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

Thanks for great explanation - now it's everything clear :)

From the 2.0.2 patch notes:

* The Energy From Within unique Jewel now transforms Life into Energy Shield at 100% of its value.

That's another 16% ES. Hey, it all counts. :)

Why 16% when it currently gives 13% at 50% life to ES? Because of rounding. (2%+2%+3%)+(1%+1%+1%+3%) = 13%, but (4%+4%+6%)+(3%+3%+3%+6%) = 29%, so 16% ES extra.

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This change makes using a third Energy From Within in the bottom-left slot the build already uses possibly interesting... Not an obvious choice like using them in the two current slots dedicated to that purpose, by any means, and not something overwhelming, but potentially useful.

10% ES, +1% max fire res, 8% fire res, and +3% res all) for two skill points via Barbariasm
10% ES, 24% armour for three skill points via Juggernaut (sounds like a bad deal) or two if already picking up Unwavering Stance (sounds decent, slightly better than the 5% ES/10% armour nodes in Templar).


Using one to the right of Combat Stamina would turn the 5% life from CS into ES, and that has the benefit that CS is already taken, so we are talking 13-17% ES from the two skill point cost of that jewel.


Even less useful, probably:

In the middle-left slot that the build doesn't use as it would require 4 points to pick up with negligible benefit apart from the slot, it could turn the Unwavering Will wheel into -19% mana cost reduction, +20% ES... which doesn't really look helpful given the huge point investment. Might possibly be worth it if doing some serious rerouting for a low-mana/Elreon variant, though.

In the top-left slots currently used you could pick up 20% ES, 30 STR, 3% AuraEffect for 4 points. Which is definitely not worth it on its own, as the build only needs STR for wearing equipment and already has plenty of that. Looks worthless compared to just using 6% ES nodes.

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So I think I'll just be sticking to the two currently used for now, quietly rejoicing in getting 16% ES for free - though I have to admit that using a third and picking up +1% max fire res is tempting. But it would cost me one of my hybrid ES/damage jewels, and I feel my survivability/damage is in a good place for now. ;)

Whats your thoughts on swapping out Fire penetration 20\20 with lvl3 Empower on incinirate links ?

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arisnaub wrote:

Whats your thoughts on swapping out Fire penetration 20\20 with lvl3 Empower on incinirate links ?

That as ideas go it is right up there with getting a voluntary frontal lobotomy. ;)

...also known as, "it is a good question and the short answer is that it is a really bad idea".


Explanation:

Let us say you have a nominal damageoutput of D without the link you want to use for FirePen/Empower.

Fire Penetration 20/20 gives you 37% fire penetration from level and +10% increased fire damage from quality. Ignore the second part for sake of simplicity and focus on the penetration, as that is the big deal; Penetration both reduces resistance (-37%) and max. resistance (75%-37%=38%). Against enemies with 0% FR (most enemies) you do (100%+37%)D = 137%D. As FR increases you deal less damage, but you will never - no matter how high the enemy's FR, do less than (100%-38%)=62%D damage. And there are many bosses and some regular enemies with high FR.

Empower 3 gives +2 levels. Each level of Incinerate does roughly 10% more damage than the previous. Against enemies with 0% FR, a level 22 Incinerate does 20.7% more damage than a level 20, so you will be doing 120.7%D damage. Which is worse than what Fire Penetration does. Against high FR enemies it is much, much, worse. Against max FR (75%), you will do 25%*120.7%D = 30.2%D.

Note: The numbers get even worse for Empower if your weapon also had Adds x-y Fire Damage to Spells, as the Empower only affects the contribution of fire damage from the gem, while the Fire Penetration affects all your fire damage.


Short version: Elemental penetration gems are awesome and usually the first gem added to elemental damage links once the essentials for utility/leeching have been covered.

Thanks, very nice explained.

Both yours and Dy'ness builds are nice!

In fact its the same path pretty much with some simple differences!The skill (i prefer incinerate)
and the tankyness (dy'ness goes full ES).

Iam at 15,5k ES and using incinerate on a 700es 5link chest with 4,5k dps atm with LMP!Damage is low but its a super tanky build!

So some questions and some thoughts!

1)I was impressed by Dy'ness build and i decided on doing something similar but i finally have to say my thought about maxES and ES regen VS armour and less ES - ES regen.

There are chestpieces in the game that can reach 900 ES like a vaal Regalia!But since we need phys damage reduction I guess that a chest with 1000 Armour and 600ES should be more useful than reaching max possible ES and going Vaal Regalia!

2)I liked your analysis for The unique jewel energy from within but i dont have the time to do the maths and find if the scion wheel is the best option or simple taking ES nodes so this have to be tested!Whatever extra point this build can save to increase Dps will be useful!

3)I bought some stuff on warbands league that are 10X times cheaper than the standard league for my Witch in Standard to save some money!So now i will test my new 1000armour 380ES shield!(previously i was using 280 armour - 300 Es shield)I am not still in a position to afford shavs ring but it will greatly improve ES regen!

4)I dont know if there are any ES regen low life builds that are more expensive but can take the build to next level with + number of auras we will be able to run!I mean with a Shavs and Blood Magic i dont know the potential Dps + tankyness of build and if it will be better or noth worth going LL!

5)I need some armour to feel more comfortable!But again i really liked this whole concept and i will try to tell my ideas about how both yours and Dy'ness builds come become more efficient and stronger :)

@kompogiannitis

Yes, the core of the build is the same as Dy'Ness' tank, since this from the beginning has been a slightly more damage-focused variant using a favourite skill, Incinerate.

1) I am pretty sure that I'd take a 900 ES chest over a 1000 armour/600 ES since the first would provide 1600-2000 more ES as buffer and at least 208 ES more regeneration per second, while the second would only help against physical damage. While there are obviously cases where the second would be better, I am not convinced that they are so frequent compared to the general case that it would be worth it, since the higher armour only provides a fixed per-physical-hit damage reduction. Now, if it was 600 ES/1000 armour vs 700 ES/I'd not be in doubt and would go for the ES/armour, but this build makes stacking high ES so darned addictive for both buffer and regeneration. :D

Anyhow, I don't have any high ES/armour to test with myself to get a feel for how it would play out in practice, and I am sure it will also depend on how large the maximum ES is without the slot in question; The higher the maximum ES already is, the more attractive using more ES/armour gets since the buffer is already large enough to make one feel comfortable with it. The closest I've got is that my current shield is about 300 armour less and 100 ES more than my old shield, and I prefer this in practice at around 14000 ES.

2) The usual suspects for jewel slots are:

3 one-pointers.
3 two-pointers that gives +10 STR (which is useless unless Iron Will/Doon Cuebeyari, which I don't recommend for this build)
1 three-pointer that gives 8% elemental damage.
1 three-pointer that gives 8% max mana. (Usually not worth taking)
1 four-pointer that gives 24% projectile damage and 5 DEX.
1 four-pointer that gives 22% spell damage and 5 INT, but may alternatively be taken as a five-pointer that gives 6% cast speed, 6% run speed, 12% spelldamage, and 10 INT.


Of these, the only ones that wouldn't be accessible in a non-Scion variant are the 24% projectile damage four-pointer and the 22% spell damage four pointer (though that one would be available in the five pointer variant).

The Quick Recovery slot (26% ES), Melding (27% ES) are worth respectively 4 1/3 and 4 1/2 of the 6% nodes (if you have 12% Energy From Within jewels), and the Combat Stamina (17%) that I don't recommend but is a decent third option is worth 2 5/6... The first and the third rely on skill nodes already allocated without regard to the jewel, the second relies on taking Melding, which by itself provides 25% ES for 4 skill points and is thus better than picking 6% E skill nodes.

To see just how good this is, we need to compare the average skill point cost per jewel rather than the specific cost for those three individual slots.

The average cost for a jewel in skill points for a build using just the 6 cheap slots is (3*1 + 3*2)/6 = 1.5, and the average cost for the maximum example of 10 jewels is (3*1 + 3*2 + 2*3 + 2*4)/10 = 2.3. And for all except the cheap 1-2 pointers, they come with nice extra benefits.

So good luck finding some way to stack ES more efficiently in order to increase dps by using 6% ES nodes rather than 2-3 Energy From Within jewels and using more jewel slots dedicated to rare damage or damage/ES jewels. :)


3) Sounds great. And 1000 armour/380 ES shield? Awesome.

4) I have no experience with low-life builds; If you build such a fun variation that works, I am sure we'll all be happy to see it. I certainly know I will. :)

5) I feel quite comfortable with the current 1900 armour when Molten Shell hasn't been triggered and I'm not using a Granite Flask, but more would be nicer. With regards to optimization, I appreciate any aid I can get with regards to the build and so does Dy'Ness. We tend to cross-post important details.

First of all thnx for the reply and the info you shared :)

1)Now about low life i decided that the ES loss will be too big and it will not be worth taking the regen nodes so it will be a different build!For low life i thought about Prism Guardian Shield for Auras or Springleaf shield for 6% regeneration!But again i dont have a Shavs to make it work its just theory!

2) Arctic armour can be useful instead of Sacrificing ES for Armour!

3)Iam a bit concerned about Vitality!I think this aura needs a buff!Most of auras provide something that u cant easily find on the Passive Tree!For example Grace gives so much Eva Discipline so much ES Hatred so much Damage and we reach the Vitality aura that gives 1,65% rege at lvl 20 which is worse than Warriors Blood or Golems Blood notables since those 2 gives also other bonuses!I mean it should be around 3% to be useful in my view :)

Wanted to post here to say I tried running this build in the Tempest league and feel like it was not only quite successful, but also fun to play. Unfortunately, I died around level 48 in A2C, in the Vaal pyramid - I decided to clear out a corrupted area and the boss got me with 3 freeze totems that stuck me so fast I couldn't get out before dying. I shoulda known better!

The only other issue I had staying alive was when I was doing A2C with a Freezing Tempest of Poison yesterday - the Poison patches tore through my HP and I almost didn't notice it since I can typically walk through ground clutter with no adverse effects.

After dying into Standard, I played the toon a bit more over the weekend, and it feels like the build is really be coming together (or maybe I finally took all the ES regen nodes I should have taken before!) - currently farming the Docks and I can tank anything in there with my ES regenerating faster than they can damage me. So it's working great!

I love seeing the CWDT gems go off, it's like a fireworks display going off!

Couple of questions for you on the build though:

1. My mana use has stabilized, though it's only been accomplished by using one Elreon ring, linking the Mana Leech gem to Incinerate, and also using Clarity. Since I'm running Clarity I can't currently run the Vitality aura. I know you mention some potential solutions to his issue but I'm struggling trying to get enough mana regen to support my Incinerate habit. Will I grow out of Clarity by leveling or do I really need to put in some effort to find more mana or extra leech on gear or what?

2. Switching to CI: I know I should have saved skillpoints points so I can pick CI and the nodes behind it when switching. Is there a good time to do this? At the start of Merciless?

3. I have not picked up any Jewel slots yet. Was that smart? Dumb? Is there any rule of thumb for when I should pick up a Jewel slot? My DPS feels fine, so even though I have a +15% fire damage jewel, I haven't felt like I need to use it yet. Heck, I even got an Energy From Within jewel drop (though only 8%) so I've got 2 jewels ready to go.

Thanks for the build and the guide, I've enjoyed playing it.

@CharlatanPrime

1) The mana regeneration will never support your Incinerate habit unless you use to or three pieces of Elreon Jewelry or stack a lot of cost reduction and one Elreon item. Since you do not, Mana Leech is what matters.

Have you spent the skillpoint on Righteous Decree? Those 22% max mana and 6% reduced cost does a lot if one is in trouble, and is always my first advice. Since mana leech is hardcapped by your max mana, that one skillpoint not only increases the mana pool substantially (immediately allowing you to leech more), it also reduced the cost of each cast. Before you do anything else to address lingering mana issues, you should take that skillpoint and see if it does the trick.

Another possible issue is that if you have an underleveled mana leech without quality, as this can be felt very hard. Mana Leech leeches 2% regardless of level, but the important thing is the increased mana leech per second, which is equal to (level-1)*2% + quality*0.5%; between the 0% increased mana leech per second of a l1q0 gem and 48% of a l20q20 gem, there's a huge gap.


2) Rule of thumb: When you can survive an entire zone without using life flasks, you are probably ready to switch to CI as soon as you have 4 points saved up to take CI and its gated bonuses.


3) The three one-pointer jewel nodes should be picked as soon as you have even half-decent ES%/something_else_useful jewels to slot into them, if you have some awesome damage jewel you'd like to see in action, or if you have Energy From Within(s).

The others should probably wait until you have completed the core build unless you happen to have some good jewels on hand.

You say you have an 8% Energy From Within jewel, so it would be a crying shame if you didn't pick up the Quick Recovery jewel slot immediately to gain 8%+4%+4%+6% = 22% ES for 1 skillpoint.