Incinerate

I was coincidentally working on a tanky caster character when this skill was announced, so I was stoked to find out that you guys were making a skill that sounded like it was tailor-made to that kind of character. But with a mid level Clarity and no access to Mana Leech, I can't even sustain a level 1 Incinerate that does pitiful damage at level 30. And while my character is very durable, he isn't stun immune. So this has been more of a disappointment than I could have imagined and now I suddenly have no desire to play that character anymore. So chalk up yet another abandoned character.

If you're going to make a skill that requires either Eldritch Battery or Mana Leech, maybe consider knocking the level requirement up to around Mana Leech's requirements. Or better yet, I'd like nothing more than to see Mana Leech's initial level requirement reduced so that we can get it earlier. And while you're at it, consider turning it into a white gem and then giving all classes access to it through quest rewards.

But back on topic with Incincerate. If the spell wasn't bad enough with its mana cost, the damage stage resets every time you get stunned. So amongst all of the complaints about health being required, you made a spell that pigeonholes players into either taking massive amounts of health nodes, wearing the Eye of Chayula, or taking Unwavering Stance.

I would have expected this skill to be good for the Duelist, since he now has some good defensive and good mana nodes right out of the gate. I had Mana Floes by level 10 when I equipped incinerate and the skill still burns through my mana like it's nothing. So I deleted that character before I wasted any more time.

Edit: And in regards to multiple hit spells like this being ineffective for Burning damage, it seems like the obvious solution would be to make it so Burning can have multiple stacks. So fast hitting spells would get many stacks that do small amounts of damage and burst damage spells would get a small number of stacks that do larger amounts of damage. I think Burning damage always lasts 4 seconds as it is (if it exceeds the minimum threshold), so it's already in a good spot for that kind of mechanic.

No need to reinvent the wheel here, just look at D3 skills and 'feel inspired' so to say.

I'm pretty sure no one in their right mind will want to stand close to the enemies.

First I was thinking of a skill like conflagration, where large pulsing ball of fire would consume the targeted area, but then I realized it'd be too close to the firestorm.

Then came to mind the more concentrated beam with similar qualities. Stand still, but reach farther with less spread.

Have not found it yet but it sounds like a good thing to use via a skill totem while having a skelleton totem up and let Incinerate just burn and do more and more damage over time while skells absorb the attacks.

Is the drop location a secret or what, what is the level req for this gem?

Level 28 hardcore fire witch reporting in.

Let me start by stating my biases: I was really stoked for this skill to be released, so I made a simple fire witch build to test it with ahead of time, and also sped a shadow to Brutus using only Fire Trap and Poison Arrow so I could get Incinerate as a quest reward. I also love the idea of the blue flames, so I bought the alternate blue spell effect already.

My actual experience with and opinion of the spell is sort of ambivalent at this point. I agree that the mana cost can be quite high and that the lack of crits is initially confusing. However, I understand GGG's reasoning for the lack of crits here, and Ignite isn't worth worrying about to me anyway.

As for DPS and risk vs reward trade off, I think the spell is in a pretty good place right now. I might be a little happier with slightly higher initial damage and a less dramatic ramp up, but it wouldn't be a huge deal.

Range is limited, but I've noticed that increasing projectile speed makes a big difference. I've linked it to a Faster Projectiles gem and bought a wand with +22% projectile speed, so that's making a big difference. I'm also planning to add a Faster Casting support as soon as I hit 31, which should help the ramp-up happen a lot quicker.

Overall, Incinerate is not as good as I was hoping, but it's usable, so that's ok. I think the main reason the community is so pissed off about it is that Incinerate doesn't follow the crowd or play like other skills we've had so far. You can't just throw Lesser or Greater Multiple Projectiles on it and expect to auto-win. You can't build the same sort of softcore glass cannon build you do with Lightning Arrow or Freezing Pulse and expect Incinerate to perform the same way. A good Incinerate build will look *different*, and that's a good thing.

My plan, if I ever get around to a 5 or 6-link Incinerate is to do Faster Projectiles, Faster Casting, Blind, and perhaps Fire Penetration, Knockback, Added Cold Damage, and/or Culling Strike. It's also nice to know that with a non-criting spell, I can fully ignore Crit Chance, Crit Multiplier, and Ignite/Freeze/Shock nodes in favor of more HP, Energy Shield, Cast Speed, Damage, and Mana. Oh, and I might take Eldritch Battery to do more auras... haven't decided about that one yet.

I thought about a dual dagger fire crit shadow with this skill in mind (wirling blades clos and crit the hell out of anything) but BUT this spell cannot crit dmnd it ;D

otherwise i can apsolutly understand why this spell cannot crit ;D it would be a low crit chance but wehn you get the chances up it would permacrit+ all3 status alligthment all the time.

Gem is now level 11. It'll probably be usable after I run another 10 maps or so.

I said that in the patch announcement thread, and it turns out that my worries were justified -.-''

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I started a fire caster in the last days and i completely agree that we needed another fire damaging skill.
But if the idea behind of this Incinerate is to make it substantially different to Flame Totem, are you really sure that imposing to stand still is the right choice? I mean, if people have to stay in place and spam it, then you are just turning people themself into Flame Totems... >_>

where am i wrong?

where's the masterplan behind this?
linking an added chaos support will make the chaos dmg ramp up per cast, synergizing well since there are few ways of increasing chaos dmg support further?
But there's a 20%dmg effectiveness -.-

Incinerate + iron will + added chaos + mana leech on a strenght build maybe will reach good damage at the final stage. you can multiple projectile it. But hey, it's a flame totem v2.0 using ppl as totem and requiring a 4L/5L... available from quest at lvl10...

To be honest, isn't even original since flame-spitting-dogs in docks were doing the same thing since ages :(

Baseline Incinerate (lvl 1, no supports) feels pretty terrible against weaker enemies. Standing still in a group gets you killed quick, and against 1 weak enemy there are better choices to kill it quickly.

It does, however, work wonders against single tougher enemies, like rares. Might be good against certain bosses as well, buuut... I died with the witch I made to test it out so IDK.

(I really need to just give up on witch... I'm lucky to get to Brutus with that class, nevermind making any kind of reasonable progress...)

Mana cost was high, but not unsustainable. I can see it quickly getting out of hand with support gems though.

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nynyny wrote:

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DarkNRG wrote:

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rogueyoshi wrote:

does nobody see the potential i see with this skill? to me, it looks like another case of closed beta lightning arrow (hint). i'm not going to spoil any surprises completely, so think outside the box for a little...

Oh some of us see it I assure you. But i am to busy playing with dual shockwave totems to test this out, in the next week or so I am certain you will see build of the week submissions for it.

The funny thing about the "build of the week" always was that not a single one is viable in end game maps, and it would be the same here.

You might want to rethink that statement sir it's completely erroneous.

My biggest concern with the introduction of this spell is how it fixes nothing at all. It's like the designer had no plan and no idea what the game needs or already has.

Fire already had:

- A flamethrower-type skill (Flame Totem)

- A damage over time spell with very fast but small attacks (Firestorm)

- Spells that favor close-range combat (Molten Shell, Righteous Fire)

- A spell that can 'shotgun' with LMP/GMP (Fireball)

Fire needs:

- A main nuke that can compete with Freezing Pulse and Spark

- Better use of the Ignite mechanic

- Better range, speed and mobility -- most fire spells are short-range, ground targeted, or otherwise not really usable at very long range; even Fireball is the slowest projectile spell in the game.

It just seems to me that Incinerate does most of the same stuff that existing fire spells did, and addresses none of what the fire element lacked. It's like the ultimate failure. It does exactly what wasn't needed and does none of what was needed.