[2.4.2] Discontinued - Inquisitor Scorching Ray - Theorycraft and Skill Analisys

So, i'm planning to try this skill in the upcoming update before using it in the next league.

I'm sorry to tell that i left this build when 2.5 came out. Sorry to all the guys that replied in this post. Thanks to all.



Skill Analisys

I started with an analysis of the skill itself, reading it's mechanichs here.

Scorching Ray has Fire, Duration and Spell Tag
Basically, SR it's a spell that doesn't "hit" enemies, but applies a debuff that burns enemies for fire damage over time. The beam stacks up a debuff that reduces the enemy's fire res by 3%, up to 8 stacks, for a total of 24% less fire res and that's pretty good since you can't use fire penetration.

It scales with:

- Fire Damage
- Burning Damage
- Damage over Time
- Spell Damage
- Elemental Damage

It's directly affected by:

- Cast Speed, as you can build up stacks faster;
- Skill Duration, stacks last longer.

It won't be affected by:

- Fire Penetration;
- Critical Strike Chance;
- Spell Echo won't work;
- It not Ignite.

All of them because it doesn't hit directly.

On the base of this list, i chose some support gems that will fit well with it:

Core:
Faster Casting - Cast speed, core support;
Elemental Focus - MORE Elemental Damage, we don't lose anything with its negative effect as SR doesn't Ignite enemies;
Controlled Destruction - MORE Spell Damage, like Elemental Focus it won't affect our skill with its negative effect as SR doesn't crit;
Increased Burning Damage - Scales good with SR stacks.

Could be:
Rapid Decay - With skill duration, this is quite good;
Less Duration - Better than rapid decay due to the MORE damage.

Useful:
Reduced Mana Cost - Helps to channel SR for a long time without lacking Mana;
Iron Will - Improves spell damage with Templar passive stats;
Empower - No explanation required.

Other useful links to boost SR damage:

Flammability - Blasphemy
Reducing enemies fire resistance is a lot helpful.

Elemental Weakness is good too as it reduces elemental resistances.

Another good curse is Temporal Chains as it improves our skill duration.



Gems

4L: Scorching Ray - Faster Casting - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destruction
5L: 4L + Increased Burning Damage/Less Duration
6L: 4L + Increased Burning Damage - Less Duration/Empower

w/ Dual Curse: Blasphemy - Flammability - Enlighten - Temporal Chains/Elemental Weakness
w/ Single Curse: Blasphemy - Flammability - Enlighten

w/ Dual Curse: Any kind of purity that helps to max resistances
w/ Single Curse: Two Purities or Purity - Artic Armour - Enlighten

Movement

Flame dash to move through objects, go inside a group of mobs and start wheeling while using SR, also dealing some damage (fire + burning damage).
Can be useful using an attack movement spell, due to the inquisitor passive "30% cast speed if have attacked recently", like whirling blade wielding a spell dagger or a Consuming Dark.

Flame Dash - Faster Casting
3L: add Increased Burning Damage
4L: add Increased Duration

Immortal Call (lv 9) - Cast when Damage Taken (lv 7) - Increased Duration

Enduring Cry



Skill Trees and Ascendancy

Why Inquisitor:

High Spell Damage, boosted with Consacrated Ground;
High Cast Speed, boosted with CG;
Can be Life or ES with some changes;
High Mana and mana regen;
Debuffs for enemies.



Sanctify - Pious Path - Instruments of Virtue - Augury of Penitence

Sanctify first because you can spam Consacrated Ground with flasks, and it's gold because you have a lot of deal with it, like 4% max life regen per sec and 40% increased damage.

Pious Path second because it adds to the previous bonuses, 4% of mana and energy shield too, plus 25% cast speed and immunity to all ailments. Really, really nice.

Instrument of Virtue third, helps with damage during early endgame.

Augury of Penitence last. Cherry in martini.

Skill Trees:

Life Based Dual Curse Skill Tree

Life Based Single Curse Skill Tree



Gear

Priorities:
- Life
- Resistaces 75%
- Fire Damage
- Spell Damage

Weapon:
- The Searing Touch, Spell Damage, Fire Damage, Cast Speed and Burning Damage, what else? BIS.
- Dual wielded or single Consuming Dark
Shield:
- Armour based with high armour, life and res
- Es based with spell damage, life and res
- Saffel's Frame
Helm:
- Heretic's Veil
- AR based helm with life and res.
- Hrimnor's Resolve
Armour:
- Kaom's Heart, if wielding 2h weapon
- Infernal Mantle
- Armour based armour with life and res
Gloves:
- Repentance close to 0%
- Fingerless gloves with life and res
- Armour based gloves with life and res
Boots:
- Death's Door
- Boots AR and/or ES with life and res
Belt:
- Fire Doryani's Invitation
- Good belt with life and res
Rings:
- Good Opal Ring with life and some res / cast speed
- Good ring to max res, life and cast speed
- Good ring to max res and life
Amulet:
- Life, spell/fire damage, resistances, cast speed

Any tips are welcome.

To Do list:

- Pro/Cons list
- Search for good equip
- More Trees for CI / ES / different classes
- Better English
- Better Post Layout
- Videos and GIFs when it comes out

Might want to explain precisely how to get Elemental Equilibrium to work with it as well, as that free -50% is going to be a big deal. As far as I can tell from ZiggyD's take, added spell damage does stack on, and 'hits' at a rate determined by rate that stacks increase on the target, but obviously the core spell does not hit. Thus, simply adding a bit of lightning damage to spells on a wand or dagger should easily proc EE with no fuss or muss.

"

EJBLanky wrote:

Might want to explain precisely how to get Elemental Equilibrium to work with it as well, as that free -50% is going to be a big deal. As far as I can tell from ZiggyD's take, added spell damage does stack on, and 'hits' at a rate determined by rate that stacks increase on the target, but obviously the core spell does not hit. Thus, simply adding a bit of lightning damage to spells on a wand or dagger should easily proc EE with no fuss or muss.

Added <lightning-fire-cold> damage to spells doesn't work with SR, also ZiggyD said this in his video and wrote in his spreadsheet.

Added Gear, Ascendancy explanation and some fancy dividers.

I'm not so sure that faster casting is a good link for Scorching Ray. In terms of damage, yes, it will apply the debuff stacks more quickly, but once you've hit eight stacks your dps tops off. If you had another damage increasing gem instead you'd apply stacks more slowly, but each stack would be more powerful and your eight stack damage top end will be much higher.

Then there's the question of turn rate. Yes, faster casting would greatly boost your turn rate, but I think that playing this skill properly involves positioning yourself relative to your enemies so that you limit your turn angles as much as possible.

It could be that faster casting is good for clearing whereas a damage gem would be better against single targets. When we look at our support gem selection, however, we see that once we've linked Elemental Focus and Controlled Destruction there are no other blue damage support gems we can substitute for Faster Casting.

Overall, I think that unless you really value high turn speed, cast speed bonuses for Scorching Ray builds are best sourced from the tree, jewels, items ascendancy bonuses, etc, where the opportunity cost is against increased damage bonuses instead of more damage bonuses. If Faster Casting has any place in the link priority, it would be link #6, once all of the desirable more multipliers have been exhausted.

I'll second the not using faster casting gem part. Cast speed is good for dps overall but where it doesn't really help is if you just want to 1 stack the whole screen. Yes your turn speed will be slightly faster but when you 1 stack a bunch of mobs they will burn for 30% less or so. On top of that the skill has a fairly slow base cast speed so stacking bunches of cast speed is...

I could see cast speed being better if at some point they adjusted the turn rate to be slower.


On that note I would also suggest to anyone planning to play this skill into higher maps to have a setup where they can use a mace + shield for defensive reasons. Walking around with a staff as a life based build with no leech in tier 15+ maps is super risky even with kaoms on. You can use some of the essences to get 30% more damage on glove / helm slot or one of the +1 gem helms. Yeah it's less damage then a searing touch but that extra block / defenses may save you if your in hardcore.

Play tested this for the past two days up to mid-70s. Can offer a couple of observations:

1. Most of your clearing is single stacking with a spin, as above poster describes. Biggest boost to clear speed is actually Inc. duration, as you can spin through and move on as mobs burn to death. Faster casting felt like it had very little utility (did try it out for quite a while before switching to inc dur). Best supports imo elemental focus, controlled destruction, Inc dur, rapid decay/empower.

2. For leveling, BIS imo was Realm Ender (prophecied version of realm shaper), which is available at lvl 40, and makes leveling 40-60 a breeze. Tried both this and searing touch, (both 5L) and noted only a slight improvement in DPs with touch. Realm Ender was still fine well into maps.

3. Love decoy totem with this skill for tough fights. Actually ran it as hiero, took ritual of awakening and used 3 decoys with tot ele res+Inc dur. Was much fun. Died eventually because became complacent and stopped renewing totems during a boss fight but no trouble in mid maps until that moment of stupidity.

4. Orb of storms+Inc critical chance+curse on hit+vulnerable good for proccing ee, ele overload, and curse at same time for anything tough.

GL

I just noticed that Iron Will is actually a superior choice to Increased Burning damage as long as you have over 105 Strength, which you certainly will.

Sadly, this means that Increased Burning Damage is nowhere near the list of top contenders for the last link sockets (though it's still probably better than Faster Casting).

Best links for self cast seem to be:

4L: Scorching Ray, Elemental Focus, Controlled Destruction, Rapid Decay

5th link: Empower. With a +1 gems staff, even a level 1 Empower is a contender.

6th link choices:
- Iron Will: 20/20 gives 70% increased spell damage if you include the 111 strength requirement, plus 1% increased spell damage per 5 points of strength beyond that. It's not a more multiplier, but there's no downside.
- Increased duration: 20/20 gives 74% increased skill duration. Although this doesn't increase our top end damage over time, it greatly increases the total potential damage dealt by a single stack. While this is great for clearing, it may also be very useful in dangerous boss fights where you have long dps downtimes due to having to dodge attacks.
- Less Duration: 20/0 gives 19% more damage, but gives 49% less skill duration. Quality on the gem only further reduces duration. This may help you burn down bosses quicker with uninterrupted channeling, but it might also impact clear speed. Overall, it may or may not be worth the dps on paper. Might be good paired with Increased Duration.

All 3 of these gems are red, so you can swap them with each other experimentally or situationally.

6th link runner ups:
- Increased Burning Damage: Yet another red support gem. Strictly less good than Iron Will (unless you somehow have under 105 strength). Choose if you want to boost that sheet dps without incurring a downside, and don't have an Empower with an effective level of 2+.
- Faster Casting: If you already literally wipe mobs off the screen and vaporise rares/bosses 'quickly enough' with five of the above links, the increased turn rate and accelerated stack application will result in faster clears. Might be worth using in boss fights with very long dps downtimes as well, but I suspect not. If your last socket is blue, this is basically your only choice.

Thanks for all your tips, i will update the first post with some of your advices asap :)

A 19/20 less duration gives slightly less DPS then a level 3 empower, but has a massive draw back of cutting the burn duration in half.

Its one of the worst gems you can use with scorching ray, cause its less DOT damage, and a ton less duration damage, so you gain nothing by using it over a level 3 empower, which are dirt cheap since tons of people corrupt those.

I wont have access to a level 4 empower till the league ends, but then I will test it further, but so far, less duration is one of the worst possible options and should be ignored.