Budget Fireball Elementalist
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Objective of this build is to make Fireball viable without having crazy gear. Fireball will probably never be top tier, but the build works really well for people who want to just play casually and have very simple and cheap gear progression.
Videos
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Strand
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Jungle Valley
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Dark Forest
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Cells
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Gorge
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Residence
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Volcano
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Crematorium
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Wasteland
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Excavation
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Also first time doing this map. Death at end. Eventually killed with multiple deaths:
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Open image in new tab  https://youtu.be/FuKMlPNBZMg Screenshots
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Offense
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Disclaimer: This ss of tooltip DPS is at lvl 92 with lvl20 gems and some q20 + 6l. You'll still be around 10-15k depending on gear going casually through lower levels.  Defense
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 Classes and Ascendancies
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Witch probably offers the most damage and I wanted to use Elementalist for the golem buff. But Elemental Conflux is probably the most important part of any Ele build. Liege of Primordial and Shaper of Desolation are the most important things to get for most Ele builds. Pendulum of Destruction (100% inc ele damage for 4 seconds every 10 seconds) or Beacon of Ruin (ele prolif) are your the options for your last points because Paragon of Calamity just does not do much. The ele prolif has an advantage with respawning Perandus packs, resummons, and clear speed. The other is just straight up damage if you time it right. It's possible to sacrifice something for Mastermind of Discord (20% ele penetration); the penetration synergizes well with a Lightning Warp setup. Templar doesn't offer the greatest ascendancies for what I wanted to build. Inquisitor may be good, but Elementalist still seems better. Marauder would provide a good hardcore option for this build but you would lose out on a bit of damage. Scion would be the best alternative to Witch because you can grab Deadeye and Elementalist or Berserker or something else to really make use of the ranged benefits. But you may also lose out on some damage. The pierce from Deadeye is interesting because it actually adds to your clear speed, but you do lose out on Conc Effect damage multiplier on things like single targets if your Fireball just keeps piercing them. Passive Tree
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114 Points Progression is basically to rush Blood Magic. It's very flexible so the decisions are really up to you. Bandits
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Oak - Point/Alira - Point Node Explanations
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Blood Magic
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I pick this up because of the absurd mana cost of Fireball. Honestly, if you want to do this build with Magma Orb which has higher damage AND lower mana cost (? please GGG??) then you probably don't even need to travel down to this node and you can probably just spend points going into Shadow and also picking up crit. I was using a Tabula Rasa I found on a previous character to level up and Fireball's 5/6l was costing around 100 each cast at low levels. It's possible you can cover the mana for this with Pledge of Hands and some investment into mana regen, but I just did not want to go that way. BM is a priority keystone so you may want to take the outer highway straight to it by way of the +30 str/dex spot. Practical Application
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This is the +20 str/dex node right at Witch start. This is always a solid pickup in the beginning so you don't have to worry as much about stats for leveling. Spec out of this whenever you feel like you can. The stun avoidance does not do much. Elemental Overload
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This is up most of the time even with the base minimum 5% crit chance. One point for occasional 40% more damage? Yes, please. Life nodes
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You can get a ton of increased life % because of the big boost from the nodes behind BM so you don't even need to travel to Scion life thingie. Outer left highway to BM offers good access to lots of nodes so you shouldn't ever be scrambling for them. I like to take them as I'm hitting harder content like late Act 3 and Act 4 in each difficulty. Damage nodes
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Random cast speed nodes can be taken any time. The big damage nodes you want are Heart of Flame (above Witch) and Celestial Judgement (to the left of Templar) for the Fire penetration. There will be no chaos conversion in this build (unless you opt for it - more in Gear->Uniques section). Then Arsonist (between Templar and Marauder) for the minor life regen and Explosive Impact (between Witch and Templar) for the big damage per node boost. Jewel nodes
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We will be using only two Rolling Flames in this build. The investment for more than 2 or 3 Rolling Flames is too much and 100% increased area effectiveness is enough. You have to sacrifice 3 points to get the int requirement, but the utility of the jewel is worth it. We will also be using the Clear Mind jewel for that nice 40-60% increased spell damage with no mana reserved. Gems
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Fireball
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Fireball - LMP/GMP - Spell Echo - Conc Effect Drop Spell Echo if you use a Pledge of Hands LMP/GMP
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The only good thing about LMP with this build is you can get better burn damage. Arguable, maybe...? Up to you really. Additional Links
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Controlled Destruction
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This gem is really good for even crit builds. Probably your 5th link. Elemental Focus
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This gem gives better damage than Controlled Destruction, but it may not be worth losing the burn and the minor chance to shock. Fire Penetration
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Huge damage boost, especially against any fire resistant mobs. Life Leech
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Take this if you are dying too much and/or scared of dying in hardcore. Pierce
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Offers more clear speed at the expense of missing out on some Conc Effect damage for single targets. Empower
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Perhaps the biggest damage boost you can get, but expensive and hard to level. Golem
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Summon Chaos Golem - Summon Flame Golem - Minion Life - Minion Resist You can drop Minion Resist if you get the golem node for Elementalist. 4th link is up in the air. Maybe Blind. You won't be using any +1 to golems, but having both gives you access to either more damage or more defense depending on circumstance. Movement
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Lightning Warp - Less Duration - Faster Casting Maybe add in a Vaal Lightning Warp for a 4th link to teleport them onto a burning prolif spot. Cast when Damage Taken
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CwDT - Molten Shell - Increased Duration - Enfeeble Other options: Immortal Call, Flammability, Elemental Weakness, Temporal Chains Gear
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Endgame Gear
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T-T arc damage helm. Grab resists and life on everything you can. None of these are "required" for the build to work well. So many different flasks now so just grab whatever you need. Late Endgame gear
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You can sub in an Atziri Flask somewhere for even more damage. One or two Consuming Darks + Infernal Mantle will probably be a little less sheet dps and life, but probably better and easier play. Would probably recommend if you wanted to kill Atziri. You can probably offhand a Clayshaper for +1 golem and also use Lightning Golem if you go that route. Uniques
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Pledge of Hands
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Comparatively cheap effective 6l with a 5l. Plus, good place to put your 5/6l in if you opt for Kaom's Heart chest. Divinarius
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A bit more AoE, good stats. Plus, you get to use another Divinarius/weapon or a shield for good mitigation. Consuming Dark
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Chaos damage conversion if you want. Would work well with Atziri flask and/or Infernal Mantle. Doryani's Catalyst
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Good option for some more massive damage. Rathpith
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Good spell damage stat, good defense, great spell block. Tabula Rasa
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Great leveling tool. Was great for me while experimenting with different gems. Infernal Mantle
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Spell damage downside is no longer a problem with BM. +1 level is great for damage. Only downside now is difficult to get a 6l though you don't really need it. Kaom's Heart
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This build is aiming for Pledge of Hands plus Kaom's Heart combo. Not necessary, especially with all the good options you have, but looks like a fun combo. Carcass Jack
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Great offensive option for Fireball, but probably a little less effective than Infernal Mantle in this build unless you are using Pledge of Hands for your Fireball links. Winds of Change
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Interesting alternative to crit variations' standard Maligaro's/Voidbringers/Facebreaker options. Good synergy with Fireball. Hrimnor's Resolve
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You can get a 25% or 40% Fireball damage enchanted helm now, but if you want even more damage then this is fun. Rumi's Concoction
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Possible addition to be safer in high level maps. Atziri's Promise
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Big DPS boost. Slight chaos leech helps if you do not use leech elsewhere. Doryani's Invitation
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The belt you want to end up with for that slight extra leech and more damage. Mokou's Embrace
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Not many other unique rings I would use with this build. However, you would lose out on life. Last edited by meest#0162 on Apr 26, 2016, 3:34:25 PM Last bumped on Sep 30, 2016, 1:52:56 PM
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Ripped on my sparker so gonna try this build out in PHC, thanks! <3
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nice!!
Last edited by EdgeOfBridge#5317 on May 6, 2016, 9:20:48 PM
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how good do you think the fireball buff and the ele nerf will do to this build ?
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I tend to play mostly witches, but for fireball I'd probably have to argue either occultist (easy pcharges, added fuckton of ES), assassin (for the easy crit), hierophant (because yeah, no mana cost on fireball sounds like a fucking ball imho, and even the -50% when not on full ES should be pretty decent, and would allow to not use blood magic), inquisitor (because critting through ele resists is awesome) would be better than elementalist overall.
My favorite there would probably be Hierophant, because the damage you lose on not having ultra powerful damaging ascendancy nodes, you make up for with the auras you can now afford considering you're not running blood magic as a node. Plus the pseudo-5L you get from illuminated devotion while leveling is not to be underestimated (it's also nice utility, for curse setups for example, in endgame) It would also allow to switch to lowlife if you want to make it a character to push to endgame (Rough tree draft here Last edited by PathOfShalti#0065 on Aug 31, 2016, 8:09:45 AM
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isn't it the inquisitor who crits through resists ? also i personally wouldn't go for hier cuz too much totem mechanics in the tree doesn't feel worth compared to the other classes. And wouldn't going for crit be more expensive and less levelling friendly ?
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" I mentionned inquisitor for the crit mechanics Hierophant wouldn't use the totem points, it'd use : -Divine Guidance (Mana, mini-MoM) -Sanctuary of Thought (-50% mana cost, free spells if you're full ES, 25% mana into ES) -Illuminated Devotion (great for leveling with fireball in helmet for a pseudo-5L, orb of storms curse on hit setup on gloves, that kind of thing) -Pursuit of faith. Either trop a bullshit totem for the 8% (not needed), is just there as a 4th ascendancy for added clearspeed. (Arguably useless for add-less bosses) Going for crit would be more expensive, yeah, but you wont be leveling forever, and fireball is probably endgame-viable with the damage buff. Ofcourse, blood magic with a kaom's heart would be just as tanky, if not slightly more, than a lowlife ES-based variant. That one would however, have way more damage. |
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" The 50% more damage to Fireball buff is going to make this skill finally viable. Everybody's going to be playing it with Rolling Flames. Ele nerf won't really kill any builds, but they'll move onto other Ascendancies like PathOfShalti is saying. As for this build's Ascendancy, I'm probably just going to use Berserker for a budget non-crit version. It would definitely be better to go other Ascendancies for crit. Also more expensive. Expect a lot of Void Battery builds claiming to be budget (expect the same with Ice Spear). My build with Berserker will be basically exactly the same (I don't think there are tree changes this time? I don't know). Except with that new fire damage when ignited ammy, one or two Mokou's. For chest I'd have Cloak of Flames and then Kaom's Heart if I'm not tanky enough. Maybe experiment with Apep's and that new unique Kitava's Thirst. Also, probably won't really put up a build because there will be so many basically the same builds anyways. |
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I plan on making an occultist for this league.
Can you please let me know how I should deal with reflect? That's about the only thing I'm really worried about. This will be a Hard Core build. Last edited by TheCarthusian#5832 on Aug 31, 2016, 4:51:31 PM
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" You reroll the map. With blood magic you should have enough hp pool to not care about single rare reflects I think, unless you're not resis-cap'd at all. |
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