Incinerate stages way too slow - Poe wiki lies to you

"Incinerate gains more damage when cast continuously from one spot, up to a maximum of 200% more damage. The next stage is reached after every tick (0.2s). At each stage, the flames become visibly larger and will spread out in a huge cone"

"The next stage is reached after every tick (0.2s)."

So it has 5 casts per second, which means with 0 cast speed in 1.6 seconds you should be at max stages.

Just tested it with a 0 cast speed character, it takes like 3-4 seconds for maximum stages to happen.

Even with huge investment, currently at @170% cast speed, it still feels slow.

Thanks to Herald of Agony i could calculate in pvp, and nr were these:

10.02 casts per second and 100% chance to poison, by the time i was at stage 8 the guy had 21 poisons. Which means 21 hits aka 2.1 seconds. If first hit is free (without the 0.2 base delay), then every 3 hits(casts) i get an extra stage.

So since 100% cast speed translated to double cast speed, it means base Incinerate stages happen every 3 casts, so every 0.6 seconds. Hence why it actually does take 3-4 seconds to max stage. 3.6 seconds to be exact.


TL;DR - Even with a huge cast speed investment @200% inc cast speed, incinerate will still be SLOW AF, i agree with the dmg per stages, but the AoE not being instant like ... flurry, blight, tendrils, ruins it. I wonder how popular Scorching ray would be if the beam length would start at 0 range and take 2 seconds to reach full length.


Also it would be nice if GGG would announce these mechanics when they release/rework a new skill.

The wiki info is often written based on what the devs have said since actual testing to nail down mechanics doesn't often happen unless there's a big question about something that differs from what would be expected.

I definitely agree Incinerate is slow and feels pretty crappy. The perceived cast speed is slow, the way the skill ramps up into its AoE is slow, and upon release the final wave is also quite slow.

Granted, this is just with my fuckaround Juggernaut in standard so obviously a proper caster will work out better. But even when I've dabbled in some casting setups with him (self ignite through Eye of Innocence and Mokou's Embrace, end up getting roughly 80% cast speed with Faster Casting support) plus Iron Will and run easy yellow maps it still feels sad. Compare to my self-bomber Arc CotB setup with him and it gets even worse.