Reducing enemy lightning res for Java

I have a Griff, a

Stormshield, and a

Thunderstroke. Is it worth putting a 3/3 to 5/5 lightning facet in each? Theoretically I could have -25 on griff, -20 on

Thunderstroke, and a -5 on my shield resulting in -50. Assuming I don’t have GG I can get to like -40. Is this excessive? Would I be better off throwing an

Ist in something for MF? Or adding IAS or resistance? What is the preferred method?

Right now I’m wearing Cat’s Eye, Wealth (upgrading to COH as soon as I get another

Sur/

Lo), Alder’s

Boots (upgrading to War Travelers when I get COH), Thunder God’s

Belt, Craft Java Gloves w 20ias, and a

Nagelring/

Raven Frost. I have FHR/life charms for days and am using passive/magic charms rn to up my

Pierce instead of razor tail, until I can afford Java GCs for days. I’m lacking some obvious survivability right now but am only level 77. Curious on thoughts as to how most people do this build.

I could also theoretically get titan’s revenge and end up at -30ish

Generally, as a Java you'd have an Infinity merc which puts you at -85 off the bat. Add even a minimum-roll Griffon to that and any non-resistant mob is already at -100.

And since -100 is the

Cap, there's no reason to use facets to get beyond that.

The exception to that rule is that lightning immunes and light resist mobs will not yet be at -100. Immunes especially still leave a lot of room for improvement because the Infinity -res will only take a measly few percentage points beyond breaking the immunity.

So really, it boils down to where you farm and how many immunes you actually see along the way. Personally, I'd say don't bother if you just farm cows. If you farm CS and such, it starts to be a different story though.

Also, keep in mind that you can't socket javelins. So you won't get any facet into your

Thunderstroke/Titan's.



Side note:
Ignoring the -res part, you do still get 5% dmg increase from the facets which is always worth it in and by itself. For that, it boils down to what you give up for it. So whether or not that is the better choice depends on the rest of your gear.

Where do you farm?

First step is merc's Infinity - without it, any java is incomplete. After that - there are

Thunderstroke, griffon, possibly facetted shield, and jewelers life armor - when you are rich enough. But Infinity is top priority

Depends.... you don't necessarily need Infinity or TS when running cows. In fact, its almost impossible to use TS for cows... You'll need 3 sets of

Eth titans for successful cow running. Def need to dump the

Stormshield ASAP. I would also

Baal run until I hit mid 80's.

Dump storm shield for what? Spirit?

I think when I respec I likely will (just started this character over the weekend) the Str req to get there is such a waste. And same with dexterity for

Thunderstroke. I see that Infinity is only -45-55 based on roll. Where is the -85 for Infinity right off the bat?

Oh

Conviction aura at level 12 is -85 to all resistances. So does the lightning res not stack on that? Does that lightning resistance apply to only the mercenary or to me as well? How much lightning resistance can an enemy theoretically have (not including Ubers)? Is griff really then mostly used for the + lightning damage?

+lightning damage does very little (griffon and facets)
If

Conviction breaks lightning immune your still going to do very little damage. The - resistance on griffons and facets come in at that point and help out.

Also the - enemy light resistance on Infinity only works for who wears it. So it only works for you if you equip it.
When you put it on your merc you don't get that, but so get the aura

So you really need Griff and Infinity on a Merc if you wanna run cows. Does the -15 on Tstroke work until that point or is it still a waste

It should.
I'm a lightning sorc, with no exp as a Java though, so I could be wrong. But I know there is crescent thats like -35 that sorceresses use (i havnt tried it though)

Imabucket wrote: 2 years ago

So you really need Griff and Infinity on a Merc if you wanna run cows. Does the -15 on Tstroke work until that point or is it still a waste

Well, "need" is a very relative term here.
Java dmg is stupidly high if you know how to position/group cows. You can farm them perfectly fine without any -res. All it does is speed up something that is already stupidly fast if done right.

Starting with no -res or extra light dmg, Infinity is basically a flat 85% more damage (not counting the minor physical bits from initial hits but those hardly matter).
Griffon at that same starting point would be between 26.5 and 38% damage (combining the ed and -res gain).
If you already have your Infinity, Griffon goes down to "only" adding a relative ~19-25%.

Obviously, all of those gains are still significant. No arguing that. But honestly, they can largely be considered overkill. You can farm just fine without either. You can farm very well with just Griffon. You can farm extremely well with just Infinity (assuming you have an Enigma to position your merc correctly). And combining both, Infinity and Griffon's is really just a luxury addition that is in no way really necessary.

(The above is specifically referring to "normal" mobs and not to potential boss packs with light res/immunity..for those, you may want more but you can just as well choose to ignore them or spend the 2 seconds jabbing them down instead)

This all helps a lot. I appreciate the responses!

Lemme break it down for you.

Helm: griffon's with the lightening res as close to 20 as possible. Socket with a 15ias/30+ dmg jewel

Weapon: 3 sets

Eth titans as high as you can get. but you don't need perf 170-180 range.

Shield: 4 socket

Monarch with 5/4 lightning jewels 5/5 too expensive right now....

Armor: Enigma in whatever elite base

Belt:

Razortail

Rings: Both need mana leech + whatever

Amulet: highlords Wrath

Gloves: 3/20 javazon

Boots: Perfect Nats


Off hand- wizard spike and Spirit to

Teleport.

inventory: 6 javazon charms and 6 frw small charms


Merc: people will argue this one, They'll swear you need Infinity. personally, i like to run faster so i use a rogue with Delirium and Harmony bow. again, personal preference on that one.




One huge caveat.....
It's really hard to find good P8 cow runs right now. Everyone has godly builds now and it's a pissing contest to see who can kill the fastest. Once the portal is made, you got like 15 seconds to kill and then the whole thing is over. It's starting to be a waste of time for me. Sometimes I dont even pickup a single item.

I cant comment on farming other places since I primarily use cows to find runes, charms, jewels

Schnorki wrote: 2 years ago

Imabucket wrote: 2 years ago

So you really need Griff and Infinity on a Merc if you wanna run cows. Does the -15 on Tstroke work until that point or is it still a waste

Obviously, all of those gains are still significant. No arguing that. But honestly, they can largely be considered overkill. You can farm just fine without either. You can farm very well with just Griffon. You can farm extremely well with just Infinity (assuming you have an Enigma to position your merc correctly). And combining both, Infinity and Griffon's is really just a luxury addition that is in no way really necessary.

To some extent,

Griffon's Eye and Infinity for players 1 cows certainly is overkill. I farmed cows (players 1) very efficiently using just a lightning-faceted Andariels visage, a lightning-faceted

Stormshield, and a Lightning-faceted Vipermagi. (I still have all three of those items just collecting dust right now if anyone's interested, in fact.)

I also agree that Infinity without Enigma is totally wasted. Even with Engima, half or more of the cows die so fast or so far off screen that they never get the chance to get

Conviction applied to them. But without Enigma, I'd say that you're better off just running your merc with an Insight (for players 1 cows, at least).

dilbert383 wrote: 2 years ago

Merc: people will argue this one, They'll swear you need Infinity. personally, i like to run faster so i use a rogue with Delirium and Harmony bow. again, personal preference on that one.

Thanks for the interesting input - I tried and switched to a rogue merc with Harmony solely for the love of frw and I like it. Overall speed isnt worse, in fact it feels smoother and leads at least to a slightly different playstyle. (Don't like it, how Ismael's tearing up the cow crowd or got himself crowded and insta killed.)

Have to activate

Valkyrie though for the tougher bosses, which annoys me with her constant and far too loud MOANING. Blizz has to fix this!