Flame Surge Berserk Witch

A little while ago, a friend and i started a project to each make a build around Flame Surge with the focus on maximizing its effectivness in endgame without spending a fortune in gear or gems (no heavy trading, no +1 corrupted 6L gear or Empower etc.). While my build is still a bit of a "work in progress", it's already quite powerful, does really well in endgame maps and has recently managed to kill Atziri.
Although the basic build is rather cheap totalling at around 4ex total in Torment (including cost to socket and link items), i still wouldn't recommend it for beginners since it uses some slightly advanced game mechanics, requires using multiple skills together and needs a relatively high level to really shine.
I want to share my build here since i think that Flame Surge is an underused skill even though it has a huge potential when used by a build designed specifically around it.


The Flame Surge Berserk Witch ready for battle.

Disclaimer: The build is entirely self designed except for a few details that my friend and i discussed to get a better synergy between our two builds.
It is mostly self found except for some of the uniques that i bought with minimal trading. The total cost in currency spent for the items and linking them was roughly 4ex (about half of it on getting and 5-linking the Carcass Jack) but doing 100% the same would be somewhat more expensive in Bloodlines due to the different economy there.
On another note: beware of the wall of text incoming!


The Basic Concept:
Flame Surge is a skill with a unique mechanic, high base damage and a narrow, cone shaped AoE. Besides its high base damage, it also deals huge amounts of extra damage against burning targets but cannot ignite enemies by itself, making it a bit harder to use effectively. Probably due to its "quirkyness" and relatively small base AoE, it doesn't seem to be a overly popular skill besides the obvious use an alternative supplement (besides Incinerate) to the popular standard RF builds.

This means that it requires a secondary skill to apply the burning status on enemies and after some thinking it comes down to two skills that are best suited for that: Fire Trap and Righteous Fire, which are both used by this build.
It would be theoretically possible to use any other fire damage skill to ignite enemies but these two have the benefit of directly applying the burning status without having to ignite. This means that choosing any or both of these skills makes it possible to use the Three Dragons unique helmet to enable Flame Surge (FS) to shock enemies with the additional benefit of being able to apply the burning effect to enemies that are immune to ignite like Atziri.
The implicit damage bonus of FS against burning enemies and the extra damage against shocked targets are both multiplicative so you will deal basically 2.25x the amount of damage shown in the tooltip most of the time (up to 3.105x when also considering the Fire Penetration effect on 0% fire res enemies). The relatively high 6% base crit chance of FS also makes it great for further scaling the damage via critical strikes. In its basic form, FS is little more than a powerful single target nuke spell but with the right approach, it can also be a great clearing skill.
To further amplify the strengths of the skill while mitigating its weaknesses, my build focuses on the following main features:
* AoE scaling
* crit scaling
* fire resistance



Class Choice and Passive Skillpoint Progression:
An almost identical build can be done from both the Templar and Shadow starts but i chose the Witch for mainly two reasons: a) her starting area contains pretty much all of the modifiers necessary to make FS shine and b) i still needed an 85 Witch for the challenge ;).

The start: Life, mana(-regen), AoE, spellcrit, cast speed and fire damage -> basically most of the things we want to focus later on. For early levels i used Fire Trap, Firestorm and Fireball until lvl 19 when FS becomes available. I prefer to use my main skills as early as possible instead of going with a leveling skill/build so at lvl 19 i switched to Fire Trap plus FS. The Practical Application notable provides not only a good boost to stats but also very useful stun avoidance while casting (so basically all the time).

Eldritch Battery: Eldritch Battery, additional life and mana(-regen) as well as more dex to level Fire Trap. EB will be important later on to sustain a high level Arctic Armour.

The Shadow starting area: Some more crit and fire damage and a lot of stat boni as well as a solid chunk of additional life.

Making the way to the Templar: Extra Str, some more life and a ton of Int. At this point leveling is still rather fast and we get a lot of extra skillpoints from quests so i prefer to "cover some distance" at this time while progressing.

Templar starting area: A ton of useful nodes for this build including the very important second AoE cluster. Not much more to say about it.

Crit and mana regen: Now that we have most of our life nodes and all stat nodes, it is finally time to get those juicy spellcrit clusters and some more mana regen so we can level Arctic Armor.

Damage and Power Charges: If you thought the damage was high before, you might need a tissue now. You will want to have a 5L to link Power Charge on Critical to be able to keep them up almost all the time so i like to leave that part for endgame when i have enough currency to craft a 6s 5L armor (costs usually ~2 ex when self crafting or buying from others).

What next? Some more mana(-regen), life, crit, damage or aura effect nodes. If i go for Atziri farming i will probably get those juicy flask nodes near the Witch starting area for the extra duration and resistances from flasks.



Itemization:
The build in its (currently) final form requires several uniques as well as a 5l armor piece for its main skill. I would highly suggest to get/craft a 6s5L armor since you need all the sockets you can as you will see in the next section.



Skill Setup:
Note: check out the item links posted above to see how it all fits into the sockets
Main Damage skill:
Flame Surge + Fire Penetration + Faster Casting + Concentrated Effect + Power Charge on Critical
Instead of going for maximum tooltip DpS, this setup goes for maximum effective damage. As a 6th link either Increased Critical Damage or Spell Echo are suitable although Spell Echo will waste its second shot on most mobs since pretty much anything dies in 1-2 shots anyway, including Rares, lvl 76 Vagan and even some map bosses. Even tougher map bosses like map Dominus and the Atziri bosses usually die in a few seconds.

Main support and secondary damage:
Fire trap + Increased AoE + Increased Duration
Due to the Three Dragons unique, Fire Trap can ond often will shock enemies but the burning ground still applies the burning status in a wide area for an extended time to trigger the extra damage from FS. 2-3 Fire traps will also clear large groups of weak mobs, someting FS isn't very good at due to its narrow AoE cone.

Support:
Temporal Chains (in a 4l with Fire Trap)
Due to its immens damage output and high resistance penetration, no offensive curse has to be used. Temporal Chains or Enfeeble are both good choices to increase the survivability and profit from the massive AoE scaling and duration increase.

Righteous Fire
Allows the char to go into "Berserk Mode", drastically increasing its direct damage output as well as dealing additional damage over time to nearby targets and seting them on fire, which triggers the extra damage from FS even without using Fire Traps. Although the build has very little life regen, its high fire resistance and leech make it easy to sustain RF for extended periods without having to worry about taking too much damage.
I still mainly use it as a boss killer since it is unnecessary to have even more damage against most regular enemies.

Herald of Thunder + Reduced Mana + Blind
HoT adds lightning damage to all attacks and spells which (due to using Three Dragons) enables FS and Fire Trap to freeze and shatter enemies, adding safety and utility.
The lightning strike itself can blind and occasionally freeze enemies in range (large range due to the massive AoE scaling of the build) and also triggers Elemental Equilibrium in maps that have that mod, further increasing the damage of FS and Fire Trap.

Clarity + Purity of Fire + Purity of Lightning + Reduced Mana
Clarity is important to be able to run a high level Arctic Armour and sustain the mana costs of the skills used at the same time.
Purity of Fire helps in dealing with reflect and makes the char nearly immune to any fire based attack or spell when combined with Arctic Armour. "Facetanking" extra-damage Megaera (lvl 76 Crematorium boss) or Magnus Stonethorn (Flameblast exile) is trivial with this.
Purity of Lightning helps to further protect against some dangerous bosses like Shock and Horror, Dominus, Vaal and Atziri. However, it can be dropped to free up additional mana when using a Cloak of Defiance with this build instead of the Carcass Jack.

Arctic Armour
Protection against any fire and fast firing physical damage. Voidbearers, Tantacle Miscreations and the like deal none at all or ignorable damage.

Lightning Warp + Reduced Duration
Provides high mobility and the ability to evade dangerous attacks.

Cast when Damage taken + Enduring Cry + Increased Duration + Immortal Call
Short time immunity to physical damage when taking over X damage. The level of the skills should be determined by the maximum life of the build and i usually go for 20-30% max life for the activation damage. Since my build has curently 3460 life, the 880 damage threshold equals to 25.4%. Note: quality on Increased Duration and Immortal Call will greatly increase the total immunity duration!



Gameplay:
Regular (map) clearing:
Use FS against small groups and tougher mobs and Fire Trap against large groups. Rares and weak map bosses will usually die from a single Fire Trap + 1-3 shots of FS. Use Temp Chains against large groups and all dangerous mobs like Devoureres, Leapers and Rhoas.

Berserk Mode:
Activate Righteous Fire to massively boosts your DpS against bosses. This will also give you the ability to almost "perma-stun" most map bosses due to the immense damage per hit (up to ~100k per crit @ 2.2-2.5 hits/sec when counting in the massive game mechanic boni to FS (values for lvl 19 gems)).
The life gain from the single 1% leech is more than enough to sustain the damage taken from RF but it is recommended to pair the use with a Ruby Flask for additional safety.
It is also important to have a flask with the "removes burning" mod ready to be able to turn off RF at will.
Most bosses are trivial since they die before your first Ruby Flask actvation runs out. I had some moments when i would giggle like a little girl on a sugar flash after two-shotting quest bosses like Brutus or killing Merciless Dominus in less than 3 seconds for each form.

Dealing with reflect:
As mentioned before, the damage dealt can spike at around 100k per mob with just lvl 19 gems so reflect is an issue that has to be worked around. To achieve this, i use the Rise of the Phoenix shield, Purity of Fire, Ruby Flasks and Arctic Armour.

Atziri:
Flask management and timing are key to the fights but overall it isn't too difficult with this build. Although it takes a bit longer to kill the bosses, i still prefer to not activate RF so i have better control and can kite the bosses to wait for the right moment to strike without having to worry about the degen.
Double Vaal:
Have at least one Topaz Flask ready and be careful not to leave the first appearing Vaal at around 30% life so you don't accidentally one-shot it with the next hit. Otherwise the other one goes into berserk mode and can be a real pain.
Trio:
The chaos degen of the Cycloner poses the greatest threat so kill him first.
Next should be the TTB and you can just go into melee range to more or less perma-stun her and kill her in 2 seconds but be careful in your positioning and make sure to avoid her rain when kiting her to a favourable position.
The Dual Striker is trivial due to the high fire res so he can be killed last easily.
I recommend using two Jade Flasks for that fight, preferrably with the "of reflexes" mod for extra evasion.
Atziri:
Watch out for her skills and make sure you don't get hit by multiple Stormcalls. The regular Flameblast can be tanked with a ruby flask on but you should avoid the huge double flameblast. Stay mobile and wait for an opportunity to get a few hits on her safely and she will go down very fast.
The minion phase is rathe trivial: stand close to her and kill all the minions approaching.
The split phase requires you to stay calm and find the right clone to attack. I did best when focusing on her Flameblast clone (has fire in her hand). It cannot be ignited but shocked and the burning ground from a Fire Trap will also activate the extra damage from FS so it will go down very fast while usually being stunlocked most of the time (still watch out for Stormcalls though!).
I recommend using 1-2 health flasks, 2 Ruby and 1-2 Topaz.



Conclusion:
Designing, leveling and playing this build was one of the most fun and unique experiences i had in the two years i've been playing PoE so far. The clearspeed and survivability are good and the damage output is immense. It is also a great example for the fact that tooltip DpS =/= effective DpS due to the game mechanics it uses to apply massively increased damage to enemies.
Playing it to currently level 87 has also confirmed what i suspected all along: Flame Surge is an underused skill with almost unparalleled damage potential in this budget region but it requires some thought and the use of several different game mechanics to really make it shine. In this regard, it is pretty much the exact opposite of Arc which has a very straightforward game mechanic and can work really well all by itself but has limited damage potential.
I really enjoy both skills and if you are interested in the concept, give Flame Surge a try - you might be surprised!


Screenshots:

Nice work up there, I too have been with that idea of Fire Trap + Flame Surge but never took the time for it, adding RF certainly is a nice boost you included there.

I've been testing the Incinerate build lately and while its great I couldn't stop thinking of all the extra damage lost for not being able to crit on its own, however it's 4th stage really ramps up its damage, not sure if Flame Surge would be able to compensate that even with crit investment, still, definitely a build to test.

A regular 5L Incinerate setup can get close in terms of DPS when it reaches the 4th stage and all projectiles shotgun (basically melee). This way you can get around 100-110k effective melee DpS with 20/20 gems in a 5L for Incinerate which is about the same as this Flame Surge build puts out with lvl 19 gems at almost a screen range - before activating RF. I would say that Flame Surge wins hands down in terms of raw damage output but Incinerate has a relatively wide effective AoE compared to the very narrow cone of Flame Surge.

I'd like to test the maximum damage output of this build if i had a 6L Pledge of Hands and full 21/20 gems but that isn't going to happen and ele reflect would mean 100% insta-death without the Rise of the Phoenix.

Edit: just did a quick estimation for the damage output with a 6L Pledge of Hands (which is essentially a 7L), full 21/20 gems and Increased Critical Damage in the 6th slot and the tooltip damage in Berserk Mode would be around ~150k, which would mean ~460k effective DpS. The downside is that RF could only be used with a Ruby Flask up and that one would instantly kill oneself on reflect when using anything other than Fire Trap there.

Very nice build/guide! I really enjoyed reading this, and surely i will read it again(also because i'm not very good with english ahah)!

I'm going to try this, i was searching for a fire build and this really impressed me!

I have only one (noob)question now: what's your advice for the "deal with the bandits" reward?
Sorry if i miss it in your post!

"

Ahrimotto wrote:

I have only one (noob)question now: what's your advice for the "deal with the bandits" reward?
Sorry if i miss it in your post!

Sorry, totally forgot to include the bandit rewards in the guide!

Bandit rewards:
Normal: Oak -> life
Will give you about 100 more life in endgame which isn't huge but still a very useful bonus.
Cruel: kill all -> skillpoint
You could also take the cast speed in Cruel (Alira) but i generally feel the 4% to be of little value since there are several passives that would give you 4% per node if you ever needed more cast speed.
Merciless: Alira -> power charge
Very nice since you will have up full power charges almost all the time, unless you are in an area with very low monster density.

Thank you!

Question... Would Doryani's Catalyst a be better of weapon choice?

You'd loose some crit but get slightly more damage and cast speed so damage wise it would be around the same, maybe even slightly higher. You would also loose a little bit of AoE but gain twice the leech.

Overall i would say Doryani's would certainly be viable and even a very good choice. The Divinarius works great for this build since it provides very useful stats at a cost of only 5-8c while a Doryani's is in the ~2ex range but if you can afford or already have one: go for it!

yeah i have one... thanks man, build looks great. Good to see some doing a Flame-surge build, it kinda feel like flame surge as a base for a build has been neglected. :)

What are your skill/passive?