Flasks cannot be sustained with Explosive Concoction with reasonable investment

I have been PoBing since league start, and I was concered about flask charge sustain since the release of the Explosive Concoction gem (EC from now on). Here is what i found out, if you want to sustain flask charges with it:

The gem states that each attack consumes 3 charges from each flask as a base.

Let's look at the singular topaz/sapphire flask you would wanna run with the build and see how you can sustain it. Lets also assume you have somewhere between 3 and 4 attacks per second, as attackspeed is one of the only ways to efficiently scale the technically good base dmg of the skill. Base attack speed of unarmed attacks is 1.2 attacks per second btw.

With 3 attacks per second you need 9 charges per second!

You can try reducing the charges that you consume by getting as much "reduced flask charges used as possible. That is a very rare stat and can be mainly found in the passive tree (15% in total), the belt slot(20%) and the helmet enchantment for EC (12%) and obviously the chemist prefix (maximum 20%) on a flask.

IF you get everything mentioned above you end up with 67% reduced charges consumed with basically makes it so you "only" need to generate 3 charges per second.

How can you regain these charges when fighting bosses?

The obvious choise is pathfinder's natures boon. That notable gives you 1 charge per second. So we are quite far away from the 3.

"Charge recovery" and "increased flask charges gained" is multiplicate, so you can use that system to try to generate 3 times the charges from nature's boon.

You can get up to 60% increased charged recovery with the new enkindling orb on both your saphire and topaz flask.

With that 60% multiplier you "only" need "90% increased flask charges gained". There are several ways of getting that, some more painful than others. Pathfinder gives you 10% or 20% if you pick up the small node towards the terrible master alchemist. Replica pure talent gives 20%. The normal tree has 40% on the ranger mana nodes. 10% on the acrobatics small nodes and 20% if you crit recently. The is another 30% on the 3 mana flask nodes at the templar witch area.

You can get to "90% increased flask charges gained" in more and less painful ways. 1.6*1.9 = 3.04, which is exactly what you need to generate the 3 charges per second.

If you look at how much we just invested to be able to sustain a topaz and a sapphire flask with only 3 attacks per second (my current PoB has 3.35 with aspeed only 24% attackspeed on gear) you can come to the conclusion that this is not a reasonable investment. You realize that you actually can't use the sapphire and topaz flask at all as a pathfinder and insane investment. You take so many flask nodes and don't even get benefits from the flask... nvm you get the damage from the flasks. The damage that is soo low, that you can't even reach trinity with EC unless you invest more than just a Wrath aura on top. It's horrible.

TLDR/Conclusion: You cannot sustain the topaz/sapphire flask even as a pathfinder with reasonable investment. You need perfectly rolled gear and have to invest into at least 9 passives to sustain EC flasks at a measly 3 attacks per second. BTW, if you don't get the 2 perfect flasks, you have to run the traitor legion keystone and if you have to use the traitor on a build, you know it's bad. PoB for the curious: https://pastebin.com/dRBkweYd

Good luck and stay safe exiles!

your definition of "sustain" is not the same definition that GGG has.

Your "sustain" is the outdated notion that you should be able to have all your flasks up 100% of the time. This was precisely the reason for the nerfs in the first place. You should NOT have your flasks up 100% of the time, rather you should be using them consciously and with planning in specific cases/content.

In that respect, the content changes are a slam dunk. Of course, the nerfs went too far but that is par for the course with GGG whenever they make a sweeping change. They always go too far.

I personally think they should have different charge generation for each type of flask. Movement flasks should gain charges much faster than ailment flasks, as the entire point of the movement flask is to move faster through the WHOLE map. It's not like a phasing flask, which we might use to escape a dangerous mob. That simply is not the goal of a quicksilver. I know that we can "pseudo" do this ourselves with prefixes but it simply is not enough.

Health/Mana flasks should regenerate charges automatically, maybe not 1 per second, but at least a little bit so classes outside of Pathfinder (and using the pantheon dude) is less necessary.

It's the whole gaining less and less flask charges the higher tier content that is really a bit over the top since in most cases the monsters/bosses get larger and larger buffs to life, defences, attack/cast speeds, and the like when engaging in higher map tiers with higher Awakening lvls, and % increased effects of non-unique map modifiers that stack up fairly quickly. How to compensate for that when a lot of mob packs can shotgun you in most cases instantly? Oh, maybe get increased flask charges gained on belt, reduced flasks charges used on belt, and invest more into the tree? Ye ok, can maybe do the belt thing, but if you on the other side of the tree then getting certain flask support on the tree would pretty much gimp the build in the process. Same could be said for a cluster jewel set-up when a particular build normally didn't use one bc of the requirements of obtaining a certain amount of utility to make the build work. idk I really dont think GGG is done with this yet. Hopefully there will be some form of relief since defences and dmg were already nerfed this league. Not everyone is keen to waiting at the exact right moment to pop a flask when the speed of the action + the clutter of skill effects/loot-splosions cloud the "vision" of the player.

Sir or Madam,

Your write up was Impeccable, thank you for trying this out. I almost started EC, ended up with a spectral helix instead. Carrying on, I have a question: have you gamed out using a flask based cluster jewel?

TY for your time,

I tried the Concoction skill with standard endgame gear in t16 maps for example awakened added lightning lvl 5 and cold lvl 5 trinity in a 6 link and the skill is not just underwhelming but plain untested garbage.

- limits to 2 out of 5 usable flasks
- bad damage and i mean REALY bad with its slow unarmed atk speed.
- Slow traveleling of the flask itself they seem to ignore gravitiy
- Tiny AoE.
- Consumes too much charges to be sustainable

Sadly this was the only interesting skill for me.

All the other skills that could be interesting:
- Spectral Helix is too slow or too low damage for the stationary slowness pick one.
- Dont hit yourself strike skill the numbers are just not there to be on par in power with other skills but really all Strike skills (except maybe elemental hit which is often used by bows) are badly balanced and they never see play in poe.ninja for years now.
- Rage Vortex requiring rage but the natural rage Berserker generation of Crave the Slaughter is capped at 0.3 per second why is there even a cap for Berserker. And warcries to keep rage? No thanks.
On top its AGAIN sword and axe only we already have too much of SWORD AND AXE ONLY skills.

For me these were the interesting gems and the job doesnt seem to be done very well in my opinion.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

your definition of "sustain" is not the same definition that GGG has.

Your "sustain" is the outdated notion that you should be able to have all your flasks up 100% of the time. This was precisely the reason for the nerfs in the first place. You should NOT have your flasks up 100% of the time, rather you should be using them consciously and with planning in specific cases/content.

In that respect, the content changes are a slam dunk. Of course, the nerfs went too far but that is par for the course with GGG whenever they make a sweeping change. They always go too far.

I personally think they should have different charge generation for each type of flask. Movement flasks should gain charges much faster than ailment flasks, as the entire point of the movement flask is to move faster through the WHOLE map. It's not like a phasing flask, which we might use to escape a dangerous mob. That simply is not the goal of a quicksilver. I know that we can "pseudo" do this ourselves with prefixes but it simply is not enough.

Health/Mana flasks should regenerate charges automatically, maybe not 1 per second, but at least a little bit so classes outside of Pathfinder (and using the pantheon dude) is less necessary.

I think you misunderstood, they are talking about the new skill Explosive Concoction which uses up flask charges to do bonus damage. There is no flask uptime, you will never have enough charges to use the flasks a single time using this ability. That isn't 100% of the time, its 0%.

This means without extreme investment, most of the time you will not receive the bonus damage from having the flasks equipped. In addition you are giving up 1-3 flask slots, as well as dozens of passive points to maximize charge gain for attack damage.

Hi there!

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3147794/page/15#p24248070 has other variants of EC. The forum eventually directs to some Youtube videos I uploaded.

I have also been having insane difficulties sustaining Topaz and Sapphire flasks. Even with that massive handicap, I am cruising in Tier 16 maps.

.....and I just added enkindling to my sapphire and topaz flask because I was foolishly waiting for Harvest flask enchant. I am kind of dumb.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the Youtube videos. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgNtBsD0rgG_vQDSM1Ex2whVGU5n0xQTq

I had one look at EC and realized that the only way someone could run it effectively was as AoF or Elementalist Ignite with Berek's Respite.

Explosive Concoction..

first and most important question is WHY? why do we need this skill to exist? it is a Magma Orb but without: chaining, threshold jewel, free 2 extra flask slots.

Ive made a PF version (Vinktars/Taste of Hate) - im sure i can make it into 'adequate' damage (aka - will do Sirus but SLOWLY) but the skill itself is completely nonwiable

- single target requires standing still, due to no main-hand weapon you cannot layer damage. all you can do is to stack ele pen/reduction/damage taken. no totems, no traps/brands. so you stand in front of boss and bonk-bonk. the moment you move, the damage you deal is ZERO. due to no layering this skill works WORSE than strike melee

- clear is.. worse than strike melee. 'explody' is mandatory - otherwise stragglers pile up and you end up with 70% map clear or worse.


as for the charges consumption: given that you have to move in boss fights, i cannot confirm. theoretical problem might exist but in real world you cannot empty your flasks

and if you want to be sure: 'extra charges/gains no charges when active' enchant solves ALL problems

PF can 100% auto-sustain diamond/quicksilver and other flasks. all you need is to do PROPER math. same can be done with elemental esp if you DONT use them