Trying to fit Sage's Journey into my build

…without crippling it, obvs. Basically, after outfitting a new alt that recently reached 70, I’ve found myself rather badly short on DB’s. So I figured my best bet was to try and fit two pieces of the Sage’s Journey into my most powerful character, in the hopes that he’d still be T16-capable afterwards, thus letting me easily rack up a lot more of them while just doing regular bounties and rifts.

My results have been… mixed. Original build was a modified ‘Bomberman’, with Deathwish+Etched Sigil and Vizier in the cube. Hergbrash’s Bindings kept me from running out of Arcane, and the Blood Bracers combined with both shielding-passives kept my Squirt’s Necklace buff up at all times - while Force Armor kept me alive when my shields finally failed. Shoulder and bracer of Aughild rounded it out with some nice all-round bonuses. I’ve been rather fond of it, really!

But fitting two pieces of armor in is… problematic. At first I dropped the Vizier and the Blood Bracers from the cube, replacing them with the Bindings and the Etched Sigil in order to thus make room for the Sage’s set, but I soon found that this left me highly vulnerable. Without the Blood Bindings, my shield failed constantly, leaving me frequently on the edge of death and without the 100% damage-boost from Wirt. Thus, my latest attempt involved dropping Aughild, replacing those pieces with the Blood Bracers and the Mantle of Channeling, which I’d never been able to fit into my build before.

Thus, I’m once again reasonably sturdy, but… between losing Aughild AND the Vizier, my offense has dropped precipitously, and it’s thus become a lot harder to kill enemies before they kill me - my strong offense HAD always been my most effective defense, after all. In particular, bosses are harder to take down by several orders of magnitude - where swiftly disposing of even the most powerful boss had previously been one of the biggest pros of my build. With my original build, even high-end GRift Guardians would fall within a handful of seconds, but with this, even a regular old T16 boss-fight turns into… well… an actual boss-fight, rather than an amusing diversion that ends within the space of a breath or two.

Any ideas or suggestions? Ways I could rearrange my setup to make it more effective? Or, failing that, other builds that work well on T16 even with the Sage’s Journey slotted in?

(Characters on EU servers, BTW, if you want to inspect.)

Are you attached to a meteor build?

It’s WAY easier to fit Sage’s with Frozen Orb. You don’t need Nilfur’s, which means you have the boot slot open for Sage’s. That means you only need to squeeze in one of the Sage’s pieces (doesn’t really matter slot which it is, belt/gloves/helm all work).

Also, running Sage’s but not Nemesis Bracers seems a bit counterproductive.

If you are open to Frozen Orb, try something like this: https://www.d3planner.com/721645417

If you find you struggle to survive, you could swap Nem’s to Blood Bracers I guess.
If your damage isn’t quite there, drop Avarice Band + Hoarder for Squirt’s (wear RoRG, cube Squirt’s) and Powerful.
You could also drop Homing Pads + Nemesis Bracers for Aughild’s, but personally I think if you’re going to farm DBs with Sage’s, you might as well run Nems for the extra elites and therefore more DBs.

Hrm… well, I’m very fond of my meteors, but I’m open for trying something different, since - as you’ve noticed - finding room for the Sage in such a build is problematic. I haven’t tried a Frozen Orb build before, so I might give it a shot. Still, is there really nothing better for the shoulder-slot than the Homing Pads? I agree that Nemesis Bracers is a fine idea for DB-farming, and honestly had mostly just forgotten about them, but… Homing Pads seem rather pointless, a convenience at best. Maybe I’ll try going with the Skeleton King’s Pauldrons instead - if I’m going to be running around without the Blood Bracers, Dominance OR Unstable Anomaly, having at least a CHANCE to survive if something goes wrong would probably be nice.

Honestly, though, I’d have to modify some of those skills before I’d be comfortable playing that kind of setup. I can’t stand Tal Rasha setups that rely on cooldown-abilities, since it leads to a constant sense of stress - you have to keep the buff running at all times, since if it drops while that power’s on cooldown, you can’t get it back up to 4. So I’d probably go with Meteor Shower or Apocalypse instead of Blazar. And I’d probably drop Illusionist for Unstable Anomaly - I can live without that 30% added move-speed, but having UA available provides a priceless peace of mind.

Well, I’ll try putting it together, and then see how it works!

EDIT: Well, I tried it, and… hmm.

Well, obviously, the new setup - being new and all - has plenty of room for polish, and I’ve made some modifications, as previously mentioned. I soon discovered that Blazar worked just fine, since the whole build is predicated on constantly alternating between primary and secondary attacks, but Squirt’s is right out - with so little shielding available, the buff drops constantly, and without Force Armor, the resulting attack can often just about one-shot you. I dropped Avarice and Hoarder for, instead, Wyrdward (which helps quite a bit with surviveability) and Bane of the Powerful - I’ve already got a highly potent gold-farming set, and no particular financial problems at this time. My Trapped is being used by another character, so short of leveling a new one all the way up, I stuck with Esoteric for now.

Still, even with that caveat, the results are… underwhelming. It’s pretty good for tearing through general mobs, but then so was my old one. And for dealing with Elites - even regular Champion/Rare/Uniques and whatnot - it’s utterly hopeless. Considering that I’m supposed to farm DB’s, being able to speedily dispatch Elites is kind of mandatory. If I had a decent Trapped, that might help SOME, but I don’t think the 40-odd extra percents of damage would really put it ahead.

Of course, part of the problem is that I had to give up my Primal Deathwish w/ Gifted Socket for a regular old Ancient Aetherwalker, but… it’s not like I can conjure up a Primal Aetherwalker or Unstable Scepter, nor simply will a spare Ramaldani’s Gift to appear. Ultimately, I may be better off with a build that’s closer to my original, simply because I happen to have top-shelf gear for it…

Hello there !

I did not read the whole topic so it may be redundant, sorry in advance … ^^;

I had some time to spare so I fooled a bit around to “design” a meteor build allowing Sage’s set.

Here is what I came up with :

https://www.d3planner.com/916657413

At 700 PLvls, it worked ok for T16 with unoptimized gear since I recycled the one I use for another build (relying on explosive blast, hence the CDR oriented rolls).
It mainly lacked a better deathwish (poor % on legendary affix), meteor affix on boots, helm (and possibly on the source too) and correct element damage on the bracers. Rolling asp off on the chest would also be a good idea since asp is not really helping at this difficulty level and overconsuming AP.
However, I could not do anything for the gems which are fairly high already for 700 PL toon, skewing the test a bit.

The damage output is decent but not great (since I could not fit the grand Vizier in the mix …). Defense is quite good though with the Halo of Karini and Orb of infinite depth (high CDR is really welcome with this item, btw). If you feel tough enough you can swap OoID for grand Vizier, ofc but I would wait for more PLvls before doing that.

Gameplay is simple : numlock frost nova and explosive blast, teleport-stun on enemies, cast meteor manually then chanel. Sometimes manual casts of explosive blast and frost nova while chaneling are good for the extra meteors (and crowd control since cold meteors are freezing).

Mandatory passive is illusionist for movement speed and resetting the CD of teleport (hence more stunning which helps a lot …) but for the rest it is pretty open. I think APOC on the source is a also a must-have hence prolly freeing the Astral presence passive slot.

Overall, I’d say it is decent although a bit slow hence why I would advice to use it for T15. It would prolly lead to a better rate of DBs per hour. Whenever you get enough more PLvls, you may be able to go at T16.

Here it is in action :

Hope it helps and you like it ! =)

Good day all !

P.S. If I were you, I would rather do explosive blast instead (much more fun imho), I have a build set already without Sage’s but “smoother”, just ask me if you’d like to know more about it. :wink:

Hmm… interesting setup. Quite close to one I used to run before adapting my current build. Certainly wouldn’t be hard to slip into, except for the Taeguk - I build one up, but ultimately wound up sacrificing it to boost my Deathwish after deciding that it was more damaging than helpful. Building up the buff takes too long, and it disappears again too quickly - you’re basically forced to stand your ground and channel, and regardless of your defenses, that’s a death-sentence in any kind of missile-heavy environment on T16. Your own run seems to bear this out - the Taeguk-buff rarely rises above 2-3 before being reset due to the need to stay mobile. Might be better to replace it with Esoteric Alteration or Mutilation Guard instead - you certainly cut it quite close a number of times, I noticed, and the constant use of Calamity without having the Aetherwalker on hand means that you can’t rely on teleporting as a quick get-out-of-Dodge button. Oh, and it seems like the build would really benefit from Audacity - perhaps as a replacement for Astral Presence if you can manage without it?

As for Explosive Blast builds, this getup honestly seems to be halfway there already, what with its reliance on Chain Reaction+Orb of Infinite Depth… but regardless, I’ve already tried a full-on ‘Wildfire’ build, or whatever they’re called. In-Geom, Chain Reaction, Orb of Infinite Depth… I didn’t care for it. Too stressful. Fast, sure, but you HAD to keep moving constantly, 'cuz if your In-Geom buff dropped before you found the next pack of Elites, you’d be in trouble when you DID find them. I generally prefer builds that are more leaned-back, fun and relaxing, even if that also makes them slower - but your suggestion seems to strike a fine balance. I’ll definitely give it a try, since other than the Taeguk, I’ve already got everything it requires and then some.

Good, you will tell me how it goes for you. But I doubt u’d need a defensive gem with so much toughness. Moreover, Taeguk kicks in when the fight is lasting longer than usual, i.e. VS tough elites, for instance. Audacity should be a good idea though, just give it a try and see if AP management is not an issue …

As for my EB build, it does not rely on in-geom coz I dont like it. Just replace Sage’s build with Cap. crimson and it should put you at around 65% CDR which is enjoyable since teleport refreshes rather fastly. You will find the video on my chanel.