Is The Searing Touch worth using end game in a fire caster spec?

I'm just curious if anybody has a good idea if this staff is worth using with the +2 to fire gems and the possibility of 6L etc over a nice scepter/wand + offhand. I was likely using my chest 5L(someday maybe 6...riiiiight) for firestorm leaving only 3/4L for fireball. You obviously lose a ton of stats etc but it does add a really nice burn bonus and +2 to spell level seems like it might make up for just about any amount of bonus spell damage? Thanks all!

What staff?

The Searing Touch. Unique staff.

Anybody have an educated guess? Pretty plz haha :)

The survivability of that build is questionable in endgame. Your only spell dmg increase from weapons is staff, so no access to 80% spell dmg wands or shields for energy shield. I have yet to see if the fire dmg bonus and burning bonus outweighs semi decent wand. I plan on doing searing touch myself, just have not had the time yet.

No, wands and shields can far exceed its stats. I've been using one since level 15 but plan to change soon.

It's great if you use a fire trap centric build.
If you plan on doing a straight up caster, fireball and/or firestorm, wand+shield for the +spell damage and other extra modifiers would be better.

Also if you plan a very specific build that absolutely needs two 5-6links then you might use it, but that would be one mighty weird ass build.

5L Searing Touch user here.

Worth using yes, but need to build a char around it.

Recommendation: Max out burning damage and go for crits.

I've been playing around with the idea ever since I found a searing touch, still trying to get decent sockets on it before i can try it out.

I definitely think that the extra damage from 2 levels on your main skill is very hard to beat, even with a great wand+shield (talking about fireball here, not sure about other skills). The burning damage is also very nice. I don't really know the exact values at high levels, this is just an observation from watching my damage increase as I level fireball.

Of course there's a pretty big drawback because of less defenses and increased mana costs.

haven't they changed how the +lvl to gems work - so you could have lvl 22 fire gems in it, and the burning damage can pay off (try to go crit heavy (should work out thanks to Serpant stance) or use firetrap ;))

EDIT: some interesting idaes for buring builds:
-burning damage does not cause Elemental equlibrium (only the initial fire hit does, so if you hit an enemy ASAP after a fire crit with an other element he can have additional -50% to fire resistence the whole time while he burns)
-apply shock as well, it'll increase the burning damage even further (you can use both this suggestions together - get a spark or arc totem and the Static blows passive and take EE: you can spam your fire skills while the totem makes sure that enemies stay at (additional) -50% fire resistence and it could apply some shock as well :P)

EDIT2: here is some theorycrafting i've done at the start of the open beta (i had a searing touch char during closed beta and i think he would do much better now, but i have to get a searing touch first (i'm not buying one currently because i have some other priorities) :P)
Link