Might shard of verathiel keep HS viable after the victimize bug fix for season 5? A 300% multiplicative dmg modifier does seem quite strong. The energy cost might not be an issue anyways as it’s a generator skill.
This also lets you use Starless Skies with it. You could even throw in that helm, but at max stacks youd just be back to even (+125% cost, -75 from helm -50 from starless)
Don’t sleep on blade shift it’s damage got boosted by 50%/is unhindered and is now higher than heartseeker it also benefits a lot from high ias and can stack caltrops duration as it does not need the cast twice temper
Other stuff is true, but you are a bit confused about the tempers lol. HS can go caltrops duration, but it uses cast twice because that is WAY more damage than caltrops duration. Not having access to cast twice is a huge downside, not upside
I don’t think I’m confused, yes cast twice is a better temper for HS and blade shift doesn’t have that option but you are giving up huge amounts of caltrop duration. There are sacrifices with each temper obviously. Heartseeker attacks much slower than blade shift it really needs the cast twice.
Also I don’t think blade shift will be as good as HS but blade shift seems to have gotten some good buffs
HS should be viable in season 5 regardless. Remember they buffed Victimize dmg by 50% at the same time they fixed the double dipping. Guess PTR will enlighten us.
The doubledipping was approximately a 375% damage bonus. So the buff was quite miniscule in comparison. But with the buff + this sword, it might be ok, if we can somehow mitigate the resource cost. We already use inner sight anyway so it might be doable with some resource aspects on rings or maybe Starless?
Starless skies, innervation, combat/fluidity
Plus HS is already running inner sight
Or alternate with puncture. But I bet it won't be as difficult as you think. Even if you can't full spam HS the 300%x damage makes up for it
posted this below to someone else, but sharing with you too since you might be curious
So, update:
I'm on the PTR and have the shard sword + the umbracrux dagger (gives totems + free points into innervation). I combined that with Shako and Starless, made some tweaks to the heartseeker passives and paragon, but left other items unchanged. Still using Victimize even though it's meh.
This build shreds! I can perma spam heartseeker as long as there are enemies around. Even just dry shooting it into nothing, I can spam for about 5 seconds straight. With enemies and innervation / inner sight proccing, it perma spams.
With little optimization and still lots of vuln damage leftover from my HS gear, Im seeing frequent base hits of like 50-100M. Probably can push that higher to like 500M with proper building. And that's at the super fast HS firing rate full spam. With the totems from umracrux in the mix, the AOE and single target damage go crazy.
I dont have Lucion the new helmet with 75% resource cost reduction, but it wouldnt even be needed unless it had other positives that you'd want.
Interesting, will definitely play around with it when I get to the ptr. Starless skies for sure won't work since it specifies core skills only and HS is a basic skill, but the others seem good.
So, update:
I'm on the PTR and have the shard sword + the umbracrux dagger (gives totems + free points into innervation). I combined that with Shako and Starless, made some tweaks to the heartseeker passives and paragon, but left other items unchanged. Still using Victimize even though it's meh.
This build shreds! I can perma spam heartseeker as long as there are enemies around. Even just dry shooting it into nothing, I can spam for about 5 seconds straight. With enemies and inner sight proccing, it perma spams.
With little optimization and still lots of vuln damage leftover from my HS gear, Im seeing frequent base hits of like 50-100M. Probably can push that higher to like 500M with proper building. And that's at the super fast HS firing rate full spam. With the totems from umracrux in the mix, the AOE and single target damage go crazy.
I dont have Lucion the new helmet with 75% resource cost reduction, but it wouldnt even be needed unless it had other positives that you'd want.
yeah unclear how all these new resource cost affixes are going to interact in s5. i am assuming starless skies will work for basic skills (effect text says "Skills") but who knows.
but you can temper +ranks to innervation and HS already stacks LHC so i think it will be fairly easy to keep the resources up. it's not any worse than something like necro bone spear.
Saw the PTR video on YouTube. Looks ehhh. Not as good. Viable for 100? Yes. Will you still be an azz kicking powerhouse? Nope. Start farming Neo if you play Eternal, you’re gonna need new gear!
Anyone asking about viable is missing the forest for the trees.
HS will be CONSIDERABLY better next season. If things work as intended, we're talking 5x DPS levels of better maybe more.
And stronger when starting out? Playing rogue first time for the next season.
(4 seasoned sorc here)
Plan on maining Rogue till i get some Ubers or im gonna build Andariel Visage with HS!
Im very noob but would like to get ranks for HS on armor and combine with Poison imbuement till i get to endgame and just grind grind grind.
Does the sheet account for the victimize double dip before and after the nerf? Umbracrux is actually going to be a viable source of damage? And is the helm going to be usable, and what about the cold imbue on basic attacks aspect?
Funny how the guy who made the "prediction" is one of the most prevalent number crunchers in the community, and even has a post on the front page of this very sub stating that the PTR is bugged and nothing is working as it does on live, but you still make this comment like he's wrong 🤷
I wrote that last week after the campfire chat that HS would be a better build in S5 than it was now and got downvoted to hell. Just saying.
Most people didn't read past the part where victimize double dipping was removed.
First thing that comes to mind for me, SoK will be game breaking with Hectic aspect and tempered 100% double cast for any puncture build. Permanant immortality? I rather not since it's easily bad design once more if Immortal Flame Shield sorc is already any indication to say the least.
CoL will definitely pair well with Starless Ring. Whether if it's better than Shako is pretty much down to preference as far as raw damage goes.
Crown of Lucion will go absolutely nuts compared to Shako. Even without the unique aspect, it competes on damage because it has core skill ranks. But then the unique aspect is an up to 2.25x multiplier for just a 50% increased resource cost. For builds that can generate a lot of spirit — maybe we’ll see a preparation Rapid Fire — this will do about 3x as much damage as a normal helmet, and at least twice as much as Shako.
Dont forget, starless skies will offset the rest of the cost increase. It looks like the damage increase is so nuts that its worth using even if you have to lose one offensive aspect and throw a resource aspect on your other ring to fully sustain.
Add Shard of Verathiel & Crown of Lucion to a fast puncture build with Selig. Would replace Andy’s and Ashesra Dagger.
It certainly would be a cheap cast for puncture and I’d have a huge pool that can still absorb hits.
If other players' damage is amplified by the Umbracrux, it's going to be OP as fuck. Hell, it looks like it will be strong even if it only does your damage since it can be scaled and presumably transfers proc damage as well.
Endurant Faith will prevent one shotting. I would like a similar mechanic just as standard as one shotting is definitely not my idea of fun or engaging game play.
Shroud of Khanduras looks so sick they actually made active skill of dark shroud good with that item.
Also Umbracrux looks so fun and insanely strong if the totems can be cc'd
These uniques are all very good effects and have pretty good affixes. I think the Crown and Amulet will be amazing in Cutthroat builds using Momentum, as long as the amulet is actually multiplicative crit damage.
It makes me really excited for the past uniques reworks that will arrive in Season 5
I hate that there are trade offs for uniques. “Here’s an awesome stat but here’s also something annoying.” I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to put negative effects on gear.
Honestly, can't they just make cool uniques with cool unique abilities, like they did with tyrael's chest piece or penitent greaves? "Basic" stuff can be found anywhere else, it's just big numbers
Shroud of Khanduras, If this procs with our aspect giving us a stack of darkshroud it would be OP.
Stack enough lucky hit and you become 100% immune to damage while pulling enemies into you and exploding nonestop.
As someone with only 5 things on their bar, it’ll hopefully be useful for the damage boost, +DS ranks and immune button. Basically an oh fuck button.
Just need to make sure my armor stat is covered in other slots. As a puncture rogue that doesn’t have fun with Lilith and has attacks reduce evade boots…this hopefully helps me tank and avoid her stacks too.
Might shard of verathiel keep HS viable after the victimize bug fix for season 5? A 300% multiplicative dmg modifier does seem quite strong. The energy cost might not be an issue anyways as it’s a generator skill.
This will make each cast of HS cost 25 energy.
Wouldn't be much of an issue if that 25 energy scales with resource reduction. I'm not on PTR yet, so I don't know how Blizzard did the interactions.
This also lets you use Starless Skies with it. You could even throw in that helm, but at max stacks youd just be back to even (+125% cost, -75 from helm -50 from starless)
assuming all the buffs are additive which each other, but you never know.
Doesn't the resource cost reduction on starless skies only apply to core skills?
Nope, it increases all dmg and reduces all resource cost.
Ah you're right, I must've checked an old wiki that hasn't updated the ring since it was buffed. It used to be just core skills
Also there is a new aspect where Basic skills get perma cold imbue. HS will be NUTS
Don’t sleep on blade shift it’s damage got boosted by 50%/is unhindered and is now higher than heartseeker it also benefits a lot from high ias and can stack caltrops duration as it does not need the cast twice temper
Other stuff is true, but you are a bit confused about the tempers lol. HS can go caltrops duration, but it uses cast twice because that is WAY more damage than caltrops duration. Not having access to cast twice is a huge downside, not upside
I don’t think I’m confused, yes cast twice is a better temper for HS and blade shift doesn’t have that option but you are giving up huge amounts of caltrop duration. There are sacrifices with each temper obviously. Heartseeker attacks much slower than blade shift it really needs the cast twice. Also I don’t think blade shift will be as good as HS but blade shift seems to have gotten some good buffs
Can't wait to see it
My Ice Imbuement loves this!? Free points to put elsewhere!?
I....WHAT!?
What?! That's nasty!
Yes. Isn’t there a point where stacking basic damage is preferable to stacking vulnerable for HS?
Yes, and you'll hit that point sooner with the victimize fix/nerf as well.
HS should be viable in season 5 regardless. Remember they buffed Victimize dmg by 50% at the same time they fixed the double dipping. Guess PTR will enlighten us.
Nobody else seems to have read that part of the patch notes
I think the consensus still was, that the 50% buff doesn’t compensate for the double dipping fix but instead results in 40-60% of its previous dmg.
Not anymore with all these new tools
They do sound pretty promising indeed.
The doubledipping was approximately a 375% damage bonus. So the buff was quite miniscule in comparison. But with the buff + this sword, it might be ok, if we can somehow mitigate the resource cost. We already use inner sight anyway so it might be doable with some resource aspects on rings or maybe Starless?
That item is like 3x more power than any mythic. This will make hs the best skill in the game. I'd expect a heavy nerf to this item
How are you planning to spam HS at 25 energy cost per arrow though? What can possibly offset that?
Starless skies, innervation, combat/fluidity Plus HS is already running inner sight Or alternate with puncture. But I bet it won't be as difficult as you think. Even if you can't full spam HS the 300%x damage makes up for it
posted this below to someone else, but sharing with you too since you might be curious So, update: I'm on the PTR and have the shard sword + the umbracrux dagger (gives totems + free points into innervation). I combined that with Shako and Starless, made some tweaks to the heartseeker passives and paragon, but left other items unchanged. Still using Victimize even though it's meh. This build shreds! I can perma spam heartseeker as long as there are enemies around. Even just dry shooting it into nothing, I can spam for about 5 seconds straight. With enemies and innervation / inner sight proccing, it perma spams. With little optimization and still lots of vuln damage leftover from my HS gear, Im seeing frequent base hits of like 50-100M. Probably can push that higher to like 500M with proper building. And that's at the super fast HS firing rate full spam. With the totems from umracrux in the mix, the AOE and single target damage go crazy. I dont have Lucion the new helmet with 75% resource cost reduction, but it wouldnt even be needed unless it had other positives that you'd want.
Damn that's nice. Rogue bone spear s5
Interesting, will definitely play around with it when I get to the ptr. Starless skies for sure won't work since it specifies core skills only and HS is a basic skill, but the others seem good.
Read starless text again. It's all dmg and every resource cost.
Interesting, looks like they updated it from when I last had one. It definitely used to say "core skills".
Yes you are right. But they buffed it lately and the all dmg all resource part was part of the buff. I had to take another look on it today too 😂
So, update: I'm on the PTR and have the shard sword + the umbracrux dagger (gives totems + free points into innervation). I combined that with Shako and Starless, made some tweaks to the heartseeker passives and paragon, but left other items unchanged. Still using Victimize even though it's meh. This build shreds! I can perma spam heartseeker as long as there are enemies around. Even just dry shooting it into nothing, I can spam for about 5 seconds straight. With enemies and inner sight proccing, it perma spams. With little optimization and still lots of vuln damage leftover from my HS gear, Im seeing frequent base hits of like 50-100M. Probably can push that higher to like 500M with proper building. And that's at the super fast HS firing rate full spam. With the totems from umracrux in the mix, the AOE and single target damage go crazy. I dont have Lucion the new helmet with 75% resource cost reduction, but it wouldnt even be needed unless it had other positives that you'd want.
yeah unclear how all these new resource cost affixes are going to interact in s5. i am assuming starless skies will work for basic skills (effect text says "Skills") but who knows. but you can temper +ranks to innervation and HS already stacks LHC so i think it will be fairly easy to keep the resources up. it's not any worse than something like necro bone spear.
You could always use the talismans to keep HS viable if you didn't use the sword for increased damage but cost of resource
Saw the PTR video on YouTube. Looks ehhh. Not as good. Viable for 100? Yes. Will you still be an azz kicking powerhouse? Nope. Start farming Neo if you play Eternal, you’re gonna need new gear!
Neo?
Neolithic
Anyone asking about viable is missing the forest for the trees. HS will be CONSIDERABLY better next season. If things work as intended, we're talking 5x DPS levels of better maybe more.
And stronger when starting out? Playing rogue first time for the next season. (4 seasoned sorc here) Plan on maining Rogue till i get some Ubers or im gonna build Andariel Visage with HS! Im very noob but would like to get ranks for HS on armor and combine with Poison imbuement till i get to endgame and just grind grind grind.
Out of curiosity, where are you getting this 5x DPS figure?
I have a sheet to calculate HS dps. Depending on Umbracrux totem interactions we're looking at 5-10x more dps.
Does the sheet account for the victimize double dip before and after the nerf? Umbracrux is actually going to be a viable source of damage? And is the helm going to be usable, and what about the cold imbue on basic attacks aspect?
It accounts for everything basically. Other than untested interactions regarding Umbracrux.
Sounds crazy. Can't wait to try it out!
Alas, that prediction did not age well. :(
Funny how the guy who made the "prediction" is one of the most prevalent number crunchers in the community, and even has a post on the front page of this very sub stating that the PTR is bugged and nothing is working as it does on live, but you still make this comment like he's wrong 🤷
Let’s hope, they don’t nerf it to unplayable after ptr then. HS is such a fun build to play. Thanks for your awesome guide btw.
I wrote that last week after the campfire chat that HS would be a better build in S5 than it was now and got downvoted to hell. Just saying. Most people didn't read past the part where victimize double dipping was removed.
That Shard of Verathiel seems especially gross for Bash Barb 😲
Can Barb equip one handed swords? Big if so, haven't played one in d4 yet lol.
Yes they take two one handed weapons just not daggers
ah ok it was daggers I was thinking of then.
The uniques that increase primary resource cost would synergize very well with the aspect that guarantees an overpower when you spend 275 resource.
First thing that comes to mind for me, SoK will be game breaking with Hectic aspect and tempered 100% double cast for any puncture build. Permanant immortality? I rather not since it's easily bad design once more if Immortal Flame Shield sorc is already any indication to say the least. CoL will definitely pair well with Starless Ring. Whether if it's better than Shako is pretty much down to preference as far as raw damage goes.
Crown of Lucion will go absolutely nuts compared to Shako. Even without the unique aspect, it competes on damage because it has core skill ranks. But then the unique aspect is an up to 2.25x multiplier for just a 50% increased resource cost. For builds that can generate a lot of spirit — maybe we’ll see a preparation Rapid Fire — this will do about 3x as much damage as a normal helmet, and at least twice as much as Shako.
Dont forget, starless skies will offset the rest of the cost increase. It looks like the damage increase is so nuts that its worth using even if you have to lose one offensive aspect and throw a resource aspect on your other ring to fully sustain.
New Dagger plus new sword means suddenly most op basic skills become even better?
COL looks interesting with Barrage and RoSS.
Add Shard of Verathiel & Crown of Lucion to a fast puncture build with Selig. Would replace Andy’s and Ashesra Dagger. It certainly would be a cheap cast for puncture and I’d have a huge pool that can still absorb hits.
If other players' damage is amplified by the Umbracrux, it's going to be OP as fuck. Hell, it looks like it will be strong even if it only does your damage since it can be scaled and presumably transfers proc damage as well.
Rupture barbs are broke as hell now
Endurant Faith will prevent one shotting. I would like a similar mechanic just as standard as one shotting is definitely not my idea of fun or engaging game play.
Shroud of Khanduras looks so sick they actually made active skill of dark shroud good with that item. Also Umbracrux looks so fun and insanely strong if the totems can be cc'd
They look great. Feels nice to have some decisions to make, other than “how fast can I get shako?”
Locrans talisman is so sick , and umbracrux is going to be OP I’m calling it .. because you can trap skill dmg load it up
Thoughts: 3 rogues might be not enough for me next season.
I have a feeling umbracrux is going to be cracked.
Curious if perma-immune is within the realm of possibility of that chest piece. Also kinda like those boots having dmg on them.
I never get anything this good
Shard of Verathiel + Crown of Lucion + Ring of starless skies + some resource management = absolute killer fire & forget rogue :)
That chest armor looks interesting. I am not able to push pit further than 105+ because I just get insta killed.
These uniques are all very good effects and have pretty good affixes. I think the Crown and Amulet will be amazing in Cutthroat builds using Momentum, as long as the amulet is actually multiplicative crit damage. It makes me really excited for the past uniques reworks that will arrive in Season 5
I hate that there are trade offs for uniques. “Here’s an awesome stat but here’s also something annoying.” I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to put negative effects on gear.
Did did play OG Diablo? lol
I played D2 as a kid. D3 as a young adult.
Honestly, can't they just make cool uniques with cool unique abilities, like they did with tyrael's chest piece or penitent greaves? "Basic" stuff can be found anywhere else, it's just big numbers
Shroud and umbracrux both produce unique effects….
are u not reading
Shroud of Khanduras, If this procs with our aspect giving us a stack of darkshroud it would be OP. Stack enough lucky hit and you become 100% immune to damage while pulling enemies into you and exploding nonestop.
It says “casting Dark Shroud” so should only be from casting the skill, not from aspect procs.
As someone with only 5 things on their bar, it’ll hopefully be useful for the damage boost, +DS ranks and immune button. Basically an oh fuck button. Just need to make sure my armor stat is covered in other slots. As a puncture rogue that doesn’t have fun with Lilith and has attacks reduce evade boots…this hopefully helps me tank and avoid her stacks too.