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I am theorycrafting here. I currently run 2x fire and 1 frost DH but I was considering turning one of the fire DH's to Lightning just for fun. I am clearing 30+ GRifts easy and T6 rifts are a joke now. I want to have some fun with it, but still be competitive.
Are there any bonuses to adding a lightning dh in?
Might melt your PC, but worth a try :D
Actually another downside to the lightning build is the need to self-fire the Helltrapper to proc more sentries. That can get VERY problematic when you multi-box in a laggy environment.
The big downside I see is that their play styles conflict, a bit. Lightning needs to pewpew, which probably means being much closer than fire/frost DH's, who can drop their sentries and run away.
Lightning might be worth pairing with other characters that need to be relatively close in to do their DPS, though.
I'd actually go full Lightning on all of them. It's been found to be the highest DPS in the game - granted you have to pew pew up close but if you play your cards right you can have smokescreen up indefinitely.
I agree with the others that said Lightning is a different game play and doesn't mix well. However, if you do a lightning ballistics build you can add CC to your team (not damage). Your lighting DH can have elemental arrow Lightning Bolts & Cluster Arrow which will keep pretty much anything (rift bosses included) locked down 95% of the time.
I run 4 DH: 1 cold, 1 lightning, 1 fire and 1 physical. The cold for the bane of the trapped & cull of the week, the lightning for the CC stuns, the physical for the knockback + strongarms and the fire for damage.
How does that compare to just doing 4 Fire/Frost DH's and dropping sentry's and running?
It's the same gameplay. About the only thing you're missing out on is the 30% damage while using strongarm and the stuns the lightning gives (only helpful while doing GRifts). Mixing the elemental types also helps with loot share. If a %cold ammy drops, I only have one toon that is going to use it - makes it quicker to gear up all the toons that way.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ishar
Okay, so after a week of testing it out, I have noticed a couple things: (I have triple kriderShot)
Lightning needs to fire Elelemental arrow ALOT. With Meticulous bolts (30 something % slower ball lightning) You generate ALOT of hatred but you need a ton of the bolts out there to keep up damage.
Stuns are OP. With Custom Engineering it seems like anytime I have three sentries down (elites, champs and bosses) they stay stunned forever. Add in the fact that I am using Strongarms and dmg is insane.
I have changed my play slightly for normal (T6) rifts. I bait enemies back to a sentry filled spot. I pretty much put 3 sentries down somewhere and kite groups back and laugh as they get slaughtered. This is not by any means required, its just a lot of fun.
GRifts are the same I am still clearing lvl 36-38 rifts and just missing the timer on 39+. I think this is a product of my skills more than that of the build.
Overall the synergy is good. I think that the dmg output by lightning is the same as that put out by fire/frost you just don't see the big numbers. I can clear Grifts lvl 32 solo on all three. The synergy is what allows me to get up past 35.
Overall grades:
A+ for Normal rifting (mainly because of the sentry ambush)
A for Grifts (like I said probably me)
A for Everything else. Bounties are stupid easy when boxing, Grom is a joke. Greed same. Whimsyshire is too easy.
If my brother-in-law wasn't playing the game I think I would add in a fourth Phys DH just for another strongarms buff. He runs a Monk and lets face it, they should be in every group. (I think he likes the free loot)