[1.2.0] Updated - [HC Friendly] Cheap and Easy Searing Bond & Fire Trap/Flame Surge Tanky DPS.

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Alright cool, another question, I watched your piety video and you are using vulnerability instead of flammability, is vulnerability better than flammability with searing bond?

EDIT - Also, Would elemental equilibrium be worth taking since it doesn't add fire resist to mobs when using searing bond so you could use a cold/lightning spell to make enemies -50% resistant to fire to increase damage output by 50%?

Okay so the first thing is Vulnerability I use it because of the increased dot damage as Mannoth has pointed out, I also use it for the increased chance to stun and increased physical damage that helps out in groups. Flammability on the other hand I don't use because for one flame surge can never ignite, and two I did not want to level up my curse so I can spam it more (less mana) or even be lazy and put it into cast when damage taken at some point.


Next elemental equilibrium I don't use that because it would in the end drop my damage because this build is about spamming flame surge with searing totem all you would be doing is ice nova or w/e they would get the debuff and as soon as you hit them with flame surge they have more resistance to fire.

what level do you keep Cast When Damage Taken at?

What skills should we use when leveling and what would be the preferable stats on items?

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what level do you keep Cast When Damage Taken at?

I keep it at level 1. I'm still testing things with the cast on damage taken to be honest. I'm not so good at using that effectively. What is good on that atm I have no clue I cut it down to only using it for endurance charge gains. I took molten shell off completely because I found out normal molten shell and vaal molten shell over write one another. If you guys find better ways to use this you can always let me know I'm willing to try things out.

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SirSputnik wrote:

What skills should we use when leveling and what would be the preferable stats on items?

As for what skills to use for leveling I used molten strike it hit really hard for me I just kept a high damage roll weapon till I got searing bond.

And stats for items for the most part is focus on hp, resist and Armour if you can and the by chance if you can find weapons and accessories with increased fire damage % get it but only if it has the main hp and resist stats also. Late game you wanna add onto this stuff by getting cast speed on weapon and mana regen from accessories.

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And stats for items for the most part is focus on hp, resist and Armour

Does energy shield help at all in this build?

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SirSputnik wrote:

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And stats for items for the most part is focus on hp, resist and Armour

Does energy shield help at all in this build?

No not really but if you get it it's not gonna break the build or anything.

To anyone looking to find out info about this build for the new tree; I have some good news and bad news for you all.

First thing I want to say is we have changed to Shadow to get that little extra agility, and from my perspective, it's a better start now. Not to say Templar is out of the picture. You can start at both of them. It's just that I picked Shadow to get that little extra end game agility for Arctic Armour.

So first things first: what changed?

Some big, some small; in all honesty.

So I'm looking over the numbers and we went from 230% max HP to 207%. But we are gaining some life back due to the fact that you now gain 12 life per level over 8 per level.

We lost out on HP regen for the build, but it's not a big deal because now we get "ARCTIC ARMOUR!!!". woot.

Lost an endurance charge that puts us at 5 instead of 6. So a little bit of a hurting on that one, but we can live because of the "ARCTIC ARMOUR!!!" gain.

And the last thing that we lost is 3% damage. I'm not crying over that one because the damage was lost for Searing Bond, and we gained a lot more for Flame Surge. So it's an overall damage gain XD.

In the end, I see this tree change as a buff for us actually. We now have ton's of mana regen to keep up with Flame Surge's burst. And the new Armour focus is going to be Armour/energy shield gear now, not just flat armour like I was planning.


Here is the build for anyone that would like to see it.

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rentacop87 wrote:

<snip>

Here is the build for anyone that would like to see it.

Spoiler

http://tinyurl.com/myywgp9

So for those of us coming from a Templar respec, what would you say is top priority for the passive tree? I'm assuming Eldritch Battery?

For people's convenience, I recreated the exact same tree for Templar start, as well as what I'd imagine you'd want by around level 65.

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Jaigoda wrote:

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rentacop87 wrote:

<snip>

Here is the build for anyone that would like to see it.

Spoiler

http://tinyurl.com/myywgp9

So for those of us coming from a Templar respec, what would you say is top priority for the passive tree? I'm assuming Eldritch Battery?

For people's convenience, I recreated the exact same tree for Templar start, as well as what I'd imagine you'd want by around level 65.

You kinda nailed it on the dot. Eldritch Battery is the way to go, and you totally nailed it on the skill tree. But I would move the point at the end of your tree from Physique and put it into Alacrity. Because at around that level, and Eldritch Battery now getting the regen, it should be easy to keep up Arctic Armour easily, especially if you are keeping it leveled with your dexterity.


Also, just thought I should throw this out there, we can use fire trap now! :D Soooo that should be fun for kiting things we hate a lot or just don't wanna deal with on our screen. XD

Actually, looking at the build again, I noticed that you went for a huge amount of life nodes in the build for a total of 212% max life. Thing is, since base life was increased, 212% life would be fairly close to 300% life in 1.1.5. Honestly, with all the other defenses this has I'd say that's a little overkill. In fact, I'd suggest just dropping the whole Scion life wheel, freeing up a total of 10 points to be spent elsewhere. You'll still be left with 163% life (if you take the third life node in the Cruel Preparation cluster), which I think should be quite acceptable in the new patch, and definitely a buff over the previous.

This would free up points to invest in things like the Ash, Frost and Storm cluster (to compensate at least somewhat for the Searing Bond nerf), the Shadow's Soul Siphon cluster, and the Deep Wisdom notable (about a 150 mana increase from one node). All in all you'd get much more mana and a little more damage. Thoughts?

Here's the tree I'm thinking of.