NanoMist
Diabloii.Net Member
After farming Meph for some more essences, I gave this a try. Mostly the same gear except no Ber rune in Stormlash, a 2 Skill/10 FCR/5 LS/5 MS ammy, and a 11 LS/6 MS ring for lots of leech. My 2/20 circlet also had 5 LS, so I had a total of 21% life steal going in. Charms were Vita/Elemental damage.I have been meaning for a while to build a K/T Sin with Stormlash, using only DS. In fact been theorycrafting different options quite a bit. My travel plans will not allow me to participate in round 1, but the build could be an idea for a cow runner as well. If someone would like to give it a shot, I’d be curious as to how it performs.
Short version of what I had in mind, slightly adjusted for cows:
2/20 circlet
Stormlash 'Ber'
Enigma
Spirit 35
Arach
Magefist/TO
FCR/double leech ring
Raven
Upped Gores
Some +2/3 Trap/adds ammy
Lash is great for CB, and with BoS it hits last BPs for both kicking and trap laying without additional IAS from gear. But both Schaefer's and CM should be decent alternatives, with different pros and cons.
Cham'ed headpiece ofc enables an extra ring for optimisation. Other idea could be GFace for 100%CB. Needs 17+ FCR amulet to stay at 102 FCR, or 7+ with Cham'ed headpiece and 2x FCR rings.
Also Atma's is really an option. Low lvl AD but again it could help chaining CEs quickly even when only hitting a few monsters. It will trigger pretty often with >6.5 APS and 95% CtH. My gut feeling is that extra skills for higher CE radius are preferable, but worth checking out, could certainly be the better option.
Merc: Might with Infinity, ebug forti, Andy. Infinity is pretty crucial I guess, not only for -res but also for 95% CtH.
Inventory should be mostly Trap skillers for higher CE radius, maybe 1-2 MA to hit lvl 30 (6 kick) DT.
Build:
20 DT (24 or 30 after gear)
20 DS
FB x3 for sufficient DS shots (can’t test)
CoS
20 LS (just to buff DS Lightning damage a bit, won’t do much but plenty of spare skill points)
Maybe Shadow Warrior to also lay some DS while kicking (and reducing own DS casts) is worthwhile, not sure and can’t test at the moment...
Generally the build is based on the idea that maybe DT delivers the first corpse faster than LS, high CB helps with that. Then Static CtC for smooth CE chains quickly after the first corpse. That’s the idea at least.
Here's the progression of my testing, if you want to read through the rambling:
I did a quick run with my current map, meaning I didn't switch to NM for a Might Merc. Staying with the Defiance Merc might've been a good choice because I took a beating in the Moo Moo Farm. Kick damage is just too low to leech back all the damage taken. Switching to Might merc wouldn't help enough. I tried Dracs but the 5% CTC Life Tap is just too inconsistent.
Survival issues aside, when it goes right, Cows drop fast. CTC static on Stormlash with Conviction has the entire group softened down to half health. It's hard to see, but it seems like I only need 2-3 corpses at most before the entire group of Cows fall over in unison. The issue is still getting those first few corpses- DT's lowish integer damage has a harder time finishing off a Cow as CB effectiveness falls off. This is usually where I start getting pummeled into the ground by 10+ Cows. Performing any sort of defensive repositioning behind the Merc is just too inefficient when I know that the Dragon Tail variant can just jump in and wreck without fear. Dragon Tail has knockback with the splash damage, allowing my previous build to stunlock entire groups of Cows. Not the case with Dragon Talon. The damage potential is there, but the survival is lacking... maybe I can revisit Phoenix?
Replacing Spirit with Phoenix took me down to the 65 FCR breakpoint, but it was well worth the life recovery. I was able to finish 4 runs at about 3:20 average, so things are looking up. Sometimes Redemption manages to steal away the first corpse, and other times cold damage shatters the corpse. Finding another target in the midst of 20+ cows triggered some NDEs.
When things go 'right', DTalon can take down Cows fast, but in tougher situations (massive cow groups from all sides), it's harder to recover. DTail has the splash knockback that can make any situation manageable, but DTalon does not have that luxury. K/T sin is a good cow runner, maybe a 3 minute caliber runner with a better setup and some practice, but she's rather stressful to play.
Edit:
Adding link to K/T Sin P5 Cow Demo Video.
Last edited:
