[1.3] Scold's Self-Ignite - Over 200k dps on a 4L | All Map Mods + Atziri | Survivable and Cheap

Video at level 79 doing 76 Crematorium:


Note: This build relies on Scold's Bridle and therefore it is practically limited to a Torment/Standard-only setting. Unless you abuse Zana that is.

Keep in mind this is still a boring prolif flameblast build with a bit of a twist.


Basically Scold's Bridle is just so good. Even if you just splash it into a random build that uses spells it is still good. So this build isn't even the optimal usage of Scold's Bridle, it simply requires it. Instead let's consider it the optimal usage of Mokou's Embrace since we are abusing the Scold's Bridle to net 40% cast speed for the real kicker: Vaal Molten Shell.



Look at the glorious bastard. An average damage of 2168 before any other modifiers. For the record, Flameblast has an average damage of 565, so this is almost 4x the damage of flameblast. But it does come with downsides, it's a Vaal Skill, it's Duration based and it relies on the the enemy hitting you so the consistency goes down. Fortunately with Scold's Bridle and a skill tree outfitted for it, we can use it to own.


Let's take a look at how we make this build tick. Honestly, I consider this a casual theme build more than anything. Don't get me wrong, it's optimized for it's purpose so it's pretty strong but to say that every single part of my set-up is made for perfectly hitting 100 is probably wrong. It's just a build that is fun and I wanted to use Mokou's Embrace since it came out.

Anyways, the build relies on 3 basic uniques, one of them kinda expensive and the others dirt cheap.
1) Scold's Bridle
2) Cloak of Flame
3) Mokou's Embrace
Really you can run this build with ONLY Scold's Bridle, but it less flashy and more defensive probably.

The basic idea lies in Mokou's, with 2 rings we get 40% cast speed whenever we are ignited. But how can we get ourselves perma-ignited? Well, a while back they came up with the Cloak of Flame and it is great for getting ourselves ignited. Because physical damage happens all the time we get a pretty good uptime on it. Problem is, we need to get hit and it is still dependent on how the monsters attack us so we aren't quite there yet. And then, Scold's Bridle.



Yeah, pretty amazing. It basically does everything we need with barely any downsides. Consistently hitting ourselves with phys damage, converting it to fire with Cloak of Flame and then the self-ignite from Mokou's means we get our cast speed too. In general the combo will net 80-100% spell damage, 30-50% fire damage and 25% cast speed from only the helm, cloak and rings which are primarily utlity/defense slots in caster builds. We get the Cloak of Flame's ignite duration and physical mitigation along with Mokou's ignite chance too, not bad!

So after we established the combo we basically only need to decide on the skills. Flameblast works perfect with Cloak of Flame's and Mokou's ignite mechanics despite being slightly slower in cast speed to Incinerate (the other option). With a cast time of 0.30, Flameblast is basically the 2nd fast casting skill in the game next to Incinerate (0.24), where we lose about 1-2 casts/s compared to Incinerate so it is not a huge difference. However while we get better proc rate with Incinerate, we have waaaaayyyyy faster clearing times with flameblast. It's hardly a contest since our AOE and burning is so high and the only place where incinerate is better for clearing (bosses and rares) is already covered by Vaal Molten Shell.

Speaking of explosions, we have the perfect set-up for Vaal Molten Shell now. We are getting area damage and effect for Flameblast already, fire and spell damage already and lots of cast speed already. And since Scold's Bridle is hitting us as we cast Flameblast, we get constant procs of Vaal Molten Shell. Currently with 6.5 casts/s of Flameblast and an average damage of 25k on vaal molten shell, we are dealing in the ballpark of 160k dps not including the enemies adding to the explosion rate and the flameblast being occasionally released. Pretty strong.


A few things to keep in mind.
1) I suspect EB and AA would need a completely different tree, meaning that I think we would lose out on a lot of damage or survivability to achieve the survivability again in some roundabout way. We have the chest and helm slots being occupied by Cloak and Scold's, which is 109 and 49 max ES respectively, meaning that a lot of ES is needed in shield, boots and gloves which would make it a lot harder to roll all the reds we need in this set-up. Instead I relied on the newer Templar tree and the plentiful "Reduced Mana Cost of Skills" passives. I managed to reduce the cost of our 6.5 casts/s flameblast to 12. We can easily sustain this much and barely take any self-damage too.
2) Skill duration. For Vaal Molten Shell, we don't need damage as much as we need permanent uptime on it. In reality 150k dps that will probably reach 200k is not as big of a jump as turning this 10 second duration skill into 25+ seconds with duration passives and a high quality Increased Duration. Not to mention this buffs our defense by so much too, easily achieving perma-Immortal Call let's us tank like no other. With that said:

WITCH
https://www.poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAghDfsALjB6UsnEmy34ptGR_HK3gti4dlEFg9X1JTl_RqQ8BUCPS86peVHwJfKuvkBAdVxoPbOljsVSqNSRs22PFsrJhxeRccEmmdrqcI2CQ2xeNqFm826SSqGmzVpuQimjvtPIKb73w8BcBmn9-iAASzaPLwH5Z0fEuQVScv7DixQvMRcYXAGho4euZG12P9PC0D7jOHHb7-VA3NK1Aczj0PxPZewKBCiFq3Psau2L3-Cs8yWW1fmG6qtfI1kio4qW4t0jrYJIt8u0yz8kU64aZXTeP-jw==

TEMPLAR (slightly more defence/damage, slightly less cast speed/mana regen)
https://www.poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgUATwSLjPndzGZKmMBmlFyiAASzaPLwH5Z0fEvvfJ_ftoY8BZo7gpuQVScv7DjVpu08sULzEXGFwBoaOEbXeuZj_S3SOtj-VA3NK1Aczj0PJIt8uwPuM4cdvjwtxPZewKBCiFq3Psau2L3-Cio4qW618jWSzzJZbV-YbqqmV03j_o864fJFGmzkIjbp42oWbySqcXkXHBJpna6D2wQHHwI2xdgkpwhVxuxVKo1JGzbY8WysmDpYPV9SU5eVTLNtGZf0akPAVAj0vOpDyB_HLYssnCt4Xyrr5A==

is my personal plan for the latter skill tree. It's pretty solid, there is lots of room to grow and re-prioritize skills, you can easily drop damage for more life or work towards endurance charges and the remaining fire damage. Vaal pact is good too, we can use it to facetank some of the harder bosses with Vaal Molten Shell up (Against palace, courtyard, crema you don't even need to be able to attack if you have a firestorm, lightning swarm thing or cyclone on you).

Your bandits will look like:
Life, Skill Point, Endurance Charge or Skill Point. Since we can't get any endurance charge in the tree at less than 2 points, I chose the endurance charge. 4% cast speed from Alira is not a big deal, we already get a lot of it from Mokou's so the effectiveness goes down a lot.








Fairly easy to follow I hope. Scold's, Cloak, Mokou's and the rest are just filler gear. Keep Sibyl's Lament and Rise of the Phoenix around for different situations like reflect maps. Pure armour gear is recommended since we use a shit load of red gems and have no arctic armour.

Herald of Thunder is a no-brainer, we get duration passives, aoe passives and cast speed which all work to improve the proc rate, duration and range of the proc effect of Herald of Thunder. Even with only 10% shock chance and the herald damage we can easily shock mobs within the ~12 second time of the buff to keep it refreshed.

I use a self-cast warlord's for extra leech and charges, but honestly any skill can be stuck in there.

For reflect maps, we have Vaal Pact, Rise of the Phoenix, replacing fire pen with life leech and Sibyl's Lament. It seems like overkill but it lets me do crazy shit like -max ele reflect or blood magic ele reflect or immune to curses -max ele reflect, etc.

Atziri Strategy

My first trial run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyWowkb0pn8

Simply pack 3-5 vaal molten shells! Charge up the shells on the mobs in the map, unsocket them when they fill and put in a new one until they are all charged up! You need to expend 2 shells to kill the double vaals and trios, so by experience you get about 4-5 Vaal Molten Shells onto Atziri herself. This kill her within a minute and she does not have time to do the add phase so you don't have to worry about that. A video will come out when I practice the map more.

My stats at level 82:


Stats at level 88:


Current Stats at level 91:


Currently I am streaming this build at twitch.tv/noperative
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrJBPRE4vEU - Temp Chains + Fleet Graveyard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzwJEhB_Ofo - 75% Fire Resist + Beyond mobs + Vulnerability Underground Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRGtUs_c_rQ - Boss Damage Crematorium Boss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FidGaQIS7l4 - Jungle Valley Weaver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK0QjeeDVoc - Jungle Valley Weaver + 30% damage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Ts6uXDOl0 - Double Boss Necropolis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6Vt0df8kVY - Boss Damage Residence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sarm9p0T9OQ - Torture Chamber Boss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ3A4uK3Mdo - Shrine Piety
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdnkiqSVUdE - Academy clear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcp6eOn8Vn4 - Double Beyond Courtyard clear (no deaths!)
I can maybe make a video guide or something if interest is enough, but honestly the build is only fun to play, I don't think it is going to be worth copying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyWowkb0pn8 - Shaky Atziri Clear
http://www.twitch.tv/noperative/c/6091622 - 3 Man Party, 2 molten shell builds smashing maps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS5tQg_RvGU& - Double Crema Bosses

why not incinerate..


way faster casting so it proqs vaal molten shell more.


or use crit tendrils and spell crit to stack on top of vaal molten shell..




flame blast is one of the worst choices for scolds. would downvote if i could



what content is this like lvl 73? 74?


im sorry but when you make a guide you should spend way more time and make sure its efficient.


but whatever

gl to whoever follows this guide

Brilliant. Guide saved, look forward to updates.

i think incinerate would be the best choice of skill:
you re hit so many times and proc VMS so many times too = more efficiemt damage than ignite dmg
(and ignite damage are still here with VMS dealing dmg)

I really like the idea of the build, gj mate!

I actually made a bit of a variation of this build focusing on incinerate and maximum "up time with VMS", but I also went the EB/MoM/Arctic approach. While I can say your assessment of it being "out of the question" isn't quite right, I'd also say this ended up not being as effective as I would have originally preferred.

Your build is definitely looking more interesting. I may end up regretting mine out into something more like this. Thanks for posting!

"

benjaminbona wrote:

why not incinerate..


way faster casting so it proqs vaal molten shell more.


or use crit tendrils and spell crit to stack on top of vaal molten shell..




flame blast is one of the worst choices for scolds. would downvote if i could



what content is this like lvl 73? 74?


im sorry but when you make a guide you should spend way more time and make sure its efficient.


but whatever

gl to whoever follows this guide

Seeing as how high burn damage is one of the main focuses of his build, I'd say you're probably just an ignorant retard. :)

"

Delfofthebla wrote:

I actually made a bit of a variation of this build focusing on incinerate and maximum "up time with VMS", but I also went the EB/MoM/Arctic approach. While I can say your assessment of it being "out of the question" isn't quite right, I'd also say this ended up not being as effective as I would have originally preferred.

Your build is definitely looking more interesting. I may end up regretting mine out into something more like this. Thanks for posting!

"

benjaminbona wrote:

why not incinerate..


way faster casting so it proqs vaal molten shell more.


or use crit tendrils and spell crit to stack on top of vaal molten shell..




flame blast is one of the worst choices for scolds. would downvote if i could



what content is this like lvl 73? 74?


im sorry but when you make a guide you should spend way more time and make sure its efficient.


but whatever

gl to whoever follows this guide

Seeing as how high burn damage is one of the main focuses of his build, I'd say you're probably just an ignorant retard. :)

enjoy following the build mr highest lvl 87 in standard rofl

u know all things and your so smart

(p.s. Max stacking flame blast isn't focused around burn damage prolif you tard, hence burn damage isnt a main focus. Vaal Molten shell is the main focus otherwise scolds and vaal molten shell wouldnt be part of the build at all. Vaal molten shell is fire damage not burn damage and it can scale off crit/ele dmg/ spell dmg/

[Removed by Support]

@benjaminbona

Flameblast works in such a way that every "cast" of it adds a stage. So as stated in the original post, it has the second best base cast speed in the game. You might be thinking that a single cast counts when the blast explodes, but it doesn't.

That being said: incinerate doesn't synergize very well with the AoE nodes he picks up at all and needs spell echo to be highly effective. But every second cast of spell echo doesn't have a mana cost and thus doesn't proc VMS.

This build is not about the burn, but since you need some damage to collect souls and flameblast is OPieOP, it's a good choice.

Crit, while possible requires a lot better gear and if you have seen the damage output on this bad boy, you realise it would be wasted.

@OP

I stopped by your stream earlier and had a blast, hope you continue doing the good stuff.

Posted some updates now that I got Vaal Pact, looking pretty strong and can take down most bosses easily.

Do you think that it's possible to proc a level 20 normal Molten Shell? If so, you could do a pretty awesome burning prolif build I guess. Also: Does the mana cost of Arctic Armor counts for Scold's?

"

kahzin wrote:

Do you think that it's possible to proc a level 20 normal Molten Shell? If so, you could do a pretty awesome burning prolif build I guess. Also: Does the mana cost of Arctic Armor counts for Scold's?

The amount of work needed to proc it would outweigh the actual damage of the burn. It takes 2770 damage to explode it, so you would need to equivalently figure out some way to spend close to 700 mana. Not to mention you need to cast it again each time, then get into position to detonate it and cast 700 worth of mana to prolif again. Honestly it is more effective and similar damage to reach a 10 stack flameblast than it is to try to explode the shell creatively.

Arctic Armour is a mana degen, not a cost.