The %31 gem actually gives 17.7% more xp due to the fact that most of the time you're at 175% XP from the NV buff. Even so it makes you reach paragon lvl 100 100 or so hours faster.
Morphos you see the Paragon system in a wrong way. It is not meant to give you more MF. It's meant to allow you to replace your current items which gives MF with DPS ones while staying at your current MF %. Once you get to lvl 10 you're able to offset the MF lost from the gem for example. In 7 more levels you'll be able to use the money you obtained while leveling to upgrade another piece of equipment from MF to DPS.
All in one you seem to not grasp the huge grind for max paragon lvl. If you're lvl 10 you're 98.5% away from lvl 100 - not 90% away as you might think.
I am not that concerned with hitting level 100, just like I was never concerned with hitting 99 in D2. My goal is to farm items. If I switch to a red gem, ill lose MF until I gain enough levels to replace it. Id rather have that MF now. When i hit the MF cap with the topaz, ill probably swith it to a ruby at that point.
So after 1.0.4 and spending the gold I had saved up on new legendary upgrades I switched to the Archon spec and the farming is now incredibly efficient, so I decided to make a couple of videos showing the build off.
Here's the first video of me going through Crater 1:
There's a couple of elite packs along the way, and at 3:25 I kill two at once:
Here's a second video of the Keep Depths 1 and 2 that doesn't go as smoothly:
In this one I die twice, once to a fallen maniac and once (stupidly) to a reflect damage pack before I realized it had reflect. I almost died to another reflect pack as well. You can also see in this video how easy it is to refresh Archon with Stormchaser. I'm pretty sure that is going to get nerfed.
FYI, parts of this guide are sort of out of date now. The gearing section still applies, but the builds section is a little dated due to the patch. I'm planning on rewriting parts of it, but havn't had a chance to get to it yet and am kind of waiting on things to fully shake out from the patch. It should get done in the next week or so though.
I don't know what your gear level is, but I would really recommend against using an archon build with less than at least 90k DPS, and probably you want more than that. Until the patch, I was running at 75k DPS because I was saving gold for the new legendaries etc that I knew the patch would bring and wasn't buying any upgrades. I kept trying to make an archon spec work at that point and could never pull it off, because it just wasn't killing things fast enough to give up all the survivability/tools you get from your other spells when not in archon. After the patch, I bought upgrades and boosted my dps up to 120k and now archon is incredibly efficient. So it really is a spec that requires good gear.
I would recommend something more like the typical blizzard/hydra spec. Arcane hydra is very strong now. If you have a crit chance of about 40%+ or higher, Forked Lightning is amazing. If not, use piercing orb or lightning blast.
Not to be down on your spec, because it looks fine, but I watched the video on your stream page and I definitely kill things faster than that as archon. Good spec though, looks fun and stuff, but the title is a little misleading I think.
The +% to ele damage works, but in a really weird way. It works like this:
Take all sources of non-elemental MINIMUM damage. This is the lower damage number on your weapon, not counting any elemental damage. If you weapon has a +ele damage affix, subtract the minimum on it from the minimum listed on the tooltip. Now add the +minimum damage from all your other items, i.e. source and jewelry. Take the appropriate percentage of that (i.e. 5% if its +5% poison damage, like from zuni boots) and then double it. It then adds that much +dmg.
Example:
You have Triumvirate with a total of +18% ele damage (6% on 3 elements).
You have a weapon with a tooltip damage range of 400-800, with a poison affix of 200 - 500, making its physical damage 200 - 300. You have a ring with +20-40 dmg, and an offhand with +100-400 damage. You add up 200 + 20 + 100 = 320. You take 18% of that = 57.6. You multiply by 2 = 115.2. Effectively it is adding +115.2 dmg, i.e. 57.6 average damage, which is likely to be something like 3000-4000ish DPS.
At first glance that sounds really strange, but I had some data lying around from some tests I did on a necklace with +6% holy damage and that method matches my results, so I can definitely confirm it. Out of curiousity, do you have a source for those calculations? I looked a couple months ago and couldn't find any concrete formulas.
Also, if that is how the old set worked, has it been shown to work the same with the new set since the wording seems to be a little different?
It is incredibly strange. I assume its bugged in multiple ways. Taking the % of the minimum and then doubling it seems like it should really be taking the % of the minimum and the maximum. The interaction with the elemental damage affixes is also very strange.
The only source I have is this thread, where me and another poster on reddit tested it and confirmed that it worked that way:
The +% to ele damage works, but in a really weird way. It works like this:
Take all sources of non-elemental MINIMUM damage. This is the lower damage number on your weapon, not counting any elemental damage. If you weapon has a +ele damage affix, subtract the minimum on it from the minimum listed on the tooltip. Now add the +minimum damage from all your other items, i.e. source and jewelry. Take the appropriate percentage of that (i.e. 5% if its +5% poison damage, like from zuni boots) and then double it. It then adds that much +dmg.
Example:
You have Triumvirate with a total of +18% ele damage (6% on 3 elements).
You have a weapon with a tooltip damage range of 400-800, with a poison affix of 200 - 500, making its physical damage 200 - 300. You have a ring with +20-40 dmg, and an offhand with +100-400 damage. You add up 200 + 20 + 100 = 320. You take 18% of that = 57.6. You multiply by 2 = 115.2. Effectively it is adding +115.2 dmg, i.e. 57.6 average damage, which is likely to be something like 3000-4000ish DPS.
Cold Blooded actually currently increases all of your damage to any frozen or chilled target by 20%, so its more of a tooltip fix, but it does say "All" damage so it may be a buff so that it will affect hydra and other players.
Thanks OP for this informative post. Its nice to have someone willing to put in the effort to help educate the rest of the player base. I was wondering if you would mind if I repost this information on my website, Diablo 3 Inferno Builds . I'd like to help spread this information and I would include back link back to this site so it is evident where the information came from. This site just started roughly three weeks ago and i've been working on filling it with some quality content so I hope you consider it! Thanks again for the information.
I don't mind you linking it at all as long as you attribute it and don't claim it as your own.
Hi guys on the subject of EHP, I've been testing this out with a naked (gasp!) wiz
Theres a damage range to hits so I have listed the max:
Colossal Gol - 159k (the big hit)
Phase beasts(elite) - 128k (bonus! Firechains 29k)
Swift skull cleaver - 177k
Demonic tremor - 160k dodgable big hit, 100k 1hand hit
I was also under the impression that elites get a 25% dmg boost? Can someone confirm
Testing was done till 30sec death timer respawn reached and I remade
So it looks like 180k is the min you can get away with atm
I also dont think you should include dodge chance in EHP calcs for force armour. However successful hits will often 'bleed' through if you're dancing on the edge.
I consider the golgor, the skull cleavers, and the demonic tremors big hits as avoidable, so I didn't count them in coming up with the 117.5k number. The phasebeast hit of 128k is the highest normal mob hit thats basically unavoidable. You would need 94kish EHP for force armor to reduce that hit to 35% of your life. (128k / 1.35). An elite phasebeast will hit 25% harder, which is about 118k EHP needed to get the full reduction to 35% against one of those hits. I run with my EHP somewhere in the 120k range.
Can you tell me why you don't have Prismatic Armor in your Critical Mass build? Also, Glass Cannon, seriously?
Your Critical Mass build pros and cons are all wrong, and the comment about either Prismatic OR Diamond Skin / Nova made me giggle a bit.
Also, for further reference, you really may want to be a bit more specific with regards to how to gear each build...
The critical mass build was taken directly from www.windupwizard.com, the author of which has recently popularized the energy twister - wicked wind version of the spec. I noted in the description of the spec that some builds will take prismatic armor and will build more defensively.
Boots - 11%+ movement speed is mandatory, and 12% is better. This is a slot that can spawn high dex so it’s a good place to make sure you’re over 100. Another good spot to grab resists potentially.
Is that a typo and meant to be high INT?
No I meant dex... You want at least 100 dex on your gear for the 10% dodge, and 500 gets you to 20%. Since boots can spawn much higher dex than other slots, its a good place to pick up the dex for "free." Obviously you're looking for high int boots with movement speed, its just that you're more likely to find good dex as a bonus stat on boots.
I would like some advice on EHP since I can't understand it at all. Currently I am running with 60k dps, 31k hp, 3600k armor and 500 AR. I recently upgraded some items and got these numbers. I went to A3 to test it, and still got punished... I would like to know if the values are ok to do the act, or should I invest in a little bit more gear in general.
I don't know if the numbers you listed are buffed or unbuffed. Assuming they are buffed, thats about 172k EHP. That is more than enough to reduce hits to 35% of your life when using force armor, but if you aren't using force armor you will probably die in 2 hits to most Act 3 mobs.
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I am not that concerned with hitting level 100, just like I was never concerned with hitting 99 in D2. My goal is to farm items. If I switch to a red gem, ill lose MF until I gain enough levels to replace it. Id rather have that MF now. When i hit the MF cap with the topaz, ill probably swith it to a ruby at that point.
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Lifesteal does not work with the archon beam. Not sure if its a bug or not. It does work with the other attacks though.
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The whole point of paragon leveling is to get more MF. Why would I want to lose MF to level slightly faster?
Storm chaser was not nerfed. It's coefficient is still .5. It will get nerfed.
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Here's the first video of me going through Crater 1:
There's a couple of elite packs along the way, and at 3:25 I kill two at once:
Here's a second video of the Keep Depths 1 and 2 that doesn't go as smoothly:
In this one I die twice, once to a fallen maniac and once (stupidly) to a reflect damage pack before I realized it had reflect. I almost died to another reflect pack as well. You can also see in this video how easy it is to refresh Archon with Stormchaser. I'm pretty sure that is going to get nerfed.
Profile is here: http://us.battle.net...-1475/hero/1467
I think this spec rivals the double WW barb at this point, but I could be wrong
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I would recommend something more like the typical blizzard/hydra spec. Arcane hydra is very strong now. If you have a crit chance of about 40%+ or higher, Forked Lightning is amazing. If not, use piercing orb or lightning blast.
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It is incredibly strange. I assume its bugged in multiple ways. Taking the % of the minimum and then doubling it seems like it should really be taking the % of the minimum and the maximum. The interaction with the elemental damage affixes is also very strange.
The only source I have is this thread, where me and another poster on reddit tested it and confirmed that it worked that way:
http://www.reddit.co...element/c5g1mb6
This "formula" will give you results accurate within ~20dps, which appears to be due to rounding errors.
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Take all sources of non-elemental MINIMUM damage. This is the lower damage number on your weapon, not counting any elemental damage. If you weapon has a +ele damage affix, subtract the minimum on it from the minimum listed on the tooltip. Now add the +minimum damage from all your other items, i.e. source and jewelry. Take the appropriate percentage of that (i.e. 5% if its +5% poison damage, like from zuni boots) and then double it. It then adds that much +dmg.
Example:
You have Triumvirate with a total of +18% ele damage (6% on 3 elements).
You have a weapon with a tooltip damage range of 400-800, with a poison affix of 200 - 500, making its physical damage 200 - 300. You have a ring with +20-40 dmg, and an offhand with +100-400 damage. You add up 200 + 20 + 100 = 320. You take 18% of that = 57.6. You multiply by 2 = 115.2. Effectively it is adding +115.2 dmg, i.e. 57.6 average damage, which is likely to be something like 3000-4000ish DPS.
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I don't mind you linking it at all as long as you attribute it and don't claim it as your own.
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I consider the golgor, the skull cleavers, and the demonic tremors big hits as avoidable, so I didn't count them in coming up with the 117.5k number. The phasebeast hit of 128k is the highest normal mob hit thats basically unavoidable. You would need 94kish EHP for force armor to reduce that hit to 35% of your life. (128k / 1.35). An elite phasebeast will hit 25% harder, which is about 118k EHP needed to get the full reduction to 35% against one of those hits. I run with my EHP somewhere in the 120k range.
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The critical mass build was taken directly from www.windupwizard.com, the author of which has recently popularized the energy twister - wicked wind version of the spec. I noted in the description of the spec that some builds will take prismatic armor and will build more defensively.
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No I meant dex... You want at least 100 dex on your gear for the 10% dodge, and 500 gets you to 20%. Since boots can spawn much higher dex than other slots, its a good place to pick up the dex for "free." Obviously you're looking for high int boots with movement speed, its just that you're more likely to find good dex as a bonus stat on boots.
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Plug your numbers in to the calculator here: http://rubensayshi.g...lculator/#intro
I don't know if the numbers you listed are buffed or unbuffed. Assuming they are buffed, thats about 172k EHP. That is more than enough to reduce hits to 35% of your life when using force armor, but if you aren't using force armor you will probably die in 2 hits to most Act 3 mobs.