Let's theorycraft a DMO archon+twisters build!

Wizard
1

Hey wizzie theorycrafters!
So it’s come to my attention that you can play reverse archon DMO twister.

And there is even a guide for it on maxroll (solo push tab, drop down to empowered variant):
https://maxroll.gg/d3/guides/dmo-twister-wizard-guide

D3 planner from the maxroll build:
https://maxroll.gg/d3/d3planner/404693941#Solo%20Push%20Archon%20S28%20Empowered

I think archon almost certainly will be the strongest DMO twister flavour S28, due to how well it synergises with the potions, but not sure if it’s on the LBs yet?

I think we can do better than the maxroll guide, but I haven’t ever pushed with DMO twister, or even LoD twister since the etched sigil changes, so you all will have to help me out here.

  • First, do we dps in or out of archon form? Out-of-archon seems like a no-brainer at first sight, as we need to channel to get the etched sigil buff, a 3.5x damage multiplier. But if you look closer… DPSing first 4 seconds of archon is also viable though, the twister keeps going 4 seconds after you add last twister to it right? You lose the 3.5x ES multiplier, but you gain the 1.3x archon multiplier, and you get about 3x as many archon stacks (overlapping 50 + 50 from belt, and about 50 kills from last rotation, vs just 50 from the belt if dps out of archon). And you free up a skill slot (giving us spell steal, 20 stacks on the pixel is realistic: 1.6x damage), and the off-hand (primordial soul probably, I think we only get 3 EE stacks without arcane torrent, so 1.3/1.2 = 1.08x damage). That turns into 1.3 x 3 x 1.6 x 1.08, a damage multiplier of almost 7, twice of the etched sigil setup. Am I missing something here? Can someone check the maths? I’m only counting 4 seconds of in-cycle damage for ES variant, maybe that isn’t really fair? Wouldn’t it be cool to have a primordial soul build get rank 1 DMO?? :smiley:
  • The maxroll guide runs with archon teleport and evocation passive. If we go the CDR rune (pure power) we can drop evocation for another passive, but not sure what passive would be good here… Any suggestions? Blur? Unwavering will? Arcane dynamo isn’t really worth the generator skill slot right? Pure power is lighting, so it’ll apply lighting stacks of elemental exposure much better than just storm armour as well. Teleport makes pulling and skipping much easier though. Worth the trade?
  • Blood bracers vs all-skill bubble following us around? more damage vs more squishy, I don’t have a good feel for how fragile this build is, might not be a viable trade.
  • follower: they have templar in the guide, but surely the CDR from an enchantress is better here? Can probably even do all-skills with guardian set, and get a significant damage buff with elemental damage and ias. Will it be annoying with the enchantress running around aggroing mobs out of the pull?

Any DMO experts that can weigh in? Is resource management an issue if we only cast manual twisters? Will we be able to stay alive?

I really don’t have any gear for this, so won’t be able to try this out “for real” anytime soon… Well, all the jewelry carry over from star pact, and I have archon belt from typhon archon push (need a new helm with twister damage though), and I think I have an ok but not great sword in my stash… But need to get ancients on all armour slots, and an off-hand, whichever it ends up being.

Anyone got the gear to test around a bit?

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There’s nothing to really theorycraft here. This is the same reverse archon build that LoD/DMO has been running since they buffed Twister in S22 (assuming you’ve paid attention to other Wizard set LBs since then). The rotation has always involved channeling outside of Archon, then squeezing in a few seconds of overlapping stacks while entering Archon to get additional stacks.

This season the build benefits from passability and empowered shrine, as well as tons of elite damage which might alleviate the need to fish for low HP mobs (I’m speculating here), ever a source of tedium and frustration when playing the build.

However, it still suffers from empowered shrine RNG, and has to drop Crimson for Fazulas. Keep in mind that the latter incurs a much bigger opportunity cost for DMO than say Typhon, which can’t fit in Crimson anyway. Given this I doubt this build will be able to outpace say Orb variants even w/o Shimizu.

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Thanks for filling me in!

I haven’t been following this (DMO or LoD) leaderboards (which is why I’m here asking), I just saw the archon twister clear by frank that tinne linked me. But maybe at 14k paragon, he could’ve used any DMO flavour and still get rank 1? I should do some research and look through last few seasons/eras…

So you’re saying line up arcane cycle to happen out of archon is the way to go?
Could you explain what’s wrong with how I’m thinking above? Why wouldn’t a big burst first 4 seconds of archon with spell steal be more damage? Does the full twister damage not last 4 seconds into archon?

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Disclaimer as I’m not a Twister expert, having only played the build for one season (26), but here is my analysis:

You always deal more damage outside Archon with Swami stacks, than you do in Archon. There are two cases to consider:

48s cycle
This is the “traditional” playstyle, where your Swami stacks fall off, giving you only 50 Fazula stacks entering archon. As the ES bonus drops immediately after entering archon (which needs to be fact checked, but we are both assuming this), your dmg multiplier in this phase is around 1.3 * (1 + 50 * 0.06) = 5.2.

Outside of Archon, you are channeling for ES multiplier of 3.5, AND benefit from at least 50 (+n kills from last rotation) Swami stacks, for combined multiplier of 3.5 * (1 + (50+n) * 0.06) = 14 + 0.21n, much higher than the Archon-entry phase!

32s cycle
The difference here is that you have Swami stacks going into Archon, giving you a multiplier of 1.3 * (1 + (50+50+n) * 0.06) = 9.1 + 0.078n.

The multiplier outside Archon is same as 48s cycle (14 + 0.21n) and is evidently still higher than Archon-entry phase, no matter the value of n.

However, now you must choose which phase to align with your CoE as, unlike in the 48s cycle, you only spend 32-20 = 12s outside Archon, enough for one CoE. Given that dmg is still higher outside Archon than entering Archon, you’d always align CoE with the former. But this defeats the purpose of the 32s cycle, which is why the 48s cycle is played!

Other things like Spellsteal are irrelevant since they can be pressed any time (i.e. you always press Spellsteal on CoE, giving you the same dmg multiplier each time).

1 Like
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Thanks for analysis, and I agree, with the standard setup, you are better off lining up coe outside of archon. I’m wondering if entirely dropping etched sigil and arcane torrent for another off-hand and skill slot can give you a stronger burst in overlapping archon though.

So “standard” out-of-archon (assuming in coe cycle), with etched sigil and arcane torrent:
~50 archon stacks: 4x damage
etched sigil: 3.5x damage

total: 14x damage (in agreement with you, assuming n=0)

I suggest 32s overlapping stacks, drop etched sigil and arcane torrent, giving us space to take primordial soul and spell steal instead. Primordial soul isn’t a big damage upgrade, but spell steal is. We now get:

~150 stacks (n=50): 10x damage
archon: 1.3x damage
spell steal (20 stacks): 1.6x damage
primordial soul (accounting for losing fire element): 1.08x

total: ~22.5x damage

So from that it seems to me like it could be a damage upgrade to entirely drop etched sigil and line up coe with start of archon, because we can fit a high value skill instead of arcane torrent. Normally it’s expensive to reach 32s cooldown, but this season it’s trivial, if you are willing to fish for empowered.

There are several disclaimers here, and maybe you know better than me if these are deal breakers or not.

  • I’m only counting 4 seconds of coe damage for out-of-archon, im not sure how much damage you still have out of archon after coe cycle, as the pull starts dispersing and you switch archon back on (or not, if 48s).
  • im assuming zero kills in archon from the out-of-archon flavour, but even 10-20 would be a fairly big multiplier. You lack both coe and etched, and pull is dispersing, so I’m assuming quite few kills is realistic?
  • idk if 20 spell steal stacks is a good number. You can get way more in a big pull, but you will not get any on a RG without minions.

:person_shrugging:

Edit: actually I see now on D3planner that spell steal is additive damage, so the 1.6x turns into 1.45x (with 45% skill damage), and total multiplier goes from 22.5 to 20.4…

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How did you arrive at n=50? Even if you could pull off that kind of DPS, you would be limited by the amount of trash density you can create per cycle, and 50 seems like a very optimistic estimate, especially if it’s an estimate of average # kills per cycle.

Spellsteal is irrelevant, because with passability you can afford to drop TP to fit that in, even if you don’t also drop a channeling skill. In other words, the non-Archon 14x multiplier would also get an additional Spellsteal 1.6x multiplier.

But if you really want to play this ‘twister bazooka’ setup, there’s a better alternative: Wave of Force - Arcane Attunement, which is multiplicative dmg whereas:

as you have found out.

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n=50 is about what people get playing this with typhon (before RG of course), and both builds would be fishing for similar maps and mob types, so I thought that number would be about the same. But maybe the smaller hitbox of twister isn’t able to clear the screen in the same way, despite the pull? I’m assuming we’ll have enough dps to clear all trash in one cycle, and we’d go towards smaller more numerous mobs for this build, to snowball with stacks. Grotesques/summoners/mothers kind of mobs would be ideal I guess. But if it can’t, if it’s not going as fast, then fewer stacks of course… I might be overestimating. Although, you benefit from stacks in the current cycle, so if you get 50 kills per cycle, then you’d be dpsing with n between 50 and 100 as you get kills in the current cycle… :thinking:

Both builds would be without teleport and with arcane attunement (the maxroll guide does that as well). But dropping arcane torrent would give you black hole as well.

Idk, i’m just rambling at this point. I just need to try it to get a better feel, but not sure I can be bothered collecting the gear… Feeling a bit done with S28. :sleeping:

Thanks for all the feedback! :slight_smile:

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Yeah agreed with Ronin, it all sounds great and I was hyped on PTR for it but then you actually try it vs something like Reverse Typhon and you end up super disappointed with it’s performance.

It’s far too much hassle for not a great result and something you’d just never want to deal with consistently. Twister sadly is just a mediocre skill compared to Meteors, Orbs even Hydras now and will never be as glorious as it is pre-nerf aka Console. Then on top of that DMO isn’t that great either despite all their improvements.

I mean you could say oh just get to paragon 3k and it will be better…but that’s everything this season lol, really not worth it just to play in some zdps meta group and say you saw a Twister that did 100 QT ticks and annihilated everything, that one time, for that 1/20th run of the rifts.

Yeah…just reread what I wrote and I totally sound like it’s time for D4 for me, sorry didn’t mean to be such a downer! :face_in_clouds:

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Got the motivation to try it? :slight_smile:

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Haha, no didn’t find the motivation, sorry.

I think even if my calculations are right (and I’m not convinced they are) and it’s a GR or so higher than existing variants, my gear level is more than 1 GR behind top clears, and I’m not experienced with the build. I play legit so don’t benefit from map hacks when pulling elites for 32s cycles. Don’t think I could really compete at the top without significant time investment, maybe not even then, and im feeling a bit done with S28 as well for now. :person_shrugging:

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