Hmmm,.. I'm also playing an Elemental Archer Sage. This is my TitanCalc.

The main difference seems to be that I'm passing up on the Thunderballs, but also on Scatter Shot Arrows. The latter ones I really don't think are worth it on an elemental build. They've been nerfed enough allready on physical builds, and on elemental builds they add really little, at quite a hefty skill point investment.

Shouldn't it be weapons primarily, spells secondary ? build up int%, then bombard with buffed up spells..

I'm also running a pyro at the moment and I thought about using flamesurge as a primary attack but man does it suck so much..

So I bought the points back, chose nature and now aim to create a strong summoner.. but I have no idea if it would worth the hassle.. core dweller dies so quickly even in the first act and even when I use pet jewelry.. I mean how could a "40HP + 10 Armor" help him when he already has 600ish health to being with? is it worth to build his tree that early in the game? that %100 health bonus reward in Act III may also change how they fare in normal but I'm not sure..if its not worth it, I'm gonna remove nature and choose rune instead.. stonespeaker might actually be fun with all that offensive stuff..

In short: no.

He's good, but not in Normal, like most pets. The point is that you do want him maxed at the beginning of Epic, and preferably all his synergies except Wildfire around Act III Epic, so either you have to start building up his tree early, or save up, or buy back skillpoints later.

Blazing through Act IV again. Still some occassional silly deaths, because I'm horribly undergeared armour-wise. I've got a lot of Legendary armours, Monster Infrequents, and Greens stashed, but they're all strength based so I can't wear them. Oh well, I am rather over-geared on the offensive and jewelry sides, so I'll just have to make do untill I get across some better armour. I really don't feel like farming in Epic for now.

On a different note, I am considering buying back ALL the points I invested in Ring of Flame and Soften Metal. It looks decent enough, also in a literal sense: the visuals are nice, and it's a great mob killer in Normal. However, I find that its offensive capabilities scale poorly, and on a ranged character, enemies are not getting close enough, or at least they shouldn't. When they ssometimes do, you want a defensive buff or enemy offensive debuff more than an offensive effect, but the only thing you're getting in that area is 15% reduced enemy offensive ability for 3 seconds,.. that's hardly worth 20 skillpoints. Then you also get an enemy defensive debuff in the form of -110 armour for 3 seconds, but that's it. The rest is 33 flat damage and 57 flat fire damage per second, which'd be good if you were facetanking, as it is per second, and in combination with other aura's or trances, but simply isn't on a ranged intelligence based or hybrid character. Aside from the skillpoints, it consumes a lot of energy too, which is not so much a problem on a build that doesn't consume much otherwise, but still dangerous when facing energy leeching bosses. It's just annoying too, having to watch that energy gauge, lest your enchantments deactivate, because you were just a tad too late rinking that potion. I might even be better of dumping those points in Unleash, even though it's electrical burn damage.

i actually think it's better for a slayer.. marksmanship over onslaught.. less damage but it pierces.. and you won't benefit from runeword:explode and burn much anyway because the weapon forces you to a str + dex build.. scatter shot might be better for a str + dex build.. no sacred rage but you'll have enough damage from battle standard, study prey, art of the hunt, and call of the hunt.. no menhir wall but you'll have monster lure.. might go well with tracker's hood.. then either SBC or sentinel's armbands

unless if you want to build it int + dex berserker but then that high percent physical damage would be wasted

and the DA stacking: 128 + 125 + ultimate max wood lore

Good point.

For now I'm sticking with my Stonespeaker though 

Feeling really stupid again: I was dying a lot in Act III Epic, because I was careless/impatient, but also against Dragonians, even though my main attack damage at max charge Rune Weapon is about 2200~2300. Increasing damage and defensive buffs seemed to do little. It's only then that I noticed that the Dragonian Warlocks' aura looks a lot like my own Heat Shield. Usually the Warlocks died quickly, but so did I. Yup, I'd been increasing my fire elemental damage, and prioritising Warlocks as a target, whenever I was losing health,.. only to have it reflected right back in my face.

Now that I just let Corey piss about and wait untill the Warlocks' Heat Shield expires, I'm not dying anymore, and actually steamrolling through the later stages of vanilla.

That said, the careless/impatient deaths still happen sometimes. The main reason for this is that even on agressive stance, Corey is slow, not as in his physical speed, but he's mentally slow. He keeps dragging behind me, and I have to manually send him forward every so many meters. It would be nice if there were some kind of setting to have your pets walk in front of you, instead of behind, though Wolves allready seem to do that on their own account.

Finally, I just got another double-drop:



Not too happy about it for now, but it might end up working in my favour, if I want to find two Chakram of the Sun. For now I might in facte use the Chakram of the Lawless to level. My unbuffed damage is going down by about 200, but that's with one. I've kept enough skillpoints in reserve to max out Reckless Offense straight away. I'm assuming that with both of them equiped, my damage will be significantly more than with Zhu Rong's bow.

If the speed buffs, and experience increases stack, it's almost too good to be true. Stacked they would also give +4 to all skills in Warfare mastery. That'd be amazing on a dual-throw Beserker build.

How come you have billions of HP?

Yeah, that doesn't look exactly legit, though on the other hand, if he really did have billions of HP, he'd never get down to so few. I'm guessing he's using some kind of mod that breaks down and divides HP points by a factor thousand or so.

By overlevelled I was thinking more of farming him in Epic, when your character has allready moved on to Legendary. He probably won't be as overlevelled as you are, but still come with a fair enough chance to drop duplicated Legendary items.

Regarding the equiping: what if you enter the Maze nekkid, run like a maniac, and only equip your gear after he has spawned? You'll be fully geared right, while he is only equiped with what you were carrying nekkid. That should even work for duplicating armor, not just weapons.

As I suggested before: wouldn't it work facing the Doppelganger using an over-levelled character, equiped with only the item you want a duplicate off?