[Guide] Fire LoN HotA (Season 17)

You needn’t 70 lvl WD.
Create a WD char (1 lvl). Craft 70 lvl rare pants and upgrade them to legendary untill you get Swamp LandWaders.
After that you can use your barb to reforge them until you get good stats.

I was playing with it over the weekend

I like Stone gauntlets over Magefist. I think EF is BiS but you need to roll STR off for CDR. Trapped is much better than PE. It is fairly comparable to IK HotA. Initially I thought it was going to be better, but running them both I could do 110 just as good as one as the other. If there is a difference in GR level to be it would be 1 or 2 GR at most and I couldn’t tell which is really the strong. If I had to guess LOD is stronger because I was doing about the same with a lot less augmented gear.

I got a Primal EF and was debating rolling the STR or %Damage off for CDR, I guess long term it is best to roll the STR off. Some folks are getting crazy clears with this build early in the season and I’m not quite sure if it’s a mixture of Flavor of Time and the GR lottery or if I’m doing something wrong.

These are your culprits.

LoD HOTA isn’t as strong as last season’s ring-less LoN HOTA for obvious reasons, but it is competing neck and neck with IK HOTA and might, in the end, eke out a few more GR tiers than its set-based cousing.

Flavor of Time, on the other hand, is propelling builds ahead. I would argue that any new clears made with the amulet are, in large part, thanks to the amulet.

If I had to guess the crazy clears are coming via the GR. When I look at the numbers on paper they are quite close between IK HotA and LoD HotA. But LoD HotA has Flavor of time which may be an advantage in certain situations.

Last night I was running a GR118 for my SS build and I got to the point where I was dragging 6 elite packs. If I had flavor of time along and ran into a conduit, I would have immediately jumped to around 6 minutes ahead of the timer.

I would guess this is what is happening with the big clears. I think I haven’t run into this because I just haven’t gone through enough keys yet with my LoD HotA build. I have mainly been looking at it to see if it can compete with my SS build and I would say it is at least 4 GRs behind right now.

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https:// us.diablo3. com/en/profile/PhreEk-1472/hero/86941224

(Spaces)

Enjoying this setup for just doing regular rifts and bounties etc.

Found the primal Lut Socks so was just messing around but I actually like it. I don’t need an extra damage skill or anything so having leap to jump over obstacles or jump a few times if my in-geom falls off is pretty nice.

Just enjoying the variety of my Primals I can put to use, haha.

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Sticky request submitted.

It is done, thanks…

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I would love to see this thread revived once the drama over 2.6.7 is over. I think it’s got very high potential. This is just my gut feeling, based on comparing to my LoD RH DH.

I also really like the playstyle, since you have to pay very close attention to your cooldowns. But man, when all systems are go, this thing shreds trash.

Here my character:

https://www.d3planner.com/777452735

Did a GR118 first try on terrible map with 2 min to spare. Paragon 2600, 100 augments. Got Hamelin. I think RG’s without adds would be miserable.

For comparison, I had to fish for a good map to barely beat 118 with my tryhard LoD RF DH.

Barbs have 7 major builds, and this is one of them.

Right now, it looks like this build is in the rank 2 or 3 spot.

119 down. And after the clear I realized I didn’t have paragon in max fury, so I was missing quite a bit of crit chance. Going for 120, which will be my highest in any class. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m considering dropping magefist/illusory for SG/iceclimbers. I’m guessing that I’ll need to replace WC for FC for mobility though, but I imagine that SG is much better than impunity. I have 80% fire damage with mage, so maybe the increased toughness is worth it.

Other note: this build really punishes you for dying. A few times I’ve been trapped in death loops, because my cooldowns were out of sync. You really need everything active to both survive and do damage.

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120 in the bag. 13ish minutes. Battlegrounds then cathedral. Speed and shield pylons early in rift, pirendi.

I’ve had awful luck with pylon placement and I’m still learning the build, but it clears it anyway. With better luck and skill, I’m dreaming of 125. You guys need to get in on this, I’m having a blast :stuck_out_tongue: Hadd where you at?!

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Damn that’s a nice FoT you got there, gz. What’s your downtime on ancients/berserker? Also noticed that you don’t use IP/PoC, how does it feel in terms of toughness? Have you tested stone gauntlets/ice climbers combo plus cindercoat instead of magefists/aquilla? Although reduced cost is not necessarily a wanted roll due to healing.

Thanks! I went through probably a thousand bounty mats trying to get a good one, lol. My uptime Is n wrath and CotA is 100% unless I make a mistake. Usually I die quickly when anything drops. haven’t felt the need to stone/iceclimbers yet. Toughness is really good.

Did 121 in 13:24. Actually got a conduit this time, still no useful power pylon. Boss didn’t have adds. So I know I can go farther Here are some of my observations so far:

  • CDR everywhere is mandatory I think. Only exception would be taking WH over vigilante belt because the damage is too good.

  • Cooldowns are your life. If CotA drops, you lose 250% dmg, 50% DR, and your fury regen. If BoM drops, you lose 80% DR. If WotB drops, you lose 50% DR, 250% dmg, ~100% dmg, and healing. If a cooldown drops while you’re fighting, there’s a kind of domino effect that means the others will probably drop too.

  • When everything is up, though, toughness is very good. At GR120 I could facetank Perendi, except when he hit me with the windup, avalanche, and the torpedo bugs all at the same time.

  • When you’re in density, cooldowns are easy to keep up if you have 60+ CDR. Usually there are a few seconds to spare on both WotB and CotA, even with liberal ground stomps.

  • Moving from group to group is tricky. Because if you’re moving instead of smashing, you’re not getting ORotZ procs, and you’re going to miss your cooldowns. There are 3 tactics I’ve found that work:

  1. Slowly pull a group forward, smashing the mobs in front and pausing during fire cycle to kill stuff.
  2. If you think you have a long way to go, start running with your cooldowns barely up and let them drop just when you’re out of harm’s way. You should have less than 10 seconds of downtime, so as long as you dodge mobs while traveling you should be fine.
  3. Hit the random mobs in your path to proc zodiac. I’ve had very mixed results with this method. You have to balance moving and smashing and do more or less depending on how behind you are. It probably works much better at lower GR’s if you’re 1-shotting mobs and keeping EF up.
  • I wouldn’t try this build without groundstomp. You rely way too much on consistently smashing to chance not having mobs right on top of you. Set up shop in density, start smashing, and pull everything in like a funnel.
  • I’m using Impunity over FC, and magefist/illusory over stone/iceclimbers. I get a little more damage, a little less DR. FC vs illusory for mobility is a matter of preference, I think.
  • I’m not sure mine is the best setup. I know there are much higher clears, but they’re using the bugged fjordcutter, so it’s hard to tell. I’d imagine that at the tippy-top, I could drop impunity for falter. Or use a combo of FC and ancient spear to go crazy with the pulls. Until I find my ceiling, I’m going to keep going with this setup.
  • EF adds some nuance to deciding what to hit. Ideally, you want to maneuver and use CC to always be hitting the elite/RG along with some weak EF fodder. Sometimes though, it feels like switching from the elite to a nearby minion to feed EF and then switching back to the elite actually brings down the elite faster. Try to get EF to 5 during cold so you can unload during fire.
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Anyone know if Prometeusz is still around to get this updated to reflect the current build? If anything get it turned into a wiki.

My new favorite setup:

Stone gauntlets, iceclimbers, aquilla curass.
Skills: HOTA, COTA, WotB, Bloodshed, FC, demoralize.

I had hit a wall at GR122 with previous setup. This setup is vastly superior and let me 1-key an awful map for 122. Mobility is better, DR is waaaay better, and grouping through demoralize is actually really reliable. Only thing traded is 20% fire dmg from mage fist, and being able to stand in arcade beams to keep DPS’ing is a good trade-off.

Edit: here’s the planner. I have a feeling I’m sticking with this setup :slight_smile:

https://www.d3planner.com/218255341
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Did gr123 in 13:43. Recorded the clear, sorry no sound or music:

https://youtu.be/MHUsm_n5yTA

Great maps, but I was really struggling with the lagginess of recording. My PC clearly isn’t powerful enough to record and play smoothly, so you’ll see I was kind of a mess. The RG fight is especially painful, lol.

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Good job, Poco!

I see you’ve been racking up the paragon… you’re ahead of me now!

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