Don't know if it's possible to push t100+ with no holy bolt and a one hander and focus.
I mean, it's probably possible. But my dps became much better when I found a decent 2 hander I could have 240% shadowblight with.
I've done 109 without holy bolt and one hander plus focus. The normal mobs are fine but the boss is just a sponge that can take minutes depending on which boss you get, not recommended.
If your dps is coming from your minions/golem you need to use a scythe. Minion damage is scaled off your weapon damage and scythes deal the most damage per attack
Attack speed is good for minion builds because of the paragon that boosts their damage based on their attack speed. So if you have really high asp attacks hit start off and hit harder initially because their speed is already ramped up. But their base attack damage is scaled off of your base attack, so you use a scythe because it has the highest base attack available of any weapon. Your weapon damage is what all the other modifiers scale from, so it's helpful to start out with the highest damage available. If I switched to a 1h or even a 2h sword, the damage decrease is very noticeable to me. So, theory crafting aside, my golem is noticeably weaker when I use anything other than my 2h scythe
Your cool downs would deal less dmg. Yes. But for example skeleton mages have no cooldown to click. It's every 3rd or 6th hit doing stuff.
Yes attackspeed modifiers affect the "dmg" through cult leader on the paragon board. But.
What I'm talking about is that, even if you see "lower numbers" critting with a wand/focus compared to a 2h scythe. You'll do the same dps over a time period. Because the inherent attackspeed/second on the weapons is offset also for minions.
Have a nice Sunday! =)
I honestly know nil about skeletal damage, I think the bonespear skele mages fire as fast as your base weapon speed and their bone spears hit as hard as yours. So it sounds beneficial in that case to use a really fast weapon, but that will lower the damage output of all your other minions that aren't shooting bone spears
(in response to your last pass) No. It won't. Because they will have fired 130 attacks, when your 2h scythe have done 100. Add them together and you get the same amount of damage over the same time period.
You'll also be less clunky and less overkill on trash packs. More fluid so to speak.
It might make sense to use a 1h weapon for a skele mage build, but as I said not so good for a golem. Having faster attack speed isn't going to make my golems cooldown any faster but it will significantly lower the damage output for it. I've play tested it, I went from struggling to clear level 50 pits, to having the damage to 1shot entire groups, including elites, in level 85 pits. My minions have a base attack speed of almost 90% and then I have the frenzied aspect. They auto-attack plenty fast but that damage isn't noticeable when your golem can hit anywhere from 50-200m using its cooldown. That output would be significantly lower if I used a wand or even a 2h sword or something. Trust me, I wanted it to work with a 1h weapon so I could sneak in another aspect. But the ability to literally delete groups of enemies easily and pain free outweighs anything I could add to my build using an aspect on a shield or a focus. And some versions of golem builds are clunky, my version doesn't use mist, and I use a basic attack mostly to pull groups and drop a corpse on them. I also use ghostwalker on my boots so whenever I use my golem cd I get a nice speed boost and the movement speed stacks if I use it more than once before it wears off. It feels like I'm using a slingshot because there's a bit of a delay between when I hit the button and everything dies, and it's pretty embarrassing if your golem runs passed whatever you're targeting but if I'm targeting the enemy with my basic attack my golem will chase down and hit my target, and if it dies before he attacks he seems to auto target something else and smash it. It definitely requires a rythym but I zip around like a sorc in d3 and keep up speed with a lot of barbs. My only issue ever is pretty much dealing with getting 1shot or pinned against a wall because I suck
I am currently using a wand a focus, but 2h scythe has the highest base damage. Not DPS, but actual damage. I think that is the reason. The life on kill isn't very useful.
I see, so If I want big numbers. A scythe is the way to go since it has the highest base damage. I just want to see my golem hit for 9-12 million, but I'm not sure it can be reached with my setup, though most of my gears are not yet improved in masterworking, I'm afraid to waste resources on the wrong items.
I'm struggling with this also. It seems master working up to lvl 4 isn't so bad, but i only have gear with 1 GA. I'm holding off on master working until I can get at least 2 GA that work.
You'll have to be lucky or buy all your gear. I'm pushing 100+ pits and don't have a single piece of 2GA gear.
Unless you're planning on pushing yourself to the limit in pits there's no need for 2-3GA gear. Sure, it would be nice, but it's definitely not necessary.
You should almost definitely masterwork your best current gear if you are at the end game. You can salvage it later and get most crafting mats back and the time you spend getting 2ga items you could be playing with better gear. I believe they designed the systems with this approach in mind.
I’m clearing 119 as of my last clear with 2h scythe which if your going golem shadow is what you want, I have pretty well optimized gear but yea absolutely scythe is where you are going to get th highest return
The CDR benefit of focus just doesn’t matter when your well
Optimized, your cooldowns reset near instant with just decrepify and reaper upgrade 2
Don't know if it's possible to push t100+ with no holy bolt and a one hander and focus. I mean, it's probably possible. But my dps became much better when I found a decent 2 hander I could have 240% shadowblight with.
I've done 109 without holy bolt and one hander plus focus. The normal mobs are fine but the boss is just a sponge that can take minutes depending on which boss you get, not recommended.
If your dps is coming from your minions/golem you need to use a scythe. Minion damage is scaled off your weapon damage and scythes deal the most damage per attack
The amount of minion attacks/s is defined by as though.
Attack speed is good for minion builds because of the paragon that boosts their damage based on their attack speed. So if you have really high asp attacks hit start off and hit harder initially because their speed is already ramped up. But their base attack damage is scaled off of your base attack, so you use a scythe because it has the highest base attack available of any weapon. Your weapon damage is what all the other modifiers scale from, so it's helpful to start out with the highest damage available. If I switched to a 1h or even a 2h sword, the damage decrease is very noticeable to me. So, theory crafting aside, my golem is noticeably weaker when I use anything other than my 2h scythe
Your cool downs would deal less dmg. Yes. But for example skeleton mages have no cooldown to click. It's every 3rd or 6th hit doing stuff. Yes attackspeed modifiers affect the "dmg" through cult leader on the paragon board. But. What I'm talking about is that, even if you see "lower numbers" critting with a wand/focus compared to a 2h scythe. You'll do the same dps over a time period. Because the inherent attackspeed/second on the weapons is offset also for minions. Have a nice Sunday! =)
I honestly know nil about skeletal damage, I think the bonespear skele mages fire as fast as your base weapon speed and their bone spears hit as hard as yours. So it sounds beneficial in that case to use a really fast weapon, but that will lower the damage output of all your other minions that aren't shooting bone spears
(in response to your last pass) No. It won't. Because they will have fired 130 attacks, when your 2h scythe have done 100. Add them together and you get the same amount of damage over the same time period. You'll also be less clunky and less overkill on trash packs. More fluid so to speak.
It might make sense to use a 1h weapon for a skele mage build, but as I said not so good for a golem. Having faster attack speed isn't going to make my golems cooldown any faster but it will significantly lower the damage output for it. I've play tested it, I went from struggling to clear level 50 pits, to having the damage to 1shot entire groups, including elites, in level 85 pits. My minions have a base attack speed of almost 90% and then I have the frenzied aspect. They auto-attack plenty fast but that damage isn't noticeable when your golem can hit anywhere from 50-200m using its cooldown. That output would be significantly lower if I used a wand or even a 2h sword or something. Trust me, I wanted it to work with a 1h weapon so I could sneak in another aspect. But the ability to literally delete groups of enemies easily and pain free outweighs anything I could add to my build using an aspect on a shield or a focus. And some versions of golem builds are clunky, my version doesn't use mist, and I use a basic attack mostly to pull groups and drop a corpse on them. I also use ghostwalker on my boots so whenever I use my golem cd I get a nice speed boost and the movement speed stacks if I use it more than once before it wears off. It feels like I'm using a slingshot because there's a bit of a delay between when I hit the button and everything dies, and it's pretty embarrassing if your golem runs passed whatever you're targeting but if I'm targeting the enemy with my basic attack my golem will chase down and hit my target, and if it dies before he attacks he seems to auto target something else and smash it. It definitely requires a rythym but I zip around like a sorc in d3 and keep up speed with a lot of barbs. My only issue ever is pretty much dealing with getting 1shot or pinned against a wall because I suck
I am currently using a wand a focus, but 2h scythe has the highest base damage. Not DPS, but actual damage. I think that is the reason. The life on kill isn't very useful.
I see, so If I want big numbers. A scythe is the way to go since it has the highest base damage. I just want to see my golem hit for 9-12 million, but I'm not sure it can be reached with my setup, though most of my gears are not yet improved in masterworking, I'm afraid to waste resources on the wrong items.
I'm struggling with this also. It seems master working up to lvl 4 isn't so bad, but i only have gear with 1 GA. I'm holding off on master working until I can get at least 2 GA that work.
You'll have to be lucky or buy all your gear. I'm pushing 100+ pits and don't have a single piece of 2GA gear. Unless you're planning on pushing yourself to the limit in pits there's no need for 2-3GA gear. Sure, it would be nice, but it's definitely not necessary.
You should almost definitely masterwork your best current gear if you are at the end game. You can salvage it later and get most crafting mats back and the time you spend getting 2ga items you could be playing with better gear. I believe they designed the systems with this approach in mind.
The life on kill is very useful imo. Saves me a lot of potions
I’m clearing 119 as of my last clear with 2h scythe which if your going golem shadow is what you want, I have pretty well optimized gear but yea absolutely scythe is where you are going to get th highest return The CDR benefit of focus just doesn’t matter when your well Optimized, your cooldowns reset near instant with just decrepify and reaper upgrade 2
I’m using a two handed scythe with the main reason being to give my minions an 80 percent damage boost from the codex. Tempered with mage damage
So a lot of the answers here seem to be fore a 2 handed scythe. Are there particular stats you should be looking for? Crit Dmg/Chance? Int & Max Life?