Is Earthshifter a practical weapon to use?

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akwan50

Diabloii.Net Member
Is Earthshifter a practical weapon to use?

Is Earthshifter a practical weapon to use for some sort of elemental Druid? I've never used any sort of Druid before but I recently acquired this item and was wondering if it was practical because despite the highly attractive +7 to Elemental skills, it's strength requirement is very high at 253.
 
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logger120

Diabloii.Net Member
akwan50 said:
Is Earthshifter a practical weapon to use for some sort of elemental Druid? I've never used any sort of Druid before but I recently acquired this item and was wondering if it was practical because despite the highly attractive +7 to Elemental skills, it's strength requirement is very high at 253.
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elemental prolly not. fire claws bear on the other hand would meet the str easier and i could see some usefullness...... someone will surely have some experience and input
 
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riplix

Diabloii.Net Member
to prebuff armageddon but the strength req usually isnt wort it. especially now with spirit shields around.

other wise glass cannon. however i think it's playable but not the most effective way. far more stuff is playable (and fun) than ppl think. take a look at bnet chats and you'll notice that the game degenerated around very few items and noone dares to use alternatives because of "no alternative to skako/tal/enigma/botd/grief/...".
 
LorveN

LorveN

D3 Off Topic Moderator
Pros
+7 elemental !! (enough said!)
Cool looks!
Loads of damage, and 33% CB (if you feel like hitting something)

Cons
High Str. (Socket with Hel, try find an eth one (found myself one yesterday :D )
No shield


Make a glasscannon, its the only way to enjoy it.
A druid can get high life even if you waste some points on strength because of OakSage.

Jordy, plz explain Booyaka Barb for me. sounds interesting! :p
 
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Inuyasha

Diabloii.Net Member
The "Flying Booyaka Barb" is a barb that uses leap and leap attack as it's main skills, and uses Primarily Mauls. Here's the link.

I actually think that I may try using Earthshifter on my Windy now. I'm sure that if socketed with hel and using enigma, I won't need much other str boost for it :xrollseye: <----Why do smileys not work yet?

Great answers!
-Daman
 
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Tor

Diabloii.Net Member
hmm prebuffing geddon..interesting..

i could get a +3 geddon hat and use earthshifter and some + skill stuff and get a free lvl 15 geddon on my titan wolf..
 
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Cudgel

Diabloii.Net Member
a build that puts no points in vit and maxes out either strength for doing big damge with melee weapons or dex for big missle weapon damge.
So they hit hard but will crumple if hit usually.
 
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AngelBurner

Diabloii.Net Member
Cudgel said:
a build that puts no points in vit and maxes out either strength for doing big damge with melee weapons or dex for big missle weapon damge.
So they hit hard but will crumple if hit usually.
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hmm isnt that almost a titan?
 
Uzziah

Uzziah

Diabloii.Net Member
253 with a hel rune is 253*.80 = 202 str requirement.

Thats awful steep for a strength requirement but doable.

As for builds that are able to benefit with such a high requirement. Well the windy has no chance of this weapon being useful, the fire elemental maybe but still what does +7 elemental do when you lose a shield, and have to spend so much in strength.

So the choices get smaller as for usefulness. I find that there are only a few good builds worth using Earthshifter.

1 fireclaws you can make quite a powerful hitter with this maul and a fireclaw bear. if you skip out on armageddon and volcano and use this weapon for its volcano charges you can find a pelt with armageddon staffmod and be dealing huge amounts of damage all around. the +7 elemental skills brings the armageddon into usable range even from a staffmod, no you won't get the 14K armageddon but what the heck 2000-6000 is a well reachable range even with out much in the way of +skills.

2 dual elemental druids, a druid who focus'es on elemental skills can abuse the heck out of this weapon, no points in dex are needed as your a caster, so enough points could be placed in str and still have a fair amount of life. the build would include hurricane, tornado, firestorm, and cyclone armor. everything else would be through charges and staffmods, stone armor, and a pelt with +3 armaggedon alone take the armageddon to 1400 damage with a few +skills throw on earthshifter with +7 skills and charges of volcano and hurricane armageddon your way through the game, they both will have plenty of umph.

3 leapers (barbs using leap attack, "Flying Booyaka Barb") they use mauls big freaken damage big freaken maul, big percent ED from str bonus (which by the way is at 110% instead of the 100% everywhere else). The big single hit is huge with well into the 1000%ED from skills. add on the ctc with each hit and you have yourself a merry little bouncer.

4 titan bezerker, the big damage from a maul and the added power from ctc. it's not a common build but it is effective.

Right now I am playing a dual elemental he is quite strong with minimal equipment, If i had an earthshifter and was wanting to play the dual elemental druid as a hybrid I would use it with that build, druids just look cool carrying a huge maul, add on the huge power out put and off you go beating the minions of Hell.
 
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pryzmatik2

Diabloii.Net Member
anything that does LOTS of damage but can hardly take hits can be considered a glass cannon. its just a term. get it? the cannon shoots but because its made of glass it shatters.
 
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petri

Diabloii.Net Member
I'd like to add that there is another alternative build that I've tried using earthshifter, and it most certainly is capable of a quick kill speed, even in large, hell games. But the build is a bit of a glass cannon if you don't have good supporting equipment for the earthshifter.

Basically, it was a geddon-wolf build. Skills were as follows:

Shapeshift
20 fury
5-10 werewolf
10-15 lycanthropy
2 pre-req's

Elemental
20 geddon
20 volcano
7 pre-req's
rest in firestorm

Pro's: Hits hard - 7k+ max damage, decent geddon - i believe max was somewhere between 4 and 5 k for me.

Con's: No oak sage, non-maxed lycanthropy, and many points required for strength = not as many hp as is normal for a wolf - I was only a few hundred over 2k hitpoints. Even shaeled, the earthshifter hits at a 7 frame fury (werebear hits much slower, so i wouldn't consider that). It does good damage and kills monsters fast, but 7 frames doesn't provide the nice smooth life leech that a 4 or 5 frame weapon does, nor does it allow you to respond to situations as quickly.

Good setup that worked well for me: Jalal's (um'ed), chains of honor, shaeled earthshifter, gores, ik gloves/belt or dungo's/dracul's, mara's, ravenfrost/dual leech, and a nice assortment of charms. Also, you need some way to get your AR up, as werewolf isn't maxed and you have very little dex. I used demonlimb, or later (around lvl 90) i was high enough lvl to get decent hits in. It also really helps having a merc with reaper's toll.

Bottom line = I killed pretty darn fast, even in large hell games, but i also did my fair share of dying. Not an easy hc build. Definitely a lot of fun though, and I just think earthshifter is a neat weapon and I just HAD to try out a build that fit that weapon.
 
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