[Not recommended as of 2.1] Maelstrom Assassin miniguide

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Maphyr
Acid Prince
47 | 1
What are doing about Tiefling/Pinnacle now guys? Not worth the points now is it? Are we taking WOTS in its place?
cloudcrazed
Fallen
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id say max doom max perfect being max prismatic cloak max maelstrom max wots and 1 point into beacon 6 into queen of blades 1 shadow refugee tested wots against wotp think more 1shots trash mobs with wots still working on my build though may be a better setup don't think pinnacle worth the investment tbh doesn't offer dex just some skills at every 6 base levels and some stamina at reducing half of overall defense
Istaryu
Harpylisk
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Istaryu wrote:Okay, let's settle this once and for all. Screenshot me the second page of d2stats, maelstroms tooltip, and your character screen with maelstroms dmg visible. I'll calculate the actual damage done for both builds.


I kind of forgot about this, but i got to it today. I stumbled in 2 problems here:

1, Maelstrom's tooltip, or something is bugged. Got 10277 dex, with 190% dex to magic dmg on maelstrom, and it says it does 27747 magic dmg.
Marco confirmed:

MarcoToday at 12:01 AM
seems sb never bothered to update the skilldesc
and the bonus is definetly not "% based of dex". there is a dex factor but there is more stuff going on
such as slvl scaling

2, Bosses have variable physical and magic resist, unlike elemental resists, which is standardized, also confirmed by marco, but he did not want to give numbers.

Anyways, i will post the raw numbers here, since resist values are unknown.

koleyah's way sin:

30487 magic
669 physical
2337 fire with 83 pierce
3325 lightning with 84 pierce

pure dex sin:

34476 magic with 40 magic pierce
747 physical

Keep in mind, that my sin didnt have wormhole at the point i took stats, which is around 1.5k dex lost, which would boost numbers by quite a few thousand.

I am very convinced that magic resist values are in the lower end, because there is no magic pierce stat in the game (except for doom).

So my verdict: Ways are good for farming, it helps to clear magic absorbs much faster, but for bossing, pure dex should be superior.
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kolyeah8
Azure Drake
173 | 5
Istaryu wrote:
Istaryu wrote:Okay, let's settle this once and for all. Screenshot me the second page of d2stats, maelstroms tooltip, and your character screen with maelstroms dmg visible. I'll calculate the actual damage done for both builds.


I kind of forgot about this, but i got to it today. I stumbled in 2 problems here:

1, Maelstrom's tooltip, or something is bugged. Got 10277 dex, with 190% dex to magic dmg on maelstrom, and it says it does 27747 magic dmg.
Marco confirmed:

MarcoToday at 12:01 AM
seems sb never bothered to update the skilldesc
and the bonus is definetly not "% based of dex". there is a dex factor but there is more stuff going on
such as slvl scaling

2, Bosses have variable physical and magic resist, unlike elemental resists, which is standardized, also confirmed by marco, but he did not want to give numbers.

Anyways, i will post the raw numbers here, since resist values are unknown.

koleyah's way sin:

30487 magic
669 physical
2337 fire with 83 pierce
3325 lightning with 84 pierce

pure dex sin:

34476 magic with 40 magic pierce
747 physical

Keep in mind, that my sin didnt have wormhole at the point i took stats, which is around 1.5k dex lost, which would boost numbers by quite a few thousand.

I am very convinced that magic resist values are in the lower end, because there is no magic pierce stat in the game (except for doom).

So my verdict: Ways are good for farming, it helps to clear magic absorbs much faster, but for bossing, pure dex should be superior.


this is old patch with tiefling or new patch

i think the discussion is obolete now, with tiefling loosing dex bonus, right?

still interesting to see that your numbers are quite close in total dmg. still what you and me both thought is right: all out dex has more absolute dmg :)
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Arqwart
Prowler
18 | 0
Maphyr wrote:What are doing about Tiefling/Pinnacle now guys? Not worth the points now is it? Are we taking WOTS in its place?

I've been going strictly based on the original build with the new Pinnacle and I'm unsure how I feel about it. I don't have any sense of reference for how powerful the build was before with Tiefling. I currently have really mediocre gear (still regular Void and 99% TUs) at level 124 and things were relatively easy up until the level 120 ubers.

Current dex: 3489
Pinnacle base level: 18 (+4 to skills, aka 8% more dex rating to Maelstrom)

Maelstrom tooltip w/o Pinnacle: 4396
Maelstrom tooltip w/ Pinnacle: 4675

So I'm losing ~8.6k defense for 300 damage and stamina that doesn't really help me at all as I still need to walk during combat. I have a suspicion that this is 100% not worth the investment. My main concern in potentially changing to WotS is how to incorporate good poison penetration into the build. I'm new to the end game content of Median so I've been going pretty strictly off the build in the OP which doesn't integrate that at all.
Istaryu
Harpylisk
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Arqwart wrote:
Maphyr wrote:What are doing about Tiefling/Pinnacle now guys? Not worth the points now is it? Are we taking WOTS in its place?

I've been going strictly based on the original build with the new Pinnacle and I'm unsure how I feel about it. I don't have any sense of reference for how powerful the build was before with Tiefling. I currently have really mediocre gear (still regular Void and 99% TUs) at level 124 and things were relatively easy up until the level 120 ubers.

Current dex: 3489
Pinnacle base level: 18 (+4 to skills, aka 8% more dex rating to Maelstrom)

Maelstrom tooltip w/o Pinnacle: 4396
Maelstrom tooltip w/ Pinnacle: 4675

So I'm losing ~8.6k defense for 300 damage and stamina that doesn't really help me at all as I still need to walk during combat. I have a suspicion that this is 100% not worth the investment. My main concern in potentially changing to WotS is how to incorporate good poison penetration into the build. I'm new to the end game content of Median so I've been going pretty strictly off the build in the OP which doesn't integrate that at all.


The defense is irrelevant on this build, and the ability to sprint a lot is a very powerful tool, avaliable only to a few builds only, and it sounds like you cant utilize it well. Sure, it is more helpful at some places, and useless at some other places.
As stated earlier, ways are okay for clearing magic absorbs while farming, but thats how far their usefullness go. They will barely do any damage to bosses. If i had to choose a way, i'd definetly choose way of the phoenix, because maelstrom is a skill that multihits a lot, and i dont see the point of choosing wots for it. Losing the dex from tiefling is around a 10-15% dmg loss, not the end of the world. But using ways without any pierce will not make up for the dmg lost, especially if you give doom up for it. Ways could be okay for content up to 110, or maybe 115, when even most caster builds wont have that much pierce, and the content is balanced around it, but ways definetly fall behind a lot in the 120 bracket and above without significant investment in pierce.

TLDR: pick pinnacle, ways will barely do any damage without some dedicated pierce items.
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Arqwart
Prowler
18 | 0
Istaryu wrote:
Arqwart wrote:
Maphyr wrote:What are doing about Tiefling/Pinnacle now guys? Not worth the points now is it? Are we taking WOTS in its place?

I've been going strictly based on the original build with the new Pinnacle and I'm unsure how I feel about it. I don't have any sense of reference for how powerful the build was before with Tiefling. I currently have really mediocre gear (still regular Void and 99% TUs) at level 124 and things were relatively easy up until the level 120 ubers.

Current dex: 3489
Pinnacle base level: 18 (+4 to skills, aka 8% more dex rating to Maelstrom)

Maelstrom tooltip w/o Pinnacle: 4396
Maelstrom tooltip w/ Pinnacle: 4675

So I'm losing ~8.6k defense for 300 damage and stamina that doesn't really help me at all as I still need to walk during combat. I have a suspicion that this is 100% not worth the investment. My main concern in potentially changing to WotS is how to incorporate good poison penetration into the build. I'm new to the end game content of Median so I've been going pretty strictly off the build in the OP which doesn't integrate that at all.


The defense is irrelevant on this build, and the ability to sprint a lot is a very powerful tool, avaliable only to a few builds only, and it sounds like you cant utilize it well. Sure, it is more helpful at some places, and useless at some other places.
As stated earlier, ways are okay for clearing magic absorbs while farming, but thats how far their usefullness go. They will barely do any damage to bosses. If i had to choose a way, i'd definetly choose way of the phoenix, because maelstrom is a skill that multihits a lot, and i dont see the point of choosing wots for it. Losing the dex from tiefling is around a 10-15% dmg loss, not the end of the world. But using ways without any pierce will not make up for the dmg lost, especially if you give doom up for it. Ways could be okay for content up to 110, or maybe 115, when even most caster builds wont have that much pierce, and the content is balanced around it, but ways definetly fall behind a lot in the 120 bracket and above without significant investment in pierce.

TLDR: pick pinnacle, ways will barely do any damage without some dedicated pierce items.

So scaling is considerably better via Pinnacle than Ways. Got it.

Would you suggest the main weapon upgrade be to Void (Xis) or Dawn (Xis)? I've found that I can easily sustain my mana with hit and run tactics even without Void at the moment, but not having Void eliminates the opportunity to hold down the attack during major openings.
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Tasidon
Sasquatch
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For another topic of discussion. I have found for farming getting broadside pts stack well with maelstrom build if you think pinnacle is a waste of points. Casting broadside will overfill my health globe without putting any thought into gearing for lifesteal. Which makes the build seem more noob friendly. I can face tank bremm and dunc packs as long as i cast broadside. I still have a 20 pointed doom which is working fine for at least up to 125 charms. Not saying this is "the new way to go" but it is a cushion for sure.
immune
Thunder Beetle
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So i'm at a stage now where fautz is being done at a fast speed, I'm just curious if theres any way to slightly improve by adding a merc like Abjurer? Act 5 seems somewhat useless on that side.
arythia
Vampiress
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Can anyone tell me what the new skillplan is to max?