Going for crows defeats the purpose- You require minion buffs, stats, synergy. Specing into warcry, gathering storm, tempest, tornado and mealstrom is superior. There is build dedicated purely to crows already.
Also, you might be right about the dual wield being inferior to siege breaker with sky opener. Maybe, with the extra stats from 2 better weapons, the bolts alone from mealstrom and tornados (and thunder strike) would make up for it, or surpass it.
Im still working on the character, i play offline because of connection issues, and i prefer CoF anyway.
I will post my findings later, either here or in new post, once i reach the endgame
Yeah, in this case Crows arenāt there for dealing damage with minions, but rather as flavor of having a lightning themed minion. Plus they have their uses as support/utility skill, as mentioned in my first post here.
Youāre right about Tornado being an option - but currently Iād want to remove everything but lighting from Tempest strike and try that. If I ever get enough points and get a Chance to cast Tornado on TS hit I might try that too.
I tried. There is never enough points, nor is it very reliable. There are more important nodes, and to make it even remotely work, you would need to go all the way to top left corner of the tree, and all the the way to bottom right, while also taking center. The unique gloves are way superior
I looked it up, and it seems builds with Sky Opener always use Totems to generate stacks - which makes sense, the totem hits way faster than animals.
For example here he used Storm Totem https://youtu.be/qFYqTH2d8CE?t=692. Whatās noticeable is that when he actually uses tempest strike for a while, the stacks go down.
Iām pretty sure that with just 2 Crows you would have to interrupt autoattacks and wait for them to generate stacks again.
If you roll a 90 lightning melee damage affix plus implicit, it still only gives you +76 spell damage. Exalted staff was +95. If the effects from Sword Catcher all count, it would be up to +152.
You all seem to approach the issue in a wrong way.
Its all āhow to get more storm stacks, how maintain themā, but the real question is ādo you really need them?ā
What are the stacks good for? Bolts from mealstrom dont need stacks, bolts from tornado dont need stacks, thunder strikes dont need stacks, tempest strike with storm breaker attacks around 25314794 times a second, creating a stack everytime and expending it at the same moment, generating bolts.
Stack stacking is stuck in past, when the goal was to have 50 stacks and generate bolts from that.
Its either that and going full in on stacks using gathering storm directly, or ignoring them altogether. I chose to ignore them and I have no issues so far, but going halfway seems to be defeating the point
I believe we already said why we want storm stacks. This:
plus this:
More Storm Bolts and higher damage
Thatās the point. We were exploring options of getting storm stacks without the need for the Storm Breaker weapon. This weapon sucks, there are better options.
The discussion is pretty interesting Because it validates my impression: I need ALOT of +skill for Gathering Storm. This is the one and only skill where I fell I need more Points. Currently, I reduced the bonuses for Storm bolt a bit to get the node where the crows generate stacks. I would LOVE to get more Crows for that and increase the frequency but then I cannot get the node where Storm bolts do more damage that way.
Ahhh decisions, decisionsā¦so far, the build is fun and I like the visuals. Damage is OK, but I only do story for now at around level 50. The Rift beasts and nemesis seem to be a bit overtuned at times and they are VERY spongy. But I only got rag tag equip and the passives arenāt that optimal.
So far, pretty fun but would not recommend for hardcore
Hi all, i started a build like that, and just found this topic.
I am not very far, just in normal monolith, but i have already the feeling that both dmg and defense are not really good. Of course my stuff is average as bestā¦ but usually normal mono seems āeasyā even with such stuff anywayā¦ so i fear the worst.
I tried with and without tornado+gloveā¦ maybe a bit better with.
I use the storm breaker, i think the leech on it play a big part on my defense.
So guys if you give up on storm breaker ? going dual wield i guess ? but with what ?
and how to boost defense enough on this build ?
Anyone got a build guide/video/planner to share please ?
(if possible without too much high end optimized stuff)
Well, if you donāt optimize, youāre going to struggle.
We discussed giving up on storm breaker and I mentioned 2H alternatives, itās in this topic. Sword or Scepter + Tempest Maw for dual wielding.
Dr3adful - a content creator - made a very relevant video showcasing his struggles. It was because his version of this build was absolute dogshit.
He didnāt spec into Tempest Weapon in Gathering Storm, despite using Storm Bolts as main damage skill and wielding weapons with +melee damage.
He didnāt spec Warcry and Gathering Storm into Generating Maelstrom and getting Storm Bolt crit chance from it.
He used Thunder Tempest on his Tempest Strike, but didnāt use āspell damage with tempest strikeā helmet affix.
But he still reached Abberoth with it. With purple gear, a shitty yellow dagger and purple axe off-hand, and with his storm bolts dealing no damage. So if his very bad build can reach Abberoth, you can too
Iād just started to use a scepte (with T7 ligthing leech affix) and tempest maw, damage increased by a lot, and survavibility is same or even better.
about āāspell damage with tempest strike helmet affix.ā
I understand it as the spell damage bonus is only applied to tempest strike spell.
if yes there is shared spell/lightning dmg affix that maybe seems better.
Good idea!
Only that apparently Aftershocks do not convert to Lightning like EQ does, so you would be dealing Physical damage with them. Could be overcome by using āSpell damageā everywhere you can.
OR
Gathering Storm does have a Physical conversion too.
Correct, it is only applied to Tempest Strike, but Tempest Strike is proccing two spells:
Thunder Tempest (if you are using it - like Dr3ead did and like OPās post intended)
Storm Bolt (if you have Sky Opener)
If the affix did not apply to spells procced by Tempest Strike skill tree, the affix would probably be quite useless. Luckily this is easy to test on Target Dummies in Championās Gate, simply remove/equip the helmet with this affix.
Iād like to use storm bolt as main damage, but there is so many skill that didn"t fully match (damage type, melee vs spell, trigger, different stack), it is like to try to resolve an equation.
Iād just found some possible solution:
by droping tempest strike to become full bolt physical caster !
GS as main attack, it can become storm bolt casting spell by using a staff , and convert to phys.
Maelstrom already spell, and can be convert to physā¦ proc bolt too.
War cry already phys, with spell phys bonus, and proc maelstrom stack.
Tornado phys, but it will be proc as fire from unique glove (only issue i can see for now) and proc bolt tooā¦
Last slot is quite free, iād like fury leap that can also proc some bolt, and spec it allow us to have it with shorter cooldown.
So i started a planner like that: https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/ApXrNnxA
(edit: i forget to update the body armorā¦ and not sure what to takeā¦)
does it make sense ? or i am totally wrong ?
(edit2: issue found , no more leech ā¦ )
Only the glove proc is converted to fire, but itād still be buffed by % spell damage. Though if the storm bolts are the main damage source then thatās not really an issue.
