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

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NNil wrote:

With this build I was able to reach lvl 70 easily farming dried lake from 60. Then I completed merciless labyrinth with ~3.5k ES and only Izaros last form proved challenging in the entire run. I took Raider(yes, Raider) as my second baby-ascendancy. The clear speed and survivability of and Occultist-Raider is unmatched. Running maps, it's easy to keep full frenzy charges and gain crazy stats from Onslaught.

Glad this is working out for you.

Your Raider-Occultist is an interesting offensive variation. I can see how the damage and movement speed of Raider can be attractive, though I have a hard time seeing how it provides more surviability than Berserker given that by choosing Berserker you gain life leech on everything and the option of using a different second curse than Warlord's Mark - Temporal Chains for preference, but Flammability an obvious offensive oriented alternative if not going after dark.

I have to say that if I were to run the build in a fully offensive variation of Ascendancies, I'd probably pick Berserker-Raider. :D

But the guide focused on being defensive; Being offensive is left as an exercise to the reader. Nice to see you are picking up the slack. ;)

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Rest I spent for decent gear and now I think I'm in a pretty good spot for trying my first ever Atziri.

Just make sure that you have either a) good reflexes, or b) stun immunity (Unwavering Stance, Juggernaut baby ascendandy, or Eye of Chayula) if you end up with problems on the trio.

On Atziri herself, her regular flameblasts do 5k-7.5k and empowered flameblasts do 7k-10.5k damage assuming you are not shocked, not using the Ruby flask, and that you are standing still so getting the benefit of Arctic Armor.

With Ruby flasks, standing still, and not shocked, the regular flameblasts do 3.8k-5.7k and the empowered flameblasts does 5.8k-8.7k damage.

Given your ES of 11k, with all the incidental damage going around you should probably be avoiding empowered flameblasts entirely rather than just eating them or, if you do decide to eat them, bring two Ruby flasks. (And double empowered flameblasts are definitely a no-no.)

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Ty for this great build :)

My pleasure to help.

Question again though, you have curse linked to cwdt lvl 20, wouldnt that be more beneficial to have a lower cwdt seeing as you took occultist and that's alot of damage?

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Chridian wrote:

Question again though, you have curse linked to cwdt lvl 20, wouldnt that be more beneficial to have a lower cwdt seeing as you took occultist and that's alot of damage?

Amusingly enough it wouldn't be more beneficial. It would be a bad tradeoff.

It may not seem obvious when looking at the build, but it becomes so when you play it at high levels: This tank takes a lot of damage when fighting.

Think about it: It only takes 3272 damage to trigger a level 20 CWDT. That's not a lot of damage, that's negligible.

By the time you leveled your CWDT to level 20 you are probably up to running maps with an ES of 6k+, probably a lot more. With Occultist (15.55% ES/s regen) 6k ES regenerates 933 ES/s, 10k ES regenerates 1555 ES/4, 14k ES regenerates 2177 ES/s, and yet, by the time you reach these ES milestones and play progressively harder maps, some of the groups you fight will if unattended be able to bring down your energy shield, at least if you are pushing your map progression rather than only playing those where you can go completely AFK.

In really intense fights, i.e. those where you have to jump out to regenerate for a second or two or use a Vaal Discipline, you'll be taking so much damage that even a max level CWDT triggers more than once per second. (Fortunately, there are few such fights.)

In other words, in all important (= risk to tank) fights the curses will quickly activate at maximum power, while in unimportant fights they will activate fairly quickly unless your manage to wipe out your enemies before they do any noticeable amount of damage - in which case you didn't really need either the curse effects or the 20% increased spelldamage from the Occultist in the first place.

Using a lower level CWDT at high levels just means getting a small amount of more power when it doesn't matter at the cost of weakening your defenses when it does, which is a terrible tradeoff for a tank build.

Im just curious, what is the reasoning for taking Growth and Decay?

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theneverend wrote:

Im just curious, what is the reasoning for taking Growth and Decay?

2% life regeneration for 3 skill points.

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Pi2rEpsilon wrote:

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theneverend wrote:

Im just curious, what is the reasoning for taking Growth and Decay?

2% life regeneration for 3 skill points.

Ha, okay I thought so. I've been bending my brain a bit trying to figure out what mechanic in the build tied in to DoT. I'm really loving this build so far. I RIP'd to a perandus pack in A1 merciless on my first attempt, but I was so sure the build was strong I immediately rolled it up again. Just about back where I left off now, hoping for better luck. Thanks for the reply and the guide!

Quick question: How easy would it be to adapt this built to work with a Sire of Shards? (And if that's a terrible, terrible idea and I should feel bad, then are there any Sire of Shards + Incinerate builds that you could recommend?)

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AielloA wrote:

Quick question: How easy would it be to adapt this built to work with a Sire of Shards? (And if that's a terrible, terrible idea and I should feel bad, then are there any Sire of Shards + Incinerate builds that you could recommend?)

The answer is either "no adaption necessary" or "trivial" depending on how you view it. Certainly, if somebody gave me a nicely socketed and linked SoS today I'd be able to use it right away.

The build easily meets the STR and INT requirements and it doesn't take any take any shield, wand, or 1h-nodes. You wouldn't need change the skill tree at all.

You'll have to fiddle a bit with the CWDT links to best take advantage of however many sockets and links you get on the SoS and you'll have to decide on which support gem to link instead of LMP/GMP, but that's about it.

The tradeoff of using a staff rather than 1h+sh is too significant for me to consider it for challenging content because a good ES shield provides a significant chunk of your total ES. (E.g. my 441 ES shield provides 2923 ES and 454 ES/s regeneration all by itself; if I didn't get any ES from my two hand slots at all, as in the staff example, it would take no less than 138.07% maximum ES gained somewhere else to make up for it according to my calculations, which is not going to happen. So effectively this would all have to be written off.)

That said, I'm certain you'll be able to defeat challenging content using a staff, because this tank takes defensive strength to the edge of madness and losing some 2-3k ES at high levels from not using a good shield is not what's going to make the difference between success and failure, only how much attention you have to pay. As I don't want to have to pay attention more than strictly speaking necessary, I choose 1h+sh every day of the week.

But if I did have a SoS, I'd definitely test it out. After all, I wouldn't need to change the skill tree at all and if I ever did encounter content too challenging to be fun? Then I'd just switch to 1h+sh.

Okay, that's actually really good news. I personally seriously dislike playing casters with shields, and am thrilled to find out that I can get this to work with an amazing-looking staff (plus I'm of the opinion that Incinerate + SoS looks beautiful as hell)

I do have a few questions about the CWDT set-up. Why would you not link a GMP to Ice Spear for even more potential crits, (or just link a second Ice Spear) instead of using a different spell?

And... What if I wanted to try and use, say, Ice Spear as my main damage spell and go full-on Frost Mage. What sorts of changes would I need to make to the passive tree in order for that to work (obviously I would have no more need for Arsonist, for example)

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AielloA wrote:

I do have a few questions about the CWDT set-up. Why would you not link a GMP to Ice Spear for even more potential crits, (or just link a second Ice Spear) instead of using a different spell?

Because critical strike is rolled per skill use, not per monster affected by a skill. A GMP-Ice spear will either have all the spears critting or none of them. At least, that's what the wiki tells me about critical strikes, but I've never actually tested it. If the wiki is wrong on this, this might be an option.

As for why not a second linked Ice Spear, it is because two identical spells in a CWDT link are never triggered simultaneously.

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And... What if I wanted to try and use, say, Ice Spear as my main damage spell and go full-on Frost Mage. What sorts of changes would I need to make to the passive tree in order for that to work (obviously I would have no more need for Arsonist, for example)

I don't see why you'd need to change anything except for using cold damage jewels and weapon.

Arsonist would be as nice as always for the 1% regeneration and the armour nodes and jewel slot are nice, though arguably you pay a high price for them. But there's nowhere you can pick up more regeneration without it being expensive, because the easy picks have already been made.

I mean, take my current 118pt build here and slim it down by removing Arsonist but keeping the rest of the regeneration like this. You've lost regeneration, armour, and jewel slot and gained 8 skill points, some dexterity, and some nice mana cost reduction. If you want to regain the regeneration you have to do like this. And voila, you have regained the regeneration and jewel slot, but the build is now 118pt again and has effectively traded armour% for mana reduction and dexterity.

Of course, you can choose to spend those 8 skillpoints elsewhere at the cost of accepting running 1% ES/s less regeneration.


My greatest concern with Ice Spear is that it doesn't do anywhere near as much damage as Incinerate unless you invest significantly in crit. With a ~400 base at 20 and a base casttime of 0.85, the base average non-crit damage is 400/0.85 = 471 DPS before all modifiers, while a stage 3 Incinerate is (170/0.2)*(1+3*50%) = 2125. So if you are using this approach, you should probably accept playing with lower regeneration and spend those 8 skillpoints on offense. Realistically, you would probably want to find some way to save even more points, because non-crit Ice Spear is a pretty bad spell. If you don't want to dump too much regeneration and want to play with cold damage, the Freezing Pulse projectile would be the better choice doing a base dps at 20 of 860.5/0.65 = 1324.

As said earlier, just about any spell will work, but few spells work as well as Incinerate when you devote minimal nodes to offense. (Firestorm is probably the only one due to the multiplicative damage nature of increased skill duration nodes and also using fire damage).