New Sader set changes at Blizzcon PTR

Crusader
105

Hello!

I’ve been loosely following the discussion. Seems to be a lot of good ideas and testing going around.

Since I’m not as versed with Crusader, I’d like to ask:

For Heaven’s Fury solo push, manually cast (FoH) -
The Pig Sticker, Furnace, and Addendum look like good choices.

What about Echoing Fury though?

My thought is that we could combine a hard cast blind such as Shield Glare: Zealous Glare with the higher AS from Echoing Fury (EF) and clear slightly better, on a really good rift.

Continuous engagement with density might provide the extra wrath generation required, and the higher APS from EF would allow us to attack more while enemies are blinded. The hard cast blind would let us swap out that 3rd gem for something other than stricken. I currently have Powerful set there, but this could just as easily be Zei or Esoteric.

My current planner shows the 2h EF setup with about 11% more damage, but the 1h setup with about 11% more toughness. Then again, one hand EF would fear mobs like crazy, plus we lose out on a lot of good weapon affixes. EF has a lot of preset affixes. Overall, I think 2H is the better option.

Fate of the Fell worn is just going to be so hard to get with proper rolls…

  • https://www.d3planner.com/390347029

Builds are configured with Endless Walk, CoE, and RoRG at current. I am placing CDR and RCR as required on gear. Agreed that Crimson’s provides great synergy with this build, since we need to allocate so much CDR and RCR to maintain the rotation. It doesn’t seem as large of a tradeoff to gear with these affixes, and that feels great.

We would need an RG like Hammelin, or perhaps Saxtris or Binder, to clear efficiently. Thus far I’m thinking EF fits well, especially with the seasonal theme in consideration. It looks like a fun rotation too.

Anyways, thank you for taking a look. Fire away! (bracing for crash landing)

106

Yes, the 2 piece bonus makes the number of HF being totally out of this world.
That is why i think that this set will be nerfed.

1 Like
107

Don’t forget Ivory Tower - The possibilities for combinations are huge. Both FotH and HF benefit so this would too with high block chance increase.

It will be fun trying all the combinations

108

The biggest problem with Ivory Tower will come down to the fishing aspect, you will have to have a boss with adds and it heavily limits you to what you can do with the build. Also in a 4p aspect you will never run Ivory tower due to the zdps in group however I do love the build its extremely fun and look forward to trying it at least. There will more then likely be 5 setups ran and I look forward to trying all of them, I wouldn’t doubt seeing a lightning based solo setup with FOTH but its hard to say without testing.

1 Like
109

Agreed totally - It’s not a fast speed build but we all knew that. As you implied, it definitely is a fun build and testing all the variants is a huge part of that fun.

EDIT: It’s also only going to come to full use (Ivory) if it’s a Holy build, but as mentioned by others, the lightning on spec seems to have the greater damage.

110

Totally man!! I have played Crusader from day 1 release and have loved FOTH and HF, everyone that has seen my post knows I am a fanboy of these skills. I have wanted to see a lightning based crusader for 14 seasons now however I don’t think it will be the strongest but I would love to slap some Ancient parthan defenders on and see if I can become invincible. If any of you have tested the Thou Shalt Not Pass Rune for Heavens fury you know how gangster it is lol

2 Likes
111

Yes, a lightning crusader would be the dream! For me a pure foth build would be enough

112

Hello Cratic,

I’ve done Echong Fury with HF Fires of Heaven, it works on the Akkhans set w/ CC3, but there is no way you will have the resource to keep it going independently, on solo GR push with Aegis of Valor. The 2h setup makes most sense to help overcome the resource problems, sustain on AoV gets shaky past 2.2-2.3 APS, at this point we start swapping out Crit rolls, or pick inferior runes.

I have done this sort of play on builds like S6 Impale, a hard hitter out the gate, and it falls apart when you have to wait 10 seconds to take down that first piece of trash to spark a chain reaction of perpetual fast melee. The thing about HF is the chain reaction is even slower due to ramp up of SoF stacks. In the case of DH, there is no cubed item that will deal more damage, but for Crusader, a block shield aka Ivory Tower does wonders (if you can survive), Furnace does a decent job too.

Echoing Fury variants are super fun, but to give some perspective for solo push. On Akkhan, I can probably do GR122-123 with Ivory Tower block build and GR115-116 with Fires of Heaven w/ Furnace. If you’d like, i can try this again on Akkhan, with and without the Unstoppable Force rune.

2 Likes
113

I used to take the Ivory Tower block build into public GRs. I’d warn people that i was running ahead, do not follow. Other players would get pissed off, but those who were apprehensive, and did not boot me, saw that i was tearing down elites as fast as the other 3 players. When I played with my friends, we leapfrogged each other.

A zBarb bringing all elites together makes a great partner for 2-man, the clear times soar when you are fighting 3+ elites at once, again the zBarb is prepping the next kill site, triggering pylons with nems and then finding an exp pool while waiting for the Rift Guardian to die.

Ivory Tower is the loner’s build. I hope FotH is just as strong so we have options.

1 Like
114

Totally Dmkt, I play the build similarly in groups however you cant compare it to a barb doing the exact same thing feeding you globes with fires of heaven. Especially when killing the RG is significantly easier with fires of heaven, my argument is simply that one is more powerful then the other and not that it isn’t possible to be played in a group scenario. It really boils down to what will be easier to play and having a barb feeding a shotgun sader that doesn’t require blocking to do damage will always be the latter. That in the end is what my comment was revolving around.

115

Completely agree, ivory tower can be so slow… Ugh porting bosses: Versalius, Rime. Tethrys, Sand Shaper. Honorary mentions: Man Carver, Blighter, Raiziel, Cold Snap, Erethon and the biggest enigma for why it doesn’t die quick: The Choker.

1 Like
116

That’s exactly what I think it reads to me, hence my question.

117

I think for me Racter, I find it so hard to believe that I think its not true lol

118

I played and ate my teeth on hf since season 3 I saw all of it’s iterations best rune for heavens fury are fires of the heavens for spender biuld and blessed ground for non spending ascendancy is for persons like you who buy big car to reverse attention from other lacking departments, your argument is nothing more like childish provoking and I won’t take any part in it,

Dkoi, dmkt
I have similar experience in public gr but this thriil when you see affix electrified or orlash spawn as rg and faces of companions when he melts

119

Shadow’s 2p is a 6000% multiplier…

1 Like
120

Ah, thank you for sharing your experience with testing and AoV! I had a feeling resource might still be an issue with EF.

No resource could mean dropped Gogok and Pandemonium. Pretty severe penalty.

I’ll focus more on Ivory Tower when looking at HF for solo. For this build we just need block% to soft cap?

I’ll still give the EF build a test when I can (might be awhile to get that gear, hah!). I want to see how bad I’ve failed. :sweat_smile:

Either way, I’m really excited about the changes - it opens up so many different playstyles and builds for AoV, even if one ends up being stronger than the others.

121

Any theory crafting or testing updates on maximizing the FoTH: Fissure damage since 2.1?

I think the guidelines from this very good guide from 2014, that I used to follow back in time is still valid:

http://www.diablofans.com/builds/4620-god-of-lightning-the-guide-to-fist-of-the-heavens

Play Style

This is quite simple yet still something you can mess up easily. Fissure works somewhat badly in the sense that the beams don’t deal damage if you stack the Fissures. So on bosses you need to cast the Fissures in a pattern around the Boss, trying to maximize the amount of beams hitting it.
It’ll take a few runs to learn it. You can start by making a cross on the boss, trying to cast the Fist of Heavens so that it won’t cast under the boss, but just slightly off it.

On normal monsters you want to try make a net around them, trying to hit everything with the beams that form between fissures. Another good tactic is to just kite hordes of monsters backwards, and letting the beams to kill or at the very least lower the health of the minor monsters.
Also due to the fact that I’m using a Bane of the Trapped it would be good to try and kite mobs while also keeping the ones you want to kill within 15 yards of you. This will take a while to do properly, and even I still sometimes mess it up but it’s definitively worth it.

The Fissure Issue

Now, as some of you might have already figured, if what ever you are fighting decides to move, your damage will drop significantly until you can recast your “net” around it.
Not only that, but the awkward monster hit boxes that some monster/bosses have will make that extremely hard. Good example of this are Fire Maidens. It would be nice if there was an option to just cast the spell exactly where your mouse is, without the spell “auto correcting under the monster” if that makes sense.

I tried to do so 5 years ago:

RG at 19:48, me casting a net of fissures around Bloodmaw to maximize the ticking fissure damage as a quite average player.

So, what about today? In 2.1 the affix of the darklight said, that there is a 60 % chance to cast a second FoTH at your location. Now it’ll be a 100 % chance to cast it near to your original one.

thx

122

Okay, so i did some more testing:

Echoing Fury in cube will not work without massive regen: 6w/s worn. (no embodiment of power, no unstoppable force, i was at ~66% RCR)

In general, i liked Echoing Fury and found it to be the same power – if not stronger, in GR115 w/ Akkhan. The key difference was the incentive to kill trash, and the accelerated kills once the EF bonus became active. The game play was a little different for Furnace, where you just find the elite.

Due to not having a way to walk through mobs, and without sacrificing your own survival (stone gaunts -> illusory boots), and the clunkier nature of a 2hander – trying to get to an elite was… frustrating. Use Iron Skin: Flash to overcome this.

One more point about the skill configuration with Fires of Heaven (spender) is that you’ll need to trade out a valuable skill to make room for FotH. Which one will it be? Provoke / Iron Skin / Shield Glare / Akarat’s Champ?

When you play the cooldown Heaven’s Fury, you can remove Provoke from the load out. Which brings me to the next discussion point:

I played Blessed Ground w/ Echoing Fury (not ivory tower) and will confirm it is slightly weaker than Fires of Heaven (2GRs it felt like). The other runes, Ascendancy, Split Fury and Thou Shalt Not Pass are visibly inferior.

It’s a shame we’re so short on time and they cannot edit Thou Shalt Not Pass to behave more like Blessed Ground, because that build has pretty nice looking ground effects.

So it’s looking like:

  1. Blessed Ground w/ Fissure - Split Element
  2. Blessed Ground w/ Ivory Tower
  3. Pure Fissure
  4. Fires of Heaven - RGK

I hope we see some good tuning to the set damage modifiers early next week.

3 Likes
123

Kikaha The Shadow Set 2 set is very strong for sure but we are talking about skills with far more weapon damage overall and the ability to hit a boss with 3 rays that deal 960% weapon damage. Also the damage of a 2h handed flail is like double a dagger so this literally makes it the strongest 2 set multiplier on a class when you look at what its multiplying however if we are just to compare numbers then yes shadows is definitely stronger. I am more just looking at the bigger picture of what its interacting with.

124

Hey Ravolos,

You actually lose a ton of dps not casting FOTH directly on the RG because you are not hitting him with the initial big blast. The ticking fissure damage while yes it does help will still proc on him even if its not traveling far.