[1.3 Torment] Flamenado - Scold's Cycloner with VMS

Strand map (sorry, out of gorges)
Shipyard duo with extra explosions
I am level 74 in these videos.
The gear I used is linked at the bottom.
My skill tree at the time is here.

This build is nowhere near complete. My gear is far from perfect (I only have 50 cold res) and I am only level 74 and haven't had the chance to really explore any endgame options in the skill tree. I decided to post this guide anyway as this build relies on torment exclusive items and likely will be unusable (except by the rich/lucky) once this league ends. I am also playing very little poe recently and want to get this build out there so players more active than me might improve upon it before they lose the chance to.
part 2: This is not a hardcore build. Not only because scold's is torment only but because it will be very hard to avoid dying with this build. This isn't to say you will just die constantly, but there are certain situations that may kill you very rapidly. If you want to never die, ever, this isn't the build for you. If you wish to sacrifice some damage and movespeed (read: fun) you can turn this into a very tanky build, but it would be more like a flame dust devil or some other sad and slow whirlwind.

If you have ever used vaal molten shell against a fast attacking enemy (flamebearers, for example) you have a good idea of how this build plays.
Vaal molten shell does insane damage in instances where you take a lot of hits very rapidly, but until now there was no reliable way to accomplish this in every map.
This is where scold's bridle
comes into play. This item procs vaal molten shell's explosion when you deal damage to yourself by using a skill. While you can manage this quite effectively using incinerate, the goal of this build is to make it work with cyclone.

There are a couple problems with using cyclone to proc vaal molten shell that we need to overcome:
1. The mana cost is very high, we fix this by using at least 2 pieces of elreon's jewelry, getting reduced mana cost nodes, and linking cyclone to a reduced mana gem and no other multipliers. With all of these things we can bring the mana cost of cyclone down to 1 mana.
2. Base cyclone does not cast nearly as many times per second as a spell like incinerate. While attack speed increases the number of hits per cyclone, movement speed is what increases the number of cyclones/second. That's right, this is probably the only build besides lightning warp where your damage actually scales off of your movement speed. To achieve a high movement speed modifier, we use some dirt cheap uniques that are commonly vendored.

The other main issue is that vaal molten shell is, of course, a vaal skill which means it has a limited use. In order to ensure we can have vaal molten shell up at all times we do 2 things:
1. Take all the increased duration nodes on the skill tree.
2. Use shackles of the wretched to curse ourselves with a level 1 temporal chains.
I know you're thinking "Who wants to play with temporal chains on yourself all the time?" Well, this build gives you 99%+ increased movement speed so you will barely notice the level 1 temporal chains. You also won't be using any attacks or spells (besides cyclone) so the reduced cast/attack speed will not affect you.

* You need a scold's to play this build.
* You are playing a really terrible flameblast build before you get 64 souls, both in terms of damage and survivability. (the damage part could possibly be mitigated with better links (conc effect) but i haven't tried)
* Certain maps/mods that prevent you from maintaining vaal molten shell will be hell, same thing applies if you get lost in a map and need to backtrack.
* Anything that slows your movement speed will greatly reduce your dps. Chilled ground, temporal chains (high level one), or tar on death are all devastating to your damage output. Freezes or bear traps can also hamper your cycloning and thus your damage.
* You need to always be moving and killing things to keep vaal molten shell up. If you like a laid back playstyle where you have time to spam trade chat or talk to your guild you probably won't like this build.

* Clear speed is ridiculous, everything in your path will melt.
* Every item you need besides scold's is dirt cheap.
* Your dps scales off movement speed, you will be able to get around very quickly.
* Once you get vaal molten shell up once you should be able to maintain it for the rest of the map unless you navigate the map poorly and waste the duration running around.
* Probably the most hilarious/fun build I've played so far.
* You are a flaming tornado, or more accurately, a flamenado.

Level 65
This is the base tree you need to get the build working. This is achievable at level 65 (the same level you can wear scold's)
As you get more dex on gear you can remove the dex nodes.

From here you can do whatever you want, you'll definitely want to take more life nodes if you haven't already.
These trees below are untested and merely my suggestions, they are likely not optimal and you should use your own judgment before following any of them.

Path one: Life/Armour (recommended)
Because casting vaal molten shell has a good chance of stunning you (unless you have more than 5343 life) it can interrupt itself, meaning you will need to collect 64 more souls with flameblast. Unwavering stance will completely eliminate this annoyance for just a couple points, but so will immortal call. Whether it's worth it is up to you.

Path two: Iron Reflexes
This build takes iron reflexes to gain a little extra armour from your chestpiece. Vaal molten shell should give you more than enough but for the times when you don't have it up a little extra armour might save your life. It may seem like a lot of points but the dex nodes along the way are not really wasted as you would likely need to take dex nodes regardless.

Path three: Arctic Armour.
This is the “end game” tree for this build. By grabbing aura nodes, mana regen, and inner force you not only get additional movespeed from your existing haste, you also get the ability to run a quality arctic armour + enhance for even more movespeed. (Not to mention you can run purity of light as well and get an extra 1% resist from both that and purity of fire.) Please only take this path if you know what you are doing as I'm not going to cover all the different possible combinations of EB (which is optional), clarity (+blood magic possibly) and mana regen nodes that will sustain arctic armour. You will need to do the math to find the combination that works best for your items.
Note that boosting your mana regen means you have some leeway with your cyclone cost, which means you can do away with 1 or more pieces of your elreon's jewelry.

You have quite a bit of freedom with gems in this build but a couple things are mandatory:

shackles of the wretched (4L): cyclone (level 1) - reduced mana - curse on hit - temporal chains (level 1)
* While you could manually cast temporal chains (linked to increased duration) I find it really interrupts the feel of the build if you need to stop and curse every few seconds. I tried cwdt - temp chains but mobs can't damage you when they're dead and scold's doesn't deal you enough damage to proc even a level 1 cwdt. In the end, the most reliable way to maintain temporal chains on yourself is curse on hit.
* Make sure you leave your cyclone at level 1. Attack speed does nothing for you. The only reason to level cyclone is if you need to fine-tune its mana cost for some reason. You may also want to stop leveling reduced mana when cyclone costs 1 mana to avoid bringing its cost to 0.

4L+: vaal molten shell - increased aoe - life leech - increased duration
You want quality on increased aoe and increased duration if possible. The life leech combined with vaal pact will keep you at full health at all times, the only way you will die is if you get one shotted or you stop cycloning.
If you have more links you could add empower or iron will for damage, or enhance for more aoe and duration.
A very useful option to consider is blood magic. Blood magic means you no longer need to maintain a mana pool large enough to cast this (very expensive at level 20, around 150 mana) which will allow you to run an additional aura (purity of lightning or clarity=arctic armour)

3L (auras): haste - reduced mana - purity of fire

3-4L: flameblast - spell echo - life leech - conc effect
You will need to dedicate one item to your "soul harvesting spell." It needs to be enough to get you 64 kills so you can activate vaal molten shell the first time.
You can use any fire spell (incinerate, searing bond) but flame blast is nice because it benefits from your aoe nodes.
The life leech is simply so you can survive as the biggest threat to this build is white trash mobs before you get vaal molten shell up. You could drop it if you need to fit this into a 3L.

1L: immortal call (- increased duration)
You need to have immortal call somewhere on selfcast. This is because casting vaal molten shell will damage you enough to stun you which will interrupt vaal molten shell. If this happens it will make you want to just quit the map. To prevent this you need to cast immortal call before every cast of vaal molten shell.

Those are all the required links. Everything else is just whatever you want.
I recommend:
low level cwdt - enduring cry - increased aoe: this will help you maintain endurance charges
1. for the damage reduction.
2. so you can cast immortal call before you recast vaal molten shell.

high level cwdt - immortal call - increased duration: with all your increased skill duration and temporal chains you can be pretty much invulnerable to physical damage with this setup.

I have not tried it but a normal molten shell (cwdt or otherwise) might improve your survivability while flameblasting.

not recommended: any vaal skill
These will just soak up the souls you need for vaal molten shell.

Please ignore any of the gems linked in this gear, this is not the optimal setup.


Scolds is mandatory, don't worry about the spell damage roll too much, this build does insane damage regardless.


Gives a ton of life and the most flat movespeed you can get on a chest. The drawback of course is the -5 fire resist, which means you must use this with rise of the phoenix or saffell's frame. Rise of the phoenix is recommended as it will help more against reflect mobs (in fact, reflect won't be a problem as you also have vaal pact.)


Pretty much mandatory if you are using rat cage. Even if you aren't using rat cage (which you should, although bronn's lithe is an OK alternative) this is a great shield to counter reflect. Saffell's is also a good choice but you may not survive reflect without the extra 4%.


Necessary to maintain vaal molten shell. You could possibly play the build without these (and gain a lot of dps) but you'll really regret it when your vaal molten shell expires and you only have 20 souls saved up.

Jewelry:

You must use Elreon's jewelry. Look for the standard good rolls (life, resist) but also try to get something with +dex. You need a lot of dex and the tree will give you very little. As for the mana cost reduction you want a total of 12-14 which generally means 2 pieces of jewelry.


BIS thanks to the movespeed. The max life also helps a little.

This is also an option (Probably a much better option but I've yet to try it as I'm level 74.)

Boots:
Just go for generally solid boots (life, max res) but make sure you have a 30% movespeed roll, dex on boots can help as well. Also note that it is possible to corrupt boots to grant additional movespeed which will give you more dps.

Belt:
life and resists. A high armour roll can help your pre-molten shell survivability.

Amulet (extended)
If your other gear is near perfect and you have 2 elreon rings the best amulet you can use is a corrupted karui ward which grants an additional 5% movespeed. This is the last item you should consider upgrading as a rare amulet can also give you a majority of the dex you need. Note that corrupting a karui ward removes the additional dex which means you will need even more perfect rares to cover for the loss.

Flasks are one of the key pieces of this build. You will mainly want 2 things on your flasks: movement speed and removes bleeding.
Removes bleeding is very important as temporal chains will cause you to bleed for a much longer period of time and running at 99%+ increased movement speed will kill you very quickly if you are punctured.
Something like this is what I recommend:
1-2x instant life flask with removes bleeding - your life may jump around a lot (especially before you get vaal molten shell up) and two of these can help prevent death.
1-2x quicksilvers with extra charges and increased movespeed - this is your dps flask, you should always have quicksilvers active not only to greatly increase your damage but also to get around fast enough to maintain vaal molten shell.
1x granite flask with increased armor and extra charges - this is mainly for times when you don't have molten shell on.
optional: 1x ruby and/or topaz depending on the map or how much you care about dying (shrine, crematorium, etc.)

You could easily go with life: granite: quicksilver: ruby: topaz as long as you manage your flasks carefully. Temporal chains + your passive nodes mean that your flasks will last for a very, very long time.
If nothing else, the most important flask for you is a quicksilver with an increased movespeed roll.

Before you get 64 souls you must play very cautiously. You will be extremely squishy and if you run into a particularly nasty mob like an exile you should probably just run away and maybe come back for it later.
You can use your super long duration immortal call to make it easier to kill mobs until you get enough souls.
After you have 64 souls make sure you have at least one endurance charge then cast immortal call followed immediately by vaal molten shell. After that you can just destroy the rest of the map.
When you cyclone there are a few things you need to keep in mind.
1. Always have a quicksilver flask up. This not only adds to your dps, it also lets you get your 64 souls back sooner so you don't need to go back to flameblasting
2. Make sure you occasionally hit something with cyclone. You generally want to keep yourself cursed with temporal chains and to do that you need to hit something. There are also situations where you may want to avoid cursing yourself (temporal chains does cause you to lose a chunk of your damage so against a boss or if you already have 64 souls you should just cyclone around mobs to avoid cursing yourself)
3. It is very important that you "aim" cyclone correctly while using this build. You want to click as close to your character as possible so the cyclone travels the minimum distance, by doing this you will proc vaal molten shell many, many times per second and turn into a walking explosion.

A couple things to remember:
* Always have immortal call up when you cast vaal molten shell. Every time I cast vaal molten shell only to have it interrupt itself I just want to leave the map and uninstall.
* Navigate maps in a way that minimizes backtracking. Running around without killing anything is your worst enemy.
* It is generally better to recast vaal molten shell as soon as you get 64 souls rather than waiting for the old cast to expire. The exception to this is if you know you are about to hit an area with low mob density or you need to backtrack soon (or enter a master mission).
* Avoid anything that slows your movement speed (tar, chilled ground) as it will greatly decrease your damage and therefore your leech and survivability).

Flameblast everything. Grab all the fire damage nodes first.

* Fracture: the fractures don't give souls so killing them in the beginning can be a real pain, not to mention you may waste too much time killing them with vaal molten shell and need to go back to flameblasting.
* Chilled Ground: at least 300% more annoying than usual as it not only makes it harder for you to keep vaal molten shell up at all times, it also lowers your dps by a very large amount.
* Maps with low monster density or lots of running around (mountain ledge, for example, can actually be quite bad as it seems to have a low mob density and can include some very long tiles that will have you running for 5s while your vaal molten shell expires.)

oak/kill/oak

For this build to work correctly you must bring the mana cost of your cyclone down as close to 1 mana as possible. You CANNOT make it free. With a mana cost of 0 it will not damage you through scold's and will not proc molten shell. Any mana cost higher than 1-2 will be very hard to manage with your tiny mana pool and lack of mana regen.
You can modify the mana cost in several ways:
1. The level of your reduced mana gem linked to cyclone.
2. The quality of your reduced mana gem.
3. The flat amount from your elreon's jewelry.
4. The reduced mana cost nodes. (there are quite a few near the templar tree if you need more)
If you wish to calculate it the formula is something like:
cost of cyclone * (reduced mana gem multiplier - reduced mana gem quality bonus - passive nodes) - elreon's jewelry

Another very important thing to keep in mind is that you must always have enough mana free to cast vaal molten shell. While you don't need any specialized gear to achieve this you may need a fairly high level reduced mana or you may need to drop an aura until you level one. This can be avoided by using a blood magic gem if you have a 5l.

This is the gear I used in the videos linked at the top:

This is just here so you can see how well this build does even with this very sub-optimal gear. Please do not use these gem setups or flasks as a guide.