Barbarian and Assassin

[TheKingofKewl]

I've been building my Blade Fury Assassin. Level 69 now.
I've near maxed Venom. And have about 10 in Claw Mastery so far and maxed Death Sentry and close maxing Shadow Warrior.

I've been wondering if I should continue with points into Claw Mastery because I'm so dependent on Death Sentry. The info on the synergies says 1 shot for every 3 points in Fire Blast or something and 12% bonus damage for points into Lightening Sentry. Wouldn't my points be best spent here while I'm working towards maxing my shadow warrior?

And also how are people getting damage of over 3k with the death sentry? I'm going like 1-400

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My Mace mastery barbarian

for novelty I am working towards the IK set =)

Maxing Maces of course
Maxing Concentrate
Maxing Battle Orders (also because its a synergy for concentrate)
A point in Battle Commands for skill bonus

here's where things get a little tricky and where I need a bit of advice:

10 points in Whirlwind? is that good, with skill items & equipment or should i max this skill?
Since I'm going with IK set, I'm thinking of using the syneries to Concentrate
I think it's Bash that gives the 5% bonus to it but there is also Beserk that gives 1% magic damage bonus.
If I put just 1 point in Beserk at high levels it might be worth it because of all the skill item and torch bonus to go with it, it could be as high as "10" or better.



thanks

[bigeyedbug]

I've been building my Blade Fury Assassin. Level 69 now.
I've near maxed Venom. And have about 10 in Claw Mastery so far and maxed Death Sentry and close maxing Shadow Warrior.

  I've been wondering if I should continue with points into Claw Mastery because I'm so dependent on Death Sentry. The info on the synergies says 1 shot for every 3 points in Fire Blast or something and 12% bonus damage for points into Lightening Sentry. Wouldn't my points be best spent here while I'm working towards maxing my shadow warrior?

And also how are people getting damage of over 3k with the death sentry? I'm going like 1-400

As a very general rule you won't find that many points in Claw Mastery result in substantial gains in AR or damage per additional point. Since the real answer though is "it depends," I suggest checking for yourself by leaving your damage setup the same, but switching one thing out for more or less +Shadow Disciplines. That will give you a rough idea of what you can expect from every further point in CM. (Or you could just plug the numbers into PeterPaulRuben's calculators.)

The other issue with CM of course is that it doesn't help at all with anything but claws...and there are a lot more great BF options available in other weapon types.

Generally people get high sentry damage by having high +skills and several synergies maxed. Usually when people are talking about damage ranges, they're referring to Lightning Sentry. It has more potential damage per lightning volley, and an automatic 10 shots. The lightning damage of DS is just a nifty side-benefit--the main value of the trap is the corpse explosions, and the main value of maxing it is synergizing Lightning Sentry and simultaneously increasing its own CE radius.

I hope that is helpful.

[TheKingofKewl]

thanks for the tips.

I'm building a Cold & Fire sorc to. I'm going to put 20 in frozen orb//cold mastery, but I'm wondering how to spend the rest in Fire. I've already put 10 in fireball and i'm thinking of maxing it and maxing Meteor as well. But should I max Fire Mastery or just put 5 or 10 points and depend on the rest with skill items. And should i put the rest in Inferno to get bonuses to meteor or put it in firebolt and get bonuses to fireball :-)
dilemmas.

As a very general rule you won't find that many points in Claw Mastery result in substantial gains in AR or damage per additional point.  Since the real answer though is "it depends,"  I suggest checking for yourself by leaving your damage setup the same, but switching one thing out for more or less +Shadow Disciplines.  That will give you a rough idea of what you can expect from every further point in CM.  (Or you could just plug the numbers into PeterPaulRuben's calculators.) 

The other issue with CM of course is that it doesn't help at all with anything but claws...and there are a lot more great BF options available in other weapon types.

Generally people get high sentry damage by having high +skills and several synergies maxed.  Usually when people are talking about damage ranges, they're referring to Lightning Sentry.  It has more potential damage per lightning volley, and an automatic 10 shots.  The lightning damage of DS is just a nifty side-benefit--the main value of the trap is the corpse explosions, and the main value of maxing it is synergizing Lightning Sentry and simultaneously increasing its own CE radius.

I hope that is helpful.
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[DeeBye]

I'm building a Cold & Fire sorc to. I'm going to put 20 in frozen orb//cold mastery, but I'm wondering how to spend the rest in Fire. I've already put 10 in fireball and i'm thinking of maxing it and maxing Meteor as well. But should I max Fire Mastery or just put 5 or 10 points and depend on the rest with skill items. And should i put the rest in Inferno to get bonuses to meteor or put it in firebolt and get bonuses to fireball :-)
dilemmas.
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Don't max Cold Mastery. Just put 1 point into it for now. It suffers from serious diminishing returns and isn't nearly as effective as its Fire and Lightning counterparts.

For a Meteor/Orb sorceress, you'll want to max Fireball, Meteor, Fire Mastery, and Frozen Orb. That's 80 skill points right there, not including prerequisites. With prerequisites and 1 point into Cold Mastery, you're looking at 89 skill points. You'll also want to put a point into Warmth, Telekinesis, and Teleport so now we're up to 92 points.

Do all of the above first, and then any extra points you get can be placed into Cold Mastery.

[TheKingofKewl]

thanks DeeBye :-)

Thankfully I havn't made any mistakes since I made this post. I put a point in Teleport and Warmth and I've been dropping alot in Fireball and 1 or 2 in Meteor so far.

I'm glad the build is to a way I like. I will just put the 1 point in cold mastery then, and max the others.

Though I was wondering- the inferno adds length to the meteor and firebolt adds damage to fireball. Would it be better to put points in these after instead of cold mastery because of skill points boosting CM anyway, or no?

thanks :-)

Don't max Cold Mastery.  Just put 1 point into it for now.  It suffers from serious diminishing returns and isn't nearly as effective as its Fire and Lightning counterparts.

For a Meteor/Orb sorceress, you'll want to max Fireball, Meteor, Fire Mastery, and Frozen Orb.  That's 80 skill points right there, not including prerequisites.  With prerequisites and 1 point into Cold Mastery, you're looking at 89 skill points.  You'll also want to put a point into Warmth, Telekinesis, and Teleport so now we're up to 92 points.

Do all of the above first, and then any extra points you get can be placed into Cold Mastery.
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[bigeyedbug]

thanks DeeBye :-) 

Thankfully I havn't made any mistakes since I made this post. I put a point in Teleport and Warmth and I've been dropping alot in Fireball and 1 or 2 in Meteor so far.

I'm glad the build is to a way I like. I will just put the 1 point in cold mastery then, and max the others.

  Though I was wondering- the inferno adds length to the meteor and firebolt adds damage to fireball. Would it be better to put points in these after instead of cold mastery because of skill points boosting CM anyway,  or no?

thanks :-)
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Though my understanding of the Sorc skills isn't the best, I'll have to differ with Deebye on the effectiveness of Cold Mastery. Very generally speaking, reducing resistances is usually far more effective than increasing damage, at least when it comes to Hell difficulty and the attendant high resistance monsters.

It doesn't look like you need to max it though, most of the time. For an excellent discussion of the skill level targets to aim for, see this thread.

I suppose another thing to consider is which set of skills you wish to focus on more. For instance, if you see Orb as primarily just an FI solution, high levels of Cold Mastery should look less appealing.

I have no advice to offer on the fire skills question, sorry.

[Baylan]

Don't max Cold Mastery.  Just put 1 point into it for now.  It suffers from serious diminishing returns and isn't nearly as effective as its Fire and Lightning counterparts.
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I'm afraid that is no longer true. It appears that now Cold Mastery takes a *flat* rate off of a monster's resistance, and it goes up at a rate of 5% per level, starting at 20%. So at slvl 1, it takes 20% off of the monsters resistance, at slvl 2, 25%, and so on and so forth.

So the way it now works is that if a monster has 75% resistance, and you have a slvl 1 Cold Mastery, the monster will receive damage as if it has 55% resistance.

So maxing Cold Mastery is now an effective, and recommended thing to do, but only after you've maxed Orb. (And in my case, my secondary killing skill, fireball).

I'm in love with my new sorcie, that I've been playing in Amazon Basin games. It has been a blast on HCLEast. :-) Been playing since Saturday and she is already a conqueror, at clvl 63!

[GriffonSpade]

I'm afraid that is no longer true. It appears that now Cold Mastery takes a *flat* rate off of a monster's resistance, and it goes up at a rate of 5% per level, starting at 20%. So at slvl 1, it takes 20% off of the monsters resistance, at slvl 2, 25%, and so on and so forth.

So the way it now works is that if a monster has 75% resistance, and you have a slvl 1 Cold Mastery, the monster will receive damage as if it has 55% resistance.

So maxing Cold Mastery is now an effective, and recommended thing to do, but only after you've maxed Orb. (And in my case, my secondary killing skill, fireball).

I'm in love with my new sorcie, that I've been playing in Amazon Basin games. It has been a blast on HCLEast. :-) Been playing since Saturday and she is already a conqueror, at clvl 63!
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Frozen Orb is probably the most versatile skill a sorceress can get; it can be affective with only itself being maxed and a point in mastery(after +skills), or it can be a massively powerful primary attack, but getting the full potential out isnt easy; like meteor you have to aim, you'll want the orb to blow up right on top of a middle or rear monster (The orb seems to do more damage than the shards, possibly because multiple shards are hitting what it's flying through, and when it blows up on top of a monster it hits them with large number of shards, doing probably something like 10 times displayed damage).
Its most affective range is a bit further than nova(most spells you want as far from the monsters as you possibly can), but only covers the area in front of you affectively.
It also has a massive chill duration that make it an affective opening spell in most situations, even if you arent doing much damage with it.
Probably the most flexible, reliable, and useful sorc attack spell there is.

Also, the general damage is like this: Base spell damage * Synergy damage bonus * Mastery damage bonus / Monster Resist for any who don't know.(and not Base spell damage * [Synergy bonus + Mastery bonus] as some people told me)