[2.0] THOR'S RAINBOWNUKE: DO ALL MAPS, UBER ATZIRI, AND EXPLOSIONS!

Yeah to me Herald of Thunder is completely mandatory for this build. The damage boost is just way too good to give up. For me I'll be using Herald of Ice also because I don't use any empower or enhance gems so I actually have room for both, as well as all my purities. But definitely Herald of Thunder is a no brainer.

Not a big deal, but you guys and your GG items make you very closed minded with changes to your original builds. I was the one way back saying just ditch RF on these low life builds and boost the damage with nodes, it's easier, cheaper, and more effective. Everyone's like no no no, you can't do that. Now I come back and see the guide has been changed.

This time is no different. Trust me tackle, in a month, you'll theory craft this thing and realize that giving up your enhance or empower gems or whatever you are using that's taking up space is not worth it anymore considering how amazing Herald of Thunder is. Time will tell :)

I'm looking at the herald gems from a very neutral standpoint. Personally, I prefer switching out purity of elements for HoT, as the dps boost is phenomenal. To better cope with my resists, i might switch up shavs revelation for dream fragments, as the leech can more than sustain my lack of ES regen. As I run enhance and empower, should I wish to use HoT and HoI, i will take off enhance, as I don't really use blood rage as often (partly because im a bit careless, and I dont want to have to constantly recast it in boss fights). Understandably, due to build deviations (some of which cant be rectified due to reasons like character choice), some people can'y fit the Herald skills into their setup.

Lets delve a bit into the late game survival issues. The number one enemy of this build is elemental reflect mobs. By ditching empower, you lose 1-2% max resists. At 14% elemental reflect and assuming you are using the single target variant of the build, 1% less max elemental resistance means u take approximately 0.14x0.01x350,000 = 490 more damage. Against multiple enemies and/or double/triple resist packs of enemies, the damage you take quickly escalates out of control. Even with proper flask management, we are all only human and will slip up, meaning that less max resistances equals to much more risk to instant death. At the same time, by using HoT and HoI, you are now dealing even more damage, meaning that more damage gets reflected back to you, which will instantly melt you.

The whole point of an "End-Game" build is clear speed balanced with defense, at least in the current meta. Whether you opt for double Herald or using empower for bonus resists is really up to you. Do you want to gain a damage boost and the loss of survival? Most build guides usually recommend very "survival and damage balanced" setups that are optimized with end game gear. As such, the current recommended "end game" gear fits very well with that balance. In the end, the whole point of feedback is to give constructive analysis on how the build should evolve, and nobody is necessarily wrong. We are here to discuss and evaluate what variations fit us the best and how can we improve; we should not mock the ideas of others, but instead provide a friendly rebuttal/counter explanation.

To me the most obvious change to add Herald of Thunder would be the enhance gem some people are using for their blood rage. Then like you said, if you really want to add Herald of Ice as well which is debatable since it's not nearly as good as Thunder, either ditch the empower gem or ditch purity of elements. I've never found reflect to be a major game changing issue that the last 1% is going to be very noticeable, but to each his own.

But I think most people will quite easily be able to free up a single gem slot for Herald of Thunder.

"

VixTrader wrote:

The damage boost from Herald of Ice that I'm referring to is like I said, on screen DPS. Just holding a random wand, putting the arc gem in it, the DPS on screen is 2495. Cast Herald of Ice and it goes up to 2840. That's 13.83% higher. (char still lvl 68 and not finished of course so maybe that affects it)

Like I said, I'm not sure if that's how the actual mechanics of a proc'd Mjolner hit goes, but I can't imagine why it would be different than self cast as far as damage calculations. So yeah, it seems that Ice does add quite a bit of damage. And why wouldn't it?

Lvl 20 Arc - 38 - 726 = 344 average
Lvl 20 Ice - 53 - 70 = 61.50 average

61.50 / 344 = 17.87%

Add in the 79.50 average from Thunder, and that seems pretty massive to me.

I'm not saying it all translates directly to damage but it has to be a whole lot more than the 3% you're saying you got. It's gotta be way more than that. And like I said, thunder is even better.


It just seems to me that there's enough of a damage boost there to work both Thunder and Ice into the build. Where else can you get 61.50 + 79.50 extra base damage to your spells. That's massive !

It's not that simple, and yes, my increase was 3%. Your math is wrong because:
-HoI is not spell damage, so it does not benefit from +spell damage in the tree or on gear; Arc does
-HoI is not lightning damage, so it does not benefit from +lightning damage in the tree or on gear; Arc does

Herald of Thunder at least benefits from the lightning damage.

So if you want to talk about what the end result is in percentages, you have to remember that HoI winds up dealing like 70 avg damage, while for example my Arc is dealing ~2100 avg damage. Comparing the base damage of HoI/HoT with the base damage of Arc/Discharge doesn't work.

So we're talking small % increases in DPS, and from my experience, you don't really notice or need that if it means significant sacrifices in defense like 4% less ES and 13% more lightning/fire dmg taken (which is what sacrificing empower on my setup would mean). The drop from 85% to 83% lightning resist is particularly nasty against reflect.

I would guess the bump from HoT would be something more like 7-9%, but I still don't think that's worth it at least with my setup. Blood Magic variant may have extra room for reservation in which case HoT will be worth it.

As mentioned, each build varies in many small but significant ways, its not so simple as there being a clearly defined superior setup. Maybe you can slip in more much dps through HoT, but you may loss essential defenses that you value more. Tackle's explains why his setup wont work with HoT, but maybe yours might.

"

iSo1iD wrote:

As mentioned, each build varies in many small but significant ways, its not so simple as there being a clearly defined superior setup. Maybe you can slip in more much dps through HoT, but you may loss essential defenses that you value more. Tackle's explains why his setup wont work with HoT, but maybe yours might.

I'm still generally confused how any variant of this build could achieve a 15% damage boost with HoI since every variant I'm aware of relies heavily on getting +spell dmg and +lightning damage (even the RF variants I don't think would boost HoI). There's not a lot of +elemental or +cold taken in any variant I've seen.

I could see getting that kind of boost with HoT if you had lots of the lightning damage nodes but not as many spell dmg ones, but I'm confused about the HoI math.

"

tackle70 wrote:

"

iSo1iD wrote:

As mentioned, each build varies in many small but significant ways, its not so simple as there being a clearly defined superior setup. Maybe you can slip in more much dps through HoT, but you may loss essential defenses that you value more. Tackle's explains why his setup wont work with HoT, but maybe yours might.

I'm still generally confused how any variant of this build could achieve a 15% damage boost with HoI since every variant I'm aware of relies heavily on getting +spell dmg and +lightning damage (even the RF variants I don't think would boost HoI). There's not a lot of +elemental or +cold taken in any variant I've seen.

I could see getting that kind of boost with HoT if you had lots of the lightning damage nodes but not as many spell dmg ones, but I'm confused about the HoI math.

I myself am not sure what maths VixTrader used to calculate his dps boost, i assume he is referring only to damage increased for arc only. As you mentioned, there arent really any passive nodes that severely buff the effect of heralds, save maybe for inner force (As herald skills benefit from buff effect).

Let me attempt to calculate my dps increase. I understand that tooltip dps is not accurate.

For me, without bloodrage active, my arc tooltip damage goes from 1896 to 2340 (with HoT) to 2496 (using both HoI and HoT) which is a 30% boost to damage for arc alone. The damage for discharge, sees similar increases. Lightning strike sees a 66% damage increase (but this is less relevent) However, overall dps doesnt change too extremely for me, as I sacrificed enhance to run both HoT and HoI, meaning I loss attack speed. Overall with 16x0.75% less attack speed, i trigger my skills mjolnir much less often. With out blood rage being enhanced, my attacks per second with molten/lightning strike decreases from 6.3 per second to 5.9 per second. Which means I trigger my mjolnir socketed skills 0.4/6.3 ( approx 6%) less often. Assuming I have 30% increased damage from HoT and Hoi for arc and discharge, but i trigger them 6% less often, I deal 117.5% dps effectiveness. Combined with 66% increased lightning strike damage and the HoT thunder bolt effect, I deal around 18% more dps damage overall. However, as i tend to forget/ignore using bloodrage, I dont normally suffer attack speed drawback, hence I can usually benefit from over 20% increased dps.

lemme know if i make any mistakes ;)

Hmmm....the witch skill trees the op posted (from lvl 70 tree further on) are for the low life build i guess? No life notes taken at all and forth. I dont really get this. Could someone explain to a non experienced but very interested player who wants to give this build a try?

"

iSo1iD wrote:

"

tackle70 wrote:

"

iSo1iD wrote:

As mentioned, each build varies in many small but significant ways, its not so simple as there being a clearly defined superior setup. Maybe you can slip in more much dps through HoT, but you may loss essential defenses that you value more. Tackle's explains why his setup wont work with HoT, but maybe yours might.

I'm still generally confused how any variant of this build could achieve a 15% damage boost with HoI since every variant I'm aware of relies heavily on getting +spell dmg and +lightning damage (even the RF variants I don't think would boost HoI). There's not a lot of +elemental or +cold taken in any variant I've seen.

I could see getting that kind of boost with HoT if you had lots of the lightning damage nodes but not as many spell dmg ones, but I'm confused about the HoI math.

I myself am not sure what maths VixTrader used to calculate his dps boost, i assume he is referring only to damage increased for arc only. As you mentioned, there arent really any passive nodes that severely buff the effect of heralds, save maybe for inner force (As herald skills benefit from buff effect).

Let me attempt to calculate my dps increase. I understand that tooltip dps is not accurate.

For me, without bloodrage active, my arc tooltip damage goes from 1896 to 2340 (with HoT) to 2496 (using both HoI and HoT) which is a 30% boost to damage for arc alone. The damage for discharge, sees similar increases. Lightning strike sees a 66% damage increase (but this is less relevent) However, overall dps doesnt change too extremely for me, as I sacrificed enhance to run both HoT and HoI, meaning I loss attack speed. Overall with 16x0.75% less attack speed, i trigger my skills mjolnir much less often. With out blood rage being enhanced, my attacks per second with molten/lightning strike decreases from 6.3 per second to 5.9 per second. Which means I trigger my mjolnir socketed skills 0.4/6.3 ( approx 6%) less often. Assuming I have 30% increased damage from HoT and Hoi for arc and discharge, but i trigger them 6% less often, I deal 117.5% dps effectiveness. Combined with 66% increased lightning strike damage and the HoT thunder bolt effect, I deal around 18% more dps damage overall. However, as i tend to forget/ignore using bloodrage, I dont normally suffer attack speed drawback, hence I can usually benefit from over 20% increased dps.

lemme know if i make any mistakes ;)

Yeah I think I spelled it out as clear as I could that my explanations for DPS boost is just a very rough estimate, and nothing specifically calculated. Your math above is much more specific and seems to be pretty accurate as far as my understanding of how the game mechanics work. HoT adds huge damage, where as HoI adds significantly less, although still adds a decent amount.

Again this is just what my rough estimates tell me, but it seems to me for a person with absolutely top gear, they will not want to use Herald of Ice, but should still try to use Herald of Thunder. For people with average gear, it seems worth it to try to use both Heralds because lvl 21 purity gems with lvl 3 empower is not affordable anyway making the point moot.

I'm still not seeing a situation where a person would actually choose NOT to use Herald of Thunder. The extra resists I get so the empower gem stays if they are worried about reflect, but the enhanced blood rage gem just doesn't give the benefit that Herald of Thunder does.

Herald of Thunder > enhanced blood rage

"

VixTrader wrote:

I'm still not seeing a situation where a person would actually choose NOT to use Herald of Thunder.

My situation is one where HoT is not worth it due to lack of available mana/life reservation, as I explained. Anyone who has the mana/life reservation space for it should use it, though - it's easily worth the gem slot. I'm less convinced that HoI is worth the gem slot let alone the reservation... a 3-5% boost is not going to be noticeable.

@Modulok2299 - check your PMs.