[3.19] The Orbital Striker Occultist - Hexblast Chaos Ignites leaguestarter to endgame

I've tried using anomalous flammability as our self-cast curse instead of enfeeble/temp chains for the extra doom (+20 with ashes and enhance), but somehow it lowers the DPS by a lot.

I have trouble understanding that. Is it because of the "Chaos Damage with Hits is Resisted by lowest Resistance instead" line, which decreases our hit damage, which then results in smaller ignites?

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ThundraBoy666 wrote:

I've tried using anomalous flammability as our self-cast curse instead of enfeeble/temp chains for the extra doom (+20 with ashes and enhance), but somehow it lowers the DPS by a lot.

I have trouble understanding that. Is it because of the "Chaos Damage with Hits is Resisted by lowest Resistance instead" line, which decreases our hit damage, which then results in smaller ignites?

I have trouble understanding it too. Seems like a PoB technicality, replacing temporal chains self cast (but keeping it to increase ignite duration from onhiot gloves too) with a max doom curse sounds like a straight upgrade. Not sure here, tbh, I think using anomalous flamability is a decent idea. A bit of a shame that no curse actually doing something have the alt quality for maximum doom, but oh well.

Sorry for the delay answering, I've been a bit bummed off by the game lately. Endgame crafting just feels terrible, I think I'll be off until this is changed.

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Darkxellmc wrote:

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ThundraBoy666 wrote:

I've tried using anomalous flammability as our self-cast curse instead of enfeeble/temp chains for the extra doom (+20 with ashes and enhance), but somehow it lowers the DPS by a lot.

I have trouble understanding that. Is it because of the "Chaos Damage with Hits is Resisted by lowest Resistance instead" line, which decreases our hit damage, which then results in smaller ignites?

I have trouble understanding it too. Seems like a PoB technicality, replacing temporal chains self cast (but keeping it to increase ignite duration from onhiot gloves too) with a max doom curse sounds like a straight upgrade. Not sure here, tbh, I think using anomalous flamability is a decent idea. A bit of a shame that no curse actually doing something have the alt quality for maximum doom, but oh well.

Sorry for the delay answering, I've been a bit bummed off by the game lately. Endgame crafting just feels terrible, I think I'll be off until this is changed.

Endgame crafting is hard. I had to self-craft my wands. Which are now super expensive. And no one sells fire/chaos hyrbid wands. Just super chaos loaded.

As for the flammability; It's because when the ignite is converted [which is before any curse affect calculation] the debuff can no longer benefit it.
So think of your Ignite being calcuated as ChaosGnite.
It debuffs enemies with -Fire Rez; which with the ring, we no longer need. Because as I understand it, the hits with flat fire dmg are mainly for scaling the chaos dmg and giving an ability to ignite.

Feel free to correct.

Sorry for asking this here, but I'm not very good at trade or crafting; how would y'all recommend earning enough Chaoses for the Blackflame ring? It seems like a pretty important part of the build but it's still selling for 100c around now. Is that doable while leveling?

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ThundraBoy666 wrote:

I've tried using anomalous flammability as our self-cast curse instead of enfeeble/temp chains for the extra doom (+20 with ashes and enhance), but somehow it lowers the DPS by a lot.

I have trouble understanding that. Is it because of the "Chaos Damage with Hits is Resisted by lowest Resistance instead" line, which decreases our hit damage, which then results in smaller ignites?

Have you update doom value inside POB settings?

BTW, ty for idea.
For now I use 3 curses glove(temp, vuln, enfeeble), blashemy despair and flammability for doom(I don't care about buffs, but doom could persist, even if hex could be replaced with another, right?)

Do you use Hexblast as soon as you're 28 or do you swap at a later stage?

> The Doom mechanic has been removed, to simplify the Hex system. Anything related to Doom has been reworked so that it's comparable to before.

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pkirill wrote:

> The Doom mechanic has been removed, to simplify the Hex system. Anything related to Doom has been reworked so that it's comparable to before.

Yep, honestly this is imo a good change.
This build had very difficult micro to reach maximum damage output (wither range, doomsday timing, recursing with despair...), which often means actual damage was much lower. Being able to just curse with despair and have your singletarget be hexblast->Curse without worrying with the timming between doomsday and your ignite expiring (0.3 seconds on my minmaxed char) will help immensely.

The buff to enfeeble (wtf?) is going to be massive, I think running a blasphemy enfeeble will now be invaluable QoL in the late game. Curious to see numbers, but I have high hopes.

GGG said they would remove the doom part on Hexblast, and buff the damage if a curse is removed to compensate. You could get this damage quite high with doom passives and an essence mod on amulets, but that was conflicting with ashes of the stars and point starvation on the tree, so this build didn't do it. We had 40 doom (which was a single passive), I expect the rebalance to be a sklight nerf at worst and a slight buff at best. The current multiplier is 120% more, fyi.

TL/DR: good change imo. Smoother playstyle for curse builds in general, this one included. Doesn't seem to change balancing much.

I did some highly assumed number crunching based on your 200ex pob. Overall it seems we gain damage, even with the extremely underwhelming Doomsday replacement.

Assumptions:

- Hexblast gets the same treatment as impending doom support, double the base damage and lose the more scaling from Doom.
- Malediction is available at the same power level on the tree for 1-2 points.

I went on the pob and raised hexblast level to 30 which in more or less double base damage. I added % inc curse effect to make curses apply at maximum value against Pinnacle Bosses. The damage is marginally better than before.

I'm probably missing some stuff, which we will know for sure when patch notes are out and PoB gets updated, but it overall it doesn't compute or feel like a nerf. Mechanically definitely better and less clunky and probably better numbers wise as well.

After these thoughts I came here to check for your feedback and it seems you think similarly as well. Quite happy with how it's turning out, now only if Hex Master keystone wasn't so uninteresting. I also hope they don't mechanically butcher Hexblast a-la Burning Arrow.

Finally a small question. Since implicits got nerfed. Vixen's entrapment replace hands of the high templar to squeeze out some % of reduced action speed on bosses? Gain some passive points too by skipping whispers of doom.

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kwstas778 wrote:

After these thoughts I came here to check for your feedback and it seems you think similarly as well. Quite happy with how it's turning out, now only if Hex Master keystone wasn't so uninteresting. I also hope they don't mechanically butcher Hexblast a-la Burning Arrow.

Finally a small question. Since implicits got nerfed. Vixen's entrapment replace hands of the high templar to squeeze out some % of reduced action speed on bosses? Gain some passive points too by skipping whispers of doom.

I don't think hex master is worth taking for this, it looks like a keystone for people who can't invest inhexes at all. Overall I'm quite happy too, looks like damage is similar but more reliable.

Vixen isn't something I like using much, currently. I think the nerf to temp chains effect on hit (assuming you run enfeeble blasphemy + self cast despair) is marginal, and it's still worth to automate it. It only really had a use on bosses (trash just died on hit, temp chain does very little to corpses), and it's now better at 0% against bosses than a 60% curse effect one from before.
I like on hit because it makes sure we always detonate despair, to have the longer ignites always active. High templar also just has very good stats overall, with a large amount of life, potential +1 frenzy charge or cast speed, and +1 gems for better auras and enlighten.
However, a rare pair is now slightly better than before comparatively, I just can't be bothered crafting endgame stuff if I can get a unique that's amost as good.