Quote (megamanisgod @ Oct 2 2022 08:55pm)
ok so passion phase blade it is unless I find that gg weapon of something with charges.
Going to go against the grain here and actually disagree with Passion. I play off-meta builds *only*, such as Melee Sorc, Bow Sorc, etc and S1 I got a Melee Sorc to 93 with gg gear and tons of available options to test her out on P8 extensively. Here's my experience farming the whole game on P8 in real-world scenarios.
- Passion (Zeal) is nice since it allows you to spread your Fire + Light damage against 4-5 targets around you in rapid succession. This is very strong obviously and has a very high damage output.
- However, for Zeal to be viable you need to hit good bp's which costs you a lot of IAS in gear.
- Passion has no ITD and requires you to get AR externally. The runeword itself has bad stats for the build besides the 80% AR boost, small IAS, and Zeal.
- Passion's Flee on Hit isn't great.
- Zeal's upside is letting you get some sort of AOE vs density, but the AOE is limited to a very small radius around you and the number of targets your Zeal hits will pick (5 max).
- Zeal is not suited for a squishy character like Sorc. Even with at 86% FHR bp, 90% all res, max block (GA build), Zeal locks you into place and produces awkward gameplay. Sometimes you stand there swinging at Moonlord packs and you lose the exchange, leading you to get locked for a few more frames before you can tele out.
- Zeal can get you killed. When Zeal whiffs the first hit, I believe there's a bug where you miss every follow up hit, standing there whiffing can be dangerous.
- No significant way to leech life, low physical damage. LL is not a good stat for Soso Zeal, pushing you to seek Lifetap on gloves.
- Maxing Block in PVM was nice but even with GA and FHR, against fast packs it felt like I was constantly blocking and never getting good Zeals off.
- Lower block is more dangerous but leads to more Dream Confuse screen-wide spam when you get pelted at. When Confuse goes off, almost all the heat is taken off you and your merc so you're free to attack anything.
Testing with Normal Attack Builds and moving away from Zeal:
- Swapping to Grief lets you leech more life and add some physical damage which helps against Lit / Fire resistant targets. Grief has -25% Def, ITD and big IAS so it fixes a lot of issues for the sorc.
- Last Wish PB with a Low Block / Full Vit / Enigma build actually produced the best results for me and I stuck with that.
- Last Wish has very high CB which helps out any melee build. It is much stronger than Zeal against specific uniques and super uniques with super high HP on P8. Very easy to solo Ubers with LW and Melee Sorc due to the CB + LifeTap stack. Often I was able to tele stomp a P8 elite and just click it once for a one shot. CB proc + High Lit Range hit = big dmg.
- Last Wish gives you and your merc free ED aura, which adds phys damage to your gameplay like Grief does.
- Last Wish has ITD, so it fixes your AR issue elsewhere vs most targets.
- Last Wish has self-contained Fade, which is HUGE for melee sorc. It procs a lot, it gives you more DR, and it shortens curse duration. Curses are TERRIBLE for melee, and removing them ASAP is a game changer.
- It procs Life Tap which helps you leech actual life.
As suggested by the other posters, a Rare weapon with tons of Zeal Charges and Fool's mod will be better than Passion because it gives the sorc big flat AR which she desperately needs plus the Zeal charges.
If you can afford it, I would strongly recommend trying Last Wish on Melee Sorc. It'll let you become very tanky and let you swing for longer before having to retreat even against very strong P8 Aura Stack Moonlord / Gloams / Dark Soul packs. Fade is big for any melee build and fixes a bunch of problems for them.
My 2 cents hope this helps you.
This post was edited by ulmaguest on Oct 3 2022 01:10pm
D2:R