Bombasin Build?

[Parapsycho]

What do you guys think?
This build revolves around your assassin throwing things at people, which is always fun...

Skills:
Max-
Fire Blast
Shock Web
BoS
CoS
Lightning Sentry

At level 20, fireblast does 400-532 with the other 2 synergies. This doesnt seem like alot, but BoS lets you fire off a couple per second. Add CoS onto that, and the damage begins to add up. Shock web is a fun skill, and useful for FI's. It also stacks with poison potions, which can be a deadly combination...
Stat or general suggestions?
Thanks

[ilkori]

Why max BoS? Just get a faster claw. IMO the standard Trapper maxes LS, DS, CBS, and FB - which should give you somewhere around 18k, give or take 2k (averages). Also, CoS isn't worth maxing... it pretty much sucks PvM at more than 1 base point.

Just going along with the theme, a point in BF is always nice.

[lextalionis]

ok.

How does CoS do any damage? I think you just need a point so not everyone attacks you at the same time.

BoS may be necessary since you will want to reach the maximum breakpoint and your gear should be plus skill oriented. Thus you might not be able to get to the fastest breakpoints. I don't know where the trap casting breakpoints are. However if you can get to the breakpoint with Runic Talons with +3 FB or Traps on them then do it by all means and use Fade.

Do you use stationary traps (Cast and Forget traps) at all? Even Death Sentry? You have all those points in the good traps for synergies. And you can cast them and then start throwin potions.

As far as I know, no one has been able to make poison potions work past Normal.


I've heard that there are uses for Shockweb, and they don't cout against your trap total. But I'd like to know more about the play style tactics.

[DeathsHand]

ok.

How does CoS do any damage? I think you just need a point so not everyone attacks you at the same time.

BoS may be necessary since you will want to reach the maximum breakpoint and your gear should be plus skill oriented. Thus you might not be able to get to the fastest breakpoints. I don't know where the trap casting breakpoints are. However if you can get to the breakpoint with Runic Talons with +3 FB or Traps on them then do it by all means and use Fade.

Do you use stationary traps (Cast and Forget traps) at all? Even Death Sentry? You have all those points in the good traps for synergies. And you can cast them and then start throwin potions.

As far as I know, no one has been able to make poison potions work past Normal.


I've heard that there are uses for Shockweb, and they don't cout against your trap total. But I'd like to know more about the play style tactics.

if his gear is +skill oriented then he should have around lvl 10-15 BoS with 1 point, anymore would be a waste due to deminishing returns so IMO maxing BoS is a waste.

for play style id assume he uses CoS, sends in a shadow master/warrior then casts shockweb and spams FB untill he can cast shockweb again.

poison explosions could work for reducing monster regen but it may be a better idea just to use Wizspike for mana/resists/cast.

[Parapsycho]

Im not 100% sure, but I think shockweb stacks with itself, in that if you cast on more than one spot, it increases the density of projectiles. WHat I meant with the poison potions is that you can throw them down on top of the shockweb "mat", and monsters will take poison damage and lightning damage at the same time, which is good for bosses.

Im still trying to put together my ideas for this build. Where would you suggest butting points if I dont put them in CoS and BoS?

[lextalionis]

Where would you suggest butting points if I dont put them in CoS and BoS?

Its impossible to max out FB's synergies. I'd suggest you start there. I'd start with all the skills FB and Shockweb have in common as synergies. -- The problem is that you will be anxious to also cast regular traps (I don't think there is a good answer for this).

It would be cool if there were claws like these:

Bomber Set Claws Claw Alpha

450% Enhanced Damage
30% Increased Attack Speed
+50 Mana
+30% more maximum mana
30% Resist Lightning
5 Charges of level 25 LS
5 Charges of level 25 CBS

Bomber Claw Beta

100% Enhanced Damage
+1 Assassin Skills
+2 Trap Skills
+50 Life
+30% more Life
30% Resist Fire
- 15 Magic Damage
-20 Physical Damage
5 Charges of level 25 Wake of Fire
5 Charges of level 25 Wake of Inferno

Set Bonus for Equiping Alpha and Beta Claw
+10 all Stats
30% Resist Poison
75% Reduced Poison Duration
30 FHR
+10 Death Sentry (Assassin Only)
+2 Assassin Skills
+3 Blade Sentinel
+6 Venom

The idea being a shield claw and an attack claw. Notice the charges are so small in number as to be completely impracticle to ever actually use they could be a bit higher and still be fine. They are worthless to normal trappers. Purhaps the shield claw could be very good for a LS trapper trying to greatly increase their FB damage, but I don't think it would be too bad a thing. But the biggest thing is this build pushes you to use Blade Sentinel. It gives you a claw with enough damage on it to be usable with BS. BS also counts against your trap count. Thus instead of your LS traps you'd push bombers into casting BS as their "cast and forget" traps. Allowing them both the damage to actually use FB and SW effectively, but also nullifying the normal traps you see CBS and LS and WoF. -- I was thinking of giving them access to the DS when both claws were equiped, but that might be something removed and considered a disadvantage of this build.

Your setup could then be:

20 SWeb
20 FB
20 Blade Sentinel (More for time than anything else)
20 Venom
Rest of Points in Fade

Not a bad build. This is the type of items that blizzard should create. Items that make new builds possible.

[ilkori]

Im not 100% sure, but I think shockweb stacks with itselfWith using Shockweb, it seems to me like I've noticed the same thing, though I'm not 100% sure... actually 80% sure would be pushing it.


The following is not a "pure" bomber, but it can be played as one. I like having a combination of LS/DS (anywhere from 5/0 to 2/3), then throwing SW, FB, BF while LS works on knocking down their health.

For the build, here's what I'd do:
20 LS (main lain trap)
20 DS (once you get corpses)
20 FB (main thrown trap)
10-20 SW (secondary thrown trap)
10-20 CBS (bosses or pure synergy)
1+ Shadow Master (lvl 17 with +skills is ideal, but it can be left at 1 point with a strong merc)

Now for the 1-pt wonders:
1 BoS, Fade, CoS, MB, WB
optional: 1 Blade Fury/Venom

I like having Bartucs because they add to all skills, and have some other decent mods (and decent damage for blade fury if eth or up'd - better yet, both). I know nothing about poison potions, but a switch with a PMH weapon (to use with blade fury) would work to stop regen.


@lextalionis - those claws are just sick and broken. With 20 FB you would have a complete new build just by swapping weapons. It's like making a weapon that adds 10 to concentration, 10 to blessed hammer, 75% FCR, and 30 damage reduction on a Hammerdin.

[lextalionis]

@lextalionis - those claws are just sick and broken. With 20 FB you would have a complete new build just by swapping weapons. It's like making a weapon that adds 10 to concentration, 10 to blessed hammer, 75% FCR, and 30 damage reduction on a Hammerdin.

I doubt Blizz would make them, but I still think they could without unbalancing the game and here's why:

First off, I'm not sure you know how the "Charge/Marrowalk Bugg" works. In order for charge skill levels to become the synergy level, the character must have no hard points in the skill. So in essence people wanting to use the Marrowalk bugg for a skill have the rest of the tree blocked off from them. In order to use the Marrowalk bugg on these claws you'd have to put no points in CBS, LS, and DS. I guess if you really wanted to use just CBS you could use these claws to grant yourself the synergy bonus from LS without putting points into it, but you would loose DS as a possible synergy by doing that.

Second your analogy is bad. It would be more like changning Wind Druids damage from being mostly Tornado Damage (spam damage) to mostly Hurricane damage (Cast and Forget), and then granting them a stronger Tornado Damage.

The boost they would grant to current trappers is minimal. Only DSentry is a synergy for LS (and I've already suggested that the +10 mod to DS maybe too strong, I just feared precluding a bomber from having the strongest trap skill and in a lot of ways the most bomb like trap skill, DS). In fact these items couldn't grant any synergy to Lightning Sentry since only hard points grant synergy bonuses. So they won't boost the damage of LS at all. And the +10 DS will not increase the DS lightning damage above the possible damage of LS, but it would grant a good more radius on Death Sentry, which is the main reason I gave the Mad Bomber claws so much +DS in the first place, to give them enough radius for their Corpse Explosions.


Here's the level 40 FB damage using these claws:

Current Skill Level: 40
Fire Damage: 4653-5457
Mana Cost: 7.8

I agree the claws would give access to a stronger second attack, fireblast, against Lightning Immunes. But this damage level is nothing compared to a level 40 Fireball, and Fireballs are easier to aim. Plus most pure trappers can get close to this damage anyway by maxing Fireblast. Current Hammerdins don't have but a handful of creatures in the game immune to their main attack. I don't think this would make trappers any stronger than a Hammerdin is currently. And yes this might also be granting a second attack to many other Assassin builds, but last I checked no one was saying that kickers and PS and WWers were too strong, I doubt this unbalances anything for those builds. Its not like you can stack there damages, either you are spamming traps or you are meleeing, you can't do both at the same time. In fact, I could see this being a big help to melee builds being able to cast Shockweb prior to attacking.

Finally, purhaps you are scared someone might actually use the charges to cast lightning sentry. This might even have a limited purpose in PvP, I'll admit this. But with the ability to only cast five traps (one volley) before having to recharge the claws. Each trap can only shoot 5 times, that's 25 total shots. This would be far too time consuming to constantly go back to town every time. Its the purpose of the ridiculously small number of traps, to make it extremely expensive (how much money do you think it would be to recharge those claws??? and no one has that many Ort Runes) and inefficient. But don't forget to look at the damage of a level 25 LS, even with synergies you aren't talking about it getting significantly higher damage out of it than you could get with a pure LS trapper.

I just want you and anyone else that looks at them to get the point. You can use charges to boost your FB and SW damage to decent levels without granting you high levels of LS. Thus forcing you to not use LS and to use FB and SW.

I think I'm on the correct track for creating item(s) that would promote use of bomber skills. If somehow, I have made these claws too elite, I'm sorry and their strengths could be reduced, to make them more practicle.

[ilkori]

@Parapsycho, sorry for hijacking this thread.

@lextalionis, I know quite well how the Marrowalk bug works, and have considered making a fire/poison druid based entirely on that idea. I have a tendency to find things that are buggy, and then exploiting them, which is why I think your claws are way to overpowered. I ended up scrapping the druid project when I become completely bored at level 30ish. But that has no bearing on the intended conversation, so I will leave that there.

In my first response, I forgot about the needed 20 points in Shock Web, so it would be 40 points for a complete build - my bad. Also, the analogy could have been better, which I will admit. That aside, I will look at the claws first considering what the rammifications are of simply having spent those 40 points in FB/SW, then I will move on to considerations of what to do with the other 50ish skill points.

First of all, using those claws gives a free level 100 synergy, which is unheard-of. Since the only skills that benefit from this are Fire Blast and Shock Web, this isn't as huge of a problem as, say, giving a level 100 synergy to Fireclaws, Charged Bolt, Fireball, or another similar spell. A few more calculations with 20 in FB, and another 20 in SW.Skill Fire Blast Shock Web
Level Min Max Min Max
20 1008 1339 6 773
30 3274 3958 6 1761
35 4985 5905 6 2444
40 6696 7852 6 3126
45 8407 9799 6 3809
50 10118 11746 6 4491For reasonable all-purpose gear, this means 5 trap skills from the claws, 2 armor, 2 helm, 2 ammy, 1 belt, 1 ring, 1 anni, and any trap charms. This gives a level 30-35ish range for a fully equiped character. Honestly, this isn't completely broken, but is still more powerful than it should be, for the reason you only spent 40 points to get that! Lightning Sentry wasn't a problem to me.

The Death Sentry could be knocked down a bit, say to +1. You're right that it is one of the iffiest parts of the set, but +10 is just insane considering how much you are already (most likely) focused on trap skills.


Now, what to do with those other 50 skill points (for a build going to level 80ish)? Blade Fury and Death Sentry are out of the question; which is sad, since BF would be incredible with that first claw.

Here's what I'd do with 90 points and those claws:

Skills
20 Fire Blast
20 Shock Web
[Blade Sentinal and Death Sentry by Proxy]

20 Claw Mastery
20 Venom
10-13 Misc. 1 pt wonders and prereqs
Rest into Shadow Master

Equipment
Weapon Switch 1: Alpha/Beta Claws
Weapon Switch 2: Chaos + Secondary (ber'd Nat's/Alpha/Fury/Strength, etc)
Helm: Shako
Armor: CoH
Gloves: LoH or Steelrends (or Blood)
Belt: Arach
Boots: Gores
Ammy: Mara's/Highlord's
Rings: Raven + BK/SoJ

Charms: Anni + trap/shadow skillers + 3/20/20s

I think you can see where I'm going with this... melee + FB/SW would be just incredible against any kind of monster. Kicks, Dragon Claw, or WW would all work well with the traps, I picked WW on a whim more than anything. As you mentioned, Shockweb would be more of a killer than Fire Blast since it is simply a fire and forget skill. Drop a Web and a few Death Sentries, then go to work. Don't get me wrong, this build would be hella fun, but I don't think it's reasonable. It would give melee assassins an automatic way of dealing with Iron Maiden, in addition to adding several other kinds of attacks not available to other classes (Death Sentry, especially).


I also don't think it would end up being stronger than the current cookie-cutter teleporting hammerdin, but they seriously screwed up with that build. Fire/Blizz sorcs were also given a bit too much damage (IMO).


Finally, I see your intentions of making a stronger bomber, but the much better way for them to do that would be to up the damage on Shock Web and Fire Blast. I don't think the Marrowalk bug was intentional, nonetheless it exists now (though I don't expect to see it in the next patch, should they make another one).

[lextalionis]

@Parapsycho, sorry for hijacking this thread.



I think you can see where I'm going with this... melee + FB/SW would be just incredible against any kind of monster. Kicks, Dragon Claw, or WW would all work well with the traps, I picked WW on a whim more than anything. As you mentioned, Shockweb would be more of a killer than Fire Blast since it is simply a fire and forget skill. Drop a Web and a few Death Sentries, then go to work. Don't get me wrong, this build would be hella fun, but I don't think it's reasonable. It would give melee assassins an automatic way of dealing with Iron Maiden, in addition to adding several other kinds of attacks not available to other classes (Death Sentry, especially).


I also don't think it would end up being stronger than the current cookie-cutter teleporting hammerdin, but they seriously screwed up with that build. Fire/Blizz sorcs were also given a bit too much damage (IMO).


Finally, I see your intentions of making a stronger bomber, but the much better way for them to do that would be to up the damage on Shock Web and Fire Blast. I don't think the Marrowalk bug was intentional, nonetheless it exists now (though I don't expect to see it in the next patch, should they make another one).


I agree sorry about the hyjack, too.

I didn't really want to make anything too strong. But I wanted to make SWeb and FB viable, in a situation where you wouldn't actually be constantly laying the other traps since the other traps would be the majority of the damage.

I was also trying to do something that wouldnt' require a new patch. New items can be created server side.

I guess it would still have problems, but with the damage on the claw being ethereal its not a lot of help there.

Also, I hate corpse explosion. Melee is already hard enough and slower than casting. I think they deserve a desent way to get rid of IM and Corpse Explosion.

I agree the idea of 100 points in synergies is hard to swallow, but the damage on FB is still reasonable as you showed.

[royalesse]

Can't you still fully synergize the shadow warrior? That's the route I'd take... more damage and 2 people throwing bombs & webs... should be pretty cool

[DOC]

http://www.rpgforums.net/showthread.php?t=231875

Linky's are fun!

I have actully had a build for pvp like for about 3 something months, with it in my head for about 3 prior to that. I just never posted my findings on it due to it wasnt complete gear wise. Now that it is, I plan to do much much more duels with it, and write a guide for her. Blafts + Shocky = GG