[3.2] Scionic Flametank "16k ES ed." (ES-CI-ZO-GR, SR-CWC-FS, extensive guide)

Speaking of gem quality, what are your recommendations for which gems are the most useful to improve with GCP. I'm currently putting all my gcp drops into incinerate, which adds an ungodly amount of projectile speed.

What other gems do you recommend improving with gcp? Any of the support gems seem decent, but which of them gives us most bang per gpc? I'd appreciate your insight.

@AedwyneofFolkstone

With respect to importance of quality.


1. Incinerate. q20 gives +40% projectile speed.

This is - by far - the most important quality gem. Nothing else comes anywhere near close to the benefits provided by Incinerate quality.

Efficient use of Incinerate is all about increasing the area covered; the larger the area, the more enemies you can be flaming at one time, and the quicker you clear areas. Also, the difference it makes to gameplay of having Incinerate reaching far enough to hit ranged enemies compared to not reaching them is huge. The less you have to move in combat, the better. Which is why I strongly recommend people aim for 60-70% projectile speed or more. It isn't necessary for Incinerate to work well - it is just that it works so much better when it is long-range.


2. Mana Leech. q20 gives +10% mana leeched/second.

This one is either second-most important or least important depending on circumstances. If you are having trouble meeting the steep mana requirements, it is almost as important as Incinerate, if not, not. L20q20gives 10/(100+38) = 7.2% more mana per second than l20q0.


3&4. Faster Casting and Lesser Multiple Projectiles. q20 gives +10% increased cast speed.

I'm sure I wrote somewhere that cast speed was important for Incinerate. If I didn't, well, it is. It is much easier to stack spell damage than it is to stack cast speed, and they are multiplicative factors contributing to your damageoutput so long as you can afford the mana cost of more casting, so getting an extra 10% cast speed from a gem in the link is awesome. This is worth around 2.5 skill points.


5&6. Spell Echo and Fire Penetration. q20 gives 10% increased spell and fire damage respectively.

Sure, 10% increased damage is nice, but that's all it is. Truly this is the least important quality effect in general, worth around 1 skill point.

----

Generally I advise trying to pick up mid-range quality gems by trading (usually cheap in standard), and then GCP'ing them to 20 in the order listed as and when surplus GCPs are available, but all of the gems except Incinerate work perfectly fine leveling to l20 and then rolling over to l1q20 for those with restricted budgets or unavailability of quality gems through trade. Sure, it'll temporarily lower damageoutput, but not by all that much and not for that long.

The only one that might be slightly painful in that regard is the Mana Leech, since you go from +38% to +10% extra mana leeched/s and only catch up at level 15.

But GCP'ing Incinerate is darn near mandatory, because rolling it over and releveling it with lower damageoutput has got to be excruciatingly painful. Of course, starting from a q10-13 base (or whatever one can buy for cheap) makes this much easier.

Out of curiosity, have you considered the Shield Block/Solidity nodes in the Marauder area? It nets you 25% increased shield defenses (probably equivalent to ~8% ES from a jewel) and 5% block.

"

procproc wrote:

Out of curiosity, have you considered the Shield Block/Solidity nodes in the Marauder area? It nets you 25% increased shield defenses (probably equivalent to ~8% ES from a jewel) and 5% block.

I have considered it, and while it sounds like an attractive idea in theory, it is a terrible idea in practice.

As a general rule, unless the ES shield is of a much higher quality than the rest of the gear, the ES shield talents are a trap.

My shield is a good one with 441 ES. But the rest of my gear is also pretty good. That means that for two talent points, I gain 110.25 ES and 5% block. (And 110.25 armour, but I'm ignoring that for simplicity's sake).

With my current gear 1% extra ES is worth around 27.5 ES, so far from the 8% you are guessing at, the ES is worth ~4% ES.

For the same two talent points I could have gotten 12% ES (~330 ES) if I were into spending extra points on 6% ES nodes (I am not. Go to Dy'Ness for that sort of extravagant tanking. :p)

So the question is in my case: Is 5% extra block worth on top of the 24% I already have (thus bringing hits down from 76% to 71%), which will only help against physical attacks, worth the ~220 ES and 28.6 ES/s difference? Even more, is it worth doing this rather than spending the skill points on pathing towards jewels that can give me twice the 4% MaxES of the shield nodes as well as damage increases?

And the answer is, no, it isn't. If I want a stronger tank, I should pick 6% ES nodes, if I want a more balanced tank/damagedealer, I should hunt jewel nodes.

Compounding it by spending yet another skill point to end up spending 3 points for 50% ES and 6% block is an even worse suggestions; Surplus skill points are few and far between when the core commands 96 points and there are easy pickings to be had for at least the next 15-20 points. :)

What about using Consuming Dark. And swap FirePen. for empower ?

Reporting back after my first RIP in tempest league at lvl 86 with this build.

I am now back with the same build and surpassed my ripped char, sitting at lvl 90 currently.

Current stats are:
15.400ES
2k ES regen per sec
Auras: AA, clarity, discipline
All resists are overcapped so I can run ele weakness maps.

So far the only boss that posed a problem that forced med to kite was Orchard 75 boss with dmg mods (without dmg mods I could facetank him from range).


Tempest league modifications:
Running added cold dmg mods on maps gets annoying as CI so I ended up going for Auxium belt (costs like 5c on tempest league).

I took enduring cry bandit reward so that I can constantly run around with 4 end charges. I am not running IC currently. I wanted to minimize the big physical hits, 4 end charges and AA helps achieve that. I might possibly take the 2% regen per end charge and another end charge from passive tree later.

I found taking unwavering stance quite useful. To name one example, Orchard map boss with dmg mods (yeah im crazy doing that in hc lol) can quickly hit you for 6k es from afar, and he can do that quite often. I once ate two in a row due to being stunned from the first hit thereby taking the second hit, i think i lost 11k total ES after the two consecutive hits.

Future aims:
Craft a GG elreon ring, perhaps being able to swap out clarity for vitality, although for 40% less regen maps I will need clarity anyways. Cost for this will probably be around 4 exalts.

Just post here if you have any HC related questions to this build.

So much written here and there is not a video about your build? This is strange...

One video would be enough for the public.

Sorry, I'm just curious like many others here.

"

Pi2rEpsilon wrote:

The Energy From Within jewel provides a handy way of boosting ES by turning 100% of life% increases into ES% increases within its radius. I highly recommend using it in two slots: by Quick Recovery for +14% (total 26% with 12% jewel) and by Melding, if you have taken Melding, that is, for +15 % (total 27% with 12% jewels) and at high levels you should definitely do this.

If you want to stack ES even higher, using one in the jewel slot to the immediate right of Combat Stamina will provide +5% (total 17% with 12% jewel).

I Have two questions about this build. There are two others nice places for Energy from within jewels:

1- Near Devotion (+32% with a perf. jewel instead of 27% with Melding)
2- Between Barbarism and Juggernaut (+38% with a perf. jewel instead of 26% with Combat Stamina). Taking both trees cost 3+4 points

Have you considered of take these instead of yours?

would fire storm work well for this build? I got to level 80 and died (no clue how, just saw my shield drain super fast then RIP on a boss in a map with "many totems" lol).

I'm thinking if I have to stand still less, maybe by using firestorm it may increase my ability to survive. If using firestorm, what links would be good to use?

Firestorm
Mana Leach
spell echo
faster casting
fire penetration
conc effect?

any other skills that may be ok to use that won't make me face tank bosses as much? wasn't sure if firestorm would have giant mana issues

@neonarr

There are three reasons that I do not use a Consuming Dark dagger.

1) It has low spell damage. This is not an insurmountable issue, but the build does get a lot of its spell damage from the weapon.
2) It does not have projectile speed, and I love using a long-range Incinerate. This is personal preference.
3) It is expensive and I don't have one.

If you've got one, try it out and tell me your experiences.



@Avantor

Good to hear you are still going strong!



@Andrew676

The reason that there are no videos is that a) I'm used to delivering information in writing rather than videos, and b) I can't be bothered.

That might change some day - or it might not.



@automater

Regarding the other Energy From Within locations, yes, I have considered those two slots; They are addressed on page 11. In short.

1) Devotion vs Melding is not "32% vs 27%".

Devotion ES is "32% ES + 3% AuraEffect + 40 STR for 6 skill points" or "26% ES + 3% AuraEffect + 40 STR for 5 skill points".

And it has to compete with picking individual nodes that are 6% ES each. Since 1% AuraEffect is worth much, much, less than 1% ES, this is a bad deal up front, made even worse by requiring a significant skill point investment to not be a complete waste.

Melding, on the other hand, gives you "52% ES for 5 skill points".

2) Barbarism/Juggernaut - same deal. 32% ES + frills for 7 skill points (or 40% ES and slightly more frills for 9 skill points) is NOT a good deal with respect to ES.

These are slightly better than Devotion because the frills you get (increased max fire res, a bit of fire res, and extra armour) are more useful than the extra strength from Devotion, but they don't come anywhere close to being as useful as stock 6% ES nodes for ES purposes.

And given that I've done my level best NOT to spend skill points on 6% ES nodes, because I think I've quite enough ES already and would rather invest in damage, they just don't seem attractive to me.

That said, somebody playing HC and picking up Unwavering Stance anyway (like I also do in my Atziri setup) can get those 32% ES + frills at a reduced cost of 6 points due to passing by the Juggernaut cluster. It still doesn't make this attractive for ES purposes, but it is closer and if the person is stacking up on ES% nodes on general principles, it might make sense to trade the lower ES%/node when compared with taking 6% nodes due to the frills.



@lavaroach

If you want to use Firestorm, I recommend you take a look at Dy'Ness excellent tank build, which was what I based this on originally, as Dy'Ness uses Firestorm. The builds have diverged somewhat, but they are still very much alike as the core 11.1% regeneration build before stacking up on extra ES% or damage% are the same.

That being said, if I were to turn my build into Firestorm, it would be trivial:

1. Pick up the Potency of Will cluster for +45% duration. (Increased Duration is effectively a MORE factor on the total damage you deal with Firestorm against anything that survives for the entire duration).

2. Firestorm - Mana Leech - Spell Echo - Fire Penetration + 2 out of (Faster Casting, Increased AOE, Increased Duration, highlevel Empower, Concentrated Effect).

Most likely Concentrated Effect + Increased Duration, as that it what gives maximum damage against anything tough (i.e. requires multiple stacked Firestorms during a longer period to kill off; even with a 45% from the Potency of Will cluster, the Inc. Duration is much better than Faster Casting/Empower for total damage purposes), though if I played PvP, which I do not, Concentrated Effect + Empower would be preferable, as while it makes each Firestorm do less damage during its lifetime (due to dropping a lot fewer balls), it does more damage per ball.

...but it would really have to depend on the feel; Faster Casting does make Firestorm feel a lot more responsive when you've already linked Spell Echo, so perhaps somebody who preferred mobility might want that one.