[2.2] Elementalist: Non-Crit Fireball, 4 Rolling Flames; Single Target Flame Surge

Update: Added Bandits Sections
Hello, Exiles! Fireball is a particularly underrated skill. Although not without its flaws, it is really safe and can deal a lot of damage, especially with the Rolling Flames Jewel. I often times find myself offscreening mobs. The clearing potential is really high, even if one isn't going crit.

This budget build needs almost nothing to work. Four rolling flames are really great- perfect rolls (and 1 near perfect roll) cost me 4c for all four!

So onto the build:

Pros
Nice clear speed
Safe (High Life + ES, Always have enfeeble on enemies, Offscreen Mobs)
Aesthetic (Fireballs are awesome)
Elementalist is best ascendancy class

Cons
Low Single Target Damage (There are ways to solve this)
Tool Tip DPS is misleading (I believe the AoE damage isn't factored in and I believe that the AoE damage can also shotgun but don't quote me on it)

Skill Links


The gem set up for Gloves/Boots/Helmet varies depending on whether you have a +1 curse on the character, either from Whispers of Doom, or from equipment. It is recommended to do this in order to use Herald of Thunder to proc both an offensive curse and a defensive curse.

Skill Tree


Routing/Additional int nodes are accounted for in order to get the secondary effect of the Rolling Flames Jewel.



Offensive Stats


The "single target damage problem" Solution
Flame Surge is one solution for this. It has really high damage. Elemental focus can be used instead on Concentrated effect since Flame surge doesn't ignite. Finally, using Fireball first on bosses to inflict ignite then Flame Surging can provide some nice damage bonus. Another solution is taking out GMP from Fireball and replacing it with Added Cold Damage. The 100% damage effectiveness of Fireball works well with this gem. Finally this works really well with the Ascendancy set up we use.

Ascendancy


Gear
~Updated~


Items Required

These give us amazing aoe!

Bandits


Final Words
For leveling I used flame totem, freezing pulse, and fire trap. I switched over to fireball in cruel. Normal-Merciless was pretty easy and I didn't have any problems in any of the boss fights (including Izaro). I haven't bothered with Merciless Malachai yet and went straight into maps. My deaths are sadly from traps because I suck at dodging them. This was a pretty fun build to run. If you have any suggestions on improving it please let me know!

I really recommend using: . We don't have to invest in +1 Curses from the tree. With HoT+CoH+Enfeeble+Flammability we curse enemies constantly. It's a very strong combo.

Nice build

So I used a similar build in 2.1 and was looking to update it to 2.2 but had a question about the Elementalist ascendancy points. I was a bit confused why going mastermind of discord would be preferable to going fire golem with liege of the primordial. With Liege you look at 40% increased damage outright to fireball damage. Plus 40% increase from fire golem (base 20% and 100% increase from liege). I guess it would make for an easier play style (and such boring to some) of not having to cast lightning warp or ball lightning every 4 seconds. I guess even after playing for so long I am still confused how reduced resist plays out vs raw dps bumps. I understand mastermind is kind of like EE so you don't worry about curse immune, but isn't there diminishing returns if you already have flammability on a group of mobs/boss?

I guess as a bonus you can also swap out golems if you need more phys reduction or health regen.

Yea, I think you're right about mastermind of discord. Also I would like to note that I stopped using ball lightning all together. I'm using a . This allows me to have an extra curse for HoT to proc both enfeeble and flammability. Also I believe enemies can have negative resists.

But yes, the raw damage from flame golem and liege is substantial. It boils down to playstyle whether you want chaos golem for a more safe playstyle or flame golem for a more offensive playstyle.

That being said, curse immune can be a problem when facing fire resist mobs but I'm not sure how big of a problem it is.

Yeah nice build but you doesn`t benefit from one juwel note for the rolling flames you need 10 int more.
I link my screen from the note.
http://b13i.imgup.net/sdhshtsths4aae.png?l=de

I see in game that my character obtains the buff. I don't think I need 10 more int.
Here:

Hello,

Liked the build idea and am considering playing something like this but I have a few questions:

1) Have you thought about using frost wall for the explosion procing for single target? (I remember the fireball at least used to explode on frost wall but haven't played the fireball for a while so could be wrong) and since the aoe is huge (or at least supposed to be huge) it should destroy the boss or that pesky rare :)

2) Have you considered investing in double consuming dark instead and go hipster meta build (since fireball isn't really that popular in the endgame)? Reflect immunity, poison for single target and whirling blades :)

Does elemental conflux work with flame surge? Or can it just never ignite

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_Mysteriez_ wrote:

Does elemental conflux work with flame surge? Or can it just never ignite

OPs using elemental focus on the 4 link too, so I doubt it works.

"

lukassid wrote:

Hello,

Liked the build idea and am considering playing something like this but I have a few questions:

1) Have you thought about using frost wall for the explosion procing for single target? (I remember the fireball at least used to explode on frost wall but haven't played the fireball for a while so could be wrong) and since the aoe is huge (or at least supposed to be huge) it should destroy the boss or that pesky rare :)

2) Have you considered investing in double consuming dark instead and go hipster meta build (since fireball isn't really that popular in the endgame)? Reflect immunity, poison for single target and whirling blades :)

That's an interesting idea; using frost wall to apply multiple explosions on a single target. It is my understanding that the explosions can overlap and shotgun. Typically without frostwall the single target enemy will take damage from the projectile and the explosion but with frostwall it may be possible to overlap explosions from multiple projectiles and deal even more damage. I'll have to test it out!

As for consuming dark, it will probably make the build even stronger at the cost of being less hipster.

Thanks for the suggestions!