[3.2] Scionic Flametank "16k ES ed." (ES-CI-ZO-GR, SR-CWC-FS, extensive guide)

Hello!
I am playing your build and have a problem with Merveil in graveyard map.
Currently have 11.5k ES , 1.5k regen, 5 link incinerate with 3.300 tooltip dps, cap all-res.
I come to her and just die in perma-freeze.
1 icestorm on top of my head -> freeze , then she fires barrage of ice lances and adds come.
can't move around this and can't tank it.
I killed her few times with another witch-incenerate build and wonder what the hell is happening.
How you deal with it?

Im level 68 at the moment and with discipline Im running around 8700 ES which seems to work really well. The thing is, my tooltip for LMP on a 5 link with Incinerate is only at 4500 with herald of thunder. I took the fire nodes above the witch in order to compensate for the low dps, but it didnt seem to help. Is my wand just that horrible, or am i missing something?

Gear:




Also here is my skill tree:

https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwAAA3UNfBFQFVAV1xhqGmwbJRzcIvQnqSj6KU8qjSy_L281uTbYOVJDY0WdSRtJUUuuU1JWY1fJWAdYd1ugXGtfBF9qaHRo8mwLbRlwu3FNfA5_xoKbgseESIaujHaPGo9Gj_qRK5MnlKCaz5rgm6Gdrp48oS-iAKcIpyunVayYtAy4k76KwcXDbcrT0NDVpthN2RPZW9pi2t3fiuFz5CLpAuq66-7sGOw47FXtIPAf8NXxbPfB99f56A==?accountName=jesusjonesc4&characterName=joeisbae

Iam rocking 12k ES with 10,700 tooltip incinerate dps.

To your lack of dps, is your jewels ok ? alot of dps to get there.

I also have good spelldmg on amulet and shield.

@AusTLaiN

Map-Merveils are the devil, and Graveyard Merveil is the worst of them. By far worse than Haast who doesn't attack fast enough to permafreeze and random groups of freezing mobs where I can just use antifreeze and kill them in seconds.

Map-Merveils are the one point where I've found frost-immunity worthwhile at the cost of ES, so on the very few occasions I run those maps, I wear:



It is way too much effort killing Graveyard Merveil without them, and I too have tried permafreezing and dying fighting her (back in 1.3, so I assume it is even worse now). I should probably mention this in the guide.



@jesusjonesc4

At level 93 I'm running around with about 10k stage 1 dps with LMP (so ~40k stage 4), and that's with a 6-link, decent jewels, l20q20 gems, and 14k ES so I think your paper dps of 4500 stage 1 (18k stage 4) at level 68 using 2 jewels is more than sufficient (on enemies without fire resistance, that is, since you've chosen to link Faster Casting rather than Fire Penetration as your 5th link: a bold choice and not one I'd make but to each his own). Your wand is decent for damage purposes, even good: High cast speed and high "adds fire damage to spells"; The only strike against it is that it has pretty low spelldamage, and this build relies a lot on spelldamage from equipment and jewels. On the other hand, you've been busy picking up spelldamage via passives, so eh.

It is possible that you simply have too high expectations for the damageout of the build - as a tank build it requires a lot of points in defenses, so it is only in the late 70's that the damage begins to rise significantly due to the defenses mostly being in place, jewels being better, gems rolling over to q20 versions etc.


That said, there is a huge difference between paper dps and how things play out in practice: Specifically, applying it with a minimum of effort. One major problem I see with your setup is the severe lack of projectile speed. You have +12% projectile speed as far as I can see, which makes a really short-range Incinerate, and Incinerate is so much funnier as well as more efficient when flaming in a huge cone. Your current setup means that you won't be flaming huge groups of enemies at once at both long and short range, standing still while flaming everybody that attacks you both in melee and range with stage 4 Incinerate, but will be flaming enemies in a much smaller cone and will have to move around more, starting from stage 1 every time, or standing still while they slowly wander towards you.

Using a Karui Ward amulet (they are cheap!) rather than your current ES amulet would help you in the short term and also show you whether my supposition as to what's your major problem holds true, or whether it is a case of your expectations for damage simply being too high.

You do need more quality on your Incinerate either by purchasing one that starts out higher at 10-13q or something. (Such can frequently be had for 5-10 chaos) or simply working on the one you have. Doing all your Forsaken Master missions every day and buying their gems when they have quality, then selling using the 40%q gems for GCP recipe is the easiest way to gradually increase the quality of your Incinerate.

With regards to the enchant on your wand, in your current situation it should either be projectile speed or the higher spelldamage enchant. If you can't do those/can't afford them, that is not an option, but if you can, you really should do so.


Now, on a related issue, have you checked that you are able to sustain maximum throughout of Incininerate? I mean, those 4500 dps at stage 1 are nice on paper, but if your Incinerate is stuttering because you cannot support the mana cost it won't help you. When you are flaming large groups of enemies, does your Incinerate Icon flicker or not? And what when fighting single bosses?

A related issue is that you you still have some leftovers from before going CI to clean up in your tree with Discipline and Training. They are smart picks while leveling, but when one has gone CI one should relink via the +mana%/-manacost% in the Righetous Decree wheel, saving a skill point and gaining nice mana bonuses.


You skip one jewel slot and of the two you use, you only get two really useful affixes out of one of them (projectile damage/cast speed) - you ought to be finding it very simple to farm Dominus for rares, so crafting your jewels via alt/aug/trans to ensure that you have three jewels that are +useful_damage_of_some_sort/+useful_damage_or_cast_speed_or_ES% should not be too much effort and would help you.


I've taken a stab at rearranging your current tree under the assumption that your main issue is projectile speed and/or mana rather than lower dps than expected, resulting in something that deals less paper damage but is much tougher.

https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgAADXwRUBVQFdcYahpsGyUc3CL0KPopTyy_L281uTlSRZ1JUUuuU1JWY1fJWAdboFxrX2podGjybAttGXC7fA5_xoKbgseESIaujHaPGo9Gj_qTJ5SgmuCboZ2unjyhL6cIpyunVbQMuJO-isHFw23K09DQ1abYTdkT2VvaYtrd5CLpAuq66-7sGOw47SDw1ffB99f56LaGfEsMX8auC2GvbBynU6UYVgn21HwGDiftxPZfBFh3kSsDdQ==

If you have Incinerate stuttering (so not full damageoutput) with this, it'll cost you one point to pick up Righteous Decree which will definitely solve your problems, though you'll have to pick up some STR or DEX on gear to free up a skill point from +30 STR/DEX in the tree.

+10 DEX
+10 STR
-10 INT

-15% maximum ES%
-14 maximum ES
+2.8% regeneration

+10% maximum mana
+6% reduced mana cost of skills

-8% elemental damage
-31% fire damage
-3% fire penetration

+1 jewel slot

"

arisnaub wrote:

Iam rocking 12k ES with 10,700 tooltip incinerate dps.

To your lack of dps, is your jewels ok ? alot of dps to get there.

I also have good spelldmg on amulet and shield.

Those are some damn nice jewels, but I have to wonder which hard-hitting boss it is that has caused you to spend 4 points on 3x6% MaxES and 1x5% MaxES/10% Armour rather than 2x0.4% Life Regen and 1x0.8% Life Regen +10 STR. :)

Really nice damage. Now you just need a high spelldamage/high adds x-y to fire spells/high projectile speed wand to round it out. A T1 roll on the adds x-y should result in ~9 more damage.

@Pi2rEpsilon
Thank you for answer.Freeze immune boots it's really nice solution.

Original build post updated with my new and improved shiny gear and with notes regarding many of things discussed in the last few pages.

At 16 pages in my .odt document (and counting!), I wonder if I'm in the running for the longest build post?

Since we are reporting progress:

Warbands:

Level 88
ES 10.5k
ES Regen 1282
Tooltip DPS: 4944

CWDT: Firestorm x3; Enfeeble; Temp Chains

Using Vaal Discipline for extra ES when needed, which isn't often.

Thanks again for putting together this great build.

What's the point of Ghost Reaver passive if you don't have Life Leech on your main skill (Incinerate) ? Just curious how this works...

@papaca

I dual-curse L20 Enfeeble-Warlord's Mark in a CWDT. Warlord's Mark grants everybody 2% life and mana leech against the targets affected (as well as nice Endurance charges on kill), so Ghost Reaver makes sure I have 2% life leech to my Energy Shield on any cursed enemies.

Not all enemies will be cursed at all times, but when things get dangerous, most will.

Additionally it is possible to get 0.2% life leech on wand (prefix enchant) and/or belt (Doryani's Invitation) if one wants to be sure to have some leech even on curse immune or when hitting enemies that haven't been cursed yet... or if using Temporal Chains rather than Warlord's Mark.

The main point is that the GR ES life leech is the tertiary defense mechanic after ES regeneration and physical damage reduction, so the build doesn't fall apart in the cases where no leeching takes place for one reason or another, so there is no need for a life leech support gem.

The Mana Leech support gem, however, is necessary unless you go for an Elreon jewelry variants to drive down the mana cost, despite Warlord's Mark providing 2% mana leech, because without it you have mana problems in general due to missing the huge mana leeched/s percentage modifier on the support gem and in addition you are limited to one or two casts of Incinerate per second vs. curse immune enemies.