DELETE PLZ Flame Surgeon 1.2 - Cheap build NO LONGER UNDATED

This build revolves around taking the most out of Flame Surge
WITH MINIMAL GEAR COST and nice defence and offensive power.

Why Flame Surgeon you ask? Because untill you get a 6l (and for myself it's NEVER) your Flame Surge will cover a small area, meaning you need to aim and positon yourselfe with precision if you don't wanna hit 1 mob at a time :D

Warning: if you seek for 20k+ dps and massive aoe this is not the build for you.

BUILD SUMMARY
Cheap: 2 to 3 exalted to get Infernal Mantle;
Fire and Chaos dmg focused;
Flame Surge: 10k listed dps at gem liv 18, 15k on ignitet targhets;
Fire Trap: clear white packs in 2 seconds;
Reflect elemental it's not a problem. Barely noticing it;
Life based with no life regen untill liv 75+, deal with it;
Immune do Voidbearer and Misscreation;
Done up to liv 76 Maps and i can still go;
Nasty Boss, Mobs pack, Exiles and Corrupting Blood friendly, just fire trap them to death while running;
Hardcore viable but not recommended.


I'm currently liv 79, able to do liv 76 maps and spent anly 2 ex for my base gear.
I belive most of the players are like me: poor man with 2-3 exalted equivalent currency, unable to afford all those imba crazy uniques, so i wanted to play endgame with what i can get!

NOTE on levelling: you will not be able to faceroll game content untill liv 65 or so, because it's not possible to get the right Keystone passives and Key gear to make this buid work as intended. I personally completed the game in solo, getting most of the passives that i needed for the complete character(no mass Regret Orb waste) and using the skill gems listed below but it was hard at times. Anyway doing so you will find yourselfe confident with the right usage of the skills in various situations and also with approriate level gems :)

NOTE on maps: some mods are hard or impossible for this build, like Blood Magic and 50% reduced life and mana regen (still possible disabling Artic Armour). Others like Temp Chains are just such a pain that i recommend rerolling them.

Main source of dmg:

Flame Surge: allows us to kill blue mobs in 1 cast and rare ones in 3-4 cast, need to get close so be carefull. Ignited targhets gets extra 50% dmg, that's why:
Fire Trap: Multiple Traps and Incrased Area of Effect support easily allows you to set most of the screen ground on fire in 2 seconds. White mobs will die just with couple of firetrap trows, so no need to get close for the Flame Surge saving lot of time.

Atm i'm sitting on 10k Flame Surge (liv 18) and 1400 Flame Trap ( 20 quality and liv 20).


Now let's get to the min-max that allowed this basic idea to work.

Passive Tree

Current liv 78, --97 points


Future --109 points


Skill Tree Explanation:

Keystone passives and WHY:



Why Life based?


Bandits: point point point. You can take endurance charge, but it's not that usefull.

Skills and Items Synergy:

To get and sustain this huge mana pool (yes, sustain! remember that any dmg we take will drain our mana untill we reach zero mana) we need ofc Clarity aura AND some ES gear. Now this item is probably the build core:

Infernal Mantle

A 5l Infernal will probably cost around 2 ex, since it's reasonably common (go to http://poe.trade/ for smart shopping).
It provides us with:
-dmg boost: place there Flame Surge;
-chaos dmg: all our skills will now deal 25% of theire dmg as chaos. Since we are not a burning build we don't sacrifice any damage dealing smaller fire hits, instead we get a lot less susceptible to elemental reflect and more effective dmg (only few mobs have relevant chaos res);
-ES: much needed ES, will be turned all to mana, doubling our mana pool;
-100% increased spell dmg TAKEN when on low mana: no actual drawback, if our mana pool is equal to 1/3 of our hp or more we will probably DIE anyway before reaching that point, so doesn't matter in most scenarios.

Artic Armour
Right now i'm playing with a liv 19 gem, i'll soon or later link it with empower cause i can sustain the mana drain. This little gem will be hard to use at max level, since you will not have the mana regen to sustain it untill the build is complete. My suggestion: get 2 of them, one to keep at the level you can sustain and one to level up to be used later.
PRO: immune to Miscreations and Voidbeares most of the time, even if blue or rare mob or in big packs. Immune to most of the little spiders and monkeys, they do peanuts dmg with many attack so it's uneffective. Good sinergy with our respectable armour rating. Mitigate reflected damage.
CON: drains lot of mana, so we need to invest some passive points on mana, 5-10 points depending on gear choises.

Other defenses are provided by:
Decoy Totem before opening a dangerous door or an enchanted chest: set up your trap and place the decoy totem. Usefull with bosses ofc since we need to get close to use Flame Surge;
Immortal Call-Enduring Cry-Cast when Damage Taken-Increased Duration super common setup to avoid sudden death if caused by phisical dmg only. Read a guide to learn the appropriate level of CwDT depending on your HP and armour;
Lighining Warp-Reduced Duration-Faster Casting good to escape horrible situation and nice utility overall
Shield i recommendo to use wand or sceptre with shield. I've got pure evasion with 30% block shield, but you can get hibrid ev-es if you are in need for more mana.

Curses:
Flammability and Enfeeble, to use situationally.

Gem Links:
()Flame Surge - Concentrated Effect - Life Leech - Spell Echo (recommended) or Faster Casting

If you got 5l put Fire Penetration, 6l Increased Area of Effect or faster casting, never tested. Never had a 6l to try XD lol

()Fire Trap - IAoE - Fire Penetration - Multiple traps

()Grace-Clarity-Artic Armour-Reduced Mana Cost

()Immortal Call-Enduring Cry-Cast when Damage Taken-Increased Duration
get a pure armour gloves or boots or head to have the 4 red sockets needed, do not even try to use cromatics on a pure evasion piece of gear, you waste currency and time.

() Lighining Warp-Reduced Duration-Faster Casting
on your main or off hand

()Flammability-Enfeeble-Decoy Totem in the remaining sokets, they don't need any linked support.


Recommended Item:
Dream Fragment Sapphire Ring: extra mana to save some passive point and Freeze immunity is huge to prevent horrible RIPs. I actually like this item for all builds except for Blood Magic ofc.

Current Gear


Play Style

The play style is pretty easy and can be reduced to a few steps:
-trow 2-3 Fire traps into the mobs pack
-they died? good, run or Lightning warp forward!
-they're alive? check for rare nemesis mod, if it's safe go on with flame surge and use Flammability, or place Enfeeble for safety and kill all the Blues;
-if there's a rare with Corrupted Blood, keep going with Fire Traps and Flame Surge from time to time, caring not to get to many bleeding stacks and keep kiting around, same if you find an hard exile or a nasty boss;
-repeat.

I hope this guide has been of some use or inspiration to my readers, for any question, suggestion or if you find mistakes(i'm not an english genius) plz feel free to post your thoughts below!