Explosive Beast

**DDuck** · 12-08-2012, 01:33

Originally Posted by Vooodu

Ive gone and made explosive beasts a perm skill. I love it. I hate Bats and Bears.

Between FireBombs w/ Fire pits...Spirt Barrage w/ Phantasm, Grasp of the dead and Explosive beats i constantly have full health and stand my ground.

I'd like to see your build. Agreed that kiting is tiresome, and I prefer a semitank build with combos. Currently I suck some some souls, grouping as many as possible then spend most of my mana on Bears or Acid rain depending on the terrain, act, and number of players. Rain of Toads is used for cleanup and leech if I am running Bears. I'd like to try firepit/phantasm/beasts, but I didn't know you could take advantage of LoH with Phantasm or Beasts. Also, I am not able to stand around many mobs once my mana is empty, so elites require an escape to refill the blue ball or BBV. How does your mana hold up?

**Vooodu** · 13-08-2012, 13:50

Originally Posted by DDuck

I'd like to see your build. Agreed that kiting is tiresome, and I prefer a semitank build with combos. Currently I suck some some souls, grouping as many as possible then spend most of my mana on Bears or Acid rain depending on the terrain, act, and number of players. Rain of Toads is used for cleanup and leech if I am running Bears. I'd like to try firepit/phantasm/beasts, but I didn't know you could take advantage of LoH with Phantasm or Beasts. Also, I am not able to stand around many mobs once my mana is empty, so elites require an escape to refill the blue ball or BBV. How does your mana hold up?

Well, firebomb /w fire pits is my main LoH skill. But once i get 4 Phantasms spinning and explosive beast going its a big area of effect LoH party. I usually use grasp of the dead and my body to herd the monsters and pack them up tightly.

I really like Phantasm. Its slow to wind up, but once all 4 are stacked on top of each other they do major dps. And once the beast start poping off it gets nasty.

Ive been having alot of fun with this build. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...UfQ!ebc!babcYZ

My mana can be a problem if i over do it. But 4 Phantasms can really kill a pack fast. For me i can kill a 40 monsters as fast as i can 1 monster. Thing is, the more monsters i got the more i LoH i get back. So im always trying to herd up as many monsters as possible.

I call this build my Mankind build, because i take a beating like Mick Foley..lol

**DDuck** · 13-08-2012, 14:29

Neat build. It looks like it would be fun for general play.

The mobs that give me the most trouble are elites that are highly mobile and/or ranged. Both Rain of Toads and Bears do crappy damage to moving targets. It looks to me like Phantasm and Firepit would have the same weakness, but I'll give it a shot for a change of pace.

**droppin** · 15-08-2012, 06:20

I love my bears much more. I kept having to cast multiple fire beasts to do the same damage that 1 bear cast could do. Why would people hate bears in co-op? big bears is good because it's easier to have multiple bears hit per cast. SUPER huge damage.

This build with some mana regen items and you're golden.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...Udk!bea!YacZZZ
wall off the enemies into a corner and spam them bears for full damage. It's a melee caster build so you need some defense to take the hits. With a few more items ima go back to act 3, but it's great for act 1 farming np.

**Vooodu** · 15-08-2012, 16:38

Originally Posted by droppin

I love my bears much more. I kept having to cast multiple fire beasts to do the same damage that 1 bear cast could do. Why would people hate bears in co-op? big bears is good because it's easier to have multiple bears hit per cast. SUPER huge damage.
.

I cant stand the look or the feel it bears. It distracts me, it throws me off and it annoys me. I prefer the smaller, more explosive feel of dogs instead of bears.

I guess my play style also perfers the explosive beasts instead of bears. Because i herdem, packem, slowem, pop out my loH skills and let the dogs fly.

**DDuck** · 15-08-2012, 19:41

I've given it a try. I'm not sure it's overall better than my previous RoT + Bears or Acid Rain, but it works and it's a nice change of pace.

Nobody seems to have problems with me running Bears, and when I can line them up they do great damage. However, they are mess on some terrain like stairs and they are nearly useless against certain affixes like wallers or arcane that make it hard to line up a good Bear run.

Using Firepit/Phantasm/Explosive beast I am not as limited by terrain but my fingers are a lot busier. I'm still trying to figure out the most efficient way to juggle the 3 offensive skills, two of them being short duration DoTs. I'm also not sure how Firepit works against wallers. It doesn't look like I can lob them over the walls to leech like I can with Toads, and there seems to be a longer delay before the leeching starts. Thanks for the idea.

**Doctor Clock** · 16-08-2012, 03:24

Regarding Firebomb/Firepit and Wallers, if the enemy is within the radius of Firebomb's explosion, it will take damage even if it is on the other side of a wall.

Firebomb is great for LoH returns if you overgear the act and can survive a few seconds even against elite packs, such as when magic finding.