[3.5] A Storm of Ice and Fire - Truly Excessive CWDT

We are an Elementalist with 100% chance to ignite. Using the Eye of Innocence unique amulet and 2 Ngamahu's Sign unique rings, we take 100 fire damage, reduced to 27 by our resistances, but are healed for 60 life. This heals us for 33 life, but counts 27 damage towards our CWDT gems. By causing as many ignites per second as possible, we heal at an absurd rate, and cast even more spells. We can do whatever we want with all these free spell casts.

In this build we use them to trigger Vaal Molten Shell explosions. They do a lot of damage, and Vaal Molten Shell has no cooldown.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We recover 60 LIFE from Ngamahu's sign. There is no way to convert this recovery to energy shield. Because of this, energy shield is completely useless for this build. You will always have 0 energy shield, because no amount of leech or regen is going to outpace our self-damage.

LOL YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN

Eye of Innocence, 2 Ngamahu's Sign: Required for Cast on Ignite.

The Whispering Ice: Chosen for its Level 1 Icestorm skill, and the lack of a need to 6L it (or 5L it!) Scales with Intelligence, but we only get 300. It gives +1 to socketed support gems, which will affect CWDT, but a level 2 CWDT is actually the most efficient for a skill like Icestorm that can't be a level 20 gem.

The Rat Cage: Used to trigger Vaal Molten Shell with its %Fire-taken-as-physical mechanic. This is the only way to do this. Because of its high Dex requirement, it's difficult to color for spell gems, so we don't 6L it (or 5L it) and use it for auras and Blade Vortex.

Remaining slots:

In our remaining gear slots (including many jewel sockets) we need to acquire the following stats:

- As much life as possible
- +37 Dexterity (in addition to +24 from the Eye of Innocence)
- +85% of each resistance
- 5% chance to ignite
- 5% of damage taken gained as mana over 4 seconds

Other mods to look for:

- % increased cooldown recovery rate on boots and belt
- Cast speed on gloves (Essence of Insanity, supported by Faster Casting)
- Damage mods for Vaal Molten Shell on helmet (socketed gems deal 30% more elemental damage, supported by Concentrated Effect, supported by Immolate)

One item that I failed to craft in time for the build was a jewel with 5% chance to ignite, as well as 2-3% of damage taken gained as mana over 4 seconds, so the character in the video only has 95% chance to ignite.

Jewel sockets are a good opportunity to get more life and cap your resistances. I recommend using 1 Crimson Jewel with 5% chance to ignite and 2-3% of damage taken gained as mana over 4 seconds (crafted by spamming Lucent fossils,) one Hypnotic Eye jewel with 2-3% of damage taken gained as mana over 4 seconds (you must have 5% total to sustain mana,) and fill the rest of the sockets with Hypnotic Eye jewels.

Gear from the video:

Staff: R-R-B-B B B

CWDT (1) - Increased Duration (20) - Ball Lightning (5) - Spark (12) | Concentrated Effect (20) | Efficacy (20)

Here, we want CWDT linked to both Ball Lightning and Spark, and Increased Duration linked to Spark. We don't want Concentrated Effect linked to Ball Lightning. Spark isn't necessary here. You can put whatever you want in that socket. I just put it there because it benefits from the increased duration.

Gloves: B-B-B-R

Firestorm (20) - Spell Cascade (20) - Spell Echo (20) - Increased Duration (20)

Firestorm hits single targets better when it has less AOE, so a level 1 Spell Cascade would be better than a level 20 one, but the difference is small enough to not matter at all.

Boots: R-R-B-B

CWDT (1) - Increased Duration (20) - Firestorm (8) - Concentrated Effect (20)

CWDT Firestorm with more duration and less AOE for optimized single-target. Could possibly get supported by Increased Duration on the boots, in which case, socket Efficacy instead.

Chest: R B-B G R-G

Herald of Ash (20) | Blasphemy (20) - Enfeeble (20) | Herald of Ice (20) | CWDT (20) - Blade Vortex (20)

Enfeeble is used here to prevent getting one shot, since our healing is so ridiculous that this is the only thing that can kill us (except after-death effects.) Ensure that you have a high-quality Blasphemy gem to increase its effectiveness. Quality on Herald of Ash is good, too.

To get these colors, use the "1 Red and 1 Blue" crafting recipe (15 chrom each try) and pray to RNGesus. This was the single hardest thing to craft for the build. I got really unlucky. At least it doesn't need to be 6L.

Helmet: R-R-B-B

Vaal Molten Shell (21) - Fire Penetration (20) - Controlled Destruction (20) - Combustion (20)

Ensure you get a lv 21 Vaal Molten Shell. Quality doesn't matter, since we already have 100% chance to ignite. You can use regular molten shell, but keep in mind that casting regular molten shell will override Vaal Molten Shell and get rid of it.

Weapon Swap:

Obliteration #1: R-B-B

CWDT (20) - Arc (20) - Innervate (20)

Just to help get the explosions going. Interesting tidbit, our increased duration will affect Innervate, making it last nearly 8 seconds, and the buff will persist when we weapon swap back.


Obliteration #2: B-B-B

Flame Dash (20) - Faster Casting (20) - Arcane Surge (7)

A level 7 Arcane Surge will activate on every Flame Dash. You may wish for it to proc less often, in order to give a better buff, in which case you should level up the gem. The buff is affected by our increased skill duration, so it will last almost 8 seconds, and persist when we weapon swap.

Soul of the Brine King is the only choice for the major, here. Getting stunned to death isn't fun. For the minor, we have some choices. I prefer to run Soul of Ralakesh for bleed, labyrinth traps, blind, and maim, but Soul of Gruthkul is very good, because we will basically permanently have 5% physical damage reduction.

For the purposes of these calculations, I will be using the exact numbers of the character featured in the video. Keep in mind, that character is level 88, and the gear is pretty terrible. If you end up getting better gear, your numbers will be better.

In the video, I did a very hand-wavy damage calculation. I rounded a lot, and I used a specific configuration. This will give you a better idea of how much damage the build actually does (MATH AHEAD!)

CWDT global cooldown: 0.19s (30% increased cooldown recovery speed)
Damage taken per ignite: 1 (phys) + 25.92 (fire) = 27

CWDT Damage Thresholds:
Lv 1: 528 (19.56 Ignites) (Firestorm)
Lv 2: 583 (21.59 Ignites) (Icestorm, Ball Lightning, Spark)
Lv 20: 3272 (121.2 Ignites) (Blade Vortex)

Ignites/second required to cast at maximum efficiency: 114

Number of targets: 1
Radius of target: 3 (best answer I could find for the size of the Shaper.)

Ignites per second:
Self-cast Firestorm:


Triggered Firestorm:


Icestorm (triggered):


Ball Lightning (triggered):


Spark (triggered):


Blade Vortex:


TOTAL IGNITES/SECOND: 315.19
(293.28 with Pendulum of Destruction on AOE)
(280.37 without Spark)
(258.46 without Spark, with Pendulum of Destruction on AOE)

We only need 114 ignites/second to be at maximum efficiency, so we don't need to be hitting a stationary target for a full 5 seconds to reach this point.

If you can beat 315.19 ignites/second, message me. I want to see it.

I chose Beacon of Ruin solely because of the chill and shock effectiveness. The ignite proliferation does not help our build at all. In fact, it substantially increases the lag of the build, because of the way that ignite proliferation is done. The radius isn't based on the ignited enemy, it's based on where the enemy was standing when they were ignited. This means that coordinate needs to be tracked for the duration of the ignite, for every single ignite we cause, and they won't go away when the enemy is killed. If you think you can go without the shock and chill effectiveness, unspec Beacon of Ruin and put a point in Elemental Damage and Resistances. At that point, you could get another 5% chance to ignite jewel and spec into Paragon of Calamity, which is VERY nice.