Divine Ire ignite with new ring

You do have Eber's Unification granting Void Gaze which functions similarly to exposure, but yeah, reducing chaos resistance is a pain. Still, I do think Blackflame is somewhat worth it in certain circumstances.

(Maybe I'm repeating stuff from earlier but I'll use this reply to sort my own thoughts, plz forgive)

Exposure and Elemental Equilibrium are an integral part of ele damage scaling. Withered is an integral part of chaos damage. As established you can reduce resists by other means, but it's hard or it is a good damage boost, but not even close to the level of EE/Exposure/Withered. Those are as build enabling as Impale is for many Phys skills.

Simplified, Black Flame swaps EE+Exposure for Withered. If your build can do EE+Exposure easily, thats 75% red. resistances (assuming 25% exposure), which bottom line is better than 60% increased damage taken from withered. So you need a good reason to invest that ring slot (main skills mechanic conflicts with EE, Tree just has to go elsewhere,...).

Divine Ire can do EE+Exposure easily as it does not even deal fire damage.
Fireball Ignite needs to cast multiple spells to gain EE.
Armageddon Brand ignite basically can't pull it of.
I just don't see it being worth it on Divine Ire.


Do not forget that while Blackflame has nice resist and damge over time multi it also comes with 50% reduced Ignite Duration on Enemies. That can be a problem if applying an ignite takes you significant casting time (even more so if you want to use Swift Affliction Support).


Going Occultist increases Blackflames viability. But you'll only have +1 curse and -20% chaos res and that's it for damage scaling in that ascendancy for you. Not good imo.

It's not 60% increased chaos damage taken, but 90% (6%x15 stacks) or around 108% (if you're taking Corruption). Considering you can use Despair to its full effect (taking advantage of both increased dot taken and -chaos res), it's not so bad imo.

Also, less clicking is a big bonus in my book. You don't have to worry about exposure and EE, timing your casts so that all effects are in place, you just put down Wither totems and that's it.

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Trikzter wrote:

It's not 60% increased chaos damage taken, but 90% (6%x15 stacks) or around 108% (if you're taking Corruption). Considering you can use Despair to its full effect (taking advantage of both increased dot taken and -chaos res), it's not so bad imo.

Also, less clicking is a big bonus in my book. You don't have to worry about exposure and EE, timing your casts so that all effects are in place, you just put down Wither totems and that's it.

You're right, somehow mixed up my withered stats. And just when I finally have convinced myself fully against Black Flame, you make a damn good point. Huh...
The one thing I'll still hold against Black Flame is that Divine Ire does not need additional clicks to proc EE. That's in the skill itself. And Wave of Conviction for Exposure can be automated (Trigger craft on weapon) with a bit investment, making it as handy as Withering Step and more handy than Wither Totems. You need to put those Totems down and in some boss battles they die repeatedly.

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The one thing I'll still hold against Black Flame is that Divine Ire does not need additional clicks to proc EE. That's in the skill itself.

That's true unless you're really going to abuse Atziri's Promise. The more conversions you have, the higher the benefit from the flask and from other sources of "added as extra chaos". This includes fire damage as well, so for example Herald of Ash, Divine Fury notable and certain affixes on your weapons/amulet will (when combined with e.g. Hatred, Divine Wrath notable, etc.) go a long way to increasing your overall damage output, even at the cost of losing EE. This enables you to scale your damage a bit differently, not worrying that anything will mess your EE. Surprisingly, the damage of Blackflame vs. EE versions is very similar.

Sure, the most benefit you gain if you manage to take advantage of the conditional buff from the Shaper of Flames (meaning you need to make sure fire damage is the highest type of damage) with Malachai's Artifice which applies EE. But that's a pain and really hard to achieve - this not only increases the cost of your equipment, but will require you to constantly check your "Calcs" tab in PoB to make sure no other damage type surpassed fire.

That's why I'm planning on league-starting with Blackflame DI Elementalist. Also, the purple ignite effect looks really cool. Here's hoping the green fire from Cinderswallow doesn't mess with it.