Skinchanger discussions

[Myrtillo]

Hi everyone,

I have been playing around with the skinchanger (Rune+Nature), and so far my experience has been great, and I would love to share it with you guys, and maybe gather some feedback and ideas.

I am a seasoned TQ player, and I love unconventional builds. In this one, I took a lateral approach and a combo involving three skills. Please note that I am more interested in character development and progression than in optimal 65+ legendary toon with full maxed gear, so a lot of things that I write here may or may not be completely useless in legendary difficulty.

So the idea behind it is to make the most effective use of Sacred Rage by staying permanently under 40% health (or at least as much as possible).
This can give up to +62% total speed, and rune scales well with attack speed and casting time
-62% recharge, and rune has a lot of actives spell to make use of that. Also, the huge energy regen boost helps spamming those spells.

The offensive benefits are massive. However, being under 40% health and not dying isn't an easy task when you start act 3 normal. This is why we pick Nature, and heart of oak can give you +85%health.
It becomes much easier to be under the thresold without being at a constant death threat.
But this is obvuiously not enough, so we have to make use of another spell: Energy Armor.
(for some reason I always loved protective shields in video game).
So all the physical damage you take goes straight to the shield, and doesn't touch your health pool.
Now, to balance Energy Armor, they added a medium cooldown to it (25 sec), and a very high energy cost, expecially in the epic levels. Currently with +2all skills, and level 10 in energy armor, the raw cost is 1538.
The cooldown is easily negated by Sacred rage, and the energy regen helps casting it. The problem is that you need enough max energy. This is why I had to gear myself with -%energy cost. But this is relatively easy: I socketed a golden fleet relic, and I have a -10% cost ring and a -15% amulet that I do not need to use for now.

So overall, I can be in sacred rage 95% of the time, and I am virtually immune to physical damage, and have a great elemental dps output, both single target (auto attacks with rune weapons with high attack speed), and AOE thanks to seal of fate and thunder strike, boosted by the bonuses from rune weapon (I used to cast the Runic Mines for damage, now I respeced to 1 point + max synergy and use them for additional CC).
Guardian Stones help against bosses (they do some real damage)
Only real threats are huge elemental damages, and poison/bleed hurts, as I have oriented my gear towards damage. I will start stacking poison/vit resistance. The damage absorbtion from Scared Rage helps too.

Other possibly interesting synergies I see with this build in the future (using more nature. For now I have been playing around with rune skills mostly:
- Plague synergies: Plague is a no brainer, it is the best debuff in the game, will increase elemental damage output and slow down ennemies
- Wolves: I always loved the wolves, but as I am currently in act IV normal, they are useless. However, when I reach epic, they might become useful again. Sure, I cannot afford to wear +dmg to pets gear, but as a free dps on the side they should be good, plus they would be a great tanking tool if I send them in first to take aggro, with maxed Heart of Oak and Energy Armor (that applies to allies).
- Nymph: The elemental shield would synergise incredibly well, but if I remember properly it's scaling is utter garbage, so unless it changed in Ragnarok (I didn't test), I do not see a use for it.
- Refresh: Not really useful as everything I use regularly is on a very low cooldown. The only application I see is perma guardian stones, but guardian stones has no use outside of boss fights.
- Briar Ward with sanctuary: could be a useful tool and another reason to invest in refresh: Permanent sanctuary sounds fun and could provide (with sacred rage) a total of 52% damage absorbtion and ridiculous energy regen. However, I will have to test if the increased health regen doesn't hurt the build. As I am writing I am thinking of a possible hilarious interaction: If energy Armor applies to briar ward, you could cast it + energy armor in a middle of a group then run away and let them die from the piercing/poison retaliation. Plus a fun gimmick than an actual usefull skill but I will sure test this for fun.

So here's my experience about the Skinchanger in Normal Difficulty, and it is fun as hell!
Quick word on the stats and gear:
Enough Str and Dex to equip what you want, rest goes to int for damage. I have +3 all skills (I farmed SB's and Revenant Plate, and got a +1 skills helmet). -% energy cost gear, rest can be + elemental damage, attack speed, casting speed, big base damage on the weapon (thanks to transmutation) and whatever you need for non-physical defense

Reaching 10/8 in energy armor is mandatory in act 4, otherwise your shield will be popped too often. I did not need 11/8 yet (and anyways I do not have the max energy to cast it yet, as I have not been sinking points in Nature mastery past lvl 4)


I welcome any comment, critics, or additional ideas <3

[diStrond]

Hi Djebe,

I have been playing TQIT alot back in the day (non-steam), and recently picked up the game with the release of the new DLC. My first character is a Skinchanger (happy to see a fellow Skinchanger as well) and I am currently level 41 starting Act 5 and I must say I'm enjoying the class so far.

I started out with Runes Mastery and picked up Nature in order to tank, but I must say, I did not consider your build with Sacred Rage, which in hindsight, sounds like a great idea.

My initial idea was to get the right gear to have at least -80% recharge with some -% Energy cost so that I can spam Thunderstrike with dual throwing weapons. The AOE, although short in range, is very powerful if you manage to hit a boss with all 10 projectiles (I find it easier by shift+clicking behind a boss to create a narrow 'cone'). The short stun and confusion, along with Runic Mines, provide really good CC for mobs as well, so with a low cooldown I can theoretically keep enemies from hitting me.

I knew I was going to be a glass cannon, therefore I picked up the Nature for the +85% Health, pets for distraction, and to get the -% Energy cost. Plague, as you said, is a good debuff with -%Elemental resistance.

However, I realise Thunderstrike alone will not scale too well into epic or legendary and it needs Rune Weapon to improve damage. If I get -80% Recharge and only use Thunderstrike then my DPS will severely drop. At first, I did not realise how much DPS I got with my LMB Rune Weapon skill, then releasing Thunderstrike. I did some tests and the difference in damage was too huge to ignore which, sadly, makes my -80% Recharge build less viable. It is better to keep Rune Weapon charged up (same principle as Onslaught), then release the power with a Thunderstrike every few seconds.

Therefore, your idea with Sacred Rage is interesting and worth testing in the future.

So far, my pets are useless and die constantly, and my Energy Shield is at level 1, so it pops with 1 hit, but I do realise the potential with maxed pets and Energy Shield.
This will enable me to run into crowds and just spam my throwing weapons without fear of dying. I focussed on maxing my resistances, especially against Hades (Hades was a breeze btw). My resistances range between 60 to 80%, which makes me extremely tanky, even without pets. But I am certain, that if I venture into epic/legendary, then I will need those pets and Energy Shield.

The -%Energy cost from Nature will also help with the high mana cost of Energy Shield, so in retrospect, it seems to combo well.

Briar ward gives good protection, but I fear that the short range of throwing weapons will make it more cumbersome to reach enemies. With what weapon are you currently playing? Nevertheless, Briar ward and that Wall provide excellent protection against range attackers.

So far my attributes are a mess, but your approach seems to make sense. Just enough points in Dex and Str for gear, and max out Int. However, I was thinking of focusing more on Str for the increase in Physical damage which in turn, gets converted into %Elemental with Transmutation, but then again, Int boosts Elemental damage, so I guess either attribute will give the same damage per point? But then again, Rune Weapon increases intelligence, so investing into Int will scale better than Str. Str gives you the option to wear heavy gear which increases tankiness, but I guess this isn't needed with high health, pets, Energy Shield, and Sacred Rage.

To conclude my discussion, I have a few questions for you:

- With what weapon are you playing?
- Does Int provide the exact same damage buff as Str (with Transmutation)?
- Do you think Dex is important for DA?
- How much damage does Energy Shield absorb at 10/8 and the mana cost?

I look forward to your response.

EDIT: With Energy Shield I actually mean Energy Armour. (I'm still used to D2 LOD)

[Myrtillo]

-For now, I have a Bactrian Claw (hammer), with massive and lightning suff/aff, socketed with blade of thanatos, %atkspeed completion bonus. I am still at the point where flat bonuses give me a huge damage bonus, and I stacked a lot of +elemental on my equipement. Lightning % helps Dragon Strike
I did not test the throwing weapons yet, but I may get one for boss killing if dragon strike applies 5 times.
-I have absolutely no idea. And anyway, I only have 1 point in transmutation +3 from my items. however, with rune weapon more than doubling int scaling + all the rest of our damage being elemental, I would highly recommend to go for int, even with low level of transmutation. Might be even more true at high transmutation level.
- DA is only useful to avoid physical damage, and the energy armor makes me virtually immune to physical damage.
- 3076 damage absorbed, 1538 energy cost, toned down to 917 with my current gear

You don't need -%energy cost from nature because it doesn't affect the max cost, it is just a chance of proc. With saced Rage maxed and a couple of +%energy regen items, intelligence regen is insanely high

-80% build is cool, but requires a lot of high end gear, so hours of farming. The cdr given by sacred rage is enough to spam dragon, runes, and seal.
And I still basic attack a lot to keep the stacks of rune weapon. right now I am at 160% attack speed with a slow hammer :D

[pleasant_person]

Elemental conversion happens before strength and physical damage bonuses, and before pierce. It has the highest priority. I found that through personal testing and the devs posted recently. Strength doesn't affect the transmuted damage.

[diStrond]

Dear Djebe,

1) I did not consider this, but clubs such as your hammer are good for transmutation due to their high base damage potential and lack of Pierce. Stacking lighting or any other element is a great idea as well. Do you play dual wield or with a shield? The Reckless Offense is great since it provides +100% Total Damage, which I assume gets added to any +% modifier?

2) I agree, going for Int is much better and Sadist confirmed this as well.

3) A high Energy Armour makes DA indeed less of a priority and +Skills more, however, do you know how the mechanics work for incoming physical damage? Does absorbtion from Energy Armour taken into account first, and then DA, or the other way around? DA enables you to mitigate critical strikes against you and increases the chance to dodge attacks which effecively improves your HP and Energy Armour.

4) That is really good absorbtion, and to think it gets applied to pets as well!

Dear Sadist, thank you for explaining the disjointed relationship between strength and transmutation.

[jackvas1]

If you reach a high enough level, there is a purple set for the skinchanger: Guise Of The Horned God...Helm, chest armour, necklace and spear...statwise it is pretty defensive, covering most resistances for the character and more offensive for the pets (the spear alone adds 20% to total pet damage)...

[Migromul]

I started a runemaster, and played a long time with that alone. (until End Act II). Then I chose nature. My goal are the pets. Since Runemaster has no pets except of the stones, I wanted some permanent pets. I got my wolfs and they are better then one might've thought in Act III. (Somehow, they don't realy get hit, even my level one shield holds very long on them ) currently I have level 7 with them and one point in Maul. I will also get the Nymph sooner or later. Heart of oak is nice to have, too. (I have an amulett with +2 to that, so I skilled one point, yet.) But I don't prefer the risk-build of sacred rage. (It's nice to have, though). I'll skill the pets and oak of heart, eventually. But prefer some runemaster-skils first.

I'm a dual-thrower. There are VERY good throwing-weapons in the game. (both green and legendary.) The first I found is a double-blade with %-damage-bonus, very fast attack-speed and VOLLEY. (throwing 3 at once.) I found that 3 times... The base damage seems low (13-19) but since most of the time it's a volley-throw, you can trible the base-damage and the %-bonus scale with level-ups, so this is effective until act III, especially if you're lucky and can dual-wield it.

In contrast to warefare-dual-wield, the skill in runmaster is also used with throwing-weapons. This will speed up your main-attack-charge. (You'll attack 3 times instead of one with throwing, if it is used.)

Since Throwing-weapons have fast attack-speed (with average being the slowest, as far as I have seen), there is no need for the hunting-tree, if you're using this. They don't have the range of a bow or staff, but you can dual-wield these and Thunder-stike is a very good opener, which can decemate mob-crowds with the first attack.

I have all skills except the shield-skill (Item, not magic-skill) in runemaster, skilling the thermomenter of nature with the wolf-skills and Nymph eventually at the moment. If I die too often, then I consider heart of oak more. I don't know the scaling of the nymph-shield, but the first level is almost as high as the runemaster-shield (skill, not item ^^), being 78 at first level (80 is the runemaster-shield.) It also seems, that shield will absorb ALL damage. (at least, this is what the tooltip says. "damage", not "physical" and not "elemental" or something else, just "damage".) Of course, you can't control, when to cast that.

[Atomic Kid]

I went with the typical runesmith (rune+defense) rune:absorb+quick recovery pretty much caps blockrate (not 100% but close enough) and even when quick recovery is down just rune:absorb alone reduces that block cooldown a ton.

mage gear generally has large cooldown reduction in general so thunderstrike will be up a lot and if you can proc sacred rage then a lot of secondary skills will come back up fast...for runesmith that causes quick recovery, rally, even collous to come back really fast...for earth+rune they will prob get thier spells and stone skin back fast, and nature will prob get refresh back fast...

throwing weapons seem deigned for rune+most classes except defense cause it needs melee to get it shield passives to work...I do notice you do not need alot of str and you prob wont be able to equip the best shields in the game without too much into str except unless you are defense then you can lower the str req so much that the bets shields in the game become equipable without too much str though runesmith prob wants maces or axes (they do not want weapons with pierce as they wont have the pierce +% stacking like most pierce builds usually do and not as much dex...

rune:feather should be capped asap, you need the str req -%...that should be maxed at act1 normal...you badly need this or else you wont be able to equip better shields and the throwing axes (maces/axse for defense) so if you are playing runemaster you should start as runemaster and then add your 2ndry later and build like a hybrid statwise..

the best skill rune has is rune weapon...it makes up for having lower base int esp since all builds add to str and need dex as well to equip throwing axes (maces/reg axes for runesmith) you def have to build with that in mind or going runemaster is kinda pointless...going 1 str/1int then 1dex/1int helps until you have enough str for your weapon/shield then fixing your hp and dex and int later on...your int will still be higher then all other mage builds once the rune weapon stacks caps at 10-14 stacks...even my runesmith hits 1100 int once he hits just 10 stacks and his int normally is much lower then my storm or earth chars.

seeing how rune always has life leech without gear you should be enchanting it for elemental res -% or elemental damage to make other things hit harder...you do not need to do the life leech relic like most warrior builds do...seeing how runemaster will not give atk speed up you might also want to consider the relic completion bonus to be atk up speed +%...it def helped reach the cap on the stacks of rune weapon...

i'd prob avoid staves as they are really slow, cannot equip a shield, and for rune+int mastery you are too frail to do that and throwing weapons have good enough range to keep your distance and defense+rune has enough block+block time reduction to block basicially everything...runesmith has armor handling to equip even the lowest level purple warrior gear that only need 380-the low 400 str armor which helps a lot in surviviability....even the low tier warrior purples have the same def or slightly more then the best mage gear though mage gear genearlly has cooldown time -% and mp and resists...

i'd never start a fight without any rune stacks...it wont do a lot of damage if you dont have your int being boosted by rune weapon..also your spells like seal of fate or whatever is in your mage 2ndry if you are a dual mage build...it just wont do a lot of damage without the rune stacks built up so all fights should start out with you building rune stacks then using your spells (all warrior+runesmith should not even bother with seal of fate until the stacks are built up it wont do a lot of damage otherwise)

i did try the dual weild passive for awhile. it does work with melee and makes you build up stacks really fast with the dual wield tree from warfare but you die so fast that idk lol...rune:absorb even for mage and most def for defense+rune is so much better in so many cases. You block like crazy even without quick recovery and with that you reach close to 100% in both block chance and block recovery (you wont ever reach 100% due to the nerfs block got in aniverasry edtion i think it caps at 90% but still block is imo better then dual wielding...

lastly, the energy absorb spell seems to be simular to the sorcress energy shield spell...its useless for warrior+rune builds as it trades energy for hp (its basically the same spell as the sorcress tree) but mage builds who have narually high energy can make use of this spell and you can cast it on folloewrs and pets too so im guesing this can make nature wolves really tanky when they are normally dps pets who die to a slight breeze better and for earth+rune make their cordy ridiclously tanky..though you need a couple thousand energy to make it work cuase the mp cost at above the level cap of this spell gets ridicous but it does help mage+rune builds so much..defense already has the quick recovery+rune:absrob and higher block chances from focus so idk i think that build is fine survivbility wise.

the stones tree is 2 seperate skills, the weaker one is good distraction and can block arrows..it usually dies in 1 hit but it will prob stun the enemy that tryed to hit it, the 2nd one def avoid summoning it near a wall or in hallways as it wont summon all 3 stones unless there is room...the skill cooldown is setup with cooldown reduction in mind so the weaker one will be up a lot and the 2nd one is for boss fights and make sure to always get 3 stones by never placing them near a wall..since this is a skill sink normally i'd leave skillpoints low for this skill (maybe 1 point in each until you maxed your other skills?)

rune:mines imo is hard to use but is stronger if your 2ndry is storm due to it boosting ice damage and elemental damage...every other char it doesnt hit very hard at all so idk i just left it at 0 for my rune smith...it might be better if you are a storm 2ndry.

rune:explode is amazing in the early game act 1-3...after that it just falls off hard...the damage just wont keep up and the fragments wont work unless you use projectiles...i just removed all skillpoints from here once i reached act5...its just too weak later on and costs too many skillpoints. It def helped in the early game when you are still weak however.

seal of fate is your best spell and should be maxed...it hits like a truck with maxed rune weapon charges..aftershock is one of the best debuffs in the game and should be maxed before finishing normal at least..the -% resist hits close to -70% with a maxed aftershock and +4 all skills which is a massive dps boost...def max this skill out as its your best spell even if you go mage 2ndry and only spell if you are a warrior 2ndry..with plenty cooldown reduction or even sacred rage procing it'll come back really fast so once your rune weapon is capped stackwise this will hurt a lot and destroy their resistances...

thunderstike is your bread and butter and should always be on your right mouse button...even 1 point in base and 1 in addon is good...for melee it hits 2x for all enemies in front, and throwing weapon it throws 5 axes..the cooldown will be somewhat high until you get later in the game when mage gear comes with good cooldown and sacred rage procs a couple times...then thunderstrike will prob almost always be up...it wont do a lot of damage without rune weapon stacks but...for melee it gives you an aoe and throwing it helps a lot too...def get this asap and add 1 point to base and 1 to addon and maybe more points later on...

sacred rage is an amazing passive...if you have good life leech you can reach the 40% hp req then lifesteal back to full...really reduces cooldowns and gives good protection esp with the addon...you'll prob leave it at 1 point in base and 1 in addon until later...still a great passive imo...runesmith can really abause it too once he hits the block chance and block cooldown caps...all others can just use it to get their skills back faster and lifesteal back to full hp to not stay at low hp. or of course use a health potion which works too esp since this gives damage reduction and damage absorb and is reducing your cooldown timers on everything.