The Headbang Gang 2.0 - Raging Spirits madness - now with cheap version + leveling guide

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whitw0rth wrote:
Those 45% are the best nodes in the tree by far. They give you 45% MORE damage that also multiplies with other MORE damage. [..] its a 100% no-brainer and its better to loose 60-70% minion damage instead


I read that a lot, and while it's technically true, there's an important caveat. Duration gives you More global damage output after you have reached your (previous) max number of spirits, or in the case where spirits have the time and the aggro range to move from pack to pack, which is not all the time - and even then a lot of the additional duration will be spent traveling rather than doing damage.

There are 3 main ways of maximizing damage output with raging spirits : maxing dps per skull, casting skulls faster, and increasing their duration. Handy graph incoming :

This shows DPS over time, which might appear weird at first but think of it like this : left is damage output when you start casting, and right is how much damage spirits can do when at max concurrent number.
Scaling damage per skull gives you more damage all through the curve, obviously.
Cast speed lets you put out spirits faster (->steeper curve, more damage early) as well as make it possible to have more out at the same time (cast more before the first expires).
Duration, on the other hand, does nothing to steepen the curve ; you will not do any more damage as long as you haven't reached the point where the first skull would be out. And my key point is, most fights will be over by that time (the flattening of the damage curve happens 3.5s after first cast if no nodes or gem and ~5.1s if nodes only).

Which is why 45% more damage from duration is nowhere near as valuable as 45% more damage from direct spirit dps scaling or cast speed scaling. I would clearly take 70% increased minion damage (20~35% more depending on the rest of your setup) over 45% increased duration [if it was a 1:1 investment].
Best case scenario is of course, take both !
I'm proud I made the build that got hotfix nerfed by 80% in under a week :
Kamikaze Clones /1204796 (LL Mirror Arrow Instability Prolif)
Last edited by PepprmintButler on Jul 10, 2014, 4:51:01 AM
Spoiler
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whitw0rth wrote:
Those 45% are the best nodes in the tree by far. They give you 45% MORE damage that also multiplies with other MORE damage. [..] its a 100% no-brainer and its better to loose 60-70% minion damage instead


I read that a lot, and while it's technically true, there's an important caveat. Duration gives you More global damage output after you have reached your (previous) max number of spirits, or in the case where spirits have the time and the aggro range to move from pack to pack, which is not all the time - and even then a lot of the additional duration will be spent traveling rather than doing damage.

There are 3 main ways of maximizing damage output with raging spirits : maxing dps per skull, casting skulls faster, and increasing their duration. Handy graph incoming :

This shows DPS over time, which might appear weird at first but think of it like this : left is damage output when you start casting, and right is how much damage spirits can do when at max concurrent number.
Scaling damage per skull gives you more damage all through the curve, obviously.
Cast speed lets you put out spirits faster (->steeper curve, more damage early) as well as make it possible to have more out at the same time (cast more before the first expires).
Duration, on the other hand, does nothing to steepen the curve ; you will not do any more damage as long as you haven't reached the point where the first skull would be out. And my key point is, most fights will be over by that time (the flattening of the damage curve happens 3.5s after first cast if no nodes or gem and ~5.1s if nodes only).

Which is why 45% more damage from duration is nowhere near as valuable as 45% more damage from direct spirit dps scaling or cast speed scaling. I would clearly take 70% increased minion damage (20~35% more depending on the rest of your setup) over 45% increased duration [if it was a 1:1 investment].
Best case scenario is of course, take both !



Your assumptions are generally true, thought there are multiple occations where it isnt.

Most important one, you generally only start from 0 SPS the moment you enter an instance. If you have max possible added duration (45% nodes and maxed support gem) most of the time you never fall down to 0 SPS.

This makes your graph get a variable base value and thus makes duration very valuable. Another then is also that survivability goes up with duration since you spend less time "naked".

There is also a big notion to be made for ease of play and how it goes up by alot using increased duration

In a map that you dont just faceroll and where your minions are attacking something most of the time there is a massive damage gain to be had.

Statement about duration only affecting max damage also isnt true, the damage will be higher from the second your first SRS would die from time running out.

Would also be interested on your thoughts on my previous post regarding "echo staff" ;)

Theorycrafing is fun!

https://pastebin.com/Pb4ETGjc
Last edited by whitw0rth on Jul 10, 2014, 5:39:15 AM
I guess it just depends on how well you can chain packs and how much downtime you have on spirits. I might just be slow, but I spend plenty of time with 0 spirits because I was looting a few scrolls and orbs from a dead pack. There are also quite a few instances where packs are just too far apart for the previous spirits to aggro and/or make it across the gap. In those situations (which is admittedly not the whole time), the graph above applies in full.

About the echo staff :
I haven't properly run the numbers, which is why I haven't responded yet. but my gut tells me it's not going to be worth it vs a +3 staff.

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Theorycrafing is fun!

Amen, brother.

PS - I'm having an unordinate amount of fun today with a different approach to spirits - good ol' CoC. I have a shiny new toy to play with :

It won't be a proper build, but I hope I'll be putting up a quick video of that soon because it's just hilarious :3
I'm proud I made the build that got hotfix nerfed by 80% in under a week :
Kamikaze Clones /1204796 (LL Mirror Arrow Instability Prolif)
Last edited by PepprmintButler on Jul 10, 2014, 6:44:26 AM
The corruption is just insanly strong for that build ;)
https://pastebin.com/Pb4ETGjc
Last edited by whitw0rth on Jul 10, 2014, 7:12:09 AM
This seems borderline imbalanced to be honest.. Theres not many builds, if any, that can dish out that kind of damage with useless gear like yours.

GGG might have overbuffed the spirits a bit too much
Last edited by lapiz on Jul 10, 2014, 7:50:33 AM
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lapiz wrote:
Theres not many builds, if any, that can dish out that kind of damage with useless gear like yours.

GGG might have overbuffed the spirits a bit too much


Thanks for the compliment :)

Take another look at the boss kill video. The last part is a kill on Shrine Piety before the buff (1.1.4). The difference in kill time is negligible.
Raging Spirits were strong to begin with.
I'm proud I made the build that got hotfix nerfed by 80% in under a week :
Kamikaze Clones /1204796 (LL Mirror Arrow Instability Prolif)
Last edited by PepprmintButler on Jul 10, 2014, 9:14:21 AM
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About the echo staff :
I haven't properly run the numbers, which is why I haven't responded yet. but my gut tells me it's not going to be worth it vs a +3 staff.


I assumed the ability to add in another lvl 20 gem because of the inherent Spell Echo in the staff would have made it a bit more of a clear-cut winner, but there are lots of things I simply don't take into consideration (translation: I am not smart enough to theorycraft, lol)
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About the echo staff :
I haven't properly run the numbers, which is why I haven't responded yet. but my gut tells me it's not going to be worth it vs a +3 staff.


I assumed the ability to add in another lvl 20 gem because of the inherent Spell Echo in the staff would have made it a bit more of a clear-cut winner, but there are lots of things I simply don't take into consideration (translation: I am not smart enough to theorycraft, lol)



You are comparing 1 extra supp gem + 10%overall cast speed and a bunch of saved mana nodes since echo staff has 100% extra mana vs +3 skill levels and potentially 20% cast speed.

Thats all there is too it ;)
https://pastebin.com/Pb4ETGjc
Although I am jealous of that 8L BoR, I have no idea how you can combine crit chance, survivability, and minion damage on the current tree. Let us know if you succeed.

I noticed your graphs looked very similar to something I was doing yesterday. Check out my post about simulating SRS ramp-up, movement speed, and duration.

The following graphs have these assumptions in common: attacking an enemy directly vertically above us at the edge of the screen (550px on 1920x1080), Haste, 20% Movement Gem, Spell Echo (125% effective FCR), each spirit does 2228 damage and has 4.91 APS, no spirits active to start. The simulation is over 10 seconds.

0 dur from gem, 0 dur from tree:


0 dur from gem, 45 dur from tree:

54% more damage over 10 sec compared to no duration.

74 dur from gem, 0 dur from tree:

75% more damage over 10 sec compared to no duration


74 dur from gem, 45 dur from tree:

15% more damage over 10 sec compared to only 74% dur gem

Duration obviously increases the steepness of the cumulative damage curve.
All my builds /view-thread/1430399

T14 'real' clearspeed challenge /1642265
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whitw0rth wrote:
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About the echo staff :
I haven't properly run the numbers, which is why I haven't responded yet. but my gut tells me it's not going to be worth it vs a +3 staff.


I assumed the ability to add in another lvl 20 gem because of the inherent Spell Echo in the staff would have made it a bit more of a clear-cut winner, but there are lots of things I simply don't take into consideration (translation: I am not smart enough to theorycraft, lol)



You are comparing 1 extra supp gem + 10%overall cast speed and a bunch of saved mana nodes since echo staff has 100% extra mana vs +3 skill levels and potentially 20% cast speed.

Thats all there is too it ;)


The spell echo staff also gives 120-160% spell damage, and since SRS is a spell, that's like 1.5 minion damage gems. (Is this correct?)

I ran the numbers assuming the spell damage on the staff is useless, just treating it as a 7L:
DPS = 520573
NSpirit = 22.8444
Dmg = 4016.02
APS = 6.30469
Support: MPD-MS-Dur-Added Fire-Minion Dam

A +3 staff:
DPS = 500466
NSpirit = 21.5682
Dmg = 4089.36
APS = 6.30469
Support: SE-MPD-MS-Dur-Emp L3

A +3 20% cast staff:
DPS = 575611
NSpirit = 24.8066
Dmg = 4089.36
APS = 6.30469

Now suppose the 160% spell damage actually benefits raging spirits:
DPS = 794863
NSpirit = 22.8444
Dmg = 4759.21
APS = 8.12335
(using faster attacks instead of minion damage)

+3 22% cast 105% spell damage 30% fire damage staff with L4 empower:
DPS = 915714
NSpirit = 25.1305
Dmg = 6421.75
APS = 6.30469
All my builds /view-thread/1430399

T14 'real' clearspeed challenge /1642265

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