Vol brought something up last night that, if true 1) is utter BS and 2) really pisses me off.
Do IAS jewels, socketed in a helm, affect the weapon speed for a Druid? If not, WTF not?
Well, I do have a holy freeze merc. He is armed with a Reaper’s Toll too, so there are a whole lot of cold, decreped monsters running around. My usual setup is the Jade and the Shadowkiller. A firelizard and a shield are not really a good combination for me. Here’s the thing: Assassins are almost all elemental damage. The physical is very small compared to the lightning and poison and ice damage. And the fire damage from my kick. I guess I’ll have to make another assassin at some point to use the other claws 
I would think so. I would also think it prudent to research the breakpoint needed to reach a certain FPS attack. If IAS jewels did not work in helms, I doubt I would have seen so many “120/45 helm for your 10 290s/5 hex /w *hackerd00d” in the chat channels (pre-1.10. These days it’s all BOTD CBs and Enigmas for five bucks each. Oh, and the constant spamming in norm games. I’m talking a half dozen every minute, easy. No exaggeration.) if they didn’t work.
Well, shit.
That is complete and utter BS. The whole point of jewels is that you can put them anywhere to get the effect.
Hey, you still get the full bonus in human form! Doesn’t that make you feel better?
Yeah, yeah, I know. If it’s any comfort, the same is true of whirlwind barbarians: whirlwind only counts IAS on weapons when it’s tallying up hits. This is a change from 1.09 (I think, perhaps 1.08) where all IAS counted and WW barbarians were crazily powerful.
In case we have any dopers reading this who don’t know, I thought I would point out the irony of this and why it would, in fact, not make Thinksnow feel better: when you are not in wereform you cannot attack using wereform-specific attacks (i.e. maul, frenzy, etc.). It’s like trying to do target practice with no bow/gun/etc. … except at least there you can throw the ammunition.
Thinksnow, I believe I have a Hel you can use to try and get rid of the 15% ias jewels in your helm. I actually have two; you’re welcome to both if you want them. It’s not like you made a mistake with a Zod or anything;)
Speaking of helms and jewels and such, it looks like my paladin may have a spare socket in his helm. 15% IAS isn’t enough to get him past the next breakpoint, and his fire and lightning resists are already Hell maxed. What else (within reason) would be good for him?
Sturmhauke and Yeti, I’ll probably be killing Baal with my paladin tonight. If either/both of you are on, let’s see if we can get a character each into Act 5 NM for you.
Without knowing his current stats, it’s hard to say. Are Io, Lum, Ko and Fal out of the question? How about a P Ruby? If your to/hit on Hell Baal is below about 40%, you should really consider increasing Dex. If your life is under 600, you should increase that.
Best advice comes with best knowledge. Chronos, I’d bet you’d get a lot more helpful advice if you posted the guy’s stats (including his to/hit).
punha, think… what helm did he socket with the 15% jewel? If it’s Aldur’s. I’ll trade him mine for his and you can save the hels. Since I don’t shapeshift, the IAS will work for me.
I wish someone could confirm the whole Druid wear-form IAS thing, because I’d hate to be giving out bad advice. I just remember reading something about it somewhere, which is why I mentioned it to Thinksnow.
Looking around a bit, I find conflicting opinions…If you play around a bit with this weapon speed calculator it seems to me that off-weapon IAS DOES work in wear-form, although it’s possibly less effective than on-weapon IAS. This calculator allows you to put in every possible detail that affects IAS, including choosing the “Wearbear - Maul” skill. So, solely based on its level of detail, I would tend to trust this source more than others.
This dii.net thread discusses your basic setup a bit, and someone recommends putting 2 Shaels in IK maul for 40 more on-weapon IAS, then getting putting 15 IAS in helm and 25 IAS from IK gloves to get a 7-frame attack speed.
BTW, if you want to conduct your own experiment, I’ve got an Aldurs helm somewhere and a few spare IK mauls.
Damage is listed at 80-245 from Zeal, with an attack rating of 970 (both those numbers are subject to change; he’s not using his final equipment yet). I don’t have a listed chance to hit Baal yet, but it wouldn’t be accurate anyway; the listed value doesn’t take Conviction (which he has maxed) into account. But based on the formulae, he should be almost guaranteed to hit. Level is currently 47, and stats are str 121, dex 110, vit 79, energy 16. He has 440 hit points, which I agree is lower than I’d like (I’ll be putting more on him from charms, too), and 159 mana (which is plenty). Defense is only 621, but it’s completely irrelevant for this build (even with all-elite armor and maxed Holy Shield and Defiance, the Diablo Clone would still have a 95% hit chance). Each level I’ve been putting two points into dex, to keep up blocking; next level I’ll put three more into strength, but after that it’ll be three vit per level.
Runes above Shael or so are probably out of the question; I had a hard enough time getting one Io for the Black runeword. But a paladin only gets 3 life per vitality point anyway, so a ruby (of which I have plenty) would be better than a Io. It looks like that might be my best bet, but I’ll wait to hear back before acting.
Just a “heads up”…something’s waaay wrong on US East.
A bunch of my mules, all of whom, at most have 7 days left 'till expiration are getting a message saying "This character hasn’t been used in 3 months. They’re expired. I’m getting about 2 out of 6 getting that message.
Keep in mind, some of those characters aren’t even a month old.
Er…at “least” have 7 days left.
And this is in mutiple accounts.
One of these mules was used about a week ago. Hmmm…
I don’t know… all my mules are still in good shape. I still have to “burn” one in to
get rid of the “expires in 10 days” message, but the rest are still there.
Since I have to go out for a bit, I might as well burn it in now. If anyone is going to be on later, I’ll probably be on in a couple of hours.
Thinking about it…
Fen, you DO put the required two hours into your mules to get rid of the expiration notice, don’t you?
I have on some of 'em, but I’ve never let one get more than 7 days from expiration, so it shouldn’t matter. Right?
Besides, one of the (many now-expired) mules was created less than 4 weeks ago and I just used it a few days ago : it was the one I use to hold chipped gems) It couldn’t have been “3 months since I last played this character”
For safety’s sake, Chronos, I would level that guy to about 80 in public games before I tried taking on DC solo. The main reason is just plain security; if you go up against DC at level 50 you’re lacking 150 stat points and 30 skill points (assuming nothing about side quests and resists and such), and even moreso than that you’re sacrificing a LOT in the to/hit department based on Clvl/Mlvl. At 47, if you aren’t still doing Norm Baal runs, you should be at least in A1 of NM, and finding a NM rush game shouldn’t be that hard unless my experience in USEast varies substantially from how it is on West. You can get to about level 70 without much trouble in NM runs.
Consider that a trade, my friend.
Fenris, that character expiration timer that is displayed is based on your PC’s date/time. I would recommend checking that. No worries though, the actual expiration of characters is based on Bnet’s time.
Oh and Fen, wasn’t it you that was desirous of a Baranars Star (Bstar)? If so, I have one for you that I purchased with 30 Pgems. You were the pally in need of a better weapon, right?
And for the Druids amongst us, I was able to acquire not one but TWO Jalas Mane Totemic Masks through some wheeling and dealing last night. One with an open socket, one without.