Cruels or Black Ice enchants?

silence1x

Dusted off my DC (AC Ri and DO Ri builds) over the weekend and was wondering what's the better enchant - Cruels or Black Ice (or a combination)?

Thanks all

mebengalsfan

Cruel for power and recovery

silence1x

What about in the defense slots?

rjc9000

If you want to maximize your AC's buffs, I'd suggest trying Asssassin's Covenant and Black Ice Enchants in your defensive slots on your character, then picking up the defense/lifesteal boon.

mebengalsfan

rjc9000 said:

If you want to maximize your AC's buffs, I'd suggest trying Asssassin's Covenant and Black Ice Enchants in your defensive slots on your character, then picking up the defense/lifesteal boon.

That would hurt you as it is typically power or defense. Though when it comes to other stats like lifesteal or deflection, you may go that rout for more power but you may miss out on critical strike stats.

rjc9000

The whole point behind the Black Ice in Defense with Assassin's Covenant is to max out your power. The loss in defensive stats is a non issue, since DCs are not supposed to be front line defenders.

Crit is nice on an AC DC, but you don't really need a huge % to get consistent Fire of the God procs, or for the occasional big heal. Your high power should be sufficient enough to heal everyone.

silence1x

Great info. Thanks folks. I do have assassin's covenant.

dupeks

Agree with what has been said.

It's hard to recommend this vs. that because so much of what you want to slot depends on your other gear / build choices.

In general, power -> recovery -> crit for power share / daily spam builds. Black Ice gives more power than Cruels, but you lose some of the recovery. Do you have enough recovery from artis and gear?

Short answer: I run all black ice enchants in offensive slots, because getting more passive "base" power is what I chose to optimize for. I balance recovery / crit using gear and companion.

putzboy78

I'm a high crit build (which most dcs are not), so i use azure and brutals on offense

savage on defense

As dupeks said, its hard to recommend what you need because its really about balancing your stats and which stats you want to focus on. Since I'm not an AC/DC power buffer I don't need to max/min this stat. I use an artificer build with the griffon so I don't need recovery. So basically on offense I stack crit to 100% then work on power on defense HP is more useful for me than defense, however the dual stat bonus of savage is nice so i use that for hp and lifesteal (since I try to have a bit of that for survival).

dupeks

putzboy78 said:

I'm a high crit build (which most dcs are not), so i use azure and brutals on offense

savage on defense

As dupeks said, its hard to recommend what you need because its really about balancing your stats and which stats you want to focus on. Since I'm not an AC/DC power buffer I don't need to max/min this stat. I use an artificer build with the griffon so I don't need recovery. So basically on offense I stack crit to 100% then work on power on defense HP is more useful for me than defense, however the dual stat bonus of savage is nice so i use that for hp and lifesteal (since I try to have a bit of that for survival).

Putz brings up a really good point. There is more than one viable and effective build for DCs. I'd say there's even more than 2!

And another thing worth mentioning: running an artificer build takes a big chunk of the pressure off of recovery and pushes focus back to power or crit (depending on whether you are building for power-sharing or not).

bitt3rnightmar3

I use a combination of Cruel and Radiant in offense and Brutals in Defense for HP/Defense stats. @rjc9000 is correct though about min maxing with assassins covenant and black ice enchants in defense.

I get most of my recovery from my companion.

I don't feel that I need more than around 30-35% crit chance on my AC/DC since I have an owlbear cub. I still proc bear your sins pretty frequently with fire of the gods so it's not a huge deal for me not to have more crit as I'm specialized as a support debuff vs. personal dps.

silence1x

All good points. Thanks folks, appreciate the help.