Problems with DragonTail

[Blue]

Simple question: Does using dragontail result in problems with fire immunes? Im confused with this.

[Naliworld]

Yes, as most of DTail's damage comes from its AoE Explosion, which does Fire damage. While you'll still damage a Fire Immune with DTail, it will only be with the Physical damage portion of DTail, which is usually low.

Basically, against Fire Immune, DTail ends up being a much slower version of DTalon, with no ED bonus, so DTail isn't worth using against Fire Immunes.

For a more detailed explanation on DTail, read the stickied Kicking Basics thread.

[Salo]

Yes, as most of DTail's damage comes from its AoE Explosion, which does Fire damage. While you'll still damage a Fire Immune with DTail, it will only be with the Physical damage portion of DTail, which is usually low.

Basically, against Fire Immune, DTail ends up being a much slower version of DTalon, with no ED bonus, so DTail isn't worth using against Fire Immunes.

For a more detailed explanation on DTail, read the stickied Kicking Basics thread.


well i read ALL of the guides possible that are sticked or in compendium for kicking.

i can tell you that answers are hard to find. theres many explanations of how kick damage works, but really it just needs to be this: myrmidion greaves or else you wont do max damage. next bit is this: dtalon doesnt work with TS because it only releases on first shot out of the 6 or so.
dtalon is good with venom if you keep pounding fast, otherwise poison charms and OW work better.

dtail is like not described simply, and here again, even though you guys are great for doing all this work and helping us, my questions are still in my head. im not knocking, im just getting dizzy from reading all the info and not still figuring this all out. Dtail: does it do physical? yes. ok they all say that. How much? figure 220 strength and myrmidion greaves with level 25 dtail.

last question (besides those i have listed on this page PLEASE LOOK!). is maxing both dtail and dtalon a bad idea? im thinking it might be. like either one works. true or no? could it be good? or what about like 10 in talon for cleanup on fire immunes? my build is going to use strength weapon or Black weapon and mind blast possibly. No minion, no venom. Eh, I think venom is ok and all, just trying to not use it and go OW and poison charms (lasts longer) i am trying not to use a claw and get also near 100% crushing blow, so goreriders and guillames face with strength and black and 10% cblow crafteds.

Gear (unused in stash, still low level)
Strength weapon
Shield, (im a fan of shields nowadays)
Ow or tgod belt (still trying to get a good roll)
Enigma (i like my str and mf)
Ravenfrost (havent found yet sigh)
dual decen leech ring
Guillames face and shako (mf'ing or not mfing)
Shield is up for grabs. sanctuary im guessing
Cat's eye ammy
Myrmidions, safety ones for now, one day when i get high enough ill get up'd gores

Dtail is going to be maxed, dtalon: should this be maxed as well? or am i not going to use dtail then?
I really am going to us like none of the skills besides kicks ever :) shrugs. I will max TS of course. I might max DFlight as well, be like KickMaster build.

[lextalionis]

well i read ALL of the guides possible that are sticked or in compendium for kicking.

i can tell you that answers are hard to find. theres many explanations of how kick damage works, but really it just needs to be this: myrmidion greaves or else you wont do max damage. next bit is this: dtalon doesnt work with TS because it only releases on first shot out of the 6 or so.
dtalon is good with venom if you keep pounding fast, otherwise poison charms and OW work better.

dtail is like not described simply, and here again, even though you guys are great for doing all this work and helping us, my questions are still in my head. im not knocking, im just getting dizzy from reading all the info and not still figuring this all out. Dtail: does it do physical? yes. ok they all say that. How much? figure 220 strength and myrmidion greaves with level 25 dtail.

last question (besides those i have listed on this page PLEASE LOOK!). is maxing both dtail and dtalon a bad idea? im thinking it might be. like either one works. true or no? could it be good? or what about like 10 in talon for cleanup on fire immunes? my build is going to use strength weapon or Black weapon and mind blast possibly. No minion, no venom. Eh, I think venom is ok and all, just trying to not use it and go OW and poison charms (lasts longer) i am trying not to use a claw and get also near 100% crushing blow, so goreriders and guillames face with strength and black and 10% cblow crafteds.

Gear (unused in stash, still low level)
Strength weapon
Shield, (im a fan of shields nowadays)
Ow or tgod belt (still trying to get a good roll)
Enigma (i like my str and mf)
Ravenfrost (havent found yet sigh)
dual decen leech ring
Guillames face and shako (mf'ing or not mfing)
Shield is up for grabs. sanctuary im guessing
Cat's eye ammy
Myrmidions, safety ones for now, one day when i get high enough ill get up'd gores

Dtail is going to be maxed, dtalon: should this be maxed as well? or am i not going to use dtail then?
I really am going to us like none of the skills besides kicks ever :) shrugs. I will max TS of course. I might max DFlight as well, be like KickMaster build.
Read JRIchards post on DFlight as a finisher, it will help you a little on the quiestion of DFlight.

Here are you choices and what you are looking at:

DTalon, is a build where you want to hit fast. Damage from your boots is important, but more important are the mods on your gear. It will work well with 100% CB like you are talking about. You don't want to use TS with it. It will wast points and time charging it up.

DTail is a good build. All of the damage added by DTail is fire damage. But you actually have to do phyisical damage to your target to be able to cause the fire damage to anything else. In otherwords your DTail kick must hit a non-physical immune creature to create the fire damage. But equipment for this build should be as much +skill items as you can get. You are going to want two +3 MA claws equiped with this build (Bartucs are very good). You'll also want as many + skill charms as possible. Think of this build as like building a sorceress where all you want is more +skills to increase your damage.

Thus, you could have both sets of skills, but the equipment you'll want to wear will be very different. DTalon is fine at level 12 or 18, factors of 6 because that's where you get another super fast kick. They are like skill point breakpoints. DTalon you also want to get to the 7/2/2/2/2/... kickrate. This is the fastest attack in the game, faster than zeal, fury, or anything else accept for strafe. And its much easier in IAS to get to DTalon 7/2 breakpoint.

Assassins are very subtle characters, you really need to look at using the Shadow tree to your use. Best of luck to you.

[Salo]

hm. it seems like if its fire immune, dtail aint killing it. a problem. then you would want some other type of elemental kill for it. so +skills is big then for it. strange. yet, doesnt STR make for more damage and so would myrmidions? a low skill with a high base wouldnt that do most?

I might rebuild my guy to do skills. i have a bartucs, I coud go dtail. I have a shako as well, enigma. shrugs?

Oh, kind sir, would you know if Dtail is a "fire skill" or is it regular skill that Rising SUn wont boost in Skills?

im trying to figure this all out. hardest now of all classes besides a dual tree druid. (they are hard to get really balanced)

[jrichard]

Yes, Dtail is counted as a fire skill and gets benefit from using Rising Sun and Magefists with their +fire skills.

Ok, let me run you through a TS/Dtail attack to try and help you out. The situation: You have three fallen in the blood moor lined up in front of you like this (you are the "A"),
123
_A

Fyi, Fallen in the blood moor are not fire immune in normal or nightmare and are fire immune in hell.

You have 220 str, 150 dex, level 20 TS (1440% ED), level 20 Dtail (240% damage bonus), and are using myrmidon greaves. You also have 1-100 lightning damage, 45-50 fire damage and 1-30 cold damage added from your gear (charms or whatever). So, you charge up TS and release Dtail on fallen #2. Here's how the damage works out:

Using the kick damage equation (see the kicking basics thread for the equation), you have physical kick damage of 2844-4484. That damage gets done to the one you actually released the kick on, fallen #2. Added to this damage will be the elemental damage from your gear. So, that gives a total of 2891-4664 damage done by the release kick. That damage is done only to fallen #2. As of yet, no damage has been done to #1 or #3.

Now, Dtail's damage bonus will get figured. Take the physical part (the elemental damage added by your gear will not get added into this) of the release kick's damage, 2844-4484, and multiply it by (100+dtail_bonus)/100.
That gives you 9669-15245 (decimals are dropped, this is integer math). This is the amount of damage that is added by Dtail. This damage is done to everything in a four yard radius. So, all three fallen will get hit by this damage. All of this damage is done as fire damage.

In normal and nightmare, the total damage done to the fallen will be:

fallen #s 1 and 3 = 9669-15245. They only get hit by the Dtail area of effect damage.

Fallen #2 = 12560-19909. This is the total of the release kick's damage and Dtail's area of effect. This is what would show on your character screen. Only the actual monster you release the Dtail on would take the damage your character screen shows. Everything else only takes the area of effect damage.

In hell where fallen are fire immune, the damage taken by each of the fallen would be:

fallen #s 1 and 3 = 0. Dtail's area of effect is all fire damage and that is all that they are being hit by, so they take no damage.

Fallen #2 = 2846-4614. This one would be hit by the physical kick damage, the lightning damage added by equipment, and the cold damage added by equipment. Once again, because they are fire immune in hell, no damage is done by the area of effect from Dtail.

For completeness here, Let's say that fallen #2 happens to be a boss who is Physical immune and we are in nightmare so none of them are fire immune. The damage done to Fallen #2 would be 47-180. It would only take the lightning, fire, and cold damage added by the equipment.

Fallen #s 1 and 3 would take no damage! The monster the kick was released on (fallen #2) was physical immune. No physical damage was done. Dtail's area of effect is based completely off of the physical damage done by the kick, so there would be zero area of effect damage.

hope that helps somewhat.

jrichard

[Salo]

wow. thanks!

those were real numbers and realistic situations. :)

wow so dtail does a LOT of fire damage. I mean, you can do that every every shot??? charge charge bam. sometimes at that fire damge you dont even have to charge more than once to kill stuff. thats hefty!

I was noticing a synergized claws of thunder is pretty intense. could be a decent backup. also a hot build would be using Death Sentry, just bosses might not die from it.

the phoenix strike fire doesnt seem to be as powerful as 220 str/myrmidion boots and 20TS/20DTail. also, I fail to see why one would need a lot of plus skills as the 3charged up released dtail looks cataclysmic on paper.

I am wondering if straight Dtail and the setup charged up would be enough or not to kill fire immunes? it looks like it has a large enough punch. i mean 3k damage isnt tiny. might take a couple of shots but then Dsentry could take over?

Also, as for the Pit, dsentry is rather pimp. i just wondering about the FI's. like, are the tougher ones FI. CoT and Dtail there would rock though.

Also, on CoThunder, is it better to use phoenix strikes Chain or charged bolt in your personal experience? just curious cuz charging up 3 is a lot easier mentally than stopping at 2 and releasing. I picture this build though clearing out the pit rather hastily with a big blast of fire and lightning, charg charg charg BAM, repeat.

[GenXCub]

If you're a claw/claw build, the CoT is quicker for me, but I'm lazy. The PS lightning works better, but takes longer.

[jrichard]

Oops! I screwed the numbers up! How embarassing. :grrr:

I listed the formula wrong for figuring Dtail's AoE damage. What i listed gives both the AoE and kick damage. To figure the AoE by itself you just need to multiply the physical kick damage by the dtail_bonus and divide by 100.

the numbers for the AoE would be: 6825-10761. That's the damage that would be done to fallen #s 1 and 3 in the first case.

The total damage done to fallen #2 would be: 9716-15425.

The other damage numbers listed are correct.
Sorry.

Remember, Dtail will take a hit from both physical immunes as well as fire immunes. If a monster has some of both, it will reduce the actual damage done. Going for +skills is still the way to go with Dtail. With very good gear and high strength, you can easily see average damage of 40k+.

I think PS's lightning charge is better for spread out groups and CoT's is better when you are in the middle of a packed group. Overall, i like PS slightly better due to it giving you the ability to deal two other forms of damage if you need to. The second charge really isn't that hard to time unless you are surrounded and getting hit alot or have alot to keep track of and can't concentrate on it. Don't time it by sight or sound, just practice with it and get a feel for the rhythm of it. It'll go better that way in my experience. You probably don't really have to choose between the two that much as you'll need to invest in both for the synergy in order to get their damage up for hell level.

jrichard

[Salo]

If you're a claw/claw build, the CoT is quicker for me, but I'm lazy. The PS lightning works better, but takes longer.

eh I wouldnt be claw claw, claw shield. not focusing on plus gear, just bartucs, shako, enigma and +2 ammy if i do this.

Hey, is death sentry a fire skill!??

im brainstorming on a build. yeah CoT works with it. i can see that.

I am actually going to try something odd.

how about:
max dflight
max TS
max Death sentry
Max Dtail
6 base in Fire blast. keeps death sentry pumping without having to nurse it so much.

+8 all skills +1 MA. dont have any gc's, dont want to bother spending on em either. just some cold charm, some random poison ones, faster runwalk, resistance life and mana. I like a build that doesnt need charms. kicking and death sentry really dont need charms at all, something ladder efficient.

im going to go the dflight route. its like using Impale as a spell immune killer. I guess I wont kill PI's that easily, ill have to time my shots so death blows them up (the zap never seemed to kill a fly unsynergized). or time my dtail to blow out near them. shrugs.



the dflight is for fire immunes. hey, 600% ed on a kick is decent. I would even maybe charge it up for some extra punch. the death then would kick in death sentry to pop.

[BIGeyedBUG]

If you're a claw/claw build, the CoT is quicker for me, but I'm lazy. The PS lightning works better, but takes longer.

That's a little deceptive. PS lightning is potentially much faster than a 3-charge CoT--14 frames to charge-up instead of 20. In practice, CoT is often faster because of its simplicity. It's also faster for individual targets, because only a 10 frame charge-up is necessary.

Speed issues aside, they're about equivalent damage-wise. I'd give PS the edge for its ability to hit targets more than once. But CoT does more damage to the release target, is a better application of weapon damage and effects, has a longer range, and is better in really cramped environments where PS lightning just fizzles out.

[BIGeyedBUG]

Remember, Dtail will take a hit from both physical immunes as well as fire immunes. If a monster has some of both, it will reduce the actual damage done. Going for +skills is still the way to go with Dtail. With very good gear and high strength, you can easily see average damage of 40k+.

Bear with me, because when I see formulas my eyes glaze. Couple of questions from a liberal-arts mind:

Big, hard-to-quantify question: Would you say Dtail damage benefits most from +skills or STR/boots?

Smaller, easier question: Which is more beneficial, additional levels of TS or Dtail itself?

[jrichard]

the dflight is for fire immunes. hey, 600% ed on a kick is decent. I would even maybe charge it up for some extra punch. the death then would kick in death sentry to pop.

Before your eyes glaze over too much at seeing that 600% ED let me put a level 20 Dflight into the setup we used above for you. The damage is 1369-2186 without TS and 3825-6012 with TS. To this you'll add that it can't be used more than once per second, only damages a single target, and it gets interrupted easily. I'd plan on another route to handle fire immunes personally.

Bigeyed,

Actually your first question is easier in my opinion. :)
The order of importance to my mind is: Boots, +skills, then str. But i need to qualify that. Obviously, boot damage is finite. Wear the best damaging boots your level and stats will allow first.

As for str and TS levels. By it's nature, the kick damage equation gives diminishing returns to both of these. A single point into TS, however adds the same damage as quite a few points into str. Also, boosting skills means boosting Dtail also, so +skills will beat adding str as far as damage goes.

Now, your second question. :)

Which one you should boost depends on what you are looking for. I'd say Dtail is best for boosting the fire damage alone. When i build a Dtailer these days, that's what i boost first. Pumping str in the lower levels can give me enough physical damage increases. Once Dtail's maxed, i'll go for TS. That works well in normal where monster resistances are not an issue and i can deal with lower physical damage and higher fire damage.

TS, on the other hand will lead to more actual damage once monsters start having resistance to your attacks. Then you need greater physical damage to form a better base for Dtail to work with imo.

I'd have to say levels in Dtail are better in normal and half of nightmare with levels in TS making up ground once you get to mid nightmare. Until hell, when it really is gonna depend on the particular monster type you are fighting and what actual resistances it has.

jrichard

[Salo]

hm. i guess that isnt stellar. especially if deadly strike doesnt work with it.

didnt you write a whole guide on Dflight??

chickening out now eh?!!!

i guess CoT is a good skill to use. but then we are getting into a lot of chargups. death sentry is much more leave and let be, this build isnt exactly a great leeching build. im guessing death often if i have to stick around a lot.

[jrichard]

I am still running my dflighter. Matter of fact, i just started another untwinked one for a weaponless tourney on the single player forum. My point about Dflight is that it just doesn't cut it if you try to use it primarily for dealing physical damage. My dflight builds are focusing on elemental damage and safety.

Chargeups are just a way of life for MA based assassins. Once you get the hang of charging and releasing skills it's no big deal to go for longer charge-up sequences.

jrichard

[Salo]

I am still running my dflighter. Matter of fact, i just started another untwinked one for a weaponless tourney on the single player forum. My point about Dflight is that it just doesn't cut it if you try to use it primarily for dealing physical damage. My dflight builds are focusing on elemental damage and safety.

Chargeups are just a way of life for MA based assassins. Once you get the hang of charging and releasing skills it's no big deal to go for longer charge-up sequences.

jrichard

i think im going to try deathsentry max, light sentry nearmax/max, TS max Dtail max, and put like 6 into base fire blast. death sentry at level 28 would have a wide radius and with lightning, i could knock off fire immunes plus ts charged up dtail for the physical damage, get a corprse and chain death....

Grizzly sort of build.