Minion Instability questions

Ok, so flaming aside, that was all quite useful. What im getting from all this is that minion damage and minion life will both apply to the explosion damage, I was also unsure about that. Since thats teh case, and im fairly sure without going to check that conc effect is better then minion damage, and even so, conc effect will also apply to the cyclone damage itself so that alone makes it the winning choice, so my 6l will be cyclone, CoC, skeles, infernal, minion life, and conc/inc effect.

I am also thinking for auras the life aura, I think vitality, would be a good pick, and herald of purity seems to be the superior choice for extra explosion generation since it can generate 4 minions at once while agony only generates 1.

I also, ironically, dont think I actually will need very much crit unless I want to use it to boost the damage of cyclone itself even though this is a CoC build because the need for From Dust to prevent overcycling means I can only get 1 skele cast per second, and with how fast hitting cyclone is combined with Spiritual Command from the passive tree for attack speed I dont think I will have any trouble at all getting 1 crit/sec without stacking crit chance.

Ultimately, what I think im going to do is get only the little bit of crit I need for the 1 per second and focus the rest on minion damage with Spiritual Aid for damage from cyclone itself and a little extra oomph on the skeletons few slaps each they get in before exploding

EDIT: Vitality is life regen, not extra life, so counterproductive

The real question is why even go CoC at all as opposed to CwC? Unless you're stacking crit multi and damage for yourself, or running some items that interact with crit, there's not much benefit and more downside in going that route.

You often have to put yourself in the thick of combat for Cyclone CoC Skellies to work well. With CwC though, you can stay on the fringes much of the time. You also don't need to worry about accuracy at all, which is important for CoC, as you don't need to actually hit anything with CwC. You can Resolute Technique for easy accuracy solution, but then you lose all your crit damage for CoC.

Another thought would be to use SRS instead of conc effect. Even more explosions that way, and having an extra spell in the links won't screw with your skellies triggering since you're using From Dust. Their explosions, and their own damage while they're alive, should outpace the benefit conc effect by quite a bit.

Vitality may not be a great aura choice, as it will delay your skeletons' death and their explosions. Not by much, but you mostly want them exploding as often as possible so they don't get unsummoned rather than hitting the Instability threshold. That's one you have to play with a bit to see if the downside outweighs the benefit for your build. If you do stick with crit, War Banner is a good alternative for the increased accuracy.

And Purity is a much better choice than Agony, as Agony will never die so long as you have any amount of virulence--and they never hit that instability threshold anyway (they have no health pool). Plus, yes, more minions to explode with Purity.

The reason for CoC instead of CwC is because I didnt want to make the build a caster, I wanted to use melee, and the suggestion for the srs instead of conc/inc is something ive been thinking about as well, how exactly does CoC interact with multiple spells? does it cycle between them? if thats the case, then picking up more crit chance would actually be helpful since then I could get more then 1 cast per second

part of the reason for melee, other then jsut cause its makes the build more fun, is because im on console, and aiming spells on console is a nightmare, especially aiming skeleton hard casts, im hopeing that CoC will cause the skeles to be cast on me or on a target rather then at their max range at the edge of the screen which is what u get with hard casts on console for skeletons, its infuriating

im thinking that I could use that one unique amulet that everyone probably has a million of for my crit chance, but that would imply ditching crit multiplyer alltogether, I hope to use the iron mass when I can afford to get it, so I dont think I would necessarily NEED that crit multiplyer, I guess it comes down to if I could manage to get enough crit chance from sources other then that amulet without losing too many minion damage opportunities, if not, then using that weird crit for triggers only amulet it is

oh, im also already using war banner, im thinking either anger or wrath for my last aura

and I just realized that Cyclone is Channeling, now I understand, and ur right, that does seemv ery much like it would be the better setup over CoC

I am also realizing that infernal legion alone isnt enough to get the skeles life down in 1 second, its looking like I will need to also dw earendels embrace tog et them to die fast enough unless someone knows of a way to get my max skele count up to 14+ so I can get 2 casts

Yeah, there's just not a lot of benefit with going crit in that kind of build, but some definite drawbacks. CwC gives more flexibility as well as a bit more safety.

Since you're using skeletons, another option instead of conc effect or something like SRS would be Dark Pact. You'll sometimes have to take the first hit of damage from it yourself when you don't already have any skeletons out, but it helps bring their life down pretty quickly in conjunction with Burning Legion. Add in Earendel and you may be able to forego From Dust altogether and just maintain a steady stream of quickly exploding skellies.

Earendel's would also give them Avatar of Fire, meaning you could take Wrath and add in Elemental Equilibrium to boost their damage further (so long as you're not also doing any fire damage yourself).

There are just too many ways to go with Instability builds... :D

ok, so important update after some testing, I have to use CoC because im on console. It comes down to the extremely stupid way the console version targets skeletons. CwC targets at "mouse location" which has the skeletons spawning at the edge of the screen, then exploding uselessly before they can reach their target. CoC, however, targets at hit location, so right on top of me. I COULD just stay away and spin at a distance away from my enemy, but at that point I might as well just be hard casting them which puts me right back at the targeting problem. That being said, it seems unlikely that il be able to pick up the needed amount of crit chance without that amulet and still have enough passive nodes left to not be made of paper, on that note though, since I am effectively a minion life based build, I could easily use spectres and get host chieftains for crit chance via power charges and just take a max power charges node or two if I want to be able to keep my crit damage and not ahve it be solely a trigger, il have to play around with it to see if I can get away with not having that amulet once I reach act 6 for the spectres for power charges, and in the meantime, il just sue the amulet

dark pact might be the ticket, either way it still has to be CoC cause console skeleton targeting is worthless, though I dont think that dark pact would be enough to remove from dust because of how fast the trigger gems cast, even with from dust and two earendels, its close to not quite working because it still takes just over that full second for their life to deplete after being cast, I could get 3 casts realistically before I would be overcycling, so the time it takes for 3 casts to happen would have to be greater then that just under a second with the aid of dark pact, thats something I have to get further along to test out, thankfully the life taken from the skeletons for pact isnt a stat that changes with its level, so I can toss in a lvl 1 pact for testing when I am able to do that

Yikes, didn't even know console could limit your options in such a way.

Not sure how you're set up gear-wise, but you could do Trypanon and always crit without any other investment in crit. That might also give you some flexibility with your timing/From Dust, since it's got a really low attack speed.

Ya, they really need to add customizable options for things like hpw far away your default casting spot is, and the two earendels are a must to prevent overcycling since u cant stack from dust to raise skele cooldown more with it being limited to 1, so im gonna need crit and accuracy investment, but can minimize crit investment with ungils harmony and power charge monkey spectres, but ya, I think with the one scepter crit node set close to spiritual aid, an extra power charge, those monkeys, and this amulet my crit should be taken care of I think, then I just need accuracy

just discovered another possible option depending on exactly how skeletons are given the dash skill, if its just on aggression at all, then maw of mischief would give them dash, right? unless it requires spesifically for them to be linked with feeding frenzy, in which case, that wont work

so an unexpected twist regarding the power charge monkeys idea, they dont work for lack of regen. I tried using them, but they die too often because I need to avoid minion life leech and minion life regen to be able to keep my skeletons dieing in time to not overcycle, but thats fine because as im finding, the damage from cyclone itself is by far the least important thing about this build so using ungils works just fine. I do need some crit investment on top of that, but it isnt terribly bad. I went with Inquisitor instead of Guardian, which was my initial plan, because guardian passives arent great for this build and inquisitor has the str/int into crit thing that helps minimize my needed crit investment. The monkeys not working out isnt all bad though, because it means I have room for some other options like being able to add more life to my herald of purity minions and reducing mana reserved from wrath via enlighten to enable me to do that Elemental Equalibrium trick you mentioned before. I have yet to test things out with dark pact, but I will get to that eventually because it seems like it could potentially work really well. I think I ultimately made a less then optimal choice for this build with templar instead of witch, but frankly speaking, I dont think I would be able to survive in the heat of battle if I picked witch like I can do somewhat well as templar. Witch would also need more Crit investment and would at the same time have less access to it. for lack of the Inquisitor passive I picked and because of the fact that shes quite a ways away from any melee crit nodes. I also wanted to try using Carrion in this build, but for the same reasons as the monkeys, Carrion dies too often and doesnt provide enough of a benefit to be worth recasting all the time and would provide nearly no benefit if I tried to use it in CWDT.

With that in mind, my setup plan so far is this;

6l chest with cyclone, CoC, skeles, SRS, infernal, and minion life

double 2l helm with CWDT+Immortal Call and CWDT+Molten Shell

3l Earendels embrace with Flame Dash, Second Wind, and Faster Casting

other 3l Earendels embrace with War Banner, Wrath, and Enlighten

4l boots or gloves with purity, infernal, minion life, and enlighten

This leaves a whole gear slot open for something else, but idk what to put there. Monkeys and Carrion dont survive even with minion life and fortify so thats out. Im thinking maybe I can include more CWDT links for another kind of golem that has a buff that might be more useful to me, maybe blood rage for life leech though idk if that would actually be helpful or just make me die more. Another option is what ive seen someone else refer to as "Ghetto Blasphemy" where you link CWDT with something like frost nova along with hextouch and enfeeble or some other useful hex. I know you used to be able to use assassins mark for power charges that way before they changed curse on hit to hextouch, but I dont think CWDT+Amark is effective at all anymore. I could also go for a smaller area of effect on the curst and link enfeeble directly to CWDT and do that AND a CWDT golem, but come to think of it, GHetto Blasphemy might be the better pick because I could possibly use a spell with chance to shock for more boosted damage. Im open to any suggestions on how to use this last 4l I have open