My Poison Outlander (with skills analysis)

[Acrylik]

xylonez i tested shadowmantle out on 105 ng+ elite maps.. it's very viable man. almost necessary vs certain elite champions like the trogs and the netherim glaive throwers. i drained every point out of venomous hail for it.

while the cd is longer than the duration- 6 seconds at 15- you'll often expect to encounter certain enemies and bosses and be able to setup. it's really amazing at level 15, it bounces so much with a 75% chance.

just trust me.. it's worth every point at LATER levels. i have it keybinded above stonepact at e, shadowmantle is 3. once you get used to it you can do it on impulse too, like vs traps u activate or the moment you see certain monsters.

[xylonez]

xylonez i tested shadowmantle out on 105 ng+ elite maps.. it's very viable man. almost necessary vs certain elite champions like the trogs and the netherim glaive throwers. i drained every point out of venomous hail for it.

while the cd is longer than the duration- 6 seconds at 15- you'll often expect to encounter certain enemies and bosses and be able to setup. it's really amazing at level 15, it bounces so much with a 75% chance.

just trust me.. it's worth every point at LATER levels. i have it keybinded above stonepact at e, shadowmantle is 3. once you get used to it you can do it on impulse too, like vs traps u activate or the moment you see certain monsters.

My outlander have about 48.5% chance to reflect missiles without shadowmantle. Shadowmantle is a good skill, I have to admit that, the effect is just nice.

The main problem, however, is the duration and the cd skill. It's more like a short dur buff that you use for boss fights, and this kinda spells/skills falls into the dervish category where the cooldown is way longer than the duration itself. Mark my word, if they change shadowmantle to something like Berserk's ice shield I will take it at least 1 point.

I'm trying a different approach for my glaive outlander. Basically I try to make all of my skills so that I only need wand for them(no VH, RF, CB, SS). I take 15 points from VH to SG, the damage from SG is just fucking crazy that it easily surpasses my glaive's highest damage dealt. I use brute if I run through elite. Believe it or not, it actually works better than shadowmantle. 5 points in brute is enough and about 10-12 points in death ritual. This work wonders for me.

[Empyrean]

It's worth pointing out that different sources of "chance to reflect missiles" are considered independently for each missile attack. If you have 50% reflection from a shield and 50% reflection from another item, it rolls for deflection twice (at 50% each time) rather than adding the chance of reflection together. The end result is a missile deflection chance of 75% rather than the 100% you'd get if they were added together. This makes stacking missile deflection a lot less effective than it would otherwise be.

[Nythain]

It's worth pointing out that different sources of "chance to reflect missiles" are considered independently for each missile attack. If you have 50% reflection from a shield and 50% reflection from another item, it rolls for deflection twice (at 50% each time) rather than adding the chance of reflection together. The end result is a missile deflection chance of 75% rather than the 100% you'd get if they were added together. This makes stacking missile deflection a lot less effective than it would otherwise be.

If the individual % are decent enough, i'd say around the 15-20% mark for 3 or more, 25%+ for 2, it could almost be considered more effective. Any % has a chance of failing, 75% chance of something could never occur over the course of many many many checks honestly. 20% chance could occur after a few. Either way, what I'm getting at is basically since we're talking % chances, having more chances is always better than one higher chance. if the first check fails then you're not totally jacked, you still have a decent chance at 1 or more attempts. Look at how frequently low % chance abilities proc on some skills.

On the topic of reflecting missiles, is there a proven conclusion as to whether or not the % damage reflected back is still dealt to the player?

[Empyrean]

Either way, what I'm getting at is basically since we're talking % chances, having more chances is always better than one higher chance.

Statistics do not work that way.

In the example I gave, if the changes were added together rather than rolled separately, you would never fail to reflect an attack. Since they are not added together, your odds of failure are one in four. Let's use a different example and see if it sticks better: a shield with 50% reflection and an item with 40% reflection. Added together you'd reflect 90%. Rolled separately you'd reflect 70%. The more different things you roll for, the worse your results are compared to rolling once against the sum of all modifiers to reflect. If you were to have one item with 50% and two with 20% each, you'd only reflect 68%.

[PyrosEien]

Either way, what I'm getting at is basically since we're talking % chances, having more chances is always better than one higher chance.

Statistics do not work that way.

In the example I gave, if the changes were added together rather than rolled separately, you would never fail to reflect an attack. Since they are not added together, your odds of failure are one in four. Let's use a different example and see if it sticks better: a shield with 50% reflection and an item with 40% reflection. Added together you'd reflect 90%. Rolled separately you'd reflect 70%. The more different things you roll for, the worse your results are compared to rolling once against the sum of all modifiers to reflect. If you were to have one item with 50% and two with 20% each, you'd only reflect 68%.

Still ends up being decent when combined with block and dodge rolls, but yeah you can't reach 100%reflect unless you're a berserker(then you only need 10points in iceshield...). Wish the spell scaled on duration, like .5secs per rank, considering it can't reach 100% anyway so it's not that good to begin with. Don't get why then it has a longer cooldown than duration, since it's not a 100% spell.

[xylonez]

It's worth pointing out that different sources of "chance to reflect missiles" are considered independently for each missile attack. If you have 50% reflection from a shield and 50% reflection from another item, it rolls for deflection twice (at 50% each time) rather than adding the chance of reflection together. The end result is a missile deflection chance of 75% rather than the 100% you'd get if they were added together. This makes stacking missile deflection a lot less effective than it would otherwise be.

I noticed this as well. I don't really have free gems so it doesn't really matter for me atm, but I think that %reflect isn't that good compared to other defensive gem.

[Acrylik]

ahh.. my gems and armor are all fcr (poisn dmg if not applicable)/dmg reduction/mana recovery/+hp
stacking gems and armor for it doesnt work for me... thats why i use the skill.

i was looking at sg but glaive just bounces everything and demolishes. im sold on it and cursed daggers for the debuffs/buffs.

[chungabe]

Assuming I don't need mana regen gems for my armor, what other gem's should I be looking for?

[TommyReslin]

Assuming I don't need mana regen gems for my armor, what other gem's should I be looking for?

Focus, Cast Speed, +HP and etc

[Acrylik]

also.. shattering glaive doesn't interupt and wont put poison debuff on anything.

im not quite sure if this is true, but with my 80% or something rediculous fcr and the 80% interupt chance on glaives bouncing between them and their pet other players are unable to attack me once i start glaiving them. they just stand there and die.

haven't been able to ask any of them yet seeing as they've all dc'd... same would apply to trash mobs.

[chungabe]

Assuming I don't need mana regen gems for my armor, what other gem's should I be looking for?

Focus, Cast Speed, +HP and etc

what about for weapons? are there +%poison dmg modifiers? or should I be looking for the same thing as armor?

[Empyrean]

There's a pistol called Cold Vengeance that gives +50% poison damage. I used it for a long time and only recently switched it out for a 14% faster casting wand with two 6% faster casting gems in it.

[xylonez]

also.. shattering glaive doesn't interupt and wont put poison debuff on anything.

im not quite sure if this is true, but with my 80% or something rediculous fcr and the 80% interupt chance on glaives bouncing between them and their pet other players are unable to attack me once i start glaiving them. they just stand there and die.

haven't been able to ask any of them yet seeing as they've all dc'd... same would apply to trash mobs.

You use SG for single target. When you use it against a single target like boss or so, it hits twice as hard as glaive or even more. Put brute in the front and use SG to hit the boss. The boss doesn't last even 5 seconds for me when I need about 7 seconds or so using throwing glaive.

[Acrylik]

hmm. sounds pretty decent, but i don't have the skillpoints to give up for it. not on elite at least...

[mikeN]

what happened with 100 VIT in this build ?

[Acrylik]

just go 26 vit and parmas coal-burner and blocking passive with decent block shields till then. 50% block.
can't ask for much more than that.

[chungabe]

There's a pistol called Cold Vengeance that gives +50% poison damage. I used it for a long time and only recently switched it out for a 14% faster casting wand with two 6% faster casting gems in it.

I have about 300% poison dmg modifiers, apart from my wands. I'm using 2 fractured nexus' and it seems to be a waste of 2 weapons or 1 weapon/shield. I guess I should be looking for caster rate, poison dmg mods, and maybe possibly a shield with high elemental def and block %?

[Lossan]

Thanks!

[Empyrean]

what happened with 100 VIT in this build ?

It's a bad idea, so when I rewrote the initial post I dropped it. I have enough +Vitality on my gear (woo, Unearthly Breeks!) that I hit the block cap without it.

Or at least I could. I haven't played since XCOM came out, and I saw someone mention that they raised the block cap. I'll check it out once my alien-shooting spree has wound down a bit.