How to use Scorching ray

Hi there

I really like Scorching ray, I find it very fun to use. However it does very little damages and I am under the impression that its point is only to make everything slowly burn. Also, I think there are very few gems that can mod it.

So I was wondering, how is Scorching ray used most of the time? Is there a way, through support gems, or enchantments or whatever, to make it a really powerful main spell?

Thank you!

It mostly sees use as an additional source of damage for RF characters nowadays, but it should be possible to scale it to reasonable levels.

Supports should be Burning Damage, Elemental Focus, Controlled Destruction, Efficacy, and Swift Affliction, if I'm not mistaken.

Some people also play it on totems.

Edit: You want to look for burning, fire, elemental, and spell damage on gear. Using items that provide additional levels to the skill are also useful.

Elemental Overload and Elemental Equilibrium are two Keystones you should definitely use. The former provides you with 40% more damage if you have a way to crit regularly, and Elemental Equilibrium allows you to lower the enemies' fire resistance by 50% if you hit them with cold or lightning damage. Note that you may not have flat fire damage, otherwise you will buff them for 25% instead.

Orb of Storms is usually the skill for such purposes.

Scorching Ray will never be accused of being a fast skill. The best part about it is the resist debuff that takes a couple of seconds to ramp up. If you want to go fast, find another skill. If you really want to use it, look for a build. Most of them will probably be in Witch and Shadow.

I've used it with cast while channelling and firestorm pretty effectively. Admittedly that was before the 'zerker changes.


wolf

With really good gear, scorching ray alone seems to cap out around 8-900k dps, which is a really low ceiling for such an investment needed.

Thanks for these advices!

For now, I am using Scorching Ray with Burning damage, Controlled destruction, Elemental focus, and Firestorm as a cast while channeling spell. I'm still in pretty early game but at the moment, it works pretty well, especially against some bosses who litteraly melt in a matter of seconds.

You'll enjoy this build. When I did it I stacked effect duration, AOE, and faster casting. I got north of 3 seconds of firestorm per cast over a generous portion of the screen. This help with clearing mobs quickly because you could cast and run and leave firestorm to continue falling behind you.

Wolf

I can't imagine it being used as a primary skill for damage. But it's o.k as a secondary or utility skill. It's slow and has weak damage. One of the things it has going for it is the fact that it doesn't hit. So it can be used with an Elemental Equilibrium build. Combining it with Righteous Fire is a good idea because when you use Righteous Fire, you need something else to do anyway, and you still won't proc the EE.