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

I'll just add I didn't thoroughly read through the new Rage mechanic and forgot there's no ES component for it so I insta-gibbed myself. :)

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poejacleu wrote:

I'll just add I didn't thoroughly read through the new Rage mechanic and forgot there's no ES component for it so I insta-gibbed myself. :)

Heh. Sounds nasty.



Anyhow, the Berserker baby-ascendancy is definitely out as noted on last page. I've currently narrowed down to three that I've been testing with my level 93 3.0 flametank; All three gained around 1k total ES from the chieftain 10% strength upgrade.


CHI-ELE - using Herald of Ash instead of Arctic Armour. This was really fun to test with as the damageupgrade could clearly be felt and having two stone golems running around looked great. Moreover, the Herald of Ash graphics looks much better than Arctic Armour.

BUT the loss of Arctic Armour and the 50% recovery bonus on trash, combined with not having any source of ES leech except on cursed enemies was very, very, noticeable. (Both mechanics were after all triggered by "enemy killed recently (dotted)", so it is a double whammy to lose both of them at once). I think this one is destined to be an "only do this if you get a good source of leech, e.g. watcher's eye with anger-leech" variant.


CHI-TRI - classic; feels much like the 3.0 version; though the loss of leech except on cursed enemies is noticeable. Damage is much the same as in 3.0 too - it loses the berserker's 10% more but gains around 7.5% more as chaos and also has higher strength, so that's mostly a wash.


CHI-OCC - this one freed up several skillpoints to use elsewhere so I ended up with slightly higher total ES and noticeably higher ES recovery than CHI-ELE, picking up some more ES nodes and 1.8% regen extra.


Currently the ES recovery situation is like this

Groups: ELE < OCC < TRI
Soloboss: ELE = TRI < OCC

And

Maximum ES: ELE = TRI < OCC

Damage: OCC < TRI = ELE (assuming same choice for all on the arctic armour/herald of ash question)


An obvious issue is that it is hard to get enough DEX for a high-level Arctic Armour on both ELE and OCC.

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Also experimenting with replacing the Elemental Overload CWDT trigger (CWDT-IS-FB-ICS) with a trigger abusing the new 3.1 spells Unearth and Cremate. It appears to work quite well.

Glad to see you're revisiting the build again Pi2rEpsilon. Have you considered perhaps incinerate again with the new watcher's eye jewel (+ES on hit version)? That's a considerable amount of ES when taking into account how much an incinerate -> cwc -> firestorm combo hits.

There's also the Xirgil's Crank max block route for ES regen though I believe you would have to go full witch/occultist for that to work.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing what you come up with this league.

Could anyone say me about CWDT and curse? It doesn't work with curses, so how trigger these 2 cuerses in the build (Warlord's Mark and Flammability)?

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Dezrow wrote:

Could anyone say me about CWDT and curse? It doesn't work with curses, so how trigger these 2 cuerses in the build (Warlord's Mark and Flammability)?

CWDT works perfectly well with curses, so long as the curses are within the level range the CWDT covers.


@Zenzen

I have briefly considered incinerate but alas shelved it again for the same reason as it is almost always shelved these days: the damageoutput just doesn't justify doing so. Not only does the spell itself present problems such as shorter range, but more importantly the 24% fire penetration it applies at 8 stacks constitutes a very significant more multiplier on the damage of the Firestorms and ancillary defenses, that is particularly important in cutting down the tedium when melting bosses.

As for Watcher's Eye, the 20-30 ES on hit is indeed one of the three top options available (ES/hit discipline, life leech vitality, and extra max energy shield clarity which just requires slotting a L1 clarity to work).

Fundamentally the ES on hit is awesome on groups of enemies and scales best when fighting ludicrous numbers of enemies but is only decent on solo bosses, while the life leech is great on both groups and solo bosses but hard capped by the leech cap, and the max ES is just awesome for providing extra buffer safety against spam damage.

You don't need incinerate to give the player more than enough hits. Sustained firestorm casting creates a ludicruous amounts of hits against groups of enemies, and even against the worst case, a single size 4 boss we are still talking an average of 26 hits/second when focusfiring the boss after the first 2.9s where the overlapping spells ramp up.


Xirgil's Crank... is mostly for going witch and focusing on block and recharge.


EDIT: And CWDT20-Unearth20-Cremate20-IncreasedCriticalStrikes20 as Elemental Overload trigger both looks and feels great; I'm not sure it is quite as good as the trusted CWDT1-IceSpear8-Fireball11-IncreasedCriticalStrikes20 for Elemental Overload purposes, but so far it works well enough. Main issue is when there is so little danger that it is almost never triggered, yet you would still like EO active to melt enemies even quicker. And it does provide a small but not insignificant damageoutput and extra hits in case of Watcher's Eye/ESonHit.

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I hope to have the first revision of the 3.2 flametank guide up within a day or so.

I din't see the curse effect when i tested the CWDT mechanics. The gem description say that you can't cast the supported skills directly, but I can cast the Warlord's Mark, when i have it linked with CWDT. I tested it how the trigger works, linked CWDT with WM, Flammability and Molten Shell. Molten Shell activated, but no curse at the enemy, hitting me at melee range.


EDIT: oops, I didn't see that CWDT don't support skills higher lvl than the CWDT gem lvl. It's my fault :D

Thanks for explaining me. The build is awesome!

After substantial testing of the three variants I have been looking at with my 3.0 geared Scion, I have settled down on CHIEFTAIN-OCCULTIST as being the main variant for the build.

It provides the best tradeoff between offense and defense at high levels and looks, on paper at least, to be the easiest one to level due to stun immunity and an extra curse being baked in, so the player can get to the other core elements nailed down faster.

I'll be leveling a new flametank in 3.2 trying to get better gear than my 3.0 had, but let's see how that goes.


For those who are impatient for the guide update, this pastebin link contains my current level 93 equipment and skill tree, my suggested *but untried* leveling path for 3.2 at 54, 92, 102, 118, and 128 points, and CHI-ELE and CHI-TRI variants at 121 points (L93) for those who are so inclined.

And here is a screenshot of the defenses of my old 3.0 Scionic Flametank, the ScionicWeirdo, using the new skill tree and with 3 endurance charges, both defensive flasks used, and molten shell triggered. Her ES/s recovery from regeneration is the listed 4523*1.5 ~ 6785 ES/s. Any ES leech is on top of that.

The guide is now updated. Feel free to point out errors, inconsistencies, or need for clarification.

Update jewel section with notes on relevant Abyssal jewels.

Hi, I'm looking for a good build to farm uber-lab.

Do you recommand the build as an uber-lab farmer?