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

Finally...the Scion is revealed...I'm...kinda speechless. Still taking it all in...

I'm thoroughly baffled that's the route they took. LOL. I'm okay with it, though.

At a first glance - and I sure hope I can convince myself otherwise when I get my hands on it - the Scion's Ascendancy class looks mostly like a trap.

Two major ascendancy nodes rather than three, and all of those showcased in the video are significantly weaker than the 4-pointers in the other characters' subclasses (honourable exception for Scion's Raider spec for melee builds that can use permanent phasing). Minor nodes that are worth 1 skill point rather than 2-3 like the others...

Don't get me wrong - if one wants to make a wildly original build by taking only one major and the tree hopping ability, Scion will probably be an exceptional choice, but if not... getting a bunch of mostly mediocre modifiers from the Ascendancy tree when one could have gotten a game-changing 4-pointer and two strong 2-pointers from another character suited to the purpose looks extremely suboptimal.

As an example relevant to this build, it's not really as if it is hard to say which is stronger, "1% ES regen all the time" or "1%ES regen for every enemy you've killed recently" (Occultist), or "30% increased Recovery of Life, Energy Shield and Mana Recovery if you've Killed an Enemy affected by your Damage Over Time in the past 4 seconds" vs 60% (Trickster), or the 20% chance to gain consecrated ground when you kill vs when you kill or are hit (Inquisitor). Or the defensive option of "10% chance to gain fortify on melee hit" vs. "You have fortify" :p

And so on and so forth.

So, somewhat dejected now, but let's see how it works out in practice. Perhaps I'm overlooking something. Wouldn't be the first time.

At a first glance, Juggernaut for freeze immunity on full endurance charges or Berserker for Life Leech such that Warlord's Mark can be dropped, combined with Trickster for the 30% increased recovery upon killing enemies affected by damage over time may be the best option around (though that would lock the build into After Dark configuration and thus no longer qualify as a newbie friendly build), but, well...

BAH.

NO further guessing until I see the stats upon release. It is possible that some of the previously released Ascendancies have been rebalanced, after all.

Good points. I have two Scions that I'll get to respec in Ascendancy and thinking about what I'm going to do with them is honestly giving me a headache at the moment. I'm more excited by the prospect of turning my Witch into an Occultist and my Ranger into a Pathfinder.

Still tough to say how everything will play out without seeing the new tree and if they confirm the changes to Increased Critical Strikes that I've been reading about. If it's true, then it sounds like a crit Incinerator might become a thing...which sounds kind of interesting.

Finally got my ES regen up to 2000. Almost to Level 90...can't wait to turn my Witch into an Occultist. Looks like the Ascendancy base tree hasn't changed anything from my initial view of it...but grabbing the Occultist nodes I want will grant +100 to ES and another 24% to the maximum as well that very good regen effect. And the immunity to Stun at full ES as well as the Chaos resistance penetration is simply some delicious gravy...

Got a Lv 76 Torture Chamber map from Zana last night...with nasty Cast Speed and other mods for the boss. I hesitated to take him on being so close to the next level but my worries were soon discovered to be rather silly as I took a partial laser blast and noticed that it didn't seem to harm me. I decided to see what a full blast would do...and taking the entire duration of the laser blast didn't even scratch my Witch! However, taking the laser blast and having those stupid totems all drop on my head did hurt her pretty good, so a few retreats were necessary. But it was still pretty funny to think how afraid of that laser I used to be...but with this build, it's pretty laughable. :)

Okay, incorporating the latest round of Ascendancy balancing changes (announced on reddit :p) that weaken some of more outrageous ascendancies, I have now taken a look at the various options available. Unless significant last minute changes occur I expect these to hold upon release.

Scion, Marauder, and Witch have roughly same number of "waste" nodes, and Shadow can fairly easily be adapted as a starting point at a cost of a few points. Here are the options I see, some relevant for pure fire, some for chaos poison ("After Dark" build with Consuming Dark) and some for both.

I'll present the conclusion first for simplicity's sake, then provide the arguments based on which I reached it.


CONCLUSION:

Based on the latest data, the decision matrix looks roughly like this:

Enfeeble+Temporal Chains + fire damage focus and good regeneration at all times: Marauder-Chieftain.
Enfeeble+Temporal Chains + chaos-poison damage focus and good regeneration vs. groups: Scion Berserker/Trickster.
Enfeeble+Temporal Chains + chaos-poison damage focus and decent regeneration at all times: Scion Berserker/Occultist.
Enfeeble+Warlord's Mark + chaos-poison damage focus and max regeneration vs. groups: Shadow-Trickster.
Enfeeble+Warlord's Mark + max regeneration vs. solo bosses: Templar-Inquisitor.
Enfeeble+Warlord's Mark + good regeneration and high damage vs. groups: Witch-Occultist.

I don't play PvP myself, but I'd venture to guess that the Marauder-Chieftain is the best choice by far for that purpose out of the various flametank builds. Lots of extra regenerative survivability that is completely under the player's control (via endurance charges), elemental fire damage with 10% added penetration on top of that from socketed gem, immunity to being ignited, and dual-cursing.

EDIT: I have struck the Templar-Inquisitor from the list after being made aware of the existence in Ascendancy of the Sulphur Flask. Now ALL the builds can get consecrated ground when the going gets tough.

Because....

Fire version, Chieftain: Ngamahu, Flame's Advance/Hinekora, Death's Fury/Ramako, Sun's Light

1.5% regeneration from minor nodes
0.5% of maximum Life Regenerated per second per Endurance Charge
1% of Fire Damage Leeched as Life
Damage Penetrates 10% Fire Resistance
30% increased fire damage from minor nodes
35% increased Damage against Burning Enemies
15% chance to Ignite
Cannot be Ignited
When you or your Totems Kill a Burning Enemy, 10% chance of you and your Totems to each gain an Endurance Charge
Gain 20% of Physical Damage as Extra Fire Damage if you've Killed in the past 4 seconds

Spending the 3 skill points to pick up an extra endurance node and the +0.2% life regeneration/endurance node, get 1 extra endurance node from bandits at a cost of 1 point, and adding Enduring Cry so we are guaranteed to max out endurance charges at all times - and Marauder tops out with 5.0% life regeneration and 1% fire leech along with the damage upgrades. With the high energy shield buffer this build uses, the maximum leech rate of 20% gives, with my current gear, a theoretical upper ceiling of 20%*14000 ES/s = 2800 ES/s, and while 1% leech is only half that of Warlord's Mark, it applies at all times and will fairly quickly max out when facing large groups of monsters. So Warlord's Mark can be replaced by something else – Temporal Chains being the obvious defensive option.


Fire or chaos version, Inquisitor: Sanctify/Pious Path/Augury of Penitence

1% life regeneration from minor nodes
25% chance to create Consecrated Ground when Hit, lasting 3 seconds
25% chance to create Consecrated Ground on Kill, lasting 3 seconds
Immune to Elemental Status Ailments while on Consecrated Ground
50% reduced Mana Cost while on Consecrated Ground
40% increased Damage while on Consecrated Ground
30% elemental damage from minor nodes
Nearby Enemies deal 5% less Elemental Damage
Nearby Enemies take 10% increased Elemental Damage
6% to all elemental resistances from minor nodes

Consecrated ground grants 4% life regeneration per second, and whenever anybody is hitting you on a regular bases it will be active pretty much 100% of the time, giving you an effective 5% life regeneration whenever it matters. Nearby enemies dealing 5% less elemental damage is nice too; assuming capped resistances of 75%, that's equivalent of gaining another 5%*25% = 1.25% max elemental resistances. Theoretically getting 50% reducted mana cost on Consecrated Ground makes it easier to make a variant that doesn't use Mana Leech, but while neat in theory it sounds annoying in practice. (E.g. Go through streches where no enemies manage to hit you and you slow down in casting through lack of mana? No thanks.)

EDIT: I have struck the Templar-Inquisitor from the list after being made aware of the existence in Ascendancy of the Sulphur Flask. Now ALL the builds can get consecrated ground when the going gets tough.


Chaos version, Trickster: Ghost Dance/Shade Form/Patient Reaper.

60% increased Recovery of Life, Energy Shield and Mana Recovery if you've Killed an Enemy affected by your Damage Over Time in the past 4 seconds
+250 to maximum Energy Shield
16% maximum Energy Ehield from minor nodes
20% faster start of Energy Shield Recharge
+500 to Evasion Rating
20% more chance to Evade Attacks while not on full Energy Shield
16% evasion rating from minor nodes
12% attack and cast speed from minor nodes
10% damage over time from minor nodes
30% increased Damage over Time
5% chance to Dodge Attacks
5% chance to Dodge Spell Damage
10% increased Movement Speed while on Full Energy Shield
20% increased Attack and Cast Speed if Energy Shield Recharge has started in the past 4 seconds

In After Dark configuration, every enemy killed fulfills the trigger condition for recovery, meaning that you gain an additional 60%*14.65% = 8.79% regeneration so long as you have killed any enemy recently. In addition you get more than twice the extra base energy shield that Occultist provides, boosted evasion rating, a small chance to dodge, and increased movement speed when moving between groups of mobs at full energy shield.

You could use this with fire, but you need to ensure you have skillpoints in x% chance to ignite by tracing through the Templar Elementalist node that I skip in the current version of the build in order that enemies catch fire and are affected by a DOT when they die. Even if you take that node, it isn't guaranteed that they'll be afflicted when they die. All taken together, Trickster is definitely best with chaos poison.


Fire or Chaos version, Occultist: Wicked Ward/Vile Bastion/Profane Bloom

0.5% of Energy Shield Regenerated per second for each Enemy you've Killed in the past 4 seconds
+100 to maximum Energy Shield
24% maximum Energy Shield from minor nodes
30% increased shield recharge from minor nodes
Energy Shield Recharge is not interrupted by Damage if Recharge began in the past 4 seconds
Immune to Stun while on Full Energy Shield
15% increased curse duration from minor nodes
Enemies you Curse take 10% increased Damage
Cursed Enemies you Kill explode dealing 10% of their Life as Chaos Damage
50% chance to cause Cursed Monsters to Explode on Death

Assuming a base regeneration of 14.65% (skill tree, no regeneration amulet, no Shavronne's Reveleation), you need to kill 9+ enemies per four seconds to beat the regeneration of the Chieftain and you don't get the leech, 11+ to beat the Inquisitor, and 18+ to beat the Trickster. (If you have any gear that improves life regeneration, you need even more kills to break even and get ahead). Suffice to say, that Occultist isn't going to be beating any of the others where Energy Shield regeneration is concerned on a consistent basis.

You also get less energy shield than the Trickster, you don't get to life (ES) leech as the Chieftain, and don't get a higher regeneration rate except when you kill. On the other hand, you can get chain reactions of cursed enemies exploding and in the rare case that you break contact long enough to trigger recharge, you'll be nearly immortal for the next 4s even if you immediately reenter combat – the same effect as when using a Vaal Discipline as an emergency button.



So, of these four:

1. When there are enemies around to kill, Trickster is much, better than anybody else for regeneration purposes. But not for killing bosses that don't have friends. It also provides the highest maximum Energy Shield and Evasion.

2. When there are many enemies around to harm, Chieftain > all because of the life leech adding to the regeneration.

3. For regeneration regardless of harming or killing, Inquisitor and Chieftain are both are good because unlike Occultist and Trickster they don't need to kill to activate their extra regeneration. (One needs to be hit, the other to maintain endurance charges).

4. When the focus is on damage while still getting some regeneration benefit, Occultist is good. Occultist provides an awesome mix of offense and defense.


All four are solid choices with their pros and cons, though my preference would be Chieftain for the consistency of regeneration (due to only needing to keep up endurance charges) and the life leech that means the second curse can be used for something else like Temporal Chains... Though admittedly the explosive abilities of Occultist sound really fun.


Scion ascendancy based...

The build would only benefit 3-4 skill points from treehopping, so that is out. The question then is which two of the Scion's mini-ascendancies would best benefit the build. Here is a quick overview of those I deem at least marginally useful

Berserker – 1.5% life leech from damage, damage, and 5%damage taken (ouch).
Chieftain – damage and 2% regeneration if the build is changed to incorporate a totem.
Deadeye – damage, extra projectile, projectile speed.
Inquisitor – consecrated ground (4% regen) on kill, elemental damage
Juggernaut – able to get stun and chill immunity.
Occultist – 1% regeneration, damage (chaos related), 20 maximum energy shield%.
Trickster – 30% life/ES/mana recovery if enemy killed recently affected by damage over time, evasion, damage.

As can be seen, there are only two of them that offer regeneration regardless of whether you kill or not (Chieftain, Occultist), and taking those together will provide 3% regeneration and require you to field a totem. Which is distinctly inferior to the 5.0% from Marauder-Chieftain, and that has 1% fire life leech thrown in as well.

For the "on-kill" regenerators, Trickster is much like the Shadow version, having the same condition to apply but only having half the strength strength and you don't get all the lovely base Energy Shield. Inquisitor provides the most valuable part of the main class, Consecrated Ground, at full strength.. but only provides it on kill, and still only conditionally. So unlike the main class, you won't get it merely because some boss keeps hitting you.

Berserker gives life leech, which is always valuable and allows one to drop Warlord's Mark and pick another curse, but 5% extra taken, while small, is not irrelevant as it reduces the effective value of regeneration. An important detail to note here is that its life leech works with both fire and chaos damage, unlike the Marauder-Chieftain's.

Deadeye provides a minor damage increase and some utility by providing projectile speed. I include it mostly for completeness sake, because with Incinerate already piercing, what is arguably the greatest attraction of Scion-Deadeye, its 50% piercing, is completely useless to the Scion, and the bonuses that are left look decidedly lacklustre.

Juggernaut has little to go for it as chill and stun usually isn't a problem for this build, but on the other hand usually isn't the same as never. Still, it, like Deadeye, is included mostly for completeness sake.

Of all of these, the only one that truly stands out is Berserker due to life leeching any type of damage and thus freeing up the second curse for Temporal Chain (or Flammability or whatever) regardless of you are using a pure fire approach or going After Dark with the Consuming Dark.

No two of the other mini-ascendancies taken together provides anything near the passive regeneration that can be had from Marauder-Chieftain or Templar-Inquisitor, the on-kill regeneration of Tricksters, or the on-kill explosions and regeneration of Occultists, so it doesn't make sense to examine them.

Since Berserker is mutually exclusive with Juggernaut and Chieftain, they are out for consideration, and Deadeye doesn't provide much of an offensive upgrade so that's out too, leaving effectively:

Berserker/Trickster
Berserker/Inquisitor
Berserker/Occultist


Fire or Chaos version, Scion: Berserker/Trickster.

1.5% of Damage Leeched as Life
30% increased Recovery of Life, Mana, and Energy Shield if you've Killed an Enemy affected by your Damage Over Time Recently
10% more Damage
5% increased Damage taken (ouch)
2 skill points from minor nodes
40 STR
20 DEX
20 INT
20% more chance to Evade while on full Energy Shield
20% increased Damage while not on full Energy Fhield
100% increased Mana Regeneration if you've used a Movement Skill Recently
25% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've taken a Savage Hit Recently

In After Dark configuration, every enemy killed always fulfills the trigger condition for recovery, meaning that you gain an additional 30%*14.65% = 4.40% regeneration so long as you have killed any enemy recently. In fire version, you need to ensure you have skillpoints in x% chance to ignite by tracing through the Templar Elementalist node that I skip in the current version of the build in order that enemies catch fire and are affected by a DOT when they die.

Since this also leeches, it is natural to compare it to the Marauder-Chieftain above, and at first clance it looks as if the Chieftain grants roughly the same regeneration (5.0%) all the time (with full endurance) that the Scion does when it has killed recently (4.4%), but only leeches 1% vs 1.5%. But that's ignoring the elephant in the room – the 5% more damage taken. This needs to be taken into account where survivability is concerned. The effective regeneration for survivability purposes of the Chieftain is 14.65%+5.0% = 19.655%, while the Scion Berserker/Trickster's is (14.65%*1.3)/(1.05) = 18.14%, so it is 5.0% (Chieftain) vs 18.14%-14.65% = 3.49% (Scion).

Since the Flametank build has so little increased damage of its own, the Chieftain's increased bonuses and fire penetration end up doing more damage that the Scion's 10% more damage and 20% increased damage provide.

The Berserker/Trickster doesn't pick up endurance charges at all, which means less physical damage reduction. (Unless you slot Enduring Cry)

Still, all taken together, the Scion Berserker/Trickster is roughly as good as the Chieftain where survivability is concerned when fighting groups of monsters. The Chieftain regenerates about 0.9% more, the Scion only requires 2/3rds the number of targets to flame to hit the leech cap.

When fighting solo bosses it is a much darker picture with 18.95% regeneration vs. 14.65%/1.05 = 13.95% regeneration. The additional 0.5% leeched from the single target won't come anywhere close to match the loss of effectively 4% ES/s regeneration. (With my current stats that leech is worth around 1% ES/s.)

On the positive side, the Berserker/Trickster has 5 extra skillpoints to spare compared to Marauder-Chieftain due to the two from the Scion's Ascendancy tree and not having to spend 3 extra to pick up 0.2%/endurance charge. But then, it requires more skill points to lead into the build from Shadow (good damageoriented skillpoints, mind you, so hardly a loss). It also picks up 20 dexterity, putting less of a stress on equipment to provide the missing 71 dexterity.

Final verdict: It looks as if Berserker/Trickster is a worthy competitor to the pure classes... but one that fall a bit short in general unless you are going After Dark, in which case its ability to life leech with chaos damage, giving access to a second curse different from Warlord's Mark, while still providing a nifty regenerative boost on killing is pretty nice.


Fire or Chaos version, Scion: Berserker/Inquisitor.

1.5% of Damage Leeched as Life
20% chance to create Consecrated Ground on Kill, lasting 3 seconds
10% more Damage
5% increased Damage taken (ouch)
2 skill points from minor nodes
60 STR
20 INT
20% increased Elemental Damage
Take 8% reduced Elemental Damage while standing on Consecrated Ground
25% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've taken a Savage Hit Recently
120% increased Critical Strike Chance against Enemies affected by Elemental Status Ailments

The 4% from Consecrated Ground is a bit less than the 4.4% from Berserker/Trickster. Moreover, whereas that variant activated on any kill that is affected by your DOT, the Berserker/Inquisitor only has a 20% chance to do so.

Taking 8% less Elemental Damge while standing on Consecrated Ground is, assuming capped resistances of 75%, equivalent to 8%*25% = 2% max elemental resistances, which is certainly nice... but unlike the pureblood Inquisitor, it won't help you on bosses like Atziri, since you don't gain Concecrated Ground from being hit, only from killing.

Final verdict: Strive as I may, I cannot find this to be superior to Berserker/Trickster in any practical way. It allows you to get the triggered regeneration while using fire damage much easier than in the B/T variant... but if you are using pure fire and would like to leech, why not just use the Marauder-Chieftain that is optimized for fire leech+regeneration in the first place?


Fire or Chaos version, Scion: Berserker/Occultist.

1.5% of Damage Leeched as Life
1% of Energy Shield Regenerated per second
10% more Damage
5% increased Damage taken (ouch)
2 skill points from minor nodes
40 STR
40 INT
20% increased maximum Energy Shield
Enemies you Curse have -15% Chaos Resistance
20% increased Damage if you've Killed a Cursed Enemy Recently
25% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've taken a Savage Hit Recently

The 1% ES regeneration is puny compared to the Berserker/Trickster's 4.4% (or more, if you have life regeneration equipmenet) but it is still better than nothing and it is always present, even on solo bosses. 20% increased Maximum Energy shield is worth some 3-4 skillpoints too.

While useful in both fire and chaos versions, like the B/T and the B/I, it suffers from the same "if you want fire-leech, why not just go Marauder-Chieftain and have the best of both worlds" issue as the other Scion variants, so in practice this is only attractive in the chaos version. On the positive side, cursing enemies to have less chaos resistance does combine nicely with this.

Final verdict: Berserker/Occultist falls significantly short of Berserker/Trickster defensively in all cases except vs. solo bosses.

"

SasoriOtoko wrote:

Finally got my ES regen up to 2000. Almost to Level 90...can't wait to turn my Witch into an Occultist. Looks like the Ascendancy base tree hasn't changed anything from my initial view of it...but grabbing the Occultist nodes I want will grant +100 to ES and another 24% to the maximum as well that very good regen effect. And the immunity to Stun at full ES as well as the Chaos resistance penetration is simply some delicious gravy...

Got a Lv 76 Torture Chamber map from Zana last night...with nasty Cast Speed and other mods for the boss. I hesitated to take him on being so close to the next level but my worries were soon discovered to be rather silly as I took a partial laser blast and noticed that it didn't seem to harm me. I decided to see what a full blast would do...and taking the entire duration of the laser blast didn't even scratch my Witch! However, taking the laser blast and having those stupid totems all drop on my head did hurt her pretty good, so a few retreats were necessary. But it was still pretty funny to think how afraid of that laser I used to be...but with this build, it's pretty laughable. :)

What can I say? The Torture Chamber boss was not made with regenerating tanks in mind. :D

Would you still recommend going for a Consuming Dark after the nerf (50% conversion to chaos; down from 75%) or would you now recommend going for a good wand?

"

Myrales wrote:

Would you still recommend going for a Consuming Dark after the nerf (50% conversion to chaos; down from 75%) or would you now recommend going for a good wand?

Depends on whether I play Scion or non-Scion as indicated in the decision matrix I posted a few posts above. :D

If I play the Scionic Flametank as a Scion, Consuming Dark is pretty much the way to go if it is available because it enables the Berserker/Trickster regeneration synergy and Berserker/Occultist chaos damage synergy depending on which one prefers.

The Scionic Flametank with a Scion chassis and a good fire wand will still work well as Berserker/Occultist - it is just that a Marauder-Chieftain Flametank will be better at it.

OTOH, one can change from highlevel Scion Berserker/Occultist to Berserker/Trickster or vice versa much easier than changing from highlevel Scion to highlevel Marauder (if it holds true that one can respec Ascendancy skills at the cost of a few orbs of regret). The Scion's flexibility in this regard should not be underestimated.

And looking only at the Scion, even at only 50% the Consuming Dark is more useful than a good wand due to the advantages of chaos damage. A truly great wand, however, will (just as at 75%) be the winner when looking solely at damage.

Argh. You made such compelling points I am now trying to decide what to do with my Lv 90 Marauder Incinerator. I designed him as a max blocker with 6 Endurance charges and definitely plan to go Chieftain class...but he's life based now and I'd have to completely change him around to do CI. But then I already have a Witch doing very well with your build...hmm...I have to think on all this for a while longer.

I have pondered the thought of putting a Kaom's heart on him and using a two handed weapon and going high regen with just life...but I don't know how practical that would be...not to mention the time needed to save up so many exalts to get a decent two handed 6L weapon.

And don't get me started on my two Scions...and then my Ranger...RNGesus help me...I need a drink...o_0