[1.2.0] "Forcefield" - Flameblast - EB/MoM/Block - Atziri & Endgame Viable!

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yeenzoo wrote:

+1, really solid build, I'd love to try that. Good job!


How do you feel about introduction of the new support gem, Echo?

It should greatly increase the DPS and remove the biggest "pain in the ass" part of this build - Flameblast's slow casting speed.

The new update is going to be a huge buff there.

I'll have to play around with it before I know if it fits in the build or not and to find out what support gem to drop for it. 1 second 10 stack FB does sound like fun though!

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ddvl wrote:

I watched the shipyard clip and you do end up one-shotting most but at the same time you could just not charge 10 stacks of flameblast each time and actually let the burn do its job. It does feel a bit wasteful to use ele prolif and inc burning if you instead spend the time to channel enough stacks to one-shot. It's impossible for me to say if casting smaller blasts and moving more would increase your clear speed or not but maybe try it out.

For hardcore I would try using conc effect 24/7, cast smaller blasts on targets that are going to get ele equilibrium hit from you blocking (close targets or ranged attackers), and then let the burn prolif to others. Since the initial hit will hopefully be on equilibrium target and most others will not get hit by the flameblast that should mean you get the maximum initial hit while avoiding +resists on the other targets that get prolif'd.

I could probably increase my clear speed by not charging up 10 stack FB all the time but I had only done a couple of maps with Faster Casting and Doryani's Catalyst when I recorded that video so I was used to channeling that long to be able to kill packs in 77+ maps.

When doing Atziri I found the monsters in between bosses to be tough to kill with one FB so I did test Conc. Effect because then I could guarantee a one-shot. In other zones I found IAOE to be much better because not only is the FB going to be bigger but also the range of the proliferated burns. It's more effective to cast a 10 stack FB than it is to cast two or three low stack FBs to finish off enemies that were outside the aoe.

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ddvl wrote:

Are you not using Doryani's Invitation because it has no life or is there some other reason? If you did and you still wanted 2% fire leech, you could drop the leech from the Anvil and corrupt it to +block instead. Even just +2 block would allow you to remove 3 passives above the witch starting area.

I didn't feel like I needed the damage and 1% leech is already enough. As you can see in my defensive stats I didn't have overcapped resistances and my chaos resist is awful, losing a slot that could be used for chaos resist wouldn't be a great idea.

You might think that the 50% block and stun recovery is a wasted point but it's very important. A friend of mine reported that he would drop Incinerate stacks when he got stunned but when I was testing it I did not get the same result. Now, since I haven't tested channeling FB without block & stun recovery I can't say for sure it works the same way but because I notice small hiccups in my channeling when I play vuln maps I'm confident that you want that stat.

You still save 2 passive points but I still don't think it's worth it, the problem with the belt is that it's only better than a rare if you don't have a great weapon or lack 1% fire leech on your amulet but the money you'd need to buy the belt can be used to buy a new weapon and a corrupted The Anvil.

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ddvl wrote:

Also I don't think the molten shell setup you have is really worth the gem slots. The small amount of armor probably makes no difference and it exploding only procs equilibrium. The defenses of this build are insane without the leech too.

I played without it, switched to Ice Nova and didn't notice any difference at all, so I can agree that it's not necessary. What I personally use it for is to kill enemies whenever my internet connection spikes to 1k+ ms. It has killed me many times before so I like to have Molten Shell as an extra defense against it.

Although it never slowed me down or caused any problems with EE because of how much damage it dealt, so that's not why I would drop it.

I've never really questioned using it but you've made me realize that there's a lot that can be improved with the build. I have to thank you for doing that! I'm also sure many people who will be trying the build will appreciate it as well.

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ddvl wrote:

If I were to do this build in the new hardcore league and were able to eventually obtain +block Anvil I might use a tree like this. It's 2 points more than your build but one of those is 16 chaos resist node that you didn't have either so really it's just 1 point more. I'd probably take shaper after that or maybe before while dropping some other nodes.

[Edit: or just use the build with 1% under block cap without the corrupted Anvil by taking the 1% block node under holy fire]

I have never used cast when stunned and while I'm sure it works well (and has some nice benefits) I would still personally go with CWDT. I didn't really spend too much time thinking this through but links would look something like this:

6: flameblast, prolif, inc burning, fire pen, chance to ignite, conc effect
4: cwdt 1, enduring, immortal, inc duration
4: reduced mana, tempest shield, blind, purity of fire
4: faster casting, ele weakness, enhance + 1 (defensive curse? Like it needs one =))
3: lightning warp, reduced duration, faster casting
2/1: empower, AA - clarity

Clarity separate from empower. Reduced mana only lowers clarity's mana reserved by like a 120 which in this build is not that big of a deal.

No faster casting. I have no idea how well that would work but it shouldn't be necessary to cast more than a couple of stacks of flameblast to clear white packs. Using chance to ignite would mean not having to use flammability so the build would work a bit better in a party.

Using enhance is possible with ele weakness and we have the slots so why not. You could also condense lightning warp in to the curse link while dropping enhance and reduced duration and then use a 3 link for some vaal skill. Or maybe put reduced mana, clarity and purity of lightning in to the 3 link and then change purity aura depending on map mods / boss fight.

Empower + AA in a weapon with +skills while gearing up would work extremely well. Empower and AA with inner force probably give more extra survivability than your molten shell link does.

20% mana regen over 8% mana is something I've been thinking about but I've never got around to respec it.

As explained above, the 50% block & stun recovery node is actually important and if you drop that together with the Molten Shell and Faster Casting you would get stunlocked in vuln maps.

I can see your way of doing things working but I also feel like my approach would end up clearing faster because of the much bigger aoe. Have you played with FB without any increased aoe? have you seen how small both the area for FB AND also elemental proliferation gets with conc. effect?

What I really like about what you did is dropping the CWS Molten Shell for a stronger curse and Arctic Armour or an option for a vaal skill or more flexible auras. I think that this setup would benefit the build more than having the Molten Shell as some kind of passive offense for the rare occasions when it would be needed.

I can understand the doubt for CWS when CWDT is better for almost any other build, but it's just so much better for this build because not only does it proc more often and without you having to take any damage, it also allows for level 20 gems which gives you a 6 second Immortal Call.

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ddvl wrote:

Empower + AA in a weapon with +skills while gearing up would work extremely well. Empower and AA with inner force probably give more extra survivability than your molten shell link does.

I've got to confirm.

On my DD build, I've used "+1 gem" "+2 cold" mace with some "% increased fire dmg", "% mana regeneration" and some "% faster casting" or flat mana, can't remember now as I sold it quite a long ago.
Basicly, it looked like hybrid of these:

With +1 gem +2 cold, lv20 AA and lv2 Empower (scales with +1 gem), you will end up with lv25 AA. That's HUGE difference compared to lv 20. And it is still way cheaper than the Catalyst.

So yeah, that's definitely something worth attention.
Not sure how important that second % of leech actually is, though.

If you're rich enough, you can also use corrupted lv4 Empower and corrupted lv21 AA for 28 AA.

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yeenzoo wrote:

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ddvl wrote:

Empower + AA in a weapon with +skills while gearing up would work extremely well. Empower and AA with inner force probably give more extra survivability than your molten shell link does.

I've got to confirm.

On my DD build, I've used "+1 gem" "+2 cold" mace with some "% increased fire dmg", "% mana regeneration" and some "% faster casting" or flat mana, can't remember now as I sold it quite a long ago.
Basicly, it looked like hybrid of these:

Spoiler

With +1 gem +2 cold, lv20 AA and lv2 Empower, you end up with lv25 AA. That's HUGE difference compared to lv 20. And it still will be way cheaper than Catalyst. So yeah, that's something worth attention.

If you're rich enough, you can also use corrupted lv4 Empower and corrupted lv21 AA for 28 AA.

A scepter like that would be amazing! Unfortunately it's something that never shows up on poexyz, I was doing searches 20 times a day from the start of the 2 week until I died a few days before writing this guide.

Yup, even without casting/flat mana it still rocks. Too bad your build didn't pop up like month ago or so, when I was swapping some gear for cheaper (I'm terribly unlucky with drops since ever) cause of new toon.

Alrightie i got a 59% rathpith and a 5L cloak... Now it feels like thise aegis based immortal melee builds! I van play maps with one hand while eating some chips with the other! Thanks op for this wonderful guide!

Ps: getting that 5L to go offcolor is damn hard, so i am going with fb - iaoe- fc - ce - chance to ignite as i feel the ignite chane is not high enough..
Pps: that 6L cloak.. Op how did you get your hands on one...

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shadowfaxpku wrote:

Pps: that 6L cloak.. Op how did you get your hands on one...

It's comparable to 4 off, so it might take couple hundred chroms, sadly.

Currently lvling this in the last week of Invasion for fun! Lvl 52 at the moment, so a few more to go before things get interesting. I have most of the gear together; Rathpith, Rainbowstrides, 5link Cloak.. except the Catalyst and corrupted amulet. The ammy's are just not available on the HC leagues :( I bought all the ones I could and corrupted but alas..



Thinking of buying the Doryani's Invitation belt as suggested above, and I have a 4% spell block implicit Lazhwar which I will probably try as well... but still I think it'll work out well enough to get into maps.

I was really lucky to 6 linked my cloak of defiance in less than 10 fuses. I dumped about 18 ex to try your build and got almost everything set up on standard (except some quality gems). So far I am loving this build, it is awesome.

Do you have any reasonable changes in mind for SC version of this build, OP?


If I were you (HC), I'd probably drop witch start fire nodes for Holy Fire cluster (burning) and try not to shoot flameblast with 10 charges, but rather 7-8 to avoid unlucky reflect death.



But what about SC? Any ideas?

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Do you have any reasonable changes in mind for SC version of this build, OP?


If I were you (HC), I'd probably drop witch start fire nodes for Holy Fire cluster (burning) and try not to shoot flameblast with 10 charges, but rather 7-8 to avoid unlucky reflect death.

Spoiler


But what about SC? Any ideas?

I think this build is very solid for SC. Keep in mind this is a build made for Atziri fight - you do need that extra tankiness and DPS is not of priority here. So far I have run level 75 maps with my character at level 75 only.. Very solid overall performance. I have not tried Atziri yet but would look forward to that when I get more chaos to buy the midnight fragment.

The only change I would suggest is to get some more cast speed but I have not done a careful study into the difference.