Flameblast

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dspair wrote:

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waffenheimer wrote:

I cleared a 66 map with the skill at lvl 2 so i'm p sure it will be "viable" when levelled.

But it does 50-100 DPS at level 2.

um yes ok? what, do you think I mean unsupported?

think man. them multipliers are huuuge.

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Biscuit57 wrote:

I'm currently running mas in the 70 range. My gem is level 13 currently. I run EE with cold snap and storm call. I have life and mana leech connected to flameblast but the cast time is just too long to keep my life up with big packs mobbing me. So I linked life leech on my storm call as well. Spell totem plus summon skeletons helps with CC.

So far so good. As long as I've made them vulnerable to fire the mobs respond by popping or close to it. You're going to have to have a lot of cc to use this as a primary as the cast time burns precious seconds. It can be done, but I do find myself flirting with death a lot . I'll report back when the gem is higher level.

have you tried putting your coldsnap in a trap with conc effect + proliferate?
I find this pretty consistently freezes most of the screen

I tested this with Wideswing (supported by level 20 inc aoe) and the massive shrine (also inc aoe). Increasing the area of effect radius definitely does cause the ring to grow faster.

It stands to reason then, that CE would decrease the aoe rate of growth, which is something you want to maximize versus packs, not reduce at all. I could see using CE on a secondary single-target flameblast, though, for slaying bosses. But it's definitely overkill and too much drawback versus packs.

This skill supported by Added Lightning Damage and used in a rotation with Cold Snap seems one of the best candidates for Elemental Equilibrium.

By the time cooldown on CSnap goes off you're finished casting your FlameBlast.

I'm also thinking about using Freezing Trap, altough haven't tested if detonating traps interrupts channeling time. I guess it does but would be cool if didn't.

I'm leveling a witch on nem with it, level 60 now. Im using 5l with ignite faster cast ele pro and leech. Considering the cast time the damage doesn't look op at all... playing with like ~120 spell damage only from gear+tree and 60%+ cast speed. I skip curse immune/ele resist rares, its taking too much time. Tried in party, it seems too slow.

Not bad overall but not even impressing

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CanHasPants wrote:

I tested this with Wideswing (supported by level 20 inc aoe) and the massive shrine (also inc aoe). Increasing the area of effect radius definitely does cause the ring to grow faster.

It stands to reason then, that CE would decrease the aoe rate of growth, which is something you want to maximize versus packs, not reduce at all. I could see using CE on a secondary single-target flameblast, though, for slaying bosses. But it's definitely overkill and too much drawback versus packs.

Stages don't grow faster, it's an illusion because the distance is larger but the timing is the same. The only thing that affect growth rate is casting speed. The best way to use this skill will be with lot of casting speed. With the acceleration shrine stages grow super fast and it's awesome. Without speed it's slow and it just sucks.

A way to do it would be a tanky build with molten shell linked with life leech and dual curse. Molten shell, run in, build your flameblast and blow everything. A quality flameblast is a must. Link cwdt with end cry, flammability, elem weakness/temp chain/vulnerability. Similar to kripp discharge build. Could also use shock nova/arc/lightning warp with static blow to shock things. The only problem is molten shell only work against physical damage. You could also freeze stuff while channeling but I don't know if you can freeze stuff effectively enough while being very tanky. The other problem is the mana cost, you might have to use blood magic gem.

Another way would be dual totem. The totem will channel until it is destroyed by either a monster or you by casting another totem and then explode. You can also trap or remote mine a spell totem.

All in all it's a bit mediocre compared to discharge. The strength of discharge is that you can be super tanky with 6 end charges while doing massive damage. I'm a level 62 witch and I'm really not tanky enough, I have to rely on cold snap to freeze stuff. On perfect condition I can freeze a whole room, apply shock stack, blow them up. Then I waste time with single monsters and rare with fire resist + immune curse. I think it will be good with a group if you can freeze, shock and do massive damage.

For some lulz, mouse over the buff icon while channeling flameblast.

I'm leveling a new witch and retrieved both Storm Call and Flameblast gems(though she would use neither of these). I could say that Flameblast trades versatility for sheer power. At this end no much skill is required for using it. I love Storm Call for the performance and balance of its power and versatility(another nice skill after Spectral Throw). With a little training I can hit fast movement/jumping targets while keeping myself relatively safe. I can even kill Brutus faster with it than my traditional "Spark" method.

Aside from roasting zombies, using Flameblast means you need to take damage(a.k.a facetank). There were Storm Call tanking build before and I think they'd better switch to Flameblast :)

p.s. Another good use of Flameblast - phase transition in boss fight(one-shot Dominus form 2?)

Respec'd my witch today into a Flameblast build I threw together(was miserably bored of magic finding), cleared 74-78 maps today with my group and had great results with burn proliferation and the initial blast. Only problem I've had with the ability is it isn't that great for single target.

When in a full party, I feel that you're provided with sufficient time to precast 10 charges onto a group of mobs to setup a burn a lot of the time before your party members even reach the mobs.

As for solo play I haven't tested further than level 68 maps as I traded up most of my maps and gave them to my buddies to roll. However during the level 68 maps I've had great clear speed minus when I get to the boss where the struggle begins trying to single target dps with this ability, more than likely I will being looking into running fire trap as a single target dps skill unless I have some amazing revelation about how to dps well with this ability against high hp single targets(especially those with life regen & or es).

These were the links I was running Flameblast with the majority of the time today, however I'm still experimenting with tons of different gems to see what's best.



Increased AoE does give massive radius to the ability however I feel the damage gained from Conc Effect is far superior.

I have been sustaining the ability via mana usage, while running AA & MoM.