[2.0] Flameblast Solo Map MF'er (20 IIQ, 230-330 IIR)

As long as I can beat the wipe, I will =)

(Even if I can't beat the wipe, I still will, it'll just take me longer).

What bothers me, just noticed, is that I'm pretty sure increases and deductions to area of effect no longer have an application to proliferation radius. It's just a flat radius of 12.

So you can't even compensate with Carcass Jack or AoE nodes off the tree. Or if it does, the base proliferation radius is so small you barely notice it anyway.

Blegh.

Anyway, the change to cast time on FB (0.3 down to 0.2, in other words, 50% faster cast time) helps offset this a bit.

Frustrating as hell though. Where FB is making a noticeable difference compared to PA is on boss kills. FB stil dominates there.


Edit: I was able to do the math on the changes. Damage on FB with a level 21 Flameblast will be somewhere around the 2350-2400 mark in a finished build. Still more than enough damage.

It's literally the prolif radius that's sucking major nuts.

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Serleth wrote:

It's literally the prolif radius that's sucking major nuts.

I know. I tested with a flat 12 radius and no aoe nodes.. you could aswell toss fire-traps without aoe. It became melee splash for aoe :-/

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Chronodroid wrote:

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Serleth wrote:

It's literally the prolif radius that's sucking major nuts.

I know. I tested with a flat 12 radius and no aoe nodes.. you could aswell toss fire-traps without aoe. It became melee splash for aoe :-/

Yeah pretty much.

So I've switched over to Consuming Dark/Mantle for now. What I'll probably end up doing is levelling like this to about 84-86, do a Chaos Totem video, then respec and just quickly showcase for others what FB is like in another video (although I might just record it, and wait to see if they change prolif before posting), THEN, show how fucking awesome PA is. =D

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Serleth wrote:

Yeah pretty much.

So I've switched over to Consuming Dark/Mantle for now. What I'll probably end up doing is levelling like this to about 84-86, do a Chaos Totem video, then respec and just quickly showcase for others what FB is like in another video (although I might just record it, and wait to see if they change prolif before posting), THEN, show how fucking awesome PA is. =D

100% conversion to chaos for Flame Totem, but may I ask you why aiming for that? I might just not get the goal behind it, since you still would need all the Flame Totem supports (Pen, FC, faster Proj, Added x or other)

You're quite fond of PA, care to share your key points why it's godly? Is the AoE like the one we're used to from 1.3 or even bigger? Key items I'd see are a +3 bow, Drillneck (with pierce nodes + support) as well as Carcass, anything I'm missing?

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Chronodroid wrote:

100% conversion to chaos for Flame Totem, but may I ask you why aiming for that? I might just not get the goal behind it, since you still would need all the Flame Totem supports (Pen, FC, faster Proj, Added x or other)

By request, actually, someone wanted me to test out a 100% conversion totem.

Also, Fire Penetration has no place in the Chaos Totem setup, since all your damage is chaos. So I've replaced it with slower projectiles, and will look to offset the range reduction through jewels probably.

I'm then also going to do a cross-comparison (in the same video, hopefully) for 100% conversion vs Sire of Shards by running two Gorge maps back to back.

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You're quite fond of PA, care to share your key points why it's godly? Is the AoE like the one we're used to from 1.3 or even bigger? Key items I'd see are a +3 bow, Drillneck (with pierce nodes + support) as well as Carcass, anything I'm missing?

Not missing anything that I can think of quickly. PA AoE is the same. It's the change to Slower Projectiles, and the recent buff to PA, that make it insanely good compared to 1.3.

Going to just paste what I put in reddit for numbers, for sake of ease.

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Poison arrow (cloud based DoT) is roughly double the damage when you factor in the change to slower projectiles (more modifier), frenzy charges (MOAR MODIFIER) and the recent base damage buff to it.

On live, a 6L PA (manual attack) Drillneck setup with PA 21, Empower 3, AoE, Conc Effect, Pierce, and Faster Projectiles gets about 10k cloud tooltip.

In beta, PA 20, Empower 2, Slower Projectiles, Pierce, AoE, Conc Effect with 5 frenzy charges up gets roughly 16.5k cloud tooltip. And I'm missing two gem levels, which will put the final damage to 19.5-20k with charges up.

The tree for PA in Beta.

For an MF setup I would pick up Cloth & Chain in Duelist. I find the AoE is fine without Carcass Jack, so I would actually drop the pathing to Witch entirely for MFing, taking out blast radius and use Carcass instead (BR = 4+4+8=16% AoE, vs Carcass 20%, so 4% improvement, and 8% AoE dmg vs Carcass 12%, for 4% improvement there too). I'm currently running with a rare chest and find I don't need the AoE from Carcass with how I've pathed the tree to Blast Radius. (In fairness, my chest is pretty awesome: 1500 eva, 89 life, and tri res all above 25%).

I'd offset the mana loss by picking up Primal Spirit, and pick up the last Frenzy charge in Ranger with both the duration and evasion per charge nodes. Then we move the spare nodes into Charisma in order to make room to run Clarity, PoE and another Purity aura. In order to help with this we would lastly move one chaos damage node or life node out from somewhere to get the 4% reservation from the Influence branch. The lone 4% life from Thick Skin's branch is the best option.

So, the MF tree would look something like this

The extra Frenzy charge actually ends up being important because we will end up with only 55-70% pierce off tree (+ 40% nodes, 15% off one Poacher's Aim jewel, 30% if we use two) and the 10% off Drillneck. So we end up with between 65-80% pierce chance, or in other words a 20-35% reduction in projectile damage. The reason for this is to drop Pierce (the least important of our gem links, between Empower, Slower Proj, AoE, Conc, and Pierce) in order to replace it with IIR. So we want to offset that with 4% *more* damage from another Frenzy charge.

I'm more interested at the moment in making sure to test out a variety of different options for clear speed before I start worrying about testing aura reservation for MF viability. That's something that's much more easily tweaked later on. So I'll make sure to keep everyone updated.

Oopsie about the firepen - mistake by me, it's only counting when u hit, but conversion is earlier, so no FP. But as I played Flame Totem quite a while (HC to 90, just recently), without faster projectiles in live it was firing very short ranged. Faster projectiles (+ the mods on wand and tree) make it bearable after.

Impressive tree, what would be the defense mechanism since you're not going the Acro / Phase Acro way? Simply not getting hit? =)
Are you using Blood Dance boots? They seem to have a nice bang for the buck and could be corrupted for another frenzy charge, if one desires.
Also, what's the mana cost on a 5L / 6L?
Then, for jewel efficiency, would consider running Scion or rather not? I've seen quite useful jewels for PA (DoT, Projectile Dmg, Chaos dmg, the few unique ones), and Scion has access to many jewel nodes.

I see, looking for clearspeed and itemization first does a good job for ruling out potential followers to your FB-farm-machine :)

looking forward to your results, but we still got time I guess, "early July" and soon^TM ^^

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Chronodroid wrote:

Impressive tree, what would be the defense mechanism since you're not going the Acro / Phase Acro way? Simply not getting hit? =)

I find with the current monster tuning I have to avoid fleet and extra damage maps but otherwise (even without grace) I can run 78 maps without much issue by using a similar flask setup as to what this guide does.

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Are you using Blood Dance boots? They seem to have a nice bang for the buck and could be corrupted for another frenzy charge, if one desires.

Goldwyrm. ;)

It's worth noting that without even trying I have the PA spec already up to 20/110. No IIR gem, only Aursieze and misc rarity on gear. And 4.5k life, to boot.

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Also, what's the mana cost on a 5L / 6L?

I'll have to get back to you on this for exact numbers but I think mid-90s for a 6L. Not logged in atm.

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Then, for jewel efficiency, would consider running Scion or rather not? I've seen quite useful jewels for PA (DoT, Projectile Dmg, Chaos dmg, the few unique ones), and Scion has access to many jewel nodes.

Scion's pathing efficiency is terrible. Jewels are literally the only reason to go Scion. The tree I linked previously is 111 points. Not sure if you're using the offline planner or not but this Beta tree for the offline planner is already at 109 points for the same core nodes, and it doesn't get Charisma or Influence. You can get it down to 106 points if you opt out of Ranger's projectile damage and just be fine with Scion's starting projectile damage, but even if you re-invest those 3 points in jewel nodes you still end up at 109 points for one extra jewel. And still no Charisma or Influence.

I guess it could work given that you end up with the extra 10% resist all from scion start, and an extra jewel slot to potentially add some more res all (or specific resistance) there. If you could get enough resistance on the bow and on the jewels, you could end up dropping an aura and not needing to go for Charisma or Influence. But you'd really have to start gear-hunting at that point for the right +3 bow with the right resistances, and the right jewel res balance. It's doable, but the goal for a potential replacement build is to provide an easy way to get your res balance. And that means Purity of Elements, and a Purity of Cold/Ice/Fire as necessary.

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I see, looking for clearspeed and itemization first does a good job for ruling out potential followers to your FB-farm-machine :)

Yeah exactly. I'm looking to find builds that operate as good clear speed replacements first. If they don't fit the bill, then there's no reason to look to adjust them for MF. =)

Alright folks, check the OP. I've uploaded three videos today exploring / showcasing some stuff.

EDIT: Mana cost for PA is 51 in a 5L, 56 in a 6L. Info by request.

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Serleth wrote:

Alright folks, check the OP. I've uploaded three videos today exploring / showcasing some stuff.

EDIT: Mana cost for PA is 51 in a 5L, 56 in a 6L. Info by request.

much appreciated, so nothing special needed in terms of regen.

so we run clarity, purity of elements and another purity by choice, I suppose with the MF tree and aura-nodes?