[3.13] GOLEMENTALIST (Flame Golems Elementalist) Build (Easy & Safe for everyone!) +Video guide!

Fireball would be interesting. I am all for exploring that type of setup to mix it up a bit and contribute to the "fight". ;)

Yes, I haven't swapped that out since zealotry. The helm was my primary concern and after about 50 runs trying to get the flame golem increased I settled for the steelskin, which adds more value for me. So a little burned out running lab.

The theory crafting between the two of you is extremely interesting. All these micro adjustments to smooth out play styles and characters is fun to read.

That being said, I must have missed something in regards to using fireball in a build with EE.. how does that work?

I think I took my character pretty close to the limits for how I play this game. Shaper, guardians and red elder, while a little slower than I'd like, were smooth and easy. Uber elder was a little more tedious (died once my first try, then deathless after that), but still okay.

Blight was my biggest issue, and because I play the league specifically for the new content, I decided to change up my build from Flame Golems to Ignite Discharge (with up to 3.5mil ignite shaper DPS, if I can find the right gloves).

Now Blight encounters are really easy, but the change over of play style is hard to get use to, flame golems was definitely comfortable to play.

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Hohenheim_ wrote:

I must have missed something in regards to using fireball in a build with EE.. how does that work?

It doesn't. If you want to play a combination of golementalist and spell caster then EE will have to go obviously. The idea is to have 10 golems and a powerful spell (which will receive a quite significant boost from ascendancy and golem buffs) to be cast by the player. Remains to be seen whether that spell damage can outweigh the loss of EE for the golems or not. EE can be replaced with EO or maybe add an Ice Golem to the combo for 208% incr. crit chance.

Pledge of Hands + Fireball could be an interesting way to napalm. I dont intend to run such experiments until reaching 100. All should pair well with flame g's and further focus on ignite dmg. Would run flame g's out of pledge of hands and 6 link fireball out of body armor. Looking at my existing setup, i could do this with relative ease, in fact i picked up POH and might run some preliminary tests.


Update: started to test this out a bit but need to swap in some gems and reconfig ascendancy skills. Results are not conclusive to say the least. Feels like same dmg with a little more work. Going to have to run some tougher bosses to get a feel for actual dps.


Update 2: after getting most the gems and ascendancy adjusted the way i would like i ran red elder and minotaur and im doing far less dmg overall with POH on the flame g's and fireball 6 link. I was somewhat shocked by this and honestly not certain the reason as i expected much more out of POH despite fewer golems. I ran 4-1-1 on the golems. In either case flipping back as any other reasonable adjustments will not yield better clear speed or single target.

By far worse, times on elder and Minotaur were more than double. Spell echo 30 does nothing for flame g, in fact they appeared to be casting at a slower rate.

Well, PoH should be six-linked to be efficient.

And with your setup you lose way to many golems and thus buff effect. Four golems equals 22% increased cast speed and 42% increased damage for your support spell. Not to mention the 10% less physical damage reduction.

My thinking was rather having 10 or even 11 golems for maximum golem buff effect, where the flame golems will be in an elder-base helmet for maximum golem damage. On an elder based helmet after all the following is possible:

+3 to Level of Socketed Minion Gems

(23–25)% increased Area Damage
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Concentrated Effect

Minions deal (23–25)% increased Damage
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Minion Damage

(17–20)% increased Ignite Duration on Enemies
Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Immolate

Socketed Gems deal 30% more Elemental Damage

... making it a pseudo 9-link setup. Well, one can but dream. ;)

For starters, I might do some tests with keeping the Flame Golems in body armour and use pseudo 6-link Fire Ball or Firestorm in:



We know, the Necromancer-version of this build really shines with support from Spectres in an elder helmet (Tuko Vanguards, Solar Guardians, or some such beasts) and an Animated Guardian, however, this isn't really an option for Elementalists because we will have aawful trouble keeping the Spectres and AG alive. But we can use a strong self-cast spell instead.

I know enough from POH to know that it isn't delivering anything of value vs my previous setup. The dmg was worse than a 5-1-1 setup so there isn't a need for me to venture further down that rabbit hole. It actually feels somewhat buggy and inconsistent.

Overall, I didn't mind the play style, a little more involved in the battle and found myself spamming fireball when I was clearly safe, otherwise the application was about as frequent as my SB setup.

There is potential with fireball in helm as you describe, you are more or less only swapping out your EE application and so then it's going to be an interesting race, personally not sure it will deliver much more than the 50% of EE but is more involved playstyle

The new Pledge of Hand currently delivers the highest possible Flame Golem damage, except maybe some +5 staff which would set you back a gazillion ex. (or the imagined "9-link elder helmet" which is probably rarer than pixie dust ;)

A staff, however, isn't eaxctly helpful since we depend on golem buff effect rather than pimping our support spell in the skill tree. So it really comes down to having as many golems as possible.

Like i said, i was quite surprised by the results, it was lower than any setup i have had recently, so unless there is a bug at play, my findings didnt prove that to be true. I also didnt have EE since i was doing fireball, but combustion was up always, so unless fireball with GMP was somehow throwing off their targeting, i dont have a good explanation. It was just FF that dropped but the more dmg multipliers were up given no primordial chain. Minotaur was close to 2 minutes and i dont recall a time when i have had that low dps even with only 4 flame g's up.

My defenses in general were way down. I did enjoy lighting up monsters off screen with fireball, often times the were already dead by the time i hit the next screen.

Well, we would likely have to grab Elemental Overload instead of EE. Sure, we could add an Ice Golem for big time crit chance buff but we still wouldn't have much in terms of crit multi so I'd rather not.