I found these 2 classes easiest to play. I'm not sure about if it is most efficient or not but with both I focused on instinct and piercing. This gave the most damage for me. Depending on how you play you may want to change what I have a bit but heres my build for both.(I havn't played zones 6 or 7 yet, my computer deletes my files when it is turned off)
Psychological lots of lightning piercing max out all of what I'm listing and if it is at the bottom of a tree only fill the upper portions of it with ones, also some respecing is involved because you cannot access most of it until the latter portion of Zone 2 -shock therapy -high voltage -electrical storm -wraith form -charged blood -tenacity -haunt
haunt I only used for the baron just to sap his focus after that I respeced for other abilities
shock therapy will be your main attack because of the damage it is capable of if you have high instict.
get charged blood quickly because it will increase your piercing thus making you hit much harder and crit commonly.
tenacity is good for your survivability but save it for last because it takes many points to get to it.
electrical storm is your focus refresh so if you add high voltage before use it will increase damage to a decent amount.
Wraith form is important because of the focus regain in the begining and the damage increase, the speed isn't important but allows you to attack faster.
I set up my abilities as follows: -shock therapy(3) -wraith form -high voltage(2) -haunt(1 high voltage) -electrical storm(2)
I have a pattern I followed that is reusable infinitely: shock therapy shock therapy shock therapy wraith form shock therapy shock therapy shock therapy high voltage high voltage electrical storm electrical storm
repeat indefinitely you will never run out of focus.
with this it won't be uncommon to 2-shot foes twords Zone 5.
Hydraulic basicaly the same as psychological lots of instinct and ice piercing again max out everything -hypothermia -mind freeze -flash freeze -regulate -crystal ice -cold neurology -gaurdian form -stiff upper lip
flash freeze will be an opener to keep an opponent locked out of combat.
mind freeze will be used as a substitute for flash freeze while it is on cool down but max flash freeze first.
hypothermia is the main attack and the DoT (damage over time) is a bonus and do not worry about strength max this right after the first fight, you will have enough starting ability points to do this.
regulate is like haunt and will only be needed for the baron.
cold neurlogy will toughen your survivability and dont worry about focus, you dont need it in the first place.
gaurdian form is for when you're getting into a tight situation to give a quick boost.
crystal ice is your piercing booster and is important after you get the previous.
finally, stiff upper lip is like icing on the survivability and should be saved for last.
my set up was this: -hypothermia(2) -flash freeze(2) -gaurdian form -mind freeze(2) -hyothermia
there is no real cycle to use other than keep nwanted enemies locked and use hypothermia as your main attack, hydraulic doesn't do as much damage but there is no need of focus ever because everything is absoulutely free so you cant be silenced either. I personally let Roald and Veradux burn down the weaker enemies and locked up and burned the tougher ones.
remember I haven't played Zones 6 or 7 and have yet to complete heroic yet, but this is what I have built.
I must argue that Hot-Blooded is more effective then Shattering beast. It does more damage, it's more straight forward and you don't have to get mixed up with all that setting-up and DoT garbage.
there is no shattering involved, and i do not worry about the Dots, they do nothing worthwhile and the setting up is nothing, all you are doing is stunning and silencing the enemy.
*AMENDMENT* I've been working on Psychological and found a better attack solution though it does go through focus faster, as well as importance in the talents to max first.
Talents apply in order -shock therapy -shock therapy -shock therapy -high voltage -charged blood -electrical storm -electron charge -charged blood -electron charge -wraith form -charged blood -electron charge -charged blood -charged blood -electron charge -haunt -haunt -dark echos -destruction -salvation -tenacity -tenacity -tenacity -tenacity -tenacity -electrical storm -electrical storm -electrical storm fill in how you like from here
electron charge is good to fill between your runs of shock therapy since it does 300% instinct damage replace high voltage with this
remember to re spec and take the points off haunt to help you get to tenacity after defeating the baron battle amendment
start with wraith form, then use shock therapy 3 times, followed by electrical storm if not many enemies are left or they are a long fight, or electron charge to finish them, use shock therapy 3 more times, then electron charge or electrical storm depending on your focus situation. use wraith when ever possible.
feel free to reply with sugesstions on my builds, thank you
I know its kinda early to make another amendment but free will is another very good spell to have. new action ring is shock therapy(3), wrath form, electrical storm (2), free will and electron charge.
You waste skill points on stuff like Electron charge and High voltage. Shock therapy should be your main skill because it also dispels buffs from the enemy whereas those other skills don't do as much damage (except for high voltage, but that buffs the enemy). It's also a waist of skill points too. That hydraulic build is the Guardian build, which is extremely boring because you don't do that much damage and all your team mates do the fighting, and we all know that your team mates suck at doing damage. I wouldn't recommend either of these builds to anybody.
shock therapy is your main attack, the electron charge is for the in between and you will still be doing significant damage. also with hydraulic, im sorry i wasn't going for the most exciting build, but it is stable and it will get the job accomplished.
I gotta say, with all due respect, but your psycho build has a hell of a lot of holes in it.
-Salvation needs more than 1 point, absolutely critical for survival and defense.
-High voltage? nope. Electron charge? nope. just leave 'em, high volts is all you need.
-Charged blood is more icing on the cake, as you said. put the points there in late zone 4 or zone 5. Best to dump 'em in at once to get a better effect, the boost will be like 10 peircing in early game.
-Destruction is team-mates only, which makes it worthy only of the bin.
-Points should go in electrical storm straight off, 8 focus is not good enough.
-Haunt? Dark Echoes? It's trash. even though they aren't as critical as other skills, Free Will & The stun are much more worthy of your points.
some of the talents like destruction are for just getting to the better skils like tenacity, electron charge and high voltage can be swaped, its just that the buff for extra damage disappears when you use shock therapy. I agree with upgrading the electrical storm but with charged blood you can kill much faster and i find it very powerful even quickly in the game.
Sorry, I thought you had 2 points in destruction, salvation still needs to be acknowledged though, charged blood definetley needs a lightning wep first, otherwise your just getting lucky :/ Best to spend the points on important stuff like shields and main damagers first.
This is at level 27 I'm slowly maxing up Flash Freeze now which is why it's 2/4.
I stacked every point into Instinct, and by using 1 item (Plasma Rod) I crit almost every time for lots of damage (428 current instinct)
Set up any of the 3 debuffs from Glacier, Hypothermia, and Frost, depending on what stat you want to hinder the most, I usually do Frost as it slows the enemy down making it harder for them to dodge, but if they hit hard as hell I do glacier to reduce their damage.
Once all 3 debuffs are setup I pop in guardian form, by doing calculations I found that guardian's form + 25% instinct was a lot better scaling than avenger forms + 15% damage, plus the focus wasn't neccessary to have at all,
After going gaurdian form, I stun (unless they performed something eairlier in the rotation that I didn't want them having, I.E 400% damage buffs, stun them to waste the cooldown)
Then finally Shatter, as of right now mine crits for about 6300 or more, the debuff it leaves lets your next one of the former setups deal around 4k crits, and lets your team mates actually feel like they are capable of doing any real damage at all, but I wouldn't count on it,
Use regulate if you want to focus drain certain mobs, focus isn't an issue as a hydraulic, and use restore if you're fighting tough mobs (blood hounds were a pain in the ass)
I have set these abilities.
Hypothermia Frost Glacier Shatter Guardian Form Restore Flash Freeze Regulate
I'm sure many points are arguable, feel free to give constructive criticism, this is just what I found enjoyable, I had survivability, team support, and I got to see huge numbers.
The hot build is pretty decent but running it on heroic can get you into more tight spots than using the cold build. I just finished using the cold build and I didn't respec once. Here's how I did it.
First: Max out Flash Freeze and Mind Freeze. Second: Get Ice Wall* Third: Get Glacier Fourth: Get crystal ice (or w/e makes ice piercing increase)
*Note: You may wonder what makes ice wall so special. Well it essentially increasing healing and decreases damage taken as well as done. Now the first two parts are good for saving someone on your team *coughs* Veradux. The second part is awesome for stopping the enemy from killing you regardless of allowing the benefits of healing and less damage taken.
Oh one further note. Don't max glacier out right away, try and balance Crystal Ice, Glacier and Ice Wall so that you don't encounter too many problems. o and I forgot to mention put two points into regulate because debuffing is needed.
