Fire caster marauder - blood magic

Hi im trying to build a blood magic marauder that is a caster i was just wandering if anybody else had some advice on where to go with this build and any tips that might come in handy. I have a basic plan of what i want to do which involves getting as much health/regen as i can and when i have points to spare get fire damage/cast speed/crit.
I have been thinking about not really focusing on burn damage and instead just going for cast speed and fire damage ignoring burn damage/increases as burn is sort of wasted most of the time. or the opposite get alot of burn damage as i think it helps a a lot in aoe situations with elemental proliferation.

Also im a bit confused on which type of armour to go with. obviously i dont want any +mana or mana regen, i dont think im going to use energy shield so i can stack more life so i guess going with pure str armour with as much +life as i can get? but then il have alot of red gem sockets and probably a lot of stats related to physical damage.

It seems very hard to get intellect to level up my gems atm too but maybe this will even out as i level up and get better gear.

Here is my current passive tree:
With my next 6 points i will get golems blood and the other health nodes around that and then i was thinking either get the fire damage nodes near blood magic (if i am ok for health) or go up towards the templar area for more health/regen and continue up to witch area for more health/fire damage.

Here is a possible passive tree for later (70 points):

possible end build (120 points):

Gems i am considering

fireball - one for single target, one for aoe damage
firestorm - either on spell totem, or i cast (increase duration/concentrated effect)
fire trap - either increase area or make it more for single target burst
flame totem - gmp/faster cast/knock back, something like that for more damage bit of utility
molten shell - bonus armour would be good if i go down the armour stat route
life regen totem - boosts life regen quite a lot seemed use full.
leap slam - well its just fun leaping everywhere...

flammability - do i need to explain

purity - ele resists (might not need depends on gear etc)
determination - if i go down armour route
grace - not sure
haste - i think id like this one the most, as i cast quite slow at the moment
discipline - if i go down energy shield route


Im using a searing touch as well. (if i have 2 fireballs not sure which one to put on staff)

My suggestions:

- Get a 20% quality fireball, put that 70% increased burning damage to work.
- Use Cloak of Flame. Not only does it give you another 10% chance to ignite and improve your burning capability, the 20% received damage conversion basically equates to a flat 15% physical damage reduction, making it one of the best chest armors for reducing physical damage in the game.

- I use Chance to ignite with Explosive arrow, but a 40% chance to ignite from cloak and quality fireball may be plenty considering how much faster Fireball casts.
- Otherwise, concentrated effect is probably plenty good in regards to giving massive amounts of damage.

"

gilrad wrote:

My suggestions:

- Get a 20% quality fireball, put that 70% increased burning damage to work.
- Use Cloak of Flame. Not only does it give you another 10% chance to ignite and improve your burning capability, the 20% received damage conversion basically equates to a flat 15% physical damage reduction, making it one of the best chest armors for reducing physical damage in the game.

- I use Chance to ignite with Explosive arrow, but a 40% chance to ignite from cloak and quality fireball may be plenty considering how much faster Fireball casts.
- Otherwise, concentrated effect is probably plenty good in regards to giving massive amounts of damage.

thank you so much for the reply.
Roughly how much should a 20% quality fireball and cloak of flame cost? I have wanted the cloak for a while it looks awesome :)
For the concentrated effect gem, that only increases the fireball aoe damage right... so for the single target fireball that would be useless? as the aoe damage doesnt hit the first target the fireball hits (i think) but it would be good on a lmp fireball probably.

I bought a 17% explosive arrow for around 5gcp, perhaps you could get yours cheaper though as burn isn't a popular spec for fireball. Cloak of flame is a bit more difficult to price, I bought an ilevel 70-ish 5-socket one for 1.5 exalts, but you might be able to get one much cheaper if it's got a really low itemlevel and only one socket.

As for concentrated effect, I believe the way it works is Fireball is a projectile AOE attack as long as it's not piercing, forking, or chaining. So for your purposes it would always benefit from the damage boost.