[3.3] Wormblaster the 4.5th - Flameblast / Herald of Ash Slayer

Most of the time, I'm using the upgraded Arakaali and Yugul Pantheon Souls. Arakaali is especially good against Uber Elder as I don't use Righteous Fire there, so constantly moving in and out of degens increases my Life Leech rate from 58% to about 83% of maximum Life per second. It also reduces damage taken from all damage over time.
Yugul is also the main choice for Shaper / Uber Elder for the reduced cold damage taken.

When having trouble with getting stunned, Brine King is pretty useful.
Aberrath and Gruthkul can be good choices for the minor gods too, reducing damage taken from RF / attack speed of enemies and incoming physical damage.
With the Writhing Jar being a Hybrid Flask, Soul of Ryslatha does not work.

What are your thoughts on using a +3 fire gems staff w/ Blood Magic, instead of the helmet?

Clearing using Obliteration wands

With a +3 fire staff, you can probably get at least 15-35% more damage. You could also drop Elreon rings and Zerphi's might be able to find a use too.
That alone sounds good, but when considering the loss of mobility and life from the shield I'm not sure if it would be worth it.
Especially against Uber Atziri / Uber Elder, slow movement can get dangerous. With several possible oneshots from the bosses skills, keeping up Fortify (necessary for Uber Elder) seems to be easier with Shield Charge, and dodging mechanics is faster with Shield Charge too.

The damage output was almost never a problem for me on the normal setup as almost all bosses / their phases get oneshot by a Flameblast + Herald of Ash burn, so using a Staff might not be optimal for this build. It should still work and be able to kill Shaper, but I don't know how far beyond it would go.

Anyone try Vaal Righteous Fire yet?

A 10k hp RF Jugg has 14000 base damage for VRF. Flameblast has maybe 2000 base damage if you are lucky.
Or did I mess up the math?

And by the way, Concentrated Effect has 30% reduced AOE so the Worms don't die in RF at level 19 (+4 radius). I think they should be safe in level 21 RF too (+5 radius).

I can only use a 5-linked herald of ash; what support gem should I drop? AoE?

On a 5-link I'd drop Efficacy or Increased Area of Effect, with Efficacy giving the lowest amount of damage and Increased Area of Effect making it more reliable to "hit" an enemy.

Vaal RF deals about three times the damage of a Flameblast here, at 6.7k HP, so it is a good way to get higher burning damage. However, that is just a lot more than needed in most situations and not very safe to do.

The area of RF is not really a problem against bosses without adds, but if you've killed recently, Slayer grants 20% increased area of effect. With that buff up, the worms get killed by RF with +4 radius or more (unless you left out the nodes around Amplify).

Nice build, thanks bump!

Increased duration scales Burn duration from HoA? Is it mandatory? Why AOE? Base AOE of HoA is too small?

Can it work with other classes? Like Scion or Pathfinder?

What about Indigon? It can increase damage from Flameblast tenfold.

Is 6L HoA more important than 6L Flameblast? We want to scale HoA's damage more, right?

Is not loreweave just better for this build? I mean, you save the mana for purity of fire since you already get extra fire res wich is like having extra mana to reserve with the comiming calamity and it gives you HP and ele dmge

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SunL4D2 wrote:

Increased duration scales Burn duration from HoA? Is it mandatory?

Yes to both. 75% increased duration from the gem on top of the 45% from the tree acts as a ~52% more multiplier to the total burning damage dealt. There is also just one alternative (Empower) because Herald of Ash can only be scaled by modifiers to damage over time, burning damage and skill effect duration. The burn from it is not an ailment either, which rules out even more possible support gems.

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SunL4D2 wrote:

Why AOE? Base AOE of HoA is too small?

The AoE of Herald of Ash really isn't great and with limited flask charges, it's important to be able to proc the burn reliably. Another reason to use it would be the lack of alternatives again. Quality isn't needed for this gem as the increased area damage has no effect.

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SunL4D2 wrote:

Can it work with other classes? Like Scion or Pathfinder?

You'd have to change a lot to make this work with another class. Scion Slayer allows overleeching, but the amount leeched wouldn't be enough to rely on it for a long time. With other classes, you'd probably need a high amount of life regeneration and/or Zerphi's Last Breath.

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SunL4D2 wrote:

What about Indigon? It can increase damage from Flameblast tenfold.

Indigon requires a lot of investment, i don't really know if that would be worth it in this case. Not being able to move for an even longer time while channeling Flameblast would also be a significant weakness.

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SunL4D2 wrote:

Is 6L HoA more important than 6L Flameblast? We want to scale HoA's damage more, right?

The burning damage of Herald of Ash is linearly dependent on the damage dealt by Flameblast, so you can think of it as an 11-link with 1 skill and 10 support gems. It may still be better to invest in a 6l Flameblast first if you don't have problems with the smaller AoE.

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Lhigtingtopo wrote:

Is not loreweave just better for this build?

I haven't been able to test it yet, but Loreweave does look like it might be a little better than Coming Calamity. The only problem would be the high mana reservation of Herald of Ash (95% doesn't leave enough for Flameblast), but that can be fixed by taking the Sovereignty reservation nodes.