It has been so long since S20 I can’t remember (plus many changes to the game since then).
Before the theme was announced I had been thinking of maining Monk for S31, but I don’t think the theme complements any Monk builds.
Necro is an obvious choice. Would Trag’oul’s blood nova benefit more from a second weapon than from Mantle of Channeling in the second slot? Or else drop SoJ (I never use CoE), wear RoRG, and put the second weapon in the jewellery slot?
Wizard gets the best Haedrig’s gift and I think Tal’Rasha could benefit from both staffs in the cube.
I’m thinking of playing Non-season for a bit (i.e. stash tetris and reconfigure my NS builds) before returning to Armored Core VI
If you can figure out a 1H weapon that’s beneficial to the build, then yeah, you could cube the two staves, and equip a 1H weapon, the TR source and Mempo of Twilight instead.
My guess is that Starfire would make the most sense I think but you’d need to play the build as ranged and I’m not sure it’s enough damage to out do Starpact.
A Gesture of Orpheus with the right +elemental damage would also make sense.
I’m actually thinking of using the Aether Wand… with the “cast wave of force” on teleport rune it turns into a free star pact meteor every time you blink. And you can blink a lot. Flawless Royal Topaz in your helm to keep teleport cost down and blink your way across the battlefield. Just toss in something to trigger a different elemental damage like glacial magic missle and go. Even if it can’t push it’ll still be an insanely fast farming build.
I always do improv on the fly for builds. I indeed follow guides but I always find it more fun to give it my own twist. That kept the game fresh for me. I just decide a class, then play it. Whether I stick to Haedrig’s Gift or not, depends on my mood and my improv failing or succeeding. If I’m not sure what I’m doing, I go back and stick to Haedrig’s.
In case I get bored from either spec I am planning with Crusader, I think I’ll start a Monk instead to play whatever. Something easy going, such as Inna’s or SWK would be fine I think.
It seems Inna’s have space to include two weapons such as Messerschmidt’s and Executioner together if you replace or move a few equipments around. I believe with Inna’s Set you can easily equip Inna’s Reach, and Hexing Pants then set Tempest Rush- Bluster as your main form of roaming and debuff everything you collide with.
What was the initial plan this upcoming season? Oh-o, glad you asked… I’m planning to play a Crusader and stick to Roland’s. However, I honestly don’t think the build I am planning cut out for Forbidden Archives.
I’ll try to cobble together a Shield Bash spec with the two weapon slots in cube. Possibly gonna go for equipping Norvald’s and toss FoA and Witness in the cube. Else, I’ll equip the latter pair and cube Eberli (hint: Gandalf) with Blood Brother. In case those fail to hold, I’ll go towards Sweep Attack spec and follow popular S31 guides to a tee.
Since I’m thinking of equipping a Scoundrel with Roland’s due its short effective reach of the Set at any given spec, I’ll create a Monk already as a side character and that’s what I’m planning to fall back upon. When I am done with this Season Journey guess I’ll just quit and wait out the next one.
I mean when you start talking about things that no one ever uses like Starfire and Gesture of Orpheus you know this season is not that great for wizards
But if one was to play wizard, Echoing Fury does more than all that for almost every build. Aether is nice for speeds on non- near instant teleport sets like Tal Rasha but obviously no power increase which makes it unappealing for push.
Would Fragment of Destiny be a viable 1-hand wand for Tal’s? Assuming you’re going the Sparkflint route what ever generator spell you cast will come with a fire chaser and Frag gives you 50% faster attacks. So if I have the math right it’ll be effectively tripling your DPS from meteors.
I predict LOD death nova will be op. Change WH and SOJ (wear dayntee and coe instead of cubing) to SotC and Nayr nets about 18x damage. If bone armor downtime is an issue change SotC to Trag Oul.
Inarius nova would likely be too squishy.
This is one of those seasons where the theme doesn’t benefit many sets. I’m saying this as DH/Cru — there’s nothing even remotely exciting because these builds currently fit the best possible modifiers from their arsenal.
Blessed Shield: Strongarms → Echoing Fury
Bombardment: Squirts/Furnace/Zodiac in Armor Cube
A6 Condemn: Bowmen w/ Taskers + Echoing
UE6 Multishot: Visage → Fortress or EF
S6 Impale: Stone Gaunts → CoE (F&R Version)
The substitutions are too taxing and bland to matter. I’d take my non-season paragon boost instead if I weren’t doing something else.
I don’t know. In S30 I reached ~14 billion toughness with ease. In S31 I’d have to sacrifice either Aquila Cuirass or Dayntee’s Binding to use another damage boosting weapon so that’d still be billions of toughness.
Both stuffs are good… but you lose your defence. So ring slot needs to remove one of: Karini, CoE or RoRG. RoRG is core item. All top builds plays with Ogilds+Crimson which is required RoRG.
I think that all set builds cannot change anything with this theme. Only LoD ones would benefit.
This isn’t true for all classes, especially Necro. You put on 4 poison skills that don’t break the build and you’re doing way more than those sets can provide, 3x actually. Then add a Simulacrum to a build with Essence rune and you’re doing 3x damage more.
But yeah basically besides Necro you’re probably not gaining much. This theme should have been combined with 4th slot + shadow clones to get all classes really involved near equally. Would necros at that point be beyond broken? Maybe but hey you can only go up to GR150 anyway so whatever
My initial thoughts are that necro are the most obvious choice next season.
They have 3 “S-tier” builds - Nova (3 variations), Bone Spear and Rathma AotD. Rathma will fall down since cube is not changable (both RoRG and Fate Vow are needed) but Nova and Bone Spear will play with 3 weapons in cube.
For Bone Spear: remove aughilds, play bracers and set shoulders, cube Nayr’s and Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang. You will end up having more damage than this season from soul shards.
For LoD Nova: change Dayntees for witching hour and replace unity with CoE (high paragon). Cube Nayr’s and Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang. More damage than in Soul Shard season.
I think that PoJ Monk (also S-tier) will be able to cube Won Khim Lau (replace mantle of channeling) and thus wear shenglong’s (350% dmg multiplier) which is huge.
I am not sure if meteor wizz will be able to do anything creative with free cube. Especially compared to necro which will be able to use 2 additional multipliers (200% from Trag’Oul’s Corroded Fang and 300%+ from Nayr’s). Also Barb, DH, Sader and WD looks extremely poor. Maybe they could do some cosmetic changes. More optimalization. But nowhere near Necro. Maybe some builds will be able to cube rings and play F+R?
Overall agreed, except that’s not entirely true for Rathma AoTD. You just have to get a bit creative like this: [(https://maxroll.gg/d3/d3planner/724234231) - I removed CC’s and replaced with a few more CDR rolls, that frees up from using RoRG which allows Nayr’s Black Death and Fate’s Vow to go in the cube along with still having Jesseth’s and Funeral Pick (cubed). It’s already set up with 3 poison skills so that’s already 300% which is way more than CC’s 65%ish. Then for toughness I simply added Dayntee’s Bindings back into the build since it uses Decrepify which unless for some reason you had a ton of RCR rolls, should be a net gain in toughness.
Now obviously the other set build choices are superior gaining at least another weapon vs needing Fate’s Vow but it can still gain power, and it having the advantage of default being the strongest S tier build it should still be pretty competitive with the ones that I guess would be considered S+ Tier with this theme.
Personally I’ll be going Bone Spear: (https://maxroll.gg/d3/d3planner/27923613) which just gains 2 weapons without any downside and more poison skills for a x12 mod which is just bonkers since it’s already S tier lol.
What with the two sets that got introduced after the theme of season 20 which “is” now season 31; Gears Of Dreadland and Masquerade of Burning Carnival? Maybe someone “finds” something that can make use of the freedom of cube slots…
Well, Mudnudnngudnudngu’s uses Frost Burn’s in the armor spot. 20% cold damage is pretty lackluster compared to some jewelry or weapon powers, so they should get a pretty good boost this season. WD will still be on or near the bottom though as that is the fate of the class.
GoD DH most probably won’t gain much. I doubt it will be more buff than maybe +1 GR. This build already uses all possible multipliers.
Masquerade of Burning Carnival is the Bone Spear set we mentioned earlier. It will gain 2 weapon multipliers (Trag’Ouls Corroded Fang and Nayr’s Black Death). Since it is already a S-tier build, most probably it will be one of the best builds in the game (most likely Death Nova will be a bit better overall).
Yeah I was just thinking the Corroded Fang is probably better for pushing since Scythe already in the build, but there is options between that, Nayr’s & Reilena’s Shadowhook for speeds which is pretty nice.
Yeah necro just wins this season hands down I’d think, but the gap is lessened compared to S20 for sure where most sets weren’t even close to S tier.
Yes I forgot to mention Necro in this thread. I mentioned Necro in the main season 31 thread🤣 Season 31, the season of Necros.
Since there will be no PTR I doubt they will adjust s31 theme. Oh well, more time on D4 I guess
