2019 Spring RFL Sign-Up and Running Thread: 1st Round

[Vildecor]

Thx Lukoh !

I may try the CS Vizier team, maybe with hammerdin, or sorc...my blizzard sorc shall work there, i have to try. I'm probably going to learn more about locations and efficient chars soon from you all anyway

CS is probably a solid spot. I imagine many of the top runners are going to be running Arcane Sanctuary again. I will most likely end up running pits to get my javazon further along to 99.

 

[T72on1]

I will split time probably. Initial plan was to go full batch with my Hammerdin in CS. But I feel like doing AS again as well, and maybe Pits with Necro and/or Javazon.

 

[ffs]

I guess this is the place for this even though the round is over. The other day I was Mat'ing an Assassin as part of a sept project of mine and I finally got aorund to trying some cow builds. I went through a ton of build and gear variations, in particular with Stormlash and Last Wish using DT and Blade Fury builds. Will share some experiences when updating the sept.

For now the TLDR version: Took me forever to realize that I should maybe just treat her like a female Necro. Give her Beast + give Merc good stuff + use DS = win. First attempts resulted in P5 runs a little under 2m30s and looking like this:

EDIT: More optimized build below.

Gear (also shown in vid):

2/20 FCR/48 life/[email protected] (49 FR) rare circlet
2/9/adds amulet
Beast
Enigma
Phoenix
Magefist
Arach
Raven
SoJ
Some boots

CtA/35 Spirit switch for 102 FCR

Merc (Defiance): Infinity/Forti/Andy.

Defiance Merc is just a remnant from when I used Last Wish before.
Might Merc should work fine though and make runs a bit faster.

Build:

20 DS
20 FB
20 LS
1 BoS, pre-reqs...

Then I still have BF maxed since I might go back to the Stormlash / Last Wish variations with BF.

Could be next year's build for me.

Shout-out to @NanoMist for that creative Phoenix on main switch move. Works great in her case as well.

 

[sir_cyclops]

@ffs so it’s not faster to use DT to help merc get corpses after dropping DS?

 

[ffs]

It works but yes it's slower. Basically I encountered the same issues as Nano mentioned here when he tried the build I originally planned. As he noted, generally the issue for K/T builds is that in the end FB is just easier and faster. That's why I moved to trying different setups with the more standard DS/FB build, and eventually ended up with the above Beast version.

Next logical step is Might Merc which should improve run times further.

 

[sir_cyclops]

@ffs I see. Yeah I assumed might merc. Should have paid closer attention. Surprised you didn’t use it initially. I wonder how much it will speed up the runs.

 

[NanoMist]

@ffs Nice take on the Trapper. FB is also more comfortable and consistent than the melee variants, which is something I value when playing 20 hours of cows. Glad to see the phoenix main hand, works well enough with FB.

 

[ffs]

Sorry for spamming somewhat more optimized version of the P5 Beast Trapper:

Now with Might Merc. He gets into trouble occasionally, but Mind Blast helps in those situations. Also used a respec to get 3.2k life and more importantly FB synergies (4.4k max FB damage vs ~2.8k previously) .

Run times improved to 2m13s - 2m22s. Clearing a good amount, though I skip some around the Cow King since I didn't get a map with red portal near him yet.

Again, just treating her as a Necro who uses FB instead of AD, and it seems to work just as well as AD. Possibly even better. She is literally using nearly the same gear a Beast Necro uses, almost all of it is borrowed from my untwinked 99er Summoner. Only differences are Phoenix and Raven, and circlet and ammy are for Sin of course.

Glad to see the phoenix main hand, works well enough with FB.

It's perfect really. Apart from increasing FB damage and general running comfort, I noticed another advantage: Sometimes after killing a group you realize only when teleporting away that there is another group next to it. In those situations I can now just stay on Spirit/Tele switch to lay down more DS to make use of the existing corpses, without any risk of Redemption taking them away. With Phoenix on Tele switch those could poof away, and that would often mean starting over the whole sequence.

EDIT:

Also took her to P7 for a while, trying to beat Java times, but didn't quite get there. Runs were around 3 min or less, and maybe she clears a little more fully than Java, but not enough to make up for some ~20 second difference.

But that doesn't mean this build is less efficient when running P5. In fact, I am extremely surprised by how strong this is. The 2m13s run above was a pretty full clear with pretty normal density. That is just crazy in my book.

It may be too early to jump to conclusions, and she needs to be tested more (again checking kills over time via rune drops, XP count etc.)... But this is one of the best cow builds I've ever played, maybe even the best option.