[3.1] [Theorycrafting] Volatile Dead Elementalist !hype

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Candyface1337 wrote:

From what i have understood volatile dead does not scale with neither elemental damage or spell damage right? only fire damage, actually im not quiet sure about ele dmg, but i know fo sho it dosen't scale with spell dmg

I think it is the corpse explosion that doesn't benefit from spell Damage. Not sure though.

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deadmeat9 wrote:

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Candyface1337 wrote:

From what i have understood volatile dead does not scale with neither elemental damage or spell damage right? only fire damage, actually im not quiet sure about ele dmg, but i know fo sho it dosen't scale with spell dmg

I think it is the corpse explosion that doesn't benefit from spell Damage. Not sure though.

Yeah you are 100% right, its only the 3% corpse explosion that dosen't scale with spell damage, that changes my build quiet a bit, since i feel like the biggest damage comes from the burning balls of fire

The corpse explosion doesn't scale with spell damage, but the fire orbs do scale with spell damage. It very specifically says they deal spell damage when they explode. I am thinking scaling spell damage will be the main focus on this build.

I think a GMP unearth totem might be best for corpses as it will keep them properly clustered in ideal spots. The desecrate cascade also works but takes a bit more setup. Remember we don't really care about the level of the corpses, we care about the speed we can get corpses properly placed. I probably would use both the totem and a cascade desecrate though. The cascade desecrate is ideal for setting up so you could just oneshot bosses who have a setup or spawn animation or separate rooms like the lab, vaal, etc. The unearth totem though allows you to set up while dodging mechanics which makes it crucial for during combat.

As far as main supports I wouldn't recommend cascade, the damage reduction is too much compared to spell echo. The main spell links would probably be Spell echo, controlled Destruction, Concentrated effect(possibly with Increased aoe more info below) Arcane surge are probably the 5 main ones. Added chaos might be good because of the 120% spell mod on it or possibly fire pen.

The base AoE looks to be a decent size so I think increased aoe for trash mobs might work well, I am not sure as until we can really test the skill it is hard to decide.

The biggest thing I am having trouble is with the ascendancy, there isn't really one that seems like it would be a shoe in for best. If anything I think the Scion might actually work well or the elementalist. I am leaning towards the scion just because of the easier dex and the fact that you could scale crit pretty easily with it. I am thinking assassin hierophant to be honest or an elementalist. I think the assassin hierophant has better potential though as well as just being smoother since the totems generate power charges.

Sybil's lament shouldn't really work for the build because It is not an attack, it would only be useful for a swap for reflect maps. I don't see the tiki amulet being worth it at all. There are just better ways to scale spell damage. The nice thing is that if volatile dead is underpowered you can easily swap to cremation fairly easily.

No idea if this would work or not, but here's a tree I threw together for Scion Assassin/Hierophant just merc lab at level 80.

Dex will be hard. I spec'd into 1 dex notable, and the other is 2 away if the reqs are that serious or gear is hard up. Could always respec some of the crit. Elemental Overload is also 1 away.

https://pastebin.com/LWJ7HWZc

Thoughts?

Damage is mostly AOE/Fire passively.

*edit*

Was thinking Spell Totem -> Unearth -> GMP -> Faster Casting in the helm slot for 2x unearth totems for VD spam.

Wouldn't Spell Echo be much better than cascade?
Cascade = less AoE and Less Damage
Spell Echo = Much faster casting + free second cast.

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AkumaNoTsubasa wrote:

Wouldn't Spell Echo be much better than cascade?
Cascade = less AoE and Less Damage
Spell Echo = Much faster casting + free second cast.

Just compare lvl 20 gems.

Spell Echo 20 gives you more 70% cast speed in a double cast effect (generating 6 fire orbs).

Spell Cascade lvl 20 actually repeat the cast 2 times, for a total of 3 casts in the time of 1 cast. It's actually a 200% more cast speed (generating 9 fire orbs). It also has 31% less damage, though, so the actual damage bonus is something around 107% more, all round. Still much better than Spell Echo.

Wouldn't a necromancer with the scourge be ideal for this?

160% increased damage from the ascendancy tree alone when converted from minion damage, 11% cast speed default and 2% per recently consumed corpse and you will be consuming a lot of them constantly and you'll generate 2 more corpses per desecrate.

You can also bring a spectre with the highest base HP you can find to tag along with you and be added to the desecrate corpse pool for some orbs hitting a bit harder then others.

I can't think of a better unique weapon then the scourge, but some of the shaper/elder rares could surpass it.

Also has anyone considered cast when channeling volatile dead or would that not feel as good?

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Uberness wrote:

Wouldn't a necromancer with the scourge be ideal for this?

160% increased damage from the ascendancy tree alone when converted from minion damage, 11% cast speed default and 2% per recently consumed corpse and you will be consuming a lot of them constantly and you'll generate 2 more corpses per desecrate.

You can also bring a spectre with the highest base HP you can find to tag along with you and be added to the desecrate corpse pool for some orbs hitting a bit harder then others.

I can't think of a better unique weapon then the scourge, but some of the shaper/elder rares could surpass it.

That is not a bad idea. We could try building it.

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Uberness wrote:

Also has anyone considered cast when channeling volatile dead or would that not feel as good?

What would you use as main channeling skill?

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kaisersoze80 wrote:

Spell Cascade lvl 20 actually repeat the cast 2 times, for a total of 3 casts in the time of 1 cast. It's actually a 200% more cast speed (generating 9 fire orbs). It also has 31% less damage, though, so the actual damage bonus is something around 107% more, all round. Still much better than Spell Echo.

Its more than 31% less damage since you are missing 1 damage increasing support gem too, in total its more like 60-70% less damage.

What Spell Cascade does is weaken the already weak fire damage part and increasing the explosion damage part considerably (because we have more explosions).

Since the explosions are purely based on monster life, investment in damage increases arent that important anymore and Necro is starting to look more interesting since it provides alot better defences than Elementalist.

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Xirce wrote:

Its more than 31% less damage since you are missing 1 damage increasing support gem too, in total its more like 60-70% less damage.

What support gem are you talking about?

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Xirce wrote:

What Spell Cascade does is weaken the already weak fire damage part and increasing the explosion damage part considerably (because we have more explosions).

Since the explosions are purely based on monster life, investment in damage increases arent that important anymore and Necro is starting to look more interesting since it provides alot better defences than Elementalist.

Actually I'm trying this build, and I assure you that the main source of damage is the fire orbs explosions, which is pure fire spell damage.

The corpse explosion damage is negligible.


BTW I tried building the necromancer scourge version (gone full crit) and seems pretty stronger.

Here's the tree (use it with path of building)
https://pastebin.com/KuUUs8Br