Based on information that I’ve been reading around the PTR feedback (since I don’t have the time to test things myself), I think the consensus is that for the standard UE Multishot build, it will the following changes in 2.6.6:
Hellfire Amulet -> Squirt’s Necklace
Witching Hour -> Captain Crunch Belt
UE Boots or Pants -> Captain Crunch Boots or Pants
Convention of Elements (cube) -> Ring of Royal Grandeur (cube)
And the following are optional changes that can be made in addition to those above:
Visage of Gunes (cube) -> Pride’s Fall, Magefist (cube)
If so, I think it’s a decent buff since RoRG basically gives you damage AND toughness through the Captain Crunch set whereas before, we had to pick either CoE OR Elusive Ring for similar buffs to damage OR toughness.
The Squirt’s Necklace pairs well with Pride’s Fall in the cube since you get more damage reduction when the Squirt’s is in effect (to offset the negative bonus).
In closing, I think the biggest change to be made will be in avoiding getting hit! As players get better at avoiding damage, Squirt’s will become a staple for most ranged builds. (I highlighted some key phrases which are my most important observations.)
Edit: I know the set is really called Captain Crimson’s, but I think the other name is more fun.
Edit 2: I removed the comment about Leoric’s Crown as a viable option. I had mixed up the reduction formulas and in the end Leoric’s Crown will less than a 10% DPS boost and thus not great.
The Captain’s Crunch/Magefist/Squirts combo has provided at least a 1 GR improvement for my style of play. It will be interesting to see how it goes once I’ve rolled up better CC gear and a nice Squirts.
Even without Prides Fall, this is a much tougher build than standard UE. Add the increased resource stability, I think we’ll be seeing more people joining the UE bandwagon.
As a side note, it looks like DieOxidE is using Hexing Pants in the cube and dong very well.
You’ve pretty much covered it. Some other things to think about with UE6/captcrunch3.
With a setup like this, spender/generator ratios become way more important since you no longer have the burst cycles of CoE. While the set bonus gives a hefty amount of additional RCR, things like hexing pants, prides fall and cindercoat are going to have a little advantage over the other options in cube due to this reason alone.
Prides fall is an interesting choice, one where it may be more beneficial to swap out something like wolf for smokescreen to keep up squirts necklace/prides fall up time. This may be more practical than stutter stepping for most.
After testing squirts a bit, it appears the “damage taken” portion is bugged. I could not replicate a consistent change in damage with test gear
Consider using gogok as a 3rd gem. Since we’re not bound to CoE cycles, the extra few break points may matter a little more considering consistent fire rate. The CDR also gives a little more damage with 3pc captain crunch, and the dodge chance allows you to upkeep the squirts necklace buff a little better.
The setup is great for higher GR speed farming solo. It is possible to push, but I don’t think conventional means are going to cut it (gather whole rift and fire). I was able to do a 119 on first try literally just walking through the rift with little to no gathering at all on cave maps. It felt easy. This setup caters more to those who would prefer to play UE like n6/m4 cold.
With that said, fire would be the rune of choice for the above. For physical to work, you must gather a large portion of festering, which means you’re going to get hit by small damage, killing off one of your biggest source of DPS. For those that go for super fishy pushes, in my opinion, traditional physical UE with CoE/ESS (maybe flavor of time for super extreme fishy fish of pushes) will remain king given the nature of high GR progression and AD scaling.
It is pretty cool that we have options that don’t revolve around CoE without feeling gimped. It doesn’t bump up UE in terms of raw power in a significant way, but rather gives some QoL love and opens up different styles of play in similar content, which is fun. I do however, wish that aughilds and captian crunch bonuses weren’t DIBS damage. They really should be multiplicative bonuses.
P.S. I’ve messed around with going super glass cannon with CoE and squirts. Was not impressive at all, and I’m not sure why it didn’t feel like I was melting stuff that I should during fire cycle. Could be something’s bugged (many things are right now in the patch), but ya.
I can’t get Captain Crimson to work with Pride’s Fall no matter what I do. The bonus RCR from Pride’s Fall doesn’t seem to give any additional toughness (neither do a bunch of other conditional RCR modifiers, though a user reported that you could use a trick to snapshot the Akkhan’s 2-piece set bonus RCR).
Yes, you’re correct. With Captain Crimson, Dawn and Paragon, you need a smidge over 13% additional CDR to reach the breakpoint. You could get that from 2 affixes that add up to at least 14, or you can almost but not quite get that from a single Diamond in your helm.
According to my math, you already have enough with 10% Paragon + 12.5% Diamond + 20% Capt. Crunch + 65% Dawn:
(1-0.10) x (1-0.125) x (1-0.20) x (1-0.65) = 0.2205
This means Vengeance cooldown is reduced to 22.05% of it’s original amount (90 seconds) so that 90 x 0.2205 = 19.845 seconds. And with Vengeance lasting 20 seconds, you have enough for it to be up permanently!
For other calculations, while the 10% Paragon + 12.5% Diamond + 20% Capt. Crunch adds up to 37% CDR exactly. I think a little more is better for the extra damage buff, but it suffers from strong diminishing returns.
So in short (assuming max paragon, diamond, and captain crunch):
The first +8% CDR item adds +3.68% damage
The second +8% CDR item adds +3.27% damage
The third +8% CDR item adds +2.90% damage
The Gogok gem is also attractive but again it’s damage is mostly from the attack speed it provides as the buff directly from +15% CDR will be +6.90% damage (assuming no 8% items) or less the more CDR the player already has.
I’d say the biggest draw for gogok is the dodge chance. If one is shooting for squirts necklace, having a decent chance to dodge when accidentally getting hit to keep up the squirts bonus is potentially more damage than the cdr and attack speed buff itself.
It’s nice that the gem provides a multitude of benefits that synergies with the setup.
I’d lean towards putting a Topaz in the helm and getting two 8% CDR rolls on gear, even if a diamond does get you under the breakpoint. On shoulders especially there’s really nothing better to roll for than CDR – dex/AD/RCR/CDR is probably best in slot.
God, I hope and wish that this would lead to a viable UE MS build that does NOT need Vengeance, or at least does not require it to be active all the time.
I hate that visuals for Vengeance and just for that reason alone I would want to play this new build as long as it is viable…
Description is kinda strange - but it probably works as intended, I guess.
There must be some kind of internal counter. Could be time or hit based.
While not taking damage, your damage is increased by up to 100% and damage taken is increased by up to 50%.
So I guess it works similar like EW set. There is an internal counter (but no icon in the game showing it).
If you constantly take damage there is no toughness malus anymore (but you lose the offensive buff to).
If you get hit once - you could be at 80/40 or so. If it works binary there would still be some internal timer - and only the first hit would get you the toughness malus.
Could probably be tested with dots (like poison soup or Ghom).
So it could even work with melee builds like S6 where you get constantly hit. Vault out, don’t get hit and stack squirts to 100% - vault in when CoE is up. Not saying that squirts would be good for S6, though. Dunno how it really works.
If Squirts is working as intended, then we do have a nice little buff for DH’s. There have been several comments in the PTR Feedback and PTR Bug forums about Squirts, but I have not seen a Blue response so I’ve laid off testing for a bit.
Being able to add Squirts to my Unhallowed Uzi would be fun, and to my S6 RGK would be pretty awesome
There’s a guy that did more thorough testing than i did on ptr feedback. Even then it’s still not completely understood.
I’d also think something like gizzard gem as a 3rd might be a good idea considering the shield and life regen that already comes with the crimson set, though that would require some serious reallocation of stats.
I can’t imagine squirts going live in it’s current state, especially without an indicator.
On another note, I experimented with my cold S6 ranged setup by adding cc3 and squirts, playing it similar to how I would UE, except frostburn in the cube (no mr yan pants!). I was able to clear a GR 120 on the first try. Was pretty neat.
On topic though, what I do know is that if you get hit twice consecutively, the offensive buff appears to reset back to 0, with a 10 second damage ramp up time. That would make it really difficult to use it with a traditional S6 setup, though again maybe gizzard gem… I dunno lol.
Gizzard gem w/ Squirts is pretty genius. It might even make other items and passives useful – but i probably wouldnt trade out Zei’s for Squirts on UE6 Multishot. I see this being more fitting on builds like M6 Cluster Bombs, semi close range.
How high can we reasonably crank up the life regen?
If you literally did nothing for 12 seconds outside of your geared element, you’d be nearly at the same damage output as if you were firing through all cycles without Squirts. If you can cleanly burst in 2 cycles (fire + physical), the build is stronger by 28%. (Attack -> Retreat -> Attack -> Retreat).
I think more clarification is needed on how that amulet actually works.