[GUIDE] Scorched Earth (How to be a Fire Witch)

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BZRKNode wrote:

3-5c...the only ones Ive seen going on trade are going for like 2.5explus someone one tried to get me to pay 5 ex for a really really very low roll one. (you don't scam an eve player) Otherwise I am intrigued by this build.

http://poe.xyz.is/search/ritetuoasikine

Not sure what league you're on. If you go for a 5L then yes, they will be 2-5 ex, but for 3L or 4L it's a few chaos (I recommend paying 1-2 chaos for a no-link and just linking it or 3-5c for a 4L one)

poe.xyz.is is a great tool to compare prices and such. You can alter the search options to disable the "buyout" option and find people who may just be willing to haggle on prices or only want a chaos or two for them (just make sure the ilevel is at least 28 to roll 4 sockets).

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I edited the top post with a couple new videos as well as my current passive tree.

I added 2 68 map runs today on hard mods. The museum map I cut off after the boss as it was a pretty boring run after that and it gives a good idea on what I was doing. The vaal run I really wanted to highlight the *minimum* the build does in the worst situations, and showing that just because you roll bad affixes doesn't mean you have to shy away from doing the map as you can still stay effective.

museum:
chilled
EE
EW
3 added proj
90 extra damage L
unique boss 30% dmg 25% speed

vaal:
totems
monsters +75 fire resist
enfeebled
shocked ground
2 end charge 20 sec


I'll keep updating with my progress as well as posting videos as I progress in map tiers. This is the first character I've actually started mapping with regularly, so I still have to build up my map pool, although the exp is so awful right now running 67-69 that I might just buy some 70-74s and roll 'em.

As some fun evidence that this is still a face-roll, my friend and I ran a 72 mine map the other night (no major harmful mods, I believe it was of hordes and of champions with elemental weakness or something) and I killed the boss so fast in a crowded room that neither of us even knew the boss Had been in that room. Fun times ahead still!

^

Why does elemental proliferation take precedence over other (seemingly more useful) gems? Is it just to perma-shock packs? If that's the case I think I'll probably use a different gem until I'm mapping and actually have a good critrate/need for sustained dps. Probably burning damage or increased AoE? Thanks for posting this guide, this build is exactly what I was hoping to find when a searing touch dropped for me the other day. Wonder if it's worth trying to 5link it off my current 4L...

Pretty new to the game (couple weeks) and my experience is with a 72 blender (blew through the game, was too easy) and now leveling a sporker. This sounds like just enough of a change of pace to keep it interesting.

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Mankrik147 wrote:

Why does elemental proliferation take precedence over other (seemingly more useful) gems? Is it just to perma-shock packs? If that's the case I think I'll probably use a different gem until I'm mapping and actually have a good critrate/need for sustained dps. Probably burning damage or increased AoE? Thanks for posting this guide, this build is exactly what I was hoping to find when a searing touch dropped for me the other day. Wonder if it's worth trying to 5link it off my current 4L...

Pretty new to the game (couple weeks) and my experience is with a 72 blender (blew through the game, was too easy) and now leveling a sporker. This sounds like just enough of a change of pace to keep it interesting.

Thanks for reading. To answer your questions:

Proliferation is used because the burns triggered from the initial trap hit are far larger than the base burn from the trap.

Using my damage & build: the trap's burning damage is roughly 2.7k dps. That dps number may go up or down a bit based on monster resistance, but that's about as high as it's going to get.

Now lets look at the burn triggered from the initial hit:

Burns deal 5/4 of the damage from the initial hit, spread out over 4 seconds. I'm at work atm and so I can't do a really accurate calc, but from what I can remember my average initial hit is about 4050, with a given range of about 3000-5000. I also have roughly 120% increased fire damage and 150% increased burning damage.

So the burn calc will be:

InitialHit * 1.25 * (1 + [[IncreasedFireDmg + IncreasedBurnDmg]/100]

4000*1.25 * (1+[[120+150]/100]) = 18,500 total burn damage before the "more" multipliers from fire pen and flammability are calced. Divide by 4 to get the burn dps (4625).

So we have the burning ground 2.7k dps and the triggered burn 4.6k dps, which can stack, but how do you avoid inconsistency in pack clearing? You use proliferate. Proliferate will always apply the highest of the burns for the duration the corpse is ignited. This ensures consistency and that your ignite always closer to your top-end damage.

Proliferate also helps tremendously against high fire resist monsters as long as there is at least one enemy with low fire resist that can proliferate.

Tl;dr
Prolif ensures consistency, and the gains from inc aoe are marginal given all the radius in the tree.

Also should point out that dps will never be an issue until you start running 72+ maps (I'm just now starting to feel like I need a tad more dps, but I'm carrying 2-3 player parties on 71-72 maps).

As for trying to 5l? It's not even close to necessary so I wouldn't recommend it until you get resistances capped, life on all pieces you can, ect. The 5L and 6L just provide a marginal dps boost, but unless you're in high maps or rolling consistently with 4+ parties I don't think the gain of melting things in 1 second to .8 seconds is really noticeable enough to put it super high up on the priority list. That said, if you have the currency and are already res capped, the 5l will be a nice boost.

Running this now and really enjoying it.
It's not even about the potential for damage this build has, but more how it has to be played that is interesting to me, especially with EE.
You can't face tank and your gameplay requires some actual awareness, also you need to adjust your rotation according to the mobs you're fighting, instead of just mashing one button 24/7.

Real props man, I think this deserves more attention than it is getting.

This is great. Thanks for sharing your build, makes me reconsider some decisions about my own Templar :)
Edit : My own Searing touch (40% fire :')) is a 5L. What would be your choice of support gems in that case ? I'm currently BBBBG (Conc. Effect, Inc. Aoe, Chance to Ignite, Ele prolif, Fire trap). But the damage vs fire res + curse immunity is really weak. Would swapping out the increased AoE be still "viable" when it comes to trap AoE and prolif range ?

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Stakhanov wrote:

This is great. Thanks for sharing your build, makes me reconsider some decisions about my own Templar :)
Edit : My own Searing touch (40% fire :')) is a 5L. What would be your choice of support gems in that case ? I'm currently BBBBG (Conc. Effect, Inc. Aoe, Chance to Ignite, Ele prolif, Fire trap). But the damage vs fire res + curse immunity is really weak. Would swapping out the increased AoE be still "viable" when it comes to trap AoE and prolif range ?

Thanks, glad you like it. To answer the question; in a 5L I would run FT-prolif-ignite-fire pen- with the 5th link being your choice of inc burning/inc aoe/conc effect.

For sure conc effect gives the highest dps boost, but you'll notice "trouble" clearing larger packs (I use trouble loosely because you may have to throw multiple traps if you don't have carcass jack and inc aoe with it). Increased burning damage is a moderate boost, but youlld get more dps out of fire pen+burning damage than you will conc+aoe. If you eventually get a 6L(or carcass jack) then I would drop the burning damage for conc effect (and inc aoe if you have a 6L).

@arandan: I couldn't agree with you more. The build lives and dies (literally) based on how well you play it, which is sonething that most builds in this game lack (right click to win!), and this is far and away the most fun I've had playing a character in poe so far.

Just curious, why use shock nova + trap gems, vs just the plain old lightning trap? Shock Nova's deadzone for damage drives me insane. Is this a non-issue for you because of the unique cloth belt you use that turns traps into 6 second bombs?

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Solwolf wrote:

Just curious, why use shock nova + trap gems, vs just the plain old lightning trap? Shock Nova's deadzone for damage drives me insane. Is this a non-issue for you because of the unique cloth belt you use that turns traps into 6 second bombs?

multi-trap throws out 3 of the shock nova traps which, when you learn to place them correctly, covers the deadzone of shock nova. I also use shock nova traps because quality shock nova adds chance to shock and shock duration increase.

The belt does make it really useable. If you don't have the belt then you may want to use lightning trap to proc shocks instead. The belt plus decreased duration makes the traps go off as soon as they land basically (about .5 second delay on detonation).

So you were unequivocally right. Elemental prolif is bonkers, especially because it increases the effective radius of the bulk of your fire trap damage to roughly a screen size, and I'm using no inc aoe and a sub-20 prolif on fire trap. On reading it, I thought elemental proliferation was a 'eh, I guess that's handy.' Turns out it's the bread and butter of the build, no matter when you start to use shocks.

I'd like to suggest that your 'complete' build (the 89-pointer) could be adjusted slightly, though, to improve both overall stats and the leveling process. Here's roughly what I've ended up building:


There is a 1 point difference, so the remaining point to your complete build would probably go into the nearby .4% life regen node. This build path appeals to me for 3 reasons:

1) It gives early access to another 30 dex node, which was important for me as the build has a hard time meeting the high str/dex demands of its gear (particularly since I chose grace) without crutches. I was forced to use lioneye's paws for much longer than I would have preferred, since I had sunblast and wasn't able to use something like perandus. For a while during leveling I even had to use karui amulet, despite my ring naturally having 22 dex. Not that 10% ms was entirely unwelcome, but I like having choices.

2) It does away with the 'EE or no EE?' question of the build and its subsequent branches. You'll be passing by it naturally to gain access to important nodes, and can choose whether and when you want to take it. The power of the health/mana nodes naturally appeals to me over taking the individual nodes near witch starting point.

3) The stat difference is one I find appreciable in the earlier stages of the build, and feels like a more rounded-out finishing place. To wit:
-4% max mana
-40% mana regen
-10 dex
+10 str
+26% max life
The mana regen has always felt extraneous, as even with huge mana reserved and a non-maxed clarity, I never found I had any trouble with mana. For the short period before I was running clarity, I simply used a hybrid potion instead of a second health pot - to be used in emergencies. This is especially true once you acquire eldritch battery, which I did in my 40s. The -10 dex +10 str is not entirely a welcome swap, but it's offset by access to the 30 dex node mentioned above. I'm all about point efficiency. That long stretch between discipline/training and the goldmine of max health nodes just feels like a clunky use of points. Sometimes clunky is necessary, but I'd like your input on my alternative :)

Edit: If it's possible, I love this build even more than I thought I would. Thanks for making it.