Anyone try a DEE build since 1.1.9.1 ?

[madrigal]

Someone posted a 1.1.9.1 DEE Sentinel update on the Crate forum. I thought I might try it, but it's such a slog just getting through Act 1 Veteran with DEE. It's not difficult, just really slow going so far. Is it worth giving it a go? Will the pace pick up or will it just be slow going forever?

[ᛁᚢᚱᛃᛗᛖ]

I can't say anything about that build but normally if I try a build with a class I'm not super familiar with I just play the way I want because all that stuff through the beginning wont matter. Especially if it requires specific equipment, until you have said equipment just mess around and learn the class and have fun. You can always respec what you need to make the build later.

[DirtyMick]

Should always just start with whatever ability is best for quickly slaughtering your way through the lower levels and then respec once you hit 84-94. Like my EoR warlord... i didnt slowly spin my way through normal-elite. I did what any respectable soldier would do and went forcewave to quickly push my way up to 94, and then switched to dual wield and respec into EoR. However, I have heard in the past 2 weeks that DEE is still down in the low tier abilities. There was a thread about what are the worst abilities these days? And DEE was brought up as one of them with no one disagreeing.

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Well, any skill will likely be slower on Veteran since monsters have more health so are harder to kill. Play on Normal instead if you want to go faster.

[FlamingX21]

Originally posted by madrigal:

Someone posted a 1.1.9.1 DEE Sentinel update on the Crate forum. I thought I might try it, but it's such a slog just getting through Act 1 Veteran with DEE. It's not difficult, just really slow going so far. Is it worth giving it a go? Will the pace pick up or will it just be slow going forever?

I have tried fire DEE (with Ember's Calling set and that offhand I forgot name of + the amu with chaos modifier). On sheet it sure looks nice, in game even nicer... but when fighting with battle in it, that skill just falls apart. It still feels weak and sluggish just like you mentioned even tho sheet displays over 150k damage.

Maybe it's better if you make it a nuke skill instead of spammable type one as someone suggested in multiplayer but then again damage numbers go way lower and u have to wait like 4 seconds for another blow. So uhh, yeah...

[RodHull]

Originally posted by FlamingX21:

Maybe it's better if you make it a nuke skill instead of spammable type one

It's not

I tried both versions when it got buffed with the Poison set (name escapes me) with full BIS purples and a few awesome greens thrown in I'd been storing for ages. And it's still a bit knickers unfortunately.

It's partly cause it interacts badly with terrain (very badly) a factor that hampers many niche skills in GD and I have no doubt would be fixed in a GD2. But its also just oddly weak considering how much damage its supposed to do. I think I had the sheet DPS at like 190k but it felt more like 30k

[madrigal]

Originally posted by RodHull:

It's partly cause it interacts badly with terrain (very badly) a factor that hampers many niche skills in GD

I played a little while longer and I think this is exactly right. It feels like I have to be positioned on the battlefield more carefully than with other builds. It just doesn't hit when I think it should, even compared to other ranged builds. I noticed one spot, I was standing on the little stone steps in front of the Warden's house and couldn't hit the monster right in front of me. Every cast went straight into the ground.
Another time, my shots were knocked down repeatedly by those little enemy lightning projectiles. Just from ordinary aether corruptions. We just stood there in the middle of the room throwing energy balls at each other and nothing happened. It was a bit silly.
I'm going to pass on this build. It's even worse than I remember the last time I tried it.

[Aw Shucks]

I have a feeling DEE might work better as something you bind a devotion proc to than as something that stands on its own. It has some AoE ability with the add-ons, and anything the AoE tags can trigger an "on-attack" proc I think.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by madrigal:

Originally posted by RodHull:

It's partly cause it interacts badly with terrain (very badly) a factor that hampers many niche skills in GD

I played a little while longer and I think this is exactly right. It feels like I have to be positioned on the battlefield more carefully than with other builds. It just doesn't hit when I think it should, even compared to other ranged builds. I noticed one spot, I was standing on the little stone steps in front of the Warden's house and couldn't hit the monster right in front of me. Every cast went straight into the ground.
Another time, my shots were knocked down repeatedly by those little enemy lightning projectiles. Just from ordinary aether corruptions. We just stood there in the middle of the room throwing energy balls at each other and nothing happened. It was a bit silly.
I'm going to pass on this build. It's even worse than I remember the last time I tried it.

Yeah the fact it can be shot down is a thing I had completely forgotten. It has always struck me as utter baffling that an ability could be so easily nullified by any random ranged attack.

[Trip]

Well shoot, I've been loving my witchblade, who heavily uses dreegs evil eye. He is only level 45, but its been one of the easiest normal vanillas runs I've done. I get around the fact that it can be shot down or hit terrain by using it at point blank range.

Hit them with cursed of frailty, then blitz in. DEE at point blank with focused Gaze, this 100% procs scorpion sting, then dreegs infinite gaze. Then just cadance and face tank if anything is left alive. He is hardly optimised but he just wrecks everything so far...

I'm going to be sad if he starts to fall off.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4VxRWkJN

[FlamingX21]

Originally posted by Trip:

Well shoot, I've been loving my witchblade, who heavily uses dreegs evil eye. He is only level 45, but its been one of the easiest normal vanillas runs I've done. I get around the fact that it can be shot down or hit terrain by using it at point blank range.

Hit them with cursed of frailty, then blitz in. DEE at point blank with focused Gaze, this 100% procs scorpion sting, then dreegs infinite gaze. Then just cadance and face tank if anything is left alive. He is hardly optimised but he just wrecks everything so far...

I'm going to be sad if he starts to fall off.

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/4VxRWkJN

You are going with the "nuke" version of DEE, which could be a bit different but as @RodHull implies, I am afraid in later difficulties... later bossfights it will... fall off...

[Blinkybubs]

What is DEE?

[MedeaFleecestealer]

Dreeg's Evil Eye, a skill in Occultist mastery.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by Blinkybubs:

What is DEE?

Terrible

[Befuddled Honey Badger]

Are you guys using DEE as your only/main source of damage? Are you focusing on Poison damage and duration?

The reason I ask is I have a mess of a hybrid melee-caster Witch Hunter that I made in Beta and I haven't changed the build since the release version https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWekw5N. I have a mish-mash of level 75 legendaries (and two epic Devil's War Seals). Yet with my crap gear and ~1,760% Poison damage DEE is my single highest source of Poison damage (36,291 over 3 sec) followed closely by Dreeg's Afflicted Spines (36,195 over 5 sec) and Tainted Eruption (33,000 over 5 sec).

You just can't use it on it's own and you have to stack as much Poison duration as feasible. I haven't done AoM and FoG so I just went to Warden Krieg to see how it still performed. I applied all my DoT's and 7-9 seconds later his first form died without needing to re-apply anything. His second form took slightly longer but only by a few seconds. I didn't get many crits because my OA is awful but when I do get crits I can easily reach 200k Poison damage per second that lasts for about 15 seconds so I can just run around and kite because I'm squishy as hell.

Sure, with it being mainly DoT you aren't going to win that many speed clearing contests vs certain other builds but so what. It's safe, just DoT up and kite. Simples.

[FlamingX21]

Originally posted by Befuddled Honey Badger:

Are you guys using DEE as your only/main source of damage? Are you focusing on Poison damage and duration?

The reason I ask is I have a mess of a hybrid melee-caster Witch Hunter that I made in Beta and I haven't changed the build since the release version https://www.grimtools.com/calc/YVWekw5N. I have a mish-mash of level 75 legendaries (and two epic Devil's War Seals). Yet with my crap gear and ~1,760% Poison damage DEE is my single highest source of Poison damage (36,291 over 3 sec) followed closely by Dreeg's Afflicted Spines (36,195 over 5 sec) and Tainted Eruption (33,000 over 5 sec).

You just can't use it on it's own and you have to stack as much Poison duration as feasible. I haven't done AoM and FoG so I just went to Warden Krieg to see how it still performed. I applied all my DoT's and 7-9 seconds later his first form died without needing to re-apply anything. His second form took slightly longer but only by a few seconds. I didn't get many crits because my OA is awful but when I do get crits I can easily reach 200k Poison damage per second that lasts for about 15 seconds so I can just run around and kite because I'm squishy as hell.

Sure, with it being mainly DoT you aren't going to win that many speed clearing contests vs certain other builds but so what. It's safe, just DoT up and kite. Simples.

Your acid and poison damage is really decent, could even argue the best for the current setup but then again there are lots of flaws in it which by fixing after... damage will be a little lower maybe because sacrificing damage for defense is a thing in a lot of scenarios.

It's not worth to be this glass cannon if you get hit by 1 hit and die, imo.

I with few others as you see, don't imply that the DEE skill is totally not usable but it's extremely meh compared to other more suitable skills like bloody pox for example, because not only it does damage but reduces OA ect. ect. And if I red your post correct, you haven't really done AoM or FG, correct? If so, it's understandable why you could think it's an alright skill because vanilla IS kinda easier than these expansion bosses so to say.

EDIT: I was thinking a bit more and perhaps I could admit that only usable/decent thing about it is the nuke addition -> "Focused Gaze", which you have right now. It reduces physical blows I imagine and that's about it really.