Elemental equilibrium?

Lets say I don't have any nodes in increased elemental damage, but I have decent increased elemental damage from items, plus I use a skill like firestorm. would it even be worth investing in elemental equilibrium?

as long as the other skill doesnt do fire the general idea to maximize elemental equilibrium is to alternate between elements. that way u are triggering -50% resist to at least one element per skill use.

if u have dual strike with hatred and wrath then throw fire trap alternating skills u can get more dps out of each. each time u hit with dual strike u will trigger - 50% resistance to fire and then fire trap hit at -50% resist and will trigger -50% resist to cold and lightning. =D

"

leighferon wrote:

as long as the other skill doesnt do fire the general idea to maximize elemental equilibrium is to alternate between elements. that way u are triggering -50% resist to at least one element per skill use.

if u have dual strike with hatred and wrath then throw fire trap alternating skills u can get more dps out of each. each time u hit with dual strike u will trigger - 50% resistance to fire and then fire trap hit at -50% resist and will trigger -50% resist to cold and lightning. =D

my whole scheme revolves around using Wrath aura + split arrow/fork/life leach. the point is to barrage mobs with lightning damage then completely fuck them over with firestorm.

"

hostilesinbound wrote:

"

leighferon wrote:

as long as the other skill doesnt do fire the general idea to maximize elemental equilibrium is to alternate between elements. that way u are triggering -50% resist to at least one element per skill use.

if u have dual strike with hatred and wrath then throw fire trap alternating skills u can get more dps out of each. each time u hit with dual strike u will trigger - 50% resistance to fire and then fire trap hit at -50% resist and will trigger -50% resist to cold and lightning. =D

my whole scheme revolves around using Wrath aura + split arrow/fork/life leach. the point is to barrage mobs with lightning damage then completely fuck them over with firestorm.

You need a new scheme. EE works on hit. Firestorm causes a lot of small hits. The very first fireball of the firestorm that hits a mob will flip it to +50% fire resist. Small, fast hitting skills like firestorm are not good candidates for EE.

sounds like what you want is explosive arrow. load up the charges, split arrow with wrath... then BOOM!

EE requires a bit of fiddling but it kicks ass once you set it up right.

The idea is still focusing on only one element and using the other one to debuff via totem. A good debuffing skill is any that does a lot of small hits so EE is pretty much applied all the time, worthy examples are Sp0rk, Flame/Incinerate totem, Firestorm or GMP Freezing pulse.

Now, for the main skill you need some that is slow and does only one hit, that's important. If you stick LMP on Freezing pulse and use it as a main skill it will do the same damage every time you hit one enemy with all three waves, first one will to 50% more but the other two will do 25% less bringing you to a nice fat zero. Things like incinerate or firestorm will actually do less damage then without EE.

Other than that the keystone is really effective, works even on curse-immunes, and can also make crap skills borderline-viable, stuff like Ice Nova or Arc. Good main skills to use with it are conc/proliferation Fireball, Fire trap, Discharge, Shock Nova and elemental melee skills.
The strongest no-fiddling build that uses it is probably Explosive arrow templar.

I'm slightly confused. When you say you have increased elemental damage from items and you're talking about using attacks and spells together, what items/mods specifically do you have that you're referring to?

Switching between two elements can be great, but switching between spells and attacks is a bit more complicated.

"

MonstaMunch wrote:

Switching between two elements can be great, but switching between spells and attacks is a bit more complicated.

Oh, he must think hybrids can work here, let him find out for himself.

While on that, isn't it just hilarious? You could make working battlemages in an extremely restrictive ruleset like DnD, but you can't in a game that boasts unlimited options and freedom to play the way you want it.

"

raics wrote:

"

MonstaMunch wrote:

Switching between two elements can be great, but switching between spells and attacks is a bit more complicated.

Oh, he must think hybrids can work here, let him find out for himself.

They can, just not very well, and when they do its usually with Shadows rather than Witches.

@OP, look into the differences between spells and attacks and what affixes actually affect them. It sounds like you might be a bit confused. For example, "% weapon elemental damage" affixes don't help your spells, because spells aren't considered to come from the weapon. The same thing applies to flat ele damage rolls. You also need to consider cast speed vs attack speed. It's very hard to make an effective character that utilizes offensive spells and attacks together.

"

MonstaMunch wrote:

They can, just not very well, and when they do its usually with Shadows rather than Witches.

Yeah, that 'not very well' part is a bitch. Maybe if we didn't have to put so many points into defense we could spare some to develop both spells and attacks reasonably.
Summoner hybrid is probably the only one that works better then a straight summoner.

However, that's not the reason to quit dreaming and trying, that last melee-detonate dead shadow was fairly decent, problem being the lack of compatible fire melee skills to take advantage of all those fire nodes required to make DD work, infernal unfortunately destroys corpses. At least flame totem did passable damage and applied blind well to make you last longer in melee.