[1.1.2] Witch/Templar/Shadow - Flameblast + Detonate Dead, Tanky Build, Atziri Proof

Basic build:


My current build at level 92:



Exemplary build of how to connect templar, shadow and scion to the tree


- As an area of effect caster you want to increase your aoe as much as possible
- As a burn proliferate build you want to skill enough burn and fire damage to have a strong enough proliferation to kill stuff
- Flameblast and Mind over Matter are manahungry so Eldritch Battery is almost a given
- As a lifebased build we want to grab as much life as possible
- We need some dexterity for Desecrate

From there on there are multiple extensions possible:

Some things i found out for myself:
- You don't need too much damage, items can compensate for lack of damage on the tree
- You can't ever have enough life
- Liferegeneration is completely underrated and a massively strong stat
- Block is good if you have a good blocking shield already, otherwise not so much
- Auras are good for Atziri, skilling all Aura Nodes will not be worth it most of the time
- Manareg is needed on tree or gear if you want to run high level Arctic Armour
- Elemental Equilibrium is the best node on the tree and i can't live without it anymore (the build works without it though)



Elemental Damage: Increases initial hit damage of flameblast and detonate dead + burn damage
Spell Damage: Will not increase the burn damage or the damage of detonate dead but the initial damage for flameblast and other skills you might be using.

I haven't been able to skill the Immolation cluster on my own char because i wanted additional defense.

Recommendation: It will definetely help to skill more damage, but don't overdo it



Cast Speed speeds up the whole process. You will Lightning Warp faster, cast Flammability, Desecrate and most importantly Flameblast stages faster.

The less time you spend on casting the more time you have to dodge / continue.

Recommendation: Get as much castspeed on gear as possible, compensate lack of it with some skillpoints



Life and Mana nodes you should always take if you can get close to them
The scion life wheel is still good, part of it because Shaper is such a good node and Equilibrium is on that path.
Pick the shadow life nodes only if you go for the aura nodes there.
My character is currently sitting at 290% increased maximum life and i still want more :)

Recommendation: Aim for 260% or so even with Cloak of Defiance.



The effectiveness of block depends on your shield base.
I have been using the Crest of Perandus unique for the longest time. With 40% base chance every bit of block only becomes better.

Recommendation: Only skill block if lifepool is good already.



Mana regeneration is pretty much needed to use flameblast. If you add Arctic Armour you will need even more regeneration and possibly Discipline aura.




Auras are pretty strong in the current version of the game.
Normally i would recommend using all of them but as a mind over matter character it doesn't hurt to use mana as additional life pool even for bigger hits.
I would skill auras mainly because of Atziri. Both the Shadow and the Templar cluster each increase your maximum resistance by 1 if you have a level 20 purity of lightning / fire.
Inner Force plus another node is another +1% maximum Resistance up to a maximum of 7 instead of the normal 4%.

Obviously a boosted Purity of Fire will help mitigate elemental reflect.

Recommendation: Only get it if you really want to maximize your healthpool against Atziri.



In short:

Flask nodes: Pretty awesome for reflect issues (+13% instead of +10% maximum resistance), needs an additional 2 skillpoints though.

Double curse & Perma curse: Comes at cost of some life. Very powerful still.

Elemental Equilibrium: The strongest node on the tree. No penalty against bosses. With it i was able to oneshot Shrine Piety and Palace Dominus 1st form and 2shot his 2nd form. If used correctly there won't be any loss of convenience

Flameblast (+Desecrate):



Classic proliferation setup without the Chance to ignite-gem.
- Use Chance to Ignite while levelling. Becomes mostly obsolete once you aquire quality on Flameblast.
- Concentrated Effect is insanely good. Double dips for everything
- For Atziri or tough maps use Life Leech-gem instead of Increased Burning damage
- Fire Penetration only applies to the initial hit so the proliferated burn is weak against fire resistant mobs

Desecrate:
Requirement for detonate dead if there are no corpses nearby. Link it with faster casting if you have the slots.

Detonate Dead:


Before i aquired this scepter Detonate Dead had to be in one of the 4links. Not so strong against fireresistant mobs but unlike flameblast it has no buildup phase. So its very good to clean up after an initial flameblast. It's pretty good utility even against all sorts of corpse interactions.

Singlehandedly enables doing the sacrifice phase in 6man atziri parties.

Clarity + Discipline:


2 mana auras for higher mana regeneration for faster replenishment after taking damage and for running arctic armour and using skills.

Lightning Warp + Arc:


Lightning Warp + Faster Cast + Reduced Duration for movement and even for applying Equilibrium. Getting quality or levels via corruption on either Warp or Duration brings you pretty close to 100% reduced duration. Very very fast movespeed.

Arc for Triggering equilibrium. Can also be placed inside the scepter for shockstacking in parties.

Cast when damage taken lowlevel + Flammability


Flammability > Elemental Weakness due to Chance to Ignite enemies + Ignite duration.

Level 1 Cast When Damage Taken provides Endurance Charges for the other one. Frost nova triggers Equilibrium.

Cast When Damage Taken Highlevel + Immortal Call + Molten Shell:


20/20 Molten Shell. With this i can afk in 78 maps. 78 Rares can oneshot themselves when triggering Molten Shell. Perfect Synergy with both Doryani's items to replenish life on Explosion.

Immortal Call with Quality to create very long duration immunity to physical damage. Enables tanking Evangelists and Atziri bosses in the second fight.

Awesome weapon.
- Saves a socket for Proliferation
- Burn and Spell damage increase similar to Searing Touch
- Fire leech (Not the most obvious stat but the best stat of the item. Especially in conjunction with molten shell and the belt you can recover to full hp super quick)
- BiS for Detonate Dead. 110% increased damage instead of 50% increased damage.
- Only decent castspeed



Also awesome weapon. A rare scepter is able to beat the Doryani's Catalyst in terms of raw damage, can have higher cast speed and even mana regeneration / mana.

You should aim for 40% increased fire damage total and 10+ cast speed on the scepter.



Awesome belt. Fire damage is secondary. Again, leech is the major selling point here. Ignite chance with flasks is helpful but tedious, not as good as initial expected. Other than that it has good defensive rolls.

Otherwise get a rare belt with +life +res + chaos res.



Awesome chest. Easily additional 1.5k life, additional mana regeneration and high mana.
Kaom's heart with sockets.

If you can't afford the 5link i would recommend:


A 5link helmet for 3 chaos. Lacks life but has decent "Mana pool" (Energy shield + Mana).





Decent items. I was aiming for high chaos resistance to get closer to being immortal. Came in very handy against Atziri boss cycloner who leaves a trail of chaos damage on the ground. Hardly noticable for me due to ~60 chaos resist from tree and these 3 items.



Aiming for
- Life
- Resistances
- Cast Speed
- Mana Regeneration
- Fire damage

Again, good items but nothing close to best in slot.



This shield doesn't look that impressive at first sight but it's pretty good for what it is supposed to do, provide high spelldamage, high life, resists and 30% block.
Mana regeneration or more energy shield and it would be the optimum shield.
Again, spell damage is very good to increase Flameblast initial damage.




Very good for Atziri herself, best item to prevent self-oneshotting due to +8% maximum fire resistance. Apart from that its a lousy shield without stats.



Good spelldamage, best shield if you are getting close to maximum block, the %life dont do too much though, similar to a 30 life roll. Good amount of energy shield for higher base mana.



Best defensive solution with 0 commitment for 0 cost. Resist, Lifereg, 80 life , 40% block.
Best blockshield in the game.



Saffels i own purely because of Vaal Oversoul fight.
Without it i can get shocked even with 81 lightning resist at 5600 hp.
Very good there, lack of block against attacks not so good for normal maps imo.




2 bleedremover, mainly because the only thing in the whole game that doesn't instantly die if i attack it is palace dominus, i can only fight him with 2 bleed removers.

Ruby Flask with Curse immunity is a must. Dispels tough curses like vulnerability or temp chains or silence, at the same time dispels flammability and ele weakness while increasing resistance. helps against reflect in 2 ways.

Bring the following:
2 flasks with bleed removal
1 flask with shock removal
2 topaz flasks (2 against vaal, 1 against atziri)
2 ruby flasks (2 against atziri)
1 flask with curse immunity.
leveled flame totem + culling strike.
Level 17+ Purity of Fire & Lightning.
Saffel's Frame if available (against vaal).
Rise of the Phoenix if available(against atziri).
(secret tech, level 3 arc)
high level faster casting / chance to ignite to switch ele proliferation during atziri fight

Fighting trash:
Don't underestimate the melee enemies. They kill you quite quickly under normal circumstances.
Lightning Warp when it's safe not to desync. Skip or fight, doesn't really matter.
Swap Flasks early enough so you enter boss room with full charges.

Vaal:
Be careful not to oneshot one of the vaals, the other now enraged vaal cannot be ignited and will quite possibly kill you (he's the only one i still have trouble with).
Bring both down to 10%, cull both with flame totem + culling strike (or similar safe to use skill).

3 guys with strange names:
Kill rainmaker woman titty bitch first. Immortal call will keep you alive for a short period of time. dont tank the spike storm. bring down to 10%, then lure into a corner and cull. if you kill her in the middle of the room you won't have space to run.

If low on chaos resist kill cycloner second. Beware, he spawns Whipping Miscreations after death, you need to have curse immunity ready all the time.

Otherwise kill dualstriker second. To kill cycloner trigger equilibrium when getting hit (ice nova), fully charge flameblast in anticipation, lightning warp away, repeat. if too many monsters spawn, detonate some or proliferate ignite from flameblast.
Always look at top left to see if you need to dispel corrupting blood.

Against atziri:
Dont forget auraswitch.
Equip + max res shield.
Stormcalls don't hit at the entrance. Stay in the safe zone during stormcalls. You can tank the small flameblasts. lightning warp out of the big ones (dont run unless you are sure you have time or you have a quicksilver). Sacrifice phase is easy thanks to desecrate + detonate dead. On average during the whole atziri fight 1 guy arrives at her because he was covered up behind atziri and i didnt see him. numbers don't matter, only directions do because you initially only have 3 desecrate charges.

During splitphase try to instantly ignite the storm caller or the spear thrower. If ignite fails, make sure you don't get hit by stormcalls, then slowly cast phase 1 flameblasts and sidestep until you have an opportunity for another big flameblast.

Regarding equilibrium: Switch out ice nova for secret tech arc level 3ish. get hit by something and then fire a full flameblast on the target that now has -50 fireresistance. if it ignites it will die. If it's Atziri herself she will still take 5% of her hp as damage.

Normal: Oak for life
Cruel: Kill all for skillpoint
Merciless: Endurance Charge from Oak or Kill All

Endurance charge is nice for the immortal call setup to reach around 7 seconds immunity at full charges.

Shrine Double Piety (Bad Quality):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqHYLnlf_2I
Atziri (Bad Quality):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WEO33Bp9Z8

Build at Level 93

Items as of 2014-05-19


Major updates:

I made level 93!!!

I removed the Witch area pathing through spell damage and aoe and took the flask nodes instead. also i specced into inner force and shadow aura nodes.

I ditched discipline for now to have purity of fire and lightning for a total of +6 maximum resist each.

I lost a gemslot because i purchased a 6link cloak of defiance.
Therefore i alched & chaosed unset rings until i got the beauty i linked above. So currently i can use either arctic armour or desecrate. The absolute optimum would be another unset ring so i could use both skills.

I am currently sitting at 5.9k life
83/77/83/63 resist
96/77/96 resist with flasks
100/81/100 with saffels frame and flasks
7xx unreserved mana
2,95 k average damage on flameblast with 0.21 s/ cast

I haven't tried uber atziri yet because i have yet to find a mortal hope after so many runs.