what is wrong with the skills lightning blast and force armor?
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Jul 13, 2012 2:52 am GMT
just curious, i myself run with prismatic and piercing normally, mostly because those seem to be the norm, but i see these skills as pretty good, not sure why they arent used
1. force armor guarantees you will never be one shot, a 3 shot health bar no matter how bad your armor
2. blast only does 80% but it does shoot rather fast
im running with these two now and seem to be doing ok
what are the drawbacks compared to PO and prism?
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everyone in this world is good for something. Even the worst human being is the BEST example of what NOT to be
Jul 13, 2012 2:55 am GMT
If you have high enough resists prismatic armor will be better. Lightning blast is a good primary for fast clearing, Magic missile is more useful in all situations other then clearing whites.
Jul 13, 2012 2:57 am GMT
How high is high enough?
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Jul 13, 2012 3:18 am GMT
This would depend on which act you are running, I personally don't play my mage enough to know the exact numbers.
Reason it depends on the act is because the enemies of course do more base damage as well as higher act monsters have a higher level.
Resists only count for equal level 60 monsters.
Basically if your not taking 35% of your health per shot from monsters there is not real reason to be using force armor.
Jul 13, 2012 3:21 am GMT
force armor used to be an amazing skill till someone made a build were he had no vitality on any gear and gratuitous amounts of life regen so he pretty much couldnt die...then blizzard stealth nerfed and they havent updated the description so now its like if it hits for more than your max life the difference counts. so any hit double your life one shots you
also you cant kite with lightning blast, same reason why no one uses disintegrate.
Jul 13, 2012 3:26 am GMT
I was kiting with lightning blast, You mean like shooting it backwards while moving? granted it was alot harder to do.
Jul 13, 2012 3:39 am GMT
i probably should have said ineffective because if you can only fire off one blast and move backwards and you are only doing 80 % weapon damage, it is going to be a lot harder than using magic missle or piercing orb which do a lot more damage
Jul 13, 2012 3:45 am GMT
the force armor thing seems to guarantee that it will take you 3 hits to die no matter how low your life, res, and armor is, so i guess it would make sense to run with it till prismatic could last up to 4 hits
still, for bosses, it seems like 35%/hit would be better as diablo generally hits for 80% in hell
as to force blast, seems to me there is little drawback. it does 80% vs 105%, but i can shoot faster and kite better
think ill try it for a bit and see whats up
glad to see everyones different opinion
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everyone in this world is good for something. Even the worst human being is the BEST example of what NOT to be
Jul 13, 2012 7:19 am GMT
i should pay more attention to these fixes, what does that mean damage caps at 100%?
if the maximum damage you can receive is 100%, what benefit does the spell give you now?
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everyone in this world is good for something. Even the worst human being is the BEST example of what NOT to be
Jul 13, 2012 7:25 am GMT
There is nothing wrong with force armor. Damage is not constant. You may take 5% from one damage source, but 50% from another.
Lightning blast on the other end sucks for inferno. It's actually 40%, or 80% for every 2 shots.
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Such is your fate.
Jul 13, 2012 7:26 am GMT
f_ranz1224 posted...i should pay more attention to these fixes, what does that mean damage caps at 100%?
if the maximum damage you can receive is 100%, what benefit does the spell give you now?
Where does it say that?
It says it allows you to take a 199% HP attack and not die. Force armor is on EVERY wizard's bar for act 4 pretty much.
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Such is your fate. Jul 13, 2012 7:32 am GMT
the way the skill describes it, you take a maximum of 35% damage per hit regardless of how hard you were hit
those patch notes posted up there state that the damage cap is 100% of life.
most wizards i see just go for the 40% increase in resistance
not sure what damage cap of 100% means, but based on the forum commenters, you still get 1 shot with the skill
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everyone in this world is good for something. Even the worst human being is the BEST example of what NOT to be
Jul 13, 2012 7:34 am GMT
f_ranz1224 posted...the way the skill describes it, you take a maximum of 35% damage per hit regardless of how hard you were hit
those patch notes posted up there state that the damage cap is 100% of life.
most wizards i see just go for the 40% increase in resistance
not sure what damage cap of 100% means, but based on the forum commenters, you still get 1 shot with the skill
I haven't seen anyone say that.
The SKILL ITSELF absorbs 100% of your HP. Assuming you have full HP you can survive 199% HP attack. The skill description is very clear to me.
The reason a lot of wizards go for prismatic is because they're heavily invested in AR (all resistance), so they want to bump it up even more.
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Such is your fate. Jul 13, 2012 7:43 am GMT
From my experience, lightning blast is useless because it's basically like a channel spell, which is not what you want. It's better to have something with more damage than something that makes up for a lack of damage with faster casting. In order to get equivalent damage out of it, you have to sit still and cast it constantly, otherwise you are wasting time and lowering your overall dps.
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imo for the tight asses
Jul 13, 2012 7:46 am GMT
the comments are on the blizzard skills page
nope, the description is not clear at all
the skill description doesnt say that my game screen or the blizzard page, only on the patch notes, what i have running in my game right now still says 35%
guess that means then that as long as an attack does less than 200% damage (199) you can survive it
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everyone in this world is good for something. Even the worst human being is the BEST example of what NOT to be
Jul 13, 2012 7:49 am GMT
In order to survive a 199% HP attack, you need to be at essentially full HP.
I mean the description on the patch notes is pretty clear. The in game description is not completely clear I agree. It doesn't need to be. As long as we know how it works.
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Such is your fate.
Jul 13, 2012 8:04 am GMT
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I understand force armor works: it can't reduce damage to an amount lower than 35% of your health, and also can't reduce a quantity of damage greater than your total hp. So:
Damage less than 35% of your total HP, you take that damage normally. This means that Force armor wouldn't help you much against the likes of molten / fire chain / desecrate enemies, since the damage itself isn't very high, but it procs several times per second.
Damage between 35% and 135% of your total HP, you take 35% hp damage.
Damage between 136% and 199% of your total HP, you take (Damage-100%) of your hp (e.g. 147% goes down to 47%)
It's wise then, to use force armor if you have a healthy dose of HP, or Prismatic armor if your resistances are pretty high and your hp not so much.
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Jul 13, 2012 8:08 am GMT
[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]
Jul 13, 2012 8:13 am GMT
Wait what, 136% damage should only deal 36% damage to you. Unless that's what you meant.
But yea force armor if you're getting 1 shot, otherwise choose between force and prismatic.
I roll with force armor since I go heavy armor. Usually ppl who go heavy res go with prismatic.
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