So I’ve been working on a speedfarm build for Monk (trying to get as much movespeed as possible) and I’ve run into something of a dilemma;
The new set demands that I choose between either of these 2 items (unless I forego Captain Crimson’s which I’d currently rather not, unless Guardian’s Jeopardy will in fact stack for even more speed then that gets priority).
Now the Mantle is obviously really good giving 25% both to damage reduction and dealt, but the Belt means Sweeping Wind never falls off and will build stacks on its own as well. Seems like the best is the clear winner to me but curious what other people think (Mantle seems like it would be better for pushing, but I’m just looking to speedrun farming sessions with this so not worried about climbing GRs - that’s what my Sader is for).
You build up stacks pretty quick without the belt, and as long as you’re attacking, they don’t fall off.
If you’re in an area between mobs or changing floors, or waiting for the boss to spawn, you can manually press SW to refresh the timer, and it stays at 13 stacks. So unless you die, there shouldn’t be any reason for it to fall off, even without the belt.
Yeah I didn’t realize that the new set gives you the 50 spirit regen just for casting Tempest Rush (I thought maybe it was conditional upon actually hitting something) which more than gives enough to maintain sweeping wind.
I use the belt in my speed farm builds mainly because you can build the set out until you vacuum up everything even at T16, so you don’t need the 25% bonuses from the shoulders.
For GR I do manage the stacks manually because there is rarely a reason for them to fall off (mainly it happens when you hit a dead end and have to backtrack) and it is easy to spam the skill key while you do that.
For regular rifts they mostly don’t need it either, but you do sometimes have to circle back for DB and such and I typically wait out the explosions to do so, so I have to manually maintain the stacks in that additional case. It’s not often, but the max difficulty of a normal rift is T16 -> GR75? so it’s not going to hold me back to equip or cube the belt.
But for bounties, there are all sorts of nuisances that make the stacks fall:
Switching maps every N seconds with the animation plus load time
Boss death animations, but I save those for last before heading to town
Boss welcome animations where you can’t spam the SW skill - I’m looking at you Adria!
Tag N totems on a map, each with an animation almost as long as the SW countdown
In the end, I’m desperately wanting that belt for bounties (and it’s not bad for normal rifts as well).
How does Mantra of Salvation help keep stacks? Spirit isn’t the problem, the many instances of standing around watching “free the trapped slave souls” and “I would normally be telling you how much I’m going to kill you here, but the adventure mode and cut scene skipping turns this section into just a blank screen to wait through” animations that prevent you from refreshing SW are the problem while farming.
Again, I don’t see the connection. If you are dying while farming you have far worse problems than whether or not you keep your stacks. And that still requires you to manually cast to keep them. The belt just lets you deal with the mechanics of farming without having to worry about the stacks. T16 toughness is not that hard to get, mantra or not.
I like to use Kyro’s Soul for T16 farming as well, since it’s one less thing to have to worry about. PoJ is doing decent damage and damage reduction for t16 you don’t have to supplement it too much.
I personally use Sage boots and belt for farming T16. The extra DB’s are never a waste. I don’t use Mantle of Channeling or Kyoshiro’s Soul either, I cube Lefevbre’s. I do equip a Vengeful Wind for farming but you only need SW active so if you lose SW stacks between packs, just start over and they’ll build up pretty quickly.
Your MS takes a few seconds to build back, though. And it won’t build until you bonk on something so if you lost the stacks while waiting for some trapped guard/catapult totem animation then you would be running normal speed until you find a mob.
I haven’t experimented with that kind of build as DB aren’t my biggest farming concern right now, but could you do without Lefebvre’s?
Until I get more ancients and some augments (the only augment I currently have is a rank 55 Capt. Crimson belt just to get the season journey requirement) then I think I need Lefevbre’s. With better gear and more Dex via augments, the DR from Lefevbre’s may not be necessary and then Nemesis might be able to be cubed for more Elites.
Speaking of which, I really wish they would make DBs and Keystones auto-pick up already since they don’t actually use inventory space (gems would be nice too but I can see why not as they do technically use a slot each)
I tried a Sage build after writing that and I was just a little bit squishy on T16 using the belt in the cube. My weapons are non-ancient and not very maxed, though, and with ancient versions I might have killed elites fast enough to be pretty solid. I wouldn’t recommend this for HC. I was also using Unity for toughness and Avarice/BotH out of habit, but I’m probably rich enough now to ditch the Avarice for CoE and some more damage.
Nemesis vs. Kyo Soul is an interesting tradeoff. I’d probably go with the belt in bounties because of all of the fiddly tasks to complete and then Nemesis for rifts because the stacks aren’t an issue as much in rifts.
I use Zodiac and Avarice (with Hoarder of course) for farming T16. Both of my weapons are ancient, but only a few other pieces are ancient and rank 90 to 98 gems.