Items that make this sucker hum (Pros and Cons), Melkor's list:

Posted by Sotanaht non-set items for the build. The purpose of listing the best non-set items is to show exactly which bonuses are being lost when you choose which slots to use set items in.



Head:

Andariel's Visage . The Element damage here is what makes it the best choice. You need to roll one with a socket or crit and then enchant the IAS to the missing stat. We don't like IAS.

Stats:

Crit Chance, Socket, Element damage, Int



Legs:

Pox Faulds . Great bit of extra damage that works perfectly with our build



Arcane only

Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan : This option essentially requires you to give up Spectral Blades entirely. The 25% damage increase more than makes up for the loss in Arcane, so this frees up another skill slot for other uses. You could stutter step, but then you risk casting EB during the SB cast time and losing damage.

Stats:

Sockets, Int, 2 defensive stats



Belt:

3 choices,:

The Witching Hour This provides the best permanent DPS, but it comes at a very high cost in terms of toughness

String of Ears : On the opposite end of the spectrum, this provides a huge amount of extra toughness (most affixes are considered melee), but no DPS beyond the primary stat

Harrington Waistgard Somewhere in the middle, the bonus on this item provides huge gains fairly frequently (procs on ANY clickable, but not destructables). The effect also does not cost a primary slot, so you still gain the normal amount of toughness.

Stats:

Int, 3x defensive. (Witching Hour is Int, Crit Damage, Defensive, Spectral Blade)



Gloves:



Fire:

Magefist Gloves of worship may also be a good choice, but the magefist is much more reliable and the majority of shrines are not very helpful.



Arcane:

Gloves of Worship The only possible choice, and the good shrines are still VERY helpful when active

Stats:

Int, Crit Chance, Crit Damage, CDR



Bracers:

Strongarm Bracers . Black Hole procs them. With high CDR that's enough to get near 100% uptime on anything that is not knockback immune.

Element, CC, Int, Any Defensive



Boots:

Ice Climbers : if you get frozen you are probably dead. Usually you can avoid it anyway, but these boots are awesome and a clear winner. Plus some bonus cold resist because why not.

Stats:

Int, 3x defensive



Amulet:

For arcane, Moonlight Ward is the absolute. I say for arcane because it comes with a massive amount of arcane damage% on it, not because the effect itself is arcane. Fire might also like a MLW with the Arcane damage enchanted to Fire but if that's even possible you would still be stuck with IAS.



For Fire, you have a few choices. All five healing amulets ( The Star of Azkaranth , Mara's Kaleidoscope , Countess Julia's Cameo , and Talisman of Aranoch Xephirian Amulet ) are good picks with pros and cons. In high torment levels Electrified is one of the scariest unavoidable affixes, so I would place Xephirian in the BIS position here. The fire amulet (Azkaranth) is also a very good choice for both fire chains and molten, which also tend to be hard to avoid.



Stats:

Ele, int, crit, crit damage. 8% CDR cant beat out any of the normal rolls here.



Ring1:

Stone of Jordan , Note that the SoJ only has room for 1 of our 3 most desirable stats, however it's damage will blow anything else away regardless



Stats:

Element, Int, Elite, Crit or Cooldown (math required)



Ring2:

Unity . For the non-set build, this is definitively the best ring you can get after the SoJ. Elite damage is pretty awesome, and the special ability to split damage either with a (preferably immortal) companion or another player is quite valuable.



Royal Ring of Grandeur Required in order to use borns set. If you choose to skip borns set however the extremely lackluster stats (forced IAS and LoH) mean it might be better to avoid the ring if possible, even if it means including an extra set piece.



Stats:

Int, Choose 2 (Crit, CHD, CDR). Most likely Crit+CDR, I still need to check the math on this.



Shoulders:

There are no particularly desirable legendary shoulders. The only ones with procs we would want (Death Watch Mantle mostly) have fixed stats that we really want to avoid, and too many of them for enchanting.



Ultimately, you are probably just going to want to craft shoulders, especially considering how difficulty it is to get CDR and EB damage at the same time. Born's Privilege or Aughild's Power are the best choices for crafting and to start your sets.

Stats

Int, CDR, Explosive Blast, Defensive



Chest:

For Fire, Cindercoat is a clear winner in terms of damage. 20% fire will easily be preferable to a single defensive roll.

Stats:

Int, Explosive Blast, Sockets, Fire damage



For Arcane, I would either use Tyreal's Might for the free damage to demons, or Tal Rasha's Relentless Pursuit for the extra property (reroll the IAS into a second defensive)

Int, Explosive Blast, Sockets, Defensive



Offhand:

For fire

Firebird's Eye . The 20% fire damage will cost you an affix, the best affix to lose here is CDR, as both the 10% crit and 15% EB damage will outperform the 8% CDR that can roll here.

Alternatively, a +2 Mirrorball for a conflagrate variant build is an option for fire. This will option only cost roughly 4% damage compared to the Firebird's.



For Arcane

Cosmic Strand is the only 4 primary legendary offhand that does something useful for our build, The only other option is Tal Rasha's, which is nothing but generic stats.



And the stats on the Perfect Wand of Woh ,

Damage Range, CDR, Int, Socket. CDR should outperform %damage in the standard build. In the Conflag build Damage will provide more DPS, but you lose some of the utility CDR offers on teleport and black hole cooldowns.



Now of course, you should look at sets to replace these items. The Captain's Crimson and Aughild's Rule are VERY important bonuses to have. Born's Command can be considered optional. Blackthorne's Battlegear is also one to consider, though it will likely not be the best choice. Class sets (tal's, vyr's, and firebird's) should only be used opportunistically if at all. We are NOT building for them nor are they worth building for.

Posted by Unspecified



I see a lot of people talking about diminishing returns on CDR and it's not as bad as you think. I'm currently at 60.94% CDR and working towards at least 65%, probably closer to 70% if I ever find a good ring/amulet (I have the Crimson recipe, just need to make the pieces). Yes this is going to be a "math post."



For the purposes of this I'm just going to pretend every EB blast does exactly 100 damage and use a 60 second span of constant blasting. With base attack speed EB takes 5 seconds from cast to final blast but I'm just going to ignore that and treat it as a constant. It doesn't really change the math, attack speed does increase DPS though once you have enough CDR to still have no gap in casting because the 12 blasts of each cast happen faster.



Base EB is a 6 second CD so:

60 seconds / 6 seconds = 10 casts x 12 blasts x 100 damage = 12000 damage



With 12.5% from helm EB has 6 x (1 - 0.125) = 5.25 second CD, so :

60 / 5.25 = 11.43 (rounding) x 12 x 100 = 13716 damage

13716 / 12000 = 1.143 = 14.3% damage increase for 12.5% (remember this)



Just for review here's the possible CDR sources:



Main Hand 10%

Off-hand 8%

Rings 8% (each)

Amulet 8%

Shoulders 8%

Gloves 8%

Paragon 10%

Evocation 20%

Born's 10%

Crimson's 10%

Diamond 12.5%



Let's cut out the diamond:

6 x (1 - 0.1) x (1 - 0.08) x (1 - 0.08) x (1 - 0.08) x (1 - 0.08) x (1 - 0.08) x (1 - 0.08) x (1 - 0.1) x (1 - 0.2) x (1 - 0.1) x (1 - 0.1) = 1.9 seconds (that's 68.17% CDR)



So with all CDR except the Diamond:

60 / 1.9 = 31.58 casts x 12 x100 = 37896 damage

37896 / 12000 = 3.158 = 315.8% damage increase



Now let's add back in the Diamond:

6 x (1 - 0.6817) x (1 - 0.125) = 1.67 seconds (that's 72.15% CDR)



So last bit of math, with ALL CDR:

60 / 1.67 = 35.93 casts x 12 x 100 = 43116 damage

43116 / 12000 = 3.593 = 359.3% damage increase



Remember that number for just the helmet? 14.3% damage increase. Well:

43116 (all CDR) / 37896 (all CDR but helmet) = 1.138 = 13.8% damage increase



The diminishing returns really aren't that bad on CDR. In fact that 0.5% may be accounted for because of MY rounding numbers to the second decimal place.



Edit: At 60% CDR you also get Diamond Skin on a 6 second CD and Enduring Skin makes it last 6 seconds. You also get Frost Nova down to 3 seconds with Cold Snap which freezes for 3 seconds, or you can use Bone Chill on a 4.4 second CD for the damage boost. Finally, Black Hole is at 4.8 seconds which means you can maintain Spell Steal permanently (5 second duration) or you can clean up affixes like a champ with Event Horizon.

Disclaimer: This is a Guide, not a mandate. Take what you can from it. Change it. Modify it. Adapt. There are no absolutes here.Disclaimer: This guide will demonstrate gearing and skill selections for the build,"Chainpocalypse”. Unlike other guides, - you can not just “make this work” with whatever you have on your character. That being said, the build does work with vanilla items - which is to say, items that are not "special". It does NOT shine, though. You need stuff.A note about this guide: There are two very popular versions of this build. One of them is the Fire Version (FV) and the other is the Arcane Version (AV) We are still as a community trying to assess which build will ultimately out do the other in terms of raw dps – but as is usual in ROS, the realistic answer is, “do the best you can do with what you have.” :) Hopefully, this guide will give you enough information to help you make the best decision + have the most fun.Credits:Malakai - Came up with core skills for a build such as this in my “Time Capsule Game” thread.Dolynick – Came up with the nameMelkor – put it all together, ran the build, have experimented with many loadouts, makes rap musicUnspecified – for his work on CDR (quoted in thread)Sotanaht - for his work on the Arcane VersionVishnu – for his continued work and discussion throughout the threadThe following skills are the “cookie cutters”. One or two of them will change if the gear can support a change. For the foreseeable future, this is how it is. I am going to write this out as if you're at level 70 however, to highlight the synegies and to help demonstrate the full potential - as far into the future as I can fathom at the moment.Skill Selections1 - Magic Weapon - Force Weapon/Deflection2 - Teleport - Calamity3 - Energy Armor - Prismatic Armor4. Explosive Blast - Chain ReactionPassive 1: Unwavering Will/BlurPassive 2: EvocationPassive 3: IllusionistPassive 4: Audacity/BlurLMB: Spectral Blades: Fire Blades (FV) or Magic Missile Conflagration with Mirrorball Source) (F+AV) or Barrier Blades (AV)RMB: 1 of 3 (in order of preference): BlackHole - Event Horizon, Energy Twister-Gale Force, Wave of Force - Heat Wave,Core item:(FV)(AV)I have been trying to only list items that are differentiators, meaning they bring a unique contributing idea to the build. You therefore will not see discussions on elemental bracers, for example. You will most likely run this piece no matter what. No need to discuss.(FV)PROS: Reduces the cost of Fire Spells/Buffs the damage from Fire Skills. Allows the consideration of “spamish” Gale Force.CONS: The buff to fire eats a primary roll. Considering the chest is one of the only three slots to get an Explosive Blast % increase, this makes this chest piece a major ehp/mit drain. The “generic, non cindercoat” chest has some attractive rolls in general: Main stat, vitality, All Res, Armor, % skills, sockets(3).(FV) (AV)PROS: Fire Skills buff/Elite Damage Buffs. This ring really doesn’t mess around when it comes to Elites. In a rift, it can be a serious, serious advantage.CONS: The Stone of Jordan just doesn’t offer a ton of utility – and like SnS, Chainpocalypse is becoming increasingly more and more, a utility driven build. The SOJ will always, from a primary perspective, roll the % damage against elites, a main stat, and an elemental bonus. That leaves you with only 1 primary roll. In a perfect world, that’s a stat we’re going to want to be critical hit chance. So then what? Re-roll the main stat to…CHD? CDR? The ring leaves a LOT on the table for general trash farming.(FV)PROS: The incrase % to fire skills is essentially a “free roll”. These gloves essentially rollprimaries. You will always get the % increase to Fire + IAS. In the event that your goal is to stack ias for building fire blade stacks, you are getting 2 rolls out of the gate that you are guaranteed to want. This leaves you with the ability to put together an absolutely BEASTLY glove such as:+20% to Fire, +750 Intelligence, Increased Attack Speed by 7%(or reroll to 8% CDR), 50%CD, 10%CCIn the event that you are interested in stacking Cooldowns over IAS, you are looking for a bit of a more “perfectly rolled glove”, where you would then re-roll the IAS from the standard roll in search of whatever you are missing (CHD, CHC, CDR)CONS: There aren’t a whole lot of downsides to the Magefist. The glove has 5 primaries, folks.(FV) (AV)For some gear sets, the glove slot may be forced to be reserved for the Fire Set Gloves, Asherea’s gloves, Gloves of Worship, Vyrs, etc. Incapable of rolling trifecta, it remains to be seen if the Firebird’s Talons as part of a 6 piece set bonus will serve you better. If so, the glove slot is an “easy slot” to select for fulfilling your piece requirement, since the Firebird glove comes with both IAS and CDR. Simply re-roll either the IAS or the CDR for CHC or CHD, if the RNG gods were so kind as to grant you one of the two as your random primary. In the event that this occurs, you would end up having the same glove as the Magefist, minus the % to fire. That’s a decision you will have to revisit at the time the items become available. Gloves of Worship are situational gloves that I would keep in my inventory for one shrine effect only – the Empowered Shrine. 10 minutes of Empowered will likely out dps any bonus you have going there, otherwise.(FV) (AV)PROS: Fire Skills damage buff as a primary roll – A great place to snag that 20% to Fire buff. Comes with Main Stat, IAS, and the elemental bonus. The poison nova is a real nice, “Why the hell not?” DPS supplement.CONS: The Andariel’s Visage comes with onlyRandomly Rolled Affix. This random roll MUST be either Crit Chance or a Socket. In the event that you are willing to forego crit chance on the helm (which really gimps your DPS), you could get away with either All Res or Armor, but this is not preferable. You will inevitably have to re-roll the IAS off this helm to get either the desired roll or the socket. And at the end of the day, you really, really, need a socketed helm. Remember, Cool Down Reduction returns less and less the more items you stack, so getting the largest rolls in the least amount of slots/skills is most advantageous. Also, the “takes more fire damage” is not exactly wonderful. Being a tank, it’s tough to justify taking more damage from fire chains, molten trails and explosions, mortar, etc.(FV)PROS: 20% to Fire on the source. That’s about all it brings to the table.CONS: This piece is very deceptive. It comes with the fire % bonus, which is fantastic. But it also comes with Intelligence + 2 primaries + secondary rolls. We aren’t really concerned with the secondaries, so let’s look at what we would want for the 2 primaries: 1) Explosive Blast %, Cool Down Reduction, Critical Hit Chance. All THREE of these rolls can come on other sources – but not a Firebird’s Eye. At the end of the day, I find the Tal Rasha’s Unwavering Glare to be the BiS for me. An ungodly number of primary rolls. You can get Intelligence, CHC, CDR, and EB on the same source. That’s…very, very good, and may be worth trading the % bonus to Fire from the Firbird’s source for. You also could utilize a Triumvirate So you can capture 50% of the fire skill bonus while still snagging Crit Chance. You then can get your random roll as EB%. That’s a strong contender, if not stronger than the Tal’s – except for the fact that you can’t ALSO get Cool Down’s on the Trium in addition to the EB%.(AV) (Maybe also FV)PROS: The Moonlight Ward is free damage and is arguably BiS for Arcane Versions of the build. The item detonates Arcane Orbs around you at a rate of no greater than 1 per second. Depending on the % damage you roll on the piece (but not really) this item offers phenomenal, supplementary damage. For the AV, it is accepted as BiS.CONS The MLW requires you to quite literally be atop the enemy. Contrary to popular belief, Chainpocalypse requires you be close to your enemy, notyour enemy. For this reason, trying to take advantage of MLW can get you into some seriously hairy situation that no amount of mitigation can help against, especially fire chains, and electrified enemy types.(AV) (Maybe also FV)PROS: Chain stunning Calamity never hurt anyone. Arcane Versions of the build get buffs to the Arcane damage of the calamity, effectively turning the utility of the Teleport skill into a full on DPS supplement.Random Rolls, of whichare primaries means this source could potentially give you (in addition to the ave dam range, of course): INT, CHC, EB%, CDR. That’s a big deal, considering the legendary proc of the item is already a big advantage.CONS: Immensely frustrating to farm the materials, need the plan, can roll absolutely disgustingly. I’ve seen them come out with Vitality, terrible crit chance rolls, terrible CDR rolls, wrong skill bonuses – it’s a hard item to perfect. Arguably? BiS.[quote]------Stats on Gear:You must invest:A Diamond in the HelmAt least 3-4 rolls of MAX cool down reduction on gear. Anywhere you put those rolls, it's gonna hurt. You really do not want 5%'s or 6%'s. Go for 7%+ the Your goal is to breach 35% CDR in total. Currently, I’m running 54%, at the time of this post – and I wouldn’t give up a single 1%.At least 15% to the skill Explosive Blast, the more, the merrier.Fire% on gear – but you do not have to put it EVERYWHERE. That’s going to gimp the utility/performance on the build. Sometimes, you have to say “no” to a fire slotted item in lieu of an ehp/mit/mechanics piece. It is what it is.Do NOT make plans for taking Black Hole Damage bonuses at 70. There's no point with this build..(arguably any build). We want Black Hole to create the Vortex on us as its primary function. We also want Black Hole to clean up the floor of all those nasty affixes. We're facetanking here, folks.You should invest:A substantial amount of rolls into mitigation. Do not be concerned with you sheet DPS.Why the mitigation?The passive, "Illusionist" states that your cooldowns on teleport will automatically reset if you ever take more than 15% of your maximum life in damage over 1 second. It doesn't say that the damage has to hit your health pool, however :)I find 200,000 to be the bare minimum health pool. 250,000 is nice, 300,000 is generally unnecessary.I find 2400 All Res to be a nice number to deal with up to t4.I find 8,000 Armor to be a nice number to deal with up to t4.I find 10,000 Life Regen to be a number to deal with up to t4I have no idea regarding the value of LoH. Don’t come in with 0. I have 6,000. Spectral Blades heals me right quick. Not sure how often I’m relying on my LoH vs. Life Regen for sustain.You are a teleporting nuclear bomb, homies. You can cast Explosive Blast, chain reaction...uh everywhere and always. Mob around the corner? Better get that cast going! In the middle of a "heated" battle? Never break EB casting. In town vendoring? At the blacksmith? lol, jk.This build does not expend arcane power. Younecessarily need a "spender." If that’s your racket, - I prefer Energy Twister, Gale Force for the 15% additive buff to Explosive Blast. Remember folks, EB does NOT take an attack turn, so you can spam Gale Force while not ceasing EB. This however, is generally not a smart move. Gale Force does terrible damage. Just cast 2 or 3 in a big mob and get back Spectral Blading. Recast the tornadoes every few seconds. You can cast EB while moving. There's actually no moment in this build when you can't cast EB. You can't cast Spectral Blades at the same time as Energy Twister, however. Use Spectral Blades to buff your next EB as well as regain (or wait for native regen of) Arcane Power, and LoH. The one reason youyour SB casts is to return Life from LoH.Don't neglect a cooled down teleport. You don't need to "save" anything. Jump around the map like Melkor at a half-off rare coin convention. You'll reset. Remember, even without a proc from Illusionist, you're reducing teleport's cool downs by at least 40%. That's aggressive in and of itself.A note on CDR, by Unspecified:The following is a spreadsheet eDPS calculator put together by the ever helpful wizard, Unspecified:Thread: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12504570708 Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtfTopPK72QBdFI5cEN3NWpCMl9UUlFEaVdTWTBkNmc&usp=sharingAnyway, any questions?