Burning beam of death and doom - Makes popcorn too

Thinking of a new Scorching Ray build with the new league.

Templar or Witch?

hmmm....

As it happens, I was thinking of that and none really meshed with Ray as a point of focus. Elementalist or occultist aren't a very good fit, inquisitor or hierophant either...

I suppose Trickster would be decent, he has defenses, some dot, cast speed and frenzies on kill, or maybe Chieftain if you want to use RF and a totem.

I mean, Occultist would be a nice defensive choice, her ES bonus never hurts an ES build, and +1 curse is alright as well (four offensive curses available - Vulnerability, Flammability, Elemental Weakness, Temporal Chains).

But yeah, Trickster would make more thematic sense.

Sure, Occultist would work, nothing really screams 'RAAAY' but it has a really solid foundation that can be good with pretty much anything.

Well, I was using Chieftan with an RF SR/Mjolner-arc weapon swap build at the end of essence and it went fairly well... but to began as a burning vortex thing and the Mjolner was intended to just be there for a fun change of pace, so Chieftan was a naturally choice. I wound up using mjolner to clear and using SR (after swapping sets to my Doon) to bosskill with a regular cold-vortex running for some background dps and chill, as i turns out, so once it turned to that end chieftan wound up not being the best choice (i could have made it a better choice by going pure lightning-to-fire, but meh).

I'm thinking about redoing it again this league (mjolner change doesn't hurt me, only had like .3 aps cyclone anyway), as i only really played around with it for a few days, but now I'm planning on going Berserker with it. It'll give me more damage for everything, some innate leech for mjolner as a little added perk, and possibly most importantly Warbringer.




Anyway, if you're just doing SR using RF and/or iron will, Chieftan (especially since vs bosses you'll want a decoy totem, and that first totem notable is great). if you're doing SR as a more traditional caster, and without other skills... hard to say. There's not really any decided standout. Occultist would probably be the best witch (there's only really 2 notables worth using on elementalist if you don't 'hit'), inquisitor (with everything except the crit stuff) is probably the best templar. Trickster if you're a shadow, ofc.

I'd probably just go Occultist with a Xirgil's and bring an extra curse... maybe even go all out on the curses, use blasphemy+tri-curse+enhance+enlighten socketed into the xirgil's for some very high quality curse auras... SR works nicely with high quality/effect temp chains and ele weakness, and toss in enfeeble for some more defense.

Are spell totems able to channel? I havnt had a chance to test it out yet.

Spell totems channel, yeah.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Inquisitor's nodes actually provide over 50% extra cast speed if you go for the Consecrated Ground stuff instead of the crit crap Scorching Ray can't use anyways. Pious Path, Augury of Penitence, Instruments of Virtue. You get mana sustain from the extra mana regen whilst on Consecrated Ground, you can get up to 8% ES regen from it if you go for Zealot's Oath (or use a Sorrow of the Divine flask), plus 25% cast speed and elemental status immunity from Pious Path.

Instruments is 30% cast speed if you've attacked (i.e Shield Charge/Whirling Blades/Leap Slam) recently, and Augury is just a big booster shot of elemental damage/resistance. It actually looked pretty g'danged baller for a Scorching Ray build, tons more damage/cast speed than Trickster and with a surprising amount of defensive utility.

Full disclosure: basically parroting this from Ziggy's/Yoji's video(s) on Scorching Ray, but it makes a lot of sense and I haven't been able to figure out a better class to bolster SR. Plus it amuses me that the entire forum has completely forgotten than the Inquisitor actually has nodes that aren't Inevitable Judgment.