[ 1.3 ] Burning Arrow Ignite Prolife Trapper - fast clear - boss killer - hardcore - very cheap

The idea is to use burning arrows physical to fire conversion, high base damage and chance to ignite together with the Avatar of Fire keystone to proliferate an ignite to all monsters.

To archieve really high damage you have to use a unique bow called Chin Sol (its a pretty cheap unique) and link burning arrow with trap. Chin Sol gives you a 100% more damage multiplier if you hit targets in close range and if you throw your burning arrow trap you will always hit your target in close range because the monster steps over the trap and it calculates the distance from the trap to the target. Later you skill Point Blank in the skill tree to get another 50 % more damage multiplier if you hit your target in close range, which stacks with Chin Sol.


There is a lot of ways to scale your damage even further.
Burning Arrow is an attack and scales with all added physical and elemental damage(cold and lighting only at 50 % effectivness because of Avatar of Fire).
Your base damage is mostly physical and scales with increased physical damage.
It scales with increased trap damage because Trap support gem is used.
It scales with projectile damage because its an projectile attack.
And last but not least it scales with increased fire and elemental damage because its purely fire damage after the conversion through Avatar of Fire and they are the most important because it scales the damage of the initial hit and the damage of the burn.
For example my quiver gives me 4 damage mods who all will increase the damage, that improves my damage significantly:


With my build and a level 18 chance to ignite you get 87 % chance to ignite on your burning arrow and with Flammability you get an extra 13 % chance to ignite, which increases your chance to ignite to 100 %.
You should first trow the trap and then curse the enemies with flammablity while the trap is flying in the air, then everything will die and you can immediatly move on.
I also get both Amplify and Blast Radius for a really big increase in AoE of the burn.
With this you can move very fast from pack to pack and only have to throw one trap per pack.
You are also using Resolute Technique so your burning arrow can never miss.

The real strength in this build lies in his ability to easily kill hard map bosses, who many people just skip. You just have to throw one trap(curse if possible) and then you can run away and wait until the burn kills the boss. If you are scared to come to close to the boss you can even trap other monsters that are usally in the boss room and lure the boss near the ignited corpses and kill him with that.

Its also extremly safe to open strongboxes. Just throw your traps in front of the box, shoot your blink arrow and open it. The same time the mobs spawn you blink away and leave a decoy near the chest. Usually everything that spawns dies instanly, Exiles included. I dont see a way how you could get killed with this tactic(if you dont missclick the box before you shoot blink arrow). Works everytime for me, much better than lightning warp or freeze mine. I dont even identify the strongboxes anymore (in a hardcore league) if I dont wanna roll it, because there isnt any combination thats dangerous to me.

You are also completly immune to reflect damage because the damage gets reflected to the trap not to you and ignite damage cannot get reflected.

And im doing this build without any mana regen nodes in my tree or on my gear. Its doable because of the very cheap mana cost of burning arrow and because you only have to use 1 trap per monster pack. Im using a level 3 clarity to help a little bit with mana regen but its not even necessary I think. Also half regen maps are no problem for me. And no regen maps you can just swap weapon elemental damage or fire penetration with a bloodmagic gem and its no problem(or you can use a mana flask).

As auras im using anger, clarity and herald of ash. Anger gives you the most damage of any aura(because of Avatar of Fire wrath and hatred only gives you 50 % of its damage). Herald of ash doesnt gives you that much damage but its good for its cheap cost and quality on it gives you increased fire damage which is really good with this build. You could also run grace if you want more evasion instead of damage.

Im also using a cast when damage taking setup with enduring cry and immortal call. This is extremly usefull to mitigate physical damage and to keep your character alive. Almost everyone should use this on hardcore. I think its best to level cast when damage taken, enduring cry, and immortal call all to level 43. then they become the most efficent and the damage threshold is still low enough.

Last skill im using is tornado shot with lmp. Its extremly useful to kill single monsters who are not walking into the burn. It only has 50 % dmg effectivness becaus of Avatar of Fire, but you still have alot of damage with it and kill most with a single shot.

For this build you have to start as Shadow. There are so many efficent nodes on the shadow tree and you want to have Acrobatics + Point Blank. And the elemental damage nodes at the start are also very good. Other classes are not recommended. You need every skill point you can get because you have to go all the way from Point Blank to the fire nodes by Witch to Avatar of Fire to Resolute Technique.

Currently I am using a 6 Link but before that I just had my 4 linked deerstalker and it was just fine.

Burning Arrow:
4 link: burning arrow + trap + chance to ignite + elemental proliferation

5 link: burning arrow + trap + chance to ignite + elemental proliferation + fire penetration or weapon elemental damage

6 link: burning arrow + trap + chance to ignite + elemental proliferation + fire penetration + weapon elemental damage

Tornado Shot:
4 link: tornado shot + lesser multiple projectiles + fire penetration + weapon elemental damage
5 link: tornado shot + lesser multiple projectiles + fire penetration + weapon elemental damage + faster attacks

Auras:
4 link: reduced mana + clarity + anger + herald of ash

Curse:
3 link: flammability + faster casting + bloodmagic
4 link: flammablity + faster casting + bloodmagic + increased aoe

Cast when damage taken:
4 link: cast when damage taken + enduring cry + immortal call + increased duration

Blink arrow:
Put blink arrow wherever you have a slot free. You can even link it with faster attacks or faster projectiles if you have the slots for it.


Gems with good quality bonus:

Burning arrow:
Its usually very cheap to get a high quality burning arrow. At 20% it gives you 60 % bonus ignite duration which is alot and quite useful for all sorts of situations: Elreon defend missions, difficult bosses, draging other monsters in your ignite prolife.

Chance to ignite:
Similiar to burning arrow increases your ignite duration but only by 30 % at 20 % quality.

Herald of ash:
Gives you 15 % increased fire damage at 20 % quality. Its also not as expensive as some other quality gems.

Fire penetration:
Also increases fire damage but only by 10 % at 20% quality.

Immortal call:
Increases the duration of your immortal call which will improve your surviveability.

Level 1-30:
Use any skill you like(preferable with elemental damage). I used lightning tendrils with a +1 to lighting gems sceptre. Its a very good skill on low level. Levelup a firetrap and anger for later.

Level 31-61:
Now you should have quite a few elemental and fire damage nodes from the skill tree and can use elemental prolife. You should use firetrap linked with elemental prolife and chance to ignite in a wand or scepter with +1 to fire gems. It might seem a bit weak at first but gets stronger fast as you level up your elemental prolife and get more fire nodes. As singletarget you can use flamesurge, after you ignite your target with the firetrap. You should also start using flammabilty now.

Level 62:
Now you can use Chin Sol and you should start using burning arrow + chance to ignite + elemental prolife + fire penetration(or weapon elemental damage) in a 4 linked Deerstalker boots until you get a 5 or 6 link. You will probably need some gear with dex (can craft dex with masters) to use Chin Sol now, but later if you go down to Point Blank you have enough dex and can replace your dex gear with something better. You should also focus now on getting your gear 4 linked and use your auras, cast when damage taken, tornadoshot, flammability and blink arrow.

At level 62 you should already have all chance to ignite nodes and Resolute Technique skilled and get very reliable ignites. You will have alot of damage for your level and dont need more damage until much later. You should get Amplify, more life nodes and Clever Construction next. After that you can go down to Point blank for even more damage. You can get Point Blank sooner to help with the dex requirement for Chin Sol, but I wouldnt recommend that(try to get dex on gear). After that you can still get High Explosives and Celestial Judgement (two really strong damage nodes) and more life nodes.


Gems you wont get from quests by leveling as shadow:

Anger, herald of Ash, flammability, chance to ignite, fire penetration, tornado shot, blink arrow, weapon elemental damage, bloodmagic, enduring cry, immortal call, increased duration, elemental proliferation (you can get it but not until end of cruel act 3)

Deerstalker:
It gives you a free trap support linked. Cheap way to get a 5 link early on.

Cloak of Flame:
You can use it on low level to help with the chance to ignite. Also gives good defense to Physical damage.

Atziris Step:
Pretty good boots. Gives you up to 46 % spell dodge with Phase Acrobatics together.

Tabula Rasa:
If you want a cheap 6 link tabula rasa is an option. It will give you a lot of damage but trades survivability for it.

Belly of the Beast:
Its a good chest to give you some bonus life.

Jarcass Jack:
Its OK. The increase in AoE might improve your clearspeed a little bit, but I rather have a more defensive chest in hardcore.

Kaoms Hearth:
The ultimate hardcore Item. It gives you a lot of life and the fire damage is also really nice. You might have to put flammability or blink arrow on an unset ring because you lose your sockets on the chest.

Taste of Hate:
Great flask that gives you damage, cold resistance and physical damage mitigation.

My current(at level 77) tool tip damage is 5216 average damage on burning arrow.



That might seem very low compared with other builds but you have to consider a few things :

-Chin Sol's and Point Blank's damage multiplier will tripple the damage to average 15648

-I am using fire penetration (35 % fire penetration at lvl 20) and will get 15 % addional fire penetration from the skill tree

-I am always using flammability (-39% fire resistant at lvl 20)

-It is average damage not damage per second, I just have to use the skill 1 time

-It is average damage but my current high end damage is 7328 and only the highest ignite is aplied, so if you throw 3 traps at a boss the chance is high that go get one high damage roll

-I have almost 100 % of my initial damage dealt as ignite damage every second

-My ignite duration is 10 seconds long

-My damage will improve even further with higher level and better gear

So I could do well over 300k damage with a single ignite

http://youtu.be/MdGtXKac5vk

Stupid necrophil pack in the boss room, so i just rushed into the boss and ate his laser for huge damage. Usually I dont get hit by that.

http://youtu.be/S5fMFLF2-Is

Couldnt find the boos room in time. Found it later:

http://youtu.be/RG2cLit0O1Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xig-Z8bD2w


You dont have to facetank the boss you can just ignite and kite him, but there wasnt a real danger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8YDqSBa9k4&feature=youtu.be

I was testing what support gem would be better as your 5 link for burning arrow.

I compared a lvl 16 Firepenetration and a lvl 16 Weapon Elemental Damage against different Monster resistances.
Damage of lvl 16 Fire penetration(31% Fire Penetration) compared to lvl 16 Weapon Elemental Damage(55% more damage) in % :

75 % resist : FP = 144,5% ; WED = 69%
50 % resist : FP = 104,5 % ; WED = 95,6%
25% resist : FP = 91 % ; WED = 109,6%
0 % resist : FP = 84,5%% ; WED = 118,3%
-35 % resist : FP = 79,3% ; WED= 126%


The resists of normal mobs in maps against a specific element are something between 35-40%. I think its the same on blues and rares. The monster affixes "of Elemental Resistance" and "Allies Resist Elemental Damage" add 35% and 40% elemental resitance. The resists of unique mobs should be around 60 %.

You should adjust your support only to the high HP targets, because normal and blue packs already die super fast. You always want to use flamability.

So a unique mob cursed with flammability should have somewhere around 25 % resistance.
And as you can see above WED does slighty more damage against that.
So you might want to use WED instead of FP as your 5 link.
But there are alot more factors like curse immunity, addional resistance, level auf gems,...

Eitherway I dont think it makes a big difference and both support gems are fine.