[1.2.0] Dreamfeather: Post-Mortem

@khemintiri - what are your stats (evasion with grace, hp, tooltip dips)? Do you feel comfortable endgame?

Also, khemintiri, you seem to have taken the 6% life node past Blood Drinker, but not Hired Killer for free extra life gain on kill.

I really like the versatility of the sword. Gear before RIP (nothing to do with beeing too squishy, i just DC'ed as soon as i entered a map).




Nothing super awesome, but i did get around 17k evasion with frenzy charges up.
The build was fairly straightforward, ranger move to scion lifewheel and take all the DW block nodes on the right side of the tree.

I think i was at 65 evade 60 block 40 dodge with the current gear at 76, just shy of 10k dps.
I was able to facetank everything as long as i paid a modicum of attention, i really like evasion more than IR builds now.
The cold res on the sword was a misclick.

I don't get this sword.

The added damage per 450 evasion is global, so it doesn't scale nearly as good as a local damage roll.
Let's say I go all out evasion and reach something like 27000, that's still only 60% damage.
60% increased damage is like 3-4 skillpoints in damage nodes, and I doubt you get those 27000 evasion for free.

The other stats are very "non-unique", so Dreamfeather is basically a "corrupted flaring eternal sword of celebration" (I say "corrupted" because you cannot craft more damage onto it).

For a physical damage build, is there any reason to use it over a sword for 5c-1ex like those?

They offer way more "bang for the buck".

For an elemental damage build, 60% damage is cool, but it is only worth "3 skillpoints + elemental damage with weapons prefix", so again, that sword is comparable to a blue weapon (corrupted "Unleashed Eternal Sword of celebration").
I'd probably prefer to use something like this:


So where is the benefit?

I saw several posts in this thread with people achieving 10k-16k DpS using dreamfeather... on a dualwielding build! With character 75+, gem lvl18+ and a 5L anything below 40k seems laughable to me.

I do love artwork and flavor of the weapon, but I just don't see it being used in a lategame scenario.

I got 10k damage with one damage aura and a 5 link (and a pretty crappy mainhand), i'd say you can scale the damage much further.

The main thing with the sword is that it scales physical as well as elemental (and chaos, if you have it) so things that convert damage get scaled again after physical scaling is done. It boosts hatred and herald of ash, if you use a conversion skill like molten strike it would scale that yet again.

I do agree that dualwielding them will not result in awesome damage, but its a pretty perfect offhand. Its just too bad that there are no dualwielding damage conversion skills, but the sword certainly has its uses.

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Cataca wrote:

The main thing with the sword is that it scales physical as well as elemental (and chaos, if you have it) so things that convert damage get scaled again after physical scaling is done. It boosts hatred and herald of ash, if you use a conversion skill like molten strike it would scale that yet again.

If I get a 300 DpS sword (about the same price) instead of Dreamfeather's 200DpS, I get a free "50% more damage multiplier" on my Molten Strike.
If I double-dip with Dreamfeather, I probably get two times 50% increased damage (that's additive with other sources, not multiplied).
And I get this 50% more damage without any limitations (iE I don't have to run and stack Evasion).
Again, I think I'd use the rare sword.

"

I do agree that dualwielding them will not result in awesome damage

...so why use it?
All it does is providing damage. Pretty bad damage, with a pretty hefty downside (stack Evasion or gtfo).
If it is beaten by low to midtier rares, but still requires lvl 66 to use it, what's it good for other than "style"?

Stacking evasion is not a "downside" at all. If you make a phase acrobatics character, chances are you are going to stack evasion skyhigh anyhow.

If you do a build like this:


You will get around 200% increased evasion from the tree, and another 50% just from the base dexterity alone. Total number of skillpoints spent specifically to get evasion? 5.

I dont count leather and steel, because chances are you'd have taken it anyhow.

In this scenario, it is very possible to outdamage a 300 dps offhand with the 200 dps dreamfeather, given that you have a solid main weapon. You get 200+% physical damage from the tree, so there is nothing to get there, but if you manage to get some 50% damage bonus from your dreamfeather and combine it with your (unmodified) elemental damage from hatred you can end up doing +60% of your melee damage added as cold, instead of just 40. (level 20)

That is your 20% damage difference right there. And i didnt count any damage bonus you still get on physical.

Personally i cant come up with a dual wielding dreamfeather build that does well, but as i said before, it is a (very) solid offhand. Getting the 5 or so offcolour sockets in your evasion chest will be a bitch, but thats the only real downside i can think of.

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Peterlerock wrote:

"

Cataca wrote:

The main thing with the sword is that it scales physical as well as elemental (and chaos, if you have it) so things that convert damage get scaled again after physical scaling is done. It boosts hatred and herald of ash, if you use a conversion skill like molten strike it would scale that yet again.

If I get a 300 DpS sword (about the same price) instead of Dreamfeather's 200DpS, I get a free "50% more damage multiplier" on my Molten Strike.
If I double-dip with Dreamfeather, I probably get two times 50% increased damage (that's additive with other sources, not multiplied).
And I get this 50% more damage without any limitations (iE I don't have to run and stack Evasion).
Again, I think I'd use the rare sword.

"

I do agree that dualwielding them will not result in awesome damage

...so why use it?
All it does is providing damage. Pretty bad damage, with a pretty hefty downside (stack Evasion or gtfo).
If it is beaten by low to midtier rares, but still requires lvl 66 to use it, what's it good for other than "style"?

Just because you can't come up with a build for it means its bad?

I'm not going to elaborate on what may or may not come out in the future but you should understand that I generally know things you probably don't well ahead of time and this sword was designed with those factors in mind.

"

Cataca wrote:

The main thing with the sword is that it scales physical as well as elemental (and chaos, if you have it) so things that convert damage get scaled again after physical scaling is done. It boosts hatred and herald of ash, if you use a conversion skill like molten strike it would scale that yet again.

This is wrong and I'm surprised Lyralei didn't point it out as such. Modifiers don't double dip like that in PoE (that is to say, applying multiple times to a single damage calculation), ever. If it is a single modifier, it only applies once to a damage calculation. For example, if Dreamfeather instead said:

"

1% increased Physical Damage per 450 Evasion Rating
1% increased Elemental Damage per 450 Evasion Rating

then yes it would apply twice as you state, but it is not the same as the actual mod on the sword for the sole reason that Dreamfeather's modifier is one, not two.