Searing Bond

There should be more supports that work with this gem

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PhyniX5 wrote:

There should be more supports that work with this gem

True, there aren't all that many options. But you can still fill a 6L Searing Touch for Searing Bond: SB, IBD, Empower, Remote Mine, Trap, Reduced Duration level 1 (in conjunction with Sunblast for instant trap pops). (Before I had these gems in place, I used Minion and Totem Resist Gem or Item Rarity.)

My Nemesis totem guy is level 78 right now and he's got 15.4k dps on the SB tooltip with most gems around 16 or 17, so room to grow (I don't use an Empower, though if I had a 6-L ST, I would). I use that 5-L setup in conjunction with a pair of Lightning Warp totems (extra totems from Soul Mantle and Ancestral Bond) that deliver the SB beam and an EE debuff around the battlefield so I can just hang in the back and spam Molten Armor, whatever curse, or anti-curse pots (stupid Soul Mantle... probably will drop this eventually... or die from it). It takes a second to lay down the totems, but once they're up, they generally are going to be doing (in my experience) excellent damage and with heat-seeking capabilities, auto-debuff, and little personal danger. (Not to oversell the build though... the one second setup for each fight sucks.)

In case anyone doubts Remote Mine and Trap are worth trying to work in, when my SB was about 7k dps (with just IBD linked and in a ST), I added Remote Mine (which is easier to deal with than Trap) and that alone jumped dps to 10k. When I added Trap, my dps jumped to 13k. And I think those were baby gems, so you can probably expect adding both RM and Trap to double your dps, as a very loose estimate.


edit -- Died at level 83 to Temple Piety (I had a bad feeling that I shouldn't have even been there, but still, possible desynch?). Anyway, YOLO! Searing Bond dps topped out at 17.3k, and around level 18/19 gems. Could have gotten it much higher, but I spent my final levels going for mana regen nodes for arctic armor... which didn't help vs. Piety anyway. I think I'll go fully yolo next league with a similar build and moar deeps. Might leave out the Soul Mantle though and just be content with one LW totem. OR... go sacrifice some dps to try to make the totem build within that AA/EB/MoM/IR/Discipline/Grace impregnable-defense framework.

Imo the searing bond approach needs to change when high lvl maps are in question, you'd need at least Soul mantle so you can have an additional distraction totem so your Bond totems can survive little more(you need 3 totems because searing bond wil get crushed pretty fast regardless of distraction totem, he's there just to give you enough time to cast new Bond totems)

Some people use Lightning warp cause the totem jumps around and causes monsters to jump around, decoy totem is also good

You need a 5L fire trap instead of a 5L Searing bond for higher lvl maps cause it's more reliable damage, just utilize the burning damage from the trap by linking it to Chance to ignite, ele prolif, inc are of effect and inc burning damage, with Searing touch and Burning damage nodes from the tree, the fire trap on dot is no joke and combined with searing bond you do a crazy degen

You mostly just need to spam a lot so having at least some mana on gear helps, Sunblast belt would be amazing here too, but not crucial as Soul mantle

I'm at 15k dps as well with a 20/20 searing bond and it feels like it lacks quite a bit on higher maps. every freaking mob has fire and/or elemental resistance - and if worse even extra-hp and curse-immunity.
and i'm not even using remote mine. gonna try the 5L trap setup.

I sometimes have moments where the beam is directly on top of an enemy and is not burning it. It's just a tad iffy when using this skill because it happens quite often. It also led to my death with one mob that throws bombs, couldn't harm it, tried re-summoning a totem on or near the enemy and still wouldn't do anything.

Been using the typical Searing Bond Templar.

I sometimes have moments where the beam is directly on top of an enemy and is not burning it. It's just a tad iffy when using this skill because it happens quite often. It also led to my death with one mob that throws bombs, couldn't harm it, tried re-summoning a totem on or near the enemy and still wouldn't do anything.

Been using the typical Searing Bond Templar.

Might have been mentioned before as I didn't read the entire thread but...

After playing with it a while my only real complaint is how a lot of melee monsters can attack the totems without taking damage which really doesn't line up with the description "Enemies near either end of a beam also suffer burning damage.". I mean if they are close enough to melee the totem they should be considered "near".