Something that I want to work on in this blog is coming up with some ideas to improve upon class sets. I mentioned previously that I do feel Demon Hunter’s Marauders set is in a good spot overall prior to the nerf and that the real issue is improving upon other sets. Here, I want to try and see what I can come up with in defining the weaknesses in certain sets and ways to compensate.
First, I want to start with the Wizard’s Firebird’s Finery set. In group play, this set is a lot of fun as you simply melt everything away. Given a good Furnace and a few other key items, you’ll end up out pacing your group by far. However, many people say that at higher Greater Rifts, the set (and class) fail. The real issue with this particular set is that it lacks a solid defensive and more importantly does horribly against single targets. The general tactic for the play style is to drop a Mammoth Hydra down (or maybe two if you have the Serpent Sparkler wand), pour Blizzard: Apocalypse and Black Hole: Blazar your enemies down. In most cases, you can skip Black Hole, since this is has a cooldown and just focus on the other two abilities and kite enemies around, watching them burn.
With single targets, you do the above tactic and run far. This strategy will gradually be nerfed in the upcoming patch since the distance will essentially remove the DoT on the target thereby making the most invaluable aspect to the set, invalid (and I think this is pretty stupid in general since the whole point of this class and build is long distance kiting). The big damage in this is Black Hole. However, because Black Hole has a 12 second cooldown, you can’t simply toss Black Holes against your opponents and many elites as well as Rift Guardians are immune to the CC aspect, thus rendering Black Hole pretty impotent as a single target offensive spell. Most of the time, you’ll just be running around either waiting for Black Hole or Teleport to come off cooldown while occasionally spamming Blizzard around the area.
The reality for wizards is that kiting can still be pretty dangerous business as they’re pretty darn squishy. Most high end wizards end up going more defensive by doing things such as taking the String of Ears belt over a Witching Hour, using Prismatic Armor for extra resistance, Unstable Anomaly for a 3rd chance (with Firebirds providing the 2nd chance) and Evocation to bring down the cooldown for Black Hole and teleport even further. Usually, I find myself losing nearly all my health in T6 group runs after being hit once or twice, which is pretty ridiculous given that I have a toughness score of 10 million when I’m boosted and a reasonable amount of health.
So what can we do to either improve survivability or burst damage? One possibility is to remove the +500 intelligence 2 set bonus and change that into a more useful defensive or offensive stat. One possibility is to give Magic Weapon the Ignite rune to help boost damage a little more. This might not be too much of a game changer since most people end up running Magic Weapon with Force Weapon. This could help to compensate for the eventual replacement of the Conflagrate passive (which I think ends up getting removed for something like Evocation or Unstable Anomaly). It still doesn’t solve real survivability issues nor burst damage issues though, but it does work within this framework, which is why I suggested it.
Another idea is to provide something like Storm Armor with Scramble or Energy Armor with the Force Armor rune added. It doesn’t have to be too major but enough to provide some buffer against really strong attacks. Alternatively, we can perhaps create or repurpose an existing amulet or belt. For instance, a belt that allows the Wizard to cast a second or even third Black Hole, decrease the cooldown by a variable factor of 2-4 seconds or provide the Event Horizon or Spellsteal rune. I think augmenting Black Hole here will help quite a bit even for non-Firebird wizards.
Next, I want to move on the Jade Harvester set. As with other 6 piece sets, the only aspect that really matters with this set is the 6 piece bonus. The other two really don’t provide much of a boost and the set is meant to work with the Quetzalcoatl voodoo mask. At this point, without seeing the Wormwood staff, the main issue with the Jade Harvester build is the sheer vulnerability of the play style. I’ve described on numerous occasions this build to be the suicide bomber build since you either hit pay dirt or just the dirt with a fractured skull.
The main weaknesses with this set is the sheer number of things you have to get right to make it work. Like the Raekor’s set, the Jade Harvester set is meant to do well against a large number of targets. You go in with Spirit Walk to ignore opponents and their capabilities, then you group as many together with Piranhado, apply your two dots of Haunt and Locust Swarm and finally your Soul Harvest FTW. Against single targets, this build still can do a ton of damage but like Raekor’s set and Firebird builds, you still are far too dependent upon cooldowns and having low cooldowns forces you to wait for Soul Harvest to come back up and possibly missing out on mana because Locust Swarm cost a whopping 300 mana points.
If you end up missing your target or only hitting one, you pretty much are dead in high torments. Everything goes onto cooldown and you just have to pray that nothing CC’s you as you try to escape. The Wormwood partly will fix this problem since it will autocast Locust Swarm every second, thereby saving the Witch Doctor a ton of mana and possibly eliminating the need for the ability to exist on their action bar. So here, I’ve seen some people who tested the new build use a CC ability such as Horrorify and even Mass Confusion. While not having to cast Locust Swarm does help with your mana reduction, I don’t think it still solves the issue of being at constant melee range or dealing with cooldowns.
There is an existing belt called the Hwoj Wrap that slows enemies who are afflicted by Locust Swarm. Now, it is possible that the combination of CC effects from Hwoj Wrap, Mass Confusion, Horrorify, Piranhado and even Bane of the Trapped might solve quite a few problems, the real question is whether that will be enough. I do think that one awesome addition to the build from a legendary item viewpoint would be to introduce an amulet or belt that allows Soul Harvest to be cast at range.
If you ask me, the real problem behind the Jade Harvester build is Soul Harvest. It’s a very tough ability to get right mostly because it requires you to be standing right next to your enemies to work properly. Your other abilities like Locust Swarm, Haunt and Piranhado can all best cast at range. It’s Soul Harvest that puts you at the greatest risk. So if there’s an item that allows Soul Harvest to be cast at a distance (maybe even making the 4 piece Jade Harvester bonus this possibility) then the Jade Harvester build will be able to have a far better shot at higher rankings. As nice as the Wormwood’s new properties are, it’s just not enough in my estimation to keep the Witch Doctor reasonably alive.
Another set build that needs to be revamped is the Helltooth Harness set. You never see this set being run and I even heard that the 6 piece bonus is practically worthless. I’m not sure why this set was introduced nor its purpose (even though I have the 6 piece sitting in my bank). Some people argue that the damage for Wall of Zombies needs to be increase to 1500% to be worth anything. From what I’ve heard the build is most utility/defensive as Wall of Zombies just taunts. I suppose if they made this build such that you could create a physical bone fortress, then this set might become interesting. Outside of that, it just adds to my argument that Blizzard’s stance on 6 piece sets being worth anything as exclusive end builds is essentially worthless in the scheme of things.
The same can be said with the Roland’s set. On a side note, I did play around with the Sweep Attack version for the Roland’s set. My second Crusader has a Golden Flense and as I continue to seek the Angel Braid Belt, I did give the sweep attack build a try. I kinda get where they’re going with this build as being something that pulls in monsters. But it’s just too spammy of a build and lacks the defensive capabitilies and raw speed of the Akkhan’s set, especially in conjunction with the ranged power from Stampede. The attack speed buff is kinda cool but the 2 and 6 piece aspects seem kinda worthless. The effect looks cool but ranged truly rules in this game. My main recommendation at this juncture is to get rid of the 2 piece bonus and either increase the radius of Sweep Attack so that you can draw more people in or make Sweep Attack and Shield Bash provide a defensive property like massively increasing your blocking percentage that can stack up. In that manner, you won’t need to rely on something like Akarat’s Champion: Prophet with the low uptime.
What about other, non-6 piece sets? Is it worth re-examining sets like Tal Rasha or the Shadow Mantle and their purpose? Most certainly. I think one part that needs a lot of work in the game are the non-6 piece sets. Most of these sets are pretty worthless on their own. Usually, what ends up happening is that people combine some of these sets like say Blackthornes, Aughilds, etc.
Outside of Blackthornes and Aughilds though, the lower gear requirements in working with a RoRG make combining class exclusive sets more interesting. Yet in truth many simply do not synergize well with each other, which is a massive shame because you’re effectively forcing yourself to get more pieces of gear than some of the 5/6 piece sets. Even if you don’t choose to combine sets, the bonuses on some sets end up being hideously bad (included on that list are Rolands, Raiment of a Thousand Storms and the Helltooth Mantle).
To me though it’s kinda sad not seeing these sets have a better place in the scheme of things because they do add incredible diversity and play style. And I did mention a few the other day. However, here I want to start looking at ways we can possibly fix the problems in these sets.
Let’s start off looking at Vyr’s and Tal Rasha’s. Separately, both sets really lack any flavor at their max bonus potential. Combined you get a few interesting effects but the core abilities are too weak to really matter. With Vyr’s set, Archon simply is too flimsy even with all the runes while Tal Rasha’s meteors almost never hit on target and proc too infrequently to matter. Worse yet, combining both sets make you lose far too much on elemental damage in key areas like the chest for a Cindercoat or missing out on cooldown reduction since you can’t take the Captain Crimson’s Trimmings set. On the other hand, you’re practically doing either set and that somehow should lead to something meaningful.
One idea is to make the combining of these two sets give a special bonus. For instance, make the meteors constantly drop anytime you attack (almost like a shield) or changing the beam attack from Archon into a special, higher damaging magic missile that works in conjunction with the Mirror Ball off hand which helps improve the uptime on Archon (kinda like how the Starmetal Kukri lowers the cooldown for Fetish Army and Big Bad Voodoo).
Moving on, I want to look at the Natalya’s set and Shadow Mantle combination. Recently, I wrote up an idea I had for an exceptionally defensive Demon Hunter build that combines Natalya’s set, Shadow Mantle, Aughild’s set and even Blackthorne’s set into a single entity. It’s entirely possible too although the net effect might not be much. Regardless, the good news with Natalya’s and Shadow Mantle is that combining the two is very doable and easy gear-wise that result in 6 set pieces overall with the RoRG as the obvious glue between both sets.
I have seen one live build that puts the two together (along with Aughild). However, the purpose for both really are separate. Natalya’s set really feels weak against Marauder’s because the only thing that matters is the 4 piece bonus. On paper, it looks interesting in being able to reduce the cooldown of Rain of Vengeance from the ridiculous 30 seconds. But that requirement depends solely on the ability to kill things. So obviously on high torments, the more DoT-like AoE effect that Rain of Vengeance has loses out against the Marauders. The other main issue is that the other bonuses at the 2 and 3 levels do little for the Demon Hunter. While some extra discipline and the +7% critical hit are nice, they aren’t huge game changers. Also, the set really doesn’t work with any other items.
In the case of the Shadow Mantle, the bonuses are strictly defensive and the 2 piece might be the only one that matters. Unfortunately, even with the auto-defensive triggered with Smoke Screen, you simply won’t have any power compared to other sets as your damage gains nothing. Also, if you need the defensive 2 piece aspect for whatever reason, you accomplish this feat with the Beckon Sail cloak (although if you want to free up your chest piece you can then use two other pieces like legs and feet).
Using both together still yields poor results in higher difficulty levels. You may gain some defensive but don’t really provide any utility to groups and won’t be having the damage output that 5 sentries can do with all Cluster Arrow or Multishot being fired out at once, especially against single target. To improve the combined set, you either have to focus on providing a bonus to help improve the damage of Rain of Vengeance or focus on another damage dealing ability to deal heavy single target damage.
One idea is to revamp another Hatred spender such as Fan of Knives or Chakram. The build I wanted to try once this current season is over is the aforementioned megaset-stitched-together mess that uses 4 sets. One of the few items that isn’t a set piece in my build involves the Spines of Seething Hatred, the quiver in which turns Chakram into a generator. If we upgrade Natalya’s set or the Shadow Mantle to make Chakram into a higher damaging skill, then we might have a good shot of turning this build into something more viable. Perhaps, what we could do is take one of the runes such as Twin Chakrams and increasing the number of Chakrams tossed out upon firing or increasing the damage by 100%. By doing something like this the synergy would be making Rain of Vengeance the AoE trash clearing skill while Chakram focuses on single target fights with Shadow Mantle providing the defense. 3 pieces of Blackthornes would give immunity to Molten, Plagued and Desecrator and Aughild’s shoulders + bracers would give more defense against elites.
The other skill that could have potential to work here is Fan of Knives. Fan of Knives is a really under utilized skill. You’ll almost never see any Demon Hunters use it which is why it might be a very good candidate here to review. One reason why it might work is that it’s an AoE, almost melee-like ability. The Shadow Power ability that gets activated from the Shadow Mantle set is more suited to compliment a melee Demon Hunter (as weird as that sounds). Only a few offensive abilities in the Demon Hunter’s arsenal force the Demon Hunter to be in close range and Fan of Knives could be one of those that works here.
There’s a few options in making Fan of Knives interesting to work alongside Natalya’s and the Shadow Mantle. One is providing the all-runed aspect in unionizing the combined set. The only issue here is the conflict between Pinpoint Accuracy and Knives Expert. The other way of handling it might be to just rune Knives Expert and allowing the player to add a second rune like Fan of Daggers. Here, the Demon Hunter enters into the role of a stunlock type of utility where their defensive capabilities from the Shadow Mantles set allows them to stand in close range and hit elites and bosses with Fan of Daggers and being able to stun them rapidly. Maybe they could add a 3 piece bonus to Shadow Mantle in eliminating/lowering the cooldown on Preparation so that the Demon Hunter could combine Preparation: Punishment to stunlock enemies near indefinitely. Some may argue that this build then becomes too much like the Critical Mass wizard builds of old. The difference is that you still have to farm for the gear here and that you already have some perma-stunlock classes like Witch Doctors right now. This just gives Demon Hunters another utility role in the future while making Natalya’s and the Shadow Mantle sets worth farming.
Moving on, I want to delve into the Leapquake/Immortal Kings combo. I mentioned before how this set while having novelty really lacks any sense of synergy together. Mostly, the issue is the lower damaged and no defensive abilities that are added when using both together. Now, the Might of the Earth set really doesn’t need any changes. It’s a very fun set to use alongside Lut Socks. But Immortal Kings suffer the same fate as many other sets in that only the last bonus provides anything useful or interesting. And you simply sacrifice too much by with either the weapon, chest, head or belt slot being occupied in trying to gain that extra 4th set bonus.
A couple of ideas to make Immortal Kings better is again improve the defensive and offensive capabilities. I think the +100 all resist and increased fury from the 2 set is pretty lame. Instead, we could start by removing this and giving the Together as One rune for Call of the Ancients. That pretty much will give a flat 50% damage reduction and allowing the player to take another rune in place of this one (not to mention making it potentially worthwhile for even Raekor barbarians to use). The three piece bonus is somewhat useful but overall not that helpful. I’m fine with keeping the auto generation of Fury but they need more to make the set compelling. Either adding a rune like Duty to the Clan or buffing the damage output from Call of the Ancients by say +100% etc would be far more useful, not to mentioning turning this build into a far more pet focused type of build. The combined effect then makes Immortal Kings a very interesting “go between” set that can give even Raekor’s a new form of play and survivability and bring up the Leapquake style up a bit by adding both damage reduction and either CC or more passive damage through their pets. Here, the could just opt to swap out the Boulder Breaker for either a higher damage Furnace or Maximus or even move back to dual wielding. Either way, you gain more flexibility.
How about the Innes set with Sunwuko’s? With the upcoming changes to Sunwukos (which seem like one of the better ideas being thrown out in the new patch), Innes might become very viable in working along side Sunwukos as you’ll eliminate the need to spam Sweeping Wind to trigger the clone effect. Also, you won’t be needing a Flying Dragon anymore since the attack speed increase with Daibos will be removed, thus making Flying Dragons irrelevant compared to other, more sought after Daibos. Innes by itself does have some interesting bonuses in reducing the cost of Sweeping Wind (which is the reason why Innes + Sunwukos currently is prohibitive) and getting all base mantra abilities. Unfortunately, you still lose out in combining these sets together because the abilities that Innes provides really aren’t that compelling whereas a Witching Hour, solid head piece and a Daibo like the Incense Torch of the Grand Temple (which is where the new Sunwuko builds will be heading) have more value to a monk.
My only solution is to make the 2 set bonus more compelling and converting Innes into a more defensive set. Perhaps, auto triggering something like Breath of Heaven below a certain threshold of health, adding a base rune such as Perseverance to Mantra of Salvationor Time of Need for Mantra of Healing. You could even get rid of the lowered cost for Sweeping Wind in favor of just focusing on adding runes to the various Mantras. That would make this set pretty attractive and provide a great deal of utility for parties at the cost of some defensive stats.
At any rate, the patch is still a ways away and hopefully, we’ll see more work put into all of the existing sets to make them more compelling and competitive.
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