[1.3]Fireball Witch guide for beginners

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Funadept wrote:

Is "Increase critical strike chance" working for spells ? Since it is mentionned "for spells" in other nodes such as "Doom cast", I have a doubt !

That's why I hesitate before taking nodes like "Assassination" or "Intense Zeal" or even simply "Critical Strike Chance". Are they really useful ?

Thank you in advance.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

ATTACK SPELLS
The following setups is for 5 links. If you only have a 4 link i would skip fire penetration although that also depends on what gems you already have: Fire penetration is a quest reward in act3 normal (severe the right hand) whereas conc.effect is a very late reward in act3 merciless in the archives (and i would rather pick Cast when Damage Taken in that quest). So you might end up taking fire penetration over conc. effect in the setup because of this.

Fireball – Lesser Multiple Projectiles – concentrated effect – life leech – fire penetration

Fireball has the big advantage that it can shotgun enemies (unlike bow attacks or ethereal knives). That means all three projectiles can hit and damage a single target for multiple damage.
Concentrated effect is probably the biggest damage boost fireball can get. The explosion radius of fireball is pretty meager to begin with so you won’t lose much by the conc.effect penalty. LMP is enough to cover crowds. Be sure not to use pierce/fork/chain with conc.effect as it will have no effect on piecing/forking/chaining projectiles. Only the last enemy that is hit without further piercing/forking/chaining will be hit for More damage.
Fire penetration lowers the resistance of the enemy. You get a flat damage increase of+30% no matter how high its initial fire resistance. Don’t be fooled by the tooltip dps not changing. You get more damage by lowering the defense not by upping your offense (though the final result is the same)

Wiki on penetration mechanics

From the wiki:

Penetration is not the same as losing resistance, which changes the target's resistance value. Penetration does not modify the target's resistance, instead it treats it as lower than it is. This is important when considering a target that has stacked their resistance value past the maximum resistance cap of 75%.
Examples
Consider a player using a skill with Penetrates 50% Fire Resistance dealing 100 fire damage to an enemy:
• If the enemy has +0% Fire resistance
The enemy's resistance will be treated at 50 lower than it is, which in this case will result in an effective -50% fire resistance. The enemy will take 150 fire damage.
• If the enemy has +25% Fire resistance
This will result in an effective -25% fire resistance. The enemy will take 125 fire damage.
• The enemy has +150% Fire resistance, but is capped at their maximum fire resistance of 75%
This will result in an effective 25% fire resistance. The enemy will take 75 fire damage.
• The enemy has +150% Fire resistance, but is capped at their maximum fire resistance of 75%. The enemy is cursed with Flammability before being attacked, which causes them to lose 30% Fire Resistance.
The enemy first loses 30% resistance, bringing them down to +120% fire resistance. They are still well above their maximum, and their resistance value remains at 75%. The 50% penetration then results in an effective 25% fire resistance. The enemy will take 75 fire damage.
• The enemy has +10% Fire resistance. The enemy is cursed with Flammability before being attacked, which causes them to lose 30% Fire Resistance.
The enemy first loses 30% resistance, bringing them down to -20% fire resistance. The 50% penetration then results in an effective -70% fire resistance. The enemy will take 170 fire damage.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

Trigger gems:
Cast on damage taken
It comes with a huge penalty (LESS damage) when used with a damage spell, that gets reduced when you level it up. On the other hand it increases the amount of damage you have to take before it gets triggered. Either keep it at under level 10 and use it with a pure defensive spell: Enduring Cry for some endurance charges that give 4% physical damage reduction per charge; Molten Shell for the additional (though a bit low) armour.
Or level it up to be used with a damage spell. As you can't use spells that are of higher level than the CwDT i recommend leveling it up to level 11 - 20. It will take 3000+ damage to trigger but that can happen pretty quick in merciless.
On a cold witch i would link it with Cold Snap + Ice Nova + Concentrated Effect for a high chance of freezing melee attackers that made it past your skeletons. As a fire witch the elemental passivs don't benefit those cold spells so maybe it would be better to link it with a high level molten shell for more armour and the explosion damage.

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Grildrak wrote:

You are selling Fire Penetration a bit short here. It is far from just a 30% increase. If you are facing a mob with max fire resist (75%) fire pen will take you from doing 25% of your tool tip damage to something around 55% that is over 100% more. Conc effect is just at 69% at lvl 20 and have a higher mana multiplier and less aoe (agree the aoe is really insignificant but still something).
Sure not all mobs are highly fire resistant but those that are not will die really easy anyway whatever you use fire pen or conc effect.

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Grildrak wrote:

The best part of cast on damage taken is in my opinion that it aims the skill (unlike cast when stunned). That makes it perfect for linking frost wall. Whenever anyone attacks you they get a short duration wall in there face pushing them away allowing you to run/kill them easily. I personally prefer to keep the frost wall at lvl 1 to keep the duration short enough so it wont block my own fireballs (could even be worth linking reduce duration). I am using this to stay alive in 70+ maps with a glass cannon without any life leach.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

I tried frost wall, casting it manually, with trigger gems and even with a spell totem, and i never could get used to it. It just ain't my thing.
When using it i would rather try it with piercing spells like incinerate or freezing pulse; keeping the duration of the wall short because of the non piercing fireball seems to run a bit against the intended use of the wall.

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くりす wrote:

I'm trying this build on Nemesis since the build goes through many life nodes.

Bada_Bing... do you think this build is viable for Nemesis?

I want to try to figure how to build my own character instead of just following guides later on, but I give up fast and just find a build that's similar to mine because I know I'm not that smart lol.

I wanted to try a dual totem or even single totem fireball witch ( I think I've seen some on Nemesis playing on maps in parties). I'll probably need a secondary or tertiary attack.

This game is very complicated but I don't think I will have much time for it during school (need a job too lol)..

Current progress: Act 1 Cruel

Level 36

Gear

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