The most fun I've had in quite a while.

When I'm at a comp I will check it out. Phone browsing currently. The name doesn't ring a bell.

Smashed SOG. Had a desync / lag death to lightning traps + the first wave going active. I'm really irritated by the amount of desync I'm getting with the build. Ended up 41 by the time that I downed dominus after full clearing SOG .

I do think that ggg will need to address the curve at some point. I'm sure the strong boxes help, but I've cleared every corrupted zone. Maybe the boxes gave me a level, but being 41 doing mostly full clears and no farming, is a little silly.

My goal now is to get the static shock nodes, some aura nodes, and the ES armor nodes. That should put me in a3 cruel, and I can start fleshing things out in hopes of getting CI in a2 of merc. Not sure that's going to happen, as the gear req is stiff but it's my current goal.

I've made it into A3 Cruel, and I'm starting to feel that pinch from where the game starts to get difficult. Mana, has become an issue, and I'm looking into how I can improve that. I think it might be time to start investing in the aura passives to reduce my reserves, and incrementally improve clarity, as well as take a look at the build plan, and think about finding a way to increase my mana pool.


Not a lot has changed gear wise, which could also be part of my mana / survivability problems.




Yes, I realize that my CWDT gems are borked. At this point, I'm working on getting them to a point where they aren't, but with now a 3rd "start over" in Ambush to find something I enjoy, I don't have a "lot" of resources, and trading hasn't really gone well.

Well, life reared up and bit me from behind. I haven't been progressing as fast as I'd like (mainly due to lack of play time).

I'm getting ready to ascend the SoG (still in cruel), and I'm a little nervous about my gear. I hate the dominus fight with every fiber of my being (mainly just the "boss" adds at the beginning), and I'm a little worried that they are going to just rip right through me.

800 HP
2800 ES (without Discipline running)
~25% EV
30% Block
Capped Resists. (I'm actually ALMOST capped for Merc on everything but Fire)

The Gear


AS you can see, it's not terrible, but it could be a little better. Heading into the fight, I do need to find a Life Leech Gem. WTF is with Rangers and Shadows not getting Leech before Dominus in Cruel? This is.... stupid. That's about all I can call it. Stupid. A2 Cruel is where things start to get "semi serious", and yet, here I am, an act later, and I've found 2 classes that don't even get Life Leech as a Quest Reward.... This does not make sense to me.

My Build Currently


I will probably make sure that I hit 58 on my way up the SoG, since I'm almost petrified of the adds ripping right through me. So, the final point before Dominus is probably going to go into Cast Speed in the Witch Area, since my testing, and the numbers have born out that Cast Speed is in fact superior to Crit in terms of DPS for this build. (I wish it wasn't so, but it is what it is)

The way it's looking, I'm probably going to hold off on going CI for a little bit longer. I'm just not sure that I have enough ES to survive yet. My next "build plateau" so to speak is 66. By then, I will be at 84 points. That's pre-piety kill in merc. I wanted to go CI before then, but I'm just not sure what my ES should look like before I take the plunge. The only experience I have with CI is a summoner, so I gambled with my ES a little more than I'm willing to do here.

Between here and 66, I plan on picking up all the aura passives that I had in mind. This, plus tracking down a reduced mana, should allow me to run Discipline + Clarity (I eventually want to run haste as well) But, I think Discipline will be my best "bet" at hitting CI faster.

SO, if I hit 66, with this setup, I think that the piety + levels to 70 will put me at this point And then from there I will have to evaluate where I'm building to. Obviously, the level 71 point will be the 12% ES node above the scion starting area. From there, I'm probably going to build towards Elemental Adaptation, and then down into the Templar area.

Meaning, at level 81, I'll look something like this level 81

Or, I might stick to the original plan I posted a while back. I'm not sure. I have a soft spot for the Armor / ES nodes, as they make Granites just a little better. Though, I will admit that going back over to the shadow area, and picking up the Void Barrier cluster, could be even more beneficial, leaving me with something like This instead.

This is all assuming of course, that my DPS continues to stay in a good spot. With my current gem setup, tooltip on Arc is 2450 ish, before factoring in any shock stacks, lightning pen from curse, or the support.

I do always get giddy when I peel off a huge chunk of life from a boss. I was facing Gravicious, and with Conductivity, and obviously showing shock, I guess I got a "top" crit, and peeled off ~35% of his health. Ah... Good times.