A new appreciation for Faith

Schnorki wrote: 3 months ago

IIFOXII wrote: 3 months ago

I think you have both setups with bis equipment.
Which one would you personally prefer right now, and why?
[..]

Honestly, I'm not truly happy with either right now.
[..]

Schnorki wrote: 2 months ago

Schnorki wrote: 3 months ago

IIFOXII wrote: 3 months ago

I think you have both setups with bis equipment.
Which one would you personally prefer right now, and why?
[..]

Honestly, I'm not truly happy with either right now.
[..]

Alright, after way too much theorycrafting, number crunching and playtesting, me thinks that response needs to be revised.
Absolutely happy now,

Windforce is back and better than ever! Finally get to have my cake and eat it, too!
(Took some serious iterating though..and one insanely helpful random dude who was actually able to hook me up with every still missing piece for my live zon in 1 trade to finish getting her re-worked)

brownSys wrote: 1 month ago

[..]
Can you share your

Windforce build with Stone?

I currently have a 120ias

Windforce zon that's just about BIS in everyway. I just got a killer protectors Stone with -10 /48ed that I'm thinking of putting in a

Windforce. A little nervous since the Stone is so valuable.

Do you think it's worth it? How did you deal with loosing 15ias on

Windforce? I'm thinking of using Hustle on switch to make up that 15ias, but I'm going to miss having Harmony on switch.

brownSys wrote: 1 month ago

Can you share your

Windforce build with Stone?

Schnorki wrote: 3 months ago

Those who have been around for a while and read through the occasional Amazon topic here might recall that I tend to be on the "die hard

Windforce side" of things. But I figured let me depart from that for a minute and give some credit where credit is due.

For one,

Protector's Stone has very much shifted the eternal debate between WF and Faith from "matter of taste, they're too close to ever get a clear winner" to what in every new top-end variation I can come up with so far typically results in "Faith now wins by a decent margin in the all-rounder builds, at least/especially when focusing on multi shot" and "WF utterly crushes Faith in full-on dmg, pure dex builds, especially for

Strafe". Which makes sense I guess, seeing how Faith has a far easier time squeezing in a Stone without giving up too many other things but WF benefits far more from it when you do fit it in as it becomes pure weapon dmg (which then gets further amplified by the extra dex-ed in full dex builds).

For another, theorycrafting aside, the chronicle had me make a new Faith anyways so I figured might as well give the reality of it a go and do some proper shard running with it.

To no surprise, much like WF before it, it completely annihilates any TZ96 mobs that dare stand in range. With the only obvious exception being some higher tier heralds though even those largely drop disturbingly fast to a bowzon. And off-screen if you have the room.

What did surprise me though and I guess what I'm making this post to give some credit for is that I noticed something that I never noticed before as pre-

Herald, mobs just fell over dead too fast for it to ever become a factor:
Those undead Bobs Faith summons are actually crazy good tanks. Just multi-shotting down the adds around a

Herald tends to pop up a handful of them and as it turns out, they can actually full on

Swarm and face tank most T5 heralds:

image.png

Only came up against 2 heralds that didn't get "Faith swarmed". One because I got unlucky and not a single one got spawned off the adds. And one that actually rolled so much dmg that it did finally manage to chew through them.

But those two aside, can't help but be genuinely surprised by how good they are at keeping heralds busy so you can shred them in Peace.

Given, I'm still trying to figure out a better way to get WF back into all-rounder builds as well and really the only reason WF doesn't crush Faith across the board with a Stone is that A1 mercs utterly fail at staying in fana range if you try to use those on a proper build but hey, that's a separate topic.

varangium wrote: 4 hours ago

Schnorki wrote: 3 months ago

Those who have been around for a while and read through the occasional Amazon topic here might recall that I tend to be on the "die hard

Windforce side" of things. But I figured let me depart from that for a minute and give some credit where credit is due.

For one,

Protector's Stone has very much shifted the eternal debate between WF and Faith from "matter of taste, they're too close to ever get a clear winner" to what in every new top-end variation I can come up with so far typically results in "Faith now wins by a decent margin in the all-rounder builds, at least/especially when focusing on multi shot" and "WF utterly crushes Faith in full-on dmg, pure dex builds, especially for

Strafe". Which makes sense I guess, seeing how Faith has a far easier time squeezing in a Stone without giving up too many other things but WF benefits far more from it when you do fit it in as it becomes pure weapon dmg (which then gets further amplified by the extra dex-ed in full dex builds).

For another, theorycrafting aside, the chronicle had me make a new Faith anyways so I figured might as well give the reality of it a go and do some proper shard running with it.

To no surprise, much like WF before it, it completely annihilates any TZ96 mobs that dare stand in range. With the only obvious exception being some higher tier heralds though even those largely drop disturbingly fast to a bowzon. And off-screen if you have the room.

What did surprise me though and I guess what I'm making this post to give some credit for is that I noticed something that I never noticed before as pre-

Herald, mobs just fell over dead too fast for it to ever become a factor:
Those undead Bobs Faith summons are actually crazy good tanks. Just multi-shotting down the adds around a

Herald tends to pop up a handful of them and as it turns out, they can actually full on

Swarm and face tank most T5 heralds:

image.png

Only came up against 2 heralds that didn't get "Faith swarmed". One because I got unlucky and not a single one got spawned off the adds. And one that actually rolled so much dmg that it did finally manage to chew through them.

But those two aside, can't help but be genuinely surprised by how good they are at keeping heralds busy so you can shred them in Peace.

Given, I'm still trying to figure out a better way to get WF back into all-rounder builds as well and really the only reason WF doesn't crush Faith across the board with a Stone is that A1 mercs utterly fail at staying in fana range if you try to use those on a proper build but hey, that's a separate topic.

Question - why do people always pair the bowazon with an act 1 merc? I mean I like the feeling of it - all bow / ranged. But wouldn’t an act 2 might merc with Pride/

Concentration be more effective, especially if running Faith/

Fanaticism on the main?

Schnorki wrote: 4 hours ago

varangium wrote: 4 hours ago

Schnorki wrote: 3 months ago

Those who have been around for a while and read through the occasional Amazon topic here might recall that I tend to be on the "die hard

Windforce side" of things. But I figured let me depart from that for a minute and give some credit where credit is due.

For one,

Protector's Stone has very much shifted the eternal debate between WF and Faith from "matter of taste, they're too close to ever get a clear winner" to what in every new top-end variation I can come up with so far typically results in "Faith now wins by a decent margin in the all-rounder builds, at least/especially when focusing on multi shot" and "WF utterly crushes Faith in full-on dmg, pure dex builds, especially for

Strafe". Which makes sense I guess, seeing how Faith has a far easier time squeezing in a Stone without giving up too many other things but WF benefits far more from it when you do fit it in as it becomes pure weapon dmg (which then gets further amplified by the extra dex-ed in full dex builds).

For another, theorycrafting aside, the chronicle had me make a new Faith anyways so I figured might as well give the reality of it a go and do some proper shard running with it.

To no surprise, much like WF before it, it completely annihilates any TZ96 mobs that dare stand in range. With the only obvious exception being some higher tier heralds though even those largely drop disturbingly fast to a bowzon. And off-screen if you have the room.

What did surprise me though and I guess what I'm making this post to give some credit for is that I noticed something that I never noticed before as pre-

Herald, mobs just fell over dead too fast for it to ever become a factor:
Those undead Bobs Faith summons are actually crazy good tanks. Just multi-shotting down the adds around a

Herald tends to pop up a handful of them and as it turns out, they can actually full on

Swarm and face tank most T5 heralds:

image.png

Only came up against 2 heralds that didn't get "Faith swarmed". One because I got unlucky and not a single one got spawned off the adds. And one that actually rolled so much dmg that it did finally manage to chew through them.

But those two aside, can't help but be genuinely surprised by how good they are at keeping heralds busy so you can shred them in Peace.

Given, I'm still trying to figure out a better way to get WF back into all-rounder builds as well and really the only reason WF doesn't crush Faith across the board with a Stone is that A1 mercs utterly fail at staying in fana range if you try to use those on a proper build but hey, that's a separate topic.

Question - why do people always pair the bowazon with an act 1 merc? I mean I like the feeling of it - all bow / ranged. But wouldn’t an act 2 might merc with Pride/

Concentration be more effective, especially if running Faith/

Fanaticism on the main?

Depends on the build.

If you run Faith on the zon then yeah, A1 is just a waste.

The real point of A1 is to give a WF zon access to fana by slapping Faith onto the merc in which case it can beat an A2 conc/might merc.
Though even then, the problem is that A1 mercs tend to run away a lot, their run speed (even fully geared for it) sucks compared to a runner-zon and fana's range sucks so even for many a WF zon build, A2 wins hands down because A1 is just hardly ever close enough to actually grant the fana you hire her for.

ganseng wrote: 2 hours ago

admittedly my zon is not a runner [..] Enigma [..]

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 2 hours ago

admittedly my zon is not a runner [..] Enigma [..]

And that would be why it works for you.

If you go for actual run speed and a proper damage-focused build though (in which the added run speed makes up for loss of Enigma, to some extent), come proper gear, you end up clearing and moving so quickly that A1 mercs just don't keep up and offer close to no fana uptime whatsoever. Tested that time and time again but even while maxing out the merc's run speed, it just doesn't work for a proper endgame non-tele zon.

ganseng wrote: 2 hours ago

sure. however, you kill everything so fast that

Fanaticism only matters when you meet tougher targets, and for them you normally stand long enough for the merc to catch up?

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

ganseng wrote: 2 hours ago

admittedly my zon is not a runner [..] Enigma [..]

And that would be why it works for you.

If you go for actual run speed and a proper damage-focused build though (in which the added run speed makes up for loss of Enigma, to some extent), come proper gear, you end up clearing and moving so quickly that A1 mercs just don't keep up and offer close to no fana uptime whatsoever. Tested that time and time again but even while maxing out the merc's run speed, it just doesn't work for a proper endgame non-tele zon.

Schnorki wrote: 1 hour ago

ganseng wrote: 2 hours ago

sure. however, you kill everything so fast that

Fanaticism only matters when you meet tougher targets, and for them you normally stand long enough for the merc to catch up?

Schnorki wrote: 2 hours ago

And that would be why it works for you.

If you go for actual run speed and a proper damage-focused build though (in which the added run speed makes up for loss of Enigma, to some extent), come proper gear, you end up clearing and moving so quickly that A1 mercs just don't keep up and offer close to no fana uptime whatsoever. Tested that time and time again but even while maxing out the merc's run speed, it just doesn't work for a proper endgame non-tele zon.

Merc doesn't catch up until you hit a boss or

Herald. And even then, it depends on the map/location as they get stuck on some random corner far too easily, leaving you with no merc regardless of how long you wait.
A2 on the other just works. Not because they're that much quicker or don't get stuck (same issues really) but simply because their aura range is massively higher so they tend to have you covered even while mostly outpacing them or from most corners they're stuck behind.
Given, A2 still doesn't offer 100% uptime to a proper run/dmg build but they at least get close.

And I get your line of thinking with "you'll still get fana when you need it for real targets" and in terms of the ED boost, that's true and valid. The problem is that if you want to really make use of fana, you're not just looking at ED but you're intentionally slacking on IAS because you're building around having fana. So anytime you don't have it, you tend to lose 3 full frames on multi/GA and even more on

Strafe. That kills your clear speed, even on trash and even with otherwise still overkill dmg. And if you get the IAS anyways to avoid that then there's no point to fana on heralds/bosses either as conc/might then outperforms it since you're not gaining the full IAS aspect anymore because you gave up most of the gearing advantage to avoid the trash-slowdown.