[3.3] Pure Fire EleHit Berserker | 880k consistent shaper dps (without BiS gear!)

Introduction
As the Elemental Hit skill has been reworked in 3.3, I wanted to try it out and see whether or not it is a viable and fun to play. I chose the Berserker Ascendency mainly because I haven't played one in a long time and it takes care of any life and mana leech (if needed).

https://pastebin.com/eJ6BZWMy - Or import it directly of my char (EleleHitMaybe)
This is my current PoB, 8k HP, 880k Shaper dps with 20 Rage, no flasks and a lvl 21 gem. I've done all content aside from Uber Elder with it. Its not the highest dps, but sufficient!
Keep in mind that the flasks are not optimal as I used my old ones for another build. The original flasks are in the gear description.

Elemental Hit
Spoiler

General changes
In patch 3.3 Elemental Hit has been changed in its functionality. Now every time you attack it adds either Cold, Fire or Lightning damage to your attack. The attack only deals damage of the chosen element. This also removes any damage of your weapon that is not of the chosen element, including physical or chaos damage.
Additionally, it deals damage to surrounding targets now, removing the need for the splash gem.

Damage conversion
As the new EleHit now adds damage of all elements to your attack (even though it deals only the damage of one element), converted damage is added to the damage of the chosen element. This makes full fire conversion very interesting.

Example:
No damage converted:
First attack deals 100 Fire damage, second attack deals 100 Cold damage and the third attacks deals 100 Lightning damage.

Cold to Fire conversion with the Cold to Fire Gem or Pyre:
First attack deals 150 Fire damage, second attack deals 50 Cold damage and the third attack deals 100 Lightning damage.
If you use other mechanics like Avatar of fire or Call of the Brotherhood you can achieve almost 100% fire conversion of all elements.

Combat Focus threshold jewel
While the average damage stays the same with the conversions, GGG added some threshold jewels in 3.3, changed the way Elemental Hit chooses its damage.
When socketed in the respective jewel sockets, the Combat Focus jewel can eliminate the possibility of elemental hit to choose certain damage types. Using two of these jewels, you can force Elemental Hit to always choose the same element for its attack.
The result is that with the usage of the damage conversion and two jewels, Elemental Hit can deal only fire damage.

Example:
100% fire conversion with no jewels:
First attack deals 300 damage, the second and the third deal no lightning or cold damage.

100% fire conversion with two jewels:
First attack deals 300 damage, second attack deals 300 Fire damage, third attack deals 300 Fire damage.

This results in 200% more damage!


Gear
Spoiler


While this build can be played with rather cheap gear, it can also use some more expensive alternatives to make it tankier and more damaging. This includes items like Kaoms Heart, that greatly help survivalbility. (Keep in mind that we take 10% increased damage due to choosing Berserker)

Budget Version
Spoiler

The budget version uses only few/cheap unique items.

Weapons
As I do not stack any accuracy, I need to make up for it somewhere else. The obvious choice is the shield Lycosidae, while using some high attackspeed weapon like Brightbeak. But as the shield is rather expensive atm, I chose two 100% hit daggers instead. Alternatively you can use a Vagan mod weapon or a shield with life an res, but I would not really recommend it as comparable items are difficult to obtain.


Helm
As the helm I chose Starkonjas, as it provides high life, some attack speed and maybe most importantly some needed dexterity (EleHit need 155 dex at lvl 20). You can also use some rare helm with life and resistances, but it makes it more difficult to get all the dex needed.


Body Armour
The body armour is one of you choice. Initially I used a rare 5-Link with a %Life mod from the Temple. Afterwards I switched to a Loreweave as I had enough rings to get me one (honeslty...it didn't even feel so much better or safer). You can basically choose what you want/need here, as long as it has enough links.


Rings
The rings have to be Pyre and Call of the Brotherhood to get the (almost) 100% Fire conversion. If you REALLY want, you can use a Cold to Fire Gem instead of a Pyre, but it was only 1c when build my char and gibes the space to use a different support gem.


Amulet
You have some options here. You can go for a Yoke of Suffering, which should boost the damage the most on a budget but you can also invest a few chaos more and get a rare with life, wed and res if you need. Both should work.


Gloves
For the gloves I chose 1-Abyss-Socket Tombfist Gloves, mainly to intimidate enemys. They were 2c when I bought them.
You can also use rare gloves, but according to PoB Tombfists were only competing with very very good rares, costing a few ex. As for the murderous eye jewel, look for qol stats (life, attack speed on crit, onslaught on kill, ...). (Ignore the curse on the linked gloves)


Boots
Some rare Boots with resistances and life are what you want here. If you can cap your resistances elsewhere, go for Kaoms Roots for the high life. You dont need any movement speed here as you will only move with the movement skill of you choice (depending on your weapon choice of course).


Belt
Go for a rare belt with resistances, life and weapon elemental damage in that order.


Jewels
Aside from the two Combat Focus jewels, got for rare jewels with %life, melee damage, fire damage, attack speed, etc. If you need, you can also fix your resistances with the jewels.


Expensive Version:
Spoiler

The expensive version was used when I killed Shaper. There might be more suitable items that I did not think of/I did not try, but it works as it is. Test some different stuff if you can!

Weapons
To get the 100% hit chance I went for a Lycosidae (it also provides some life!) and a Brightbeak for its high attack speed. I think the only weapon giving more dps is a rare weapon with very high attack speed, wed, high elemental damage. When I build my character, the cheapest weapon like this was 2ex and only gave something like 2-3% more damage. For me it was not worth it.
An alternative to mix things up a little (mainly to make the build tankier) is to use bloodseeker for the instant leech. This works especially well with the savage hit leech, but makes the build a little slower. If you have the money, go for an attack speed corruption!


Helm
As the helm I chose the Frostferno helm as it gives +4 gem levels to Elemental Hit and has the buikd in Cold to Fire Gem. It is comparable to a 5.5-Link dps wise but offers the possibility to use a different body armour to get more life.
Additionally it can be corrupted to get one or two +2 gem levels for Elemental Hit, making it a 6.5-Link dps wise, but those are really expensive!


Body armour
As we do not need 5 or 6 Links for our dps setup, we can use kaoms heart to get the +500 life, and some damage aswell.


Rings
While the Call of the Brotherhood rings is still use, we can swap out the Pyre ring (due to the Cold to Fire in Frostferno). Just go for a rare ring with life, resistances and wed - whatever you need!


Amulet
I have to say that I did not test most of these options...
The highest dps option, according to PoB, is Xophs Blood. It covers the enemy in ash, penetrates res and has avatar on fire which allows us to respec the tree a little and pick up more damage or life.
Another option is Yoke of Suffering. It allows fire damage to shock and increased damage taken on enemies.
Impresence with Flammability is also a solid option, as we do not have a curse in our gem setup.
I am currently using a rare amulet with life, wed and a little res. It works aswell.


Gloves
For the Gloves we still choose Tombfists. You can go for two abyssal sockets or a good corruption like curse on hit, attack speed or life. I would prioritize a curse on hit (like temp chains or enfeeble) over a second socket. If you have the currency, go for both.


Boots
Since we have sufficient damage and need some more survivalbility, the choice is (once again) Kaoms Roots. As the corruptions on Boots are not very convincing in 3.3, I enchanted mine in the Lab with Crit-Chance if you haven't crit recently to proc Elemental Overload more often.


Belt
As in the Budget-version, go for a rare belt with life, resistances and weapon elemental damage. If affordable, you can go for a Stygian Vise...but in my opinion the stats are more important than the socket (in most cases).


Jewels
As in the budget version, use two combat focus jewels to force the fire damage on Elemental Hit. Additionaly, to give us some more dex I used a Fluid Motion jewel to convert some strenght to dexterity in the templar area. It makes gearing just much easier.
The rest are rare jewels as in the budget version.



Flasks
Spoiler
As the flasks are not different in the different versions of the build, I'll just note them separately.
The flasks are mostly up to your choice. There are only few dps increasing flasks, the other flasks are for survivalbility.

1. Bleed immunelife flask
2. Ignite immune Silver flask
3. Curse immune Sulphur flask
4. Wise Oak
5. Freeze immune Basalt flask



Gems
Spoiler

Mobility - Weapon 1
(Leap Slam / Whirling Blades / Shield Charge) - Faster Attacks - Fortify

Utility - Weapon 2 / Shield
Ancestral Protector - Blood Rage - Stone Golem

Utility - Gloves
Cast When Damage Taken - Immortal Call
If you have a third socket connected add something to your liking, I added Phase Run

Budget Version - as far as I remember when I played it
DPS - Chest
Elemental Hit - Multistrike - Combustion - Ancestral Call - Weapon Elemental Damage - Fire Penetration
Use Ruthless instead of Ancestral Call on Bosses.

Utility - Helm
Use what you want in here, I leveled additional gems in the empty slots.

Expensive version with Kaoms and Frostferno
DPS - Helm
Elemental Hit - Ancestral Call - Combustion - Multistrike
Use Weapon Elemental Damage instead of Ancestral Call on Bosses.



Skill Tree and Bandits
Spoiler

www.poeurl.com/bYMO
I dont really know what to say about this... The focus is on %life, Avatar of Fire, Elemental Overload, Fire Damage and a little resistance. If you have enough resistances on you gear (or some additional dexterity) you can also respec some notes to make the tree more efficient.

Ascendancy
I went for the following:
Pain Reaver > Aspect of Carnage > Crave the Slaughter > Cloaked in Savagery
You can also go for Rite of Ruin instead of Cloaked in Savagery, but I did not like the additional degen and in combat you almost always take a savage hit, so its not really less dps.

Bandits
I took the two passives. The other option is Kraityn, but its hard to make 6% increased attack speed better than two passive points (e.g. more life or a jewel socket)


Keep in mind that this is not a facetank build as you take 10% increased damage and have no increased leech rate...its really noticable!

I dont have any videos of me killing stuff yet, but its basically as follows:
Jump in to get close and get fortify > Attack stuff > Kill Trash instantly > Hold attack on bosses > dodge heavy attacks > reapply fortify .... until everything is dead.


If you have any questions, go ahead and ask - maybe I can answer them. Also, as this was my first guide, please tell me if I missed something.

Have fun :)
Last edited by Schcream on Jul 10, 2018, 10:25:24 AM
Last bumped on Jul 11, 2018, 11:09:31 PM
Im curious if you've tried Bloodseeker with your current build. Maybe one with a frenzy charge or crit chance corruption
Last edited by Jameljami11 on Jun 22, 2018, 8:02:49 PM
I've tested the build with Bloodseeker (without any fancy corruptions) and the build is still perfectly viable. You gain a lot of survivalbility and can facetank almost anything now, but you lose a little damage (from 880k to 720k, which is still enough!).

On another note: both corruptions you mentioned are not the ideal ones. frenzy on kill would just replace the blood rage effect (but not the gained attackspeed that we want on bosses) and the crit chance is only nice to trigger elemental overload more consistantly, but I got the crit enchant on the boots for this.
The attackspeed corruption is best in slot on the weapon slot, as 6% increased attack speed give you ~44k dps.
Sweet! Thanks for the reply, i'm really excited to try it out for myself
what bandits and pantheon do u choose? i think Kraitlyn isn't a bad choice since he provides some atk speed and movement speed.
If I remember correctly I took the two passives, as I was planning to use Brighbeak from the beginning. It might be worth using Kraityn if you use a slow weapon like Bloodseeker, but I think that some additional life on the passive tree is still more preferable.
Last edited by Schcream on Jul 10, 2018, 10:27:02 AM
Thanks for the reply! I think I'll choose the 2 passives in order to be more tanky then.
Any video? Would love to see this in action

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