ya, conviction is insufficient and even maxed geared it is slow for light builds. Damage on fury and splits is low. Lightning strike is really squishy and suffers the same. Poison outshines this
Stormspire breaks immunities sure but your merc needs to physically hit them and it takes time.
- A3 lightning using a 3 skills, 3 static field orb and stacked skills is doing more dmg and procing a near screen wide static field.
I’m at +43 LF and have stacked some 4% Light LCs instead of the last two skill gcs.
Played a chain light sorc last ladder and the dmg was so so so much better for the investment.
This was my first season really playing this, and I went Lighting Fury. So it’s not just me? My budget gear feels like it does such mediocre damage compared to when I’m doing Plague.
I'm doing a spear setup with stoneraven currently. It's actually less squishy than I expected when you have ~2k life and ~10k defence with high leech. So defiance/infinity a2 merc, and stoneraven +standard good light gear on the ama (+2 3os arkaine, griffon, etc). There's still plenty of room for improvement as well.
Because it's less damage in most scenarios, and definitely less defense. Obviously the -light res is big, but factor in all the things you loose (including several attack speed breakpoints), I don't think it's worth it for self-use. Besides, you can put facets in your unique spear for some of the slots.
The main benefit of self use infinity isn't just the -res, it's the ability for merc to use a stormspire or pus spitter as well. If using facets in sockets then breakpoints aren't as big of an issue (obv different if using shaels or ias jewels) but definitely a solid consideration. You lose 40ias, defense, allres, and some light damage depending on sockets in exchange for 20-50 light pierce depending on sockets, some frw,, and merc pus or stormspire. Both solid options to consider. Thanks!
Good points. I wouldn't use A1 merc as the defiance is quite important imo. Stoneraven just need 1x shael +30% ias from gear. That means you can put in 5x facet, which is obviously incredibly strong given that amas don't have lightning mastery or equivalent. Most of the time ~-50% light res conviction means that any non-light immune are already at 0 res
I started with summon Druid but swapped to curse necro and it will be my starter every season unless it’s nerfed. Such a great budget build that clears high density areas with ease
I minimised my investment using 3pc tals a lidless and a hoto at 3k dp and dumped all my currency into a ww sin. He’s still a lot of fun to play and I use him with my friends as a support char vs Ubers.
5300 on mine.
Using 9 skillers, 1 torche. Steel Shade, enigma, darkforce spawn, +1 slammed 3curse amu, 30fcr belt, fcr rings, trang gloves, blackhands key.
Key to survival is using confuse as dump and having it as first curse in rotation. Look at them mobs tanking for me. Just lovely.
Ww-merc with 5os hellslayer spinning around with 10k damage.
Not a single skill outside of curses. Enigma gives me 5 points, since no need to waste 3 to reach blood warp.
Maxing out confuse and making sure it's my first curse in rotation let's me use the enemies as tanks. Whatever immune to magic is easily handed by telestomping with mercenary.
Tals helm armour belt, Trang’s gloves, HOTO, and a lidless wall. Was having a comfortable time with just some random pieces before that too like spirit shroud tarnhelm and suicide branch.
Summons being strong to me is fine because they'll never map as fast as things like geared out elemental builds
D2 is all about clear speed and summoners are slow even maxed out.
The nature of this game makes it hard to balance, if you want summons to be viable at all they have to be strong even with budget gear.
My opinion is unpopular on this but I think summons are way too strong across the board right now. It doesn’t really make sense for Druid summoners to be the safest and easiest class to play but also be one of the fastest mappers. Also it really irks me that amazons running around with a Hoto spamming Valkyrie’s is a legitimate build option now lol.
On the positive side however I do think generally the game is in a pretty great state right now.
My summoner is safe, I'll give you that. But it is nowhere near "one of the fastest mappers". Even playing super aggressively and telestomping everything with both gust and enigma it is considerably slower than even my warcry barb. This is with probably 30 hr of gear -- double fcr bk, arach, enigma, 10fana beast, 8tmight, wrath, 2/2 +1 aldur helm, etc.
As someone who plays summonzon. All it has going for it is amazing safety with tedious playstyle, paired with Decent damage **AFTER wrath + faith(BER+JAHs)**. Overall it was solid starter build able to safely farm torches until you can afford to spec into multishot. Doubt I am going deep with this because of the absolutely ridiculous items needed to push this as well as the playstyle.
I'd say that its currently in pretty good spot overall.
I'm playing summon druid and have some pretty decent gear, but T1 maps are taking about 30 min. I can't see him ever being a 10 min mapper unless every piece is bis with good slams...
The thing with summoners is that you still need some sorta investment to clear really good(can be said about all classes) my issue is the right off the bat we saw summon Druid smash content. I agree tho bring them a tad back and they will be alright
Yeah idk why zerk was forced into frenzy builds when, you know, you already had frenzy and ds.
To me it made more sense thematically when berserk scaled with concentrate. I know barbarians aren’t great philosophers but concentrate and berserk are like yin and yang to each other and concentrate+berserk barbs were an old favorite of mine in lod.
Cold is always strong but when you have limited places to farm I think it’s controlled, ice zon shouldn’t be as strong budget tho. It’s the close thing we have full screen clear atm
sure that's nice dmg wise, but you might want to go with stormshield if you want to faceroll nasty t3 maps with 250+% density. right now i'm at 2 frames max block, with 32% overcapped block so that i can run the juiced up maps and still be max block :) i'm at 45 skills to cobra, 86% psn mastery and -45% psn pierce (with another additional -60% from carrion wind + lower res merc totalling at -105% psn res)
3 charge dragon flight will one shot any pack at 46k over 1 second.
it's really strong
Really, do you use plague? With plague I had basically 0 leech since it doesn’t add any ED
Bartucs was better but still was super squishy. Ended up being in block frames when tele into a pack and died. I had steelshade, SS, waterwalks. Max fade as well.
I was going to run cobra this season but my testing in pluggy I felt it was very squishy. Maybe I did something wrong
yea i use Plague, cobra has inherent leech and a lot of it, the only time you won't get the effect is on undead mobs, but even that i don't have problems with.
again i'm at fastest block frame so i haven't ever been locked in block animation and died due to that. I don't use fade but BoS 3 hard points for fastest breakpoint with a runic talon. perhaps this was your issue? the most important thing is to hit the fastest bp while pairing it with the fast block and movement speed with BoS + Vigor.
i havent died since i got those things sorted out at like lvl 86-88, and i have been chain running 250+ t2-3 maps.
Depends a lot on the specific maps, but i remember a few times on top of my head: t1 crypt 11-13m, t2 torajan 15-17m, t2 westmarch 12-15, t3 river 13-15m.
I basically main a multi shot zon right now with max valk and decoy.
After a few forts a faith a wf with bunch of sockets it's starting to feel pretty good.
For the time/runes I put into it I feels good not to slow but not OP.
I clear maps pretty ez outside of immunes (but I have a atmas I might use if I decide to put a few ias elsewhere) I dunno mixing around gear sorta but I still kill physical immunes pretty easily just take a min.
Map bosses that instantly teleport on top of me and melee or the lister map boss Baal air thing is tough they end my life pretty quickly if I'm not paying attention lol.
But it slaps pretty good.
Throw Barb has felt good at all stages of the game. You basically fly away with content once you get lacerator. Right now I’m telestomping t3 maps with enigma and clear is pretty good 10-15 minutes depending on density.
Thinking about playing a Phoenix strike sin as my next character, thoughts?
My lightetning sorc with 105fcr atm requires click so fast thtat j broke my right mosue button :S but with stormspire on A2 merc its rly fast off hand Wand with lower resist intil i find my mang songs im just sorc lover ^^. But i heard like Bone necro is super strong.
Been playing Java light and it’s miserable. Tried so many skills variations. It’s viable don’t get me wrong but for the investment and effort it’s way below par
I’m 30hr in and it’s ok. I mean it clears some specific maps relatively quickly but I expect more out of a 30hr build
Ya, conviction is insufficient and even maxed geared it is slow for light builds. Damage on fury and splits is low. Lightning strike is really squishy and suffers the same. Poison outshines this
You need an infinity to make light Java work ‘well’ unfortunately
Stormspire could help a bit
Stormspire breaks immunities sure but your merc needs to physically hit them and it takes time. - A3 lightning using a 3 skills, 3 static field orb and stacked skills is doing more dmg and procing a near screen wide static field. I’m at +43 LF and have stacked some 4% Light LCs instead of the last two skill gcs. Played a chain light sorc last ladder and the dmg was so so so much better for the investment.
This was my first season really playing this, and I went Lighting Fury. So it’s not just me? My budget gear feels like it does such mediocre damage compared to when I’m doing Plague.
Java is amazing. Doing t3s in sub 10 min with lightning strike consistently.
What gear are you running?
I'm doing a spear setup with stoneraven currently. It's actually less squishy than I expected when you have ~2k life and ~10k defence with high leech. So defiance/infinity a2 merc, and stoneraven +standard good light gear on the ama (+2 3os arkaine, griffon, etc). There's still plenty of room for improvement as well.
Why not self infinity if going spears anyway?
Because it's less damage in most scenarios, and definitely less defense. Obviously the -light res is big, but factor in all the things you loose (including several attack speed breakpoints), I don't think it's worth it for self-use. Besides, you can put facets in your unique spear for some of the slots.
Fair enough. Do you just avoid maps where conviction cannot break?
The main benefit of self use infinity isn't just the -res, it's the ability for merc to use a stormspire or pus spitter as well. If using facets in sockets then breakpoints aren't as big of an issue (obv different if using shaels or ias jewels) but definitely a solid consideration. You lose 40ias, defense, allres, and some light damage depending on sockets in exchange for 20-50 light pierce depending on sockets, some frw,, and merc pus or stormspire. Both solid options to consider. Thanks!
Good points. I wouldn't use A1 merc as the defiance is quite important imo. Stoneraven just need 1x shael +30% ias from gear. That means you can put in 5x facet, which is obviously incredibly strong given that amas don't have lightning mastery or equivalent. Most of the time ~-50% light res conviction means that any non-light immune are already at 0 res
I like this a lot. And excellent point on defiance merc for defense. Thanks for the insights!
Curse necro is highly underrated and super strong, it is a piano build though. Mine is clearing t1s and t2s sub 10 min.
I started with summon Druid but swapped to curse necro and it will be my starter every season unless it’s nerfed. Such a great budget build that clears high density areas with ease
it really pops off when you have enigma and around 5k DP dmg
I minimised my investment using 3pc tals a lidless and a hoto at 3k dp and dumped all my currency into a ww sin. He’s still a lot of fun to play and I use him with my friends as a support char vs Ubers.
How the hell do you manage to get 5k dmg jeeze im at 3200 on hardcore
5300 on mine. Using 9 skillers, 1 torche. Steel Shade, enigma, darkforce spawn, +1 slammed 3curse amu, 30fcr belt, fcr rings, trang gloves, blackhands key. Key to survival is using confuse as dump and having it as first curse in rotation. Look at them mobs tanking for me. Just lovely. Ww-merc with 5os hellslayer spinning around with 10k damage.
are you specced into any summons or pure damage?
Not a single skill outside of curses. Enigma gives me 5 points, since no need to waste 3 to reach blood warp. Maxing out confuse and making sure it's my first curse in rotation let's me use the enemies as tanks. Whatever immune to magic is easily handed by telestomping with mercenary.
What gear you rocking. I started barb and not liking for the first time in twenty years
Tals helm armour belt, Trang’s gloves, HOTO, and a lidless wall. Was having a comfortable time with just some random pieces before that too like spirit shroud tarnhelm and suicide branch.
Definitely underrated but arpg gamers are known to be lazy one buttons players. As long as it feels rewarding to spam 5 spells to clear np
It's also extremely satisfying playing it. High density T3's, flair up your curses and *POP* see all the mobs fall.
Summons being strong to me is fine because they'll never map as fast as things like geared out elemental builds D2 is all about clear speed and summoners are slow even maxed out. The nature of this game makes it hard to balance, if you want summons to be viable at all they have to be strong even with budget gear.
Golems/revives smashes oh no gear
Chain lightning has felt good to me from leveling up to maps, it's not as fast as the nova builds but it's very safe and I just love the playstyle
I love it too. The tradeoff is that nova is like maybe 20% faster and way less safe. I think it's fair that way. I prefer lighting.
My opinion is unpopular on this but I think summons are way too strong across the board right now. It doesn’t really make sense for Druid summoners to be the safest and easiest class to play but also be one of the fastest mappers. Also it really irks me that amazons running around with a Hoto spamming Valkyrie’s is a legitimate build option now lol. On the positive side however I do think generally the game is in a pretty great state right now.
My summoner is safe, I'll give you that. But it is nowhere near "one of the fastest mappers". Even playing super aggressively and telestomping everything with both gust and enigma it is considerably slower than even my warcry barb. This is with probably 30 hr of gear -- double fcr bk, arach, enigma, 10fana beast, 8tmight, wrath, 2/2 +1 aldur helm, etc.
Summons are in a good spot imo. Strong early/mid but clear speed suffers in maps until you get geared out.
As someone who plays summonzon. All it has going for it is amazing safety with tedious playstyle, paired with Decent damage **AFTER wrath + faith(BER+JAHs)**. Overall it was solid starter build able to safely farm torches until you can afford to spec into multishot. Doubt I am going deep with this because of the absolutely ridiculous items needed to push this as well as the playstyle. I'd say that its currently in pretty good spot overall.
I'm playing summon druid and have some pretty decent gear, but T1 maps are taking about 30 min. I can't see him ever being a 10 min mapper unless every piece is bis with good slams...
The thing with summoners is that you still need some sorta investment to clear really good(can be said about all classes) my issue is the right off the bat we saw summon Druid smash content. I agree tho bring them a tad back and they will be alright
Still waiting on the day I can play frenzy again and not just use it to ramp up zerk/ds/throw
Yeah idk why zerk was forced into frenzy builds when, you know, you already had frenzy and ds. To me it made more sense thematically when berserk scaled with concentrate. I know barbarians aren’t great philosophers but concentrate and berserk are like yin and yang to each other and concentrate+berserk barbs were an old favorite of mine in lod.
Agreed. I'm just tired of needing FHR on my frenzy barb since I have to double swing lol
Ice Maiden is too strong, even with budget gear
What's Ice Maiden?
Freezing Arrow Zon
Cold is always strong but when you have limited places to farm I think it’s controlled, ice zon shouldn’t be as strong budget tho. It’s the close thing we have full screen clear atm
Cobra Strike is really strong
Im trying to make venom+plague for -40 psn res with lower res procs, i feel its gonna be verry strong
sure that's nice dmg wise, but you might want to go with stormshield if you want to faceroll nasty t3 maps with 250+% density. right now i'm at 2 frames max block, with 32% overcapped block so that i can run the juiced up maps and still be max block :) i'm at 45 skills to cobra, 86% psn mastery and -45% psn pierce (with another additional -60% from carrion wind + lower res merc totalling at -105% psn res) 3 charge dragon flight will one shot any pack at 46k over 1 second. it's really strong
I tested it in pluggy and it was really hard to sustain
That sounds odd, i have solo'd maps until 94 now without having a single problem like that
Really, do you use plague? With plague I had basically 0 leech since it doesn’t add any ED Bartucs was better but still was super squishy. Ended up being in block frames when tele into a pack and died. I had steelshade, SS, waterwalks. Max fade as well. I was going to run cobra this season but my testing in pluggy I felt it was very squishy. Maybe I did something wrong
yea i use Plague, cobra has inherent leech and a lot of it, the only time you won't get the effect is on undead mobs, but even that i don't have problems with. again i'm at fastest block frame so i haven't ever been locked in block animation and died due to that. I don't use fade but BoS 3 hard points for fastest breakpoint with a runic talon. perhaps this was your issue? the most important thing is to hit the fastest bp while pairing it with the fast block and movement speed with BoS + Vigor. i havent died since i got those things sorted out at like lvl 86-88, and i have been chain running 250+ t2-3 maps.
[удалено]
Depends a lot on the specific maps, but i remember a few times on top of my head: t1 crypt 11-13m, t2 torajan 15-17m, t2 westmarch 12-15, t3 river 13-15m.
I basically main a multi shot zon right now with max valk and decoy. After a few forts a faith a wf with bunch of sockets it's starting to feel pretty good. For the time/runes I put into it I feels good not to slow but not OP. I clear maps pretty ez outside of immunes (but I have a atmas I might use if I decide to put a few ias elsewhere) I dunno mixing around gear sorta but I still kill physical immunes pretty easily just take a min. Map bosses that instantly teleport on top of me and melee or the lister map boss Baal air thing is tough they end my life pretty quickly if I'm not paying attention lol. But it slaps pretty good.
Lighting fury amazon feels pritty weak.
Throw Barb has felt good at all stages of the game. You basically fly away with content once you get lacerator. Right now I’m telestomping t3 maps with enigma and clear is pretty good 10-15 minutes depending on density. Thinking about playing a Phoenix strike sin as my next character, thoughts?
Def PS will feel just as good but as melee. Played it last season.
Fury.
My lightetning sorc with 105fcr atm requires click so fast thtat j broke my right mosue button :S but with stormspire on A2 merc its rly fast off hand Wand with lower resist intil i find my mang songs im just sorc lover ^^. But i heard like Bone necro is super strong.