Sunders are a noob trap outside of sorceresses

General Discussion
63

I think it’s arguably one of the best, especially considering PI’s, and even more so paired with Bone Break, and since this thread is about Sunders…

On a WereWolf, my experience has been;
BoneBreak alone is fine for 1-off PI’s… they go down quick enough Amp/Decrep are not needed…
If headed to an area with high concentration/mobs of PI’s I swap my main weapon in town and run Reapers…
Before I had Reapers, Atma’s was working just fine… and Atma’s is still what my Hunter/Summons Druid uses… along with BoneBreak.

Treachery-swap on a WereWolf?
With the massive life pool, insane life steal and access to Cyclone… I don’t see lugging an armor around and standing in fires being required/worth it.
At any rate, my point is, you don’t need to lug a Reapers around in your cube/stash… if headed to an area with high density of PI’s, swap in town and don’t worry about the minuscule loss of DPS…

I feel the same about CTA on a WereWolf… I’d rather the +skills Hoto offers for casting into form, Oak, Heart and Zoo members.
But then, I also find CTA to be a royal PITA.
I’m sure I’m in the minority on that one.

My WereWolfW is lvl93, runs Death in a eDecapitator (eReapers when there will be packs of PI’s), and gets Fanata from Act1 merc… Has over 4000 life without Oak, over 5200 life with Oak, has 75@res (80 lite res), and up to 168% life steal.
My Hunter/Summons guy who is also lvl93, has only 5 hard points into the WereWolf (1 in Rabies), just enough to help the Zoo with Baal and DClone… and still has 5700 life (with Oak), 75@res, and up to 108% life steal.
My point here is Fade does not seem worth the stash space, the hassle of swapping and standing around, (IMO) - when you are stealing life faster than anything can take it, and have a life pool that makes you immune to any 1-shot situation.

Now, I realize we all have different priorities in our builds…

All the above is based on PVM… since I’m guessing BoneBreak does not apply to PvP, which I do not participate.

64

I think generally speaking it can all be summed up as “other than the magic sunder, they all function for their intended purpose if you itemize around them”

The magic sunder is just absolutely donkey though, and if sunders are to be the D2 meta future, either needs reworked, or just removed, it has no real use case. To be useful it would really need to reduce magic immunes to 80% at least to even be usable.

1 Like
65

wow almost like i was making an exaggeration. im sure there’s an inferno sorc out there somewhere too.

66

treachery is for resists, and u dont need to stand in fire, treachery is al;ready the 2nd best armor… when your fade goes away just use it until it comes back up., wolf defense is low and treachery is the 2nd best armor for wolfs, which u wear until you can get fort anyways, wearing and playing normally until it procs isnt an issue

as wolf resists are freaking garbage since we cant use a shield with our 2 handers,
and the +15% phsyical resist from fade is nice to help compensate the bone break

also standing in fire is dumb. if u need to proc it, go to halls of pain… there are a bunch of flayers who spitball you and near instantly trigger fade

i mean sure if u can buy a bunch of 5 all res 20 lifers sure then go ham without fade, but… i prefer having maxed resists

i also use an act 3 fire merc who enchants my wolves/ bear and blow up all the physical immunes with his fireball. ( granted he is a dumb POS who also like to prioritze casting fireball on fire immunes but thats merc AI for you)

i never bothered using bone break, but for some reason it slipped my mind about the 1/5th penaltly when breaking physical without sunder. likely mostly because its damn near impossible to accurately apply… i tried lawbringer and reapers on act 5 and 2 merc and again the ai is just so dumb.

reapers is decent as offhand,but then to prebuff i would need to have space for both hoto and spirit monarch, which didnt seem reasonable, and like i said losing +5 on casting summons is a pretty big hit, which is why im leaning toward lacerator, i just cant fit both my treachery for resist and lacerator in cube.

and its not like i even need to break them. my act 3 merc melts physical immunes just fine.

but it would be nice for those annoying fire physical immunes spawns u sometimes get on rare occasions.

1 Like
67

Hmmm… making sense now… I twinked my guy (non-ladder) and stole an unused Fort from a Zealot build… up to that point I rolled a ViperMagi with 29@res.

i don’t know… needing to stand in fire or go start Halls of Pain to make something work seems like a PITA to me.
I read Metamorph is pretty awesome, but have no desire to make one, if they ever come to non-ladder.
I prefer the Jalal’s for the resist… and, was able to stick an Um in it.
I don’t know if giving up +30FHR and 35@res makes sense for the CNBF and attack bonus’s… for the way I like to play… especially for the cost of a Cham.
I have some 5@res small charms, but they are plain, or have cold res or poison damage on them…
I too prefer having max Res.

What is your main hand? I ask, 'cause Reapers with BoneBreak is pretty formidable… especially in areas that are known to have packs of PI’s… which is the only place I equip it.
And, like I noted earlier, it doesn’t need to be on swap, you know when you are headed to PI-ville and simply swap in town for the entire run.
I wear Hoto and Spirit on my off hand… so I always have the +5 for Summons… as I said I don’t enjoy monitoring/managing/casting CTA , to me it’s a PITA, so, I don’t deal with that interface/mechanic… but do have decent levels of Oak and Heart to apply when/as needed.

Good luck to you.

68

normally its an edeath decapitator

what makes metamorphosis great is the mark of the bear which gives attack speed

this allows u to shave off 4 frames minimum and hit 5/3/3/3/6 with only 40 ias
( lvl 32 werewolf required but thats not asking much)

https://warren1001.github.io/IAS_Calculator/

you can also hit 5/3/3/3/6 with a ebotd thundermaul with only its base 60 ias if u have with mark of the bear.

shaving off 4-5 frames on a fury is worth it IMO.
but the 20% PDR is nothing to scoff at either

it also brings crushing blow to like 90%

1 Like
69

Thanks for your entire response.
If non-ladder ever gets Metamorphosis… I’ll be tempted to make one (still searching for a great bas, have an ok one now), and, hopefully the Superior Bone Visage I put Shael-Io-Tal in magically becomes a Cure for my Merc.

I do not get into the math like yourself, and so many others… so I appreciate you breaking it down.
When I cast WereWolf, I’m at lvl40 (thanks to Hoto/Spirit) in his essential skills… would be more if I cast with Mara’s and Arach’s and SoJ, but… I hate swapping stuff around… so he just rocks HighLords, SoE and RavenFrost full time.
His CrushingBlow is 75%, Deadly Strike is 97%… but IAS only registers 40% in the character screen, even when I shift to Wolf and get Feral spooled up.

70

feral rage gives life leech, not ias.

your character screen will however tell you your actual life leech, the tooltip for feral rage is a lie

if u want the actual numbers, u can see them here

1 Like
71

I play nova\ES, i know that resists don’t affect mana damage. But I do equal life & mana build (around 1700 with BO, 1100 without) because I don’t want to get blood mana’d, so i have a moderate risk of getting my mana burnt and ES knocked off. The risk of then getting killed by some inferno or lightning is not worth it to me.

72

I see, but you basically gimp yourself with that build and your comment sounded like Sunders are generally bad for Nova sorcs.

I don’t share your fear of blood mana, I think it’s overrated as it only spawns in a view areas and doesn’t hurt that much if you pay attention.