2.0 changed both acts monsters and the ways skills scale. Since then, there has been many discussions, complaints, and statements that build balance early game is terrible, and so on. Therefore, I... Wanted to try every single build of the game. Yep. Or more precisely, every trees. I'm not motivated enough to level entierely every skills, but I did try them and will discuss it. Anyway, most builds pop off after getting their first TU, that can be obtained after killing Travincal council, and the game overall become way smoother then. Farming mephisto is a good way to get ACs, runes, and xp, as well. Therefore, I'll focus entierely on the experience in act 1-3 normal, that I believe to be quite important. It's what new players will base their opinion of the game on, and something everyone goes through, after all. I don't know much about later, so don't take this thread as a "good league starter" list, the strength of a build that early does not necessarly reflect well how it will do later on.
I myself love leveling a lot in arpgs in general, often way more than endgame mindless farming, and find it very fun to optimize early game, learn what is strong, learn to adapt to drop inventively, etc. I participated to and won 2 normal speedrun contests, in 1.8 and 2.1 ;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN0cWAv8vhk /
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okepgqA7zPg . So of course, my experience will be quite different from one of a new player. If you are entierely new and want to share your experiences as well, do feel free to do so here.
As for me, my job will be to try every trees casually. Meaning, I'll play them like a normal season start, doing side quests and all, and for each of them, record and show my leveling to mephisto. Rate them, give feedback, and potential changes recommendations. Oh boy what did I start...
And remember, almost everything I'll say will only apply to Act 1-3 normal, so from level 1 to 30-35. If otherwise I'll specify it.
ConclusionsHere is my perfectly objective (what do you mean I played many of them only once so their place is a bit approximative?) ranking of builds. I've putted them in tiers but they are in what I believe to be the order. Strength, speed, tankyness, ease to play (include mana cost), all are accounted for. But mostly speed.
Tier 0 (speedrun potential) : Claw sin / Wolf Druid
Tier 1 (The top, they have no worries in their life) : Bear Druid / Java Zon / Totem Nec / Summon Nec / Throw Sin / Bow Druid / Caster Druid / Neutral Paladin / Unholy Caster Paladin / Cold Sorc / Earthquake Barb / Psi Sin
Tier 2 (Feels ok man, some have specifics issues though) : Nagi Sin / Trap Sin / Malice Nec / Storm Zon* / Elementalist Barb / Poison Sorc* / Fire sorc / Summoner Barb* / Unholy Melee paladin / Melee Necro / Melee Sorc / Arcane Sorc** / Spear Zon
Tier 3 (Problems) : Blood Zon** / Owl Druid / Templar Paladin / Incarnation Pala**
Tier 4 (Oh boy) : Crossbow Nec / Bow Zon
Tier 5 (???) : Light sorc / Throw Barb***
Untested (And it will stay that way) : Whirlwind Barb**** / Scorpion Blade sin
*No pax mystica = rip (apply to most T3+ as well)
** Sponsored by Mana Potion™
*** Actually bugged, but would be terrible even fixed lmao
**** Anybody in his right mind would play ww ''with the support of'' Earthquake/Shower of rocks, so let's pretend it doesn't exist.
As you see, I consider 14 builds to be extremely strong, 17 to perfectly playable, but they often rely on drops, and might have problems such as mana cost, no good bosses damage, or simply are overall a (big) step behind. 6 are to be avoided at all cost.
But I might ask ; What is the intended balance, even? Do we consider Tier 1 or Tier 2 to be the base of "being in a nice spot"? I definitely think and will assume that a few T2 need at least a small qol improvement, while every 3+ all need help. The ideal would for sure be for new players to struggle, while someone knowing his deal could play comfortably mostly anything. I don't even know if there's a build representing that idea, though.
General Feedback► Show Spoiler
- One point that definitely feels weird is monster density. Not only it is way lower than before, but the important point is that, for every zone, density is pretty much random, and will change a lot from one game to another. Not really a problem as long as we get enough levels by the end, we might say, but it goes with the next point :
-Side Areas in general are in a pretty sad place. Countess always give an el rune, and a few others ? That's cool, but running the tower is obnixious because it almost always give no xp, so in the end nobody want to do it.
So here's my point ; There's no good place to stop to xp consistently before Mephisto Area. In 1.x there were some, such Inner Cloister, or A2 Sewers. Remember how good of a feeling it was to see your screen full of 'the pack' and just know you'll get a full level ? Yeah I'm talking about that. Players can still rush and get their levels currently, I always finished A3 between level 29-35 with every char, which is a bit underleveled but still ok. But this side area problem is in my opinion one of the most important thing that turn off new players. Levels simply is the best way to get power at this point, and I'm sure many would feel better if they knew there were strategic spots for that. I also think in general that it would be nice if a few zones got denser, full of many weaker monsters. At the start of my post, I showed two speedruns, one in 1.8 and the other in 2.1, it wasn't only to show off, but also so you can clearly see the difference in how it look in term of monster density. Mind you, stronger monsters and elites are nice, but I'd love to simply see both, depending on the zone.
- Many classes are relient on mercenary to do some things (
here's a poison sorc killing a boss) . That isn't a bad thing in itself, but what follow is that they also are relient on
Pax Mystica
Pax Mystica
Staves
'Tir'
Runeword Level: 10
+1 to All Skills
+7% to Spell Damage
+(2 to 5) to Blink
Elemental Resists +(11 to 15)%
(11 to 13)% Magic Find
. With 2,2 runes drop rate, it's pretty rare for thoses runes to not drop it at all. But when it does and it's the wrong char ? Oh boy life is over. I strongly believe every single class should have an innate Jitan's Gate. Tps being "locked" behind a runeword simply is weird, even if we ignore the mercernary thing.
- Boots ms isn't enough to feel comfortable at all, unless you have an easy access to the holy grail, a stamina shrine. That isn't only related to the very early game, but I think players should have more access to + to stamina and ms in general. I understand the idea of the new Stamina bar, of course, but I think that if a player want to run, he should be able to. How about brinning back Stamina potions, for exemple ? With a caution "Running will make you lose your defense", and poof that's it, everyone's happy.
- 'put 5 points into this skill to remove it's cooldown' mechanic is pretty obsolete and unfun. In some cases it kinda works, such as Wolf's Harbinger. It would be too strong to start without cd, and terrible to have nothing for some time. Not the best, but fine. But take Carnage or Dream Eater, I won't even want to use them before having many spare points because of their cooldown. Stempede and iron Spiral? Oh dear god why. I my ideal, many skills should be usable one pointers while still being worth to max if the player decide so. This perfect balance is near impossible to get, I know. But at least thoses passive should either be out or give something more, in my opinion.
-Mephisto 'Circle of death' attack is very hard to play with for many char and definitely is not a good design. The fact that most kill him before they even see it is not an excuse.
-The old "you get +max skill level every 4 char level and from some charms", wasn't very intuitive, and needed the player to save points/respec often. The new tree avoid that, but the result is that 80% of the chars just put literally all their points in their main skill, then passives, take melee devo or mediation in the way if needed, and that's it ! There... Probably need an in between to be found. But I don't have any good ideas.
DruidDruid overall does really well, morphs not being tied to their weapon IAS really help a lot for early game, the last time I tried him, which was... Long ago, it clearly wasn't that good. Owl is a bit subpar but mostly simply doesn't feel good, and caster druid spells are quite unbalanced, but again overall he's a strong a pretty fun boy. I was honestly surprised by how fun bear and bow were. Not sure if it would be so for long, but hey.
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Wolf Tier 0. Has to wait until level 11 to powerspike so is a bit behind clawsin, but afterward both Harbinger and merc carry does everything. Mana problems aren't even a question, and he even gets some stamina, as well as melee devotion. Twisted claw deal some damage even at 1 points, which is very rare to notice. So yeah it's just zoom zoom at this point.
Bear Tier 1. Rend being able to be casted on ground with shift is a literal blessing. Wildfire does enough damage as well, but it's aoe clearly is not as good, and need a target, so I stayed with rand all the way. Not to mention, Bear can use the holy weapon, a throwing axe. I think I've made a
Cheetah
Cheetah
Throwing Axes
'El'
Runeword Level: 6
5% Chance to cast level 9 Gift of the Wild on Kill
15% Combat Speeds
5% Movement Speed
Adds 3-5 Damage
75% Bonus to Attack Rating
5% Life stolen per Hit
+1 to all Attributes
in it, and that was enough to be fully geared. Bear will have no issue killing anything, he's also tanky as hell, get some ms and no mana costs, so to me he's clearly among the best. Note that I didn't even use Pax Mystica, I just runned man.
Bow Tier 1. Bow skills has insane (at this point) flat fire damage values, and steady shot giving +skills makes the others skills usable, which is nice. Nothing to note really except Bow dudu general feedback :
---> What I'm sure of is that bear "you can spam now" random buff should be removed, or just give the regen, but having a random buff that change the gameplay is no good. So it need to either be a self cast high cd buff or for that mechanic to be completely removed, and cascade / Heartseeker -especially the latter- to be buffed to compensate.
Caster Tier 1, but only Hunting banshee is ! Quite a bit weird to play honestly. Infected roots deal low damage on top of having a ridiculous mana cost and not even a good aoe, Ember spirit simply feels slow and not amazing, though it deal some damage. But Hunting Banshee will destroy everything in it's path.
---> No idea on this one honestly, I'm not a fan of the spells themselves. Infected roots mana cost need to be checked at least for sure.
Owl Tier 3 (but barely, could has been a low T2). Not... As terrible as many would assume. The worst part is having to do 15 whole levels with only earth talon. I still do not understand what we're supposed to do with eggs except getting a buff later, so yeah it's about spamming Birdstorm and praying Ferocity to get you some damage. I also used a few +max damage mystic orbs. Overall the damage still is a bit low, and Owl also has no tankyness at all for now, but I believe he can regen with Pagan rites, which I forgot to use. I'd say it's decently playable, simply quite not fun.
---> Level 5 ferocity and level 10 Birdstorm would be nice already, but also giving birdstorm just a bit more "quills" (is it supposed to still be that name?) at level 1, like from 16 to 20 wouldn't be far fetched either, I think.
Overall, Necro perform nicely simply because he has an innate 2 second cd, which not only make him faster but also is useful for using (abusing) the mercenary. I found Malice and Summoner to be quite fun, too.
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Totems Tier 1. Nothing to signal here, it's ridiculously strong from start to finish. Each totems does the job at this point, even if the fire one is a bit behind.
Summoner Tier 1. Only get op after unlocking Abyss Knight, but afterward is as smooth as totems. Might even be better because the summons are tankier. Abyss knights just know how to do the job.
Malice Tier 2. After the recent fix, Death Ripple is strong enough but is still weird to play, it's hard to understand the hitbox and how many time it will hit. Dream eater is not usable since it require too much points, and cost lots of mana anyway. Not to mention, Death ripple actually do some damage on bosses, and the merc will solo them anyway. So it's perfectly playable but quite limited for now. Malice looks fun, but later.
---> It's in the general feedback so I'll only repeat here, but I think that overall skills that start with a cd are no good. Is the goal preventing others trees from using it? Well not only that's a bad idea, but it'll be technically locked by gear and spell damage anyway.
Melee Tier 2. Parasite will start off really strong but the damage scale down a bit by the end of Act 1, but not to problematics levels to me. Same as above, Carnage is not good to use because it cost too many points, which isn't very fun. Using dragonfire oil + carnage could work of course but it mean losing too much Parasite strength, I think. Angel of Death... is very weird. I'm not a melee nec fan so I'll not go in this territory. Both
Loa
Loa
Necromancer Daggers
'Eld'
Runeword Level: 8
10% Chance to cast level 6 Gift of the Wild on Kill
+15 to Maximum Damage
+(45 to 55)% Enhanced Damage
8% Reanimate as: Random Monster
and
Black Cat
Black Cat
Necromancer Scythes
'ElTir'
Runeword Level: 10
10% Chance to cast level 3 Seal of Fire on Melee Attack
25% Chance to cast level 40 Punishers on Kill
20% Attack Speed
75% Bonus to Attack Rating
Adds 8-12 Fire Damage
+(30 to 57)% Enhanced Damage
(3 to 5)% Chance of Crushing Blow
+5 to all Attributes
+7 to Life
does very well, though I had more success with Black Cat.
Crossbow Oh boy. First off, Buckshot isn't a bad skill. But having only that to clear everything one by one? That's the problem. Death Shard might be the worst skill of the game, using a corpse is fine but it does nothing to reward it, so in the end we go back to using buckshot. You have hope Windowmaker will save you at level 20? Nope, it start at 5 bolts only, so it does practiaclly nothing for about 5 more levels. In the end, a few levels in dragonfire and at least 4-5 levels in windowmaker is what Crossbow needs simply to be on par with others.
Sting
Sting
Crossbows
'Tir'
Runeword Level: 10
25% Attack Speed
+(40 to 50)% Enhanced Damage
1% Reanimate as: Random Monster
(5 to 10)% Gold Find
is nice, as well.
---> Only a rework or a delete could save Death Shard. But to start, how about unlocking Frag Shot at lvl 3 instead, and put Death Shard for later? Also make the base IAS breakpoints just 1 or 2 frames faster and I think it might be enough to save it already.
Overall average. Only Cold perform similarly to the bests. Most other trees are the perfect representation of "ok-ish", but rely heavily on finding a
Pax Mystica
Pax Mystica
Staves
'Tir'
Runeword Level: 10
+1 to All Skills
+7% to Spell Damage
+(2 to 5) to Blink
Elemental Resists +(11 to 15)%
(11 to 13)% Magic Find
. Many spells seems a bit undertuned, not to problematics levels though, except for lightning. Oh boy light sorc is in my top 2 worst experience. Mana's one of my favorite build, and I don't think it need much tweaking to be nice at low levels.
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Cold Tier 1, smooth and nice to use. Just run and cast nova in the way, and that's it, they deal way enough damage. Novas doesn't stack (the only case of nd being half explained in game, look at it closely), so there's no point in spamming them, meaning comfy mana costs. Not to mention melee devotion help a lot, so all goes well.
Poison Tier 2, the second "best" sorc in my opinion, but has quite a bit of an issue already. Leonardo will kills random mobs just fine, but poison damage overall at this point deal close to 0 to bosses. Meaning, merc has to quite literally solo them. No pax mystica in hand? Well gotta run the comptess or respec. It's actually a bit of a close call to put her that high seeing how dependent to random she is, but well most of the time it will drop.
---> Not possible to balance except by reducing bosses poison res and plr in normal, or giving everyone Jitan's Gates.
Melee Tier 2. Does ok, nothing is either terrible or very good. One big weird part is that she need very specific weapons, so you have to gamble an orb at lvl 1, a Warp blade at lvl 7, and get a Crystal sword later either by gambling again or waiting A2 for Fara to sell one. The Crystal sword sure help a lot.
---> Why does bladestorm only unlock at lvl 5? Having to use attack until then obviously isn't good, just make it lvl 3.
Fire Tier 2. Again does just fine. But I had much more ease to play with Pyroblast, Flamefront simply doesn't do enough damage, and most importantly it's passive require to be above 80% mana, which is impossible to maintain for now. I have quite no idea on what to do with that.
Mana Tier 2. Mana start off just fine, but quickly she find out her problem : She is, quite ironically, the most mana potion hungry char of the game. It simply is impossible to max Arcane torrent. Positive thinkers will say that mean more points for passives, so mana's tankier than fire or poison ! And we can just use immersion when on low mana, right? But Arcane torrent damage scale down in A2 and 3, there's no ways around that.
---> Please, her fix is extremely easy, just make mana sweep a lvl 20 skill instead of 30.
Light Tier 5. Oh my god that was terrible. Well it could have been much better, but I didn't drop a Pax Mystica, so it simply was hell. Honestly, the skills simply are undertuned, it's as simple as that. Forked lightning start off with a strong and mighty 0-1 damage, and I can assure you that maxing it make it barely better. Not to mention that the skill is terrible in term of hitbox and number of hit, but maybe that's me. You have hope in Thunderstone? Haha poor you, this single target skill deals less damage than most aoe skills in the game and will need multiple cast for random mobs, if every bolts hit, of course. Tempest is about the same.
---> I know light become just fine later, but the scaling of the spells is just wrong.
Unholy and Neutral does well, while both holy melee and holy casters has issues.
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Neutral Tier 1. Does everything well without seeing his mana bar lowering. Absolution kill everything in it's path, etc etc. I maxed retribution because I figured range isn't very important at this point, it's better to have some punch.
Unholy Caster (Warlock) Tier 1. Starting with 1 beam mind flay isn't as bad as it seems. Slayer attack slow but will kill everything in the screen in one cast at this point of the game, so whatever. Even while maxing Slayers, Mind flay remain strong enough to be perfectly usable, which is a nice touch.
Unholy Melee (Ritualist) Tier 2. (Took 48:55 min, the video doesn't show in some countries it seems ) Simply has average damage. I guess it's the class identity to be immortal and right clic enemies to death, so it's on point. Need a mana on melee attack MO to be playable after act 2. I prefered to use Lemure for it's better aoe, but Blood thorn seemed playable as well. I used lvl 1 thorn to regen mana pretty often, even.
Holy Melee (Templar) /
(playing better, but without mercs nor mo)
Tier 3. He is kinda saved by the holy power of a throwing axe. Without it, he would be way, way lower. Among the worst of the worst.
Cheetah
Cheetah
Throwing Axes
'El'
Runeword Level: 6
5% Chance to cast level 9 Gift of the Wild on Kill
15% Combat Speeds
5% Movement Speed
Adds 3-5 Damage
75% Bonus to Attack Rating
5% Life stolen per Hit
+1 to all Attributes
is your best friend from start to finish. The main problem is retaliate bonus damage ; It's 5% of str OR dex at lvl 1, +1% per level. See the problem? It's that we start at 25 str, and will get at best like 100-150. And if we max str, we can't get dex for ar. The char only source of AR unlock at lvl 20 and scale on current mana, so you'll need to chug potions to stay on decent ar, it's kinda funny. But anyway, Retaliate scaling that makes sense later, when pala unlock his +attribute passives, but early on it means nothing. Meanwhile barb lion stance is 6-8% of base str per base points and is really strong, and that's because early there's no difference between base points or not. Skills that scale with base attribute vs all attribute dillema is difficult, base points is strong early but has no end game scaling potential, and all attribute sucks early.
Putting too many points in retaliate make the char unable to be played without mana on melee attack MO, but with only a few, a mild potion addiction is enough.
---> Simply add a bit of flat in counterattack or retalite and see what happens. Another way is giving Holy Fire at 25 instead of 30. And to fix phy weapons so he's not completly struck without a
Throwing axe.
Holy Caster (Incarnation) Tier 3. Low damage spells, simple as. Let's compare Unholy caster to that for 2 minutes ; Mind flay is a single target skill that clear better than Dragon Jaws. Slayer is a turret means for aoe clears, yet it deal more single target damage than annihilation. Not to mention that slayer is 1 sec cd and Annihi 6 sec, that Holy caster has big mana problems, meaning it isn't even worth to use dragonborn armor because of the mana degen. But I think his mana potion addiction mostly is because he need so many cast to kill things.
---> Skills simply are not tuned well. They become strong with lategame passives and all but just doesn't start good.
Also quite unbalanced, whirlwind and throw are the worst of the worst to level with, nobody in his right mind would even try. Summoner is strong and nice but unlock his tp skill at lvl 30 (should I remind you of necro innate 2 sec teleport?). Same for ele barb, he unlock his strongest skill at lvl 40, and have to rely on Iron Spiral before that. Only Earthquake has his weapons unleached from the start. Lion stance big damage help them all a lot, while Snake need many points to be usable so forget it for now. It even start at 1-2 poison damage which is quite funny. Another barb weak point is his cast frames with a staff, actually the worse, so he can't blink well. Meaning less mobility.
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Earthshaker Tier 1. No mana problems, very high damage, he's low in the T1 simply because he doesn't have any ms. Shower of Rocks will destroy bosses and thunderslam is strong defensively. All the damage come from Lion Stance however, trying to get some anywhere else will end badly.
Elementalist Tier 2. Same as above, the damage is 80% Lion Stance 20% an elemental weapon, a throwing axe or crystal sword. But Iron Spiral simply is a worse skill than earthquake, it's as simple as that. It also need 5 points just to be usable, delaying Lion stance damage. Overload skills actually are baits, they cost too much mana and doesn't do anything. The build will get stronger at 40 with Primordial Strike.
---> Don't make Iron spiral have a cd, and reduce just a bit overload skills mana cost. I'd love for Thunderstorm to start with more than 6% ms, as well. At least like 20%.
Summoner Tier 2. Kind of a funny one, the summons themselves are strong, Gardian Spirit will do lots of damage, but what do you mean spirit walk only unlock at level 30? Why is Shamanic trance a buff and not a passive? Does spirit reave even exist? There's many questions despite summon barb being strong. I also forgot Wolf companion passive that give cast speed, don't be like me.
---> Spirit Walk should be available at no more than level level 5, in my opinion.
Throw Tier 5. Oh god where do I start?
Snake bite does about 1 poison damage and doesn't carry the weapon damage, so it's better to keep simple attack until level 5.
At level 5, You unlock Stampede? Well too bad, the skill doesn't multihit so it's barely better than an attack, and it has a cd until 10. Meaning we're using what is virtually simple attacks until then.
---> Violence passive is bugged and doesn't add any single bonus physical damage ! I tested it throughly with both a throwing and Balanced Axe, I'm sure it add nothing.
Rebound at level 20? Yeah still the same, it doesn't do anything. The build only hope literally is to do nothing else than fortress, doing the support role for your merc to kill things.
---> For once Violence need a fix, but even then it would be the worse, if any throwbarb fans have any idea on how to save that mess please do share, I'm out.
Whirlwind ---> There is absolutely no reason for Gale force to unlock at 50 and not immediately.
Sin not only has blink, but shadow refuge gives 90% ms with 6 points. Not to mention, Ways give flat elemental damage, which is the strongest thing at this point of the game, as enemies don't have much resistances. Add claws fast IAS frame and a strong skill, noctule, and congratulation you're ready to speedrun normal ! Dropping some bat novas in between is pretty fun, too.
Psi and Trap are mana hungry but does the job. Throw actually is clawsin tier once it unlock Maelstrom, while Nagi attack slow but is ok. Every builds are strong ! (And Nagi my Favorite of all ! Though it doesn't show off at this point, doing slow crucify is very far from how Nagi play out later). Mmh? Scorpion blade? What are you talking about?
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Claw Actual real Tier 0, 10/10 would speedrun again.
Throw Tier 1. Storm crows start of pretty bad, it simply doesn't have much knifes. But ways damage makes it ok. However, at level 15, Maelstrom unlock, and oh boy maelstrom + ways does the job. Scorpion blade is an entiere different tree, and is pretty terrible to play with only one Knife. It was dealing some damage, but it's so boring that I stopped very quickly. I'd expect that as usual with poison, clear is ok but bosses are soloed by Jammy.
Psi (Barely) Tier 1. She have just enough mana cost to be playable with potions without feeling bad, and shurikens does very well. Psionic scream is nice to use. However, psionic storm doesn't really work at this point, the mana isn't sustainable. And mind ripple aoe is so small without the skill maxed that it's entierely useless, as well. So yeah it's about Shurikens only for quite some time.
Nagi Tier 1. Laserblade damage is good, Sin ms and everything are still good. However, Nagi attack slow (for now) and has to use crucify a lot (for now). If enemy density was higher, Barrier could show off as much as it should, but sadly it does not. I'm not exactly sure what happened between 1.8, where I literally speedrunned with her, and now, for Nagi to drop that much. Oh and mind you, I dropped
Khattak
Khattak
Assassin Naginatas
'OrtEld'
Runeword Level: 25
5% Chance to cast level 10 Celerity on Kill
20% Attack Speed
40% Hit Recovery
+30 to Maximum Damage
+(35 to 46)% Enhanced Damage
Maximum Mana +1%
Lightning Resist +30%
in that play, so it ended a bit smoother than usual.
---> Just a bit of a faster frames please, I shouldn't struggle more with my otp build I've played for 2 years than literal first timers.
Trap Tier 2. A bit mana hungry but not too much either. Incineration Trap damage is pretty ridiculous so it's all about spamming Shockwave, which does enough for now.
Quite ironic that she has balance as a skill huh? Java outperform so much that it seems like a joke. Although, Thundercrack is decent (for now), blood start terribly but get stronger as Bloodstorm gets more targets. Spear... Does damage. That's the only good thing we can say about it. Bow feels terrible. By far the least fun char to me, but well gotta abuse java right?
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Java Tier 1. Eviscerate damage and speed is ridiculous, Java actually feels like it's the only weapon ecstatic frenzy work with, her frames are comically faster than other zons.
Storm Tier 2. I don't like hammer and stormcall, and they probably sucks anyway, so I stayed with Thundercrack + melee devotion all the way. It doesn't do much for single target, but for clearing thundercrack has a bit more damage than the average melee class. And that's about it.
Spear Tier 2. Actually one of the worst in term of feeling, but Great Hunt does big damage and takedown give a bit of ms, so in the end it plays ok (?). Great Hunt is a terrible skill still, it's impossible to know how much it will hit. Hyena does nothing, and takedown would be actually nice if enemies density was enough to not let the buff fade away itself. Yeah don't ask me anything about amazon, i'm out.
Blood Tier 3 (barely a T2 but lowered due to potion addiction). Early act 1 feels pretty terrible. The skills feels weak, but that's mostly because they don't have enough missles/targets. Magic missle feels absolutly terrible, so I played bloodstorm all the way, and it slowly scaled up until it's fairly decent. The build overall is very potions hungry, both for mana and life. 1 pts Balefire is usable for single target at first but quicly lose it, and I haven't tried max lava pit. Pax is so op that I forgot to make
Prophecy
Prophecy
Scepters
'Ith'
Runeword Level: 18
+1 to All Skills
+(3 to 4) to Maximum Damage
+(10 to 26)% Enhanced Damage
+1 Life Regenerated per Second
Fire Resist +(21 to 40)%
Cold Resist +(21 to 40)%
Poison Length Reduced by (10 to 15)%
Attacker Takes Fire Damage of (21 to 25)
Attacker Takes Cold Damage of (21 to 25)
+
Edda
Edda
Amazon Shields
'TirTal'
Runeword Level: 20
+1 to Amazon Skill Levels
15% Cast Speed
+(3 to 5)% to Physical/Magic Spell Damage
+10% to Fire Spell Damage
Maximum Mana +(11 to 20)%
Poison Resist +(10 to 15)%
Requirements -15%
, it probably is better but need some bases.
---> Simply make mm and bloodstorm start with more missile/target to start with.
Bow Tier 4. Bowzon skills simply feels terrible. Trinity is barely usable, and barrage needs you to be in melee to do something, and by something I don't even know why, because the number of hit it will do seems completely random. The flat elemental damage doesn't show on the char page, and feels like...
Some damage is added, but not all. It's very weird really. Phalanx has no flat damage so is unusable early, and wyrmshot has too little target so it does nothing as well.
---> Every skills are terrible ! Can't save that, I'm out. One thing I can think of, could Stag bow be available earlier in gamble? It saved me a lot to drop one.
