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

Okay, I'm away from Path of Exile for two months, and GGG goes ahead and hits Incinerate with the big, big, nerf bat.

1. No longer affected by Spell Echo, which cuts my (pre-2.1.0) casts per second down from 16 and a bit to 9 and a bit.
2. +50% extra damage per stage rather than +100%, so tops out at 250% rather than 400% damage.

So I'll be doing about one third of 2.0 damage in 2.1 using the same build. (Of course, it won't be that bad in practice, as the Spell Echo will be replaced by another support gem, but it is a pretty bad starting position to be in.)

Soo... I'm currently unsure whether the build as listed is fun at high levels. It should still survive well, since the survival aspect wasn't affected, but that's a significant reduction in damage regardless of whatever the Spell Echo is replaced by (Controlled Destruction being the obvious choice), and it wasn't exactly a high damage build in the first place. So it might be that it is time to change to another main spell. (The obvious choice here being Firestorm, but really, there are so many that work well with "stand still and hurt stuff").

ON THE OTHER HAND, I noted that the Shadow area of the tree has gained 2.0% life regeneration (Growth and Decay and environs) that isn't too far out of the way, so there are definitely possibilities for improving the survival aspects in that area. Perhaps at the cost of saving points somewhere else to increase damage enough to compensate for the Incinerate changes? It seems unlikely, but it has to be investigated!

Okay, the nerf isn't as bad as I first thought, since i hadn't taken into account the 10% LESS damage of Spell Echo.

So assuming level 20 gems and using Controlled Destruction rather than Spell Echo, the damageoutput at stage 3 in 2.1 when compared to 2.0, by comparing the multiplicative changes and ignoring minor +X% spell damage from quality issues,

0.92*(100%/90%)*(100%/170%)*(144%/100%)*(250%/400%) = 54% of 2.0 damage

...Which is still pretty bad, just not as bad.

Hey there, love your build, working on it at the moment in SC Talisman, having slot of fun.

Since the incinerate nerf I shied away from leveling with it so I decided to try out the new searing bond, because what the hey fire damage. I felt the essence of the build was the tanking aspect, but that's the way I interpreted it.

Since they introduced the Rapid decay wheel with the addition 2% Life Regen and 28% increased DoT I was wondering what your opinion is on ditching the dual curse setup, since it requires you to get ghost reaver and whispering death. Still running enfeeble of course. I also took the Explosive Impact notable by ZO to make leveling slightly easier, helps with firestorm and molten shell explosions ever so slightly.

Thanks again for the guide, keep up the good work!

You are right that the essence is the tanking aspect. For the purpose of clearing maps, what determines whether this build succeeds or fails is whether it can survive whatever the game throws against it, not how quickly the map is cleared.

That said, I had gotten USED to how much quicker Incinerate was at killing everything (except bosses) in 2.0, so I'm trying out different ways of making up for the Incinerate nerf without hurting the tanking aspect too much, and as you probably guess, the Growth and Decay node is one of those. Once I've got that up and running, I can always cut away damage in favour of more ES if I ever feel that the tanking feels lacking! :)


My most recent attempt - and I'm not at all sure that this is what I will end up with - is:

a) The same build as in 2.0 with the following differences:

b) Controlled Destruction instead of Spell Echo (obviously).

c) Path of the Savant, +Growth and Decay, +Nullification, Sniper, and Trickery. (Huge damage increase, 2% extra regen, and quite a bit of ES).

d) -Written in Blood, -Whispering Death, -Unnatural Calm. HUGE loss of ES, more than is gained by b), alas.

e) Using Doedre's Damning to get the second curse - this costs the substantial ES and resistances I used to have on that ring, but means I can still run dual-curse, and it must be said that having both Warlord's Mark and Enfeeble are so very nice. 2% life leech on anything cursed and collecting endurance charges helps a lot when facing truly large groups of nasty monsters in allowing me to flame away rather than having to think or use of emergency options (potions, vaal discipline, flame dash).

f) Using the Consuming Dark dagger rather than my good wand; With chaos damage poisoning and poison now stacking per application rather than taking the highest, this is quite helpful and another effective 20% MORE multiplier on damage dealt that more than makes up for the lower spelldamage on Consuming Dark. Also, of course, the Growth and Decay's 20% increased Damage over Time gives a bit of an extra edge.

g) Using Added Chaos Damage instead of Fire Penetration since only 25% of my damage if Fire.

h) experimenting with whether it is worth the bother to allocate a 4-link to a Spell Totem - Wither - Increased Duration - Faster Casting link.

Steps a-f) taken together leaves me with 1500 ES less than I did in 2.0 but 100-200 ES/s higher regen, while dealing something on the scale of 90% of the 2.0 damage.... and I'm down to 50% projectile speed (well, 57 with a gem) where I prefer 60-70%, but it works.

But I'm not really sure it is worth the ES loss. I'll have to play some more and see. Losing both Unnatural Calm and one good ring slot (to Doedre's Damning) is expensive in ES!

I'm also not sure about the Consuming Dark approach. Sure, given the values involved right now it pays off, but what if I had a truly highend wand with high spell damage and cast speed? Or both of those and high projectile speed as well? Then it might be a different issue. Also, my Scion looks like a dork running around with the dagger like that, and looks are important! ;)

Why don't you change your tree a little bit less (ES is the essence of the build after all) but change the skill to one of the clearly buffed spells of 2.1.0 ? Arc comes to my mind, though I have never calculated DPS to compare.

Arc doesn't come close when it comes to eliminating large groups of monsters, only hitting a small number of targets per application.

Put it like this: Without modifiers or supports, a L20 Arc does an average of 466 damage every 0.8s to 7 targets, has 70% damage effectiveness, and 5% crit. A L20 Incinerate in stage 3 does an average of 2.5*170 = 425 damage to everybody in its flame every 0.2s (i.e. 1866 damage per 0.8s for comparison), has 30% damage effectiveness (which means an effective damage effectiveness of 2.5*30% = 75% at stage 3), and cannot crit. So before looking at the impact of damage modifiers, passives, auras, etc., we are talking Incinerate dealing more damage to individual targets by roughly a factor four - and that's a huge headstart for Arc to try catching up on.

Now, they are aided by different support gems, and Arc can use Spell Echo for a 70% MORE factor while Incinerate cannot and needs LMP giving a 16% less, where Arc can use another damage increasing support gem and so on and so forth, but there is no way, using the same number of passive skill points and number of links in the chain, that Arc can end up dealing more damage in a large area than Incinerate can. But it certainly can end up dealing more damage to the 7 targets it hits than Incinerate does in its entire area... but that takes going crit with a vengeance and a lot of skill points.

Incinerate is still just about the best - almost certainly THE best - spell to use when you want to be able to kill large groups of monsters while standing still with only a minimal investment of passive skillpoints.

Of course, it pretty much needs to have those characteristics given its substantial limitations (no moving, ramp up, short range) so the question with Incinerate at its current power (for this build; builds that rely on first strike rather than tanking have different priorities) is not whether it is good enough damagewise, because it certainly is even without a single skillpoint devoted to buffing damage, but whether it feels nice when playing. :)


Which is why my current approach is to find some sort of balance of ES/damage with Incinerate that I'm satisfied with at my current level of 93, where it is damn hard for anything in the game to kill my character even when experimenting, disabling some of my defenses for testing purposes, or going AFK, because then it is always possible to scale back on damage in favour of ES, should I need it - and the same would go for anybody else playing the build (who may well have worse gear than I do).

I submit to the power of your poe maths. Dunno what to do with this build right now. I love incinerate but it really took a blow and I'm always careful not to respec too fast, in case old build has become unplayable. Well, at least, the ES part is what brought me here, and it stills stands.

I can certainly say that the latest variations I tested yesterday were eminently playable; 80-90% of the damage of 2.0 Incinerate is still better than 1.3's Incinerate vs non-bosses, and it was enjoyable under 1.3. It doesn't kill bosses quickly, but then, bosses have never been all that dangerous to this build and most of the time playing is spent on killing all the regular enemies.

It does require sacrificing ES, but it does not require sacrificing ES/s regeneration, since the ES is traded for increased regeneration percentage and damage.

I'll perform a few more tests and then get a suggested skill tree up in a day or two.

Waiting for it then (even though Talisman will occupy me anyway). Thanks for the hard work.

Okay, I've found a happy medium now that works well for me:

116 pts, level 93, Elflaed

I've got some 500-600 ES less than 2.0 but still retain a bit more than 13.9k. ES regen is a bit more than 2k ES/s. Listed nominal DPS is a bit more than 11k (so 13k when poison taken into account), for something like 33-34k vs targets with zero fire and chaos resistance.

The core is:

106 pts, level 83

After which one should basically season to taste with damage, energy shield, jewels, resistances, max mana/skill cost reduction, and optionally Unwavering Stance (4pts) if scared of stunning. (Only place I'm scared of stunning is the Atziri trio, but well, can always respec for that when relevant.)

As can be seen I chose (eventually... after a free respec and 73 Regrets spent on testing variations) to go with 8 jewels, but I have some pretty good jewels by now. With less powerful jewels, it would be smarter to pick some of the free 6% ES nodes (or the Written in Blood wheel and removing the 10 INT that currently is used to link the upper branch with CI and GR), pick up Trickery in the right side (52% elemental damage + 20 INT for 4 points - really good!) or Explosive Impact in the left (55% fire damage for 4 points), or even Heart of Flame (71% fire damage and 10 INT for 6 points).


This is with Consuming Dark dagger used with Added Chaos Damage instead of Fire Penetration in the link. (And yes, I tested: At these low levels of total damage% affecting Incinerate, ACD beats the new Void Manipulation by quite a bit.)

It works perfectly fine using any good Incinerate wand; In fact, using a great Incinerate wand (and Fire Penetration) makes it deal more damage against enemies with no fire resistance that using Consuming Dark. (When taking all factors into account including the CD poison.) However, against enemies with even moderate fire resistance, the Consuming Dark pulls ahead, and, very importantly, Added Chaos Damage is a 120% multiplier while Fire Penetration is a 140% multiplier, and with the build not spending any points in the reduced mana cost of skills/increased maximum mana wheel (as it in 2.0), the mana budget is VERY tight.

That's the reason for that 3 point jewel top-right that gives +4% mana for the two nodes leading to the jewel, by the way. I was REALLY strapped for max mana, and since the amount leached per second is capped by the max mana, I tried and found that - for my gear - those 8% extra mana was enough. Barely. But enough.

I suspect that people with less extra mana on their gear than I have will need to pick up Righteous Decree anyhow to be able to afford a 6L Incinerate, even in the cheaper CD version... or get reduced mana costs from jewel slots.

Amusingly enough, a viable alternative in case of mana trouble with the CD version is to use Iron Will instead of Added Chaos Damage. The total damage% of the build is so low and the amount of strength picked up so high that Consuming Dark performance with IW comes closed to performance with ACD - some 8-10% lower, roughly. But IW does not increase the casting cost, so you get a casting cost of 19 rather than 25, and THAT is easily covered. Still, ACD is better, so better handle it via jewel modification of max mana or skill cost.


One option that I tested was using a spell totem with wither, faster casting, and increased duration in one of my 4L instead of the usual CWDTs. It worked pretty well, providing a quite decent boost to damageoutput on the enemies within the small radius wither affected, but having to deploy that totem every 12.9s goes against the spirit of the build, normal trash mobs die pretty quickly anyway and don't conveniently stack up where the totem focuses... and I do so love those automatic defenses! Still, it is an option for boss fights, I guess. If anybody can be bothered. :D

---

It is a hard choice whether I'll continue using Consuming Dark (with ACD) now or go back to my wand (with FP),


With my current equipment (and taking fire penetration and poison into account respectively, and NOT using Wither totem and ignoring mana issues), against enemies with zero fire and chaos resistance the fire-based wand approach deals roughly 10% more damage and against a typical 30% FR, 15% CR boss the wand-approach deals 5% more damage... but holding against that, against enemies with high FR the CD approach deals a LOT more damage. (E.g. 80% FR, such as granted to 0% FR enemies on the Incombustible map, the CD approach deals 90% more damage...)

EDIT: I forgot to mention - I dumped the Chaos Golem for his Flame buddy. I NEEEEED those extra damage%. :p