Guide: Fireball CI Curser - Proliferated Burning Critical Fire Damage | In-depth | SC |

might just be me but instead of taking tri-curse or even dou-curse, i take more crit chance and es nodes. i find that using a Q5+ decoy totem with minion/totem resist, i can get away with using just the flame curse. if you throw the decoy totem up in front of you, before you even enter rooms or new areas, mobs will flicker strike/target it and you can safely deliever a few fireballs.

Edit: Detonate Corpse gem actually works well with the build, noticed this today when using it to clear out corpses so mobs couldn't resurrect them.

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Kakarot3 wrote:

might just be me but instead of taking tri-curse or even dou-curse, i take more crit chance and es nodes. i find that using a Q5+ decoy totem with minion/totem resist, i can get away with using just the flame curse. if you throw the decoy totem up in front of you, before you even enter rooms or new areas, mobs will flicker strike/target it and you can safely deliever a few fireballs.

Edit: Detonate Corpse gem actually works well with the build, noticed this today when using it to clear out corpses so mobs couldn't resurrect them.

Sounds like it works pretty good with your decoy totem.

The reason i don't go for it is because of lack of gem slots and because you have enough defense once you have good enough gear - so you are really giving up damage and clearing speed for a more defensive option that you do not strictly need.

Anyways that's just my take on it i'm just happy to see more fire users so we can make all these people forget about spark totem :D

Yes corpse explosion is crazy, but then again when i land a fireball the whole area dies :D I wish i had more gem/action slots then i would always keep a corpse explosion around for some boomz!.. hmm maybe ill try to move some things around, sacrifice haste and reduced mana on grace to make space for a new 4 link corpse explosion..

Many people are saying crits and searing touch are not worth it. I disagree. Why would you want to use ele prolif without the searing touch? The burn damage is your bread and butter. Crit hits ignite, thus no need for ignite gems. I'll take the huge damage instead.

Dual curses: The amount of passives required are a huge waste. If you want to dual curse, get the boots. The +1 curse ring is garbage.

I am surprised to not see more people talking about life leech for es. Without leech, this is a glass cannon build, and it will be very difficult to exceed lvl 80.

Mana: Many of the builds posted have invested many points into mana. I try to remind myself that more damage saves mana, and also improves leech. Again, I'll take the crits instead (dream fragments ring is also very helpful, and the new patch buffed clarity).

Charges: Blood rage = easy frenzy charges, its a no brainer. Power charge on crit adds more damage than faster cast and saves mana. With 7 power charges, 3 frenzy, and aoe passives, Discharge is a great option for massive damage...that is...if you have crits.

I recently re-specced my 87 witch to a fireball build. With several power charges and a couple frenzy, I'm hitting about 4k dps. Seems kind of low? Well, my fireball gem is only lvl 13 atm. I can solo 70+ maps just fine with this dps, and I expect it to double when my gems are leveled.

My opinion of the fireball witch, after running about 10 maps after my char conversion, is awesome. I ran summoner up to lvl 87, with the intention of switching to heavy dps down the road. This was exactly what I was looking for.

Forgot to mention....Detonate dead totem....duh!

Oh yeah one more thing....Molten Shell....duh! (doing 16k dps with leech, very nice protection and damage)

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beefnuggy wrote:

Forgot to mention....Detonate dead totem....duh!

Can you post your current build and spell choices?

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beefnuggy wrote:

Many people are saying crits and searing touch are not worth it. I disagree. Why would you want to use ele prolif without the searing touch? The burn damage is your bread and butter. Crit hits ignite, thus no need for ignite gems. I'll take the huge damage instead.

Dual curses: The amount of passives required are a huge waste. If you want to dual curse, get the boots. The +1 curse ring is garbage.

I am surprised to not see more people talking about life leech for es. Without leech, this is a glass cannon build, and it will be very difficult to exceed lvl 80.

Mana: Many of the builds posted have invested many points into mana. I try to remind myself that more damage saves mana, and also improves leech. Again, I'll take the crits instead (dream fragments ring is also very helpful, and the new patch buffed clarity).

Charges: Blood rage = easy frenzy charges, its a no brainer. Power charge on crit adds more damage than faster cast and saves mana. With 7 power charges, 3 frenzy, and aoe passives, Discharge is a great option for massive damage...that is...if you have crits.

I recently re-specced my 87 witch to a fireball build. With several power charges and a couple frenzy, I'm hitting about 4k dps. Seems kind of low? Well, my fireball gem is only lvl 13 atm. I can solo 70+ maps just fine with this dps, and I expect it to double when my gems are leveled.

My opinion of the fireball witch, after running about 10 maps after my char conversion, is awesome. I ran summoner up to lvl 87, with the intention of switching to heavy dps down the road. This was exactly what I was looking for.

Hey, i agree on a lot you write but there are also some things i disagree on, let me try to explain.

Fire and crits yea absolutely they go hand in hand, the only way to optimize the fire element is to use it's strength which is burn, and burn does not stack. I don't get either why people think fire is bad. They must not have tried a proper build. However,a good wand + shield will do more damage, both initial and burn, compared to searing touch, that's why i only used it until i found better gear.

This build does not only use dual curses but tripple curses, and in terms of damage output, the points invested there are probably your strongest dps points, and act as an overall multiplier. This is due to the nature of burn and double dipping with reduced resistances. The cast speed to curses is also very welcome to increase the clearing speed of each pack.

When you fireball a monster with reduced resistances, those reduces resistances will increase the initial size of the hit, from which the burn scales, but then it will also increase the damage they take from the already increased burn, which is why -resist curses are so powerful, they double dip with a burn build.

In addition, temporal chains is the one and only thing that allows this build to be possible without dying all over. That curse is just beastly, and it has perfect synergy with the build. This build lives of mobility, and of controlling enemies, that is why it is possible to play without totems or minions in a glass cannon build and survive to get xp.

About the mana, it is absolutely crucial. Without getting mana regen points you cannot cast at all times, you use weaker arctic armour and you simply is less powerful. You cannot get enough regen to run the top damaging fireball without. The price is probably gonna be faster casting which is indispensable for the build without totems or minions or leech. But why pick leech when the build has been tested to function and survive without it?

The thing with this build is you are using 5 pure damage increasing supports, and each time you pick either leech or something else you reduce your damage. That might have been good, but this build was engineered to be able to survive without it, therefore you take leech when you do not need it.

I'm taking it you are using shavronnes and therefore have to grab various different points such as ghost reaver and zealoth oath to be able to run it. That's another build version and it sounds like a good one too, but this build i am creating is meant to last and not use the flavor of the month increases. For example it is highly likely that rigtheous fires 87% more spell damage will take a hit in the future, and the low vision is another thing that does not compute with this build - i just want the best gameplay with this build and nothing less.

I use bloodrage also but may replace should i get upwards 22% faster casting on my wand. Faster casting is superior to critical charges. It gives you an immense amount of defensive power and also about the same amount of damage, depending on how high your crit chance is in the build, at reachable levels it even gives more dps also than crit charges. The math is a bit further back in the thread somewhere, and does not even count increased amount of non-crit fireball hits. Remove faster casting and double your chances to die. Crit charges is best for low geared/lvling chars.

I looks like you have a quite a different version running there and im sure it deals a serious amount of damage as well, after all it is fireball, but i'm pretty confident the choices made here are the right ones for overall clearing speed and surviveability without using shavronnes. With shavronnes i guess life leech becomes highly relevant, but without you regen all you need when you have practiced playing this build for a while.

Leech matches badly also with fire because it does not work with burn and so only a very small portion of your damage. I look for good to perfect matches when i create builds and leech is something i would use on other casters but not fire. Similarly molten shell is a very bad match. This build lives of moving around and avoiding hits, molten shell gets better the less of that you are doing. It also does not apply to anything i have had issues with this far, and when i land a crit they all die anyway, not to mention there is no gem slots for a proper molten/detonate dead, and they do exactly what fireball does anyway, massive aoe boom so it does not match well. That's just what i think but if works ideal for you then by all means go for it.

I must admit i want a detonate dead spell, but there is no gems worth replacing and space on my action bar for it, so i think ill let it be for now. maybe sometime in the future i will find the space for it, it should get increasingly better the larger the party is.

Ah yes new lets see as path of exile moves into a new build phase, if it won't result in nerf to firetrap in half a year or more from now. That is my prediction, as i see many people using fire trap as a form of no-risk easykill style due to high base damage and large area of effect.

EDIT:

I am also experimenting with a new throwback to an older version after elemental dominion change, a shift to a more offensive build



Last 5 points either into energy shield cooldown recovery or 30 dex(so you dont have to get dex on boots which requires a dex/int hybrid boot, and therefore can get higher int on boots) and the "Mean Streak" 45% crit node cluster between templar and witch.

Here are the two examples of lvl 100 builds, which no one will probably ever get anyway i just love theorycrafting them:

Omg! my witch is now uber ugly after acquiring

Everything is going pretty well so far. Hard time finding some good ES gear to switch into CI. Just started fellshrine merci.