Hey. So I have been playing a GoD build that is the basic recommended build that is on icey veins and other sites; but I’ve been messing around with other passives and wanted others opnion.
Drifting shadow is 100% speed boost and is what is advised to use, but rocket storm is 75% speed and adds homing rockets at 130% fire dmg. I ran around and the speed difference is not that much to me. Is there a reason not to go with rocket storm that I am not seeing?
Ballistics- I already have ambush and numbing traps on my amulet and bow; so I have on my passives: awareness, cull of the weak, tactical advantage and archery. However I ve been playing around with ballistics replacing cull of the weak and seem to be doing better. My question is if vengeance has homing missles, and if I add rocket storm to strafe, would ballistics be a better choice? I know Strafe is not the highest damage, but I’m always using strafe and vengeance so would I be doing more damage?
If this helps, I am only paragon 1350. I run through GR 110-115 fast 3-4 minutes unless I screw up somehow. I can do 120 but it takes about 10 minutes and I have to be careful and I am still not that confident enough to run it all the time yet lol.
People use Rocket Storm not because of the rockets but because how strafe interacts with the 4-piece bonus of GoD.
You see, 4-piece fires 4 Hungering Arrows a second as long as your strafe hits something. You can add up to 2 more shots a second by manually firing your HA to keep Momentum up to 20.
However, when the rockets from Rocket Storm hit something they can trigger an extra shot depending on how far they travel. It’s that 6th or 7th shot people are looking for from Rocket Storm, not any damage the rockets themselves do.
Ballistics would just be a wasted passive because 100% of a little bit of damage is still just a tiny fraction of a percent of a percent of damage your arrows are doing. In addition, choosing Ballistics with Rocket Storm isn’t going to get another shot from Strafe. 7 shots is the max you’re going to get.
So you would recommened rocket storm over drifting shadow? And I guess switching back from ballistics to cull of the weak would be the best choice? Or what passives do you prefer?
It depends on what gems you’re using. But the choices are Cull the Weak, Awareness, Archery, Ambush, Steady Aim, Numbing Traps, Single Out (helps a lot against the RG), Sharpshooter (if you’re missing some crit chance rolls on gear), Thrill of the Hunt (if you don’t want to rely on your follower to proc slows for Bane of the Trapped)
Strafe damage on helm is wrong… Strafe does no damage in this build (it’s also on your boots). You can roll Hungering Arrow on belt for more damage. There is usually not much benefit from Sharpshooter because it’ll be reset too soon. You could use Single Out or Steady Aim instead.
this should be 6% Crit Chance for sure and hope you don’t mind some other gear insight:
Your Cirri, while ancient, has a really low roll for the legendary bonus (ideally you want as close to 600% as possible) plus you have strafe damage and no Hungering Arrow damage. even a non-ancient with CHC and HA with a bonus close to 600% will make a HUGE difference for you. I know they are hard to find, but it’s one spot a well rolled non-ancient trumps and ancient every time.
I’d reroll that Hunter’s Wrath from AR to 15% HA as well…
Gotta remember - Hungering Arrow is your damage dealer, NOT Strafe. Strafe is just your mechanic for movement as GoD set fires HA for you.
Due the pierce cap, the Valla’s legendary effect on your Buriza is no bueno. One with a well rowed Dawn affix (63+) or Fortress Ballista affix would be better.
There are better amulet choices than HF as well…Squirt’s for one with 20% cold/chc/chd if you can find (good luck) but cold and either one of the others will boost you markedly.
You rolled lightning resist on your Wraps when you should have rolled the LPH to 15% cold damage (you have zero elemental damage buff currently) and Thorns (???) on your shoulders instead of rolling off FoK for AD or even Vit…
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those mis-rolled gear slots and their augs need to be replaced…and you should be able to run 110 in 2-2:30 no problem with the right rolls.
That’s not entirely accurate. The Valla’s effect helps proc the GoD 4-piece bonus more consistently, especially at higher breakpoints (i.e. when dual-wielding). Since the Buriza provides an easy way to get to the 9-frame breakpoint (which matches the GoD 4-piece bonus internal cooldown), the Valla’s effect isn’t really used for the extra projectiles/second.
Instead, Valla’s is used to help Strafe hit more things to freeze them so that the Hungering Arrows can gain the 100% ChC benefit with the ethereal power (especially to targets behind the initial target). This makes the Valla’s power useful, but depending on playstyle or comfort, Fortress Ballista is still another option.
I will hope to get those gears, or roll them in cube…BUT I have been putting hours in and have not gotten any good gear. That belt is the first Primal I have gotten EVER lol. I will focus on HA. IDEALLY I would love to get gear with crit chance and dmg and HA dmg lol. Trust me I want it, but I have to use what I get.
Some helpful hints when replacing gear with better but still un-optimal gear.
If given a choice between Crit Chance and Crit dam, Area Dam, or cooldown if you need it, it’s okay to forgo the crit chance. Up to around GR 120 you’re freezing things with Buriza pretty regular and get good crits from that so Crit Chance isn’t as necessary early in the gearing process.
At one point I did a 139 with only 31% Crit Chance. Buriza is that good.
In fact, you can forgo crit chance on nearly every piece of gear if it comes with another stat you need like Main Stat, Area Dam. Hungering Arrow, or cooldown.
I really appreciate the help. I changed belt from all resist to HA dmg. I need a new helm and have been rolling for one, but nothing yet. As far as the other suggestions, I am working on it. Plus, I don’t care for squirts amulet… IDK I like the added passive on my hellfire ammy. Plus I die a lot with squirts.
Losing Squirt’s will hurt a bit. Without it, the build is around 5 GR’s Weaker. A lot to give up but not insurmountable.
However, if you get a Buriza with the Fortress Ballista power in the 2.8-3.0 range or one with Dawn at 63% or better. You should try to Squirt’s on at that point. Ballista’s shield mitigates most of the damage from full stacks and can help keep Squirt’s up which will help your damage a lot.
No rush though. I mean, you should still be able to 125 without Squirt’s once you’ve gotten your gear straightened out and will be doing 120’s in 6 or 7 min.
Oh and is my Ethereal bow not good? Is the peirce projectiles capped?
I have yet to get a bow with dawn at 63% (I got one at 51% and the passive was hot pursuit lol) Have not seen an ethreal with ballista yet.
I am atm running 115 as my go to and finishing at 4-5 minutes. So I’m hoping lol.
Replying to others who have given advise: I did not know what to roll on my gear at first because I like to experiment on my own before looking at builds online. So I didnt know strafe dmg did nothing. But I will be fixing that.
I have been using cube to reroll my quiver and its frustrating how long i have to run bounties only to get 4 rolls and never get a decent quiver…
Also off topic. Is ice blink a good gem to use at all?
Getting a good Ninth Cirri is really really hard. Let me put it to this way. I’ve had 4 Primal NCS’s drop for. The first three toward the beginning of the season and none of them, I mean none of them were any good. Nothing redeemable about them whatsoever.
Decided to do some bounties. I’ve only run 24 games worth, and got my 4th one and it finally rolled pretty good.
Before that I was running around with a non ancient that was decent but not great. 2500 paragon before I got a good ancient or better.
Edit:
Iceblink can be a cool little gem if your just want to farm some lower GR’s and what not but no, it’s not good for anything else.
I believe NCS is hardest one to roll well because your range is 450 to 600, which is massive possibility to get crap, also CC is not base stat, and HA is also not base stat… math is ludicrous on the chances to roll a good one…
I got an ancient with 20% Attack, 9.5 crit and 14% HA…but it rolled 460% leg and was a MASSIVE downgrade from my non-ancient that I’m wearing LOL.
No - your bow is just fine!
My bad for making you think it isn’t…just potentially better options if you get the right combo of leg/passive…
That’s why I suggested hunting for an ethereal with either a high dawn roll or fortress roll - either option helps you defensively during the rift. It’s not super important to have Squirt’s at max during the rift, but the FB power helps keep a few stacks consistently. And if you play it right, you can keep 10 stacks of Squirt’s up on the RG which is where you want most!
It’s just such a huge damage boost that even outshines running an HFA for a 6th passive (since ethereal gives you 5th already).
Another thing; looking at your profile you still have ballistics on (the profile may not be up to date - or you haven’t been playing). The roll on your Focus could have been better. When you’re always in Vengeance mode you’re not gonna be control impaired.
NCS Math: to get a very good one, you have to roll 2 out of 3 stats (cc, HA, base damage that cannot be re-rolled)
so 450 to 600% - assuming 595%+ is a good one, then we have 145 bad ones.
then we need to roll either cc or 13-15% HA, which is 1 out of 26 to roll cc (and then 1 out of 4 to roll 10%) and 1 out of 3 out of 5 to roll 13-15% ha
so that’s 145 x 26 x 4 = 1 out of 7500 will roll 595%+ and 9%+ cc
or same math applies to roll HA
but to roll 595%+ and 9% cc and 13+ HA (so you can roll ad, cdr, elite dam), it’s at least 100k but more like 1 in 250k will get that…
so, get ancient one… even harder as you have to multiply those #'s by 20 or so and primal by 400…
