Returned after 3 years and hit a roadblock

Hi!

Itroduction
I've had a similar topic a few weeks back (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1984) in which my questions were not very concrete. I'll summarize my previous post: I love MedianXL but I hit a serious roadblock with some uberquests before. I posted some outdated screenshots of my 3 year old char and received some nice tips.

What changed
Fast forward to today. I've been playing the latest MedianXL and got to where I originally was 3 years ago. I think the gear on my char is substantially better than last time, but I'm still having problems I feel.

Gear/Stats
In this section I'll present everything about my char that could show where it's lacking as I don't seem to be able to find out for myself.
I can handle any batch of monsters generally and absolutely crush any monster on one-on-one. (excluding ubers ofc)

Primary stats

The ice elemenatals that apply the frost armor aura die instantly to poison and fire... so they are only around 50% of the time.

Secondary stats

Gear

Charms

I also have Laser Focus Crystal, The Butcher's Tooth, Scroll of Kings, Sacred Worldstone Key, Sunstone of the Gods, Harkon Crystal Gem and Hammer of the Taan Judges.

Skills

Questions
The general question is how to improve my char. There is a recurring problem/possible solution, but I'm not sure how to achieve it. Here are concrete encounters which currently feel impossible:
1. Akarat - I die in 1-2 hits and there are 20 followers doing multihit/aoe hits with flying hammers. I literally die in 1 second if I engage with more than 3 of them at once. This one is very strange as I have killed Akarat many times 3 years ago. (I also had his trophy) My guess is that either he has been buffed or I'm messing up in a new way.
2. Legacy of Blood - I can only survive until most of my summons die and the golems will go for me. Leaving and returning does little good as the elementals are sort of stuck at the entrance for a few seconds and I get focused. If I had aroud 5x the damage it would be done.
3. Azmodan - I rush in, teleport to him and I die while only taking about 25% of his HP. It varies a little but some elite monster with unblockable cheapness will get me. Usually the stone hammer gargoyles. I do not really have the option to move or flee. Trying to teleport out usually gets me killed since they interrupt it 7/10. I seem to lack damage here too.. not sure.
4. Creature of Flame - I think I cheesed this with as a caster 3 years ago, but it should be possible with melee too. I have got its hp down to 50% then all the guardians died. Basically I hardly did any damage to the boss and my aoe hits chipped away the guardians who followed me constantly.
5. Infernal machine - I can't kill it before monsters fil the room and I have no more space to dodge the instant kill thing.
6. Baal on Destruction - The shard minons overwhelm me.. I need more damage here too.

Some of these would require about 2x-4x more damage. Akarat would also require for me to live more than 1 second. For more damage I can and will farm for a better warp blade, but that takes time and I'm not sure what else is there to do. On defense... I've got nothing.. obviously a better chest armor, but I can't see that being a difference for Akarat. I'd need a miracle. I've trought that I could clear travincal/upper kurast and kite the followers away.. but that seems like cheating... I think.

7. I've been looking into guides and found many recommending to use speed calculators... while I understand how they work I'm reluctant to use them. I don't feel it's cheating, but I don't think I should need it. Do I need to optimize and calculate every point and percent on my items? Does it give a noticable difference?

Conclusion
I think I'm far better than before (I hope I'm right), but there's still much to improve upon. I'm looking forward to some helpful tips.

Thanks,

Maybe try some + summon minion resistance MOs, it will help your elementals live longer. Also I would aim for a much better proc than time strike on your weapon. Shower of rocks is a good one, and I think baelfire works well too if you add -enemy resistance to your gear. There are much better options than time strike IMO

Hey, ive seen you in 2015. But, you always sat in the chat lobby XD.

krex87: I didn't prioritize the proc much when crafting the weapon. I went for high +minimum damage primarily since that seemed to have a huge impact on the final result. I guess I'll have to look into the porcs I can get. On the minion res: I've seen and thought about the orbs, but they are +1%... I'd need to fill many items with them even if they have effects multiplied... so I guess it seemed to be not worth it. I may go for it, but that will require quite the effort unless I get some lucky rares with high +% minion res to try it out.

billy500: I will reassure you that it was not me, if you're going by the name "Firefly".

Creature of Flame: You can resummon the immunity shield monsters by casting Dark Summoning.

Well done on the nicely written post. Here are my improvements:

1) Your weapon is really bad. Since you have a sacred warp blade here is what I suggest you replace it with - a honorific. At the stage of the game you are in the TU sucks, all the lvl 100 and below runewords suck and spending hours of rerolling crafts without being able to farm shrines efficiently also sucks.

So, make an honorific warp blade and then use the lucky oil on it - if it fails to give damage, affix burn then upgrade to magic, then honourify again and retry the luck. Ok so once it is successful you have a lvl 30 req honorific warp blade with 40% enhanced damage. Now cube 11x enhanced damage mystic orbs, 15x +10 max damage orbs, 15x 1% ctc crucify on melee attack orbs and for the last 4 orbs use 1% crushing blow MOs. Socket this weapon with perfect rainbow stones. Now you end up with a 750 average damage weapon (a bit more than yours), that has a GG proc of 30% crucify on attack (crucify shoots up to 16 spikes per proc when there are lots of nearby enemies that deal 2/3 wdm each, which is over 10x your WDM in a single proc) as well as ~40% crushing blow.

2) Skills - maxing wraith sword or bladestorm is not worth it. Leave these at 1pt. From your newly freed up 24 skill points place 15 in Fusillade - it's a broadside with an 8 second timer and 8 yard range. This is your premier single target killing ability - make sure to use it on cooldown while meleeing said target as much as possible. The remaining points should go in Baneblade for more defence and a little sustain + dmg. Also do not be too attached to wraithsword - against single target (assuming it is not magic immune) and in big crowds bladestorm does more damage in my experience.

3) Sustain - at this stage of the game you have nowhere near the required amount of physical damage or life leech % to rely on it for healing. Therefore craft a belt with an inner fire proc - it's an instant heal on a 5 second cooldown. Use it when you get low, it does lock out your Fusillade so keep that in mind. The other stats don't matter too much but try to get a decent enhanced damage roll, flat dex is also nice and bless with an abandoned shrine. If you can get the disintegrate proc that's also decent.

4) Chest armour - is really bad. Make the Erawan Runeword (Nih) in a sacred Ceremonial Armour or a T6 one. Reroll the base with oils of luck/blessed luck (depending on your patience) until you get an enhanced defence & 1/2% DR. Now apply 10 enhanced defence mystic orbs. Then remake the runeword until it rolls 15% on the DR. For jewels you can use 2% life leech crafts if you want or just rares if lazy - priority stats are 2% dex, 40-50 flat life, resistances are also nice. This chest will nearly double the defence of the TU6 ceremonial which will result in a massive overall defence buff. Furthermore you get an extra 10% cb for damage and the 25% str will allow you to reduce the number of points you need in str.

5) Jewellery - the ring of truth and your amulet choices are subpar. Better alternatives are: for the amulet a rare with 2+ skills & lightning arena (will stun monsters and prevent you from being overwhelmed), a big chunk of flat life is also great to have (because of moonstrike). For the second ring slot either another empy band or a 1 all skill rare with unseelie curse or supernova on kill.

6) Helm, gloves, boots, shield - these can also be improved by going for a Yul runeword in the heaviest strength based helm you can wear (crown ideally, make it the same way you prepared the base for your chest rw). For the rest using abandoned crafts with good percentage dexterity rolls, high enhanced defence and mystic orbed for your breakpoints. Which brings me to:

7) Yes breakpoints are important and no they are not cheating. Especially for a melee character you will get hit a lot so you want to reach at least 109% Faster Hit recovery (use plugy to see how much you have and how much more you need or d2stats reader). Same goes for block especially when you start increasing your dex via better crafts/signets/more charms - you want at least 129% FBR. This will prevent you from getting animation locked in combat which results in more dps time & better survivability.

8) Ubers:
- Creature: like void said use dark summoning to bring more shielding dudes. Run up to it use Fusillade and whack it a few times, repeat.
- Akarat: leave this one for now it requires better damage & survivability to be possible with this char in melee.
- Infernal Machine: use Fusillade on cooldown, especially when running back as it will help clear beasties off your ass. You can also run to the machine put a fusillade down, then whack monsters until your stuff is dead, run out resummon and repeat. This will be easier with the better damage from the above setup.
- Azmodan: my suggestion is not to teleport on him like that, this is only a reliable strategy with overgeared chars. The classic approach is to go in look at the left or right and go into the room which is emptier. Then get vision of the central chamber, azmodan will start walking towards you. If this room you are in now is relatively empty just wait for him to come and kill him with fusillade. If it is not or he gets stuck in monsters start running along the outer edge of the reliquary until you meet a pack of monsters who are unshielded. Then slowly clear and lure stuff to that zone until azmodan is reachable. It might require a few restarts to get a lower density dungeon.
- Legacy: Two things - first you need to replace sockets in your non-runeword stuff with perfect bloodstones. This will prevent you dying from the golems' explosive traps which they leave on death. Second you need good damage to clear golems faster than Bartuc creates them - with the above setup it should be doable. After your elementals die go to the lower level to resummon. When you come back your fusillade will be usable (dark summon timer will be over) so if you place one on bartuc and he loses his shield at this time he will die very rapidly.
- Baal: don't bother with him for now.
- Btw you should get your brc done as well. While the skill is sadly unusable with baneblade active, the 150 life is valuable due to your % max life buff.

9) Miscellaneous: Craft (or roll a rare with oils) a sacred war staff (or t6 if rerolling a rare but make sure its max ilvl first) with 10-12 sorceress skills. Orb it with minion resistances and minion life. Socket with perfect bloodstones. Use this on your weapon switch before casting baneblade so you get a ton of free defence and velocity and to cast beefier elementals more quickly.

PS. I just realised this post is humongous. Posting on forums while under the influence was not the best idea.

The easiest solution is to switch away from melee to tstone and get all charms with that built.

The other one would be to get easier charms first (just saw that you actually have most of them) Definitely resummon guardians at the creature of flame. For akarat summon and run away, then lead him somewhere and then lead solo followers to him, you can resummon them, if the new akarat follows you lead him somewhere else. Kahlimgrad shouldn't be a big problem either. Azmodan needs more strategy.

void: Thanks, that's super useful to know!

Nitz: I've already tried to go with the thunderstone build I found here, but I just do not feel it. I did not get my build a 100% like suggested, but had -150% enemy resist with even more self +%damage and.. well I certainly did a whole lot more damage than with warpblade. That being said I could not get ahead. Most challenges that were labeled as easy did not work out. I died at Akarat for example to a random flying hammer that pierced a summon of mine numerous times... in short: it did more damage, but is was not effective since I haven't placed that caster style well/a lot. I'll stick to melee and see how far I can get.

suchbalance: Thank you for such a detailed reply! I have come up with a few questions that I'll place at the end.
1. I made the weapon you suggested, it's much better. I guess I should have looked up the proc skills' details to know I want them.

2. Big thanks for pointing out Fusillade. I have tried to use it once previously to snipe the towers in K3KBA, but since skeletons are around them it was not working very well and I gave up on it.

3. I use the moon symbols for instant heal and they are ok, so I skipped this. The teleport skill also locks out Fusillade and cycling three would be worse I think.

4. I have been farming anything and everything I can to acquire a sacred version. Today ~5 hours: killed all act bosses 5 times except Baal, cleared act V from Frozen Tundra until Baal 6 times, cleared Travincal until Mephisto, etc. I've seen a dozen Ceremonial armors none of which were sacred... like bad joke all Kazarghands I saw were sacred. So.. this is in progress...

5. I haven't paid much attention to trinkets.. I have a lot more I could choose from (unique), but since my focus is never on them I do not replace the ones I already have.. I'll get to them. I'll look for the unseelie curse which I have no idea exactly what it does.

6. Those are all Abandoned crafts with.. I can't remember the blessing. I'll look into the runewords also next time I'm re-gearing.

7. Alright I'll look into this.

8. With the adjustments since your reply I have got the charms from Creature of Flame, Azmodan, Lord Aldric Jitan, Judgement Day, Island of the Sunless Sea and Khalimgrad.
- Infernal machine is still nearly impossible and it's a marathon walk from waypoint so.. I don't want to keep trying with my current chances.
- Legacy of Blood I don't have enough damage to clear golems. I almost killed Bartuc once ~10% hp, but it's very dicey how it's going. I haven't tried with replaced sockets yet.
- BRC shall be done sometime too.

9. This is very interesting. Do the summons retain the stats of my gear of the time I summoned them? I thought they didn't since I have a great sorceress wand for summoning but the Void Archon I summoned with it died shortly after removing the weapon.

So I've a few new questions:
1. Trap Rats (elite chaingun hedgehog) and chaingunning elite fire golems sometimes get me in complete stunlock. Is this avoidable with high enough hit/block recovery?
2. There are a few mobs that apply terribly annoying and sometimes (depends on the situation) deadly curses and debuffs. Generally the speed debuffs. Is there a "cleanse" skill I could acquire from an item?

from LFAQ:

► Show Spoiler

1. Yes, shorter animations for blocks/hit animation triggers give you just enough time to be able to move out - that's the whole point.

2. If you mean k3k (miasma, nightmare) - when you approach a necro's position start spawning minions ahead of you so they get targeted and trigger the cooldown on those abilities. If you summon something in a necro's melee he won't cast these debuffs too. Also if you get hit by them drinking from a random nearby well will remove them.

If you mean unseelie curse (darkness falls) from the laz elite based ubers there is nothing you can do about it. Best practice is to move away from mobs for the duration as it leaves you vulnerable.

--
And yes that orb gives nice stats for your elementals but sadly the cast rate will be no faster than using your sword.