[2.0] BM Chaosballer - HC Viable and Skill Flexible

I like this build in its perspective. Could you post tree progressing guide for new players like me? Thanks in advance!

thanks for the reply meest. i was thinking the build was pretty "survivable". as u said, it has 149% inc life and does have a high lvl AA so im assuming that would be enough to get thru most of the end game. i wasnt planning to use alpha's howl i dont think. id probably just use a rare ES helm with life/resist and use a of heat flask as u suggested.

the doryani belt i think will still be nice for the extra leech and damage. we shall see though. im only lvl 25 atm so im a bit a ways away. i did LNB's fireball witch back in beyond and i got to around lvl 70 before dying. nothing to special but this build seems just as strong imo. i enjoy fireball alot (wish i seen more builds with it) and i have the MTX =D. ill keep an eye on this thread. maybe u can add a lvl progression for newer players?

thanks for the great guide mate.

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godhand456 wrote:

thanks for the reply meest. i was thinking the build was pretty "survivable". as u said, it has 149% inc life and does have a high lvl AA so im assuming that would be enough to get thru most of the end game. i wasnt planning to use alpha's howl i dont think. id probably just use a rare ES helm with life/resist and use a of heat flask as u suggested.

I need Cannot be Frozen because I tend to open unidentified boxes without identifying them. It's probably the only reason besides I hate being frozen (and chilled).

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Zuperman018 wrote:

I like this build in its perspective. Could you post tree progressing guide for new players like me? Thanks in advance!

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godhand456 wrote:

maybe u can add a lvl progression for newer players?

So instead of being productive, I took my time to write a huge level progression focused on newerish players. I may have gotten a little carried away, but it let me procrastinate a lot.

It's all under Passive Tree + Leveling Guide.

I am now at 85lv and still enjoying this build! I am playing quite casually and I am not trying to level very fast(meaning I am not making this my highest priority, so i play more aggressively and I don't care so much if I die).

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Zuperman018 wrote:

I like this build in its perspective. Could you post tree progressing guide for new players like me? Thanks in advance!

I think this build is quite easy for new players. meest have added details leveling information, but I will just stress out this part from my experience:

This build needs to get past 70-75 level to shine, so do not get disappointed if it's not working so well at first. Truth be told though, this statement is true for many build!

Also try to get some decent gear at around that level. You don't have to get very expensive gear, but make some effort to get some good enough equipment so that the build can work (for example getting good mana regeneration for the artic armour to work is important, atziri's foible is the easiest way). Also the route I got (power charges) may make this a bit harder because you need to get enough crit chance to be possible to build them up fast, so maybe not getting them is easier.

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meest wrote:

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phmn wrote:

I have decided to go for three dragons. I am also using prolif in herald of thunder for some extra freezing (it's not able to perma freeze, but it's fun when playing solo).

I think you're quickly getting into the damage range where if you take off that setup, you won't realize a difference at all because everything will be dying too fast.

I have removed proliferation now because I have realized I can cause some short freezing (and thus shattering) easier by the portion of the damage added by the herald (which I think can benefit from the crit).

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meest wrote:

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phmn wrote:

Also before getting maligaro's I realized a very good option is facebraker, in fact I am wandering if it can be equal or better to maligaros since multiplier I think is more important. When I get them i will be able to do the comparison but until then facebreaker is a very nice and cheap option.

Hmm... this is interesting. I never considered Facebreakers before. It's probably at least equal to the damage given with Mali. The only problem is Mali gives extra dex, which is useful for the Alpha's Howl and Vaal Grace/Haste.

Actually at this point I have more dex than I need because it happens to have some rares with good dex :) But yeah, the extra dex from maligaro's can be useful.

I am sure though that legacy maligaro's will definitely be better. I will try this when I get to standard at the end of the league.

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meest wrote:

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phmn wrote:

This is my equipment so far:

Spoiler

PCoC gives you the bigger the tooltip, but Conc Effect will give you more damage (it doesn't affect the tooltip). But as you can see, mediocre gear still makes this build pretty insane.

Yes I know. My goal is to try to 5l my infernal mantle and I will add Conc Effect then. In my build I invested a lot in crit chance and multiplier so having 7 power charges makes a difference. But I have realized, that if you don't have enough crit chance and multiplier, the power charges won't make that much of a difference (and they will be hard build up).

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meest wrote:

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phmn wrote:

This is my variation of the tree:

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUBBLMHHgj0DkgPxBEPEZYUsBZAFm8W8xo4HRQkqiY8JpUnLy-dNuk6WDt8QZZDyEbXSVFMLUyzTwRQMFVLVcZXKVugXfJfKmHiY0NknWaeaPJqQ2sXcFJw1XGFdFV8Dn5Zf8aCHoKbg9uFfYnTjDaOZI9Gj_qQVZUglS6aO5uhnWOiAKKjpLGnVayYrrOxQrb6uMq86sAawFTAZsHz0PXVptq52wvbXuFz42rljuvk6_XsOO0g7TzwH_DV8h3zEfem99f60g==

I got som more elemental nodes because I wanted to boost heralds a bit.

I have said Celestial Punishment isn't good because this build kills things too fast, but I think I should have said to get it initially. It is pretty good when you do have to take that extra one or two spell echo casts to kill something. It's only two regrets so you can try speccing in and out of it and see when you can spare those two points for something else.


Going Blaze is fine because I see you are not going Added Chaos Damage or Apep's yet. These two choices are to counter reflect. But if you do, elemental nodes are so much less effective because the damage you get from Heralds pales in comparison to your Fireball damage.

I am keeping Celestial Punishment for now. Sometimes, I am playing in public parties so the enemies do not die so fast. Added chaos damage is nice, but I will get more damage if I go for Concentrated effect. It is true that reflect wise focusing on chaos is better. But I rarely die because of reflect, because usually I can counter it using the amethyst flask and/or getting away before I die. In addition I often play with public parties or with a friend that has a high level purity of fire. So, so far reflect is not an issue for me. I will see how this works when I go 5L.

The reason I got the Blaze root was because it was shorter for me to go for the life nodes. I will try to get the projectile nodes too now.

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meest wrote:

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phmn wrote:

I didn't got a CWDT setup because I wanted to go for a glass canon build and I don't plan on getting this very high on level. So i put a spell totem firestorm (for additional damage) and vaal fireball+greater+spell echo for a nice show!

Using arctic armour though made it possible to get to level 81 without too much trouble although playing with others (public parties) makes it much easier.

I would recommend trying to fit CwDT in. It mitigates so much dangerous damage, especially useful when you are not playing well. The only times I have died (minus desync deaths) are instakills where I should have dodged something with Quicksilver and/or popped all my flasks at once but was too bad to do so.

That's my personal opinion, but I don't consider this a tanky build exactly. Of course because it is a ranged build, it makes surviving much easier. Surely a CwDT setup would save me from some deaths. But if I wanted a safer build I would have gone for Cloak of Defiance.

The most important reason I didn't go for such a setup was because survivability was not my priority for this build. My highest priority was to get a flashy build with as many fireballs as possible. I think I have managed to do that and I am very happy with that. fireball with gmp +firestorm is quite flashy, but the most enjoyable part is vall fireball! I have added the dragon mtx for that one as well (which looks awesome, but unfortunately it drops the fps dramatically) and for going even further, I added chain. This makes the whole screen exploding!

It starts with some explosions:



Then it ends like this!:

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meest wrote:

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phmn wrote:

I now have around 9k dps with 7 power charges multiplied by 5 because of greater (i chose greater because it is more fun, but lesser may be better for end game if you want the best optimization)and the two heralds. It will get even higher if I level the gems more, if I use 5link or get better gear. It's not amazing, but it is good enough for now to clear relatively fast.

Yeah, GMP is too much fun to fire. The optimization argument is there just for information, but screw optimization. Firing five fireball dragons looks really cool.

LMP is better for reflect too. But as you said GMP is more fun!

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phmn wrote:

I have removed proliferation now because I have realized I can cause some short freezing (and thus shattering) easier by the portion of the damage added by the herald (which I think can benefit from the crit).

The added damage you get from the Herald onto your active skill(s) triggers status ailments from crits. But the Heralds' own damaging mechanic (ice explosion and lightning bolt hits) cannot crit. Like Incinerate, the Heralds do not even have a listed crit chance.

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phmn wrote:

But I have realized, that if you don't have enough crit chance and multiplier, the power charges won't make that much of a difference (and they will be hard build up).

Conc Eff will give you more damage with or without investing in a lot of crit/crit multi. The gem simply gives too much of a bonus for anything to contend with. If you hit 700/800+ crit multi then maybe PCoC will finally outweigh Conc.

Charges are actually fine to build up with Ass Mark. It used to be you had to hope for crits and the proc and/or use a Diamond flask in your setup. But you can just curse the first pack you see, get your charges up, and rarely lose them. If you do because you're backtracking or something, just curse again and you're fine.

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phmn wrote:

I am keeping Celestial Punishment for now. Sometimes, I am playing in public parties so the enemies do not die so fast.

That's a really good point. I only play solo, but it probably is a good idea for party play.

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phmn wrote:

That's my personal opinion, but I don't consider this a tanky build exactly. Of course because it is a ranged build, it makes surviving much easier. Surely a CwDT setup would save me from some deaths. But if I wanted a safer build I would have gone for Cloak of Defiance.

I recently added a hardcore section that would do well with any of the more standard tanky chests. You should at least consider adding a high level CwDT linked with a high level Molten Shell. It absorbs a lot of damage and also dishes out a bunch.

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phmn wrote:

but the most enjoyable part is vall fireball!
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Yeah, it looks awesome. But there's just no utility besides the graphic. You can run through a couple packs with it casting and even if it does somehow kill everything you run through, you could have just casted Fireball and killed them at the same pace. But you're usually left with some stragglers you have to finish with Fireball anyways. Such an awesome skill when it was previewed before release, but so disappointing to me in actual play. I really wish it was more useful so I could see a hundred of those dragons at once.

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phmn wrote:

LMP is better for reflect too. But as you said GMP is more fun!

GMP is better for reflect because you are hitting with less damage on each projectile. These are all separate instances of reflect that all get reduced with AA. But with the use of Heralds and how much damage they add (around 25% of your total damage) I don't even know if it's worth it to switch anymore. I've done reflect maps just switching out Conc and leaving LMP in and I can't tell the difference.

I'm glad you're enjoying the build.

How does Projectile damage interact with fireball? more specifically is the explosion damage based off the projectile part of the spell if so boosting the projectile aslo affects the boom. on the other hand they could be seperate entirely so projectile damage boosts the fireball but not the explosion making it much less valuable

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hognus wrote:

How does Projectile damage interact with fireball? more specifically is the explosion damage based off the projectile part of the spell if so boosting the projectile aslo affects the boom. on the other hand they could be seperate entirely so projectile damage boosts the fireball but not the explosion making it much less valuable

Sorry for replying so late. I've stopped playing PoE for now so I don't check as often anymore.

The explosion damage is based off of the projectile damage. Meaning everything that affects the projectile hit would also affect the explosion hit. Except the explosion hit also gets bonuses from AoE modifiers. What you see on your tooltip is the damage a single Fireball projectile will do to its target if it does not explode (pierce or fork through) and whether or not hit + explosion is two hits or one (read my section on Fireball DPS calc), the damage done by the explosion is the tooltip multiplied by whatever multiplier you get from AoE modifiers (basically Conc since every Fireball build uses it).

TY for reply, greatly appreciated for ironing out some of the details I was unsure on

Looks like a fun build for the 1 month race.

Im doing this for my one month softcore. Here is my gear so far (my res is shit, but I have been trying to rush fast without farming for the good stuff) and should be heading into maps soon.