second look at armageddon and hurricane

[LucianDK]

at first they still seem relatively mediocre, even with the large amounts of synergy skills. But them my eyes noticed that fissure and cyclone armor improves the duration with a second per level! now that is quite significant, and quite more usefull than mere raw damage from the synergies. lets take maxed fissure, that now means 'geddon lasts 30 seconds! and with a casting delay of 6 seconds, you can now continuously have up to 5 armageddons raining down doom constantly! Effectively a 500% damage increase from the synergy.
Were the other geddon synergies only gives 7% damage increase, for a total of 140% per 20 points invested. And geddon is helped by the fixed mana cost of 35

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

lets take maxed fissure, that now means 'geddon lasts 30 seconds! and with a casting delay of 6 seconds, you can now continuously have up to 5 armageddons raining down doom constantly! Effectively a 500% damage increase from the synergy.

No, it means you can reset your 30 second timer after only 6 seconds, if you'd like. At no point will you actually have more meteors/second raining down, nor more effective damage from repeated re-castings. Or, more effectively, it means that you can outlast the casting delay to cast Hurricane, and then vice versa, effectively keeping them both active without an effective drop in spell-effect time.

Btw, your spelling seems superb. That gives zero reasons why you can't find the ability to use capitalization or paragraphs.

*tips helm*

[Indefatigable]

Well hmm...I'm making an elemental druid right now. I put 3 points in boulder because fissure isn't cutting it, figuring it'd help Arma later. So...what do you guys suggest, max Arma, max Hurricane and what else?

[Lokmar Iskaran]

I downloaded the character pack from diabloii.net and experiemented with maxing all kinds of synergies. Let's just say that both the wind (cold) and earth (fire) druids have to dedicate all of their points to maximizing elemental trees, so don't expect any pets. That said, you can romp through NM with only moderate fear, but you will not fare too well in hell. Of course, I haven't tried any item maximization for a godly-bedecked character yet.

Normal is easy, with some challenges towards the end. Nightmare seems to be quite challenging... but Hell seems suicidal without some serious gear and playstyle maximization.

[RhodreeMahr]

No, it means you can reset your 30 second timer after only 6 seconds, if you'd like. At no point will you actually have more meteors/second raining down, nor more effective damage from repeated re-castings.

Hmmm, I had thought that it used to be you could have 2 hurricanes or armeggedons going after initial 6 second casting delay was up. Was I wrong or was this changed? Does seem like an odd buff then as druid are rarely mana needy.

Looking at armaggedon and fireclaws I wonder if its really viable to be a plain elementalist for fire. All of the buffs for armeggedon and volcano are also casting delay spells, but they would boost a wolf's fireclaws and they can apparently use armeggedon now. Hurricane, cyclone armor, and tornado (or maybe arctic blast) look like the straight elementalist path.

[lemekim]

Well hmm...I'm making an elemental druid right now.  I put 3 points in boulder because fissure isn't cutting it, figuring it'd help Arma later.  So...what do you guys suggest, max Arma, max Hurricane and what else?

Haha funny =) No really, if you decide to max both, you are going to end up with 2 underpowered spells, since each requires 3-4 other skills to be maxed for maximum effect. So as it currently stands, you can go Hurricane/Tornado build (have Hurricane on at all times and as main damage dealer, and spam Tornado for more damage), or Armageddon/Fissure/Volcano build, where you keep Armageddon on at all times, use Fissure as your main area of effect damage dealer (at very high levels it really shines), and Volcano for Bosses, Single Targets and Fire immunes. Not sure what other spell would be good for fire immunes, since any other spell that could work against them would require huge skillpoint investment to be effective.

[unless]

I downloaded the character pack from diabloii.net and experiemented with maxing all kinds of synergies.  Let's just say that both the wind (cold) and earth (fire) druids have to dedicate all of their points to maximizing elemental trees, so don't expect any pets.  That said, you can romp through NM with only moderate fear, but you will not fare too well in hell.  Of course, I haven't tried any item maximization for a godly-bedecked character yet.

Normal is easy, with some challenges towards the end.  Nightmare seems to be quite challenging... but Hell seems suicidal without some serious gear and playstyle maximization.

Sounds exactly like 1.09, except I had enough points left over to max my grizzly out.

[Pren]

The reason, I imagine, that hurricane and armageddon are relatively unchanged in effectiveness in hell is due to the unbelievably ridiculous regeneration that mobs have now. Even in normal difficulty in act 2, if you wait a few seconds, a creature will regen noticable hp.

Incidentally, molten boulder does additional physical damage now. Which means that it's better than tornado, in my opinion, on most creatures.

Here's the deal. On certain creatures, molten boulder explodes instantly, doing almost no damage. These are mostly bulky creatures, like threshers. The multiarmed raiders in act 2 are very large, but can be knocked back. The little guys that get whipped into frenzies in act 5 cannot be knocked back.

Molten boulder hits a creature many, many times as it goes through it. Help the poor thing if it gets caught in the path of the boulder. slvl1 molten boulder drops a venom lord in normal difficulty if it hits it for the full duration.

The multi-hit nature means that you're doing a lot more than the listed damage. And tornado seems to be even harder to aim in 1.10 than it was in the past. I was never that skilled with it, but casting it in 1.10 is resulting in me sending tornados off 90 degrees in the wrong direction some of the time :P

However, molten boulder would be useless against something that was fire immune and could not be knocked back in later difficulties., because of the cast timer. The creature would just out regen it.

One more thing about molten boulder: The fire trail is bugged and causes almost no damage. Most of the time, it doesn't even hit a creature walking through it. Which is a real shame, because it's supposed to do the most damage of the three components.

A fire specialist seems to be the way to go. In 1.09, elementalists got the shaft because nearly everything was 99% resistant to cold in act 5 hell, so hurricane was worthless. Arctic blast does more damage than inferno if you max it out, but since it's cold... i'm leery about it being useful without a wand of lower resist.




Edit: Bejebus, volcano does physical damage. No wonder I was able to kill diablo with it. Molten boulder increases the physical damage, while fissure and armageddon(!) increases the fire damage.

With maxed molten boulder and volcano, you have the ability to nail any type of creature (except flying over water... grr) with physical damage. Interesting.

A fire elementalist will need to get fissure, because armageddon's 6 second cast time will CRIPPLE you in combination with the other timers. Fissure further boosts volcano's damage, but fissure only gains damage from firestorm and volcano.

It is starting to look to me like Volcano might be the strongest skill in the tree, if you can keep the target stationary.

Interesting. Very interesting. I think i'll back up my save file and switch to a fire-elementalist only build. Havn't hit lvl30 yet.

[FenrisWulf]

Originally posted by Pren
It is starting to look to me like Volcano might be the strongest skill in the tree, if you can keep the target stationary.

Volcano has always been the strongest skill in the tree, my friend, excepting Cyclone Armor. :)

[Indefatigable]

Hmm...I'm lvl 22 now and have 5 points in fissure and 4 in boulder. I have points in cyclone armor and the second cold skill too, but I guess those are wastes now. I suppose i'll continue pumping the fire tree now.

[Obi2Kenobi]

A point in cyclone armor is never wasted.

[Guest]

I tried a 99 spec for max synergy hurricane, then I tried for armageddon.

Armageddon sucks.

Hurricane wasnt bad. I think would be a viable build. Get a defiant or freeze merc and an Oak Spirit and I think its a workable build.

[TaiDaishar]

Armageddon sucks.

Then again armageddon is the only elemental skill available in wereform and even though not a great killer it's a pretty nice secondry damage dealer, especially since you are in wereform with a lot more HP than usual (meaning you can actually get close to monsters).

[Guest]

Ya but its seems like that aproach is getting the worst of both.

You give up some of your already less than steller melee ability for a rather weak magic attack(it will be pretty weak, since you wont be able to raise the synergies much).

If hurricane could work in were form I could see the reasoning, but armageddon in were form seems like something you do for the cool factor(which is a fine reason) rather than because its good.

[Pren]

I am hoping that armageddon in wereform is a bug too, because it simply shouldn't be.