Firestorm is pretty neat (role-reversal: you help me?)
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So I did this. Suppose I should make my character suck less now?
Warbands rolled around and as per usual I made a couple new characters, some more successful than others. Drowner, my non-Crit Firestorm Witch based entirely around Life and nothing else, is my first-ever level 80 character. I murderise at a pretty decent clip for my tastes, don't die often. Probably what I am most excited about is that I killed the Spinner of False Hope! One death there. Anyways. My skill tree.
My gear
If you're wondering what Life recovery I have: Flasks. Yep, that's all. Purity of Fire plus Arctic Armour makes Reflect mostly a non-issue, and AA also helps against big Physical hits. I'm rocking Daresso's Defiance at the moment because I am a total slave to Cast and Move Speed, but I have been thinking of utilising Purity + AA more by grabbing a Cloak of Flame. Yes/no/maybe? Opens up Mokou's Embrace as an option... Asenath's works really well with GMP + Arctic Breath on CwDT in order to snare the world, but the gloves suck otherwise. I only need one more Passive point to pick up Whispers of Doom, which allows me to hardcast Flammability or Enfeeble again; Skittering Runes could be next to improve the effects of both. Sound solid enough? Alternatives: low-level Enfeeble in CwDT, skip Flamm again (Vaal Lightning Trap helps a lot against single targets already). Enfeeble or TC on CwDT, get different gloves. My wand... Just isn't great. Wrong flat bonus, low Spell Damage, but good Cast Speed. Needs replacing kinda badly but I can't get myself to buy "just a rare" from trade because I'm insane or something. Pledge would be fucking sick too, obviously. Cybil's Paw would get me pretty decent recovery I guess. Dunno otherwise. Wheel of the Stormsail grants IIR. That's neat. Found two Lioneye's Remose shields. Shields are boring! My mind has wandered on. Links are obvious enough. On a five-link I've been thinking to drop Faster Casting, add Conc + Inc AoE. FC'd probably come back for a 6L because I really really like quick casting. Added Chaos is moderately decent but doesn't work with Fire Pen nor Flamm so, meh, nah. Empower is still a long way from leveling to useful levels. Enhance now sucks. Quality Culling could be funky? Not much else that's terribly exciting. Any interesting ideas that are passing me right by? Last edited by Vipermagi on Jul 27, 2015, 7:38:36 PM
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" You noob :) Anyway, I wouldn't expect a lively discussion, seems that everybody silently agrees you do have some notion of what you're doing. I'd swap FC for Conc myself, but if you like it snappy that's not an option, I guess. I like what they did with Firestorm, though. Before 2.0 it was either lackluster or broke the game if you exploited quality bonus, and I also dig the duration boost, one less thing to chase around or consider for socketing. A very good spell overall now, coverage is nice enough to take conc, packs a decent punch, can be built for crit or non-crit, also good for traps or applying procs, the only thing it won't be is an igniter. To me, the only dealbreaker is the screen clutter. I'm pretty impressed with Ball Lightning myself in my most recent playthrough, it went from an eyecandy gimmick to an all-round asskicker. ... @GGG Now that we can convert 100% fire to chaos, do you suppose we could get the chaos rain skin that frogs use? Pretty please? Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs. ◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]► ◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]► Last edited by raics on Jul 27, 2015, 4:50:57 PM
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"Don't die often" is not a luxury for HC players, your build sucks.
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" I mean yeah that's why I'm here having written this thread. :) " I've ran a couple maps with Conc, and it's super good against Rares, Uniques et al. However, the issue I ran into was stragglers - against packs that are meandering just a bit, I'd often have to cast additional Firestorms in different places just to catch all enemies. It takes just a fraction longer to cast and I had to cast the same amount of Firestorms, which ultimately felt less comfortable and was slightly slower. That is why I've been putting it off until I can pair it with an Inc AoE as well. I occasionally swap in Conc against Map bosses though, depends on how much I need it. Some bosses are either too harmless or too squishy to warrant the swap :P The screenclutter is... An issue. Wouldn't recommend it for hardcore, hahah. Luckily I'm not much of a party animal, so at least it won't be an issue for other people. But, not an Igniter you say? Surely you're forgetting "This Definitely Won't be a Bad Idea", also known as Emberwake. :) Crit Firestorm with stacking Ignites? Bloody hell that's going to deal a lot of Damage. Ignites deal 20% original Damage, but each Crit Firestorm can Ignite ten times per second, lasting 3+ seconds a piece. More ramping than at a busy skatepark. " If you're not reading Gameplay Help to help people who are looking for help, please go be a bother somewhere else :) Just stating the obvious isn't helping anybody. | |
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I really like firestorm as a skill but haven't been able to really make it shine. It's biggest downside in my book is the ramp up time. Glad to see it's getting some attention, maybe I'll give it another shot. My leveling witch was using frost nova for AOE and firestorm with fc and conc for bosses, then I realized ball lightning does both just as well. But I'm just a casual solo self found noob, so what do I know.
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" Yeah, that's what I meant, it's the matter of what you are comfortable with. Spells have enough headroom even with crap gear to allow for that. I'm not much of a fine tuning guy myself so I don't really have any ideas, interesting or otherwise, just dropped by for a bit of chinwag about the skill, I'm sure devs enjoy reading praise at least as much as RMT accusations, IQUIT threads or insults. " Heh, I did forget. Should be worth a try even though I originally thought the penalties might be on the hard side. Wish the armchair developers would go back to developing armchairs.
◄[www.moddb.com/mods/balancedux]► ◄[www.moddb.com/mods/one-vision1]► | |
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I'd keep Conc on FS and use it for single-target murder.
Could try out AoF, and a 4L: AB + CtF + Hypo + GMP. That gives you area clear, keeps the chilled ground and gets the Hypo bonus while still dealing pure fire damage. Keep the Aesenath's+Chilled ground for sure because it's amazing defensively and makes sure that your firestorm puts out the big damage. helm 4L4S (RBBB): FS + SE + Conc + FirePen body 4L4S (RBGG): AB + CtF + Hypo + GMP glov 2L4S (R,BB,G): FD + FC, PoF, AA boot 2L4S (RBBX): CwDT + Enfeeble, Flamm, ... wand 3L3S (RBG): FT + Blind + MTER shld 3L3S (RRB): VLT + Rally + ID That leaves one socket open. Maybe 3L that CwDT+Enfeeble with a Fire Golem? Seems like an easy 20% increased damage pickup and a little bit of extra distraction. --- In total, a little bit of socket rejiggering, pick up a golem, and free up 3 points to grab AoF. That also allows you to move two highway nodes up to be adjacent to Whispers of Doom. Also get a beefy shield already and reduce your 1 deaths to 0 deaths. :P --- Actually a second Spell Echo is stronger than Hypothermia and will be more mana efficient. GGG *shakes fist* Last edited by pneuma on Jul 27, 2015, 10:11:07 PM
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I experimented a fair bit with Firestorm prior to 2.0 (in 1.3), and I felt like it was OK. If it's really that much better now, I'll have to give it another shot.
Anyways, I took all the duration nodes in the tree along with a ton of cast speed and was able to get the 1.3 firestorms to last for 2.5 seconds (I could get 7 firestorm 'stacks' then). I used EC + IC for defense, and was able to get consistent 8 second immortal calls then. I like what you did with the CWDT Arctic Breath; I find that pretty hilarious. Anyways I would consider the duration nodes if you don't already have them. EDIT: You have them, good :) Oh and a firestorm knockback totem is pretty funny too. General gearing upgrades (Rathpith, lol) will of course help your character more. But I think your setup is sound. Theorycrafter/Build Creator for PORTAL guild @BlightScourge -> guide @ view-thread/1382667 (Retired till Mjolner is fixed) Lvl 94 Crit Mjolner Marauder twitch.tv/savagewolves Last edited by zSavage on Jul 27, 2015, 10:53:30 PM
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Im running firestorm first time also this time around and yesterday just finished my first 77 maps with it. It works smoothly but i have used like 100 regrets on it so far to test it with crit (didnt affect clearspeed at all) and also with increased area of effect (slowed me down). Im using the new curse helmet for dmg boost and 3 defensive curses.
Gear Im tempted to switch my gloves to those reverse knockback ones and switching vitality to purity of elements so i can cap the resists with the knockback gloves. Then chance the firepen to knockback and make a sucking firestorm. You can check my tree from my profile. | |
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Hm. I thought firestorm was in a bit of a disadvantage when it specs into inc aoe? if this isn't the case anymore, well, I guess I'm going to plan something around it then.
You have no problems sustaining mana? You can also exchange Rallying with Abyssal, i think. Abyssal + chilled ground + TC? I'd probably just get a dedicated 3L or 4L for single target. I guess incinerate can fill this? I've never seen anyone do that before though. Oh, and about Emberwake: The Taming? will it work? Came from reddit. hm. I wonder if Firestorm Multitrap can overlap. it can go hand in hand with Firestorm Totem for maximum effect. Better stay in the land of the damned, Exile. Here, even the very words are corrupted by Nightmare.
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