Would this build you guys are discussing work in SSF(btw) or does it require any notable uniques to get going?
The build I’m rolling is fine as solo self-found, at least up through early maps. I haven’t traded for an item yet. Even into higher maps, you don’t need any uniques, just incremental gear improvements for better life and links and such.
In other news, I found my first Legion today in a map, and it killed me because I had no idea what I was doing. This is what I get for skipping a league! Made the mistake of standing near the back, right by the bosses, and they ganked poor PrettyBoneBruise before I could run away. Learned that lesson! Seen two others since and cleared them out without any trouble.
I’m playing this necro build and so far I’ve been essentially playing SSF, since I’ve only used what has dropped or I’ve crafted. And I’m really breezing through stuff. The zombies and carrion golem are very tanky, the skeletons + infernal legion + Minion Instability (so when they die, they blow up) makes everything melt.
Found my first blighted map today, but had the misfortune to get a Flooded Mine. I like the concept - the map has no normal monsters, just one big fungal pump defense. But in the Flooded Mine, it sucked, because there are so few tower placement positions in those little tunnel passages. I could only place 4 or 5 towers in the initial setup period, and by the time more positions became available, the creeps had already overwhelmed my setup. Also, the lag was crazy when you’ve got hundreds of creeps bearing down! I hope to find some more blighted maps, they look fun, just not in a cramped little map area.
I think the tower spawn positions is the area most in need of tuning.
Hit 100 chaos in the stash yesterday, so I figured it was time to spend some of it. I’m not having any trouble with the yellow maps I’ve been doing, so I could have kept going SSF if I wanted. But all this currency was just sitting there burning a whole in my pocket…
My big purchase was 40 chaos for this circlet:
Rift Brow
Solaris Circlet
Quality: +20% (augmented)
Energy Shield: 97 (augmented)
Sockets: B-B-B-R
25% increased Vigilant Strike Damage
+2 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems
+24 to maximum Energy Shield
+76 to maximum Life
+31% to Cold Resistance
+26% to Chaos Resistance
+28% to Lightning Resistance (crafted)
Spent another 20 or so on misc other gear improvements, including an Oil so I could anoint my amulet to allocate Grave Intentions. Saves me several power points since I don’t need to path over to it on the tree.
Overall it got PrettyBoneBruise up to 5k life (plus 2k mana with Mind over Matter, so ~5600 effective life) with capped elemental resists and even positive 32% chaos resist.
I’ve also given up Shield Charge-Fortify, which I wasn’t using a lot anyway, and started using spectres. At gem level 19 (21 with bonuses) you get four of them. I’m running two each of Carnage and Host Chieftains for frenzy and power charges, as recommended in the guide I started with. I’ve also got a Animated Guardian, which is a bit different from the guide…basically using him instead of Enfeeble.
I hate Mind over Matter :(
But I have to start using it at some point and I’m running into survivability issues on occasional at 2400 health. Only 750 or so mana right now though (level 66? Can’t recall). I have a jewel slot open but I’m supposed to use a second copy of the GC threshold jewel (I have one of those in one slot and a forgettable gem in the second). Gear is mostly balls so I’ve got plenty of room to improve but not a ton of currency yet.
This is a heavily crit reliant GC build but it;s coming along fine. 22.5% or so chance (on 11% increased crit chance quality) and 285 multi. I thought to myself “build doesn’t call for it but I bet Divinarius would be amazing on it”.
Looked up prices. So I missed that it got changed! It’s, uh, better now. And expensive. My next purchase is likely to be a decent 5link.
Although I did get a corrupted 6L to drop, it’s not a good base and I can’t uncorrupt myself (and I think that’s expensive anyway). But it’s armor/es IIRC, so I coudl color it to my needs (r-g-bbbb probably).
I have no earthly idea what I should be aiming for regarding an anointment. Heart of Ice, Primal Manifestation, and a crit notable would all be options.
FYI, I’ve populated the map tab in the guild stash with tier 1-6 maps, just missing a few. Lined up one tier on each row, 1-2 at the top and increasing as you go down. I’ll be adding more tiers as I find extras.
Anyone know if annointments stack if you already have the notable in your tree?
It just assigns the node so it won’t do anything (more) in that case. If you have anything that modifies that node (e.g. might of the meek, legion jewels) you get the modified effect (e.g. nothing, whatever legion effect)
The 3.8.0e patch says it addresses tower positioning. “Improved the placement of Blight Tower positions such that there are fewer clusters of unused Tower foundations.” Can’t say I’m extremely optimistic, but any improvement is good.
I can’tr tell if towers stuck behind walls, awkwardly position away from doors where the path comes through, do anything without LOS. It may be not be a concern, but I’ve seen that a lot in windy indoor areas. Also, another problem I occasionally observed was a new branch/gate spawning and only getting like 2 tower positions (and maybe being in range of established towers in some cases, if they were longer range towers I had placed).
Anecdotally post patch, I’ve only done like 4 missions. Twice I’ve had dual path spawns at the start and they were medium lengfth, one tower right next to the gates themselves. In one case, the other tower was near the gate and there was just a long empty stretch along both paths back to the pump. In the other, one path had a tower near the pump but the other was far up. Tht was a bit odd and I hadn’t seen that before. But both instances were fairly easy.
The Delve Stash tab has finally graced us with it’s presence!
Huh. Do people actually have enough Delve stuff that this matters? I’ve never had more than a dozen or so Delve items in post-Delve leagues. Which is not to say I won’t buy this. It’s a stash tab, I must have all the tabs.
Some people apparently do. I’ve probably had as many as 20-30 at my peak (also post delve).
Did a few maps with @peacedog and @Zephyr earlier. Fun, but we might skip the blighted map next time. You have not truly lagged until you’ve seen the slideshow that two necromancers and a glacial cascader can make while fighting a gazillion creeps coming from every direction. I can see why the devs have been posting about working on performance in those maps!
Yeah that was. . . something else. :P I can see where it would be fun though. It was almost impossible to loot at the end there was so much stuff.
Today I begin my quest to makemyself not fall over at a stiff breeze. I’ve already picked up a 5l chest (my first purchase, natch). I’ve been having a lot of trouble even in the early delves, honestly. Can’t recall the last time I felt this squishy.
It was fun watching the server catch up and everything was moving at Benny Hill speed. I did also get the minion achievement after popping vaal skeletons, but not sure how many I had up at the time. I also couldn’t loot much around the pump as the loot filter went a bit mad with all of the items.
I have a bit of chaos saved up and need to reevaluate my gear this weekend. Even with 4k EHP, I didn’t feel too squishy last night, but damage did drop off.
I think I’ve found the kryptonite for this physical necro build. Ran a Lava Lake (T14) that had physical reflect, a couple of extra monster damage modifiers, and the big monster physical resist mod. Died 3 times in that thing on the boss fight, minions falling over constantly and the big add spawns taking forever to die. Lesson learned…physical resist is annoying, physical reflect is annoying, both together is deadly.
Welp, GGG has admitted that they screwed up with this league, as far as performance goes.
There’s a lot of stuff in there but it boils down to “we made a league mechanic with a ton of monsters that live a long time, and also made summoners very popular, and that killed our server performance…our bad.” They say they’re still working on it, and if they find a solution that would be great, but I’m not hopeful. My suspicion is that the “solution” will end up being fewer monsters and minions, which may make performance better, but it won’t be the same gameplay. Which is too bad because both the Blight mechanics and the summoner stuff is great, when the performance holds up.