Caster end game boots (with no need for Resist or FHR)

I did some more offline testing with P8 throne and

Baal. This is for an ES

Nova sorc self-wielding Infinity.

Silkweaves make almost no difference in max buffed mana. It's like 2.9k vs. 3.0k. The MPK is theoretically helpful, but the cost is poison resistance, which my

Boots had.

The super poison in the throne room is noticeable if you get hit enough, even with Cure and

Prayer. I had about 50% poison res. I could have boosted that with small charms, but at a cost to life an mana. Overall, I'm not actually sure about the difference between silks and poison res

Boots for end game.

Seems like a bit of a wash, but I might lean slightly in favor of poison res

Boots just for the reduced nuisance, even with Cure.

Edit:

Eh, on second thought...

Mana was a bit higher with silks than with the other

Boots (which had energy on them). So I could lose a few mana charms in favor of PR charms and possibly max it, thus making silks better because of the MPK. Maybe I'm leaning silks, but it's not a slam dunk.

fredkid wrote: 1 year ago

fredkid wrote: 1 year ago

departure wrote: 1 year ago

Res of course doesn't help with mana damage.

Do

Energy Shield "absorb" damage before resistences are aplied??

Ex:
You have
80% dmg to mana from ES
50% resist

Take 1000 raw damage.

Do you lose 800 mana or 400 mana?

The answer is 800 according to skills/energy-shield-t4051.html / post3620206.html#p3620206

Aelanwyr wrote:

Energy Shield diverts its fraction of damage to the mana globe before [Magic] Damage Reduced by X, which is in turn applied before resistances. In practice, this means a sufficiently powerful

Energy Shield and a modestly large quantity of flat DRB and MDRB would ensure only poison damage is able to reach the health globe. This approach has the added benefit of mostly trivializing resistances other than poison, a noteworthy benefit in the era of Sunder Charms.

What make me think... Do Open Wounds and Crushing Blow bypass the

Energy Shield like Poison?
(I would say that the first yes, the second no... )

Hmm, excellent questions! I was speaking in the PvM context, where Open Wounds is not a consideration, but I would expect open wounds to bypass the shield as poison does, since both function by modifying the hidden health regen stat. As for Crushing Blow, while CB can be encountered in PvM, I've never heard of

Blunderbore being an especially dangerous enemy to an

Energy Shield user, and I don't have a reason to think Crushing Blow would be treated differently than any other source of physical damage.

Edit: having reviewed some old forum posts, there does seem to be a record of Open Wounds bypassing

Energy Shield. I have edited the quoted text to reflect this.

Edit 2: the Amazon Basin and some old forum posts about dueling suggest that Crushing Blow does bypass

Energy Shield.

I managed to get my hands on a 2/20 and +3

Nova

Ormus. So now my gear is:

Infinity

Scythe (-54)
2x soj

Ormus

Nova with facet
-24 griffons
arach

Magefist
sandstorm/silks
20 res anni, 20 res torch.

Ormus doesn't offer resistances, and my relatively inexpensive 2/20 has no resists to help out. So without treks I cannot max poison res without sacrificing a skiller. Alternatively I could

Sacrifice a skill at the soj position and get res from a 2/10 ammy and 10fcr ring.

To max poison res with treks, you still need some small charms, but not all of them. So some can be life/mana, making up for the silks a little. Ultimately you end up with a little less mana and a little more life to go treks, but with 75PR instead of 69PR.

So the question is, are you better of sacrificing 100ish life and 6PR to gain 100 mana and 5mpk? I honestly haven't figured out which is better.

I'm surprized no-one has pitched

Hotspur for casterboots?

It's not something I would typically go to (as meeting the conditons OP describes is kinda hard), but if (like OP) you're allready capped on both resistance and FHR-breakpoints (and have access to

Teleport) before you even put on

Boots it's something I'd consider for the +15 max fr-resist and 45 fr. Especially if, as claimed, you don't even need the mana from silks.

If you can't benefit from the +15 max fire resist (or don't need it),

Aldur's Advance is better than

Hotspur
About

Caster Boots I think people prefer other affix over the auto mods (and is pretty hard to get a crafted boot with 3 resists + frw)

fredkid wrote: 1 year ago

If you can't benefit from the +15 max fire resist (or don't need it),

Aldur's Advance is better than

Hotspur
About

Caster Boots I think people prefer other affix over the auto mods (and is pretty hard to get a crafted boot with 3 resists + frw)

You can allways need / benefit from 15 max fr. You can argue if it's worth it compared to other stats (like more MF / Life), but it's allways usefull.

(The only exceptions would be if you're allready at 95 fr and that is quite extreme. It's a condition that's very rarely satisified, and there is nothing in the original post suggesting that is the case for OP - quite the opposite I'd say.)

What I mean is that "max resist" don't increase your current resist per se, it only increase the max

Cap. So you need to have a total resist > 75 to benefit from it. If your total resist (including

Hotspur) is 75- your are not benefiting from max resist yet...

True, but OP said allready capped resistanse. That's the whole reasone why the classic rare (possibly tri-res)

Boots with resistance was out, and the question was raised to begin with.

Also, since

Hotspur comes with it's own +45 fr your resistance would have to be really poor to not be able to take advantage from the +15 max.

Yep you are right
(Forgot about the "already have max resist without

Boots" premisse....)

mhm. It's a rather tough premisse to meet.

As I said I don't typically go to

Hotspur myself, for my casters, and that's precicly because I rarely meet that premisse.
If I'm working within that premisse however, I tought they should be considered.

I've only ever met the premisse once, and that was on my

Tornado-druid (due to his "odd" breakpoints compared to other casters).

I'm using:
Full Tal Rasha's Wrappings + Spirit +

Annihilus +

Hellfire Torch
they almost complete the resists (even with

Crack of the Heavens)

https://maxroll.gg/d2/d2planner/81eb601a

More on sandstorm vs. silks.

With a full stash of skillers, an anni, and a torch, and if you hold a

Key, you get 8 small charms.

My poison res on my ES

Nova sorc before those 8 is -30 (20 from anni and torch). The only real option to obtain poison res is at the amulet and the

Boots. My amulet is a 2/20 and I'm not trying to buy one with poison res. Which means it's just

Boots.

Max poison res on a s/c 11, so you get 88 poison res max from the 8 charms putting you at 58PR. If you drop keys you could hit 69. Honestly at 58 it's somewhat marginal. I get good

Prayer from the merc (CoH) and Cure cuts out poison pretty fast, so it is livable.

At the moment, I'm running silks because of this. There might be some room here for the best end game

Boots for an ES

Nova sorc being

Caster Boots with poison res roll.

I'm still waffling on sandstorm vs silks for ES

Nova over a year later.

Mostly I run silks, because I have PR small charms. But lately I've been considering 17/20 mana/life small charms as an alternative to PR/life small charms. It turns out that if you go to mana/life small charms over PR small charms you can raise your life, mana, and PR by going to treks over silks. The only thing you drop is MPK. But is it worth it?

Example stats for the same character:

Treks with perfect mana/life SCs:
Life: 1255
Mana: 2697
PR: 62%

Silks with perfect PR/life SCs:
Life: 1225
Mana: 2577
PR: 58%
5 MPK

Give up 30 life and 120 mana for 5mpk? The difference in mana regeneration is 10 mana per second. So if you're killing more than 2 per second it's better to go silks.

I guess in a perfect world you go silks and swap out your small charms depending on the area. That's probably more trouble than it's worth. Another avenue is just to carry antidotes or to drink a few at the start of every run.

Edit:

God-Tier Crafted

Boots with mix of SCs:
LIfe: 1225
Mana: 2776
PR: 65%

The difference in mana regen is 20 mana per second. So it's 4 kills per second to break even between silks and the literal best crafted

Boots.

departure wrote: 3 weeks ago

I guess in a perfect world you go silks and swap out your small charms depending on the area. That's probably more trouble than it's worth. Another avenue is just to carry antidotes or to drink a few at the start of every run.

Have you considered giving your Merc a Cure

Helm?

Cleansing Aura does wonders when poisoned.

Knappogue wrote: 3 weeks ago

Have you considered giving your Merc a Cure

Helm?

Cleansing Aura does wonders when poisoned.

Oh yea, I have definitely done that. Super poison can still take you down though as a

Nova sorc. Even with a good

Prayer from the merc. That's especially true if you're sitting at 0 or negative poison res, which is kinda where you naturally sit if you optimize for mana and damage.

departure wrote: 3 weeks ago

Knappogue wrote: 3 weeks ago

Have you considered giving your Merc a Cure

Helm?

Cleansing Aura does wonders when poisoned.

Oh yea, I have definitely done that. Super poison can still take you down though as a

Nova sorc. Even with a good

Prayer from the merc. That's especially true if you're sitting at 0 or negative poison res, which is kinda where you naturally sit if you optimize for mana and damage.

Even with Cure + Insight +

Prayer? I'm using treks and I've got zero mana issues.

Edit:
I didn't realize I was so active in this thread a year ago. I just reread. My build hasn't changed much. Self wield Infinity es

Nova with treks. Max poison res and ~+5 res for rest. Cta on swap and +9 ES staff for double pre-buff on P8 games. No mana or res issues.

Knappogue wrote: 3 weeks ago

departure wrote: 3 weeks ago

Knappogue wrote: 3 weeks ago

Have you considered giving your Merc a Cure

Helm?

Cleansing Aura does wonders when poisoned.

Oh yea, I have definitely done that. Super poison can still take you down though as a

Nova sorc. Even with a good

Prayer from the merc. That's especially true if you're sitting at 0 or negative poison res, which is kinda where you naturally sit if you optimize for mana and damage.

Even with Cure + Insight +

Prayer? I'm using treks and I've got zero mana issues.

Edit:
I didn't realize I was so active in this thread a year ago. I just reread. My build hasn't changed much. Self wield Infinity es

Nova with treks. Max poison res and ~+5 res for rest. Cta on swap and +9 ES staff for double pre-buff on P8 games. No mana or res issues.

Interesting thread, I am reading all of this for the first time.
I also have an Infinity-self-wielding

Nova-ES sorc. The merc is carrying Insight with L17

Meditation aura.

With

Battle Orders active, she has 2870 mana.
L17

Meditation aura grants +700% mana regeneration.
L11

Warmth (base level 1 + 10 from items) grants another +150% mana regeneration.
25% come from

Magefist.
Total mana regeneration is therefore 975% (100% base + 700% + 150% + 25%).

2870 mana * 975% / 120 = 233 mana regenerated per second.
First time I calculated this and I am somewhat disappointed, thought it was closer to 400 per second.
Still, this is what this build is all about: Damage received goes to mana, mana regeneration is incredibly high. Godmode on

Now for Silkweaves: The extra 10% to base mana would increase my total mana to 3000. No big deal.
5 mana per kill does basically nothing when the regen is already that high. If I kill 2 monsters, the regen in that second goes from 233 to 243...

For me, Sandstrom Treks are the obvious choice for the much needed poison res, as well the vitality, strength, FHR.

But I wonder how you get your lightning resistance above zero. Do you use a sunder charm? My lightning resistance is at negative 53%. Usually no problem, because of

Energy Shield. But I'd like to improve it for the rare cases where souls bring my shield down.

Knappogue wrote: 3 weeks ago

Even with Cure + Insight +

Prayer? I'm using treks and I've got zero mana issues.

Edit:
I didn't realize I was so active in this thread a year ago. I just reread. My build hasn't changed much. Self wield Infinity es

Nova with treks. Max poison res and ~+5 res for rest. Cta on swap and +9 ES staff for double pre-buff on P8 games. No mana or res issues.

Mostly I'm playing offline theses days, have been for the last year or so. Here's my gear:

Level 99 Offline ES

Nova:
Perf griffons with 5/5
2/20 ammy with no poison res

Nova

Ormus with 5/5
-54 Infinity

Scythe
mage
arach
double SOJ

Silkweave
3xskillers with life, 4x skillers without, sunder, mid-grade anni, good torch. 8x 11% PR small charms, some of which have life,

Key, cube.
Offhand is cta sword and lidless. I use a 9ES staff for prebuff.
Merc - Insight

Eth

Thresher with 17

Meditation, superior

Eth elite Cure,

Eth CoH.

She's OP and has no issues with anything p7 basically. But that does not stop me from optimizing. At the moment I'm farming TZs for grand charms and gems and all I ever do is reroll grand charms hoping for another life lit skiller, and save up for crafted amulets hoping for a 2/20 with poison res. (I do look for a couple of other things, 40/15 jewels for my bowazon, res/

Teleport ammys for my smiter, and res/life SCs for him as well).

The question is what is best. Once I get my last lit life skiller, I'll move to re-rolling small charms and farm elsewhere (then it's using up all my H keys to see what torches fall, then it's farming andy until I get a 20/20 anni, then it's basically look for something else to do). The question I'm asking myself for that phase of the game (which might take me another year to get to) is am I looking for 11/20 PR/life SCs? Or am I looking for 17/20 mana/life SCs? Or a combination of both? Obviously I can find these now as well.

I can map out the build two ways. One is with treks and mana/life SCs, and the other is with silks and PR/life SCs. I guess it's really three ways if you include crafted

Boots. Treks come out slightly favorable but at the cost of 5mpk, and the MPK is noticeable. I can actually see it do its thing when I'm playing. At the moment I prefer silks between the two. I've tried both ways.

I have a couple of 99 sorcs, and I may spec one out for nilathak

Key runs just to keep life slightly over mana to avoid the blood is mana curse. And for that character I'm almost certainly going to have to bump poison res in some fashion, because super poison is a thing on that map.

FacelessVoid wrote: 3 weeks ago

Interesting thread, I am reading all of this for the first time.
I also have an Infinity-self-wielding

Nova-ES sorc. The merc is carrying Insight with L17

Meditation aura.

With

Battle Orders active, she has 2870 mana.
L17

Meditation aura grants +700% mana regeneration.
L11

Warmth (base level 1 + 10 from items) grants another +150% mana regeneration.
25% come from

Magefist.
Total mana regeneration is therefore 975% (100% base + 700% + 150% + 25%).

2870 mana * 975% / 120 = 233 mana regenerated per second.
First time I calculated this and I am somewhat disappointed, thought it was closer to 400 per second.
Still, this is what this build is all about: Damage received goes to mana, mana regeneration is incredibly high. Godmode on

Now for Silkweaves: The extra 10% to base mana would increase my total mana to 3000. No big deal.
5 mana per kill does basically nothing when the regen is already that high. If I kill 2 monsters, the regen in that second goes from 233 to 243...

For me, Sandstrom Treks are the obvious choice for the much needed poison res, as well the vitality, strength, FHR.

But I wonder how you get your lightning resistance above zero. Do you use a sunder charm? My lightning resistance is at negative 53%. Usually no problem, because of

Energy Shield. But I'd like to improve it for the rare cases where souls bring my shield down.

I just let my lit res sit at negative whatever it is and let the

Energy Shield handle it. Boosting your mana to 3000 is probably one of the most effective ways to protect against souls. The cost to get insane mana is less than the cost to get lit res. If your shield goes down it's not just lightning that you should be concerned about, it's everything. You'll have very little life and you're vulnerable to every kind of damage.

departure wrote: 3 weeks ago

If your shield goes down it's not just lightning that you should be concerned about, it's everything. You'll have very little life and you're vulnerable to every kind of damage.

Very true, but comparing 75% res vs, say, -25% res in case ES does go down, is like night and day, it's a 5x damage difference. So if your

Energy Shield goes down, having maxed resistances means you actually have a chance of survival. Having negative resistances at that point means you pretty much instantly melt because whatever drained your ES is still alive and still damaging you. Is it worth sacrificing some damage output for resistances? Well, that's up to each and every one to decide for themselves, of course.