[3.1] Volatile Dead Elementalist (Budget Friendly) (in progress)

Hello,

as I couldn't find any real guide for this build I thought I might try to use some collected data from reddit and the forum to try to build something.

Volatile Dead is a new skill gem that explodes corpses and per exploded corpse it spawns one big fireball that randomly chooses an enemy to fly to and explode with a big aoe.

You can start to play with volatile dead as soon as you have one 3-Link (2B1G) and at least one 2-Link (1B1G)

My current setup is:

Volatile Dead - Spell Cascade - Controlled Destruction - Elemental Focus

Desecrate - Spell Cascade - Faster Casting

Lightning Warp

Gear: Until now I couldn't find any big game changer. While leveling Asenath's Mark is nice for the Mana Reg and the Cast Speed.
Later probably Carcass Jack, Doryani's Catalyst

Current Tree
(Still need ~29 regret orbs... any donations? xD)

Just saw that Ghazzy is doing a Volatile Dead too and his tree looks better, especially for the endgame when Volatile Dead goes up in mana cost. I am going to switch to that. (Will take a bit as I need 25 more respecc points. No Regrets :( )
New Final Tree

Bandits: Kill all
Ascendancy: Liege of the Primordial -> Pendulum of Destruction -> Master Mind of Discord -> Paragon of Calamity

FAQ

How do you play with this build?
Easy. When there are enemies you cast one Desecrate and on the Desecrate you cast TWO times your Volatile Dead. That uses up all corpses and balls are going everywhere. After that, depending on the density of mobs, you just keep on casting Volatile Dead on the corpses. If there are none left you're recasting Desecrate.

Can you level with this?
Absolutely! It clears very fast and even bosses are being melted down.

i hope you keep this updated once you hit endgame, i'm pretty interested in trying something like this but was worried how it would feel

"

themightysurt wrote:

i hope you keep this updated once you hit endgame, i'm pretty interested in trying something like this but was worried how it would feel

I am now at act 6 and it still feels quite good. Just my defenses (Life etc) are crappy, making me die. Else I am quite happy. Super strong on a 4 Link. Melts bosses very good. Will definitely keep that one active, hopefully without having to invest 100s of Orb of Regrets.

I played Volatile Dead like you up to act 6. Then I tried different stuff. I have a Tabula, and I also have Detonate Dead linked with Volatile Dead. I tried with Spell Cascade + Spell Echo. It was fun, but I noticed that Detonate Dead was doing low damage in that setup.
Then I tried with only Spell Echo, and I figured why.

My Spell Cascade is currently at level 13, and it has 19% LESS Area of Effect and 38% LESS damage, compared to Spell Echo which only has 10% less damage.
Spell Cascade completely destroys the explosion damage from the enemy's body, and it relies on quantity over quality.

I'm not really sure which one clears faster. it's smoother with Cascade since it casts everything in one cast, compared to echo where it is 2 casts in rapid succession. But for boss, I prefer echo, the damage output is much better.

My current setup in tabula is Volatile Dead, Detonate Dead, Spell Echo, Ele Focus, Controlled Destruction, Inc AoE/Conc.

With Spell Echo you only get 6 Volatiles per cast.
With Spell cascade you get 9 per cast 15 per 2 cast (15 is max for Desecrate Corpses)

So with Spell Echo you need more casts to use up corpses. With Spell Cascade you effectively do more damage, as you use more corpses. So from my tests I rather take Spell Cascade, also for bosses. The only bosses that didn't melt was Act5 Kitava and Act6 Brine King. But both because I am currently very glass cannonish.

Hi guys! I'm also playing a selfcast VD build (chieftain). I just acquired my tabula and did an hour of testing various setups in oasis. The best clear i get with VD-Spellcascade-ele foc-fire pen-controld destr-inc aoe, the best singletarget with conc instead of inc aoe (no surprise). I also use a 4L cremation (gmp / slower projectiles for bosses, ele foc, fire pen), wich i find to be very useful both for consistent boss damage and additional clear vs Abyssies. Cremation needs only one corpse per cast and has 8 sec base duration, so it's really no problem on the corpsegeneration front.

Getting "Elemental Focus"
and the Node on the Templar Side "Celestial Punishment" don't work together.
Also the Node "Elementalist" is not really beneficial then.

Since you go more for fire dmg and like penetration (since you took Celestial Judgement) how about "Heart of Flame" on the Witch side?

Hey there, I'm excited to see volatile dead builds make their way onto the witch forums. However, this is heavily still a work in progress, and I hope to see it grow and flesh out as you continue to play the build.

In particular, there are a few things that I know will be needed for explanations:

Stat / gear priorities (as this is a heavily witch build, but requires high dex gems).

a full links / gear / itemization breakdown.

stat priorities for jewels

possibly any pantheon considerations

movement skill? cwdt? shield, staff, ? 163% inc life on tree for sc? hc? You literally wear no specific gear other than Asenaths? So is this SSF recommended? You picked up some cast speed, do you think it's better than spell damage in some places?

You took a lot of % inc. mana for MoM which is awesome. I know why you did this. People following the guide may not. Expand on this?

your character stats / gear would be nice.

what content have you been able to complete? Is this for map farming or boss killing or both? How quickly do you feel it is?

--
Lots of great opportunities to work on it. Again, I really look forward to seeing how it grows.

Cheers

I'm in the start of the end game and I don't find cascade to be this good with volatile dead.

If you use Cascade you loose a link and it give you not much damage but make you cast effective 3x time each click, but you also use all the dead after two cast, so you have to cast again Desecrat. If you just cast the spell normaly, you use 3 corps, so you can cast it 5 times before you need to cast Desecrat and you can use 1 more link to get a MORE damage multiplier or some pen. So each balls can do a lots more damage then 9 one. and you have 5 cast before you need to lost time and cast Desecrate + all monster who die.

"

Xenombra wrote:

I'm in the start of the end game and I don't find cascade to be this good with volatile dead.

If you use Cascade you loose a link and it give you not much damage but make you cast effective 3x time each click, but you also use all the dead after two cast, so you have to cast again Desecrat. If you just cast the spell normaly, you use 3 corps, so you can cast it 5 times before you need to cast Desecrat and you can use 1 more link to get a MORE damage multiplier or some pen. So each balls can do a lots more damage then 9 one. and you have 5 cast before you need to lost time and cast Desecrate + all monster who die.

Just tested it and Spell Cascade really uses 9 corpses. Looks like it isnt as good as i thought it would be.

When it comes to dps numbers, just look at what PoB gives you and multiply it by the number of Orbs created. Spell Cascade cuts your dps in half and multiply your orbs by 3, means you still have more dps in total.

On the other hand you only get 1.5 casts out of it for every Desecrate.

With limited corpses it would probably best to go for fastest cast speed, to get the maximum out of every corpse, lol.