The Three Dragons Fireball'er!

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

I'm currently trying the build out, and I'm struggling against phys damage. I've AA (not fully leveled, at 17 currently), CWDT linked to end cry, and molten shell. Its a bit hard for me... I'm popping granite flasks and still nothing.

IF your only problem is physical damage, then instead of linking CWDT with end cry, manually run end cry and use cwdt for Immortal. Really just having one endurance charge for Immortal will get you through most physical hits. Plus have something to summon at doorways to keep your from getting killed from leapers.

Thanks for the tips Martin. I just hate casting End Cry... Its one of the skills I hate in this game.

After leveling this build in hardcore league to level 82, here are my thoughts on the build: (I welcome any suggestions and comments)

One of the first issues I had was survivability to physical damage. With no armor on gear, I had a difficult time against the heavy physical hitters. My main enemy was the Undying Evangelists who hit hard from a distance and bosses such as Kole who just hit hard. My solution to this was to use enfeeble and a decoy totem to buy myself some time. I'd pop a few granite flasks and take care of business. While Arctic Armor helps somewhat, the damage is very noticeable and if you have mana regen early on you see the problem. Cast When Damage Taken (CWDT) didn't really help much. Molten Shell does help a lot to absorb some damage, and I'd suggest using it for an additional damage mitigater.

At later levels when my damage became more significant, my worry was mostly how to deal with reflect. This problem is solved by running both Arctic Armor (AA) AND Purity of Fire (PoF). You have to use both to mitigate the reflect damage. After testing it out, I realized that just having one on and not the other would still cause some significant damage. Casting enfeeble helps a lot against reflect (although I've never had to worry to do that) and popping a fire res flask helps. As my damage output gets higher, I'm curious to see if AA and PoF continues to mitigate significant reflect damage. The Infernal Mantle (IM) chest also helps a lot to diversify your damage output. The "25% of fire damage converted to chaos damage" modifier on the IM really helps a lot. There have been times in maps where my party members see me rattling off fireballs in elemental reflect maps with no damage reflected at all.

I was able to acquire a 5 Link (5L) IM during the build and decided to stray away slightly from Nugi's build. I'm not sure how he would have fleshed the build out, but the following was used on the 5L: Fire Ball, Power Charge on Critical, Fire Penetration, Greater Multiple Projectiles, and Increased Critical Damage. This was the setup prior to Echo being released. Given how good Echo is, I was in a dilemma as to which gem to drop in the 5L. My first idea was to drop Fire Penetration but it proved too good a gem to drop so I decided that Increased Critical Damage would have to go considering I was going to make it up in nodes on the tree. Echo was simply too good for me to NOT use. Had Echo been released prior to Nugi posting this thread, I wonder what he would have changed in the tree. From my perspective, I would drop the 3 faster casting nodes below Elemental Dominion in the Witch Tree and pick up the Critical Strike Chance nodes instead.

Last night, after the league merged, I was able to acquire enough currency to attempt a 6 Link of the IM. After sinking about 1K fusings into it, I was able to 6L my first chest piece ever. I can't tell you how excited I was. My sixth gem of choice was to re-insert Increased Critical Damage and it raised my damage significantly. The 6L: Fire Ball, Power Charge on Critical, Fire Penetration, Greater Multiple Projectiles, Increased Critical Damage, and Echo.

At level 82, it is still challenging to get constant critical hits initially. What helps a lot is to use Ice Spear linked with GMP, Faster Casting (or Echo), and Power Charge on Critical to help generate Power Charges. While using Critical Strike curse helps a lot, I've opted to focus on using Elemental Weakness as my offensive curse and Enfeeble as my defensive curse. Elemental Weakness synergizes more with party play and Enfeeble helps for your survivability. Not to mention, with Elemental Weakness you already have your Fireball linked to Fire Penetration so mobs are getting that much more serving of Fire Ball damage. Remember, decoy totem is extremely helpful as well as a distraction while you generate Power Charges.

One thing that might annoy you and/or your party members is the use of a GMP linked Fire Ball spell casting at the high rate with Echo. It may cause your computer to bog down a bit and your Frames Per Second may dip. Over all, it isn't as bad as a Cast on Critical build but it is up there slightly as far as annoying builds go.

My Current Gear



This is by far the most expensive character I've ever built, mainly due to the Void Battery used and the 6L IM. The only reason I decided to make this build was because I traded for a Void Battery after a Soul Taker dropped for me (not to mention I loved Nugi's concept builds and also tried his Weapon Summoner build to great success). Three days after the trade it was announced that Soul Taker was going to be a legacy item... The 6L IM wouldn't have been so expensive if there were sellers out there, but the only guy who had one didn't want to sell his to me and my only other option was to try and roll one myself. Overall, you don't need a Void Battery for the build to work as you can get a great wand with high spell damage and high crit. A 6L IM isn't necessary and getting/crafting a 5L IM isn't too bad of a challenge in a 4 month league.

Current Tree at Level 82:




After I pick up the Increased Critical Damage Nodes by the Shadow area, I think I'll be in good shape. Not to mention adding quality to Increased Critical Strike Damage gem provides significant damage boost. Quality on this gem gives you 2% increased critical damage!

End Game Tree:



Overall, the build is proving to be an enjoyable experience for me. Thanks for the build idea Nugi!

TL;DR
-Great concept for a build
-Takes a while to develop (as all critical builds)
-Echo changes the flavor of Nugi's original build
-Survivability is an issue for physical damage monsters: use Molten Shell, Enfeeble, Decoy Totem, and granite flasks.
-AA and PoF are great TOGETHER against reflect damage
-The Infernal Mantle is a great item that is under hyped

EDIT:
I forgot to give my thoughts on using Vaal Fireball. The idea behind it is nice and at higher levels (86 or so) it should absolutely deal some heavy damage. At lower levels however I don't think its as necessary and I don't like the idea of wasting a slot on a Vaal skill. The one thing I hated as well was the trap setup I had. The bosses would always miss it. I wonder if it would make more sense to self cast this skill than using a trap...

EDIT 2:
My damage output is getting to the point where reflect is becoming an issue even with AA and PoF. Those two gems aren't leveled to 20 yet, so I'm curious as to how it will help at that level. I decided to run with the critical weakness curse because it is superior to elemental weakness curse as far as damage goes. I cast critical weakness into a reflect mob to see the damage and... lets just say it was a bad idea. I didn't kill myself, but the damage burst was high.

BE CAREFUL NOT TO ATTACK REFLECT MOBS WITH CRITICAL WEAKNESS CURSE! This is especially true for parties because people tend to cast willy nilly w/ paying attention.

My question is this: Is it necessary to have both GMP and Chain linked to fireball for this build to be most effective???

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

My question is this: Is it necessary to have both GMP and Chain linked to fireball for this build to be most effective???

The build has an odd gem setup to begin with as it is very unusual to use chain on fireball. The reason: Concentrated effect is the biggest damage boost for fireball (it just doesn't show on the tooltip, just like fire penetration) but it won't work on piercing/chaining/forking fireballs. So for aoe + shotgunning fireball is linked just with LMP or GMP.
Issues with reflect? Use firetraps, you are a fire witch after all.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

My question is this: Is it necessary to have both GMP and Chain linked to fireball for this build to be most effective???

The build has an odd gem setup to begin with as it is very unusual to use chain on fireball. The reason: Concentrated effect is the biggest damage boost for fireball (it just doesn't show on the tooltip, just like fire penetration) but it won't work on piercing/chaining/forking fireballs. So for aoe + shotgunning fireball is linked just with LMP or GMP.
Issues with reflect? Use firetraps, you are a fire witch after all.

I'm in need of advice. I've a 6-L but not sure which gem to drop for chain. My current setup is the following: Fireball, Fire Pen, GMP, Power Charge on Crit, Increased Crit Damage, and Echo.

Which gem would you give up for chain? My damage output right now is simply too much, and I'd like to chain against mobs for faster clearing.

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Catchafire2000 wrote:

I'm in need of advice. I've a 6-L but not sure which gem to drop for chain. My current setup is the following: Fireball, Fire Pen, GMP, Power Charge on Crit, Increased Crit Damage, and Echo.

Which gem would you give up for chain? My damage output right now is simply too much, and I'd like to chain against mobs for faster clearing.

Like i said i wouldn't use chain in the first place.
BTW if you have trouble with reflect i would drop increased critical damage. Running HC with the risk of getting a damage spike reflected is risky. A HC build wants good average damage, not damage spikes (and block nodes instead of high crit multiplier). I personally think this ain't a good HC build (he ripped pretty early) but i may be wrong. I ain't the pope after all. Just get rid of the crit multiplier anyway.
If i were running a fire HC toon i'ld rather settle for a burning build that aims at a single target and lets unreflected elemental proliferation handle the rest of the mob. Something like FB - concentrated effect - elemental proliferation - fire penetration - chance to ignite. No LMP/GMP or echo. Just 1 big hit + proliferation. Instead of investing tons into crit i would take block nodes. But that would be a whole other build than this one (no three dragons either).

I'll try removing echo for chain and see how that works. I get what your saying for sure though, but that damage reduction from chain should help as well, and its still a lot of damage.

So, after debating the use of chain I finally decided to add it into the 6L fold. Let me just say that the mana cost multiplier makes the gem an instant no. At 200%, it simply does not allow me to sustain arctic armour and consistently spam my fireballs. The gem I replaced was echo, so if I did link chain and echo in the same setup it would not be doable at all!

So chain is out of the picture.

I also tried elemental proliferation and increased aoe, each separately as the 6th gem. EP was really nice for proliferating the shock. Seeing all those glowing shocked monsters was awesome. The increased AOE gem was ok, but I didn't really see the benefits like I did with the other gems.

While elemental proliferation was nice, it really isn't needed as you shock so much from the crit build.

I've decided that at my current level, shit is now real in terms of damage and I need to shelf increased critical damage for now. That is why I've decided to use LIFE LEECH as my 6th gem instead of the rest. It will give me the added survivability that I desperately need and will allow me to spam spam spam fireball from far off the screen w/out a care as to reflect or health regen.

To add:

It helps if you are using Lightning Warp as part of this setup. I've found that as a defensive part of the build, the lightning damage freezes mobs on occasion. With the high crit chance, it freezes a lot. So, I decided to add to Lightning Warp the following standard links: Faster Casting, Reduced Duration, and Elemental Proliferation. It helps a lot.

This build does not get enough praise. Its a pity that Nugy died early and wasn't able to show it off to people. The build absolutely doesn't care about reflect because AA in combination with PoF does such a great job at mitigating any reflect damage.