Toart's Flameblaster with a twist. Up to 300k dps in a 3L in full MF-Gear

... What's this spec about?
Flameblast with 2 HoI and HoT, simultaneously shock and ignite the mobs. While they burn, Herald of Thunder starts to zap them, proccing EE. Curse the next pack, Flameblast again.


... Why I play this spec.
In the beginning of Torment I wanted to a character that's almost gear independant and can stack significant amounts of Magic-Find-Stats without compromising clearspeed. It turned out better than I expected. I can't claim to have invented the basic concept of flameblasting stuff while simultaneously shocking, Ghudda did it first, almost a year ago, while Flameblast didn't see that much play. Link to the YT-Video. Since then Flameblast itself has been buffed directly, about doubling it's damage, and indirectly by introducing Spell-Echo. Another buff to the idea was the Introduction of Heralds, freeing up a link. And the last buff was the templar's new tree. The pathing is effective and the introduction of 10% Shock-Ignite really helps in the beginning.

So if you're looking for a spec that's based on momentum, can easily stack good amounts of MF and clear really fast, this might be worth your time.


... Links and Gear
Flameblast ... Elemental Proliferation ... Concentrated Effect (... Spell Echo ... Fire Penetration ... Life Leech/Empower)
This is the main link. Sure, every link after the first really helps with the playability, but it starts working in 3L. Spellecho is selfexplanatory that the spell feels much faster. Fire Penetration is the best supportgem, usually outclassing Echo by quite a bit. Empower for even more tooltip or use Lifeleech to survive Reflect in Conjunction with Vaal Pact.

Cold Snap ... Trap ... Elemental Proliferation (... Cold Penetration)
This is maybe my favorite combination. Supported by Trap and Cold Penetration those Traps are fantastic to savely open Strongboxes, proc EE and often shock mobs already, since Herald of Thunder applies to Cold Snap.

Reduced Mana ... Herald of Thunder ... Herald of Ice (... Whatever)
Since you don't always need Clarity to cast Flameblast with Echo, you're free to fill up that blue Globe with a wide variety. Add in some Auras to fix the Resistances you're missing out on, while stacking IIR and IIQ. Otherwise you could easily get Avoidance via Grace and Mana-Regen via Clarity for Arctic Armour.

Cast When Dmg Taken ... Enduring Cry ... Immortal Call (... Increased Duration)
Standard stuff. Many mobs seem to be balanced around having this setup. It really can't be stressed enough how good it is against Physical-Dmg-Spikes.

Curse.
The choice is up to you if you want to selfcast, couple it with CWDT or link it to Herald of Thunder for hightest levels of convenience. If you got Quality on Flameblast it's pretty insignificant if you use Flamability or Elemental Weakness. Idealy you'd use both in case you allocate Whispers of Doom or use one of the many ways to get it via items.


Situational: Random Spell to trigger EE (... CwdT ... CoH/Curse)
This is more of a convenience setup to not selfcast it




... Skill Trees
Current Build
That's just as a reference. I'm using the Shield-Resi-Nodes, and in hindsight should have gotten +8% AllRes from the Normal-Bandit-Quest, since the MF-Gear takes it's toll.

Basic Tree
With this tree, you get 135% Life in 89 points and pick up the nodes to start this build.

Level 100
Surely, few get to 100, but still to give you an idea.


... Skill Tree Point Analysis
Castspeed The 4%-Nodes at the Shadow-Start are always an option. "Nimbleness" and "Mental Rapidity" are both just as efficient. "Dark Arts" is a bit better, while also 4% per node, it gives 20 Dex and 10 Int due to pathing.

Elemental Damage or Spelldmg? While the nodes towards the templarstart seem good at a first glance, I decided against them. While 13% Elemental per Node is really good, they're gated behind Spell-Dmg, which is sadly a rather Meh-Stat for Burn-Prolif-Build, since it just scales the inital hit, not the burn. Blindly assuming 50% Effectiveness from Spell-Dmg, it's only 8.2 effective Elemental Dmg per Node. "Ash, Frost and Storm" is 10% on average, these nodes are above the average node. From "Fire Walker" towards Witch-Start up until "Elemental Dominion" gives you a fantastic 12% per Node, the added benefit from 4% Castspeed and 15% Fire-Res makes thess nodes the clear winner, if you got the more important notables and enough life.

Life In a Non-Hardcore-League there is a thing like enough life. While filling out the Scion Lifewheel is very alluring, it's not that effective. Every Life-Cluster along the way gives the same amount of Life per Node, adding in more benefits. "Written in Blood" and "Purity of Flesh" give 5% per Node. "Quick Recovery" just gives 4.66 Life per Node, but the added benefit of 40% Mana-Regen really outweights it. "Heart and Soul" is a bit different, due to a longer path towards it, it usually isn't worth it, if you got enough Mana. I took it since more mana is better than less. My suggestion would be to fill the Lifewheel only when in dire need of survivability or on the way to 100.

Chance to Ignite
While "Breath of Flame" and the Ignite-Chance at "Holy Fire" are great while leveling up, they really fall of once you get Quality on your gems. With 20Q Flameblast you're already igniting at 45% chance, and while the Ignite-Duration is good on paper, mobs rarely see more than one or two seconds of burn.

Chance to Shock
While the standard-chance to shock a single-Target is about 15%, the real reason to skill "Static Blows" is the Shock-Duration. While fighting mobpacks with a bigger HP-Pool, you'll find yourself praising the increased Shockchance and Duration. On it's own the Lightningdamage can be very spikey, having more chances to shock increases also the chance to get a rather long shock on one of the mobs and through Elemental Proliferation on the whole pack.

Mana
Depends on your gear. It's pretty obvious, that you won't run AA without at least a bit of investment into those Nodes. Towards the Witchstart, the nodes are really solid, but "Deep Thoughts" is better on a per point basis. Quick Recovery give even 13.33% Mana-Regen per Node with the added benefit of Life. But in the end, a Chest with good amounts of ES to fuel Eldritch Battery really helps more than most nodes. Also Mana-Regen on Rings and Amulet is maybe the only chance to run a high level of AA without the hazzle of investing too heavily into Mana-Regen on the tree.


... 300k dps in a 3L, how?
First of all, you need a Doryanis... Wait, you need better.

Sure, it's rather rare those pop up on poe.trade, but when searching long enough, you could find them. So on Average, a level 19 Flameblast in that weapon already deals 3390 damage when fully stacked. With my current tree and the Sceptre-Implicit it already has 256% increased damage. So 13458 initial impact dmg. But wait, Concentrated Effect multiplies this, increasing it to 22610. Since the mobs are most likely shocked by the Cold-Snap-Trap it's further increased to 33915. Now in this best-case scenario the mobs are double-cursed with Ele-Weakness/Flammability each substracting 38% Resistance, tagged with EE and judged by "Celestrial Judgement" and got no inherent fire-resistance, so your initial hit already is amplified to 77326. Which is pretty insane. Now this explosion already kills every white mob. What happens to the Rare standing in the middle of his fallen and smoldering servants? The proliferated burn already ticks for insane amounts, proliferating at 96391 dps, since it's again scaled by all the Elemental and Fire-Dmg. Now Herald of Thunder conveniently has only one target left tagging him again for EE. He's still shocked by the proliferated shock, burning at 329658 dps. With a blue 3L, using lvl 19 gems.

= OP

I'm interested in trying this build. It is up to date?

i play IIR-Flameblast myself, but i dont like your build at all.
There is like litteraly no defense at all in this build.
Have you ever played it in high level maps? I just dont see any way how you could clear a necropolis or palace map.
And reflect? You dont use Vaalpact + Life leech, nether you got much fire resistance. Dont you just one-shot yourself to a reflect pack?

Last but not least i was going trough your gear. If i add it up correctly your resistance are at:
Fire: 130 (70 in merciless)
Cold: 110 (50 in merciless)
Lighing: 110 (50 in merciless)

How can you play without capped resistance (135) in merciless?

+ One normal question... Isn't Herald of Ice counter profective, as shattering enemy's will kill the burning prolif???