I’m not sure but I would expect from the center since the position of a character would be much easier to manage code-wise as a single number, rather than a hitbox area. Doing calculations on distances between hitboxes (especially if they’re not simple shapes) is also more involved than point-to-point distances.
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Sounds reasonable to me. Might be possible to test on one of a few really huge targets, like the corrupted growths in Act IV, which might have >10 yards distance from hitbox edge to center.
i find its really not that far off from bot, certainly not compared to the time you save vs rg. assuming max levels, 2 stacks per second, and 25% bonus being on its own multiplier, it takes about 15 seconds to be equal dmg to bot. in a 3 min rgk you’ll AVERAGE over 400% dmg increase, vs bots constant 60%, obviously the improvement continues the longer rg fight lasts.
I don’t use Zei’s because I have no idea what 10 yards looks like on the screen. If my DH is 2 yards tall, do I have to stand back 5x character height just to get to 10 yards? 50 yards seems really far away, if it is half a football field away. I have a 27 inch screen and I still don’t think I could be 50 yards away and have the mobs on the screen.
I am probably not calculating distance correctly.
Your hero is 9-10 yards tall. DH’s vault is 35 yards (if I remember correctly).
See this Yard Meter image:
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50 yards in game is not the same 50 yards on a rifle range 
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What? So they are all giants? That’s nuts. But thanks for the explanation. Maybe they should have called it something other than yards?
Millifurlongs would be the most appropriate.
A furlong is about 201 meters. So divided by 1000 that’s 20.1 centimeters. If you multiply that by 9-10 you get about 1.8-2 meters (a typical height for a human).
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yes, “please stand 50 MFs away for max damage”
diablo 3 tooltips brought to you by samuel l jackson.
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according to icy-veins, the best setup is using cull of the weak, if we use BOT what procs the slow? is that passive mandatory?
Cull the Weak is too good to pass up, but unless you are tough enough to Strafe right through the middle of a pack of enemies, you should also use Thrill of the Hunt.
Thrill of the Hunt will slow every enemy hit by your Strafe projectiles, no matter how far away, and then they will suffer the extra damage of both Bane of the Trapped and Cull the Weak.
If you are tough enough, then you can use Numbing Traps instead of Thrill of the Hunt, and let your rank 25 or greater Bane of the Trapped slow the enemies within 15 yards of you as you Strafe through them.
I think it’s also about solo vs group. In groups supports give you plenty of buffs to increase your toughness / survival so you can ( and should) opt for more glass cannon dps, but in solo if you can’t strafe through a pack or near it - dead dps = 0 dps ^^
For example on my BS masquerade necro I swap between Zei and esoteric depending if I group or go solo in GR, suppose you can make a dynamic setup too,
I’d like to give my input on this, along with other gems mentioned by people in responses.
The obvious best gem is Simplicity’s Strength. The next-best is Taeguk, because it still provides a decent amount of damage along with a fair amount of armor.
As others have said, the third gem slot is best filled with either a Bane of the Trapped, or Bane of the Stricken, depending on the situation, however I would like to give a more accurate distinction between when to use one, and when to use the others. Obviously Trapped is for shorter rifts, and Stricken is for longer rifts, but the important thing is knowing exactly when it’s time to make the switch.
I’ve seen some suggest that you should use Stricken when enemies are taking more than 3-4 hits to kill. This is nowhere near enough time for Stricken to become useful. Some have suggested that you should use it after GR110, or after GR120. This is still not helpful, as some people can actually speedrun these levels. As a Para2200 player on nonseason, my GoDDH runs GR110 in 2-3 minutes and 120 in 7-8 minutes; I do better with Trapped than Stricken at these levels. Others have suggested that you should use Stricken when your rifts are taking more than 9 minutes. Again I disagree; at this point your Rift Guardian is still not taking long to kill, and you can save more time by killing the rest of mobs faster.
I would argue that the point at which you should begin to use Stricken should be based on how long you’re taking to kill the Rift Guardian.
It’s not the point at which Stricken will build up more damage against the RG than Trapped (about 10 seconds), because if you’re just reaching that damage as it dies, then most of your attacks were still dealing less damage and you’re still taking longer to kill the RG. It’s also not the point at which Stricken begins to kill the RG faster than trapped (about 20 seconds), because at that point you’ve still lost time against the rest of the rift. No, it’s the point at which killing the RG without Stricken has begun to take so long that the amount of time saved by using Stricken is likely to exceed the amount of time cost by doing the rest of the rift without Trapped.
As others have pointed out, the time to use Stricken is when you are GR pushing. If you are GR pushing with a GoD DH, and you’re playing smart, then you are pulling multiple elites together and fighting them at the same time, using your area damage to kill them. When you’re fighting that way, your Bane of the Stricken doesn’t get to build up a whole lot of stacks against Elites until the Elites are probably already nearing death; because there are so many other mobs around for most of the fight. Stricken also doesn’t help you to make better use out of the extra mobs around Elites, with your Area Damage. Bane of the Trapped will do a better job of helping you kill Elites. Stricken will be a big help in killing Juggernaughts, but you should have been skipping those, anyway. With that in mind, Stricken will ONLY be saving you time on the RG, while costing you time in the rest of the rift; so the RG will need to be taking a very substantial amount of time for this to be worth it. I would suggest that by the time the RG is beginning to take you more than 4 minutes to kill without Stricken, it may be worth switching over. At this point, switching to Stricken will allow you to kill the RG in about 90 seconds instead of 240 seconds, which has saved you 150 seconds, which may be enough to make up for the time that using this gem instead of Trapped cost you in the rest of the rift.
As for Zei’s Stone of Vengeance: I object to using this gem. When you are closer to your target, your arrows get more pierces during their lifetime and you end up killing them noticeably faster. Using Zei’s will basically just give you back the damage you lost, enabling you to deal that kind of damage from a distance. You’re unlikely to get to be far from your targets during most of the rift, and against RG’s in particular you gain a lot from “boxing” the RG at close-range, and you’re generally not at much risk of death.
It is possible that Zei’s could outdo Bane of the Trapped for speedrunning in particular, because when speedrunning, you’re generally killing enemies before you could slow them with Fan of Knives or Bane of the Trapped; this forces you to use Thrill of the Hunt for your Trapped and Cull the Weak to take effect. Zei’s can give you just as much damage as both of those combined, all while freeing up the two passive slots. Steady Aim goes nicely with Zei’s, and of course Ambush is a must-have for speedrunning. I hadn’t thought about using Zei’s with this build, but I couldn’t help but think about how it would work when I saw someone suggest it, so I will actually accept that as a viable suggestion, but only for speedrunning. If you’re not killing targets instantly, then you’re better off getting them slowed and getting close to them so your arrows can get more pierces. However, considering that even when speedrunning you’re generally moving as fast as your arrows and tend to be pretty close to the enemies as you’re going right through them, I’m still skeptical about Zei’s being useful on the GoD build for speedrunning. If you’re really having trouble surviving, then the Zei’s allowing you to fire from a distance and stun enemies may prove useful, however in my experience I haven’t had much trouble surviving, and my GR clears have been more about how fast I can kill enemies. Another potential benefit of using Zei + Steady Aim instead of Trapped + Cull The Weak + Thrill of the Hunt would be that Juggernaughts would be significantly easier to kill.
As for Bane of the Powerful, that’s just something you use when there aren’t even 3 gems that are applicable to your build and you just need a gem that will at least do something.
Edit: From some testing, I’d say that the Zei’s is not better than Trapped unless you’re aiming to do rifts in less than 1:30. In 1:30-2:30 rifts you’re still ending up close to your enemies before they die. In longer rifts, the Zei’s and Buriza combined provide incredible amounts of crowd control, but I still found that most of the time I was in the pile of enemies. To make good use of Zei’s and stay away from enemies, you’d have to give up standing in Oculus Rings which give even more damage than Zei’s. It wasn’t bad; even at closerange your arrows will end up dealing extra damage to enemies further away later in their path, but the enemies you’re most concerned with killing are elites, and you’re often going to be close to those. The Zei’s is an interesting choice and I would say that you can use it and it will still be viable, but you’d probably be better off using Trapped. If you’re playing on a team and you’ve got a zbarb or zmonk to keep you alive, then because of how the damage is calculated, the Zei’s might be viable, although it would be undesirable if you’re playing with a zbarb or zmonk along with a necromancer or crusader, because of the stuns causing cc immunity.
I disagree with others about Taeguk being undesirable because of skill damage. Taeguk increases your actual sheet damage. That factors in before other bonuses, so I imagine things like skill damage would be multiplied based on your new&improved sheet damage from Taeguk, making it highly valuable. I’ve tested, and my sheet damage went up by the exact 76.4% that the Taeguk claimed to give. Unless other bonuses are ignoring the new&improved sheet damage, I’d say Taeguk is more valuable than Zei’s or Trapped. I ran some tests exchanging Taeguk for Zei’s, and exchanging Trapped for Zei’s, at various GRift levels, and for all of my testing, the SS+BotT+Taeguk combo was better than all other builds using Zei’s; but I’ll admit that I only ran about 15 trials.
I will test in a group sometime to see how this functions with support from Odyssey’s End.
Edit: I have been made aware that even though Taeguk increases your sheet damage, other DIBS damage modifiers ignore this and are based on the pre-Taeguk damage. However that doesn’t change the fact that from my testing, the Zei’s did not outperform the Trapped or Taeguk. However, in a 4-man with over +300% DIBS from other sources, the +80% from Taeguk starts behaving like +20%, and at that point the Zei’s will easily outperform it even at close ranges.
Taeguk indeed boosts your sheet DPS but that doesn’t mean your sheet DPS is then factored as the base damage for everything else. The damage increased by skills category includes Hungering Arrow damage, Taeguk, Odyssey’s End, Marked for Death, Strongarm Bracers, the Efficacious Toxin gem, and a number of other buffs by other classes. So Taeguk ends up being very weak compared to other options in a group setting, particularly with a zBarb or zDH.
The math has been tested on these things in controlled settings. If you want an obvious example you can try yourself, try using the Wojahnni Assaulter (without Sin Seekers) for Rapid Fire with and without the Taeguk. You will notice that the Taeguk bonus is rather negligible!
That isn’t quite correct. The number of pierces does depend on distance somewhat but it isn’t as you think. Maybe DiEoxidE can make a video showing how many pierces you get at different ranges.
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yeah i thought about addressing it but theres a lot going on.
stricken dmg in rift really isnt as far off from bot as you seem to think. i do agree its most suited for pushing, but in mid tiers and even some speed setups its not bad at all.
ive used thrill several times too, thinking it would be great synergy almost as soon as the build came out, and its disappointing from everything ive seen. a good follower does extremely well already, secondly, just because it seems like everything is always getting hit, does NOT mean its strafe thats hitting it. i noticed next to no gain by using thrill and wouldnt recommend it
Quick question about Zei’s, is the distance dmg bonus snapshotted when you fire the projectile or it’s calculated when it hits?
If I’m firing let’s say a bone spear which has a slower travel time, I could get vortex pulled in before my BS makes contacts with the mobs, how would Zei work in that scenario? Thanks!
As far as I’m concerned, for GoD speeds in 4-man (with zDH) I removed taeguk in favor of Zei’s. Makes more sense to me.
I mean, whether or not you accept that 2+2 = 4 doesn’t make it any less true.
While rankings are obviously not as concrete as mathematical proof, I’ve managed to achieved rank 1 by a considerable margin without even fishing using zei’s gem at a point. It’s even recorded. I’ve already gone over why zei’s is a decent gem earlier in this thread. If one just slots a zei’s gem without any other adjustments or considerations, one’s going to get mediocre results. This isn’t out of the ordinary.
GoD6 has many different viable combinations. 1h+quiver, DW, fortress, valla, lianas wings, dawn, etrayu, yangs, dual gen w/Leonine or Odyssey’s end, sydyru crust, unbound bolt, any 2h xbow, taeguk, stricken, simplicity strength, bane of the trapped, zei’s, bane of the powerful, aughilds, ess of johan, squirts, flavor of time, convention of elements, elusive ring, mantle of channeling (next season), captain crimson (next season), windchill, etc. All of these are within a few GR’s of each other and some combinations will be preferred over others depending on the situation or playstyle. This doesn’t even take into account the massive RNG this build reeks of which makes each GR run, speed or push, feel quite a bit different from each other.
Anyways, the point is that I believe we should encourage variety, present why it works, and let the players interested in said information choose which route they want to go, rather than dismissing viable alternatives that may not fit a personal narrative or the current meta.
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I believe Zei’s is dynamic, and will calculate damage based on your distance from your target when the target is hit.
Indeed! I am by no means a highly accomplished player…I’ve squeaked out a 108 with the GoD set (before a millisecond power outage killed the character), but I have done 100-105s with wildly different builds on this set with about the same clear times.
Of course, at its core we have a Hungering Arrow/Strafe set, but the permutations really make it feel like you don’t have to run a cookie-cutter build to have your character perform as well as or better than the one you are looking at on the leaderboard. It’s quite refreshing.
Also, it makes arguments about what item/passive, etc. is better than another more an academic debate rather than an effort to convince someone they are looking at the build wrong.
There’s a lot of choice with this set, which is what is making it successful and popular.
The +10,000% to skill doesn’t hurt either…lol.
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