Masked Fireball - tooltip joker
|
Sharing this with the public, as well as making a record for myself.
 Basics This is my lvl92 fireballer who uses Fireball, aided by her faithful sidekick Bob the Flame totem to clear maps. I've done double palace/courtyard and Atziri with this build. Notables: -GMP Fireball -Totem blinds, shockstacks enemies -Tempest shield freezes -Your stats sound like you're in a3cruel (3.5k hp and 6k dps what?) Stats -3.5-4k hp -2.8-3.5k mana / 1.7k unreserved / 400 regen -80/77/77 Res -(def) 60/55 block There are two versions to this build - defensive and offensive. -Defensive uses a shield, gets block nodes and has spellblock through Rainbowstrides + Rathpith. -Offensive dualwields weapons and grabs damage nodes instead of block nodes. Major Differences between setups: -Defensive gives me 4k DPS unbuffed, 6k w PCOC. Offensive gives 6.3k/8.6k. -Block makes it a lot easier to play. I've played both for significant amount of time, and prefer the glassier playstyle as it's more fun. -One of the added bonuses of block is that via 3dragons, lightning dmg becomes cold dmg. So I use tempest shield, which instantly freezes any enemies whose attack was blocked. It's pretty amazing actually. -Defensive is cheaper and more reliable. A decent rathpith costs ~10-15c while Rainbows are ~1ex. Links: Fireball+GMP+Conc Effect (+Life leech / Fire Penetration / PCOC / Echo) Life leech makes it a lot easier to facetank and get up close because you don't have to worry about potions. But it's possible to play without it. If you don't have a 6L and don't want to play without LL, drop PCOC nodes from the tree until you get a 6L. Flame Totem+GMP+Ele prolif (+Blind or faster Projectiles) If you can corrupt gloves or boots to get +1 gems, I'd recommend you put AA/Empower/Enhance/Crit weakness in there (and throw auras into one of the weapons/shield). I just use Empower in a cold scepter to get my AA higher. Gear: This build can be quite cheap. You can play it with as little as a 2 4Ls. Every single piece of my current gear except for Cloak (lucky fuse) cost less than an exalt - usually severely less. On armor, you're looking for life and res, hopefully with some ES or mana as a bonus. On jewelry, look for mana regen, crit and life. With weapons, you should have an easier time as we don't need cast speed. If you can find a good spell/spell crit scepter with +1 gems or +2 cold, it's a good way of increasing the effectiveness of your AA.
Approximate prices:
Helm-3dragons ~10c Chest-15c (4L) / 2.5ex (5L) / 18ex (6L) Rings~10c each Amulet~15c Boots~20c Gloves~10c (I've bought 30-40 pairs of similar to corrupt them.. no luck) Weapons~1ex each Rathpith~25c (replaces 1 weapon with Defensive variant) Rainbowstrides~1ex (replaces boots with Defensive variant) Belt~10c
Current gear
On defense, you replace one weapon (dagger for me) and boots with: FAQ
Why no Discipline?
For MoM, you need unreserved mana. If your regen is fine, and it should be, extra 500 unreserved mana is more important than ~100 regen. Both of my EB characters run without discipline,
Why no Aura nodes? Everybody loves aura nodes
You don't need them, and the bonuses they provide are not worth the point costs. You shouldn't need more mana and don't have any problems with reflect, so better PoF is not needed either. Same for grace/haste.
What kind of a newb runs with 3.5k hp? Everyone knows you need 5k to be safe. n00b.
The defenses on this build are not what they seem. Most MoM builds do not leave enough unreserved to support themselves. I'm more than comfortable with mana, hence the helm corruption (luxury), which gives me 45% MoM - almost doubling the effective HP. Add to this good block, freeze on block and AA, high uptime of blind and you become quite tanky. The offensive version relies on higher DPS to stun enemies, and to kill them before they become problematic. The offensive version will occasionally struggle in GMP or chain maps due to stun through low HP. If it's really a big deal to you, you can easily pick up more hp gear or nearby nodes.
How is the damage so high?
Here's some sample math:
DPS w PCOC - 8.6k Add Conc Effect - 8.6*1.69=14.5k Add Fire Pene - 14.5 * 1.35 = 19.62 (at least, more vs. high res mobs) Shockstacks via Totem 3x30% - 19.6 * 1.9=37.2k GMP 5 projectiles - 37 * 5 = 186k Add: Ele weakness or crit weakness on top of this Subtract: Modify Fire Pene calculations by enemy's fire resist. One of the keys to this is Totem's ability to shockstack half the screen for you before you engage, so your very first hit will be against shockstacked mobs. I've two shot map bosses up to 76 maps, and have been asked to stop DPSing in 6 person Dominus runs because the culler missed. It's kinda fun.
Ele reflect?
Not really an issue. GMP, leech and AA work together pretty well. In double reflect maps you will feel it, but you definitely wont 1 shot yourself. I wasn't paying attention during a recent Atziri split phase and kept attacking the mirror copy for a few seconds without dying.
Why no dual curse?
Don't need it. On the offensive spec, I forget to curse at all half the time - and things still die.
Why no Increased Critical Damage?
20/20 gives more DPS than 7 charges of PCOC, but I like consistent damage, hence higher crit chance = PCOC
Where's Spell Echo???
Two reasons. One, I do not like that with echo you're forced to stand in one place until the 2nd cast is complete. It often interrupts the order of commands I issue. Two, what would I replace? GMP/Leech/CE are obvious. Maybe PCOC or Fire Pene, but I like PCOC consistency and fire pene scales incredibly well vs. bosses and other high resistant mobs.
Your gear seems slightly not optimized/has an empty slot...
I share some stuff (belts/rings/ammy/rings/shoes) between 2 other chars, so occasionally it wont be perfect. For ex, if I bothered getting a better belt I can reach severely overcapped res (120 across)
You did Atziri with this?
Atziri is a skill fight that takes practice. You don't need to switch gems, flasks, run manual immortal call or anything like that. With 2 vaals, jump over their balls of lightning and kill them almost together. If you let one enrage, you're gonna be in trouble.
During triboss, kill ranged boss, then cycloner then DS by running around in a circle and warping over degen fields. Use trash to keep up PCOC and refresh flasks if needed. I'll upload a video later. For Atziri, just learn her attacks and dodge them. Gellig recorded a terrific video of this. You can find it Here
Is totem really needed?
Yes. The totem is amazing. Not only does it shockstask and blind, it can clear trash for you all by itself, with 0 support nodes. Totems are your friends. My totem's name is Bob.
I recorded a video example of how the totem does by itself in clearing maps. You can find it in the video section.
Why no cast speed on gear? And why no faster cast?
For survivability, we need to maintain a good pool of unreserved mana. Fireball is a mana hungry skill (~usually between 150-200 mana on a 6l). If you get more cast speed items, you risk putting too much strain on the mana and wont be able to sustain the unreserved pool. When you're comfortable, you can slowly start grabbing cast speed nodes and try to find similar gear pieces that have cast speed.
Is this build better than that build...
In most cases, the answer will be no. This is a fun, end game capable, unique build that does everything pretty well. It shines in single target DPS, is a good party support via shockstacks and blind. However most of the 'popular' builds out (dd/ll ST/RF etc) will be 'better' than my fireballer.
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGJC457iDV8 Recent dom video, also goes through some gear, stats and tree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngVdIK_-yqI - random Gorge where I only use totem to DPS (about halfway through the video). Also uses slightly diff spec and ele weakness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECHn_hVxjI - a poorly ran double Courtyard boss. Not proud of it since there were a few close calls due to it being 6am, but it's a good exmaple of 'real' gameplay. Will record/upload more - those were laying around. Apologies for typos/random words that don't belong etc. Last edited by j0zef on Jul 8, 2014, 2:52:54 PM
| |
|
I've tested echo with my fireball witch and the longer standing-still-time ain't that bad. With the cast speed bonus the total cast time for 2 casts is not that much longer, though replacing fire penetration for example is a bit bothersome.
Last edited by Bada_Bing on Jul 9, 2014, 6:26:34 AM
| |
|
nice build! i'm trying it and works great but i dont think i'll buy three dragons, looks too squishy to me. Using the totem+added lightning to do the shock so far
|
|
|
I like the planning that went into this esp for mitigation. I went strictly for es on the more is better theory but mom is very intriguing.
I was using a 20/22 crit dam in lieu of conc eff but swapped that for echo which has higher dps at l16 and no qual. Cant wait to see how 20/20 is. Once I get a 6l ill put ccrit back or try conc. |
