Heavy Attack builds dead?

gamerguy757

So I’m seeing mixed things on YouTube about the future of HA builds after the new patch.
Some say it kills everything and some say it’s not really a big deal.
I’m asking bc I literally FINALLY got the final piece after farming a dungeon (didn’t hVe it in the book yet) and already spent the crystals to reconstruct everything else.
Right now I use a mag blade with inferno staff for my main dps so not sure what to do next.

jaws343

Single Target damage will likely be a little higher. So on dummy parses and single target fights, shouldn't really see a difference, or maybe a slight buff, depending on how your build is setup.

AOE cleave is a nerf. So in encounters where there are a lot of adds, or multiple bosses, the AOE from the lightning tri-focus will only apply on the final tick. So you will lose the sustained AOE damage from that.

Depending on the build, most of your AOE skills are likely DOTs so they shouldn't see much difference. But the Tri-Focus nerf will see an overall AOE nerf.

Necrotech_Master

for your typical lightning staff heavy attack build, i think the only major change is to the trifocus passive, so that the 100% splash dmg will only apply on the final tick of the heavy instead of all 3 hits of dmg (2 channeled + 1 final tick)

a different change for the lightning staff is increasing the dmg of channels, which would include those 2 ticks before the final one

the end result of this is that the HA setup will still be good single target, but have a bit less aoe output since only the final tick can get the trifocus splash dmg bonus

fire staff was not a really common thing to use for HA setups anyway

anytime anyone says a build is dead in those videos is likely overexaggerating and trying to get clickbait

gamerguy757

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

for your typical lightning staff heavy attack build, i think the only major change is to the trifocus passive, so that the 100% splash dmg will only apply on the final tick of the heavy instead of all 3 hits of dmg (2 channeled + 1 final tick)

a different change for the lightning staff is increasing the dmg of channels, which would include those 2 ticks before the final one

the end result of this is that the HA setup will still be good single target, but have a bit less aoe output since only the final tick can get the trifocus splash dmg bonus

fire staff was not a really common thing to use for HA setups anyway

anytime anyone says a build is dead in those videos is likely overexaggerating and trying to get clickbait

So can’t most DPS build be considered single target? I mean you lay down your AoEs,
Then do rotation until adds and boss are down. Isn’t that kind of the same thing?

Necrotech_Master

gamerguy757 wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

for your typical lightning staff heavy attack build, i think the only major change is to the trifocus passive, so that the 100% splash dmg will only apply on the final tick of the heavy instead of all 3 hits of dmg (2 channeled + 1 final tick)

a different change for the lightning staff is increasing the dmg of channels, which would include those 2 ticks before the final one

the end result of this is that the HA setup will still be good single target, but have a bit less aoe output since only the final tick can get the trifocus splash dmg bonus

fire staff was not a really common thing to use for HA setups anyway

anytime anyone says a build is dead in those videos is likely overexaggerating and trying to get clickbait

So can’t most DPS build be considered single target? I mean you lay down your AoEs,
Then do rotation until adds and boss are down. Isn’t that kind of the same thing?

well a lot of the power that the lightning staff HA build gets right now is because all of the dmg from the HA is splashed, and that staff triple dips on HA sets (so both channeled ticks and final tick get the dmg boosts)

in a single target fight, the dmg is likely going to stay roughly the same, if your looking at a large group of enemy, they might melt slower now with only 1 of the 3 ticks of dmg from the heavy doing the splash (though it is the strongest one that will splash)

your rotation and such shouldnt really have to change though, you might just notice the adds doe a little slower if your HA is only primarily targeting the boss