[3.7] LL RF Scorching Ray Guardian | 19K ES | 52k Armour|1.5 mil dps| Uber Elder & HoGM DEATHLESS

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https://pastebin.com/0XRAhdEv

still viable

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zzang wrote:

Inb4 "is this still viable". I sold all my gear before patch notes so i can not tell from a practical standpoint i give my hopes to lagrossesimon.

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LAGROSSESIMONE wrote:

Changes that should affect this build :

Spoiler

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Several Damage over Time-only skills, such as Righteous Fire, Contagion and the Death Aura from Death's Oath, can now break barrels and other objects throughout the world.

Looks like a QOL buff, but don't know if this change how RF apply it damage, and so, if it "hit". I'm quite suspicious about this.

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Righteous Fire

Now deals 35.8 base Fire Damage per second at gem level 1, up to 1541.8 at gem level 20 (previously dealt no base Fire Damage per second).
Enemies now burn for 20% of your maximum Life and Energy Shield per second as Fire Damage at all gem levels (from 40%).
Now gains 1% Burning Damage per 1% gem quality (from 1% Spell Damage per 1% gem quality).

Here come the massive change ...
The dmg based on our ES will be strongly nerfed. But at the same time we gain some flat dmg.

So this will strongly change how we build the character and how our dmg may progress.
Staking ES won't be as rewarding as before in order to improve our dps. So build orientation that were strongly based on mana guardian version will have their dps strongly nerfed. Budget version with low to mid ES may have higher dps than previously on other hand.

So basically gaining level on RF will now be worthy and the new way to go for minmaxing dps. We can assume it will worth it to play Empower.
Rare scepter that provide +2 to all fire skill gems will certainly be the new BiS weapon for this build.

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Scorching Ray

Now deals 11.7 base Fire Damage per second at gem level 1 (from 13), up to 439.4 at gem level 20 (from 488.2).

It's a 11.11% dmg reduction to the gem at lvl 20. We still have to wait to confirm if this nerf is a linear dmg reduction of 11.11% or if it's different for SR lvl 21 and more (with Empower 4 and +1 lvl gems corruption for example).
From information we have, a 6L SR + 4L RF should still provide more dps than a 6L RF + 3-4L SR, but we have to wait until all detailed info on SR dps progression through levels to confirme this.

Even if this should lower our dps for most version of the build, the global +x lvl from scepter may compensate the 11.11% less dmg from the nerf of SR.

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Wands, Sceptres, Staves, Rune Daggers and pure Intelligence Shields can now roll modifiers which affect the levels of all Skill Gems of a certain type, not just those socketed within that item. They can no longer roll the modifers which solely affect socketed gem levels.

Rare scepter with +x lvl to all fire gems will certainly become the new BiS weapons. Doon should still be the way to go in budget version of the build, but it's still hard to say for mid range budget version.
And this new global +1-2 lvl to all fire gems may alow us to compensate the other dps nerf.

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Healthy Mind: Now limited to 1.

This should only affect budget build or minmaxed mana guardian variation of the build.
This build was, most of the time, relying on 1 of this jewel, and it can be easily switched for a rare that will provide lot of offensive stats.

Non listed but notable changes :
- Passive tree changes.
I didn't updated my PoB with the alpha skill tree change yet. So wait & see. From what we can read in the patch note, I don't know yet how much the tree will changes, but there will be change (probably a lot, depending on dmg multiplier change concerning burning dmg) ;
- Damage multiplier change concerning Burning damage.
I didn't checked in detail the patch note on this part, so I don't have much to say about this.

Personal thoughts :
3.8 does not looks like super friendly with this build. Still, I don't think this build is dead. But 3.8 should not be such an OP & funny league for LL SR/RF builds.

I will come back latter after PoB update, and after doing some test.