Some questions about ignite / proliferation and ... vaal ice nova

Hi,

I'm kinda new to build theory all i've done so far is pasting some builds from forums and modifying them in early and late game to my needs wich helped me really fast ( brother helped me he played a lot PoE ).
I tried subreddit poe builds / asked ingame if there was a chat channel dedicated to build help since i'm not really fan of boards in general and prefer direct talk ( seems it doesn't exist ) and then .. asking here now :)

My best char died at level 83 two days ago and since that i decided to find something i find original and fun for next run in HC.

Sooo i was thinking of a vaal ice nova prolif using three dragons ( cold damage can ignite ) and then only burning as damage ( i really enjoyed a flameblast debuff build really great before i finaly died " The debuffing Pizza " ).

My questions:

- Does main idea is even possible ? Vaal ice nova cast / repeat on enemies ( since as i can see in video showing VIN it's repeating on pack aside of the first one hited by nova ) and then ignite all of them and deal good enough burning damage that can on top of that prolif to others packs.

- Wich ascendancy should i pick ? Elementalist ? Or going crit inquisito since as i understand crit always inflict status aliments ?

- First goal is to obtain a working tree ( unoptimized just as a proof of concept ) doing at least lab up to merciless but the fact is i'm really bad at that and even with guides i saw around on forum and elsewhere i've no idea where i should really start. And beeing honest weeks arn't longer enough to allow me testing a build 15 times before it start to work.
Don't need something perfect to start but at least solid.

Ultimate goal is of course beeing able to create my builds alone. But for that and it's the best question what are the steps you are following ? Do you have a kind of methodology you would share with me ?

From A to Z how are you planning your build ? Would you help me to build this one step by step ?

All i've done for now is checking if it was already existing seems normal ice nova ignite has been made by the past and chaos aswell sooo i've lot of infos to read and things to learn. Compexity of this game is amazing. It could have been any others games i would have probably just give up :)

Thanks for reading,

And hope it will lead to something cool :)

FC

Vaal Ice nova is not a typical skill one would want to use for classical ignite build, because it creates AoE overlaps rather than big initial hit like flameblast or molten shell.

The way to go could be using Emberwake ring, to able able to stack ignites. proliferation together with high AoE overlap could create high damage to single targets who are surrounded by other enemies.

If you want to focus on ignite, it would be better converting damage to fire (rather than using 3D), so that you use fire modifiers to boost both the initial and burn damage part. Pyre ring would be nice but removes corpses who are the source of proliferation, so youd be left with Avatar of fire + Cold to fire support gems.

Ignite builds also require altering enemy resistances, because they affect ignite twice. Elemental equilibrium does not suit the multi-ignite theme (and Avatar of fire disables it completely) so could go with dual elemental curse

Elementalist has free penalty-less proliferation and ability to shock/chill from fire damage. Id probably prefer her and use Chance to Ignite gem in the freed slot, but Assassin could be good too

tree would focus on fire damage and AoE and also survivability which would be probably lots of ES and CI?

"

Ultimate goal is of course beeing able to create my builds alone. But for that and it's the best question what are the steps you are following ? Do you have a kind of methodology you would share with me ?

best way IMO is trying to make your own builds, learning related mechanics. You need to have some overall knowledge of possibilities you have and how things work, and this leads to ability to see the possible synergies. Not sure though if HC is the propper environment for learning because you each mistake means the reroll and HC also limits you in theorycrafting because you have to focus on defenses a lot

"

From A to Z how are you planning your build ? Would you help me to build this one step by step ?

you have some base idea, some mechanics you want to exploit or skill or item you build around. And then you try to find what would suit it the most, accross all the board. Survivability against different kind of encounters, damage against both packs and single targets, and HP/mana recovery. I somewhat described the way of thinking in the first part of my post.

you can ask me questions in game but dont overwhelm me:)

Hi Ludvator first of all thank you for your patience writing all of this. It took me a while to do some search i feel like getting back to studies :D

Just took an hour to read about emberwake / avatar of fire and few others things and ended with this tree as a first draft: ( Largely inspired by some others builds i already ran )


https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMAAN-K6QJLrhsl2VttGZf0UlM9X5eVEVA1uacrTLPQH-_rOw0RD6yY8WwhsDT3l4UulDbYSRsqjexV99eESFxrw22boY9GHRSvjacI6-4y0UVHwGY8Be98n9-aO4Kbna4DdZErWHdfBBJpFxxxeRhqOVJYB9gkVkgi9GwLkyd_xhGWBx6VLvDVSVGP-uwYLL8V14auVmPviPk3189Jsb6KoS8c3I8aUfsYZR8YzRY=

Notes:

1/ I'm not sure Pract1cal Appl1cat1on is really necessary anyway it can help a bit for stun interrupt and extra dex / str requirements for utility gems for example.

2/ Took some jewel sockets because without a chill of corruption and sacrificial harvest i think i will have an hard time making this build work " decently ". Not sure how many sac harvest i should use anyway 3 for maximum comfort ?

3/ It's a bit hard to know right now how much fire damage i should took from the tree soo ... i took all but i assume at some points i will be able to remove some and give some more attention to more defense or utility ?

4/ Think i'm good about area of effect nodes

5/ Think CI nodes are good aswell as i understand i could use Energy from within to convert hybrid nodes for some more ES ?


I can contact you ingame eventualy if i've very important questions but not going to overwhelm you that's a sure thing :)

Now mostly have to determine gem setups i could use for both cases:

- Getting souls
- General clearing VIN

Vaal ice nova - Chance to Ignite - Fire penetration - cold to fire - ?

About Curses i was thinking about using:

Orb of storm - Curse on hit - Flammability - Elemental weakness

Note: Elemental overload generated by it aswell ( used that in an others build it work pretty well ).

And that's it for now i keep working on it ! :) What do you think about it ?