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 Post subject: Did deadly strike nerf cripple fury druids?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:15 am 
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There seems to be a misconception that the reduction in Deadly strike has "ruined" this build. I believe this misconception is due to a failure to understand the impact of base weapon damage and people not reviewing the significant buff that melee weapons received this season. I am going to do some math on a "common" fury druid that is fairly easy to build using relatively easy to find end game gear: the Tomb Reaver.

Last season this weapon had 80% IAS, 3 open sockets, 500% Enhanced Damage and 50% Deadly strike. Polearms received a 300% strength bonus last season. Two sockets would be filled with uber amethysts to hit the 3 frame breakpoint (133%) and the last is filled with a enhanced damage jewel - lets say an Ohm (50%ED). This brings the total weapon damage to 468 - 949 and it will hit 12.5 times per second. I will assume that characters are also using Steelrends for the 25% Deadly strike to bring their total to 75% deadly strike.

I have forgotten how much %ED end game fury does, so I just used 800% enhanced damage. Shouldn't matter too much what the actual value is. Here is the math:

Weapon Damage 468 - 949
Listed Damage 7160 - 14519
DPS (no deadly) 89.5k - 181.5k
+DPS from deadly 67.1k - 136.1k
TOTAL 156.6k - 317.6k

This season this weapon has 80% IAS, 2 open sockets, 400% Enhanced Damage, is Ethereal and has no Deadly strike. Polearms receive a 450% strength bonus. Two sockets would be filled with uber amethysts to hit the 3 frame breakpoint (133%). This brings the total weapon damage to 540 - 1095 and it will hit 12.5 times per second. I will assume that characters are using Highlord's and either steelrends/nos coil to bring their total to 25% deadly strike.

Weapon Damage 540 - 1095
Listed Damage 9963 - 20202
DPS (no deadly) 124.5k - 252.5k
+DPS from deadly 31.1k - 63.1k
TOTAL 155.6k - 315.6k

Numbers look pretty much the same don't they? Even with 50% less deadly strike.

What is more important is that you are getting MORE damage from your base output and not relying on deadly strike as heavily. As I believe you do not life leech from your deadly strike values (similar to how you don't life leech from crushing blow), this trend towards moving damage away from relying on Deadly strike is a very good thing.

Now, I am sure that someone is going to say that fury druids would use a zod'd eth Reaver last season and I am sure they are correct. Of course, you would need to compare that weapon to the runeword Sorrow this season and I suspect you will find in the end that the results are about the same there too.

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 Post subject: Re: Did deadly strike nerf cripple fury druids?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 10:44 am 
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unless drain values i think they are? are going to be fixed leach doesnt matter. the only relevant leachable is duriel? andariel i've always found rather easy with the right set up.

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 Post subject: Re: Did deadly strike nerf cripple fury druids?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:31 pm 
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It doesn't matter how much melee damage you do.

IF I had a zealer do 1 million damage per second it still wouldn't matter. Bosses with over 140% phys resistances are just stupid. These bosses include hell duriel, hell meph, hell diablo, and hell baal, all of which you get skill charms from..

Fix the amp and the bosses damage reduce before you try to argue melee is still viable.

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 Post subject: Re: Did deadly strike nerf cripple fury druids?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 2:40 pm 
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Rasta wrote:
It doesn't matter how much melee damage you do.

IF I had a zealer do 1 million damage per second it still wouldn't matter. Bosses with over 140% phys resistances are just stupid. These bosses include hell duriel, hell meph, hell diablo, and hell baal, all of which you get skill charms from..

Fix the amp and the bosses damage reduce before you try to argue melee is still viable.

And yet people had no problems last patch and bosses had the exact same phys resistance.

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 Post subject: Re: Did deadly strike nerf cripple fury druids?
PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:12 pm 
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blue_myriddn wrote:
And yet people had no problems last patch and bosses had the exact same phys resistance.


People also had an easy 70%+ Amplify Damage with 1 point invested. They also had significant Crushing Blow as well. 75% Amplify Damage is the difference between doing 10% of my actual damage or 35% of my actual damage (IE: 250% more total damage).
That's all assuming you're rolling with a Necromancer who has chosen to max Amplify Damage, which is rare this ladder.


Anyway, onto the melee Druid topic, it's not just DS they have to cry about. They're one of two melee classes virtually forced into using a two-handed weapon. Unlike the Amazon, who's insane level 95 weapon warrants the loss of anything a shield could offer, a melee Druid suffers. With resists & DR slashed across the board, their gear suffers hits that other melee's did not.
They have no class source skill of DR, they have no class source skill of Critical Strike, they have no class source skill of Resistance. These are all things that other melee characters have that helped them cope with the mutilation of their favorite melee items. Druids don't have anything near that luxury.

Also, to be nitpicky, comparing "Sorrow" to the old eth Zod'd Tomb Reaver is silly. Sorrow is a level 90 unique that offers NO resists (which you are now lacking severely, OG TR had 50%), no Deadly Strike, and a ctc curse that would override a possible 25% more physical pierce.
It doesn't hold a candle to the original Tomb Reaver, which wasn't some broken item. It was just a solid, level 90 item that did it's job as an end-game weapon of providing stats that are warranted.

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