The Raid Demo

[Phishbone]

Haha, getting lectured by pve demo's. Why would you want to go tribrid? Explain the reasoning on what you would buy in all three trees that would benefit you more than a havoc/general or conflag/general build. I'm interested in what viable pve build someone would need to justify going tribrid for anything other than an entity fight, when you can just pick one tree and go general with the same results.

As for hybrid, I usually just raid with my pvp spec and still do fine. I honestly don't care about pve though, you can faceroll your keyboard and still be on top of the parse as long as you have a high enough magic damage, crit, and crit chance. So all this micro management of do this and do that, it's pretty funny to see people think this class is anymore complicated than pressing 5 buttons and knowing how to move around.

And Dark Meditation...really?

You know someone doesn't know what they are talking about when they come into a raid demo post and make fun of them for pve. When did I say class was hard and when did anyone ask the high and mighty "lol pvp" to comment on raid builds? If you are happy with cookie cutter builds and doing subpar dps that is fine. You just dont need to broadcast that you are bad and think there is any micromanagement to it. Opening a feat planner and putting in points... hard. Putting binds on feated keys...hard. Pressing...hard.

[Suctum]

You know someone doesn't know what they are talking about when they come into a raid demo post and make fun of them for pve. When did I say class was hard and when did anyone ask the high and mighty "lol pvp" to comment on raid builds? If you are happy with cookie cutter builds and doing subpar dps that is fine. You just dont need to broadcast that you are bad and think there is any micromanagement to it. Opening a feat planner and putting in points... hard. Putting binds on feated keys...hard. Pressing...hard.

That's all great, but you never answered my question about justifying a tribrid over a hybrid or a havoc/general or conflag/general. Why would I want to take a tribrid over any of the fore mentioned builds and what would be gained by doing it?

Just saying "I don't do cookie cutter builds because I'm cool" doesn't hold any meaning when you don't take time to explain why it would be better. So tell us, how is a tribrid for pve any better than the normal "cookie cutter" builds...

Also, Dark Meditation is a terrible spell. It's too long of a channel to ever be useful, so already your mentioning bad feats which gives me little hope your explanation of a tribrid will be any better advice.

[Shax84]

Dark Meditation can save your ass if you got 4-5 stacks of Ether Drain and Demonic Payment. So it can be useful if you have problems with mana outage and dying or rendered useless due to mana issues.

Example of a usable tribuild: http://goo.gl/keUemB

That build could be used at Entity (not that minus hate matters at Entity) or Archfiend. Max magic damage from feats, a bit hate reduction, mana feats and soul resonance from Havoc. Flame Body and instant Planar Shift to counter Bombardment or Brutal Force. Fires of Gehenna as main attack to stack Incinerates and gain mana from Consume Flames.

[Suctum]

Dark Meditation can save your ass if you got 4-5 stacks of Ether Drain and Demonic Payment. So it can be useful if you have problems with mana outage and dying or rendered useless due to mana issues.

Example of a usable tribuild: http://goo.gl/keUemB

That build could be used at Entity (not that minus hate matters at Entity) or Archfiend. Max magic damage from feats, a bit hate reduction, mana feats and soul resonance from Havoc. Flame Body and instant Planar Shift to counter Bombardment or Brutal Force. Fires of Gehenna as main attack to stack Incinerates and gain mana from Consume Flames.

We all know tribrid can work for entity, outside that though what is the usefulness of that build compared to others. Would you run around with a tribrid build as a standard build? I sure wouldn't.

You can always save archfiend for demon payments, so having dark meditation is not needed...especially when you feat your AA for a 4 minute cool down on the pact. If your dying from SWing then than your not managing yourself properly.

[Shax84]

Would you run around with a tribrid build as a standard build?

Of course not.

If your dying from SWing then than your not managing yourself properly.

All players are different, just saying it could have its use in that certain circumstance.

[Almuryc]

Dark Meditation is a crutch for poor mana management. If you're channeling this spell you're not doing any DPS. Once I learned to play the class properly this spell was removed from my builds.

[Korando-AoC]

I just read quickly some posts but I think I disagree on some points.
My opinion:

1. You don't need tribrid on entity, all you need really is Flame Body. You have to manage mana, but Archfiend and feats from other trees are enough, you don't need to go general for entity imo.

2. Tribrid build for PvE is not that horrid as some of you describe. What is useful from General in PvE is mostly -hate, so Mindphase and - why not - Misdirection.
You don't loose that much of DPS by going general tribrid, and you can nuke more. I havent't raided with demo for some time now, but for long time I had a -hate tribrid build and that worked fine for me on few fights (Basilisk fore example).

3. I mostly run hybrid build variants (havoc + conflagration) for both PvP and PvE (not playing much more PvE with demo recently tbh). I have never played havoc + general or conflag + general, but I really don't get what is good in such builds.
How can you play without Combustion for example?
And I always feat Rapid Recharge too.

4. Insta casts are demo bread. Bindings is the only one which uses a lot of mana and can eventually be skipped in PvE (but not in PvP).
I agree with Shink, Cacodemon is a too useful group buff in raids to skip for Bindings. But if you want to play egoist and can manage mana (T4 gear helps a lot) Bindings grants some more damage. Renegotiation imho is kinda meh.. it's not so bad but doesn't really grant any significative damage increase from my tests, and it works only on 2 pacts. I use it anyway when I can't use WoF sometimes (on Entity for example, if another demo in group has caco).

5. I always use pacts in PvE ofc, but almost never in PvP (only archfiend when I need to quickly refill mana). I'm curious to know if someone regularly use them in PvP too.
Unholy Hate is another buff which is often underrated imo. It lasts few seconds, but it has short cooldown, and well timed with insta casts can increase significantly the DPS (I use it only in PvE tbough).


Finally imo a lot of different demo build works.
There are just some "essential" feats to get, and a few broken ones to skip, but it's hard to fail with demo.
Magic Damage coefficients are quite high, and gear makes more difference than build (at least until you follow a good basic spell rotation).

This is an interesting thread, it's nice to know what other demos do. Thx for this.

[Suctum]

Dark Meditation is a crutch for poor mana management. If you're channeling this spell you're not doing any DPS. Once I learned to play the class properly this spell was removed from my builds.

You don't even need it with archfiend, so I would wonder why anyone would feat it at all. If it ticked like conviction it would be ok, but as it is no way.

[Shax84]

I'm not defending or promoting the use of Dark Meditation, but as a one-point feat it is not breaking any builds that already has gone general for hate decrease. You must be nuts to go General only for that feat though.

I as Calore can not play without Combustion. Hellfire Stream normally holds around 10% of my total damage.

[Suctum]

If find yourself getting good heals and very little focus you can get away with using pacts as much as you want in pvp.

If your getting focused than you probably don't want to add any more damage to the till by using them. I mainly use archfiend for mana regen, not as a dps buff.

As far as combustion, I agree, there's really no reason to ever drop it, which pretty much makes most tribrid builds pointless. There used to be some merit to a pvp tribrid build for minis, but because of some of the recent changes to pvp mechanics, it's really not something I would suggest as the only thing you would want in general would be purge. Now, for sieges, tribrid still has some merit, in fact I noticed I got more about 20% more kills than I usually do running a tribrid build last siege. That's subjective data though since it was only one siege...

Minus hate is not as important as it used to be considering most fully geared tanks are dps machines while still tanking, your not likely to pull off of them anymore unless your really trying to, and then you still have subtle illusion, planar shift, and -5% hate from AA and if your lucky a rouge feats distraction for -3% more without having to feat anything extra yourself.

If you can't use wof for a fight, then ring of fire is worthless. The only other option you have if your running cacodemon is either renegotiation or bindings, so it's a preference to which ever you run. Personally, I get tired of seeing bindings so I use renegotiation just for a mix up.