Trick to Drox Fight with non-meta-dps?

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NoIguanaForZ wrote:

What does Spell Cascade do in that setup? I remember being disappointed early on to realize it couldn't support fireball directly and haven't paid it much attention since.

Cascade triples the amount of flame walls per cast.

Casting a single flame wall would look like this: |
The "|" representing the wall.
Supported with cascade it would look like this: | | |

It simply covers more AoE and if the boss is sitting in the center, its very easy to imbue projectiles with flame walls bonus dmg before those projectiles do hit the boss.

There is one "trick" with Drox--when he puts up the proximity shield, you want to stand inside that shield to bypass some of the damage reduction. You do still want to clear the flags but inside is better than outside. Of course, that makes dodging stuff trickier.

Serpent Stance/Counterweight had always been global. It's the benefit of using a staff vs. wands/scepters when doing spells. with an Eclipse staff base and those 2, you are ~50% crit chance already with a ton of multi.

That rare you show is decent but it does not have any + levels, which is the single most important scaling mod you can get for fireball.

If you are having trouble with the rhythm of a mana flask, have you tried rolling an Enduring Divine (or Eternal) Mana flask? Basically that prefix makes it so the recovery effect doesn't end just because you are at full mana (at the cost of lower recovery overall).

I'm not sure regarding your question on Projectiles Split to be honest because I don't play Fireball. You will need to test that one out to see.

One thing I do want to mention though: With some exceptions, this game focuses a lot on balance--that is you want a good amount of defense along with a good amount of offenses. You don't want too much of one at the cost of the other. This game does a great job of enforcing that by making some of your defenses easy to reach point-wise and the last of it prohibitively expensive. I have the nagging feeling you have way too much ES and not enough of everything else. You might feel more comfortable that way (because you got used to it) but the tankiness you think you need is a self-fulfilling prophecy--you need this much ES because you don't do any damage and therefore fights last that long. Additionally, if you have no armour and no evasion from even pots, you are effectively 0% physical resistance (you wouldn't run around with 0% elemental resistance, would you?). I asked for your PoB so that I might modify the tree in that way for you. But it sounds like you are someone who prefers to do that instead so I'll respect that.

3.15 and 3.16 did a massive change to pots and then armour/evasion (by the way, check your Basalt flask implicit, it does nothing for you now since you don't have any armour). To the point where I always run with a Chemist's Jade of (insert good evasion suffix) and Chemist's Granite of (insert good armour suffix). Use the new instilling orbs at the bench to put "Use when charges are full" on them and you will never need to press them. Even with no investment to Armour/Evasion, those 2 pots will give you a decent chunk of defense. In fact, I would get rid of the Harvest enchants on all your flasks and use the ones you can get from the new orbs (if you prefer to press some of them, the new enkindling orbs have strong buffs you can roll). 3.15 also made flask item level matter as there are tons of tiers per mod now. If you pick some up of the appropriate item level, you can roll some much better flasks.

One last thing: When I mentioned in my first post that I play successful non-meta builds, that was not to flex. I wanted to make the point that while meta builds are often more powerful, they aren't always and they aren't the only ones that can complete all the content in the game. My builds don't always lag the meta builds in damage or defense, and sometimes they are better in one or both. That isn't because I'm particularly good at this game, it's because I spend a lot of time dabbling in meta builds to understand what makes them tick, so that I can take those components and put them into builds I find interesting to play. To this day, I still play a meta build or 2 each league alongside my own builds to learn the why behind what makes the meta build strong. "Making your own successful build" is a goal a lot of players have without realizing that there's a ton of learning gated behind doing that goal successfully. I play meta builds to put in that work.

A meta build is merely just a top build that a popular streamer created that everyone copies. I know a lot of hate towards those builds is because anyone can just go and copy a build to do well (and when the passive tree gets reworked a tiny bit or a skill gets hit a certain way, those people are lost without an update from their streamer). What people often fail to understand is that all good builds take a strong understanding of character building to make, meta builds are no exception. If you have that knowledge, you don't need to play a meta build and you can do just as well as someone who is. I say this because from talking to you, it sounds like you are someone who would value the knowledge behind building good efficient characters. If you do, seek to understand what makes things good or bad in the game.

Forgot to mention: It is technically not impossible to win on 200k dps. In fact, the top people in those crazy gauntlet races (where bosses can have way more life and defenses) often do not have much more than 250k dps (and they are killing every endgame boss on that). Now, they are much more skillful players than you or I but it is possible.

[Wow, this got long.]

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TemjinGold wrote:

That rare you show is decent but it does not have any + levels, which is the single most important scaling mod you can get for fireball.

Yeah, my tentative plan was: hit 100, since even though one more passive point (well, 4 or 5 when I formulated the plan) shouldn't make a big difference in the build objectively, it becoming impossible to gain and then lose XP would be psychologically different for me; build up 100-150 exalts on the way; and try to metacraft one of a handful of prefixes that all gave me good POB damage boosts on it (+3 Fire Spells being the ideal, spell or fire damage be what I'd settle for, then +2 Support Gems to go with my L4 Empower in a bossing setup (unless modgroup-blocked by +# fire gems, then spell damage or something), then build up enough exalts to craft for that one specifically. I figured that a staff with the right prefixes and the same or comparable suffixes would be out of my price range if anyone was even willing to sell it.

Aaaand it looks like "any rare staff with +3 Fire Spells and no other criteria" starts at 8 C and "+1-2 Fire Spell plus +1-2 Spells" starts at 250 Ex, so you're right about price breaks/affordability... I'll take a closer look at what's out there.

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If you are having trouble with the rhythm of a mana flask, have you tried rolling an Enduring Divine (or Eternal) Mana flask? Basically that prefix makes it so the recovery effect doesn't end just because you are at full mana (at the cost of lower recovery overall).

Honestly I was pretty set on "not relying on flasks for mana" by the time the Enduring prefix existed. Suppose it might be time to give it a try, especially since mana flasks get charges from sniper's mark hits...

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I'm not sure regarding your question on Projectiles Split to be honest because I don't play Fireball. You will need to test that one out to see.

Tried it on T16 Summit boss, hard to tell visually what's going on in that regard. There wasn't a huge obvious difference in how fast he died between L16 Sniper's Mark and the subsequent run with L20 Flammability, but that's with only -33% Hex effect. POB clearly assumes it affects area damage, but it also thinks Awakened Controlled Destruction would give me much more DPS in practice...

Oh, and after about 3 minutes adjustment Greater Volley feels *good* about 90% of the time (I suspect the narrower area coverage may cause a need for some tweaking in azurite node encounters and possibly 1-2 other situations). I don't remember now why I wasn't using it before (maybe the azurite node thing). So thanks again.

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I have the nagging feeling you have way too much ES and not enough of everything else. You might feel more comfortable that way (because you got used to it) but the tankiness you think you need is a self-fulfilling prophecy--you need this much ES because you don't do any damage and therefore fights last that long.

That's likely a fair point; my ES is as high as it is largely because I have the build currently prioritizing not getting XP penalties in red maps/red beachheads, vs. endgame bossing which I hadn't planned to focus on until it came to pass that my backlog of prophecies and the current form of the Conqueror/Awakener progression had an expiration date.

Although I did squeeze in A8/T15 Baran yesterday and I'm pretty sure it would have taken a second attempt if I'd had ~a million DPS and ~7800 energy shield per my 3.14-era respec plans, since getting hit pretty reliably left me with less than a quarter of my total if I was at full on the first hit and didn't get shocked (side note: ...am I missing something subtle or does he have no windup for the triple-lightning-bolt at all?)

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Additionally, if you have no armour and no evasion from even pots, you are effectively 0% physical resistance (you wouldn't run around with 0% elemental resistance, would you?).

That was more or less my reasoning for focusing so heavily on endurance charge generation. It had been my understanding that with armour and evasion you needed *a lot* of it to be much good against large hits/high level monsters, and smaller ones hadn't been an issue since I respec'd into ES leech.

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I asked for your PoB so that I might modify the tree in that way for you. But it sounds like you are someone who prefers to do that instead so I'll respect that.

Kinda, yeah, though I really appreciate both the offer and the specific bits and pieces so far. (One small quibble though: I was actually using a nearly-top-rolls legacy Searing Touch before I got the Martyr of Innocence in 3.14 and went from, as I recall, ~150kdps with clearing gem setup to ~320k...which 3.15 then more or less reverted. Well, 3.17 manifesto notes are encouraging so far... Also on reflection I'm nervous about dropping ignite entirely or my ignite chance too far because I rely on Divergent Fire Penetration Support, AKA "Actually Does What the Cremator Node Sounds Like It Does Support" for corpse removal; ignite damage can go though.)

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3.15 and 3.16 did a massive change to pots and then armour/evasion (by the way, check your Basalt flask implicit, it does nothing for you now since you don't have any armour).

Ouch, you're right. I specifically made a mental note to do something about the basalt flask, when reading patch notes, and then didn't play for a couple weeks on league launch and it slipped my mind.

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To the point where I always run with a Chemist's Jade of (insert good evasion suffix) and Chemist's Granite of (insert good armour suffix).

Per the previous comment about needing large amounts to be useful; is this reflecting the changes you're referring to? I should probably reread that section, although...

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Use the new instilling orbs at the bench to put "Use when charges are full" on them and you will never need to press them. Even with no investment to Armour/Evasion, those 2 pots will give you a decent chunk of defense.

...not to be flippant, but while I can see this working during aggressive clearing, how does it not leave you with empty flasks 10 seconds into a boss fight (I really don't see a path to bosses-that-matter taking less than 10 seconds for this basic build concept)?

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In fact, I would get rid of the Harvest enchants on all your flasks and use the ones you can get from the new orbs (if you prefer to press some of them, the new enkindling orbs have strong buffs you can roll). 3.15 also made flask item level matter as there are tons of tiers per mod now. If you pick some up of the appropriate item level, you can roll some much better flasks.

Worth looking at, since I'm probably underutilizing flasks except for reacting to bleeding/ignite/curses. Harvest mods are specifically because of charge maintenance, though. How does that work in boss fights? Especially when adds are few and far between (or nonexistent, as with Sirus) this seems like it'd leave me unable to respond to bleeds or ignites in fairly short order.

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One last thing: When I mentioned in my first post that I play successful non-meta builds, that was not to flex.

Yeah, I meant in comparison to the tone of the replies before yours, which came across as social-dominance-gestures rather than trying to help, not to say that you specifically were doing it.

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A meta build is merely just a top build that a popular streamer created that everyone copies.

Huh, okay. I guess I was cueing off "metagaming" in RP-per-se-Gs (but, like, in a relative sense, given that there's a necessary baseline level in Path).

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I say this because from talking to you, it sounds like you are someone who would value the knowledge behind building good efficient characters. If you do, seek to understand what makes things good or bad in the game.

Thanks. Working on it.

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TemjinGold wrote:

Forgot to mention: It is technically not impossible to win on 200k dps.

Oh, I knew it wasn't impossible; aside from the streamer achievements, if nothing else I managed to get him to ~25% health on 5 portals, with a couple quick deaths early on while I was relearning the cues and rhythm for Drox's moves (it'd been a couple leagues), the next three deaths basically being when I eventually got sloppy dodging the giant fists because my arm and hand were going numb. If I'd had six portals still I might well have managed on the first attempt; giving my arm a day to recover I expect I'd win a rematch even at A8/T16...

But getting him to 25% health in portals was a 45 minute straight-up death march. Which, knowing that people have done it on low-DPS builds, made me wonder if there was some trick to it that made it less godawful (with, eh, having just come off that 45 minutes coming through in the tone a bit). A2/T15 Drox was considerably less unpleasant (and took less than half the time...technically...).

Haha sorry for the length, I get carried away sometimes!

For the armour/evasion stuff, GGG basically made it so they have double effect for their numbers (armour for example instead of needing 10 times armour to mitigate 90%, only needs 5 times now). 20k armour used to do nothing. Now it is a massive difference. Evasion used to be a struggle to get to 70+%, now you can easily get to 90+% (25k evasion on the new system I reckon is almost as good as 25k evasion AND ~60 dodge on the old).

"Use when full" for flasks actually won't do anything on Conqueror fights and the like where there are no mobs because it only trips when you gain a charge into full. If there's nothing to kill, it won't gain charges, meaning you get to press them when you need them. That said, if you prefer to press them yourself always, some of the new ones give you one of up to 70% increased effect, 100% increased duration, massive reduced charges used, etc. at the cost of not gaining charges while that pot is in use.

Fun fact on using the cremator effect--if you jack up your crit chance (get 100%) and are NOT using any form of Elemental Focus, that's all you need for it. That's because a crit will ALWAYS inflict the associated ailment as long as you do at least 1 point of damage of that element (in this case fire). If you hold onto ignite, Cinderswallow Urn can be great for you if you can afford it.

Not sure if you'll see this in time but I did a search for:

"Standard"
"Battery Staff"
"+3 Fire"

Pandemonium Gnarl for 3ex is insanely good for you (+3, T1 flat fire to spells, crafted %fire damage which you can recraft for higher numbers). Only 13% cast speed but no dump mods. I would grab that if you can because a meaningful upgrade from that is insanely expensive.

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TemjinGold wrote:

Haha sorry for the length, I get carried away sometimes!

Mine, I meant.

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For the armour/evasion stuff, GGG basically made it so they have double effect for their numbers (armour for example instead of needing 10 times armour to mitigate 90%, only needs 5 times now). 20k armour used to do nothing. Now it is a massive difference. Evasion used to be a struggle to get to 70+%, now you can easily get to 90+% (25k evasion on the new system I reckon is almost as good as 25k evasion AND ~60 dodge on the old).

Huh, okay. I'll take another look at that then.

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Fun fact on using the cremator effect--if you jack up your crit chance (get 100%) and are NOT using any form of Elemental Focus, that's all you need for it. That's because a crit will ALWAYS inflict the associated ailment as long as you do at least 1 point of damage of that element (in this case fire). If you hold onto ignite, Cinderswallow Urn can be great for you if you can afford it.

True. Is 100% achievable? As I recall pretty much all "chance to" effects, like "reduced damage taken" effects, are capped at either 75% or 90%. Either way, I guess anything over 50% should be plenty for that purpose since fireball has a base chance... (Corpse removal may be less critical on the new system, too; I played 3.4-3.15 on a best-options-at-the-time Precision M3800 which worked *most of the time* but, in particular, the Burial Grounds boss and heist chokepoints could get me well into the single-digit "seconds per frame" range without some way of removing bodies that wasn't a separate skill I had to use every second or so, which as you might imagine left an impression on me.)

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TemjinGold wrote:

Pandemonium Gnarl

Snagged it, thanks. :D

Yes, Crit can be 100% just like accuracy. By the way, you may know this already but 3.17 is about to massively bump up your damage haha...

Since you got that staff, once you can 6L it, you can get out of all the mana regen investment in your gear (stuff like your amulet). I'd aim to make a +2 amulet among other things.