2.2 [Inquisitor] Incinerate is viable again! RF Incinerate, Tanky, -EZ Atziri W/ Video

Hey guys, i wanted to share a build that i tried and seemed good, nothing too shabby.
Introduction
as you all know incinerate got nerfed to death in 2.1, losing the echo support and halving the % more multiplier hit the skill like a truck. I had a rf-incinerator in 2.0 and it was one of the first actual endgame viable chars that i had. Hit it to 90 in 1 month flashback. Tho i got a dayjob and haven't been able to play much since. i tried it after the nerf and it felt awful. Same gear, only swapped faster casting with echo and my clearspeed was terrible compared to 2.0. Did some experimenting with gem swaps for controlled destruction but didn't feel good enough so I gave up and respecced that char to pure rf.
Although some ppl ran 100% chaos conversion in 2.1 and actually made decent builds, it was the poison doing the job.
Getting another perfect gem to support incinerate in 2.2, along with ascendancy classes, my hopes went high again. Respecced my 90 templar, got my gems and completed normal and cruel labyrinth, and result was pretty good actually so i wanted to share it with you guys.


Pros and Cons

Pros
+Good defenses with high hp pool and regen, high resists(can squeeze in another purity in place of HoT), endurance charges and some armor. As i said i tried the build with a respecced char and i didn't have the colors on my old chest so i was using a tabula and successfully survived t12s and atziri.
+High DPS. 25.7k Tooltip with lmp on hideout, 30.7k with frenzies, 44k with slower proj. swapped with lmp.
+Can be done with a very low budget, only requiring Rise of the Phoenix, a tabula and The Blood Dance to function. Everything else can be self found.
+Clearing with incinerate just feels smooth
+Pop a ruby and you're reflect-proof
Cons
-Low dps with 4 and even 5 links, requiring a 6l for high end mapping(tho as i said above defense aspect of the build makes it so even a tabula will work until you farm the currency to get a 6l chest)
-Can't do minmax/blood magic/slow regen(20-40% might be fine depending on how much regen you have)/vuln(i ran a vulnerability map yesterday and didn't degen) mods
-Requires elreon jewellery to function which can be expensive/hard to get or build around at the start of the league
-No room for faster projectiles meaning you WILL need a 20q incinerate and/or a wand with projectile speed affix on it(although it can be used at low tier maps if you feel like you have enough damage but lack clearspeed because of short range),


Gem Links

With the order of importantance:

Incinerate: Incinerate + LMP + Elemental Focus + Controlled Destruction + Fire Penentration + Faster Casting

For 5-link drop out faster casting, it gives the least dps boost and makes it harder to sustain.

Aura Setup: 2 linked clarity + blood magic(i will explain this more detailed on mana section)
Purity of Fire + Arctic Armor + Herald of Thunder Blasphemy + Flammability(note that it means 95% reservation, so if you have problems with mana just use Herlad of Thunder, but it will be much less effective) + Enlighten(optional but recommended, also solves 95% problem)

RF Setup: RF + Empower + Enhance
Explanation
Now this isn't really required, but it boosts Righteous Fire's level and quality, meaning you'll get 1/2/3% more spell damage per empower level from 2/3/4 and 8/16/24% increased spell damage from enhance level 2/3/4

Defensive 4-link:
Now we have 2 options here, first is Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Enduring Cry. (note: level CWDT and IC until the point you feel its proccing enough) we self-cast EC to produce endurance charges, and cwdt casts IC for a brief physical immunity when we get a big hit. This means that you'll have IC up periodically, and mostly when a pack starts to attack you. Pretty useful and i highly recommend using this.

Second option is: CWDT(lvl 1) + Ball Lightning(lvl 1) + GMP + Knowckback, which will be cast pretty often and will push dangerous targets away. Also with this setup your endurance charges are not consumed so as long as you cast enduring cry you'll have max charges all the time.
In my opinion CWDT-IC setup is better for this build, but this one is definately viable too.

Mobility 2-3 links:
If you use a wand: Flame Dash - Faster Casting OR Lightning warp + faster casting + less duration
If you use a scepter, Leap Slam + Faster Attacks + Fortify
If you use a dagger, Whirling blades + Faster Attacks + fortify
Fill in any remaining slot with things like portal, golem, flammability or leveling gems.


Passive Tree, Ascendancy Classes, Bandits

90 Level, 110 point tree

We got more than 150% life, 160% armor, 300+ STR, some elemental/fire/projectile/spell damage, more than 12% regen and 23% reduced mana cost of skills.
Ascendancy Classes

Now again, we have some options here.

First choice is going Templar's Inquisitor, and getting Instruments of Virtue, Augury of Penitence and Sanctify. This will give us some nice damage, huge cast speed if you use leap slam, enemies deal less elemental damage + take increased elemental damage(notice keyword "less", which is very important defense-wise and enemies take increased is basically a more multiplier for us) and juicy 4% life regen on consecrated ground.

Also we can get Pious Path instead of Augury of Penitence, which is better offense wise(and would work very good if we swap a flask for a sulphur, although i feel like current flask setup is perfect, see "My Gear" section for flasks)

Second choice is going scion and getting witch's elementalist + marauder's berserker which will give us huge damage, juicy leech and some survivability. Very strong option.
I overlooked that 10% more damage taken would make sustaining rf harder, so don't go berserker. Although on my current char, i have way more regen than needed, so it might be sustainable, although i doubt it.

A third option is going scion and getting either elementalist + pathfinder, which will increase the strength of our flasks both offense and defense wise.

Bandits

Normal: Help Oak for 40 life
Cruel: Help Alira for 5% cast speed or kill all for point
Merciless: Help Kraityn for frenzy charge



Sustaining Incinerate Mana Cost And RF Degen

Incinerate is probably the most mana hungry spell on the game. We either need elreon jewellery or blood magic gem to sustain it and we use elreon jewellery because we can't afford to lose a gem slot here.

What is elreon jewellery and how to get it?

From level 4 onwards, elreon will sell a ring or an amulet with "-# to mana cost of skills" affix, # ranges from 4 to 8 and we need ones with at least 7. On rings, look for two stone bases because you will need the resist from the implicits. You can simply buy some from other players, but be aware that good elreon stuff can get really expensive.
Say you got a two stone ring with -8 mod, what to do now?
Best option here is to regal it to get high flat life, since its the most important stat. Getting another useful mod is also good, like a high res that you're currently missing or high spell damage/cast speed, in that case just craft life and you'll be good.
When you get some currency, and level 8 elreon, you can also multimod them to get the resists you need.
Here's my jewellery:
Spoiler

As you see these are pretty moderate, even under average maybe, and whatever floats your boat is enough.
Regal'd 34 int in coral ring, it has a nice life implicit so crafted life is good enough, also i needed int so i multimoded it and crafted res, life, armor. Regal'd 50 life on two-stone ring and crafter armor and res. Bought the agate amulet because at that time it gave me exactly enough fire res and intellegence to use my gems Probably gonna upgrade it to something better soon.
Even with elreon rings, your mana regen might not be enough to sustain 6l incinerate, in that case run clarity on blood magic. Get a level 1 clarity, level it until incinerate no longer drains your mana. This will cost you 200-300 life max, even less most likely.


Surviving the RF Degen

RF Degens you for 90% of your max life and 70% of your max es per second as fire damage, so high fire resistance and high life regen is needed. To achieve that, we use 2 things:
Purity of Fire aura gem, and Rise of the Phoenix unique shield.

Purity of Fire gives 1% maximum fire res at level 5, 2% at 11, 3% at 17 and 4% at 20. To run rf withouth degening, you need at least level 17. You can also use it on a +2 fire gems wand/sceptre to get desired level.

Other thing we need is Rise of the Phoenix unique shield.
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Rise_of_the_Phoenix This baby gives us whopping 8% maximum fire res. Absolutely mandatory.
75 is the softcap, 3% from lv17 purity, 8% from RotP, 1% from tree, we'll have 87 fire res, meaning we need around 12% hp regen to stop degening(we also have some es from RotP). We get that easily from tree, and until you get all the regen nodes or get a 20 purity, you can use vitality instead of AA.

Gearing

Unique Options

Weapon:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Doryani%27s_Catalyst
Nice damage, cast speed. I'ts a mace so we can use leap slam to trigger instruments of virtue.

Gloves:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Repentance
Best in Slot here. If you can get enough int, enough res from other gear and got a pair with good
roll, there ain't much to say.

Boots:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/The_Blood_Dance
Free frenzy charge generation, since we can't use Blood Rage or Poacher's mark on blasphemy, its definitely Best in Slot here. Also 0.5% regen per frenzy charge can make you use rf earlier than you normally could.

Belt:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Doryani%27s_Invitation
A fire doryani gives us nice double res, armor, str, leech and damage. Lacks life but still a pretty good option.

Chest:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Belly_of_the_Beast Again, BiS here but it has a big downside: coloring. Our incinerate setup requires 4 blue, 1 red and 1 green. According to Vorici Chrome Calculator, average chromes needed to acquire this is 779. So if you can afford it, color your belly.
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Atziri%27s_Splendour Splendour is another good option, gives nice armor, high life, nice all res, and life/mana gained on kill is very nice too. Very easy to color, downside is uber only drop, not available on start of leagues.
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Tabula_Rasa
As i mentioned above, i personally am using a tabula at the moment, and it works. Cheapest 6l available, and there is another reason its probably better than a 6l rare chest: coloring. again, we need 4 blue 1 red 1 green, so we need an es, es/armor or es/eva chest. Grabbing one with life and res would be good, but problem is the es it provides can screw things up with rf. If you're close to line on sustaining rf, and get few hundred es, you will start degening.

My Gear



There's room for a lot of improvement here, wand is pretty meh, can drop gloves and get repentance with a little adjustment, gem slots are not perfected dont even have flammability for st, also tabula After spending over 10 ex worth of fusing trying to 6l my splendour, i have lost my faith in rng. Bought 1000-ish chromes with my last 2 ex and colored my 6l belly instead. Hit that sweet 6k hp.

Flasks are standard, bubbling divine of staunching, seething divine of heat needed for freeze/bleed immunity, granite needed for phys dmg redu, quicksilver for higher clear speed and ruby is just amazing here: it provides 6% fire res, meaning 6% life regen, and with over over 5k life, it becomes 300hp/sec flask that makes you almost immune to fire damage(and practically reflect).
can also use taste/vinktar in place of quicksilver/ruby if you got it and feel comfortable.

UPDATE: Hit 3 5 links in my last 20 fusings while trying to 6l my splendour(Kuduku why have you forsaken me?), and i thought i'd give 5l a go. Dropped out faster casting, it feels less smooth but damage seems nice enough to clear t10-ish maps. Boosted my life from 5.2k to 5.5k, armor from 5k to 9k and also dropped clarity-bm setup due to dropping faster casting. Defense wise i feel pretty much immortal. Although damage might be an issue in higher map tiers. Requires more testing.


Screenshots

Default Defenses:


With charges + flask

Default(lmp+rf) Incinerate
:

LMP Incinerate with charges

Slower Projectiles Incinerate with charges

Note that tooltip dps does not include 39% fire pen and -45% fire res from flammability, and those are huge numbers. Also 10% increased ele damage taken from Inquisitor tree.

Apex Guide

Clearing Apex is fairly easy with this build. Swapping lmp with slower proj. before bossfights skyrockets our dps. high fire res, damage, and high physical mitigation makes all 3 bosses a joke. Let me explain by one by one:
Double Vaals
Flasks: 2 divine flasks, 1 seething and 1 bubbling(seething for when you drop to very low health and bubbling for when you drop to ~50%), 1 ruby flask, 2 topaz flasks at least one with grounding(shock immunity) mod.
When you enter the room, dont go to middle, go to one of them first, wait for it to pop up then start casting incinerate. If your damage is high enough to kill him at first few seconds, DON'T KIL IT! killing one of them enrages other, makes it much harder to do. So leave him at like 10% hp, then dash your way to other one, kill it if you can. Then kill the other one when he pops up.
But if you don't have that high damage yet, try to leave both at 50%, and lower them simultaneously while dodging their shit. START RUNNING when they start to shoot lasers. AVOID SLAMS AND LIGHTNING BALLS AT ALL COSTS. you shouldn't instantly die to any of their attacks, but still be careful.
The Trio
Flasks: Same divines, 1 ruby, 1 quicksilver, 1 granite.
Extremely simple and easy fight.
First, when you enter the room start approaching the tittybitch, once the cycloner spins, dodge it and pop ruby + granite and start incinerating. Cycloner will come back, and if he cleaves you just pop your staunching divine. Dualstriker shoulnd't be able to damage you with ruby + granite up, but if your health goes down just dash, pop quicksilver, run around and cast enduring cry to regen. After you kill the titty, immediately go away and start kiting other 2. If your flasks are down, kill the adds to gain charges back, and kill one of the other 2 with the same strategy, it should be even easier since adds will give you more endurance charges, meaning longer immortal call. Be careful about cycloner, his cleave is dangerous if you don't dispell the bleed. When he's the last one, cleave inflicts 8 Corrupting Blood stacks, so watch out. If you leave the dualstriker to last, he will be dangerous when enraged so you might not be able to facetank him, if so just kite till his enrage wears off.
Atziri Herself
Flasks: 2 divines + 1 ruby OR 1 divine + 2 rubies, 2 topaz.
Wait for her to cast a flameblast or stormcalls before you start incinerating, her spears shouldn't be a problem at all. Stormcalls will hurt a lot, and if you dont pop topaz OR get hit with multiple ones YOU WILL DIE. Flameblasts shouldn't be a big problem even w/o ruby up, still try to dodge them. ALWAYS AVOID BIG STORMCALLS & BIG FLAMEBLASTS.
Split phase is easy, wait till they reveal their weapons, pick one that doesnt have a mirror in her hand, pop topaz + ruby, start incinerating. spear and flameblast shouldn't be a problem, but stormcalls can kill you so dodge it if more than 1 lands on you. Repeat till you kill a split(should be easy, splits doesnt really have high hp).
Add phase is nice to refill flasks, just dont forget to swap your slower proj with LMP, otherwise you can't kill adds fast enough. thats pretty much all that there is. Watch the video to understand it better.

Videos

6-min Atziri run: https://youtu.be/ym_ZKEgRusI
10-min Merciless Labyrinth Run: https://youtu.be/uK9U5RgrQYE

To Do List

-Optimize gear in current character 6-Link Splendour i got
-Add leveling tree & guide
-Start leveling in Perandus League & update constantly about the leveling process Seems like i dont have enough time for leveling a char from scratch at the moment, maybe later.
-For Future, updating the build with different incinerate versions(BM, Totems etc.)

I will update the build with videos and some other stuff like leveling trees etc. soon, also this is the first build im writing and english is not my main language so i apologize for any grammar mistake.
Last edited by OgiMagi on Apr 11, 2016, 12:46:17 PM
Last bumped on May 9, 2016, 3:26:05 PM
This is a nice guide. I have been dying to test out my second favorite spell since 2.2 release, but need some currency first. I'm wondering how much damage you do without RF? Is RF totally necessary to make it viable in endgame maps? I would like to roll something like this in HC and RF makes rolling maps a pain. Thanks in advance.
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xThothx wrote:
This is a nice guide. I have been dying to test out my second favorite spell since 2.2 release, but need some currency first. I'm wondering how much damage you do without RF? Is RF totally necessary to make it viable in endgame maps? I would like to roll something like this in HC and RF makes rolling maps a pain. Thanks in advance.

Thank you, glad you liked the guide. As for RF thing, the tree is built around sustaining rf and if you dont want to run it you can go to witch part for more damage nodes. But doing that would be against the idea of the build, getting defensive nodes AND having high dps.
Also note that if you got a nice weapon, maps with minmax/bm/vuln mods are doable, although feels really slow. But if you got a map with very high iiq/pack size it doesnt mean you have to reroll, you can just do it slower. My tooltip dps w/o RF is around 15k base, and 18 with 5 frenzies. If you're not gonna run rf, you can also swap your shield with a high spell damage one, and adjust your auras for using anger instead of purity.
Last edited by OgiMagi on Mar 7, 2016, 4:30:52 PM
I'm going to go for a similar build, at least once exams are done this week and I get to play. Although my idea was to go scion and go elementalist plus assassin, with the assassin mini ascendnacy giving 1% base crit, which should allow for the elemental overload node to be used even with controlled destruction being gem'd, right?
"
I'm going to go for a similar build, at least once exams are done this week and I get to play. Although my idea was to go scion and go elementalist plus assassin, with the assassin mini ascendnacy giving 1% base crit, which should allow for the elemental overload node to be used even with controlled destruction being gem'd, right?

Normally, controlled destruction doesn't reduce crit below the 5% cap of minimum crit chance(say you use a 6% crit chance spell, and have no crit increase from any source, if you use controlled destruction your crit chance will be 5%) But when the base chance becomes 1%, it may reduce it to 0 since its already lower than 5% cap, but i have absolutely no knowledge about it whatsoever, so we need a confirmation here. Nonetheless, its a very clever idea.

Let's do some math to see how effective would it be:
currently, i have around 9.5 casts/sec with incinerate. 1% crit chance means we will crit once around 10 seconds. Elemental overload lasts 8 seconds, so that means we'll have around 80% uptime on EO. Pretty dank, and definitely worth trying.
You don't need to crit with incinerate itself to trigger overload, just use cwdt + tempest shield/ball lightning/ice spear or self-cast orb of storms (+ curse on hit maybe) to automate it.
I went hierophant. Wonder if it will work lol
I'm curious about if Iron will would beat out one of those gems for incinerate.
Added Atziri run video.
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I'm curious about if Iron will would beat out one of those gems for incinerate.

Nah, for damage we use 4 gems, 3 of those give us "more" multiplier, and other is fire pen which is basically another more multiplier. Iron will would be our 7th link if we had one, also we can get it from repentance if desired.

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