Demolitionist

[I Want Your Mom]

Anybody play demolitionist? I've just started my 2nd playthrough with him and leveled to 15. Comparing to Occultist (DEE line) this guy is a killing machine. I go with Fire Strike line and put most of the character's point to physique. Despite that I'm playing on Veteran, game seems A LOT easier, than on 1st playthrough with Occultist on Normal. Even bosses die in several seconds, however it took several minites with Occultist.

[barry]

i reallyl ike the grenade and canister bomb

[Mildly Nuclear]

I started out with grenado and canister bomb as my AOE group killers.

Then I found out that Fire Strike with maxed out Explosive Strike and Splinter, used with a good two-handed ranged weapon, deal ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hilarious damage to large groups, so not even any need for an AOE skill.

That's pretty much all I run on my Pyromancer. Fire Strike LMB, Stun Jacks with high-level Full Spread on RMB, curse of frailty on Mouse 4. Using Curse of Burrwich as my weapon. Nothing stands next to me unless I allow it.

[Rheed]

I also thought the same comparing Occultist to the other builds, until I tried building a chaos oriented one ( no DEE, just bloody pox, the circle, and doom bolt )

It changed my mind, a LOT. Currently running 180% chaos damage ( and between 50-100% the rest of damage types ), and bloody pox clears alone full rooms in SOT without any problem. Doombolt does 3-4k of damage ( twice, so it's 8~ ) and almost oneshoots everything. In really crowded places I can even tank just standing in the middle of the circle and seeing constant ticks of damage of 600-700, healing me to full in 2 seconds

DEE sucks, a LOT. Bloody pox on the other hand, is amazing

In fact the only enemy right now that makes me sweat a bit is the occultist boss, just because he also heals and my pets are healing him due to bad AI.

Anyway, Demo is right now probably the best class overall, a hell lot of damage output without needing to go melee

[Kododie]

Originally posted by Rheed:

Anyway, Demo is right now probably the best class overall, a hell lot of damage output without needing to go melee

Nightblade is better.

[Mildly Nuclear]

Originally posted by Kododie:

Originally posted by Rheed:

Anyway, Demo is right now probably the best class overall, a hell lot of damage output without needing to go melee

Nightblade is better.

At ranged combat?

[Kododie]

No, but overall it is the best class atm. And as for the occultist. I will quote post from official forums made by user called DarkestDisciple.

"I would agree that the primary problem with Occultist is the lack of focus. You not only have an (IMO) over large variety of 'primary' damage types, but the skills that improve them are too spread out.

Among 4 damage dealing spells, you have two that deal Vitality/Chaos damage, one that deals Poison/Acid damage (and some Physical) and one that deals Bleed/Vitality/Internal Trauma damage. To improve these abilities you have one permanent buff for Poison damage and, later, Chaos/Elemental, one temporary Acid buff and one temporary Elemental/Physical/Vitality debuff. You also have one Elemental buff and one Fire buff from pets.

It just feels like the mastery is all over the place in terms of direction. Focusing in one area can make a functional character, but one that is inherently weaker than pure focused builds from the other masteries AND can take significantly longer to get rolling. The one exception to this might be pets, but I feel that Occultist either looses too much power in other areas to have access to them, or doesn't focus on them enough.

Of course, all of this is coming from level 35 builds; perhaps at higher levels Occultist becomes more powerful due to more variety."

[Rheed]

Originally posted by Kododie:

No, but overall it is the best class atm. And as for the occultist. I will quote post from official forums made by user called DarkestDisciple.

"I would agree that the primary problem with Occultist is the lack of focus. You not only have an (IMO) over large variety of 'primary' damage types, but the skills that improve them are too spread out.

Among 4 damage dealing spells, you have two that deal Vitality/Chaos damage, one that deals Poison/Acid damage (and some Physical) and one that deals Bleed/Vitality/Internal Trauma damage. To improve these abilities you have one permanent buff for Poison damage and, later, Chaos/Elemental, one temporary Acid buff and one temporary Elemental/Physical/Vitality debuff. You also have one Elemental buff and one Fire buff from pets.

It just feels like the mastery is all over the place in terms of direction. Focusing in one area can make a functional character, but one that is inherently weaker than pure focused builds from the other masteries AND can take significantly longer to get rolling. The one exception to this might be pets, but I feel that Occultist either looses too much power in other areas to have access to them, or doesn't focus on them enough.

Of course, all of this is coming from level 35 builds; perhaps at higher levels Occultist becomes more powerful due to more variety."

In fact I wrote not long ago a post about the juge differences between clases. Nightblade is superior in all means on dealing damage, but Demolitionist as a whole is better. It deals a little bit less damage, but not having to rely on close combat it's what makes the difference in higher difficulties and SOT. A nightblade can ( and will ) get obliterated in less than 3 seconds just trying to deal damage, due to being melee

About Occultist, most people think it sucks ( me included ), because most people build them around DEE, an skill that right now is one of the worst of the game. Building an Occultist based on Bloody Pox, and chaos damage ( and chaos bolt from components ) is maybe one of the most powerful clases right now, with the added plus that it requires really little gear to get it going compared to others. You can clear full floors of SOT in less than 10 seconds like no other class does with almost zero downtime or danger for yourself just by dropping a circle and bloody pox, wait 3 seconds and everything is dead, except named ones, but those will be 2/3 shoted by doombolt anyway. Those two skills deal a huge amount of damage, and bloody pox scales really well thanks to his % damage based on enemy health and his propagation. And for killing elites, you can just pop Super sayan mode, a circle, bloody pox, Doombolt, and start spamming chaos bolt. You will start seeing critical hits rounding between 5-10k with ease while being inmortal, doing massive AOE damage and healing yourself while receiving little damage.

And yeah Nightblade pulls way more damage, but it's not the first time i've been 2-3 shooted while being frozen or stuck trying to reach melee while my teleport is in cd or the pathfinding messes up. Funny thing is NB has more survival skills than Occu ( abide for the super sayan skill, but you can't rely on it unless you spend 10~ points in it to reduce his CD ), but I live way less than him

Right now I'm running with 6 points in each bloody pox skill, 5 solael second skill, 3 each pet ( first skill ), 3 points in the buffing from the crow, 5 doombolt and super sayan, 5 in each circle and some spare points in other places. With almost 200% chaos damage, 130~ bleeding ( without working much in the gear really ), the damage output is brutal. I've seen some 7k double crits out of doombolt in super sayan mode, and this alone chips away half of the health of any named monster in one second, the rest goes away with chaos bolt/bloody pox

And I only use pets as a distraction. The dog is good for explosions ( 2k-3k damage, tops ), and the crow by his buff ( that will synergize amazingly with Arcanist I hope ) and healing. My main focus is bloody pox/chaos damage

[DeMasked]

Occultist will be getting some buffs in B20 if I remember correctly.

As for NB at release it was super weak and probably was just buffed a bit too much. So for this mastery I'd expect a few nerfs to balance out the mastery a bit more with the other ones.

Demo feels quite good balance wise except for Blast Shield.

[Rheed]

Originally posted by Dr Mcninja:

Occultist will be getting some buffs in B20 if I remember correctly.

As for NB at release it was super weak and probably was just buffed a bit too much. So for this mastery I'd expect a few nerfs to balance out the mastery a bit more with the other ones.

Demo feels quite good balance wise except for Blast Shield.

Yeah I remember playing NB like 1 year ago and it was utterly crap. What a difference XD

[Omelette Du Fromage]

Ranged classes in this game are still pretty OP, kiting + OOC regen just gives so much survivability. I get hit often after the Warden act because of bandits using guns but you got flashbang for that.

My melee class very late game with top of the line equipment kills things way quicker but the ranged demo is near unkillable against dozens of mobs at low level because of kiting, that Fire strike AoE mod or grenado (even at level 1).

I am not sure if a maxed out Demo can be as strong as Warrior or NB classes though, havent got that far yet and STILL yet to try dual guns. Hopefully it does.

[Kododie]

Originally posted by Dr Mcninja:

Occultist will be getting some buffs in B20 if I remember correctly.

As for NB at release it was super weak and probably was just buffed a bit too much. So for this mastery I'd expect a few nerfs to balance out the mastery a bit more with the other ones.

Demo feels quite good balance wise except for Blast Shield.

What's wrong with the Blast Shield?

[DeMasked]

Idk Blast Shield just seems to be a little meh to me.

[an_nihilist]

only archers, flame revenants, and the wizard in floor 3 SOT seem to reduce the shield for me.

[DeMasked]

There are quite a number of enemies that deal pierce damage - less so for fire.

In any case the upgrade for the skill is fine but the base skill could use a little more love in some way. Perhaps have a % hp buff when the shield is in effect. Would make it a little more interesting to me.

[Newb]

I just mixed Nightblade/Demolitionist for the Blade Barrier and the massive damage boost from Fire Strike. Once a few more levels are available I'll probably go melee Saboteur because as-is the swords I use have over 1200 DPS with 1 point into the duel-wielding tree. Ranged I vaporize almost everything besides mobs with super-high deflect chance and bosses.