Need some PVE HOX build help

[Shax84]

And the because of the reasons in Boesch's post, the points are better spent like in the build I linked. You get instant cast debuff with a dot, dot from MSS, and pulsing damage from Burning Skull. Also, Hell on Earth gives you a nice boost on physical damage. 4075 cr = 111 dps.

[Corais]

Wrath of Xotli - Is it a must have? Follow up question is would you rather have points in Wrath of Xotli or Knowledge of the Underworld?

Yes and yes.

Improved Burning Skull - Where does this fall in your feat point heirarchy ... would you ever give up a point in Knowledge of the Underworld for it?

Very high returns for one point. So anytime worth more than +20 magic.

By the way, these are the three specs I'm considering for K6/raid DPS assuming Wrath of Xotli and Improved Burning Skull are good and more points in Spitfire are bad.

Imo these assumptions are correct.
Only thing debateable as always is Butcher vs. KotU.

In some of the above builds people are preferring Reaching Flames over Rage of Xotli. Sure one does hellstrikes only every other cycle (or never if having to debuff with MSS), but then again Reaching Flames doesn't buff our damage directly.

While the HoE-Build might be good, you sacrifice a lot of utility there - stun, spellinterrupt(though rather disturbing in T4) selfrezz, AoE-capability with Inferno.

[Shax84]

Yes you lose some utility. But if stuns are needed you can use Enslaving Fire, and if you need the self resurrection, Red Shadows has a low cooldown. Often, unless swarmed by mobs, it takes time to charge up x10 Flame Lash so you can use Inferno most efficiently. Often, the mobs are dead before you reach this point.

[Ruhenous]

There's only 1 fight in the game where HoE might even be even slightly useful, and that's Zodiac. Other than that it's completely useless.

[-Shink-]

Yes you lose some utility. But if stuns are needed you can use Enslaving Fire, and if you need the self resurrection, Red Shadows has a low cooldown. Often, unless swarmed by mobs, it takes time to charge up x10 Flame Lash so you can use Inferno most efficiently. Often, the mobs are dead before you reach this point.

In my opinion you lose utility and also inferno can stack up fast enough depending on combos you choose to use in each situation.And it does not always have to be at 10 stacks to boost your dps although that would be optimal.The gained dps from HoE feat line is not really higher in most cases and its highly situational vs the build with inferno ,stun and option to go down to KotU.As someone posted in one of the first posts the only really debatable thing is maxed butcher vs KotU and that's something to consider after you have t4 sword.

[Shax84]

The biased players emerges.

Hell on earth gives you +110 dps (plus 20 dps from Flame Cleave) for a while and it goes on cooldown. In comparison, feated Glorification of Xotli gives you +90% Weapon damage for a short duration but then leaves you 20% weapon damage debuffed for 15 seconds. HoE is imo a better buff, and it is also instant. KotU would be nice, but it does _not_ give more dps than Skull and Curses! You can look at coefficients and for example take Hellfire Breath with 0.625 coefficient. Meaning 5 points will add 62,5 magic damage to the spell. Minus protection of the mob. That is rougly 10% average increase of spell, and a spell that is 30-35% of your damage normally, so a 3,5% increase plus scraps from the other spells. Each of the Burning Hex/Searing Curse dots and Improved Burning Skull has 3-4% damage on parser.

The only way Inferno stacks faster is if you can hit multiple mobs with PoiF. PoiF grants you 1 stack per mob every time you hit, but at lowest 25 second cooldown of Pillar ranks and spamming them thats not optimal since you rather want to keep dots up and do PoiF once in a while to refresh the Searing Hatred.

The tooltip of Flame Lash says +100/200/300/500/700/900/1100/1300/1500/1900% increase on Inferno Damage, in addition to +2% Spell damage coefficient per rank. I would say a difference between rank 7 and 10 is almost double damage and quite significant. Also, given it takes 15 seconds to make 10 stacks inferno, it takes 15 seconds for it to run as well.

[Shax84]

after you have t4 sword.

Differences of Ripper of the Faceless Chaos and Trial of Flame

+10 crit rating
+13 magic damage
+13 base dps
+ hit rating, hate decrease and crit damage rating (stats not on Trial of Flame)
-15 combat rating (155 strength is 465 combat rating and no 310 armor gained from 155 str from Trial of Flame)

If you lack hit rating, hate decrease or crit damage rating, the T4 is a nice upgrade. But it does actually not add that much more damage, and absolutely no reason to change any feats from KotU to Butcher.

[-Shink-]

I believe i said "in my opinion" which is formed after running my hox through all raids and gear upgrades from t1 to khitai/t4,parsing through them and discussing with other hoxes.In no way it forces you to take it into consideration/change your feats or anything else .

Also i don't know why you assume i drop improved burning skull to get KotU.

Just agree to disagree.

[Shax84]

Doesn't add more damage? If you say so, you conveniently missed the 13 more base dps though somehow while making that argument.

Read my post again pls.. Its there :-)

I believe i said "in my opinion" which is formed after running my hox through all raids and gear upgrades from t1 to khitai/t4,parsing through them and discussing with other hoxes.In no way it forces you to take it into consideration/change your feats or anything else .

Also i don't know why you assume i drop improved burning skull to get KotU.

Just agree to disagree.

I guess. But it does not make your neither mine opinion a definitive answer. Just another option for the guy who wanted "PvE HOX build help".

[Erock25]

I for one am happy someone is trying something different and depending on the cooldown/duration of Hell on Earth, I can see it being useful in quite a few fights. Going to give it a try for sure as soon as I find a tank who can hold aggro off of me in Palace.