Storm - Lightning Bolt and Spell Breaker how good in Legendary

[slayor3000]

As it says how good/effective is Lightning bolt + synergy in Legendary when dealing damage to mobs. Not concerned with bosses.
How good/effective is Spell Breaker + Synergy dealing damage to magical, especially the pesky lot from the Dark Lands up to Surtr.

Picked up a Sentinels Crystal Ring and while playing my Warden started to put together a build for a Paladin (never played one before). Love Defense, but Storm I know little about (I have played but not a lot).
I am NOT bothered with Squall, as my build will have long range covered. Nor am I bothered with Ice Shard. This is mainly a strength/ dexterity build, if I need more int will use rings etc.

This is about Legendary effectiveness, need to know before I park my Warden close to Changan, Epic, 0 deaths.

[redgreen999]

I'm lvl 54 just at Elysium WP in Epic, so can't say yet regarding damage. I'm sure someone will come along that has used these in Leg soon. I'll just say that I have Thunderball and Lightning Bolt for the stun if nothing else. TB has 3.8 sec stung atm and LB has 1.0 second. I have Thunderstrike from a weapon that has 0.2-0.6 seconds stun. Wearing a ring that adds 60% to stun length is awesome. However may not be able to wear that ring in Leg as I might need more resists.

Now my stun length should go down in Leg but even if its 1/3rd of that it will be enough. Someone else will have to speak about the damage from it.

As far as Spell Breaker. I used that earlier and took my points out because I have as many skills now as I generally use and its more of a specific type of skill. It worked well in epic though, I just like the stun as I am a mostly melee Sage. Really I get half my damage though from the Lightning skills.

I use Lightning dash skill for my left mouse. It is awesome as I zip from monster to monster every 0.6 seconds. Just enough to hit everything once if I am waiting for my boss skills to recharge. With this build having so many skills in use, I don't really have to wait for something to be available. Fighting with a spear of course, using take down, but that probably gets the least use of my skills.

The stun should really work well with Warden. Hopefully someone else can comment on the how many hits of lightning takes out mobs in Leg. Then also someone can add about Spell Break.

[slayor3000]

Hi
Thanks for input.
Actually this will be for a Paladin. I am parking my Warden to start this build.
The stun part sounds great as I will try to boost my "slow" skills as well. Theory Crafting is ok, the real thing, well......we will see.

I am really interested to know how Spell Breaker affects epic/legendary magic monsters. The run from Dark Lands through to Wodan (Valkyries etc) and through Surtrs Palace is full of magical's and they can be a pain to get rid of.

[redgreen999]

I'm in Epic Asgard now. I used Spell Breaker with +3 points in each of its skill levels. I only have about 275 INT at the moment. I have +3 skills in study prey, both levels as well. Don't think Study impacts this. Didn't try squall. SB against alfheim archers takes about 1/3rd of life on each hit and about 45% mana.

Spell Breaker vs those winged Valkryies did about 1/8th damage of total life and maybe 1/5th mana drain. Very poorly here and only in Epic. I had SB as my right button skill for this. Quickly had to rely on melee skills to survive.

Honestly, I generally run through all of Asgard until the lady in the prison. The fights are hard and the XP given is very low.

Granted my test isn't that scientific. I didn't have the damage display on, so can't give HP damage, just estimate of total % life. Melee was doing better vs both archers and Valkryries by far. I don't know if more INT helps Spell Breaker, cause mine is low. I also wear nothing that would help SB.

[slayor3000]

Thanks for the feedback.
Sounds disappointing. Valkyries are the only ones I like to farm, just for the boots. They can have some great affixes to go along with the +1 skills and 3 to 7 hp regeneration they give. 404 armour in epic.

Just started a Defender character to turn into a Paladin, so it will be a little time till I get there, will have to try some energy leech etc rings with it.
Warden I was playing parked just before Typhon, think I will have to gift it some gear (worse drops ever with this build) , as its starting to feel like a pin cushion.

[nickita.malkov]

it's a pity that you think so about squall. This is one of the best skills. Everyone should take it. You think shield save you? Partly. Squall is very effective against flying projectiles. His addition have reduced resistance/damage. And all this 1 sec kdr without things with kdr. I don't understand how you can not appreciate it. Spell breaker undoubtedly usefull skill. Lightning Bolt useless if you go in strenght.
But there is a trick. Y may take concussive blow and you any stun attack will be more effective. But this will only work with club or axe.

[slayor3000]

I actually prefer throw weapons and shield.
Why?
By mid to late Epic.
Can get enough CDR from 2 or 3 items to have quick recovery on 100% of the time. Even with the cap on shield recovery it will only be down between .5 to 1 sec. Shields stop all damage even ranged and AOE.
Armour Handling maxed plus item means armour absorption could be capped, in reality a Defender with a 400 armour rating is as good as 600 to any one else (gives more choice of armour as well). Decent resistances and who cares about archers!

Rally on constantly, do not have to worry so much about elemental resistances, still need them but not so much.
Adrenaline will process constantly, Storm Surge should process quite often.
If I have enough points/ +skills, the way I have used Squall in the past is not for archers etc but I lay it at my feet for the reduced resistances.

I was really hoping Spell Breaker etc would deal with magical's better, playing mostly defence my damage output suffers. Last character I had go through there I used a Munnin's grasp Technique - Have Munnin's grasp in second slot. When mobbed use Munnin's Grasp Static Charge -it immobilizes for 4 seconds, change weapon and kill them. Run around for 2 seconds, rinse and repeat.

[nickita.malkov]

Throw+shield so so if you have defense. Shield its a weapon. You have skils to hit them. You lose a lot of damage using throwing. And... shield not block AOE. Can try stay near Dactyl/Hades etc. Armor. Uff it's not what it's worth hoping for. It is much more important to have convert to health. by the way with shield you convert will be better. Because the shield hits multiple targets.

[slayor3000]

Well everyones opinion.
Mine is - shield passives only process a percent of the time. To have all shield passives its 18 points not including Batter. A lot of points to use for something that might process.

A lot of Epic/ Legendary throws are not only fast and do good damage. Kill from a distance and actually make decent melee. They usually have a high CDR and a lot of affixes.
Ever in trouble, change to secondary weapon "The Crow" gives 50% extra DA.

I have an Amulet which I have used on builds which gives 17% Adcth and usually go for an Artifact that gives AdctH 9 or 10%.

I always attack Dactyls etc from up close so they cannot use their aoe, do not have that much of a problem with them.

A long time ago I saw a very complicated equation which showed how much of an Aoe attack would be stopped by a shield. Would not block all just a portion. Might try to remember where I saw it.

[slayor3000]

I take back what I said about Aoe's, I believe I am going back before AE times when you could build virtually unkillable toons.
Then they changed quite a few things, putting in caps on certain skills etc. And as one of the changelogs quotes : "- Defensive Ability greatly exceeding the attacker's Offensive Ability yields diminishing returns".

[redgreen999]

Originally posted by slayor3000:

And as one of the changelogs quotes : "- Defensive Ability greatly exceeding the attacker's Offensive Ability yields diminishing returns".

I have noticed that. I think about 1400 DA is the top of the effective amount. I've tested 1600- 2000 DA and didn't notice any change from 1400. Going from 1000 to 1,400 DA is a nice improvement though. I'm talking about in legendary here. I sometimes peak early in Epic with 1300 DA and am almost unhittable then.

[slayor3000]

Yep so true.
Having played since the beginning (2006) I used to be able to know what to have to be "unhittable", which was 500/900/1400 for normal/epic/legendary and 2000+ DA was "invincible" in Legendary, which is why so many peoples favourite build was Haruspex.