Mosaic kicksin: Chargeup skills are confusing me

[krischan]

I recently started my Mosaic kicksin. Once she reached the level for her Mosaic claws (a +3 phoenix strike/+2 weapon block wrist sword and a +2 phoenix strike suwayyah), I respecced her leveling buile (wake of fire) and she kicked ass right from the baginning. It was super easy to finish nightmare at /p8, including ancients, awesome! The main challenge was to attack something before the chargeup timer ran out (no Enigma yet), like when having to turn back in a dead end etc.

Having almost no experience with kicksins, her chargeup skills confuse me and Google wasn't really a good help. With 15 unused skill points by now, I need a few answers:

1. As far as I understand phoenix strike, when having it at 3 charges and no charges are lost because of 2x Mosaic, only the cold damage is triggered, as phoenix strike will stay at 3 charges, correct?
2. In that case, the fists of fire synergy would be useless for phoenix strike when having phoenix strike at more than one charge, right?
3. Are the fists of fire, claws of thunder and blades of ice effects (or even phoenix strike) cumulative? If no, only the 3rd charge effect of any chargeup skill is applied when using them with Mosaic, right?
4. As fists of fire also converts 3% physical damage per skill level into fire damage, it's not worth charging up once it leaves not enough physical damage if I also want to deal a good amount of physical damage, right?

It seems appealing to me to have a decent amount of physical damage as well, as it's good for leech (see also cobra strike), physical immunity is less common than elemental immunities and a physical sunder charm hasn't have such a bad drawback.

Current gear (feel free to comment):
Shako (or better Griffon's?)
2x Mosaic (see above) with good rolls on the first claw and not so good rolls on the second
Vipermagi (no Enigma available)
20%IAS/+2 martial arts gloves
Verdungo's (or better Arachnid?)
Sandstorm Trek
Mara's
BK ring
Ravenfrost
Enough martial arts skillers
Gheed's
+resistance small charms (haven't made FHR calculations yet)

I'm more after magic find than additional damage. She already can kill with ease and /p3 produces enough drops and exp for me, so I currently prefer a shako over Griffon's and tend to socket it with a ptopaz rather than with a facet.

Skills (where to put further skill points?):
Max claws of thunder
Max blades of ice
Max phoenix strike
1 in the other chargeup skills
1 claw mastery
1 weapon block
1 shadow warrior (or would shadow master be better here)
1 burst of speed
1 fade

 

[snickersnack]

1. As far as I understand phoenix strike, when having it at 3 charges and no charges are lost because of 2x Mosaic, only the cold damage is triggered, as phoenix strike will stay at 3 charges, correct?
2. In that case, the fists of fire synergy would be useless for phoenix strike when having phoenix strike at more than one charge, right?
3. Are the fists of fire, claws of thunder and blades of ice effects (or even phoenix strike) cumulative? If no, only the 3rd charge effect of any chargeup skill is applied when using them with Mosaic, right?
4. As fists of fire also converts 3% physical damage per skill level into fire damage, it's not worth charging up once it leaves not enough physical damage if I also want to deal a good amount of physical damage, right?

It seems appealing to me to have a decent amount of physical damage as well, as it's good for leech (see also cobra strike), physical immunity is less common than elemental immunities and a physical sunder charm hasn't have such a bad drawback.

Hasty reply as I have a meeting very soon:

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. No, those three are cumulative, while PS is not. Before the changes to NHD, using 3 charges of CoT would mean that some mobs wouldn't get hit by all 3, particularly if you're also using PS. That doesn't matter anymore, though.
4. I have 1 point in FoF and I include it in my charge up rotation.

I think that until you get Enigma, losing charges will happen a lot in certain areas.

 

[krischan]

Thanks, that helped a lot!

 

[PhineasB]

I think @krischan and @snickersnack can't have a thread where they respond only to each other. Bulging cartoon eyes, buck teeth, comedic noses . . . it's very confusing

 

[maxicek]

My charge up process is:
- 2 charges of Phoenix Strike. Do this one first in case you accidentally over charge it.
- 3 charges FoF
- 3 charges BoI
I haven't played her (with Mosaic) since the patch, but I will probably add in
- 3 Charges CoT since the Next Delay changes

If you are going for leech (and as you don't have the LPK from Enigma you probably should) you will have to limit the FoF level, to about 30 after +Skills (check this, I'm going from memory here). Then you can add 3x Cobra Strike charges in too to get the leech.

The trouble with limiting FoF is you also limit the usefulness of PS charge 1. Dropping Meteors on a boss at 3FPA is a thing of beauty.



Basically the slowest thing to kill is always going to be broken LIs. Anything that is not immune to lightning dies very fast, even without any skillers or +PS claws. Griffons is a big damage boost here, but with quite a drop in MF. Depends on what you feel is best, try both.

I would consider Hustle for the armour and some 40RW boots without Enigma, if you are running Fade. Natalya's or Aldur's depending on the resists. That extra FRW will make all the difference.

 

[snickersnack]

I think @krischan and @snickersnack can't have a thread where they respond only to each other. Bulging cartoon eyes, buck teeth, comedic noses . . . it's very confusing

Hmm, maybe it's time for a new avatar...

As I recall, I made this one for a forum contest and I might've won something, but I'm not sure. That had to have been over 10 years ago.

 

[krischan]

Yes, I have a few vague memories about that. I'm not going to change my avatar though, but perhaps I should change my Christmas avatar back to normal, hmm...

My current strategy is to charge up phoenix strike first, then the other elemental chargeups. Then I usually have to take care not to die (hell mode), so I kill off the bulk of the monsters, in order to charge up the physical damage plus leech chargeups with the remaining monsters.

How do I know that phoenix strike is up to 2 charges? It's a bit hard to take note of how many hits I've made. Is the swirling thing around the assassin an indicator?

When being fully charged up, I usually leave a few monsters alive, so I have something to reset the timer in case I have to go back to somewhere else, as I don't have Enigma yet. Unfortunately, Ber is one of the two runes I haven't found in D2R so far (the other is Zod). I have a Sur rune and could probably cube up most of my runes balow that and have a Ber, but that seems to be a waste of resources. If I find another Sur, I might consider it though.

BTW, I've made it through hell mode with her and I tried Cows right after it. It was gorgeous! Bam bam, cows dead! Later on, I did a bit business as usual with my other characters and I needed a minute to get used to the "slow killing". Once she has Enigma, it will be doomsday for the monsters.

 

[snickersnack]

Yes, the white swirly thing(s) that sit(s) in the lower orbit, from what I can tell. I used to charge up PS first so that if I overshoot, I can reset and try again, but now I charge BoI first, hit with Dragon Claw to freeze everything, then I can take my time getting two hits with PS. I count the charge up by looking for the life steal animation.

I haven't tried it, but maybe charging up while zoomed in will help?

You're right, Enigma will make a big difference. What I found with /p8 cows was that you have to keep moving and it's hard to check drops at the same time. Initially, I'd just fly around killing all of the cows (only checking for runes) and then make a second pass to look at drops (I id some blues and yellows, e.g. rare boots). This was with a completely full inventory, so I used the cube to check drops. After a while, I started keeping a 2x4 space clear so that I can check drops on the fly, and I started getting used to IDing items while a round of kicks is going off.

 

[krischan]

Yeah, checking loot is a bit of a problem when having to take care that the timer doesn't run out. I'm counting the seconds after the last finishing move which takes away a bit attention.

I'm having a 2x4 space clear on all my characters, plus the cube. That's usually enough space for loot during a run through a terror zone. With a full inventory you would have to press I and put the loot into the cube which needs perhaps 2 seconds and you might not have that much time when being under attack.