Zeny Wis Threader Tank

Pre epic: wouldnt it be better to go 16/4 clr/wm?

HawkeZ

Been thinking about this a bit more. According to Kin's build (http://highergroundpoa.proboards3.com/index.cgi?board=builds&action=display&thread=9435).....

20-40% of Kin's damage is from sickle.

60-80% is from threading.

With 1 less multiplier (down from 4), damage would be 3/4 compared to the damage from threading, so that times 60-80% = 45%-60%. All damage from sickle is also gone, so damage compared to Kins, assuming same DC, is 45-60% of original.

So in order to beat Kins in damage, DC checks must succeed enough, proportionally, to be 40/60. The logic behind that is kind of strange: at max, I do 60% damage that Kins does. So if I divide every check against every mob into 60 evenly-sized groups, on 40 of those I'd want to do double damage against, which would add 40 more fake groups that I'm doing damage against, so I'd end up with 60 (real) + 40 (fake) = 100 groups I'm doing damage against, which would be the same number of groups that Kins does damage against.

In other words, just trust me on this.

At the lower end of the spectrum, the 45%, the best I'll ever be able to do is double it to 90%. So I'll want to succeed anywhere from all my DC checks (50% -> 100%) to 2/3rds of them (40/60 = 2/3). Harumph.

However, Kins also revised the estimate of damage done being 80% threading and 20% sickle, so that would require succeeding on 2/3rds of DC checks in order to have the same damage as his build.

If you're going with a wisdom threader, you might as well go the 20/20 route. Wisdom won't help your casting because your WM levels don't add to it, I wouldn't even grab any foci with feats and simply use a tome for abjuration. Get your wisdom as high as you can, the threading DC is all you've got over a dex threader and you have to give it your all.
Legendary Fort and Reflex should be all you need to get your saves maxed. Bearing that in mind, with your 14 epic/LL feats, I would take LSA tumble, LSA disc, esf heal, Lsf heal, toughness, blind fight, and 8 great wisdom. (60 wisdom with an artifact)
If you go, with the 20/20 combination, you can take armor skin, EWF sickle, and prowess on WM levels. Max wisdom and WM levels will equate to maximum damage with your threading.

If you go the WM route, there isn't much else to take, unless you want epic toughness.


Don't recommend it, 30 str will help you a LOT against str checks.


By going with the caster route, you give up 1 multiplier on your threading, get a few epic spells, and gain .5 on healing (1 if you go 30/10). This however, doesn't make sense on a wisdom threader. Almost all of your damage will come from threading. You won't be able to cast spells well with only 46 caster levels and few epic foci, your AB will be terrible, threading is all you have and you might as well maximize it, it makes sense.
20/20 route will give you the most damage, the point of the wisdom threader seems to be that if you raise wisdom high enough, they fail the save enough times to make a noticeable difference, which can mean a significant increase in your threading damage, and also an SR reduction on a failed save. The 20/20 and high wisdom connect well together, going for epics and slightly improved casting just doesn't make sense for a build like this.

I am thinking of building a threader very close to this. The exact question is, can you have the str and dex high enough for reasonable checks while focusing on wis. I haven't crunched all the numbers yet. I think having a higher healing multi (even though only 17%) and epics is important. With throwing down heal circles while threading, you are a healing machine.

I ran Mala-Cania-Nessus with Yomi's threader. It's a great build and he plays it well. I think a wis/DC build could out damage yomi...particularly if he is doing 20/80 melee/threading. I just need to figure out what race is best. Zenthri might be the best.

Being able to use miracle to split up huge spawns and for mega boss fights (deep hell) is quite useful...and obviously girding and IoF.

-G

There is a list of Hells Checks I saw with my threader, who wears light armor. If you're not a dex build you may wear medium armor instead, which may slightly change a few of the checks. There are also checks in Elysium.

If you have an 18 starting dex (as the original build proposal shows), it'll be 30 in gear and go up to 34 after double demi. That's enough to be immune from normal Erinyes and Narzugons, and only fail on a 1 vs. Advespas. Paragon and P2/P3 versions will obviously be harder. You should actually have a fighting chance against Malebranche KD though you'll fail at some point.

Strength checks look a bit harder. The 18 starting strength seems reasonable. You're not going to get guaranteed success against anything, but nor will you be dropped to your knees each time a Kyton looks askance at you. It'll definitely help.


The majority of fort saves from my Hells logs look at a simple glance, to be in the 40-51 range. My LT had a Wis of 20, which means 36 in gear after double demi. The DC for threading is therefore (30+(36-10)/2) = 43. The build shown would have a DC of (30+54-10)/2) = 52 (double demi but without artifact). That seems like it might be effective.

Here are some numbers looking at 15 runs during May and the 15,627 fort saves the threading forced. This is using their final roll (base + d20), and shows the percent that fail (final roll is less than DC). I've separated all the 1's (auto fail) and added them back in at the end. In theory we should see about 5% failures due to rolling a 1 even with a terrible DC. Similarly, 20's have been separated out, so even an infinite DC would only see 95% failures.


DC would need to be 57 to make 50% of the things I threaded against fail their saves. It does show that my hybrid threader definitely doesn't concentrate on DC's -- only about 7% of the fort saves in the Hells failed. With the build proposal shown, I think about 28% of things would fail their saves. That'd definitely increase damage output -- enough to make up for the ~20% from sickle? Not sure -- the calculations are more complicated. Dod did bring up offline that even with a horrible AB he'd still hit every now and then, so you can't entirely throw out all sickle damage.

Edit: Also note that the saves are a mix of cursed and uncursed things. Often the first round of saves are against lots of uncursed things, and many of the riff-raff types may end up imploded, drowned, or insta-killed right away, leaving me fighting the cursed PFs. Also there were a few rolls on the high end against party members who got confused (Hi Kobra!), but so few as to not make a real difference in the numbers.

One advantage threading also gives, which is much more important now, is the reduction in SR. It is Heal/20 so should be a 5 or 6 SR drop. However, two things conspire to make it much less useful than it might appear. The first is they must fail their save or it doesn't happen. That's definitely a plus for the wis threader. Second, it only applies for one round! Which means you've got to keep successfully threading them, and I don't see that happening in the Hells. I doubt improvements to LT's are on the plate, but if this were bumped to a turn or even 3-5 rounds it'd make the high DC LT look more attractive.


I'm not as concerned about the increased healing multiplier as I am by the epics and things like Greater Restore / Heal. It does make you much more of a possible replacement for a real cleric. If you go 26/14 or 30/10, combined with the loss of sickle damage, I suspect you'll end up with less total damage output compared to the 20/20 hybrid tank. However: (1) you'll still do huge amounts of damage in addition to your bonuses over a low DC 20/20 build, (2) it's not a bad thing to be different.