u/belief_combats0z

Hey Necros, I summon your wisdom! I'm theorycrafting a Necro build for a clan member, inspired by DonTheCrown's Menacing Cloud build for the Spiritborn several seasons ago, and interested in learning how the Sickfoot's aspect really works under the hood.

Sickfoot's aspect (can go on boots/amulet):
Gain up to 1.5%[+] increased Movement and Damage over Time Speed for each Nearby enemy affected by your Damage over Time effects, stacks up to 25 times.

I'm interested in exactly how the increased DoT speed is applied to know if it's useful for accelerating build-wide events per second in addition to damage and mobility.

1. Does it work like this? Accumulate DoTs on nearby enemies, and some counter (hopefully visible to me on the buff bar above the Skill Bar?) is increased. Then, when I hit another enemy with a DoT, that DoT's duration and damage per tick is calculated based on the increased DoT speed from Sickfoot's aspect?

2. My assumption is, since DoT's are snapshot on the initial hit, Sickfoot doesn't change the DoT tick rate of existing DoT's on nearby enemies, right?

I'm interested in how much these additional DoT tick events can be sped up from multiple sources if they are also feeding other events/seconds for me, such as Lucky Hit to Restore Resource and related Resource Generation. The build is mostly autonomous with an overdrive option, and I'm exploring just how scalable the essence reactor and throughput is.

Is r/MacroBioBoi in the house? Thanks for any real-world experience or educated guesses. :)

First, I'm enjoying Druid in my first season playing Druid! I saw some unique and aspect descriptions the other day that made me wonder if this is build concept is possible, but I don't see creators (yet) exploring this path. So theorycrafter me got interested...

Has anyone conceived of a pure Spirit-based "Ghost of the Druid" build that:

- Is 100% Spirit-based (lowest life possible) and uses Melted Heart of Selig (which doubles Max Spirit pool)

- Uses everything to maximize Max Spirit (which is the maximum Spirit possible?) while also maximizing Damage Reduction

- Regens like crazy

- Directly scales damage multiplier based on either current Spirit or Max Spirit (or both)

I've seen aspects like:

- Mangled - While Shapeshifted, you gain [20 - 30]%[+] increased Spirit Generation (Resource)

- Balanced - your Maximum Spirit is increased by 50. Casting a Skill with a Cooldown increases Spirit Generation by [20 - 35] for 8 seconds.

Boons that directly increase Spirit:

• Gift of the Stag – Gain 30 Maximum Spirit and 10 Spirit per second

On the gear side:

- Tibault's Will was changed from granting a big chunk of Primary Resource to now granting 50 Primary Resource Regeneration (per second) while unstoppable and for 5 seconds after.

- Autumnal Crown (Druid unique): Wind Shear now deals (6017-9022) Poisoning damage over 4 seconds. Lucky Hit: Wind Shear has up to a 20.0% chance to restore 100 Spirit.

I'm not preset on what skills might be used, I'm interested in exploring how the spirit generation engine can be created to both utilize and regen spirit consistently once it's started (ideally has an auto-pilot/channeled/self-perpetuating setup). For speed of generation, certainly suggests Lightning Strike might be used with decent attack speed, but I'm open to all ideas.

Please share your ideas for this 100% Spirit-themed build, if you've ever thought about it, done it, know of a limitation/quirk I should consider, I invite all feedback. Thank you.

For several seasons (concept introduced in S5 by Wereplant), Sorceress has had an off-meta crazy fun build mechanic and concept for lightning skills to have a positive generation and feedback loop so you could have a 1- or 0-button perpetual lightning storm of multiple skill types blasting out of you in many directions. You could push more buttons if you wanted to for more damage, but you didn't have to.

Here's the link to the original reddit post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/D4Sorceress/comments/1f9f2t2/popcorn_sorcerer_64_spears_no_winterglass/

I LOVED this concept and it stuck with me. It worked! Then in S10, I revisited it during the Chaos Armor season that let us mess around with different uniques in different gear slots, and provided an updated post with video link at the time:

https://www.reddit.com/r/D4Sorceress/comments/1o5oymf/sorcs_lightning_popcorn_build_concept_is_hereand/

Fast forward to S14, Day 1: I'm wondering now, since the skilltree redesign in S13 (and no more passives, now repackaged into aspects and skills), and now have the Signet of Pelghain exclusively keyed to Cold damage, Deep Freeze changed, Unstable Currents changed, Ice Spikes now getting proper treatment with the Blizzard skill ranks and aspects, some previous lightning skills across multiple skill groups now getting the option of having a cold variant upgrade...

Do we have the ingredients for a cold/freeze edition of the Popcorn build, but using all cold skills/variants to auto-generate (whether from skills, aspects, uniques like Fractured Winterglass, etc.) and blast out cold skills at high speed and damage, freezing and ramping up damage?

Also, on a related note, is the aspect of Shared Misery still available(Lucky Hit based chance when you crowd control an enemy that the CC effect, e.g. freeze, gets propogated to a nearby enemy)? I haven't seen it, and I've seen some indications it was "temporarily removed" from the game.

Offmeta question here for a new druid leveling build, so ignore whether this maximizes damage or has an endgame version to it (although it would be cool if there is!). Anyone thought about using thorns lately for a leveling build, with some type of tie-in to Rabies/poison and lightning? Thorns + Green lightning would be the ultimate win... :)

First question: I'm curious about incorporating a thorns base to leveling a tanky druid (resolve stacks, maybe Melted Heart of Selig?) by having maximum companions, Sticker Thought to get more thorns while channeling, something to pull in all enemies regularly, and Needleflare (45%) for all my Companions to proc 360 thorns around them every time. And, with the Spirit Bond aspect, Companions can't die, so as long as I keep them summoned, whether by skill, aspect or runewords, I get maximum density and hits, right? Maybe add in Rabies to spread poison DoT from all of these Companions. Bonus would be able to generate more green/poison lightning strikes as well for all Companions. :)

Second question: considering Rabies, I'm learning about druid...I've seen there are ways to spread it while also sometimes being limited in its ability to spread, and has a side upgrade for doing its damage faster, and even bursting with direct damage (which can crit strike and overpower). Can all Companions spread Rabies somehow, or does Rabies only come from me casting it?

Bonus points for making a build as auto-pilot/zero button as possible for chill farming style while helping shepherd party members through dungeons.

Thanks in advance for your creative, informative feedback. If something is not viable and is a dead end, please be direct and tell me why that's the case.

Hi, I'm new to Druid, been playing D4 since end of S3, and got the theorycrafting bug early on. So I'd like your ideas for a fun druid build to theorycraft, or blend 2-3 builds together.

While looking around Druid skills, I noticed Lightning Storm and Stone Burst are both Channeled skills...so that prompted my theorycrafter brain to wonder, with the Sticker-Thought aspect, would those 2 skills give me 2 stacks of Thorns from the aspect? Add Razorplate + Companions + Needleflare = high Thorns-based AoE build with Lightning and Earth damage sources w/ 100% uptime?

I've played several classes and enjoy the off-meta homebrew stuff much more often. Druid seems like a good class to do that with, am I right?

A quick trip down Memory Lane will give you a sense of what I've played and enjoyed:

Sorceress -- I started w/ Chain Lightning Sorc, my first love. I was a big proponent for promoting Crackling Energy's viability as a solid build for about a year before we got it. Charged Bolts-Meteorstomp (that was fun!). EMP Nuke Reactor with Charged Bolts+Aspect of Shared Misery. Esadora's Crackling Energy nuke build with Spear of Lycander. Oh yes, and our Reddit-community-brewed "Popcorn" build based on Charged Bolts and Crackling Energy and shock skills. I've enjoyed the Iceman theme with Ice Shards/Iceheart Brais/Shatter, and created a homebrew Snake Bite build mixing Thorns with exotic payload stacking mixing DoT damage types and crowd controls.

Barb -- Thorns, bleeding, Flay/Rupture in multiple seasons(hybrid Flay/Rupture/Leapquake/Iron Maelstrom/Bloody Butcher/Omega-Red style "Red Hole" build was the best!); immortal HotA+Selig.

Spiritborn -- Multiple thorns and poison-based builds in multiple seasons using skills like Rocksplitter, Crushing Hands, Scourge (Don the Crown's Menacing Cloud was awesome and inspirational for future aura-based build concepts across classes!), Rushing Claw, Razor Wings (AngrenTV), Toxic Skin, and Armored Hide.

Paladin -- Thorns, Blessed Shield Captain America, Auradin, Judgment Nuke.

Warlock -- Hell Fracture, Hellchains Apocalypse.

So I'm looking at Druid for Season 14 and exploring off-meta build ideas like thorns, lightning+poison hybrid, immortal variant using Melted Heart of Selig, and of course companions for scaling thorns and poison and rabies procs. While I've played many a glass-cannon builds with Sorceress, I love tanky builds and creative builds.

I've watched a few videos of S13 builds like Screamheart's Lightning God build (straight and with poison), Zero's Rabies build, and Zookeeper/Companions builds. So far I haven't seen any immortal Selig builds yet, maybe due to the lack of a damage scaler with a weapon/aspect based on spending Spirit, but I see potential with the new set charms:

Den Mother (5) - Storm skills no longer cost Spirit to cast. Casting a Storm Skill consumes all available Spirit to increase Storm Skill damage by 0.5 per Spirit consumed for 2 seconds, up to 75%. And Storm Skills have a 20% chance to Double Cast (100% damage bonus) and 5% chance to Triple Cast (300% damage bonus).

Storm Shepherd (2) - Taking or dealing damage [Thorns, all skills] in Werebear form grants 1 stack of Stoicism (2 while Berserking), which increases your damage by 2%. Stacks up to 40 times and lasts 15 seconds.

So, do you have a creative and fun insight to share for creating a Druid build for S14? Ideally, it can be used for all content through T12 and up to Pit 100. Being able to scale it up to elite Pit tiers is a bonus for me to help/carry other players and clan members.

Thank you in advance!

Our party of 4 had run a NMD to get a Forgotten Wisdom XP well, and as many players do, we decided to find the XP well then leave without needing to finish the dungeon. As luck would have it, our XP well was right at the beginning, so we all grabbed it and went back to Temis.

We're all excited, time to start the Echo of Hatred (aka the Sightless Eye at the left side of Temis) and get mad loot!

We're dozens of tiers in, doing great, enemy density is starting to go up...then suddenly all of our screens go black, the loading screen appears, and we all ask "what happened? Did we find a secret portal or something in the Echo?"

Sadly, no.

Then we're all dumped back out into Temis with the message across the screen, paraphrasing it here:

The XXXX dungeon has timed out and has been closed.

The Echo of Hatred quest was obviously consumed when we started it, and we didn't get it back. So bummed. I looked this type of error up and it's a known open bug, but usually more associated with trying to launch a new dungeon while an existing one is open but the game fails to instantiate the instance and closes the current one.

What you can do to avoid this bug: before starting the Echo of Hatred, while everyone in party is still standing in Temis (or at least not in any dungeon/boss lair), go to your map, right side, hit Reset Dungeon to close and reset any and all dungeons. Then enter the Echo of Hatred and start your run to riches of bags and bags of goblin plunder.

Does Thorns hits count as "attacks" for the Scepter of the Three? I think the answer should be yes, since it doesn't say "casts". From prior seasons, "attacks"=a hit=1 point of damage, which Thorns would count as, regardless of whether it did 1 point or 1 billion damage (think of Thorns in this case as a utility to drive the "attacks' damage scalar available on this item/charm.)

The Scepter of the Three, a unique weapon for the Warlock, says this:

"You can now equip all Ultimate Skills and gain 15 Ranks in them. Attacking enemies with no active Ultimate Skill builds up your Ultimate Skill damage by x [4 - 5%], up to x [80 - 100%]. After starting Ultimate Skills the damage bonus is reset once all have ended."

So, IF this were true, if I were getting bombarded by enemies, and with just 1 Thorn affix/source anywhere in my build, then at 5% per "attack/hit", I'd be procing up to 20 thorns hits to maximize the 100% damage bonus from my Ultimate skill (Apocalypse), then cast Apocalypse.

Anyone else tried this and know the answer?

I've been enjoying Moxsy's Apocalypse build since shortly after S13 started and I picked a build as my guide to learn about the new Warlock class. As I'm looking at more theorycrafting and wanting to understand the mechanics around Dominance for more command of Demon-based build elements, I realized I haven't found much information in a nutshell about how the whole new Dominance mechanic really works, since my impression so far is it's not built or used the same way as Wrath/Primary Resource for all other classes.

So I thought I'd ask the Warlock community here to collect our knowledge gained to date about Dominance and assemble it here. By all means, if you are a content creator and feel you have a decent understanding developed around Dominance, please make a video and walk us through this new topic and use all, some or none of this content, it's all to be shared.

Here are some of my top starter questions if I were to pick a book called Warlock's Dominance for Dummies off the shelf and try to give a 5th-grader a basic primer after reading it a bit.

- Was it fairly easy for you as a new Warlock to pretty quickly get attuned to using Dominance? What helped you?

- what does Dominance basically do, give the ability to summon demons of all types?

- does it get used in small increments, like 1 point per little demon, and in large increments per greater demon?

- Are there any ways to avoid spending Dominance and still summon demons or use it as a resource?

- Are there any ways to convert other resources, such as Wrath or Life, into Dominance? And vice versa, spend Dominance to get Life, Wrath, Resistances, or anything else?

- Does the amount of Dominance I have at the time of casting, or while my demon is summoned and alive, or when it's killed, make any difference to how much damage or other bonuses I receive? Or, it depends?

- What skills, aspects, uniques, charms, paragon nodes add to my total Dominance pool? What's a decent size/formula to shoot for, e.g. 100-120 Dominance is likely fine for most builds and easy to obtain based on the frequency and amount it's spent (because you're Dominance costs result in long active summon periods followed by some cooldown), or, 100+[Attacks Per Second*20] points?

- What are the sources of Dominance generation? Which are the best/easiest sources?

- If my build wants to summon demons quickly just to sacrifice them, is there a way to just as quickly keep my Dominance up, similar to restoring Life on Kill or Lucky Hit to Restore Primary Resource?

- What are the sources of Dominance cost reduction (if any), or does it benefit me in some cases to not reduce the dominance cost, sort of like using a Crown of Lucion or Sword of Verathiel to increase resource cost to gain a bigger damage bonus?

- Have you found a good explainer video from a Diablo 4 content creator giving a great 411 on Dominance all Warlocks should watch?

- What's one odd, quirky, and/or awesome thing you've discovered about using this second resource mechanic called Dominance so far? Do you like it? Is it fun?

- If you were giving feedback to Blizzard, is a second resource of Dominance cumbersome and you think we should just use all Wrath? Or, this is interesting and adds to build diversity and fun, and you think the other classes should get a second similar resource to utilize and build around as well?