Tal Rasha Set DEAD!

[Aspirine-2366]

Usually set reworks make them top for at least a while. I can see why people are not happy.
And adding meteor to the dmo is perhaps not dumb, it should be said that tal is the meteor set.

[Ronin010-1772]

@Aspirine-2366

And adding meteor to the dmo is perhaps not dumb, it should be said that tal is the meteor set.

One does not follow from the other, bro

[Steve-6205]

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[Ronin010-1772]

@Steve-6205

I believe that Tal’s should be Meteor control since that’s fundamentally what it’s always had. You get 4 types of meteor to cast basically whenever you want. And they all gain the same buffs except elemental damage effects. So elemental damage somewhat makes all the other meteors obsolete and not worth using.

While the idea of ‘controlling’ the element of the meteor sounds neat on paper, in practice this is incompatible with manually cast meteors, which require you to choose a rune (and therefore element) on meteor. For this reason, multi-element builds never become meta in this game (one exception being Vyr Chantodo due to a special interaction).

@Steve-6205

but you can star pact every 3 seconds or so or have meteor shower spamming as fast as you can attack. That way you can do RoE damage or use the smaller radius star pact to do more damage in a tight area. Depending on what suits you at the time. A master of Meteors.

It’s a misconception that the smaller radius of Starpact makes it worse than say Meteor Shower in good density. In fact, the higher damage of Starpact (expending all AP to fuel damage, rather than dealing a fixed amount of damage) makes it superior to other meteor runes in almost all situations. This is another reason why multi-element meteors won’t work: you’d almost always choose to cast the arcane Starpact meteor.

@Steve-6205

But I know people don’t like the idea of actually having to think during a rift. They just want to Main Skill to 150. And I think those people will win the discussion every time. “No effort, 1 skill, smashing 150. If I don’t get that, I’m PISSED!”

Haha, well I think that largely falls on Blizz. These folks can cry and b*tch and moan all they want but occasionally Blizz makes an anti-power creep season like S26. Then perhaps you could say that they have lost!

[Steve-6205]

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[Indian-2161]

Problem: They tried to grab the essence of the Tal Rasha set from D2. But in D2 sets and items worked way differently. Tal’s mastery of elements came as a passive form boosting those skills. Then roll with watever build, the set passively buffed it. In D3 you have to master the elements, as in juggle them around to get the dmg buff, and all res.

They wanted it to be a meteor build and that is fine. But it would be better if not our juggleing of spells give us a bosst to all skills, but the meteors raining down would have a rotation like CoE, and under the period of an element active, it gives a huge buff to the same elemental skills.

For example you’re in the cold rotation and cold meteors rain down, you’ll get buff to all cold elemental skills/runes. It can be lined up with CoE rotation even, giveing even more dmg.

The meteors we passively get from the set should be buffed also by CoE, and any multiplier. Maybe even buffing themselfs.

[Morgaine-1733]

blackhole combined with starpact isnt bad… season 27 10 magic missile with 2x50% primary skill speed boosts and regen boosted… no issues with power supply … but more 1h weapons with meteor , Yes

[Aspirine-2366]

It was not my best sentence now that I read it again…

[Ronin010-1772]

@Steve-6205

Well we used to do that. We would teleport and a pathetic version of star pact would come down. Then we’d use frost nova mist as I recall and call down comet. We’d have meteor shower on out bar (not star pact) and we’d cast arcane torrent static discharge to trigger lightning meteors. Etched would then drop meteor shower all the time.

Well it appears we are talking about different things here. All my discussion is centered around the Starpact that was played between Seasons 12-19.

On the other hand, I have no idea what version of Meteor you’re referring to (probably because I started in Season 8, and admittedly don’t know about Meteor builds that came before). So perhaps we can agree to disagree here.

[Teapea-2646]

There was a season where you ran Tal’Rasha + Deathwish + Etched Sigil(pre nerf) and casted Meteor Shower manually. That was a long time ago though. Can’t remember the season. It was basically tank and spank build where you could soak all hits and did so much damage that your shields never droped, could even stand in Arcane Sentries if I remember correctly

But it was also pre power creep. Can’t remember exact levels but think it may have been something like 110s were high on first week.

[Ronin010-1772]

@Teapea-2646

There was a season where you ran Tal’Rasha + Deathwish + Etched Sigil(pre nerf) and casted Meteor Shower manually. That was a long time ago though. Can’t remember the season. It was basically tank and spank build where you could soak all hits and did so much damage that your shields never droped, could even stand in Arcane Sentries if I remember correctly

Correct, that was Tal Meteor Shower, which ran concurrently with Starpact from S12 to at least S15, but was always behind it in power. I don’t think that’s what he was referring to though, which seemed to involve switching between different meteor runes.

[TinneOnnMuin-1187]

Season 3 was Tal’s manual Meteor Shower as the top solo wizard build. With Aether Walker + TP: Calamity for crowd control IIRC. I think that was when perma CC was still possible.

Diablo 3: Greater Rift 66 Rank 1 Wizard [S3]

To fill in the gaps on the first 8 seasons for top solo builds:

Season 1/2 was Firebird’s DoT
Season 3 was Tal’s
Season 4 was Chantodo Vyr’s
Season 5 was DMO Twisters
Season 6 was Firebug & reverse Archon Twisters (multiplicative Swami bug)
Season 7/8 was Chantodo Firebird’s

[Steve-6205]

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[Ronin010-1772]

@Steve-6205

The star pact version would be pretty much the same. In, use all elements to up the stacks, then wait for AP, Find a pool and black hole it. Then star pact it. Avoid damage for a bit. Maybe drop a comet to slow, wait for star pact. Hit them again. Move around, wait a bit, black hole, Star pact. Some straggler nearly dead dodging your star pacts? Thunder crash him and move on.

Additionally, some may want to go CoE and drop 1 or 2 meteors per cycle. Getting that 200% damage buff almost all the time, saving the star pact for the arcane cylce.

You can’t really just mash keys though because star pact will never get to full power. It’s precision strikes and AP management. Like a surgeon picking the pool apart.

What you’re describing (in particular the CoE/rotation based version) is basically the Starpact that was played in S12-19, except Wave of Force with the Arcane Attunement rune saw more usage than Black Hole.

This ‘precision strike’ playstyle is ‘precisely’ what I want the top end Tal meteor to become. You’d think that it’d be easier to revive a past playstyle than invent a new one. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to apply to Blizz devs these days.

[Steve-6205]

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[Ronin010-1772]

@Steve-6205

Yeah the precision thing is great but I don’t want to be 100% locked into a cycle. I want a choice to have Lighting Armor and Halo to have DR rather than be a CoE glass cannon. Granted it’s like 7 tiers less but the survivability might make up for that. Takes longer but less deaths.

What is the setup that you envision here, that you have to choose between CoE and Halo? Old Starpact ran both CoE and Halo (of Arlyse), so trading between damage and survival was never an issue.

@Steve-6205

I personally hate CoE because it destroys choice. “Oh you can’t Star Pact now. You have to wait. Not yet. Wait. Now you can.” And right at that moment, you have something mess you up or the pool isn’t ideal and you just don’t have the best star pact. Plus I want to spam it more than once every 16 seconds. Or twice in 1 arcane window.

Okay, this comes down to personal preference. I personally love the CoE playstyle, where I use my CoE downtime to gather a pull and ensure maximal success when CoE comes around. That’s why I prefer the rotation-based Starpact over more spammy playstyles. As I alluded to here,

@Ronin010-1772

Correct, that was Tal Meteor Shower, which ran concurrently with Starpact from S12 to at least S15, but was always behind it in power.

perhaps both Meteor Shower and Starpact could both be brought back to appeal to players who prefer either playstyle.

@Steve-6205

What we need is that feeling of power but with the freedom and choice to play the pool and not the timing.

What I don’t like is a build that mixes both playstyles, i.e. allow players to alternate between different runes. In my honest opinion, this would destroy the build’s sense of identity, or its ‘purity’ if you will.

[Steve-6205]

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[Abella-11810]

@Steve-6205

Imagine and FPS game where you want to shoot but for 12 seconds, you do no damage and then for 4 seconds you can shoot.

Its not FPS is it? Which FPS game takes 30 sec to 1 min to kill an enemy? You dealing MOSTLY 1 SHOT to mobs in FPS games, or the 1 shot situation ties to your aiming skills, headshot vs leg shot etc.

ARPG isnt FPS, the analogy can only be comparable in low tiers where anything you look is KO instantly. Higher GR, gather large packs simply is essential to positive progression. You just cant sit on 3% progression, spend 30s to kill then move on. 1% is 9s, that’s a -3s lost. This is how you lose time. Due to gathering, you lost damage output time, hence COE is demanded. Its an item specifically designed(voted by players) for pushing.

Can build not use COE? Absolutely yes, those strong tier 0 builds. Usually demanded nerf by someone on this forum.

[Steve-6205]

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[Abella-11810]

@Steve-6205

You just dodged a molten explosion, you just dodged ice. You are free to attack. Perfect time. Nope. Have to wait. No! More ice. No! More explosions. Ahhhh Okay I’m ready wait what? No! The window passed. Damn it. Now I have to wait again. This pisses me off. I just want to shoot the big hit when I get the perfect chance. Not when the game tells me I’m allowed to

How to ensure you attack on COE is exercising control. Ultimately, you want to control every situation in GR. The hook of this game aside item hunt (easily done every season) is actually control over every GR situation. This ensures your push rank with lowest possible paragon/gear level. Tactical side of D3 introduced by GR is what kept this game flowing for this long after speed 1shot content became stale.