[1.3]Firefury-Crit Firestorm Build with Pledge of Hands/MoM/AA Reflect Immune/300k focus fire.

Hey guys, this build is built around the skill Firestorm and the unique staff Pledge of hands. I am writing this as I am uploading my Hall of Grandmasters video, felt like I should be posting a little guide since some ppl been asking for it too.

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tooltip with lv 19 FS. Crit damage linked, not recommended, too much overkill.

Firestorm
A very underused skill that has great synergy with the Pledge + AA setup. Similar to incinerate, firestorm hits are scattered enough that it can be completely absorbed by arctic armor combined with capped fire resist (or even better with Purity) when encountering ele reflect packs. However, the superior part of firestorm is it's flexibility. Against trash mobs, you cast one firestorm and it clears, against bosses, you stack as many firestorms in one area as possible to maximize your dps. The skill gem has very good endgame potential since there are many ways to scale it's damage per cast.

Quality
The gem quality provides extremely strong bonus. Each quality on firestorm gem reduces the time between each fireball falls by 0.001s.
Originally one fireball falls per 0.1s, giving 10 fireballs per second.
With 20% one fireball falls per 0.08 seconds giving 12.5 fireballs per second.
With 36% quality one fireball falls every 0.064 seconds, giving 15.6 fireballs per second.
As you can see, the marginal gain of fireballs per second increases as we stack more quality on the gem. Hence Enhance (Tho I'm currently not using it since I want to lvl my uncorrupted lv2, will eventually swap pcoc with lv3-4 enhance) is an ideal support gem.

Duration
By using Increased Duration, we apply a MORE multiplier to our total damage per cast, simply because one firestorm will last longer. With a 20/20 increased duration and without any passive on tree, the firestorm duration is extended from 1.3 second to 2.26 seconds (2.84s with 45% duration on tree). Other than total damage per cast, duration has another significant dps utility: it rises the maximum possible stack of firestorm you can focus in one area, which will give a huge bonus to your dmg potential. With my current tree and boss fight setup (19/0 faster casting, 19/0 conc effect), my firestorm cast time is 0.35 seconds and have a tool tip avg fireball dmg of 3300, with duration of 2.26 seconds. What does it mean? Here is how you calculate my boss fight dps:
1/0.08 = 12.5 fireballs fall per second hitting the same target (With conc effect all fireballs easily hit the target at the same time). Giving 12.5*3300=41250 dps. But notice that we can keep casting in one area. The duration of the spell allows me to stack a maximum of 7 firestorms at some point of time. 2.26/0.35=6.46. At the .46 I will be casting my 7th firestorm.
This is the multiplier we multiply our dps with. 41250*7 = 288750 dps after you cast at one area simply for around 2 seconds. And this is with fire penetration.
You may take inc duration nodes on the tree earlier, but definitely respec them in endgame, they take way to many points, 6 to be exact and not counting the travel nodes to reach them, to outperform inc duration gem just by a time 11%. Spend those points on life and mana regen or crit.

AoE
Firestorm has two AoEs, Increased AoE will increase both the area in which the fireballs randomly fall and also the radius of the individual fireball damage. Meaning that Inc Aoe isn't all that bad since it scatters the fireballs away from each other but at the same time makeing the interal AoEs larger. In fact, according to my experience, when clearing 74 below maps solo, one click (in fact two cast since spell echo) with Increase Aoe is plenty to kill a trash pack. In parties and boss fights, conc effect performs much better because it provides much better focus fire.

Crit
Crit improves our clear speed and dps potential. In this current meta, we can have a invisible 7th link added lightning that adds lightning dmg to your spell - Herald of Thunder. So now when we crit we always shock our enemy. I picked up crit and power charges on the passive tree as they are all right next to my main path. I tested that as long as your crit multiplier does not go over 400%, with lv 20 AA and 78% resist you will still take no damage from reflect.

Bandit Reward
Life - Skill point - Power Charge

Due to some surprising dueling performances with this spec. I plan to keep lvling up this character slowly head over to the PvP side and participate in the Torment PvP events.
Have any questions just post below.

Build looks super cool. What bandits did you take? Also on a scale of 1 to CoC: How big is the performance impact?

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Shitlord wrote:

Build looks super cool. What bandits did you take? Also on a scale of 1 to CoC: How big is the performance impact?

I always forget to include bandit rewards in my build guid my bad. I took life-skill point-power charge. Didn't take cast speed cuz that 4% is minimal comparing to the faster casting gem.
Not sure what you meant by CoC, Power charge on crit?

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exodus820 wrote:

Not sure what you meant by CoC, Power charge on crit?

He means how bad FPS gets

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exodus820 wrote:

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Shitlord wrote:

Build looks super cool. What bandits did you take? Also on a scale of 1 to CoC: How big is the performance impact?

I always forget to include bandit rewards in my build guid my bad. I took life-skill point-power charge. Didn't take cast speed cuz that 4% is minimal comparing to the faster casting gem.
Not sure what you meant by CoC, Power charge on crit?

he means this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tg0Anzz2e0
xD

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silentwrath888 wrote:

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exodus820 wrote:

Not sure what you meant by CoC, Power charge on crit?

He means how bad FPS gets

The FPS while running this spec is actually ok, provided that you don't use the mtx siege effect firestorm, that shit is the FPS killer. I don't have a great computer and my FPS drops to 30ish when I stack firestorms.

Cant afford a Pledge of hands but do have a 5link searing touch, do you think the build would work ok with that? if so what links would go in it? thanks in advance

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hognus wrote:

Cant afford a Pledge of hands but do have a 5link searing touch, do you think the build would work ok with that? if so what links would go in it? thanks in advance

good question :D would like to know to

well i can buy a 5link PoH max :) so what gems for 5 link POH and 5L searing touch

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hognus wrote:

Cant afford a Pledge of hands but do have a 5link searing touch, do you think the build would work ok with that? if so what links would go in it? thanks in advance

Searing touch is decent for all firespells, except for that the massive burning damage is kind of wasted if you are to build a very similar version like mine as I don't rely on burning and ignite.
You might want to try an ignite-prolif variation that does not rely on cast speed. Firestorm-Fire Pen-Ele Prolif-Conc effect-Chance to Ignite/Inc Burning. It should clear maps pretty well while having some advantages over flameblasts such as reflect.

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mopzi wrote:

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hognus wrote:

Cant afford a Pledge of hands but do have a 5link searing touch, do you think the build would work ok with that? if so what links would go in it? thanks in advance

good question :D would like to know to

well i can buy a 5link PoH max :) so what gems for 5 link POH and 5L searing touch

I recommend FS-Faster casting-Conc effect-Inc Duration-Fire Pen. The 6th link is not that necessary to be honest.