05-31-2012, 02:00 AM
So I've been changing my builds a lot since I got to Act IV NM / Act I Hell and been soloing more than grouping on my currently L52 hardcore doctor. It isn't because a build I had wasn't working, I just want to try skills on tougher things. I still keep a few escape skills of course, but I want to talk about a skill that I don't think a lot of folks have used, that being spirit barrage. The base skill isn't all that great, you'll do as much damage with splinter darts and it's single target as well. Well of souls gives you a bit of AoE on it but there are better ways to go. Phlebotomize helps some, 3% life steal, but that only comes into it's own when your base damage gets high enough. At my base 2000 - 2500 or so base damage it smacks for 3500 - 4500, and gets me about 110 - 130 or so health back. Even at 12K or so DPS you'll probably only get 600 - 700 back per hit. I get several hundred a second running Blood Ritual as a passive right now (and get more use out of my mana pool).
So I've not been super high on it. But then I tried Phantasm and realized that it's better damage than I though. It's around 500 a tick at my 2K base damage, and I get about 10 ticks of that per mob, yes it seems to tick every half second for 5 seconds so if a mob is there for the full 5 seconds you'll put about 5000 damage into it with a 2K base damage and it hits everything in 10 yards. Not a big range, but it's spammable.
That means you can set up a blender. Sure, sure, it's not the best damage in the world, but just about any grasp will keep an Act 1 hell mob in the range for the full duration and you can easily afford to cast 2 or 3 on top of the grasp and cackle as the blue swirls spin round and round cutting up the poor zombies, or bats, or skellies. It worked wonders on that immune minion molten frozen I ran into (a bat) since the minions didn't get in the way of the damage. It even chewed the plagued fast fire chainers which surprised me, though there was some mass confusion help on them. I've also chewed up a couple other packs (arcane waller desecrate) and (vortex lightning arcane) that was on the big guys that explode and release snakes or pygmy dudes or whatever.
I know I've played higher DPS builds, but I'm playing for fun and I was surprised at the fun of phantasm. I hadn't had grasp on my bar for awhile either, but it just seemed like such a fun pairing and it's viable in early Hell too. I had big stinker, mass confuse, spirit walk and darts or skulls (changed em around a few times) for the other skills, passives were spirit vessel, jungle fort, and blood ritual but I was generally using phantasm and grasp to kill most stuff. I wasn't trying to max the utility of it, just having fun. I believe it leaches pretty well with on hit life so there are some other options for it.
Just thought I would share. I've monkeyed with Zombie Wall - Pile On (and had fun seeing 15K hits) too and was glad to have the bouncing skull targeting experience that works pretty well with it too. But I wasn't getting quite as much fun out of it, and there was a waller desecrator don't remember pack that really made things tough on me with it because the walls blocked casts or damage, I ended up drinking two pots with them. Even with extra slowing grasp I had issues with positioning them. I think it would be a blast in a group though even with the knockback (that I rarely saw since most things just died to it)
So I've not been super high on it. But then I tried Phantasm and realized that it's better damage than I though. It's around 500 a tick at my 2K base damage, and I get about 10 ticks of that per mob, yes it seems to tick every half second for 5 seconds so if a mob is there for the full 5 seconds you'll put about 5000 damage into it with a 2K base damage and it hits everything in 10 yards. Not a big range, but it's spammable.
That means you can set up a blender. Sure, sure, it's not the best damage in the world, but just about any grasp will keep an Act 1 hell mob in the range for the full duration and you can easily afford to cast 2 or 3 on top of the grasp and cackle as the blue swirls spin round and round cutting up the poor zombies, or bats, or skellies. It worked wonders on that immune minion molten frozen I ran into (a bat) since the minions didn't get in the way of the damage. It even chewed the plagued fast fire chainers which surprised me, though there was some mass confusion help on them. I've also chewed up a couple other packs (arcane waller desecrate) and (vortex lightning arcane) that was on the big guys that explode and release snakes or pygmy dudes or whatever.
I know I've played higher DPS builds, but I'm playing for fun and I was surprised at the fun of phantasm. I hadn't had grasp on my bar for awhile either, but it just seemed like such a fun pairing and it's viable in early Hell too. I had big stinker, mass confuse, spirit walk and darts or skulls (changed em around a few times) for the other skills, passives were spirit vessel, jungle fort, and blood ritual but I was generally using phantasm and grasp to kill most stuff. I wasn't trying to max the utility of it, just having fun. I believe it leaches pretty well with on hit life so there are some other options for it.
Just thought I would share. I've monkeyed with Zombie Wall - Pile On (and had fun seeing 15K hits) too and was glad to have the bouncing skull targeting experience that works pretty well with it too. But I wasn't getting quite as much fun out of it, and there was a waller desecrator don't remember pack that really made things tough on me with it because the walls blocked casts or damage, I ended up drinking two pots with them. Even with extra slowing grasp I had issues with positioning them. I think it would be a blast in a group though even with the knockback (that I rarely saw since most things just died to it)
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It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.
It's all just zeroes and ones and duct tape in the end.