[3.2] Scionic Flametank "16k ES ed." (ES-CI-ZO-GR, SR-CWC-FS, extensive guide)

"

g4zu wrote:

Thanks for the guide. One question tho, why no more ice spear + ICS?

I was running out of links and unlike the old flame tank you also have 5% of the hits from the falling fireballs from the CWC Firestorm generating crit.

I am not at all sure that the current setup is final - it is something I've been experimenting with.


The issue comes down to this: After auras, curses, golem, molten shell and firestorm in Doon CWDT, I am down to a 3L and a 4L.

The most efficient way to get Soul of Arakali recovery Shenanigans is via a level 1 CWDT with blood rage(6-7) and immortal call(3) in the same link, so that takes 3.

The most efficient way to get Elemental Overload security is via a level 1 CWDT with Increased Critical strikes(20), Ice Spear(8), and optionally Fireball(11) in the same like, so that takes 3 or 4 links.

So to get both working most efficiently will take both of the remaining links.

However, I also really like getting more direct passive damage triggered, as from the current level 20 CWDT with Fireball(20) and Flame Surge(20)

There's also a hybrid possible where the Arakali interaction is slightly less fluid because the IC only triggers on high damage so you get some time with the degen from BR before IC kicks off Arakali (but then, do you really need the extra recovery unless you are taking lots of damage?) and one of Fireball and Flame Surge are traded for ICS but the other remains

So the three options currently are:


#1: Great Arakali and Elemental Overload, poor extra passive damage
CWDT(1)-BR(6-7)-IC(3)
CWDT(1)-ICS(20)-IS(8)-FB(11)

#2: Great Arakali and extra passive Damage, decent Overload
CWDT(20)-FB(20)-FS(20)
CWDT(1)-BR(6-7)-IC(3)-IS(8)


#3: Good Arakali and Overload, decent passive damage
CWDT(20)-FB(20)-IC(20)
CWDT(1)-BR(6-7)-ICS(20)-IS(8)

I first ran #1 and am currently testing #2. I have not tested #3 yet, but that's next on the list.

I am not at all sure which I will end up with.

In the typical fighting scenario (large groups of enemy monsters) #1 is clear overkill for proccing Elemental Overload at the cost of damage, though it does make sustaining EO on bosses without adds much easier - but I have only faced a few of those so far.

The current setup #2 is quite fun for the added damage in the typical situation where the max level 20 CWDT goes off once or twice per second when facetanking, but there are moments when I find myself wondering whether I wouldn't be better off just going with the safe approach for EO in all situations (#1).

I'll make a final decision (or as final as these things ever are, which is not very) once I've tested version #3 as well on some higher tier red bosses, but for the moment you can safely choose to go with either #1 or #2 depending on whether you want to be more boss or group focused.

On the Utopian Path of Building tree you go through 2 minion nodes in the witch area on the way to Occultist Dominion; when you have a free Jewel slot to the left of Chaos Inoculation. Even a moderately rolled Jewel should give more benefit than Occultist alone, plus you get a bit more Mana rather than wasted Minion modifiers.

Edit: Unless you're intentionally buffing the Stone Golem, seems kinda iffy, I don't think 10% life and 15% Damage are gonna make him appreciably stronger.

"

Amber_Clad_ wrote:

On the Utopian Path of Building tree you go through 2 minion nodes in the witch area on the way to Occultist Dominion; when you have a free Jewel slot to the left of Chaos Inoculation. Even a moderately rolled Jewel should give more benefit than Occultist alone, plus you get a bit more Mana rather than wasted Minion modifiers.

Edit: Unless you're intentionally buffing the Stone Golem, seems kinda iffy, I don't think 10% life and 15% Damage are gonna make him appreciably stronger.

If I do it is a clear mistake on my part when setting it up for the guide; It is supposed to go through the STR and INT mode on the left, thus resulting in 3 skill points spent on 40 STR, 16% spelldamage, and 4% cast speed (30 of the STR gained through existing conversion), which is overall a better proposition than taking the jewel left of Chaos Inoculation and using either a good STR/DMG/ES jewel or a 4th Efficient Training

EDIT: You are right. Good catch. I'll update the original post immediately.
EDIT2: Now updated.

Best map run this weekend was definitely Hall of the Grandmasters.

I'd been boasting a bit about the sheer survivability of my updated flametank to a friend of mine, and he kindly told me to put up or shut up.

He runs a Slayer duelist with an awesome tweaked Ngamahu's Flame cyclone build with a 6L Bronn's Lithe for the Cyclone as well as the 6S supports for the molten burst projectiles, all supported by Xoph's Blood amulet and other extreme gear and since he happened to have a Hall of the Grandmasters map and neither of us had ever visited it, he asked me whether I'd like to try it out?

I pointed out that it was supposed to be a map for PVP builds, that we'd probably both get horribly murdered, and that anyway I'd like to level some more and get better equipment as 10.2k ES really wasn't that much...

Nice try, you must admit, but he reasonably asked me what the worst that could happen was?

He'd recently hit level 91 so he wouldn't lose much XP from dying, and at level 86 XP was still fast to gain for me, so here was the chance for me to prove my tank's worth... because it was very, very, tough, right? Right?

So we went.

I managed to make it to the end of the first wing we opened without dying, while my friend bit the dust four times. First we tried with him running in and activating enemies, and that worked until we hit those around level 85 or so - then he just dropped dead. Then we tried both engaging with as little success. Finally we tried with me running in tanking damage and him following up - that also ended with him dying as he had neither the high health to survive nasty burst damage nor sufficient leech to survive sustained damage, but with the use of terrain obstacles and more care we agreed he should be able to survive, and it was so.

Now, as the reader can probably guess, I was feeling rather cocky by then. I'd tanked several grandmasters at once, wiped out a full wave that killed my friend's duelist early by flame dashing around and casting, and was teasing my friend with the frailty of his build, that might very well be able to handle the PVE Guardians deathless, but seemed to be struggling with enemies that my cheaply geared Scion handled with ease.

As the good book says, pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

We steamrolled most of the next wing with me leading the way and him taking care until suddenly he dropped dead (again). So there I was, finally alone in the Hall of Grandmasters, wondering what had killed him (it can be hard to see with all those firestorms around).

It turned out to be two ranger archers and a mage in their high 90s, all apparently specialized in burst damage. My 10.2k ES were gone in the blink of an eye (or so it felt).

A good time was had by all, but as I told my friend, "I was right, this was tough. I may have won 5-1, but I don't think my tank will be ready for it until level 87 :p".

So he decided to sell his second Hall of Grandmaster's map now that he had tried it (hah!) and I spent the rest of the weekend running maps until level 89, gaining another 2k ES in the process and buying a 6L corrupted Geofri's that I coloured with Vorici's help, which improved my damagedealing substantially. :)

Hmmm. I wonder if a better title for my thread would be "Scionic Flametank - the little tank that could". :D

Hah - it was a fun foray into a map neither of us had ever tried before 😀. It also persuaded me to use your theory crafting skills to buff the defensive side of my Ngamahu build, so thanks for that. I especially love the cleverness of the CwDT blood rage, Soul of Arakaali setup.

Looking forward next to seeing your build in action against the guardians!

Have you looked at using the Flow Untethered belt? Up to 20% es recovery rate, cast speed plus I think the cooldown recovery would help CWC? Obviously at the cost of loss of ES, strength and resists.

Might not quite be worth for you, but I'm looking at using on my pure SR trickster regen guy, at least for mapping. Probably swap in a crystal for t16+

I was looking at this build and a found something rather amusing.

This build with some very small changes can actually be a 400k DPS cyclone build using Pillar of the caged god unique staff.

"

Carlovski wrote:

Have you looked at using the Flow Untethered belt? Up to 20% es recovery rate, cast speed plus I think the cooldown recovery would help CWC? Obviously at the cost of loss of ES, strength and resists.

Might not quite be worth for you, but I'm looking at using on my pure SR trickster regen guy, at least for mapping. Probably swap in a crystal for t16+

I have looked at the possibility, but it just isn't worth it worth it to me.

The improvements to CWDTs would be nice, and 20% increased ES recovery sends the bonus recovery from +100% to +120%, i.e. total ES recovery goes from 200% to 220%. That's a 10% relative gain.

But the cost is brutal since the build apart from base ES needs suffixes to cover resists, strength, and intelligence - and it can never have enough strength, and more intelligence is pretty good too, though strictly inferior to strength.

Take a decent T2/T3 ES belt: It'll have around 110 ES, 40 strength, and two resists - let's say 70% resistance total or so. The 40 strength becomes 47.2 with Alberon, which results in a total of 128.88 ES, 9.44% maxES (and some damage). With even half decent equipment in the rest of the slots, you are looking at roughly a 8-10% loss of maximum energy shield and hence also recovery, as all recovery scales by maximum energy shield, meaning that not only will the Flow Unthered leave you more with a noticeably smaller energy shield and the vulnerability to death through a few heavy blows in a short time interval, it also will not increase the absolute energy shield recovery per second by a noteworthy amount and may indeed decrease it.

The situation is slightly better when fighting bosses where only one of the +50% recovery bonuses apply because you have nobody to kill for the Trickster bonus, as you go from a total of 150% to 170% recovery, or a 13.3% relative improvement... but the ES loss issues are the same and you still lose out on valuable resistances you somehow have to make up for elsewhere, and the strength loss isn't too nice either.

Even worse, perhaps, the better equipment you get, the worse the Flow Unthered is relative to a decent or good crystal belt with stats appropriate to the build.

"

Draqone wrote:

I was looking at this build and a found something rather amusing.

This build with some very small changes can actually be a 400k DPS cyclone build using Pillar of the caged god unique staff.

What a fun idea. I'd guess you'd want the Templar AOE wheel for a bit more radius, and unless you could find some nice way to put DOTs on enemies you'd want to forego the Shadow baby ascendancy in favour of another - perhaps raider? You'd gain permanent onslaught that way.

Yeah more less something like that. Only thing is, even with 1000+ strength pillar is only slightly better than other 2h options. I mentioned it more as it was in spirit of scaling with strength.