[3.2] Scionic Flametank "16k ES ed." (ES-CI-ZO-GR, SR-CWC-FS, extensive guide)

Hmm. So if you wouldn't recommend Ice Spear... What spells would you recommend? I understand that Incinerate and Firestorm are the top picks, but there must be a few spells that, while not being the absolute best, are still up there in terms of effectiveness, no?

Edit: I sorta like the idea of using Essence Drain + Contagion to melt enemies down while tanking their hits, but I don't know if that would be particularly effective or if I'd need to specifically build for it. Thoughts?

"

AielloA wrote:

Hmm. So if you wouldn't recommend Ice Spear... What spells would you recommend? I understand that Incinerate and Firestorm are the top picks, but there must be a few spells that, while not being the absolute best, are still up there in terms of effectiveness, no?

Sticking to projectile spells, freezing pulse is about half the effectiveness of Incinerate or so if you want to play cold.

The problem occurs when evaluating non-projectile spells or projectile spells without piercing; Just how much is AOE worth? Overlapping AOE? Or how about something like Arc, that does awful base damage vs one target, good vs 2-3 targets, and poor vs several? I haven't tried it, but glancing at the numbers Arc would be a poor choice. (Not that Arc is a bad spell; it is a great spell, but it is great because of its targeting and chaining functionality not because of its base damage - quite unlike Incinerate that is great because of its base damage and most definitely not because of the its drawbacks that hamper its functionality, such as limited range and stationary ramping requirements).

The closest you get to something like Incinerate and Firestorm's level of damage with minimal investment is probably the perennial problem child, Storm Call. It has great base damage, doesn't need LMP/GMP, and thus allows you to slot in another MORE multiplier on the damage - Less Duration for preference. The AOE nodes in the tree are enough by themselves to give you a good radius (so you don't need to spend a link on Increased AOE - all links apart from Mana Leech can improve damage) and they also provide some extra damage%.

Ideally you would want to stack the Less Duration from support gem with 30% reduced duration from labyrinth helmet enchant to make Storm Call much more responsive and reduce the self-mutilation when nuking reflect mobs by stacking fewer Storm Calls between strikes.

Hmm, Storm Call could be interesting, actually. Although I would like to draw your attention to my edit and repeat my question of "would Essence Drain + Contagion work in this build or do they need to be built around"

After a long time in the game i decided that my Zealoths Oath Firestorm tank will be my main and probably only char.

So i decided to take my tank to the next level
:)Reached 94 today and decided to celebrate it with this masterpiece


I tried to replace verteex mask and self crafted this

Ill be focusing on gloves and better helm later..

Hello. Sorry for that question, didn't find anwser in this theme yet.
Can u recommend some useful uniques except consuming dark and karui ward.
For example Lightning coil? Does it worth so? Or rare high ES chest is better?
Maybe other slots for uniques? I mean that can trurly replace HIGH ES rares.
Thanks for anwser and ur build.

"

NoNameBeach wrote:

Hello. Sorry for that question, didn't find anwser in this theme yet.
Can u recommend some useful uniques except consuming dark and karui ward.
For example Lightning coil? Does it worth so? Or rare high ES chest is better?
Maybe other slots for uniques? I mean that can trurly replace HIGH ES rares.
Thanks for anwser and ur build.

All relevant useful uniques I know of for defensive purposes are mentioned in the guide, which in addition to what you list effectively means The Vertex as a possible helm, Shavronne's Revelation as your right ring for ES regeneration, and Auxium or Doryani's Invitation as specialist belts, each with their own benefits and drawbacks.

Any and all unique armour pieces and shields are greatly inferior to decent rare ES armour, to say nothing of good or great rare ES armour. You want to stack ES, and you want to stack it to the max. Your regeneration is a linear function of your maximum ES, so items need to provide something truly exceptional to be useful without high ES, and few uniques were designed with high ES in mind, the vast majority being designed for armour, evasion, and or life.

E.g. Decent, not great, but decent - ES armour like mine with 545 ES currently provides me with 3641 ES and 566 ES/s regeneration. That's really, really, hard to pass up on.

The exception is the weapon choice; You can use any good unique 1H wand/mace/sceptre that you desire, but few of them are anywhere near as useful as a good rare. One of the better is Doryani's Catalyst, which makes a decent choice if you'd one lying around.


EDIT: So in case any of you are secretly supporters with a unique left to design, how about designing some decent high ES body armour that would be of only moderate use for other purposes (i.e. no Shavronne's Wrappings level of utility) while still being weird enough not only to be useful for regeneration tanks? :p

Example:

Arsonist's Comfort:
600-800 ES total or perhaps ES/Evasion
+1% or +2% life regeneration
+40% fire resistance
Gain 10% projectile speed per endurance charge (or something suitably wacky)

Nah. Not going to happen.

"

So in case any of you are secretly supporters with a unique left to design, how about designing some decent high ES body armour that would be of only moderate use for other purposes (i.e. no Shavronne's Wrappings level of utility) while still being weird enough not only to be useful for regeneration tanks? :p

I mean, I totally would but I already used my unique to make Femurs of the Saints, so...

I've somewhat successfully built a lightning version of this. Lightning has a few things going for Arc's autotargetting; Tempest Shield being lightning (for scaling); Spark is doing very high amounts of aoe damage and the new Orb of Storms is handy, but requires some key press.

Oh and then there's the whole ability to shock for increased damage. Wrath is a stronger multiplier than Anger and Herald of Thunder adds considerable damage on it's own plus 15% global lightning damage with quality.

I say somewhat because single-target is quite the problem. Firestorm is an absolute boss killer. Storm Call might be an option, but when I was looking at it, it was doing less damage than Spark.

Orb of Storms in tandem with Spark does pump out some decent damage (Storm Call is slower to proc Orb of Storms).

I tried messing with Discharge, but even with the Juggernaut baby ascendancy or using CWDT + ICS + PCOC + BV I wasn't keeping up charges (25% crit chance with 3 charges!). I could hypothetically spend 4 points for the 12% chance on kill, but that won't help single-target.

I do have a few things to work on though. I need at least a level 2 Enlighten before I can run Wrath + Discipline + Herald of Thunder. Currently, I swap these base on my needs. Discipline for harder fights, Wrath for clearing.

I also have solid rings, but have not taken the risk or the extreme (in my opinion) cost of Elreon crafting the ES mod on rings.

I've been on the hunt for a solid rare amulet as well. With the right find I can make-up some ES and get some offensive stats.

As a Witch Occultist variant of this build, I'm still having a lot of fun with it. However, as I've been progressing through the map tiers, I have hit a bit of a snag.

While I am pretty tanky in most group and boss fights, I seem to get thoroughly destroyed by Malformation's Piety and Crematorium's Megaera. It seems that if I take even the slightest touch from Megaera's firestorm or Piety's...whatever that spinning ball thing is...I get stunlocked into oblivion. I would just bypass the maps, but the game seems adamant about giving me Malformations and Crematoriums to run.

I was curious how you dealt with these two bosses when you started running into them. I'm almost to the point of respecing some points to reach Unwavering Stance.

SephMoon,

I also did a Witch Occultist variant of this build that I got to Lv 90 in Standard. I had the same problem with both bosses. Malformation Piety destroys just about all of my characters so I tend to avoid her...but Maegara did the same to me...she was the only other boss I could not facetank. I don't recall getting stunlocked...moreso that my ES regen (which was 2000+ at the time but I was still a Witch and had yet to Ascend) just couldn't keep up with the damage Maegara was doing to me. And the map mods were normal, nothing weird. I think just like using Wanderlust shoes to fight Merveil, you will probably have to make some gear/tree adjustments to take out Maegara.

Question, where you using AA during the Maegara fight? I only ask because I did not...and again even with over 13,000 ES and very high regen I couldn't withstand her Firestorm. But then I fought her with my Lv 92 Pathfinder who had all of 4600 life, no leech or LGOH and piddly regen (like 2%) and using AA, Purity of Fire and flasks I was able to facetank Maegara with -max resists AND extra fire damage map mods and it was almost laughable how easily I destroyed her. Made me rethink why things failed so bad with my Witch.

I've stopped leveling my Occultist to work on other characters, but she now has about 15,500 ES and I've considered giving Maegara another go. I'll give it a try when I get a chance and report back on results. I know AA will be essential and PoF couldn't hurt...but I'm hoping my regen will be high enough to only need one of them.