Sire of Shards - Best ways to use it?

First off, whichever supporter designed this thing, AWESOME JOB ! I'm not sure it's the most powerful thing out there but it's definitely the most fun item I've used in a while.

I have a fully geared Ice Nova witch that I've been using and it's been great, but I just recently got a Sire of Shards staff and figured I'd try it out.

It's just a 4 link right now, but even just with a 4 link I actually clear maps faster with Sire of Shards and Arctic Breath than I do with my fully decked out Ice Nova witch.





Got me thinking. Are there any other even better uses for Sire of Shards than this? I know people have mentioned totems but I've never made a totem character so not sure.

What about a physical build like Ethereal Knives?

Or a fire build with Incinerate or something?


How are other people using this awesome staff.

I had an idea about using it as a lighting trap staff.

When we look at LT, it allready fires 8 projectiles in a nova, add 5 more from Sire and maybe add multitrap - trap dmg - light pen - chain - empower...

Should work insanely good to clear packs.

EK should be awesome in that staff, also a spell totem with any powerful spell... any ideas?

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VixTrader wrote:

First off, whichever supporter designed this thing, AWESOME JOB ! I'm not sure it's the most powerful thing out there but it's definitely the most fun item I've used in a while.

Cheers! :D

The thing that seems to have become very popular is Flame Totem. I can't really grumble, I've been playing it and it's worked out great.



Your tooltip DPS is not the best, but the enormous AoE makes its map clear better than any non-Sire FT as far as I can tell.

I've also been experimenting with some other things recently. Magma Orb totems are not very impressive without a TON of cast speed, but okay if you do get that. Selfcast Magma Orb is fine, but honestly feels a lot better using a decent rare staff and LMP instead of Sire. Arctic Breath selfcast or totems is great. Ball Lightning totems are good, haven't tried selfcast.

There's been a lot of talk about trying traps with it, but I have yet to see someone test it thoroughly. I'm also not sure about EK or Incinerate (totems?).

It's quite good with Freezing Pulse.

FP is extremely strong right now (huge base damage, 125% DE, low cast time, and >5% crit), but suffers from AoE problems, so it's best as a single target skill. LMP/GMP help a bit, but overly hurt the damage and still leave you weak to being surrounded.

It ends up playing like an Ice Nova build except it does about three times as much damage with negligibly less coverage.

Anyway, if you have one, give it a whirl. :)

hmm i would just test some things...

ball lightning + gmp + increased aoe + etc.

freezing pulse + gmp + faster projectiles + etc

magma ball (or whatever its name is + gmp + slower projectiles)

i would honestly just have fun with it :D

Well after spending about 30 regrets and going into a pure Ethereal Knives build, I can say with confidence it sucks. It should be pretty good, but it just isn't. I've tried all spells and they are all way way better than EK. Sucks, because it sure looks cool and the concept is there, just too weak.


So after my extensive testing, here's my opinion of the best builds:


1) Any type of totem - Ball lightning is the coolest looking, but most other spells are stronger.

2) Self cast Arctic Breath - To me this clears faster than Ice Nova, but single target is a bit slower.

3) Self cast Freezing Pulse - For up close play style its very strong, but it doesn't clear the screen like arctic breath does.

4) Incinerate - You need to spec into the full spectrum of defense, acrobatics, dodge, stun avoidance, etc... But if you have all that, it's actually really fun to play and very strong.




Haven't tried any traps yet, but lightning trap seems interesting...

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VixTrader wrote:

Haven't tried any traps yet, but lightning trap seems interesting...

I would love to hear the result! :)

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Zahkriisos1337 wrote:

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VixTrader wrote:

Haven't tried any traps yet, but lightning trap seems interesting...

I would love to hear the result! :)

I'll get around to it, but I just burned dozens of regrets and probably 500 chromes going through all the testing. I'm gonna have to map a bit and accumulate some more orbs :)

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