[1.3.1] crit fireball infernal mantle-based templar/witch/shadow guide

Hey there!

This is a barebone guide/build display for a fairly basic crit fireball caster.

Despite the widespread opinion that fireball just isn't good, it is in fact quite a decent spell, which if built around properly, can do any high level (non-Atziri) content (lvl76+ maps, any lvl8 master, solo and in groups) with a fairly modest gear investment.

Build playstyle and performance.

No videos, sorry. :<

This build successfully clears 76+ maps and does lvl8 masters solo, without deaths (well, almost, I'm a careless player). I leveled him from lvl70 to 81 purely via doing lvl8 masters, all of them.

Playing it is very straightforward. As soon as you see a mob, just let loose with fireball barrage.
Make sure you line up your fire along the corridors/pathways, so your fireballs find extra targets behind the current mobs.
Fireball has a fairly large range (2-2,5x of screens), which allows you to offscreen a lot of mobs from safe distance.
Fireball shotguns. That means that at close/point-blank range several fireballs can hit one target, and that damage is huge, especially if you crit.
Generally, you can stand your ground vs attacking mobs, with AA absorbing a good deal of incoming damage, and with fireball actually stunnig mobs. Beware of leaping mobs and strong melee exiles/map bosses. The rest are easy.

One very important feature is that fireball causes desync-like effect on monsters. It's very noticeable when you are casting fireball at some mobs, and they take no damage. They are actually desynced. Basically, it's because fireball can stun mobs real good, and since you're firing many projectiles at once, you can stun a lot of mobs, causing desync between your client and server regarding those monsters' status. So, you may see several monsters rushing towards you with your fireballs doing nothing to them. In fact, they are most likely still offscreen, being stunned by your fireballs, or dead already.

Screenshots of stats.

Offense tab
Tooltip DPS is 5,4k dps with GMP, which doesn't take in account the 1.65+ multiplier from concentrated effect, so the actual dps is 9k+. Plus, since it's still a lvl18 fireball gem, and quite a few crit passives haven't been taken yet, there is a good potential for dps increase here.
Spoiler




Defense tab
Unreserved mana is around 43% left, and current mana regen sustains both AA and continued fireball spam at top mana just fine, meaning that the downside of Infernal Mantle never comes in effect. With AA, spell block (if you chose appropriate gear) and purity of fire you're very resistant to ele reflect. Life is kinda low, but can be fixed by getting more life on gear (See gear section for options), it has never bothered me, I don't die much, if at all.
Spoiler




Passive tree and leveling

Current char - at lvl81.
'Endgame' lvl89 tree. Two more major crit clusters taken for massive dps boost.
At 120 points.
120 points - witch start. Slightly more damage, slightly less life and mana regen.
120 points - shadow start. Similar to witch.

Leveling:
Basic leveling strategy is: go for life nodes first, then auras, then crit, then everything else.
Go to Devotion, then go via scion ES wheel to shadow start for life. Grab Written in blood, then gran life nodes in general witch area, as well as Eldritch Battery. Around lvl60 concentrate on getting all the aura reservation nodes to make sure you can run infernal mantle when the time comes. After that grab all the spell crit nodes and start doing some serious damage.

Gem set-up

Fireball + faster casting(->spell echo) + LMP(->GMP) + concentrated effect + life leech(->fire penetration) = BBBRG
"->" represents a recommended upgrade when you can afford it.
Spell echo is superior to faster casting; go GMP when you get high enough mana regen to be able to support both AA and GMP'ed fireball; swap leech for fire penetration when you get at least 1% fire/ele leech from gear (corrupted ammy, doryani's sceptre and/or belt, master-crafted spell-stick)

6th link options for fireball:
-faster casting - arguably it's the best 6th link option; IIRC it provides the highest tooltip dps boost with the default 5L set-up; also, it's an immense quality of life upgrade, since you want to be casting faster and be stuck in echo-ed casting animation for lower amount of time, with fireball having a very low base cast speed and all.
-increased critical damage - if you want to go for higher hit damage; it's a good boost to tooltip dps overall.
-power charge on critical (needs a little respec to grab power charges then) - in case you want to crit more often.
-added lightning damage (quality!) - if you want to shock more often.
-added chaos damage - good increase in dps without extra reflect hurt.

Clarity + Purity of fire + Herald of ice + Reduced mana = RRGB
Clarity is for mana regen; purity of fire is for max fire res to help vs reflect; herald of ice is a nice dps boost, plus its on-death proc is quite nice as well.

Lightning warp + faster casting + reduced duration = RBB
Self-explanatory movement skill.

Summon skeletons + spell totem + faster casting = RBB
Very helpful as distraction versus bosses and exiles that you can't burst down quickly.

Herald of thunder + curse on hit + elemental weakness + Reduced mana = RBBB
Extra damage + procs pretty often and applies curse.

Arctic armor + increased duration + vaal grace + (faster casting) = RGG(B)
AA is our main form of defense; vaal grace is for those dodgy situations when you want an extra layer of defense; faster casting is optional QoL 4th link, which is totally unnecessary otherwise; you can run a second vaal skill instead if you prefer.

N.B.: most of these gems are being given out as quest rewards during templar play-through. The rest can be bought for under 5c total cost.

Current gear



Gear choices by slot:
Weapon - 70+ spell damage/10+ cast speed/70+ spell crit 1h (crit multi or master-crafted fire leech are also good) OR divinarius OR doryani's catalist (probably the best option, rivalled only by the best rolled rare 1h).

Shield - rathpith globe (all stats are nice, plus good deal of spell block that helps vs reflect) OR saffell's frame (if you're scared of reflect) OR ES-based shield with life, res, mana regen, spell damage, spell crit (mix and match depending on what stats you need most)

Armor - 5-6L infernal mantle. There's really no good alternative to this armor; spell crit, +1 gem levels, good damage boost and mmore than enough ES to provide a large mana pool for EB. With all the necessary aura reservation nodes taken and good enough mana regen, you will never go below the low mana treshold, meaning that the armor essentially has no drawbacks.

Helmet - alpha's howl OR ES-based helmet with life and resists. I prefer alpha's howl due to aura boost and reservation cost reduction. Aura calculation for the build. You can do without alpha's, but then you'll be getting dangerously close to the low mana treshold, so I don't recomment that.

Gloves - Mmaligaro's virtuosity OR ES-based gloves with life and resists. Go with maligaro's for a good dps boost, or play safe with life+res gloves.

Boots - Rainbostride OR ES-based boots with life and resists. Rainbowstride is only good for strong mana boost an some spell block, otherwise good rolled rare boots are superior, but harder to get.

Belt - doryani's invitation (fire) OR leather/heavy/chain belt with life+res+es+str. Doryani's is the best choice, with fire leech and all round great stats.

Amulet - Good rare ammy with spell/fire damage, crit, cast speed, life, mana regen. An interesting (and fairly cheap) option is stone of lazhwar corrupted for 1% fire leech.

Rings - life, resists, mana regen. Get whatever stats are missing on the rings.

Gem set-up in shown gear is final, I'm only missing vaal grace to be put in either gloves' or armor's spare slot.

Regarding gear cost:
Wand is self-found, but is very good, I used to use divinarius (20c-1ex on average). Or you can get a decent wand for under 15c quite easily. I will probably try out doryani's sceptre later, which can be picked up for as low as 2-3 ex, depending on rolls and league.
5L infernal mantle can usually be bought for 3 exalts or so; it's not a very popular armor.
Alpha's howl goes for 1-2 ex on average.
Rathpith was bought for 1 ex.
Maligaros are 20c-1ex on average.
Rainbowstride are 20c-1ex on average.
Doryani's belt was bought 1 ex, but can be gotten cheaper, depending on stuff.
Jewelry is self-found, but the ammy is really good. Prices for appropriate jewelry ccan range from under 5c to 1 ex and above. You can generally get good ones for the build for under 10c per piece if you shop around.

Total gear cost: within 10 ex budget; can go as low as 8 ex, or up to 15-20 ex for higher end gear (excluding 6-link mantle, that's another 20 ex easily).

Leveling gear:
Get lifesprig if possible, or just vendor-craft +1 fire gems 3L wand at lvl14+ (recipe is: vendor blue wand + orb of alteration + ruby ring). Switch to reverberation rod at lvl24. That's good enough to last you into merciless.
Can also level with Searing Touch staff, it's pretty much OP for leveling this build.
For helmet, pick asenath's mark (for cast speed) or goldrim (for resists). Can switch to geofri's crest if you can afford it, but it's not required at all.
For gloves, use lochtonial caress (for cast speed) or asenath's gentle touch (for auto temporal chains curse).
For boots, nothing beats wanderlust later upgraded to goldwyrm.
Good leveling armors are briskwrap, cloak of flame and icetomb.
Best leveling belt is perandus blazon (because of stats boost).
Best leveling ammy is stone of lazhwar.
Best leveling rings are mokou's embrace or kikazaru.

Except for weapons and some of helmets, each of those uniques can be bought for 1-2 chaos each, or even less, depending on league.

Flasks


Pretty basic set-up.
Hybrid flask is more for half-regen maps, and can be replaced by ruby flask in ele reflect maps.
Diamond flask is excellent vs tough large mobs or bosses/exiles - pop it and get in close range if possible. Stuff will die extremely fast.
Last edited by T_Reich on Feb 9, 2015, 10:32:21 PM
Updated stat screenshots.

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