[2.5] The Anomaly Tank

I leveled from 1-28 using whatever spells i could find. (Spark and lightning trap worked great).

At 28, I ran vortex in a 4l. (Aim for Vortex - chance to ignite - inc area - controlled destruction). oh, and DONT FORGET TO GET A PYRE RING. Once you have pyre ring, you can use elemental equilibrium and breeze through content.

I went for life nodes instead of es nodes until I was somewhere between 65-70. Once I had some ES gear saved up, I went CI with only 5k es to start, but that was enough.

I obtained a 5L Beast Fur Shawl which I used until about 85.

Life regen is graet because it doesnt waste a gem socket and it is constant (you dont need to hit anything). Vortex playstyle is basically drop a vortex, let the DOT kill, while you keep moving on.

How did you go with bandits ? I plan to go with 3 skill points but i would like your opinion.

Also can you upload screenshots about your current offense and defense numbers ? It would be awesome :D
Im curious about crit chance and other stuff (since you run elemental overload).

3 skill points for bandits for me as well.

geared up a char to try this out earlier today, seems pretty strong so far even though most of the random gems are not leveled. stun was a huge issue so I swapped out the stone of lazwhar for chayula til I can get enough skill points to grab unwavering.

"

DreamScythe wrote:

Lots of questions here, Ill try to answer as many as possible.

1) Q - is the build HC viable?
A - Absolutely, I completely leveled the build in HC prophecy. You will miss out on legacy Aegis and Legacy vinktars.

2) Unwavering stance is not mandatory, however stun is very annoying - it slows down the clear-speed and opens up some vulnerabilities. I leveled through HC without unwavering stance. I would say its something you should gradually work towards as you get better gear.

3) The dps of the build is actually quite decent because of IGNITE. Ignite can do substantial damage - and with the chance to ingite gem + Pathfinder node, it has at least 69% ignite chance.

4) This build is ONLY viable on the pathfinder. It relies most heavily on using rumi's all the time. legacy rumi's is NOT required to achieve 75/75 block. Keep in mind that pathfinder with flask nodes increases flask buf's by 50%, making rumi's supply huge block chance and 4500 base armor. Pathfinder also allows us to keep up flasks on long fights.

Couldn't a person theoretically match the block chance using Necromancer / Offering, obviating the need for rumi's?

Something like that might be possible, but you would not be immune to status ailments, and would lose 4500 base armor from the flask.

How do you manage your mana? I am early into the build (about 75, but don't even have any spectrums yet), but can't sustain mana with a flask. You however seem to have no mana problems at all.

rallying cry makes a massive difference when you dont use vinktar. You might want to just run 1 aura (discipline) and leave the rest of your mana for casting. When I was 75 I had maybe 6-7 grand spectrums and was killing packs with 1 vortex.

I think you mentioned that Chance to Ignite is a significant damage boost. Can you perhaps elaborate?
My understanding is that most of your damage scaling comes from Elemental Damage (Grand Spectrum, Overload) so an X multiplier (including all passives and supports) that applies to both and multiplier Y (including just passives and increases but not support gems) which applies to just ignite damage. A lvl 20 Vortex with 500 avg fire damage on hit and 685 cold damage per second would do 500X fire damage on hit, then 685X cold damage per second.

Ignite does 20% of initial hit, and lets say we have a 50% chance to ignite that's an average of 50XY damage per second.

My concern is that EE provides a DPS bonus to the cold damage but a penalty to the ignite fire damage, thus significantly reducing its effectiveness if we are doing both fire and cold DOT. If we are taking advantage of ignite for any serious damage, shouldn't we consider dropping EE?

Lets say we have 800% elemental damage (x9), Rapid Decay (x1.35), Empower (x1.4), Controlled Destruction (x1.4), and overload (x1.4):
X = x33 (ish)
Y = x12.6

(not including curses or EE):
Initial hit = 500x33 = 16,500 fire damage
Cold DOT = 22,600 cold dmg/s
Ignite = 16,500x(20%)x(50%)x12.6=19,800 fire dmg/s (or 40k when it ignites, 0 when it does not).
DOT(total)=42,400

With EE:
Initial hit = 16,500 fire damage (triggering)
Cold DOT = 22,600 x 1.5* = 33,900 cold dmg/s
Fire DOT = 19,800 x 0.75* = 14,850 fire dmg/s
DOT(total)= 48,750

*roughly - these are dependent on pre-existing resistances

So using Ignite for almost half the damage, EE only ends up providing about 15% MORE damage. That's considerably less than the 50% we usually get! A regular damage support (elemental focus, x1.4) in lieu of Chance to Ignite boosts the cold DOT to 47k, almost as good, and it also boosts the initial hit.

That said, Ignite does follow the enemy around...


*roughly - these are dependent on pre-existing resistances

EE is very beneficial when doing maps with "cannot be afflicted by status ailments" or bosses like the phoenix who cant be ignited.

EE still can work with ignite if you are constantly hitting with other elements. For example, you hit with lightning to reduce the monster's fire resist, then hit with fire (vortex). The initial hit benefits from the EE, and as you say the burn suffers damage loss. However, ball lightning, tempest shield, and HoT all hit intermittently, thus buffing the burn again.

As for ignite vs Ele focus (which negates the application of status ailments), I have not done any math in determining which does more, however from experience, the ignite works better.