Quote (Junglist69 @ 23 Feb 2026 04:56)

Insight is insane for its cost!

But Is meditation actualy needed with endgame gear? You need to run one dualleech ring anyway. The extra 10% fcr do nothing compared to a forti.

And minus the aura insight is just a poor man’s Forti in this case.

To quote the maxroll guide on forti (maxroll is not the law I know, but the math ain’t lying here):

With Mastery Critical Strike Chance and Deadly Strike, you reach 78.3% chance to critically strike. An alternative of Insight reaches 89.35% to critically strike. This would account for a 6% increase in damage while Fortitude has 36% higher base damage. As well as benefitting from 10% more off weapon enhanced damage from Strength.

Damage wise it’s not even close while Forti also gives all res and life for defensiv stats, too.

Since you would run one dualleech ring anyway, meditation aura is just usefull for teleport. Guess even without pride you would still do more damage with Forti. But with a dualleech ring you can just run forti/pride.

Insight is great but it is just a worse Forti in this build…

The only thing it may be able to do compared to Forti is drop highlords for an fcr Amy and run phoenix instead of tome since it has so much initial crit that highlords looses some value.

But phoenix isn‘t even that good. Tome gives 2 skills (much more worth than I thought) -enemy res and also up to 150 ed% (with a jool) only loosing some of weapon ed% wich is already huge in this build and nothing else.
But even that won‘t make up for the 30%+ less base damage.

Also good luck getting any decent resists with insight/phoenix.

If you run insight/highlords ist just the same setup as forti just with like 30% less damage and 30-50 less all res (ed/res or um socket in tome).

With the base damage increase I think Forti without pride would still outdamage insight with pride. But since we need one leech ring anyway I‘m sure you can just run Forti pride, outscaling insight even more.

Insight is awesome for budget and will be my go to untill forti.
But no way it outscales forti.
The 10 extra fcr do nothing, medi is not realy needed and comes damage and defense forti >>> insight.

Edit: since you don‘t need mana leech with medi you could get +1 extra skill using bk ring for only the lifeleech with insight. But that’s literal it. But how to you get any positive resist then? Forti can use gores (or the + 1 boots , canceling the Bk out) since it gets extra resist, not needing Tri res boots and stuff

Quote (Stefbef @ Feb 23 2026 05:39am)

It’s not just medi

Insight does rly good damage. And the +6 crit as an Oskill benefiting from anni, bc, arach, bk, etc

Plus the 35 fcr it’s just amazing

It’ll give you a good 55-60% crit which is amazing with a phoenix 125 fcr setup since you have to give up HL for that setup

Also Phoenix is MUCH better than any tome. I’m not sure if you guys realize how much damage off weapon % ed gives

Quote (Junglist69 @ 23 Feb 2026 08:04)

With Forti/highlords you reach 125fcr, too.
You gain 78% effective crit with that. Same setup with insight gives 89% crit. But insight has 36% less base damage. No way it gets the same damage even with phoenix.

The tome also gives + 2 skills and - enemy magic res + 150 ed itself.
The + skills is worth much more than it is on other „melee“ builds.

So you trade +2 skills 30ffhr - 20 enemy magic res 15 res (with 40/15 jewel) for (max) 250% off weapon ed.
With so much off ed from pride/might/fana/passive already , that extra ed% does way less than you think . It doesn‘t give THAT much more damage, while loosing on everything else.
You also loose DS since you drop highlords then

All in all insight phoenix is 250% more of-ed and LESS crit (since you drop highlords) vs 36% more base damage with + 2 extra skills -20 magic res 30 fhr and 50 all res on forti.

Even with phoenix insight does not even make up for the smaller base damage while actualy loosing crit vs forti…..

With might fana and conc, even more of weapon ed% is way worse than you think.

Also, how do you get any resist with insight phoenix?

It is just far worse damage AND defense-wise than a forti

Insight is great but it is just a budget Forti on this build

Quote (Stefbef @ Feb 23 2026 10:50am)

Bruh weapon dmg isn’t even important if your skill nearly gives full tornado damage before % ed

And weapon dmg modifier is 75%

You can literally get top tier dmg without a weapon

I’d take the 11% crit over 36% weapon dmg any day

But I doubt it’s really 36% weapon dmg like you say anyway

Quote (Stefbef @ Feb 23 2026 10:50am)

Bruh weapon dmg isn’t even important if your skill nearly gives full tornado damage before % ed

And weapon dmg modifier is 75%

You can literally get top tier dmg without a weapon

I’d take the 11% crit over 36% weapon dmg any day

But I doubt it’s really 36% weapon dmg like you say anyway

Quote (Junglist69 @ 23 Feb 2026 14:21)

You said it yourself: it’s 11% crit vs 36% base damage. Like how are you still doubting?!

76 vs 89 crit is an effective increase of 6% in damage IF you have the same weapon damage. But 76 crit with 36% more basedamage>>>> 89 crit with 36% less base damage.
You CLEARLY loose a lot of damage.

You also loose a lot of defensive stats.

Phoenix is just not worth it at all at 125fcr. And even at 75 It‘s not insane since you Stack so much ed% anyway. Mephisto tome gets 150 ed itself and the + 2 skills and - enem magic res ON top of the 30fcr may just be even or close on damage with phoenix since you already have so much ad from 4 different auras where it just gets added.
Considering you hit 125fcr easily with it , I wouldn‘t ever run phoenix .

Insight has NOTHING on forti besides medi.

Forti + insight merc probably does more damage than self insight + pride. But you don‘t need medi at all so just go Forti+ pride.

Quote (Goomshill @ Feb 23 2026 09:53pm)

Alright hear me out

Just use ethereal lo ondals almighty as your weapon. 45% fcr happens to be enough to hit 125 with a phoenix + loh setup to get that sky high %ed, from 2x fcr ring arach 20 fcr circlet (hellwarden on the cheap) and fcr ammy. Or drop the loh and use trangs gloves + highlords on the cheap.
You get your +5% xp on top of course
But at +4 skills it winds up doing more damage than some big dumb thunder maul
Hell you could build around stormshield instead and still have overkill damage.

As janky as it seems, ondals might be the answer here.