[3.0] Another Crit Dark Pact but "SAFER & FUNNIER", In-depth. Now with "Speed/Nuke Weapon Swap Ver."

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diabloyd wrote:

...3, Get 2 decent shields...

I don't think your trash-shield needs to be all that good as everything melts anyway. Here's a stupidly ballsy idea...what about Maligaro's Lens for more AS, increased life (more DPS too) and more AoE? All you need to do is over-cap your resistances by 50%...!

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diabloyd wrote:

Lightning Golem(for more attk speed and cast speed, to charge faster and make up a little bit for the cast speed lost)

I don't suppose you've run the DPS maths on Lightning Golem vs Flame Golem have you? I haven't, but given how effective cast speed is I'm wondering, now, which is more effective.

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diabloyd wrote:

5, Arctic Armour, toughness.

Do you find that Arctic Armour's contribution is significant? It stops you running Haste, which helps with clear speed and DPS (cast speed), and if you were to take this weapon-swop route it would be necessary to make the most of your Brightbeak/shield charge.

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diabloyd wrote:

8, Why not using shield charge with another weapon?
Considering another melee weapon to use Shield Charge+Fortify, like The Rippling Thoughts? Trust me, I tried it played with it and sold it. If using The Rippling Thoughts for example,
First, you deal less damage(roughly 10~15% less damage).And a manual Arcane surge is much more reliable.

Regarding Arcane Surge, given that you can one-shot most packs anyway, casting Arcane Surge is a waste of time...ergo you'd only use it on bosses anyway. I get what you say about Shield Charge delay before casting, but the advantage of Rippling Thoughts is that you can use Whirling Blades, which doesn't suffer the same short-comings. Also, Rippling means you have Arcane Surge up 50% of the time without needing to waste any time casting it; this frees you up to cast Rallying Cry instead, for example. I've never seen the Harbinger die (unlike the golems, which die all the friggin time even with More Minion Life).

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Altissimus wrote:

what about Maligaro's Lens for more AS, increased life (more DPS too) and more AoE?

Fair point, if you're aiming to faster clear speed. But over capping that much of res? dude...I'll pass lol.

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Altissimus wrote:

I don't suppose you've run the DPS maths on Lightning Golem vs Flame Golem have you? I haven't, but given how effective cast speed is I'm wondering, now, which is more effective.

Well, I choose Lightning Golem just for the attck speed to charge faster lol. actually I don't like them at all. I haven't either, but the PoB tells me that Lighting Golem provides slightly better DPS.

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Altissimus wrote:

Do you find that Arctic Armour's contribution is significant? It stops you running Haste, which helps with clear speed and DPS (cast speed), and if you were to take this weapon-swop route it would be necessary to make the most of your Brightbeak/shield charge.

You mean to get rid of Blasphemy Assassin's as well for speed run right? I think it's quite viable by using only Haste and Herald of Ice. Agree with you.

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Altissimus wrote:

Regarding Arcane Surge, given that you can one-shot most packs anyway, casting Arcane Surge is a waste of time...ergo you'd only use it on bosses anyway. I get what you say about Shield Charge delay before casting, but the advantage of Rippling Thoughts is that you can use Whirling Blades, which doesn't suffer the same short-comings. Also, Rippling means you have Arcane Surge up 50% of the time without needing to waste any time casting it; this frees you up to cast Rallying Cry instead, for example. I've never seen the Harbinger die (unlike the golems, which die all the friggin time even with More Minion Life).

In my opinion, the 30% increased casting speed of Apep's Rage is huge (and you said it yourself), actually, Flame Dash with this cast speed is faster than Whirling Blades(only with cooldown). And I would like to control my buffs for burst damage against bosses (Diamond, Silver, Wither,Arcane Surge together can melt the bosses).

Tbh I did try The Rippling Thoughts myself, both shield charge and whirling blades (with Lvl20 Q20 Faster attacks), still feels really clunky, died a few times just because of the tiny delay (In Multiple Mods High Tier maps).

So I sold the sword and went back to my own setup.

Plus, the arcane surge from The Rippling Thoughts is less than 50% uptime, 20~30%, maybe, not very sure....meanwhile you can maintain the arcane surge all the time by using flame dash.

What do you think about the Weapon Swap Brightbeak speed-mapping Idea?
I might try for it myself when I have time.

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diabloyd wrote:

What do you think about the Weapon Swap Brightbeak speed-mapping Idea?
I might try for it myself when I have time.

I think it'll cause a gem-slot headache of epic proportions.

But, if you've got the gear and the colours...why not.

I notice a lot of uniques mentioned. This makes me wonder about the total cost to build this. Are any of the uniques themselves expensive, and do you have to spend a lot on rares to make up for lost resistances and defenses in general?

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taosk8r wrote:

I notice a lot of uniques mentioned. This makes me wonder about the total cost to build this. Are any of the uniques themselves expensive, and do you have to spend a lot on rares to make up for lost resistances and defenses in general?

Pretty cheap actually.

Apart from a 6-link Carcass, of course.

A 5-link Carcass gets you a long way.

So I spent a while this evening acquiring an Apep, then another, then a bunch of faster-casting/flamedash gems.

Grabbed the Kaom's Roots boots, which I hadn't previously been using.

Played around with it for a while, and came to the following conclusions:

- I hate Flame Dash. The cast speed is irrelevant when it's locked on 3 v...e...r...y s...l...o...w...l...y recharging charges.

- QoL is shit compared to Rippling Thoughts for general map clear. We talked about Harbinger but completely didn't mention Storm Cascade, which can tear through packs, be used as ranged, doesn't use life, and has various other uses too. Also, I tested and Arcane surge is up 50% of time. Lightning Damage to spells also adds a reasonable chunk of DPS, which I think may have been underestimated.

- for bosses, dual Apep's (asusming you can get enough life/resistances) is the bling. DPS is as high as it gets.

- Use of Kaom's causes all kinds of gem slot problems. I can see that this is something I will need to suffer through when I get to T15+, but for now (T10) it is unnecessary, and QoL = faster levelling too.

These...



...are godly. I have tried to replace them a bunch of times, but can't. The DPS bonus is massive, the clear speed is significant. The occasional Endurance charge makes my CWDT+IC ridiculous, and the occasional Frenzy/Power charges obviously add DPS.

Again, I know I will have to dump them approaching T15+, but on that day I will be sad.

So, in conclusion, spent a lot of time and even more chaos, and ended up about where I started. Upgraded my amulet though.

A.

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Altissimus wrote:

- I hate Flame Dash. The cast speed is irrelevant when it's locked on 3 v...e...r...y s...l...o...w...l...y recharging charges.

Haha,I feel you man. But this is just another style over all. I didn't get used to the Flame Dash at the first as well, I was like, wtf is this shit, this is bullshit compared to my previous Pathfinder's whirling blades.

But then I realized that Flame Dash isn't designed for replacing the normal running, I got used to it and started to pop Quicksilver ever-since (back to the good ol running with flasks). I see a pack of mobs, I Flame Dash in, and then the Quicksilver is filled and I'll just need to pop again and keep running. It's all about "Get used to run with your actual feet".

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Altissimus wrote:

- QoL is shit compared to Rippling Thoughts for general map clear. We talked about Harbinger but completely didn't mention Storm Cascade, which can tear through packs, be used as ranged, doesn't use life, and has various other uses too. Also, I tested and Arcane surge is up 50% of time. Lightning Damage to spells also adds a reasonable chunk of DPS, which I think may have been underestimated.

You might be right, but overall I didn't test it with maps under T15 and maybe I was just not used to this.

As for the Storm Cascade....it might be very good in low tier maps due to its fixed damage?
Well the biggest loss is the Cast Speed but it seems to be no problem while speed-mapping. I didn't realize the 50% uptime of Arcane surge, I should have tried it in T10~T13 maps and see how it works.

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Altissimus wrote:

- for bosses, dual Apep's (asusming you can get enough life/resistances) is the bling. DPS is as high as it gets.

Yeah I know, the DPS buff is significant.

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Altissimus wrote:

These...

...are godly. I have tried to replace them a bunch of times, but can't. The DPS bonus is massive, the clear speed is significant. The occasional Endurance charge makes my CWDT+IC ridiculous, and the occasional Frenzy/Power charges obviously add DPS.

Seems cool mate lol. Imma try it myself and see if I can survive in High tier.
The realistic problem though, is that it would be very hard to overcap the res to mitigate the elemental curse.And lack of life pool.

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Altissimus wrote:

So, in conclusion, spent a lot of time and even more chaos, and ended up about where I started. Upgraded my amulet though.

Cheers mate, it's good to find your own preference and style.

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taosk8r wrote:

I notice a lot of uniques mentioned. This makes me wonder about the total cost to build this. Are any of the uniques themselves expensive, and do you have to spend a lot on rares to make up for lost resistances and defenses in general?

You can tell by looking at my current gear I posted, besides the 6L Carcass (I actually linked it myself using 250 fusing, so the 6L didn't cost me any xD ), the others are relatively cheap.

I'm not even optimizing my gear, you can still see some useless stats on it (accuracy, add XX to attacks, etc.).
It's easy to reach all res 75%+, actually I'm having all res 100% currently with this shitty gear.

Let's say, the uniques together worth less than 60 chaos. The corrupted Kaom's root with 5% movement speed cost me like 18 C. Apep 7C, Carcass 30C, and I forgot the price of Belt of deceiver...

For rare items: the rings and amulet cost me 50C in total I think, shield was like 40 C. Helmet and gloves are just less than 20 C.

So the items cost me less than 200C in total.....Except for the jewels, you can always invest more in jewels and you can just use a random one with 7% life on it. So the price of jewels depends.

And the skill gems, the Lv 21 Dark Pact is not that good, it only gives you roughly 5% more damage unlike other spell gems. So I got myself a cheap Lv 20 Q23 Dark Pact for 11.5% increased Area of Effect.

By the way, this is useful too:



Triggers Savage Hit, which helps with attack speed (clear speed) and leech, gives charges, etc.

Replineshes between packs.

Also saves your ass in no-regen maps when you ran out of mana ;)

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Altissimus wrote:

- Use of Kaom's causes all kinds of gem slot problems. I can see that this is something I will need to suffer through when I get to T15+, but for now (T10) it is unnecessary, and QoL = faster levelling too.

You can still spend 5 more points to get the Unwavering stance in the tree and get yourself the regular boots.
(but I don't really recommend doing this)

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Altissimus wrote:

By the way, this is useful too:

Triggers Savage Hit, which helps with attack speed (clear speed) and leech, gives charges, etc.

Replineshes between packs.

Also saves your ass in no-regen maps when you ran out of mana ;)

I mentioned it as well in the post, but I only see it as a counter to DoT (for myself I'll just pick the reduced DoT damage pantheon instead of this).

However, if you're using Lochtonial Caress as well, these 2 items seem to synergize very well in general map clearing.