Ele-cleave DW BM help please =P

I'm thinking about making an Elemental Cleave Marauder using Blood Magic.

First off, my theoretical build is only 76 points to allow for some flex based on your suggestions.

Secondly I'm always playing co-op with one friend, if that matters.

I'm making some mechanics assumptions with this build:
a)+2 range from duelist tree works with cleave, and other melee skills.
b) +Area effects cleave

I'm thinking it would be
step one: get most of templar stuff
step two: down for blood magic
step three up into middle

What skills other than Cleave should I plan on using?




any help or suggestions greatly appreciated. I already messed up my templar (first character) and now my LA rangers is a little meh, so i'd like to get this right.

EDIT: just noticed claws=/=cleave...

+2 radius doesnt work with cleave

Get static blows and the 18% life node near it

"

xenolithic wrote:

Get static blows and the 18% life node near it

11 passive points for
26% max life
70 intelligence (only good for equipment/ES as I'm taking BM)
45% increased shock duration
20% chance to shock

I don't see how static shock is all that great. On small mobs that die in a couple hits it's clearly useless, and from what I've been reading shock effects are greatly reduced on bosses which would be when you'd really want to stack debuffs.

How exactly does 20% chance to shock work? Normally elemental status effects are based off crits, and Static shock allows normal hits to shock as well? How does this effect duration, which i believe is based on damage dealt as a % of target HP?

So if a boss has 10,000 HP and I hit it with a non crit lightning damage attack for 500 HP, and get the 20% proc, how long does it last? Will it even last long enough for a second hit, let alone 5 or 10 hits to get the full +120% damage taken debuff?

To reliably keep a boss at full debuff even with 2 attacks per second the debufff must last 8 seconds or more. (assuming average RNG of 1 shock every 5 hits)


[/quote]
If you don't deal enough non-crit lightning damage, you wouldn't even inflict shock to begin with. The minimum shock duration is 276ms, which is more or less 1/4 of a second (1000ms = 1 second). Based on the various high-level party mapping that I've seen on videos, most unique bosses only take around 1% (of their max hp) or less damage from a single target attack from the players, and these are highly geared people we're talking about. So lets say you have insane gear and you deal 2% damage per attack.

2*276 = 552ms (0.55 seconds). With Static Blows (45% increased shock duration) and 20% quality added lightning (20% increased shock duration), that becomes 910ms (0.8sec).

Your shock chance without crit is 30% (static blows, the node beside it, 20% quality added lightning). Now factor in the fact that lightning damage is really unstable (5-101 on lvl 20 added lightning, for example).

30% chance to shock (when damage = at least 1% of boss hp) on a damage type that that is really unstable (small low-range damage) and typically lasts for less than a second. You could occasionally get the boost in damage from a shock, but getting 3 stock stacks and maintaining it consistently? Not very possible.[/quote]