Explosive Concoction

I want to love this skill as an ignite skill, but here are a few problems with it.

By default, Elementalist is the only ascendancy that can play as an ignite build with the skill and use it to its full potential with all 3 elemental flasks. If any other ascendancy were to try an ignite Explosive Concoction build, they would have to do 1 of 3 things:

1. Use only a Ruby Flask and/or a Topaz Flask with the Stormfire ring and lose out on bonus cold damage adding to ignite.

2. Use the armour/evasion Beacon of Madness (very debilitating debuffs) to get Igniting Conflux.

3. Run Avatar of Fire and convert 50% of lightning and cold damage to fire. I tried this once on a Chieftain as it was nearest to the node, although I found the whole idea sub-optimal in the end.

My suggestion is a simple one: add a line, similar to one of Hexblast's aspects, that says "All elemental damage from this skill can ignite."

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HealNForget wrote:

My suggestion is a simple one: add a line, similar to one of Hexblast's aspects, that says "All elemental damage from this skill can ignite."

This is probably the easiest change GGG could make to turn this into a potentially viable skill for Pathfinder. It doesn't make sense to me that all ignite builds seem to be best played as an Elementalist when the skills aren't all spells, i.e. Explosive Concoction, Burning Arrow, Explosive Arrow, etc. I wish GGG would design the skills so that the best thematic ascendancy is the best one to use the skill.

I played with hit based EC ascendant (pf, zerk and deadeye forbiddens) in Kalandra from league start to level 100, and sadly, but not surprisingly, I was the only player in poe.ninja using that skill at level 100. It was already bad against bosses because even on pf/ascendant, it was very difficult to generate enough flask charges in boss fights, and the skill itself doesn't have that much of a damage, even at levels around 28-30, compared to, say, hexblast. Still, I managed to kill multiple ubers with it and it was a decent mapper with respectable speed after about 200 divs investment.

Then what happened? Hit based EC builds got hit by a massive nerf in 3.21, out of nowhere. GGG didn't explain why they've decided to nerf a skill that's used by literally nobody. So the problems with the current iteration of EC are,

1. If you go for a hit based version, and scale additional projectiles, it's impossible to sustain flask charges in boss fights and even vs rares tbh (because of 3.21 changes), because you also have to scale attack speed for the build to feel good. It's not possible to play the hit based version with one or two projectiles, it'll be zdps.

2. Going crit on EC is pretty much never worth it unless you can dump 500 divs into the build because it's an unarmed skill, but even then, you can make a much better build with that budget anyway. Divergent EC gives some crit, but that crit isn't base crit and it's basically useless, even with Ashes. This is why scaling attack speed is the only way to play a hit based EC build, but as I mentioned, this is impossible after 3.21 changes. This also means that the build desperately needs EO, which is another obstacle.

3. It's difficult to have enough accuracy on unarmed builds, because there's no weapon wheel we can use, and a build that wants to use EC likely won't have access to resolute technique. I scaled some accuracy by means of the accuracy wheels and a good amount of dex, and used precise technique on my EC ascendant to gain 40% more damage, but blinding monsters and less accuracy map mods simply ruined the build and it was very challenging to have enough accuracy to offset for those.

Although 3.21 changes made it practically impossible to make a decent hit based EC build, they made ignite EC stronger, because you need only one projectile for the ignite version and it's not necessary to have more projectiles for the shotgun effect. Throwing only one projectile consumes less charges now, compared to pre 3.21. So let's discuss the issues with the ignite version.

To play a proper EC ignite build, you need your cold/lightning damage to be able to ignite, or you need to convert most/all of those damage types to fire, or just sacrifice the cold/lightning damage and only use a ruby flask.

The third option simply sucks, because you just end up with a mediocre skill with a mediocre amount of base damage. It's not even worth it.

The first option is readily available on elementalist, but elementalist needs the traitor keystone with additional investment to be able to utilize all three flasks and also use the flasks for resistances. This requires an awfully inefficient passive tree and I wasn't able to come up with a good one. Alternatively, one could use a body armour with flask charge generation eldritch implicit, but this isn't a good idea because the 6 link setup has to be in the body armour in this build (elder helmets and essence crafted influenced gloves aren't good enough), and you either need skin of the loyal/lords or something with corruption implicits for the additional levels on EC, as the damage mainly comes from gem levels. Lightning Coil with some +1/+2 comes to mind, as the traitor version already uses a topaz flask with microdistillery belt and taste of hate fits the build very well, but in the end it's just a scuffed version of EA elementalist with an awkward passive tree.

Other solutions for the first and second options would include pyre, stormfire, avatar of fire, igniting conflux via an influenced helmet, or any combination of those, but these all have their own drawbacks and issues.

So what do I suggest?

1. Revert the 3.21 nerf for EC and remove the flask penalty for additional projectiles and make it consume 1 charge per flask for any number of projectiles. The 3.21 nerf makes no sense because this skill needed buffs, not nerfs. Poisonous Concoction also got nerfed that league, which was justified because PC was super popular and strong, but this one was uncalled for.

2. Change divergent quality to apply to the skill's base crit, adjust the value per quality accordingly.

3. Buff the igniting conflux mod on influenced helmets to enable non-elementalist ignite EC builds. At least the elevated version could have a longer buff duration, or something like 3 seconds conflux every 5-6 seconds.

4. Buff the base damage a bit, it's a joke considering the facts that the build is unarmed, loses 3 sockets, can't benefit from the weapon wheels, loses the fifth flask slot for the traitor (if not pf or ascendant), can't get anything from a weapon, and constantly drains flask charges. Where's the compensation? Level 30 hexblast and level 30 EC roughly have the same amount of average damage, but the only downside of hexblast is its low crit rate, which is easily compensated by sandstorm visage. There's no single item that can solve the issues of EC. So why do they have the same amount of base damage? Yeah, the compensation for the hit version is that it can shotgun, but at what cost? It consumes all flask charges in 2 seconds, and supports like gmp/gv ruin the hit damage anyway.

5. Buff the base attack speed of EC. 1.15 feels awful and as mentioned, it's very difficult to have a good amount of attack speed because it's unarmed. This isn't very important for the ignite version, but is good for both versions regardless.

I really like the flavour of this skill but in its current state it really does leave to be desired.

As it stands either you want all 3 flasks to deal full ignite as an elementalist, or none because hit damage. Taking just a fire flask for ignites alone has felt repeatedly unrewarding as we surrender multipliers on gear for base damage and a flat more that doesn't scale out well enough in the end. Not to mention having to invest into accuracy to hit a target in the first place (can we get an accuracy rework already?)

I would update the skill to deal all 3 elements at the same time, and reserve the flask charge portion exclusively for special additional effects that change how the skill itself works, such as sapphire flasks either making the skill freeze as though dealing MORE damage and Topaz could give shock as though dealing more or some other unique effects related to each type.

Another alternative, and much more interesting option, would be to make it so whatever flasks are consumed outright changes what the bonus effect is outright.
- Consuming a single type of flask adds the relevant effect (more ignite, freeze, shock)
- if you have a ruby + sapphire flask perhaps a damaging alchemical chilled ground effect occurs based on fire + ice damage dealt while mixing ruby and topaz flask causes electrically charged flaming bolts to explode from the impact location dealing fire + lightning damage. Consuming a sapphire + topaz flask could create electrically charged ice pillars that shock nearby enemies for ice + lightning damage.
- consuming all 3 flask could grant a wild conflux of damage in some specific form

Love the skill, strongly disappointed in its output.

no base damage buffs in 3.23

the base quality is now worse than it used to be

alt gems are gone, no more non-flask ec with divergent chance to bleed and anomalous cast on crit using diallas

why do you guys hate this skill so much and keep directly/indirectly nerfing it when nobody uses it anyway? do you guys never read or care about the feedback? maybe just for once, listen to the people who've actually played with the skill?

unless we get a huge transfigured EC, this is going to be yet another league where there isn't a single EC user on poe.ninja

and we can't even use the "all damage can ignite" mod on EC, because tinctures require a weapon

XD

With the changes coming with the Affliction league, I'd like to propose a transfigured variation of the concoction that would make its projectile leave Burning Ground when touching the ground. It will be more than fit for the idea.
I will also post this in the feedback & suggestions section.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3458090