Monday, July 6, 2015

[PTR] GR50 rank 172 Solo W/D Helltooth by NovaDose - Diablo 3

So this is more or less a proof of concept if anything since the PTR is, of course, subject to change; but I wanted to put it out there to get some feedback and maybe get some of your creative juices flowing. I achieved GR50 with the Helltooth set a moment ago and feel that with the right mob fishing and a few gear upgrades I could probably get this build to GR55. As far as I know this is the best Helltooth GR finish in the world and as far as I can see the other 171 people ahead of me are ALL using DoD. Feel free to skip to the end if you're not interested in the nuts and bolts.


A little background first:

Before ROS dropped I had the opportunity to set myself up with some legacy gear to have a little fun with once the patch launched. I managed to keep a 2second SOJ and a 2second Mara's for Wall of Zombies in the hopes that the [then] upcoming Zombie Wall set would be OP. So that didn't work out...but I wasn't dissuaded. Since then I've been saving the best pieces of that set that I find just in case and I think it's finally starting to pay off. All of the gear you see below is gear that I've farmed on live (except the bracers obviously) so I had a little bit of a head start. All of this gear I would consider BIS with the best feasibly possible rolls (save a few 10s or 1%s here and there...and of course a few-non ancient items). 

OK so lets jump in.

Over View:


The Skills:

In order to proc Focus and Restraint I'm using Plague of Toads/Addling Toads and Acid Cloud/Acid Rain. I'm using Addling Toads for the CC it provides and Acid Rain for AOE. I've tried using Toad Affinity instead of Addling Toads but the amount of Mana on hit you get back in relation to the number of extra Acid Clouds you can drop isn't worth it when you consider that you're sacrificing the extra CC from Addling Toads for it. Lob Blob Bomb instead of Acid Rain is viable if only to CC mobs a little more with a few extra targets. IMHO the extra AOE from Acid Rain helps out a lot more though.

Big Bad VooDoo/Slam Dance with SMK3 is a no brainer. If you can get an Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac use Rain Dance instead...more on the Obsidian Ring version of this later.

Piranhas/Piranhado is great for the Added CC. Add to that the fact that your Mimics will cast them.

Spirit Walk/Jaunt is your damage mitigation and mobility skill. You can trade this out for Hex/Angry Chicken with Manajuma's Set weapon & mojo for a very, very, VERY fast bounty clearing build

Wall of Death/Ring of Poison is your bread and butter skill. You use it to spread necrosis and to proc your 50% damage reduction from the 4 piece bonus of hell tooth. A few important notes about this skill:
  • It CANNOT crit. I believe it works like Jade in that your total Crit Chance and Crit Damage is rolled in with the damage. Could be wrong, but my initial tests point towards this. This could lead to some interesting build alternatives utilizing the Broken Promises ring...but thats for another day.
  • From what I can see the damage of Ring of Poison gets rolled into 1 tick and displayed. So for instance if the mob is standing on 3 walls of your 3 rings the damage number that pops up will be a summation of the total damage that round from each of the rings. So I think it stacks, but I would love to get some more science done here or to get someone's else data on it. If it stacks then don't bother with Broken Promises ring because they would have to walk through 5 rings before you would get your 100% CHC.
  • It can be cast DURING other skills such as Acid Rain, Addling Toads, and Piranhado
  • Finally its snapshot damage. So if you want to maximize your damage with it be sure you have F&R proc'ed before you drop your WoDs
For passives you will need blood ritual for your mana dividends; IMHO Spiritual Attunement and Vision Quest don't quite cut it. Spirit Vessel for your second change in GRifts but if you're running the Manajuma's version mentioned above use something else (experiment). Pierce the Veil and/or Gruesome Feast...your preference. Grave Injustice is a must have but I'm thinking if you are going with Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac you mght be able to drop this. I'm using all five of these passives with the 5th one on my Amulet.

Paragon:

R/W to 25% > Mana > INT
CDR > CHD > CHC > AS
Armor > Life > All Res > Regen
RCR > Area Dmg > LoH > GF

The Gear

You must have a Star Metal Kukuri. Always up BBV is key to pushing high GRifts. Rhen'Ho Flayer is great for the added CC. In my case I'm using an ancient Rhen'Ho Flayer and SMK in the cube. You could, of course do the alternate of that as long as which ever weapon you choose to keep out of the cube is the ancient one. I think BIS here would be Ancient Furnace with SMK3 OR ancient SMK with ancient Thing of the Deep and Furnace3 ...with the latter being slightly better without Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and the former probably dominating as long as you have ORotZ. Regardless of what you use maximize for damage first, then CDR if you can.

Thing of the Deep is great when you dont have ORotZ because the Pickup Radius on it synergizes well with Grave Injustice. You are, after all, trying to stay out of the fray if you can help it so being able to benefit from the death and lower your cool downs is a ton of help. If you are going to use a source then go for CC, INT, VIT, CDR/WoD Dmg %

6 Piece Helltooth set (get life after kill everywhere that you can)
  • Helmet: INT > CHC > VIT > Socket (ORotZ should use Acid Cloud Dmg % instead of VIT)
  • Shoulders: INT > VIT > CDR > WoD Dmg %
  • Gloves: INT > CHD > CHC > CDR
  • Chest: INT > VIT > WoD Dmg % > 3 Sockets
  • Pants: INT > VIT > Armor > 2 Sockets
  • Boots: INT > VIT > Armor > All Res (ORotZ should use Acid Cloud Dmg % instead of VIT)
Focus & Restraint should both have INT > CHD > CHC > Socket.

Hellfire Amulet or Immunity Amulet with Poison Dmg % > INT > CHD > Socket.

Belt of Transcendence with INT > VIT > Armor > Life %.

Jeram's Bracers with Poison Dmg % > INT > VIT > CHC.

For your gems use Bane of the Trapped (proc'ed by the slow from Necrosis) and Gem of Efficacious Toxin for more Poison DOT. Zei's Stone would make an excellent third choice. Gogok of Swiftness could help offset CDR deficits and Taeguk could be interesting if you have Mana to spare.

The Cube:

As for the cube keep in mind that having SMK is not optional so if you're not holding it in your hands you will need to cube it. If you are holding it in your hands then cube either a Furnace or a Rhen'Ho Flayer. For your armor cube a Grin Reaper. The added CC from your Mimics really makes this build hum. Alternatively you could cube a Belt of Transcendence and wear a Witching Hour. Or perhaps even use Leorics Crown. For your jewelry Unity is imperative but if you have Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac that could be very interesting too...more on that later...

Your Follower:

Templar: Eun-Jang-Do, Freeze of Deflection, Wyrward, Dovu Energy Trap, Unity, Immortality Relic. If you're not using unity use a double AS Oculus Ring.

Play Style:

Start off by casting a few sets of Addling Toads out and 1 Acid Rain to setup your F&R. Drop your BBV and cast a series of WoDs for the baddies to walk through. When they get close, use Piranhado to pull them back and make them walk through again. Every chance you get drop more WoDs while keeping your F&R proc'ed and spamming Acid Rain. Use Acid Rain to proc Belt of Transcendence to keep your BBV up. Jaunt to escape danger.

The Dream:

So an Ancient SMK + Ancient Thing of the Deep + Furnace3 would probably be the BIS weapon setup for this. In that scenario perhaps Belt of Transcendence3 while wearing Witching Hour would slightly win out even though you would lose a ton of CC from no Addling Toads AND no Mimics (so def use Lob Blob Bomb instead of Acid Rain in this case). The only way I could see doing something like this is if you ran Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac and changed your BBV out for Rain Dance. While in the BBV you could spam Acid Rain to your hearts content, resetting Wall of Death instantly and making it spammable as well. This is all theory crafting but it sounds pretty solid to me.

So to bring it all in I can pretty comfortably do GR50 with this setup with little worry about dying. However, the damage output means that this build, in it's current state, will never compete for top tier spots. Now, if I had my dream setup above I can imagine an Infinite rain of Acid Rain and Wall of Death creating a giant kill zone. With enough WoDs stacked on top of each other I can imagine things getting melted pretty damn quickly. In it's current state, with the gear I have right now the RG is a joke at this level and takes less than a minute to drop if it has Adds. So what needs to be changed???
  • The two piece set bonus seems fine to me (please don't hurt me). I think the reason it feels so lackluster is because no one has it as a spamable skill, and everyone is relying on the 3 casts from Jeram's Bracers. I think the only way to get a good read on it though, would be with ORotZ. Lets say you cast WoD on a stationary target, 1 cast, 2, 3. Now you have X seconds before you can cast again and add more Poison Rings. Its during this cool down time that your damage suffers. Now lets say you could go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, etc. Then it would all boil down to how many WoDs you can cast within that 5 second duration of the skill. That will determine your max damage output on a stationary target. MAYBE a 500% DMG increase to the Necrosis is in order but we will see...
  • The 4 set piece is great. BUT It needs a status tile.
  • The 6 set piece is where this set suffers the most IMHO. This should be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1k-1.5k Dmg %. With the 10 second duration of the Necrosis you have a modest window in side of which to make it rain; if you could make it rain harder during that window then this set would really come alive.
  • The deadzones on the skills are just fine, you just have to adjust.

TL;DR Helltooth is OK; 6 piece set bonus needs a buff to make it viable. Ancient SMK + Furance3, BBV Rain Dance, Obsidian Ring is probably the way to go.

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