[No longer updated] Pizza Sticks: Flameblast Totem Hierophant

Thanks a lot for this build,

Doing it atm in essence HC, really having a blast.
I just want to add that I feel I don't need faster casting + crit chance on orb of storm.
I generate enough Power charge because we already have a lot of crit and cast speed, I am full in seconds without those gems, so I use (orb of storm + power charge on crit + curse on hit + Assasin's Mark) feel it really make it more easy, but that's just me.

thanks again,

I hooked temporal chains with orb of storms since there's really no need to get more damage and it feels great and much safer than before.

Easily farming uber lab with this. Both Argus and Izaro are a joke with temp chains and shield charge/whirling blades.

Does the burn you're able to inflict become more important in t10+ maps? I'm currently rolling elemental focus as my 6th link so I don't lose either area or crit chance. If the purpose of inquisitor is to crit for that free penetration, seems like the loss of the status ailment would be better than the loss of 7% crit chance.

You don't feel like there's a reason for an anti freeze item? Good flask management is plenty or?

"

hardell wrote:

I hooked temporal chains with orb of storms since there's really no need to get more damage and it feels great and much safer than before.

Easily farming uber lab with this. Both Argus and Izaro are a joke with temp chains and shield charge/whirling blades.

Yeah that seems very reasonable. I really like the ease of my current setup but I will give that one a try. Argus and Izaro are kind of a joke regardless though... How good was today's lab by the way? So fast.

"

PeelingPaint98 wrote:

Does the burn you're able to inflict become more important in t10+ maps? I'm currently rolling elemental focus as my 6th link so I don't lose either area or crit chance. If the purpose of inquisitor is to crit for that free penetration, seems like the loss of the status ailment would be better than the loss of 7% crit chance.

The ignite is a massive DPS increase against bosses. I'll check the numbers when I'm next on a desktop, but off the top of my head it adds at least 50% more damage.

"

Thefatpunk wrote:

You don't feel like there's a reason for an anti freeze item? Good flask management is plenty or?

Good flask management is definitely plenty. My antifreeze Basalt gives up to 12 seconds of freeze immunity! I don't think I've been in a situation where I've needed more than 2 seconds yet, and I've done plenty of added cold maps.

First off, hats off to Viperesque for starting this thread.

I'd like to weigh in on the Hierophant issue, as my original plan was to go Hierophant and I ended up with Inquisitor. On paper, Hierophant is pretty terrible. Because of the cumulative less damage penalty per totem, it scales exponentially -- and gets even worse if you wanted to include a Searing Bond totem in the mix:

1 totem: 92% damage (of single totem damage)
2 totems: 168% dmg (84% per totem)
3 totems: 228% dmg (76% per totem)
4 totems: 272% dmg (68% per totem)

In terms of raw numbers, you don't even break even until you've got 3 totems on the ground, and it's not until you've got a 4th that you're really getting a substantial damage increase. If you're dealing enough that you're one-shotting packs, maybe it doesn't matter -- the video in this thread of Hierophant looks like it does well enough, and the QoL is probably much higher with the extra totem.

I was originally looking at Ancestral Bond + Hierophant, which effectively adds a huge drawback to the extra totem from Ancestral Bond. I don't think it's worth getting both -- the marginal benefit of speccing into Ancestral Bond if you're going Hierophant doesn't seem worth the passive points to get there. I'd love to play quad totem, so someone please prove me wrong! If putting the crit nodes into general damage nodes makes up for the less damage per totem, that's probably the build I want to be playing, but it just doesn't look like it works out to me.

---

Right now, I'm sitting at 74 "crit" Inquisitor with 20 points unspent.

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAABAUBAAKWBAcEswVCCPQJqhEtFm8aOBpsHNwdFCL0JKoqEyycMtE26TwFPV9BlkVHRZ1JsUyzUlNTUlXGWOVZ81orXl1mnmpDbAttGXIPfIOCm4Pbi4yOZI8akFWSbpMnl5WX9Jo7muCf36EvogCj8qeUrrO2-rxWvorAVMBmwJrQ9dH90nzVptfP2fzjauQi6-7tPO9874j3pvk3-d360g==?accountName=procproc&characterName=Hades_Endbringer

"Crit" is in quotes because my crit chance is pretty abysmal (14%ish), due in no small part to having so many unspent points. The points remain unspent for now because I'm torn between respeccing Hierophant, life-based Inquisitor, and CI Inquisitor. I think life-based is overall less durable than CI, but I was lucky enough to find a Carcass Jack early in this league and it synergizes so well with the build that I'm loathe to give it up. The build is strong enough that even with all those points unspent, I've had no trouble clearing up through ~t6 maps.

Major targets of interest for nodes are:

- Explosive Impact cluster
- cast speed clusters (Mental Rapidity and Nimbleness)
- Shadow area crit nodes (Trickery, Coordination, and Assassination)
- Shaman's Dominion
- Totemic Mastery and Totemic Zeal -- totem placement is always nice, but not sure it's worth the opportunity cost here

Also curious why there's been no mention of Haste here. Anger is obviously very good with the totems, but running Haste instead feels like it's increasing my clear speed, though it's not clear to me what the breakpoints will be when one is better than the other. I'm currently running Discipline and Haste as my auras, though Temp Chains blasphemy and Anger are appealing alternatives.

Gearwise, I'm still wielding dual wands -- Lifesprig and Ashcaller. Ashcaller is a little awkward due to not having any cast speed or crit on it, but the ignite chance feels pretty nice, perhaps especially for non-crit/Hierophant builds.

Also, Viperesque, I notice your CI build doesn't pick up the Melding cluster -- is that an oversight, or did you just run out of points? It's one of the best ES pickups on the tree in conjunction with the Energy From Within jewel.

I've been testing a lowlife elementalist version. Haste is too much reservation for only 15% cast speed. Might as well get flat spell damage from another aura or something defensive.

Nice build I am just curious how you work out your average dps with crit and flame blast? Could you post how you worked it out and your tooltip damage? I have made my own pizza build and just curious how it compares. Thanks.

"

procproc wrote:

First off, hats off to Viperesque for starting this thread.

I'd like to weigh in on the Hierophant issue, as my original plan was to go Hierophant and I ended up with Inquisitor. On paper, Hierophant is pretty terrible. Because of the cumulative less damage penalty per totem, it scales exponentially -- and gets even worse if you wanted to include a Searing Bond totem in the mix:

1 totem: 92% damage (of single totem damage)
2 totems: 168% dmg (84% per totem)
3 totems: 228% dmg (76% per totem)
4 totems: 272% dmg (68% per totem)

In terms of raw numbers, you don't even break even until you've got 3 totems on the ground, and it's not until you've got a 4th that you're really getting a substantial damage increase. If you're dealing enough that you're one-shotting packs, maybe it doesn't matter -- the video in this thread of Hierophant looks like it does well enough, and the QoL is probably much higher with the extra totem.

I was originally looking at Ancestral Bond + Hierophant, which effectively adds a huge drawback to the extra totem from Ancestral Bond. I don't think it's worth getting both -- the marginal benefit of speccing into Ancestral Bond if you're going Hierophant doesn't seem worth the passive points to get there. I'd love to play quad totem, so someone please prove me wrong! If putting the crit nodes into general damage nodes makes up for the less damage per totem, that's probably the build I want to be playing, but it just doesn't look like it works out to me.

Yeah, that's a pretty good summary of why Hiero looks bad on paper. But the extra clear speed from the extra totem or two (assuming your totems one-shot mobs despite the penalty) might be worth it. Haven't seen a video of the Hiero version doing hard stuff yet though.

"

Also curious why there's been no mention of Haste here. Anger is obviously very good with the totems, but running Haste instead feels like it's increasing my clear speed, though it's not clear to me what the breakpoints will be when one is better than the other. I'm currently running Discipline and Haste as my auras, though Temp Chains blasphemy and Anger are appealing alternatives.

Anger gives a pretty serious amount of extra damage. Again, for easy content haste would be better I suppose, but it's a ton less damage against nasty bosses. My expectation was that you'd run it in a low-life version to make up for losing the second dagger.

"

Also, Viperesque, I notice your CI build doesn't pick up the Melding cluster -- is that an oversight, or did you just run out of points? It's one of the best ES pickups on the tree in conjunction with the Energy From Within jewel.

It honestly isn't that good. It's slightly more point efficient than most of the clusters I pick up, but doesn't come with any other benefits. Worse, it uses up a precious jewel socket that I'd rather use on damage.

"

Stich wrote:

Nice build I am just curious how you work out your average dps with crit and flame blast? Could you post how you worked it out and your tooltip damage? I have made my own pizza build and just curious how it compares. Thanks.

Divide your cast speed by 10 to get the Flameblast detonations per second, and your average damage by 10.9 to get the damage per 10-stack detonation. Tooltip damage is in section 8 of the OP.

"

procproc wrote:

First off, hats off to Viperesque for starting this thread.

I'd like to weigh in on the Hierophant issue, as my original plan was to go Hierophant and I ended up with Inquisitor. On paper, Hierophant is pretty terrible. Because of the cumulative less damage penalty per totem, it scales exponentially -- and gets even worse if you wanted to include a Searing Bond totem in the mix:

1 totem: 92% damage (of single totem damage)
2 totems: 168% dmg (84% per totem)
3 totems: 228% dmg (76% per totem)
4 totems: 272% dmg (68% per totem)

that argument is flawed though imo. first off there's no way to get 4 totems on the ground without penalty. and what about overlapping flameblasts? every one of those, and in case of hierophant & flameblast there will be a lot, is 100% more damage. you should include those in your calculations too before you dismiss hierophant.

also that mana to energy shield node is really good. my gear is only mediocre atm and i sit at over 10k ES low life with shavs. could be a couple thousand more with better gear.