150k+ ward necro build

It is not OP. You have to maintain a high number of minions at all times and you have to cast Rip Blood on them constantly. Don’t focus on the maximum ward that’s good for the post title but instead focus on the stable ward that actually keeps the character alive.

After wave 200+, it’s very easy to lose most of your minions in a few seconds and suddenly you’re exposed. Ward decays very quickly so your stable ward at that point is very low and you can get oneshotted.

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While this is true if the mechanic is bot changed and minions become tougher in the future or a new affix comes then it will be come stronger. But ATM I wouldnt consider 200 or even 300 waves OP. Just true endgame

I know it’s not OP, I was refering to this thread & attempting to make the argument that highly skilled player with probably perfect gear making a build/mechanic fly to the f***ing moon, does not make that build/mechanic OP.

Using Lizard’s/Boardman’s arguments, ward should therefore be nerfed (again), despite “normal” people not getting anywhere near this kind of value of ward, even pre-nerf.

The same thing can be said to many mechanics in the game though.

Yes. I think this is mechanic strong but definitely not OP.

Ah yeah, I probably misunderstood your comment. Thanks for clarifying that.

I’m in the opinion that crazy mechanics should be allowed to exist if it’s hard to achieve and not trivial to use. This Rip Blood ward mechanics is a good example of that because you have to really focus on maintaining your minions and ward while dodging projectiles and oneshotty stuff.

The block in that thread is hard to achieve with gear but once you get there, it promotes a super passive playstyle.

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That’s fine, I was being oblique & assuming people had seen the other thread.

I kinda agree with you, but there still has to be limits. If not 150k, where? 200k? 300k?

I’m not entirely sure I agree with that. No amount of block will protect you from dots, plus lots of block & block effectiveness won’t protect you from big hits. Yes, his block is reducing the majority of hits down to presumably near single figure values that he can then heal/leech/etc through easily. But that’s not going to affect big hits. He had ~600 hp + 3,000 block effectiveness, so a hit for 3,601 (plus however much normal protections he has) would still kill him.

I guess I just don’t see how such high amounts of ward are fine (because it’s difficult to maintain & requires you to do a lot of stuff) given that ward will be protecting him from all hits, large & small and dots, whereas 90% block isn’t ok because it can lead to a passive playstyle (despite it not protecting you from the biggest hits or dots).

Also, it takes him from ~11 mins through to ~12:44 to get up to ~140k ward. Granted, that’s without being disturbed by mobs trying to do nasty things to him, so it does have a ramping up time & you’d need to do that every 5 waves if you choose to have a look at the gear on the ground. But as he said, if you have an uber-rare item (Orian’s Eye) it’s easier due to more mana to more quickly summon the minions, plus he didn’t have as much minion dodge as would probably be useful for the gear.

Edit: I’m also assuming the wraiths (ray-ths! Not r-aa-ths) don’t body block for him 'cause with that many he’d be protected from most of the bigger hits, though he’d loose more minions & therefore have less ward.

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Added The build to the Build compendium

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I never said ward shpuld be nerfed here. Its bot the problems. The main problem is the 5% ward conversion per point of int inside of rip bloods. It simply allows for to much generation to fast. Slowly reduce that value or cap the number of minions you can hit like soul feast did. I’m even fine leaving the build alone until more buffs for minions arrive

I noticed you didn’t take soul aegis in the acolyte tree. It grants your minions 4% increased armour and protections per character level, so up to 400% increase at level 100 for one passive point. I’ve always considered this one of the best nodes in the tree for a summoner?

Correct I mentioned that in the video that you should take it. I didmt take it on my run cause I was running a low life AoD build that would heal the minions but it didnt work

Ahh sorry, I was skipping around the video to see the build so I didn’t listen to everything. I thought I might be missing something about this node :slight_smile:

Hold up wrong node haha. Sorry that bode i didnt take since I was doing a reflect build to begin with i wanted them to take full damage

Did you try taking that build & not going reflect to see how things went? If so, was it much better/worse?

Im still gearing for it. Since I know I can have 100% putrid wraiths (ranged poison) im going to stack minion dodge as well as dodge for me and give minions defense. They will still have reflect since after wave 200 its still good damage will test in next couple days

This amount of ward is not achieveable unless you’re standing still and constantly cast Rip Blood. In the arena, you have to recast your minions and move to dodge stuff, so you’ll probably never reach that amount in higher waves. It also decays super fast so it’s not worth stacking that much.

I have a Necro that can get around 32k ward with 15 minions, but I actually never bother to get 32k ward in the arena. I usually have around 10k stable ward between resummoning and dodging stuff. In wave 300+, I usually can only maintain 6-8k because things are pretty hectic.

This mechanic really doesn’t need a hard cap because there already exists a soft cap i.e. you have to constantly resummon and cast Rip Blood. Your ward will also be lower if you decide to use another active skill like a curse.

I don’t think it’s right to see this and go “oh 150k ward! Nerf!!” without considering the practicality and opportunity cost to actually reach that amount.

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Yeah, that’s a fair point about the practicalities of things like this, though I think you can make the exact same argument for block & protections on a Sentinel. I’m not sure how much EHP (hp + protections + block effectiveness) you can practically maintain on a Forge Guard, but I’d be surprised if it peaked as high as 6-8k & even then, in my experience that would mainly be armour (assuming you’re using Shield Throw for the armour gain on hit) which is pointless for non-physical damage, or (non-bleed) dots. Though I accept I’ve probably pidgeon-holed myself into a specific build & should probably “get out” a bit more build-wise (just because my build can’t do it, doesn’t mean no builds can)…

Great Ward ! :heart_eyes:

Keep in mind that Ward will need to have higher amount to be competitive with other things because they can decay.

FG can ignore three damage sources with Sentinel conversion suffixes and an Orian’s Eye. They also have easy access to DR and high amount of block. I’m pretty sure they have way more than 6-8k EHP that does not decay like Ward. Yeah Dots are annoying but those are the only things that you have to dodge manually.

Also keep in mind 6k ward is bot equal to 6k protections. Ward not only decays but it takes time to get that 6k. 6k protections is constant. It’s why my 5k ward spellblade just cant compete with a 5k protections paladin even though it kills faster and can freeze mobs

And they take full damage due to not stacking protections.

And big hits, but yeah, that’s why I said I need to have a look at my Sentinel’s gear & try some different things. That said, I’m not sure one should place too much stock in using such a rare item as the Orian’s Eye.