Gear Options

Hi, Hoping for thoughts and advice.

Read forums regular and have read threads about "show what you have" to help with gear build.

I was working towards witch set but following premium day now not sure. I bought Belt of Zeal and this opening me to what else would I consider.

I note that Bearch's Instinct is used by some in conjunction with Darkness shoulder and torso.

So my question is a balance of Draken Cores against Augment cores and is this only viable if I have high quality gems and gold line enchants? My gems are improving but this will be a long process and most of my items have 3 GL enchants. Unless luck changes dramatically it will be a while before I have crafted even non perfect 4 GL enchants

Bearch's Instinct would allow me to use shock cores rather than augment cores and would provide crit hit. Belt of Zeal would help with clearing mobs but how effective would it be against end boss?

Should I just continue to push with chasing witch set?

Appreciate any comments or thoughts . I am using Q7 set rather than Q4.

Cheers and thanks
Zolty

 

Here is the catch with the Belt of Zeal... It's one minuet kill timer. You must land a kill every 59 seconds or less, or you lose your entire stacked buff and the belt is no better than any other crafted legendary/unique. That means that you have to finish the boss, sell/melt/craft extraordinarily quickly and get back in the map fast! Alternatively, you can use the Peddler shop and mobile crafting bench to alleviate some of this by doing some selling and melting in the map. This allows you to kill some monsters, take your time (30-45 seconds) to sell and craft and then move on really quick to kill the next mob. Then, all you need to worry about when you are in town is melting and getting back to killing. Problem is, if you do a lot of group runs, unless your group is a bunch of hard hitting superstars, you will have a very hard time maintaining the buff after a run, and you will slow them down some if you constantly have to stop and sell. Regarding your concerns about using it in bosses, you needn't worry. All the PW bosses (and many of the non PW bosses too) summon minions during their fights. You simply need to pay attention and make sure you kill a couple when they show up to maintain your buff through the fight.

On the other hand, there is no time based component to the Bear belt, so it is as good at the beginning of a run as it is at the end. The crit is nice, so it is a solid item that is pretty good all the time, especially if you have a good amount of %Crit.

That is up to you. It lets you reach the highest damages in the game, but at the expense of the largest damage gaps in the game. The problem with a high damage gap is that you end up with a lot more randomness. My favorite example is using MWS to regen HP against a single target. Based on my observations, most DKs will try to refill their HP with MWS when they are between 30%-50%. If two builds have 20k-30k and 22k-28k respectively, and all the other stats are the same (4x crit damage for this example), you can expect to average the same damage over time since both have a D_avg of 25k. But, when it comes to healing, you have the following possibilities.

Build 1:
Lowest heal- Non-crit with min damage=20000*2*0.2*0.5=4000
Highest Heal- Crit with max damage= 30000*2*.2*.5*4=24000

Build 2:
Lowest heal- Non-crit with min damage=22000*2*0.2*0.5=4400
Highest Heal- Crit with max damage= 28000*2*.2*.5*4=22400

Now, these are the extremes, but in a one-on-one basis, I'd prefer a higher minimum than a higher maximum. This is one of the rare times where I'm going based on a subjective opinion instead of just cold hard math, but since HP regen against a single opponent is usually more critical in nature, I'm more worries about a higher min than a higher max since the a bad low heal at the wrong time could cause trouble. That is the subjective part, but here is the math that supports it. (4400-4000)/4400=9.1% and (24000-22400)/24000=6.67%. That is my way of saying that the better low is more significant than the lower low than the higher high is when compared to the worse high.

Both builds are awesome builds. It just comes down to preference... But, if I can see the future, I'm thinking that the Darkness based build will become less relevant in the future (already on a downward trend because or the changes to wisdom). I only hope that the developers release a torso/sholders/belt set or individual items that lend themselves to a low damage gap based build instead of forcing me to take on a large damage gap build.

 

As usual love reading your posts. You have put a lot more time and effort into the answer that I was hoping for . So thanks for taking the time.

You have created some indecision which I accept is something that I would have to work out.

I agree with thoughts about higher and lower values and for me I am looking for more of a constant. This is one of the reasons I am looking beyond the normal build of witch set.

I don't think the Belt of Zeal will be a viable option as I am not a player that rushes through maps. I tend to chat along the way and take time melting....wouldn't want to miss one of those elusive gold line items. So I would have max benefit on belt just to lose it again for next map. Would be awesome farming Desert lol

This then leads me back to Bearach's Instinct but then what Shoulder and Torso to use? If Darkness option is likely to become less relevant, and I can see what you are saying about Wisdom, then really it puts me back to pushing forward with witch set and accepting the gap in damage.

I have the Belt of Zeal tucked away and no idea when, and if, Darkness set if likely to come on sale again. So have time to consider options.

Again, thanks for the well thought out reply.

Cheers
Zolty

 

Nope... defiantly not the belt for you then.

If you are the sort of person who would truly benefit from having that belt, you wouldn't be farming in the desert then.

I know the feeling. I'm lucky that I built with the Darkness set when it was among the best, and I can still farm anything I want, but if I had to make the same decision today, I don't know what I'd chose. In fact, I just crafted a 4 gold line torso this evening, but instead of immediately replacing the 3.5 gold lines on my existing darkness torso, I'm holding off. My hope is that they release a Q10 PW and that if/when they do, maybe it will be the Myrdosh region. If that is the case, I anticipate that it will be a Torso/Amulet combo (maybe torso/amulet/1h axe, but who knows). If that's the case, I'll have the legendary for the transfer craft ready to go.

 

I used the belt to farm new moon on pain and excr without any gems
I used it with anniversary pet and cloak of heroes.
It goes fast really fast, and I do not even have speed boots yet.
I can assure you using the belt in some scenarios is great.
Another example is leaderboard, I have been to busy to focus on it, however I did Q1 recently only on pain and excr to speed farm progress, and it works really well.
This is not a viable option for me with the bearach weapon though since I lose too much dmg etc.
I might use it with bloodrune sword though I tend to want to lean towards a new weapon.
Speaking of sets, the mechanical parts from destructor is not to be discredited.
Here let me explain.
Now unfortunately the axe is not mega damage, however the axe torso and gloves with witch seeker belt and shoulders and 3 parts dragan will give 25% more cd and 26% faster attack speed.
I could imagine that the extra crit from the axe will allow a player to go full 4x dmg on helmet too.
I calculated the attack speed would be rated at 3.15 attacks per second <- this excludes the speed from skills like rage attack and smash.
I also consider this setup a bit unfair since mages get mace level damage on their weapon and other classes do not.
Anyways back in the real world, yes belt of zeal is highly viable till the moment you lose your buff, but highly viable non the less.
As for my 3 dark parts I do not regret it for a single moment, end builds with royal onyxes might not need it but me being on only 49 sacreds in total at the moment am grateful for the dark set and am sure it will take me very far still.

 

Thanks Phyrix and Baragain. Will keep farming and maybe “luck” will play a part in end decision. Given that the Drakness set was available to purchase not long ago I am guessing it will be a little while before it becomes available again. In the meantime I may find a witch item drop which will influence me to go in that direction.

I know it is part of the sheep syndrome but given you both have bearach’s instinct and darkness torso, shoulder I would like to give it a go. Given my lower gems and crafts I believe it would be a while before I grew out of them, even if game evolves.

The increased Crit would give me a big boost for inf maps.

Will see what comes with Q10. Maybe with recent images being released (and presuming the images are related to Q10) it is not far away from being available. Can’t wait

 

Darkness set will be available in December, if you do opt for dark parts with bear set rather try 3 aka the gloves too since its 15% more dmg