Upsides of Infernalist's Pyromantic Pact ascendancy node

I am playing a witch and decided to go as fire/ignite, so went for the Infernalist. I haven't picked the Piromantic Pact node yet (went for the hellhound first both for defense and offense), but I realized from the description, that it doesn't seem to be good on its own - you have mana replaced by infernal flame, which accumulates as you cast spells and damages you when it overflows. It feels like a downgrade from having mana, since, as I have to guess, your mana flask now doesn't "douse" the infernal flame, and you receive damage on top if you are not careful. In a game, where it is easy to get cornered, and you may need to keep casting spells, risking the overflow, this can potentially kill you. It feels like the goal here is to increase the mana pool, as the conversion from mana to infernal flame is 1 to 1, but that now forces to spend extra points on the tree to alleviate the downside.

Yes, I understand that this is required for the other two nodes, that give extra fire damage and ignite, but you have to spend 4 ascendancy points for it.

An I wrong in my assumptions?

I would say the main benefit is that you never run out of mana when using it.
The damage on filling is a lot but as fire damage can be mitigated by fire resistance.

So basically with capped fire res will let you trade 10-25% of your max life & energy shield for your maximum mana when you reach 0.

I'd assume this would be best used with a really mana intensive build that mana flasks can't keep up with (ignoring some niche use where you want to high amounts of fire damage for some reason)

In my experience trying it during the leveling process, your concerns are right, its not better than having mana at that point. The damage was substantial and dangerous even when I had near capped fire res.

It really seems like a endgame build thing, get your 6link with huge mana costs and/or sitting in Mana Tempest, have giga max fire res and some sustain mechanic.

Alright. Thanks for the replies. I guess it is yet to be seen how this mechanic is utilized. It may indeed be mostly used for late/end game and in conjunction with the the Bringer of Flame an/or Seething Body. I wouldn't be surprised if Pyromantic Pact is reworked in the future, as it's only a start of EA. Maybe add an explosion that deals damage to enemies on overflow, not just the player.

Tried it again just now at lvl 64 with max fire res, the damage still fucks me up and is not worth it. Yeah this could use some work, even if it turns out to be useful in some complicated endgame setup I'm not a fan if thats the ONLY place it's useful.

DId anyone tried if it works with the "mind over matter" : All damage is taken from Mana before life?

Also "eldrich battery" - converts all energyshield to mana could be an interesting mix in it, depending what triggers first - damage taken or infernal flame depleted

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DId anyone tried if it works with the "mind over matter" : All damage is taken from Mana before life?

Also "eldrich battery" - converts all energyshield to mana could be an interesting mix in it, depending what triggers first - damage taken or infernal flame depleted

I believe it has been answered somewhere, that MoM with Pyromantic Pact is a waste of a skill point, because at this point you have 0 mana, hence all the damage is taken from life.

As for EB, not sure, but looks like that might work. Essentially you can spend all your energy shield first, then start building up the infernal flame, but again, this gives no upside, and even hurts two other ascendancy nodes, where you get the benefit on medium/high infernal flame.

Right now, imo, pyromantic pact is totally unplayable. Juste to have an idea, you need to buy 2 more nodes to get a buff by playing it, and this 2 buffs appears occasionately. 1 buff for magnitude and ignite chance (ignite chance for what ? fire wall ignite 100%) and you dont know the % of magnitude. The 2nd buff you gain 20 % of dmg as fire dmg but you have to be at high flame.

And for that, you have to lose 100% of you life ans ES as fire dmg. And its instant.

At the same time, for 2 nodes, you have 30% MORE crit dmg and for that, you just have to be ignited taking 15% of you life as fire dmg. You can just counter that by having a good fire rez, and you can take 50 fire dmg max per sec being ignited.

So yeah for me this perk is unplayable right now. I would be happy to see a build around it, but I seriously doubt about it...

I agree. For Pyromantic Pact to be playable it needs another node. The ones that are proposed are interesting:

- to 35% or more of infernal flame ALL DAMAGE from you or your minions inflicts ignite. So me or my minions can hit physical or ice, we ignite anyway.
- at 75% or more of infernal flame you and your minions gain 20% DAMAGE, counted as fire damage + the previous bonus (all damage ignite).

I think if you take these ascents you have to play as a support mage who keeps the team buff up.

The bonuses are activated according to the % of infernal flame. So you must have as much mana as possible not to exceed the limit with 3 or 4 spells. And to control the rise of the IF, the better would be used a channeled spell, like "Incinerate".
You activate the spell, then the IF gradually increases, and once it has 75-80% you stop. When the percentage drops too low, you activate the spell.

The objective is not to deal damage but to stay safe behind the minions, buff them and hold a % of IF.

Level 83 Witch here with Pyromantic Pact.

In my exp the skill is completely playable it just has its place when used for the correct reason. I feel it should only be used when you are using skills that require a large amount of mana to use. I am running as solar orb/fireblast, and not only is Pyromantic Pact playable, it's required. When I am in full DPS mode I am using over 400 mana a second, I would not be able to maintain that without the skill. As far as surviving goes, you definitely have to gear/spec correctly. I have 86 fire res and regenerate 314hp a second, I can get Pyromantic Pact to trigger and hurt me every one and a half seconds and I still out heal the damage from it. I think the biggest issue is people are trying to make it work when they could maintain with mana pots and mana regen for the most part and that just isn't the play.