[3.21] Aegis Incinerate Elementalist - Tank with over 10mil Shaper DPS!

How much armor is realistically needed to make effective use of the shield?

Well, that's a little subjective on your definition of effective use, but my character last league with 10X (or less) of investment, had about 59K armor with just the flask. That means each hit I'm recovering 1180 of my 2833 ES, or 40%. Per hit. For normal mobs it means you are basically immune to hits since you recover more than they hit.

59K is good but not crazy hard to get, I didn't even get steelwood stance or the very expensive annointment Soul of Steel.

Remember armor also provides a lot of physical damage reduction, to the point I might even drop my chaos golem in this league's build, since you max out at 90% regardless of source of physical damage reduction.

I am still leveling, about level 68 now, and I was debating if I should swap to a totem build for the league's mechanic (run in circle while doing DPS). I had about 19C just from a few drops and ultimatums, and decided to plunge ahead and buy a Cerberus (10C) and a 30+ block rare shield.

I also slotted in petrified blood and enabled pain attunement, linking herald of ash with arrogance to reserve 50.1% of my life. This is not optimal because I should reserve 49% of life, leaving 51%, then using mana/life to drop to 50% to enable pain attunement, but arrogance gem still leveling so mana reservation a bit messed up. If I only reserve 49% of life then my leech does not go away since I never heal to the 51% max life. Leech not going away is a strong defensive.

For now since I don't have the shield/armor yet, I allocated zealot's oath for my ES. Feels very good to have vitality and golem regen recovery my ES quickly, and my cerberus leech keeps my life filled up.

Just finished the acts. Tried to do a ultimatum right before Kitava using incinerate instead of brand and it felt bad, much bang bang in a small area. I think it's because all I have is Cerberus and nothing else yet. I think the build can still work once I get all the gear set, so I get ES recovery, cast/release/move, etc.

I can just ignore ultimatums while doing white maps, but it's pretty lucrative which will help in gearing. Maybe I can swap to a totem build temporarily to map/level/ultimatum, or stick with brands. (yes elementalist totems, it works especially with hierophant losing the drop 2 totems at once in 3.13).

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Chubbypuppy wrote:

Well, that's a little subjective on your definition of effective use, but my character last league with 10X (or less) of investment, had about 59K armor with just the flask. That means each hit I'm recovering 1180 of my 2833 ES, or 40%. Per hit. For normal mobs it means you are basically immune to hits since you recover more than they hit.

59K is good but not crazy hard to get, I didn't even get steelwood stance or the very expensive annointment Soul of Steel.

Remember armor also provides a lot of physical damage reduction, to the point I might even drop my chaos golem in this league's build, since you max out at 90% regardless of source of physical damage reduction.

One thing to note is to not be fooled by the POB numbers for damage reduction.

They default to be based on small hits. Armor becomes significantly less effective the larger the hit. You can see this in effect when you go to the configuration screen and change the size of the hit damage in the box labeled Enemy Hit Damage.

This is one of the main reasons you will see high level builds drop a granite flask to use instead a Basalt flask. The Basalt flask gives the exact same protection whether the hit is large or small where as armor's effect is actually an inverse property to the size of the incoming hit.

I learned about this last league when I could not understand why every one was using a basalt instead of a granite flask in a certain build I was running. Because I kept the damage of the hits "small" by default in my config, I was thinking I was always getting great phys reduction with the granite flask.

Ah forgot about that, thanks for the good reminder.

is it possible to get a POB of the witch version, as i prefer playing witch over templar

I've decided to play the Elementalist version of the build. Very excited and glad that you're keeping the guide up to date!



*Edit*

I've decided the extra dmg is not worth it to loose aliment immunity especially with how rippy this league mechanic is. Templar is the way. I would rather take a few extra seconds and stay safe on my journey to level 100.

Here is my elementalist version of the build in 3.13 Ritual league.

https://pastebin.com/5mNt8SPU


Here is my current plan for 3.14, using petrified blood to achieve low life.

https://pastebin.com/tJPRttJj


I offer both just as references to you, definitely not top end though.

I plan my POBs to be more budget and level 90, since I'm an altoholic and never grinded past 92.

EDIT: If you go back a few pages other people have pasted their 3.13 final elementalist versions, higher end than my own

EDIT 2: You can get ailment immunity with the golem branch as elementalist

How is the combo (Infernal Cry and Incin) working in the league mechanic? I am playing another build while thinking of this one and wonder if there is enough time to get it off.

Kiting seems so good in the league mechanic this league but we need to plant our feet to be effective. Have you guys felt safe in the Ultimatums?