safer builds against reflect and desync

Doing low dps is the best counter to reflect!

"

JeIlySickLe wrote:

"

MortalKombat3 wrote:

Nothing is better against desync & reflect, than Aegis of Aurora.

well theres voltaxic

Still worse against desync :)

I run a MF build with heavily boosted auras.

The build itself has no problems with any reflect, because it uses Ancestral Bonded Incinerate totems.

"

Nephalim wrote:

Doing low dps is the best counter to reflect!

Not even the totems are affected by reflect, because they have 0.007K dps.

However, people die to reflect due to my auras: yesterday I had a Voltax-critter in my party on a -maxres and ele reflect map. The first rare we ran into had ele reflect as well, and apparently my boosted Anger aura......

I heard that AA is quite useful too. My current AA character doesn't have high enough level yet to confirm it though.

My best counter to reflect: Resolute Technique for extremely consistent damage. On my new main character, a cyclone duelist, reflect is literally a non-issue due to extremely consistent damage reducing spikiness greatly and lgoh gem + life leech on gear (2% physical leech on my gloves makes a lot of difference) making everything better. With these factors considered, my 14.5k tooltip for cyclone has me virtually unaffected by reflect - even with quadruple reflect (elemental and physical on map, and overlapping auras from rares for both elemental and physical...took a while to find that scenario), I would barely take damage.

Lightning thorns is a different issue...with any high attack speed (especially AoE, like cyclone) build, it can be very dangerous. There you just have to be smart and focus fire on the mages that cast lightning thorns, though.

For desync, my best advice is not having multistrike on any attack that moves you. I experience somewhat regular desync with cyclone, but nothing fatal due to not linking multistrike with it, and learning what it looks like enough to know immediately when it happens. Keep a desync macro ready, though.

Honestly, though...handling desync and reflect is usually about playing smart more so than building smart, as long as you have a solid build to begin with. On characters more susceptible to reflect (my freeze pulser - now shelved due to his aspirations of low-life RF drying up - used to carry EK to handle elemental reflect...likewise, my flickerstriker carries lightning strike to handle physical reflect, since the physical damage can get ridiculous on crit builds like flickerstrikers).

Most importantly, just remember: just because your dps isn't high enough to murder yourself to reflect doesn't mean your dps is too low to have fun and clear quite fast. There's a point where higher dps only serves to get you killed - that's the point when you can safely focus on some survival instead.