Cast on Ignite build

So, I've got a new favorite build that I wanted to share. I've been having quite a bit of fun playing it, and while it does have its drawbacks, it also has its strengths. As is often the case, it's entirely viable at a pretty low investment level, but hitting its maximum capabilities will take a fair chunk of change. I do think that both ends of the spectrum are lower than most builds, though, and it will continue to drop in price as the two most expensive items for high-cost builds rely on Shaped items which will be dropping in price as the content permeates the marketplace.

What it's good at:
Spoiler
You're pretty much invincible to anything that doesn't one-shot you.
You can run almost any map mod, (certain combinations can of course be difficult).
Doesn't rely upon leech.
Assuming that you balance the mechanics right, you can just about walk across the map and wipe out everything on the screen via autocast without having to do anything.
You can AFK most content. This is especially useful when my cats walk across the keyboard in a bossfight and pull up the menu.
Trolling parties.
Trolling GGG's servers.
Looking amazing, as long as you're rocking a 5,000$ computer.
Rocking a dozen spell MTXes simultaneously.
Makes Discharge and even old-school CoC look like wussies.

What it's not good at:
Spoiler
Hardcore. For real. Any build that does several thousand SELF-DPS is not a hardcore build.
You have basically no mitigation, so one-shots are (even more of) a concern.
Since one-shots are the only real threat, and you can't do anything to mitigate them, certain content is strictly no-go. This build is never going to be an Uber Atziri farmer.
Volatile Flameblood & Bearers are massive threats, and hard to see due to the amount of spam on screen.
Life flasks are not a thing. If you're going to die, you're going to die instantly. I keep one to deal with DOT and some other cases like no-regen maps when enemies aren't around to get life off of, but that's it.
Relies heavily on non-life uniques. Most are cheap, but it means that you're leaning on the skill tree for life, so you'll struggle at lower levels.
It's got pretty decent clear speed, but nothing to write home about. And boss fights are a bit slow.
FPS and ping. Do not bother with this build unless you have a decent rig and a good server connection. You can sometimes disconnect from the server or crash the game even with a great connection and box.
The build is 100% socket-starved. I hate not having a portal gem. Also, no movement gem.
A lot of the final high-end gearing relies on self-rolled Shaper items and corrupted uniques, which can be tedious and a currency sink if you get unlucky.
Needing 0 armor makes it a bit harder to gear since about 1/3 to 1/2 of gloves/boots will have it, and you have to avoid armor rolls on the belt.

Now, I haven't actually said what the build IS yet, so you might be wondering. Or maybe you put 2 and 2 together and guessed it. That's right, it's a CwDT build.

"But wait!" you say, "didn't CwDT die when they nerfed Scold's?" -- well, pretty much, yeah. But that didn't really deter me. After all, they mostly relied on Zephyr's anyway, and I don't like flask-reliant builds. Besides, the previous CWDT builds just weren't... extreme enough for me. I mean, even StrangeCloud's in its heyday only used 9 damage spells linked to CwDT. Not dumping on those builds, just saying that they aren't for me.





So, I took another tack. I don't claim to be the first to come up with the idea, but I haven't seen anyone else do it. Here are the core mechanics of the build:

1) Stack a buttload of ignite chance. You want 100%.

2) Put on Eye of Innocence. This will deal 100 fire damage to you when you ignite an enemy.

3) Dual Razor of the Seventh Suns, dual Ngamahu's signs (max roll on life recovery). This will recover 60 flat and 2% of your life total when you ignite an enemy. Even at only 6,000 life, that's 180 life recovered. The Ngamahu's also ensure that all of your spells deal fire damage and thus can ignite.

4) Slap on a Scold's Bridle and a fast, high-cost spell to both initiate the loop and add to damage taken to allow higher level CwDT vs single-target. Against a pack (or even a couple) of enemies, you may not need to cast once initiated (depending on how you tune your CWDT level).

5) Corrupt one (or more!) of your rings or amulet to give 5-6% of damage taken as mana.

The cool thing about this is that literally everything in the build benefits from having more (lower-cooldown) spells linked to CwDT. I currently have 14 CwDT spells + hardcast Incinerate, but depending on your build choices, you could easily have more or less. This reliably gives me >14 ignites per cycle single-target, since several of the spells can hit (and ignite) an enemy multiple times per cast. Also, I'm currently at a .19s cooldown (~5 cycles per second), which appears to be the minimum.

Warning: Math inside
Spoiler
I'm running a (legacy) Rat Cage, which not only lowers my max fire res to 70, but increases my fire damage taken by 20% and causes me to take 10% of fire damage as physical damage. At 15 ignites per cycle, that's 15*100=1500 incoming fire damage. 10% is taken as physical, so 150 phys (no armor), plus 1350 fire damage * .3 (resistance) * 1.2 (20% increased), for 486 fire damage, or 636 total. Add to that a 64-mana cost Incinerate (so lame, not even 21/20...) @ a cool 7 casts per second and that's 64*4*7*.19 or 340 more phys damage per cycle, or 976 total damage per cycle (DPC) to yourself. In return, you (instantly) recover 2700 life back, netting yourself a cool 1724 total life swing. Per CwDT cycle. Single target. Conservatively.

When you sit on top of a boss, you're getting way, WAY more ignites per cycle. To see why, here's my (current) gem setup:
Spoiler
Weapon 1: Anger, CWDT, Frostbolt
Weapon 2: GMP, Incinerate, Arcane Surge
Chest: CwDT, GMP, Magma Orb, Arctic Breath, Fireball, Unearth (required to allow the corpse destruction spells; also, this is why you need GMP in the chest)
Helm: CwDT, Bladefall, Arc, Ball Lightning
Boots: CwDT, Cremation, Volatile Dead, Detonate Dead
Gloves: CwDT, Firestorm, Freezing Pulse, Glacial Cascade

Here are the spells that can get multiple hits per cast:
Magma Orb (rarely)
Ball Lightning (if against a wall, Arctic Breath/Fireball/Magma Orb's AoE shotguns replace this since Ball Lightning will only hit once before hitting the wall)
Firestorm
Cremation (initial AoE + volcano projectiles)
Volatile Dead (3xinitial AoE + 3x orbs)
Detonate Dead (both the spell damage and explosion can ignite)
Bladefall (afaik 3 hits is likely, maybe 4 on large hitbox bosses?)
Glacial Cascade (probably 2 hits on a boss when you're on top of/next to it?)

Of course, you won't have your CWDTs all perfectly tuned to exactly how much damage you're receiving at all times, and the fact that you won't hit your cycles 100% exactly (there will always be some time between when the cooldown expires and the requisite damage is accumulated -- which is another reason that increased cooldown reduction is super strong), not to mention the targeting vagaries, etc, it's really impossible to even estimate the DPS of the build. Just watch some videos:

WARNING: Videos may induce seizures in epileptics and GGG servers.

I listen to audio books/history lectures/political debate podcasts/etc while I play, so mute the audio on the videos.

CTD during T10 Belfry reflect run: https://youtu.be/BaZ0wGzT0NY
T11 Bazaar (Phys ref, Ele ref, No regen, Inc. boss damage): https://youtu.be/d3LHA3lueQo
T11 Colonnade (Enfeeble, -11 Max res, No regen, Beyond): https://youtu.be/EP58esMw65E
T11 Torture Chamber (94% extra fire, 94% extra cold, -10 Max res): https://youtu.be/tEhwiFnxSZ4
T9 Gorge 3:30 run (27% inc monster damage, EE, Ele ref, poison on hit, 82% extra cold): https://youtu.be/uDy709SZk1U
T11 Lair facetanking boss (vulnerability, Phys ref, poison on hit, no regen): https://youtu.be/L7ByzyTVJSg

Aaaand, just for fun, some fails:
-25 Max res, 18% eref, vuln: https://youtu.be/l-eJrDfJa2M
-21 Max res, 18% eref: https://youtu.be/Wj4lGyaQzCo

I'm often distracted by the audio, and not the fastest clearer in the history of Wraeclast. And I pick up Wisdom scrolls. Don't judge a build by its player.

If you have something that you want to see me run, just post a request!

Map mods that you can't run:
Monsters have XX% chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments (30% might be doable, higher isn't).
That's it.

No regen? No problem. Slower recovery? All our recovery is either instant (life) or plentiful enough/unimportant enough not to matter (mana). Reflect? You actually LIKE reflect maps, it improves clearspeed. Even better, throw in a -Maximum resistances mod to boot.

The only caveat is the golden rule: DON'T. GET. ONESHOTTED. If you run a map with Extra Fire, Extra Cold, Extra Lightning, -Maximum resists, and +crit multi, there's a good chance that the boss is going to oneshot you. For that matter, even with NO map mods, some bosses will oneshot you (I'm looking at YOU Voll).

Here are some of the nuts and bolts for anyone who fancies giving 0 fps a go:
Spoiler
Items:
Note that you should avoid having ANY armor whatsoever on any item.

Hands: 2x Razor of the Seventh Sun (required); any roll will do. Only 3s so coloring isn't an issue even though they're off-color. Ultra-endgame: Corrupted for life leech. Preferably fire, but probably any will do.
Helm: Scold's Bridle (required); high spell damage and/or mana rolls are nice, but not a huge deal until you're ultra-endgame gearing. For perfect gearing, a good enchant would be nice. Preferably something that could give you more ignites. But since we run so many spells, it's an extremely minor benefit.
Amulet: Eye of Innocence (required); The only roll that matters is the str/dex, but it's rollable with blessings, so not a huge deal. Or corrupted for mana on damage taken.
Rings: 2x Ngamahu's Signs (required); The primary roll is recovery -- it should be perfect (30), with added fire damage being important as well, and str being a nice bonus. Again, the implicit is important but blessable. Or corrupted for mana on damage taken.

Armor: The Rat Cage is highly recommended, though not required. It gives high life, movement speed, increased fire damage taken (both as a mod and via the fire -> phys mod due to lack of armor), and if you get a legacy version, it can lower your max fire res. The non-legacy version is viable, but not as good due to no lowered max fire res and having -fire res, which must be made up elsewhere. Also, all versions of The Rat Cage will strain you on dexterity requirements, which must be covered via gear and/or tree points. You can, however, go for a rare with high life (and res rolls). You do not technically need a 6l. A 5l will do, with Anger swapped to the 6th (unlinked) socket, and Magma Orb moved to Anger's old socket. However, if you can do a 6l, it's better due to the GMP being linked to an additional spell.
Gloves: The only truly free slot. High life, resistances and/or dexterity (if using The Rat Cage). Depending on your other gear, this could be cheap or expensive.

Belt: For lower-cost versions of the build, another free slot. Again, high life and resists. Obviously, Leather Belts are preferred here. If you've got money to sink into it, though, an ilvl 85+ Shaped belt can be rolled to give +20% cooldown reduction. Then just add a high life roll and as much resists as possible (move speed master mod is nice if you don't have to master mod resists/life onto it).
Boots: For most people, this is just another free slot -- high life, movespeed, and resists/dex. For those who have their +20% cooldown belt, this is the next piece -- a Shaped +15% cooldown reduction mod, high life roll, movement speed, and as much resists/dex as you can get.

Jewels: 3x Fevered Minds is highly recommended, as it helps with both damage and mana cost for CwDT and Arcane Surge proccing; perf rolls obviously preferred. Some variants of the build might run 2 or 4 of them, though. The other 6 should be 7% increased maximum life + 5% chance to ignite; they should also have a third (or 4th if you're filthy rich) mod, depending on what you need to make up for after you're geared. You can go elemental resists, spell damage, or even stats.

Flasks: Wise Oak is pretty boss, but it's a pain to balance the max reses to get the fire pen on it (you do deal some of every element, so it's still good even without it); additionally, you could set your fire res to be the lowest to protect against heavy fire damage enemies, but it will slow down your CWDT cycle. Obviously a movement flask is nice (I like 2 Rotguts personally), and you need the standard staunching and thawing somewhere (I've been getting away with no dousing). While your cycle still runs even if you're frozen, you don't want to be locked in place and unable to dodge exploding lockboxes/Flameblood/Bearers. Grounding isn't a bad idea given that it helps avoid one-shots. One life flask is also not a bad idea just in case of emergencies. All of the non-uniques benefit from Surgeons since, while we don't invest in crit chance, we spam a bucketload of spells, so we generate crits pretty consistently.

Note on CwDT gem levels:
Higher level CwDT will give more DPS, but less ignites (defense, spam amount). It's really more of a preference thing, but getting decent clearspeed on high-level maps will require higher CWDT levels. The main thing is to stagger your gem levels -- personally, I put the spells that proc more ignites as lower level, and single-ignite spells as higher level. This helps with sustaining the cycle procs, though some of them (like Volatile Dead) would also be well-used as DPS. Since the gems on cooldown don't count damage taken until they come off of cooldown, having gems different levels means that (in theory) they will come off of cooldown at different times and thus start tracking damage at different times. Also, and this should be obvious, quality CwDT gems (and quality versions of most spell gems, for that matter) are a good idea. A 20q CwDT will give you ~2.5% more damage.

Quality on the spell gems will vary from 0% (increased AoE/projectile speed, which are still good things to have even if they aren't technically DPS) to 5% more damage, but again, they're relatively minor investments, so why not? One note is that Bladefall might be better off without quality, as lower AoE makes it more likely to ignite a single target more times, and Fireball will give no benefit with quality if you already have 100% ignite chance.

Corpse spells: Pre-3.0, I didn't use DD, but once Unearth/Volatile Dead/Cremation came out, it became incredibly efficient to use them due to multiple ignites per cast (plus Volatile Dead orbs are seeking, which helps with clearing spread out enemies and sustaining the cycle between packs). Unearth is crappy at hitting enemies, but even if we assume it never hits them, it + Volatile Dead alone is totally worth it, and Cremation+DD are just icing on the cake. They do, however, require standing right next to enemies, so if you don't like getting in their faces, you should probably remove them (and the GMP in the chest, as it's mainly there for Unearth).

Gameplay notes:
Spoiler
Don't kill yourself! No, seriously, Scold's can kill you. Learn to stop hardcasting when a boss is almost dead, or you might die if they hit you just before they die and your finger is holding down that "deal massive damage to myself!" button without an enemy to get the life back from.

Try to keep your best pack-hitting spells on a lower-level CwDT so that you can literally just run through the pack and self-sustain the cycle. That is a bigger clearspeed boost than anything else you can do with the build.

Again, this is unfortunately a very lategame-centric build as you need your ignite jewels and nodes, plus a ton of life nodes. 4k is enough for white maps, but 5k+ is what you should look for with yellows, and reds are more like 6k+. Depending on your gear, etc, I would peg that as roughly 70-80 for whites, 75-85 for yellows, and >80 for reds.

Build variations:
Spoiler
Ascendencies:
Spoiler
Berserker is the obvious second choice. Free life+mana leech, 40% more damage, 10% increased damage taken. The main issue is that the extra 10% damage taken makes you more susceptible to oneshots. If you plan on pushing really high level maps, or running extra damage mods, it really starts to be problematic. And making up the 15% ignite from Scion costs a LOT of passve points.

Inquisitor is, in my opinion, the better second choice. Damage-wise, it can keep up with Berserker between the increased damage nodes, Inevitable Judgement, and Augury of Pentinence. However, you lose the mana leech from Berserker and the free 15% ignite from Scion.

Hierophant is an interesting proposition. It will be lower DPS and lower life, but the 10% MoM might well make up for it. You, of course, would have to cover that with additional damage gained as mana jewelry. I would guess that it would be the most survivable but the least damaging of the options.
IMHO, no other ascendency can compete with Scion or these 3.

Gear: (note that I am assuming 7000 life and 42 damage taken on ignite for life gain calculations in this section)
Spoiler
Please note that I don't recommend any of these, at least if you're planning on doing bosses or high-difficulty map mods in high-tier maps. I don't think that you can sufficiently sustain your lifepool with less than dual Razors. If you prefer a faster-clearing (higher DPS) version for easier content though, these may be interesting:

Dyadus main hand, Razor of the Seventh Sun in offhand. Advantages: 25% increased ignite from Dyadus. Disadvantages: Less life gain (200->130 gained;158->88 net). This makes reflect maps harder, though not impossible, and Ash, Frost, and Storm could help with it.

Dual Ashcallers. Advantages: Ashcaller has Spell Damage and added fire damage to spells. More importantly, they each give 20 (18-22)% chance to ignite. This would, for instance, let you take Berserker/Inquisitor, soak up the lost 15% ignite chance from scion, and still have 25% additional. You could reduce the number of jewel slots and/or use Abyss Jewels for large damage and/or HP increases. Disadvantages: You lose a lot of life gain (200->60 life gained; 158->18 net). This means that reflect maps are untenable, and makes you much less tanky against bosses.

Dual rare wands/Rare staff. Advantages: You can get up to 8% ignite chance on each rare wand, and up to 15% on a rare staff. You can also get a ton of spell damage on them, or, best yet, 10% elemental resistance pen. This is absolutely the highest DPS option for gearing, and could be paired with Inquisitor for truly epic DPS. Disadvantages: The same as dual Ashcallers -- 18 net life gain per ignite. You could, of course, also go hybrid with one Ashcaller and one rare for 30% ignite.

Xoph's Nurture. Advantages: Has both 10% ignite chance and 60 life gain on ignite. This gives you wiggle room to switch from scion, and/or reduce jewel slots and/or use abyss jewels. If you 6-link the bow, you can also squeeze in an additional spell on CWDT -- do not underestimate this! You get more damage taken (faster/higher level CWDT procs), more lifegain, more DPS, and of course, less FPS. Free proliferate means more ignites non-singletarget. Also, lets you use a quiver for more life/resists/dex. Disadvantages: You still lose a significant amount of life gain (200->120 gained;158->78 net). This strains you on reflect maps, though the -10% reflected damage taken Essence on your quiver and/or Ash, Frost, and Storm could help significantly with that. Also, you require higher dexterity (185 instead of 152), though a high dex roll on the quiver may offset or even outgain that.

Alternate skill gem discussions:
Spoiler
Heralds: 1 herald will add ~8% more DPS, however you will need to sack a socket. Each socket is probably worth >8%, so it's probably not worth it.

Curses: Personally, I don't bother with them. If you can swing an item with built-in curse on hit (like corrupted gloves), go for it! But it's not really worth sacrificing a socket. You could use a weapon swap to curse bosses, but due to less effectiveness, I'm not sure that it's really worth it. The main suggestion would be Projectile Weakness, since it would let you push the boss against a wall and splash them with your GMP projectile AOEs.


A final note (which is often true in PoE): Life is more important than damage. This build has quite a bit of increased/more damage built in, so when you're leveling, think twice before taking a damage node over a life one.

Random cool highlights:
AFKilling double Nightmare Omen (45% inc. attack speed, 30% inc. boss attack speed, 35% inc. boss damage, EE, double boss): https://youtu.be/ujZ1TBR2yX0
IGN Stuns_McNutshot | Ichimans_McIchimans | Balls_McCritterson
Last edited by tsftd on Feb 18, 2018, 8:56:59 AM
Last bumped on Apr 15, 2018, 1:02:49 PM
Bumping this so I can bookmark it....
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1462987

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