Fortify or added fire damage?

Hi guys,

Just looking for a little advice - I'm playing a groundslam marauder currently working through cruel. Not having much issues with survivability but I imagine that will change in merciless.

My question is on my heavy strike skill should I continue to us added fire support as I am now for DPS or will using Fortify support gem be better later when thing start to get tougher?

I was supprised how much my DPS dips when I switch them!

Thanks for feedback!

You can get Fortify in other ways than linking to your main skill. Personally for my melee characters I prefer leap slam - fortify - endurance charge on melee stun - increased area of effect, but you can also use a flicker strike method too.

I'm using an ice crash build at the moment and was getting killed in the lower 70s. I removed my weapon elemental damage gem and substituted life gain on hit. Yes, it was a good dip in damage but attacks are pretty strong anyway and I'd rather not be losing all that experience. It's a good compromise till I get a better 5 link staff.

So my vote would be for both LGOH and fortify, though not necessarily linked together.

...
Fortify, whay even ask?
Added fire is just trinket, monsters got resistances you know and whe you most need damage it will faily you and fortify is so mach more useful.

More pure damage you got lees effective armor on monster is, fire damage dont help mach if you dont scale it, it dont help leech and generaly its only good for limited time.
Ther are builds that focus on elemental damage but thats difrent story.

The rule of thumb i use for melee toons is max res first then 3.5k life then 80% damage reduction(can use charges) then everything else on damage.So choose according to the above rules.

"

nEVER_BoRN wrote:

fire damage dont help mach if you dont scale it.

He scales physical, added fire is based on physical so it is affected by physical bonuses too.

Fortify isn't a dps support so it should be used on your main in these cases:
- your dps is awesome and you're too lazy to use your movement skill from time to time.
- no room in your secondary setup for fortify (because of curse on hit of whatever)
- your movement skill is unsuited for it, like shield charge

Though, for the last two you could also use a non-movement skill to apply it, those that have room to put bleed on their weapon like using a secondary cyclone to trigger bleed, blind and fortify in one go.

Thanks for the feed back so far guys!

Think I will switch it. I have been using Fortify on leap slam soon as I was able to however when face tanking I just plain forget to leap slam every 5 seconds with being on heavy strike, fortify will be active as long as I'm fighting!

Raics: yes, added fire scales off phys but it's not much good unless you invest in reducing enemy fire resist and boosting fire damage specifically (fire conversion items, new kaom's, herald of ash, flammability, fire pen etc etc).

I fell into a similar trap using ice crash with tanking and a few pure phys nodes. Scratch damage, because half was converted to cold which did almost nothing to most rares and bosses.

There is also a thing, called vigilant strike, u could also use it.

"

rottenvenetic wrote:

Raics: yes, added fire scales off phys but it's not much good unless you invest in reducing enemy fire resist and boosting fire damage specifically (fire conversion items, new kaom's, herald of ash, flammability, fire pen etc etc).

I fell into a similar trap using ice crash with tanking and a few pure phys nodes. Scratch damage, because half was converted to cold which did almost nothing to most rares and bosses.

There's a bright side to it, with conversion skills and if you also use hatred around two thirds of your damage is elemental which makes WED a worthwhile support in high link setups even if you aren't a full ele build. Also, neither ele nor phys reflect are a problem with your damage split like that.

Rares do not have more resistance than normal monsters unless they have a res mod or res aura. Monsters usually resist either fire, cold, lightning or chaos, res all monsters are rare and bosses have only a moderate amount, besides you don't spend a large portion of your time fighting bosses unless you made a boss farmer. So, even if half of your damage is semi-effective a quarter of the time I'd still call it worthwhile.

"

raics wrote:

Also, neither ele nor phys reflect are a problem with your damage split like that.

I wold not rush to says that ;)

I can show u how i insta kill my self with only hatred and pure phys build to reflect map, or at least have huge problems with hatred on. Single rare is 0 problem.