[2.0]KuteKitteh's Tanky Incinerate - Fast, Cheap & Durable, MF/end-game/Atziri-viable!

There are a number of players who have been asking about my builds and wanting an update to the Incinerate. Although I did not intend to release this build, I have decided to release it but with a Caveat Emptor disclaimer - I do not guarantee any sort of success with this build, and I do not claim that this is HC viable because it is possible to kill oneself on a very large reflect pack (although very, very unlikely). I can just say that it meets most of my expectations for a tanky build. After all, 6.6k hp, high armor, and AA makes the build very tanky.

I had been non-stop theorycrafting & grinding through spell builds over the past couple months in beta in search for an extremely simple, cost-efficient, and tanky build. With what few resources were at my disposal, I was able to create a build that could kill Atziri at level 81 using entirely self-found gear (except for the rotp) and an extremely inefficient 4-link. Mapping-wise, the clear speed is great even with a 3 or 4 link, and the survivability meets KuteKitteh’s high defensive standards. The gear requirement is extremely low, but at the same time it heavily rewards costly investment. As such, it should appeal to both new-league players as well as those who have extremely costly uniques and high-tier rares. While I will link high-tier items and show the stats of the high-tier setup, I have indeed found the build to be fairly successful even when running at a 0-currency budget level.

2.0's resulted in quite a few much-needed changes to balance caster defenses (because caster is masterace, amirite?). What you need to know:

Incinerate & Damage
+Incinerate has a lot more deeps. DEEPS. 115% more damage and 20% more cast speed, to be exact. This is to compensate for the damage penalty for using LMP.
+Anger gives flat damage to spells. This equates to roughly 20% more deeps on top of incinerate.
+Blood rage causes you to degen 4% of your life in physical damage per second, and Frenzy charges give 4% more damage and 4% increased cast speed. That means you can essentially trade 4% life regen (of which we’ll stack plenty!) for some 20% more deeps.
-Projectiles can no longer shotgun. On the plus side, single-stream incinerate is powerful.
-The true damage effectiveness of incinerate has drastically decreased. Before, it would inflict flat damage at a rate of 12 per second. Now it only applies it at a rate of 5 per second. While this is still the highest in the game, it makes buzzsaw-incinerate much weaker than before.
-Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder got toned down a lot. A looot. They also reserve a flat 25% each, which is a huge chunk of mana for what little damage they give, and their utility is very moot since Incinerate doesn’t really inflict status effects without a gimmicky build.
-New EB doesn’t give you mana regen without special gimmicks. Since incinerate costs a bajillion and one mana per second to cast, fueling it is as hard as doing a non-EB (e.g. CI) spellcaster in 1.3. It’s very, very hard.
End result: Buzzsaw incinerate is no longer as effective as it was in 1.3. Now, it is far more efficient to focus on fire damage, stack flat fire damage, and use fire penetration. On the plus side, faster casting really isn’t necessary, since spell echo plus the cast speed buff allows it to hit stage 3 very fast. The mana cost makes it extremely limited in terms of build, gem, and tree options because it’s tied to some form of mana regen or mana leeching.

Defense
+Arctic Armour makes you take less damage from phys or fire. LESS. This is calculated before armor is taken into account, making your armor more effective. MORE. Essentially, you become far more resilient to hard hits. It also no longer drains mana. This means that stacking reduced mana cost is now 100% efficient. It also now chills enemies when they hit you. It’s kinda nice. Sorta. Not really.
-Arctic Armour reserves mana. This means you can’t run PoL + PoF + AA simultaneously without using an unconventional (and inherently inefficient) way. It doesn’t work while you’re moving. Fortunately, incinerators don’t really move much.
-Arctic Armour doesn’t reduce hits by a flat amount. Fire spells no longer get free reflect immunity, and small projectiles deal damage to you.
-Immortal call and enduring cry changes mean that CWDT – EC – IC is now dead. DEAD. CWDT – IC – duration can be used for .6 seconds of phys invul every ~600 damage, but that’s pretty much it. Bursts of physical damage are a lot more dangerous.
-Mobs hit harder. At least they’re supposed to hit harder. I don’t really feel it past my 34k armor. But the point is, mitigation is key to survival. That’s why we’re not going MoM – we need to be able to use auras for Determination or Purities.
-Leech is much weaker for Incinerate versus single-target. As a result, we’ll be much more flask-reliant. Therefore we’ll go for a few flask nodes.

Jungle Valley Boss on MF setup
You know it won't be a KuteKitteh build until Jungle Valley has been taken care of. To make it extra-fun, I burdened myself with 215% iir (and I dropped two uniques on the way to the boss, yum!)

idk, let's go tank stuff
I just loved how she just says "Everything dies" after I instacleared the screen. hehehe.

Vaal facetanking
Wow, they were serious about boosting the damage on everything. This guy really didn't need more damage... OR DID HE? Anyways, I calculated that he crit for over 11.5k initial damage on the second hit. Fun. Believe it or not, my armor and my AA negated over 30% of the physical damage component of that crit, which is more than lightning coil's ~23% reduction - this shows that armor/AA stacking is indeed effective!

Pros:
-MF viable.
-Great clear. This is fairly self-explanatory.
-Super cheap. Like, 0-cost cheap. In my most recent Beta runthrough, I think I bought one gem off of a player, and beyond that I played entirely self-found.
-Very, very durable. Stacking all that life + armor + AA gives you a lot of durability. The key here is mitigation.
-Very easy to gear. You get a ton of pseudores and base life from the tree.
-Stun immunity via Unwavering Stance.
-Able to offset incinerate’s high mana cost. The tree gives 32% (up to 51% for 5 extra points) reduced mana cost and a ton of mana regen, which is guaranteed to serve your mana needs well.

Cons:
-Not invincible.
-As usual, on-hit effects (lightning thorns, corrupting blood, reflect) will need counters.
-As usual, you need to stand still to channel.

Bandits:
Normal: Oak
Cruel: Alira
Merciless: point OR frenzy (preferrably point)

Tank-focused witch, 110 points

1. The tow nearby +30 dex nodes will help you with dex requirements.
2. This is obviously the tank-focused tree. If you feel your DPS is lacking, take explosive impact and arsonist.
3. There are many nearby jewel slots. If you can craft a decent fire spell jewel, use those slots!


Kitteh, do I start witch or templar???
Witch has way better clear early-mid game, as well as access to important projectile gems from the vendor (LMP and Faster Projectiles). Templar, however, has better early-game mana sustain and end-game versatility. I would personally go with Templar because I like tanky, and also he has more gems available from the vendor (as long as you can get LMP and faster proj elsewhere).

The skill gems are a little ambiguous so I'll clarify here before you read on. Normally, the build can support 75% aura reservation + Clarity because of Sovereignty. If you have a LOT of mana from gear, you will be able to support 85% + Clarty.
75% reservation lets you run:
Anger + AA (default setup)
Determination + AA
Two Purities, or Purity + AA

In addition, 85% reservation lets you also run:
Anger + Purity
Determination + Purity

If you have access to a 5L, there's no need to run dual-incinerate setup. However, a dual-incinerate setup on two 4-links is very accessible, and it was efficient enough for me to do Atziri with it.

Blood Rage should be on at all times to give you frenzy charges, and the Chaos Golem should be up to give you that extra tankiness.

Incinerate, 4L + 4L
Incinerate + LMP + Spell Echo + Faster Projectiles
Incinerate + Spell Echo + Fire Penetration + one of the following: Faster Casting, Slower Projectiles, Life leech, Culling Strike or Iron Will (If you cannot sustain Faster Casting’s mana cost)

The first setup is for AOE clear, the second one is for single-target rares. You can choose between Faster Casting, Slower Projectiles, and Iron Will for dps options. Ideally, Faster Casting is the best, but incurs the highest mana cost. Slower projectiles gives a huge dps multiplier, but the short range can be cumbersome and even inefficient against moving/distant targets. Iron Will and Culling Strike are ok DPS options if you absolutely cannot sustain mana on a different gem. Life Leech is obviously defensive.

Incinerate, 5/6L
Incinerate
Spell Echo
Fire Penetration
Lesser Multiple Projectiles
Pick one/two of the following:
Life Leech (obviously defensive, not necessary at all though!)
Faster Projectiles (if you don’t have Q20 incinerate)
Faster Casting (ONLY if you can sustain the high mana drain)
Culling Strike or Iron Will (if you cannot sustain high mana drain but you want DPS)
Mana Leech (not sure why, but ok)
Item Rarity (if you want to MF)
Blood Magic (This allows you to spec out of most mana regen nodes and not use Clarity. I may make a separate BM Incinerate build!)

So for me, since I can sustain the mana drain and I have a Q20 incinerate, I would go with Incinerate + SE + FPen + FC + LMP. This is BBBRG, and since I want armor gear I would go for an es-armor hybrid. Incinerate + SE + FPen + LMP + Faster Proj is BBRGG, which is doable on an armor-evasion hybrid (e.g. Belly of the Beast) as long as you have Vorici to help you out.

CWDT setup, RRRB/RRRG
CWDT lvl1
Immortal Call lvl1
Increased Duration
Enfeeble OR Temp Chains (low level)

Slot these anywhere you want:
Anger
Determination
Blood Rage
Chaos Golem
Flammability (or Elemental Weakness if you do party play)
Clarity
AA
Lightning Warp + Less Duration

Optional CWDT setup, RBG
CWDT lvl1
Arctic breath lvl1
GMP

Optional CWDT setup, RRR(R)
CWDT (high lvl)
Molten Shell (high lvl)
Increased Duration
(Life Leech)

Optional:
Flame Totem
Fire Pen
Faster Casting
Faster Projectiles

3L for Saffell’s Frame on offhand, BRG
PoL
PoF
PoI/AA

This part is important - the gearing matters and it is thoroughly rewarding.

Use Survival Secrets (A2N), the base mana regen will help a LOT with early-game sustain.

Use Flame Totem for leveling.

Sorry, too lazy to update this. It should be self-explanatory though: Use Saffell + Topaz flasks for Vaal duo, use an armor shield with bunch of granite/staunching flasks plus Atziri's Promise and anger/determination + AA for trio, and use Ruby/Topaz flasks + Saffell for Atziri.

Do NOT use slower projectiles for Vaal. In fact, Faster Projectiles instead of LMP will help.

That's all I have to say. :P