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

The short answer is yes, Azaros60, if you haven't a lot of experience farming über-labyrinth already.

It is very easy to farm über lab with it once you have half-decent gear as it is really hard to die to anything in there, be it traps, monsters, or über-Izaro himself.

As illustrated with one of my 3.0 movies you can even go AFK on über-Izaro once you have good gear and have him commit suicide attacking your CWDTs. Not that I recommend it as it is a silly thing to do, but somebody asked, I made the video, and now I pretty much have to plug it when asked questions like this. :D


The longer answer is that it obviously isn't as fast at clearing the eternal labyrinth as dedicated lab-farming builds based around extreme movement speed, high damage, and good reflexes are, so it all comes down to whether you prefer speed or reliability; and if you already have a lot of experience farming úber-labyrinth you probably prefer speed.

That being said, if used as a dedicated über labyrinth farmer that isn't intended to face any of the really tough content in the game I would suggest dropping some of the defenses for more movement speed once you get on in levels, because assuming you stay up with the gear curve by the time you hit the late 80s the tank is ridiculously over-tanky for the low danger of über-lab content compared to the content it is designed for (tanking everything up to and including T17 maps).

can this build kill elder?

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kronox221 wrote:

can this build kill elder?

I haven't got the foggiest, but I certainly expect so.

Last I played it to high levels was in 3.0 when the Elder didn't exist, so I haven't tried fighting Elder yet, but I've designed this build to be able to handle everything GGG can throw at it but a hard dps-check. Soft dps-checks like their usual "you'll suffer a few thousand dps damage from standing in fire/cold/void/whatever if you are slow and it'll spread to EVERYWHERE, hahahaha" are more nuisances than a threat to this build.

Reading the wiki article about him nothing sounds particularly dangerous (for this build), except possibly the question of having to burn down Madness Propagators fast enough to protect the Shaper. But it does say that you can complete it with phase 1 mechanics if you fail to do that.

But until I or or else running a flametank actually do kill the Elder, there won't be a definite answer. If may be easy, it may be hard, it may be a gear check... only one way to find out.

Somebody else will probably do it first; While I am leveling a new flametank for 3.2 to test out some of the new items I level much more slowly than those people who have the time and energy for playing that I did 20-30 years ago, so my current 3.2 flametank is my only character in this league and yet it is only up to level 79 so far, powering through early mapping on a 4L Geofri with a measly 9.9k ES and wimpy gear.

I see no reason for not adding at least shield charge + fortify to this build. It's so op movement combination. I'd better go with less complicated EO trigger.

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tm10067 wrote:

I see no reason for not adding at least shield charge + fortify to this build. It's so op movement combination. I'd better go with less complicated EO trigger.

My reason is simply this: I like just standing still with bonus +2% ES/s regeneration (3% ES/s recovery) and 8% physical mitigation from Tukohama, flaming away like a stationary turret, and as a bonus I like the ability to jump enemies and gaps at a moment's notice with Flame Dash.

Moving to trigger Fortify via Shield Charge is a stronger protection and the only costs are resetting the Tukohama bonus and a short gap in stacking firestorms when doing so, and the ability to jump gaps is pure luxury that one can do without (or have on a weapon swap).

So while there is a reason, I'll certainly not insist it is a reason that is so good that you should do so if you prefer to use SC-FO (or can find some way to slot in the even better SC-FO-FA, which is hard without eating the weapon CWDT damage link). For SC-FO A Cwdt1-ICS-IS EO trigger is quite sufficient for EO needs, which frees up one slot, so if you get rid of flame dash as well it is merely a question of moving arctic armour/herald of ash, vitality, or discipline to the 4S holding the EO trigger and using 2L for SC+FO in the current 4S movement/buff item.

Whatever the case, I hope you are having fun with the build.


EDIT: That's not to say that I disagree that SC-FO (or rather, SC-FO-FA) is an awesome movement combination. It is awesome. It is just that I never really felt I needed the extra protection in 3.0 enough to make it worth the inconvenience of having to consider keeping fortify up rather than focusing on flaming most of the time and flash dashing away for a second to recover most ES if ever gravely hurt.

Perhaps 3.2s hard content will make me reconsider once I reach it with my Bestiary tank, Valeriana_Ignifera. :)

Pretty sure this build can do any content in this game easily, But>>>>>
What about mapping and clearing? last time i ve played fs in like 2013 it was rly slow, i doubt anything changed xd.Do u switch gems or do u do smthing specificy to map smooth?

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LostSinner666 wrote:

Pretty sure this build can do any content in this game easily, But>>>>>
What about mapping and clearing? last time i ve played fs in like 2013 it was rly slow, i doubt anything changed xd.Do u switch gems or do u do smthing specificy to map smooth?

I don't swap gems for clearing.

The 3.2 damageoutput is with decent gear about eight to ten times times that of the original pre-Awakening Incinerate flametank from 2015 (and theoretically substantially higher than that with ideal gear that I do not play enough to have access to), and at least five or six times that of the 2.4 "After Dark" fire/chaos flametank edition if equivalently geared, more if focusing more on damage; Which is an option as it is ridiculously tanky now at high levels - it recovers about three times more ES/s than it did pre-3.0.

Of course, monsters health, especially bosses, have increased since those days too, so it isn't that cut and dried how those changes affect clearspeed.

It isn't a high damage build now by any means and definitely doesn't fit the clearspeed meta, but as regards clearspeed I suggest you watch this T16 Forge of the Phoenix fragment run from 3.0 to get an impression of its current state. The 3.2 flametank deals a bit more damage with the same gear but it should be very representative of a typical experience for somebody with slow reflexes.

T16 Forge of the Phoenix fragment run

Hi Pi2r, I have a build in the works (still in the leveling/gearing process) that's quite similar to yours. Same ascendancy and similar in strength stacking, same DPS as well(with SR-CWC-FS). The difference is that I went Hybrid instead of CI for max block+spell block aegis aurora, so the itemization and skill tree is very different.

I plan on making a build thread about it eventually (and credit you), but I wanted to hear your thoughts about it first.

ATM i have 1.87 damage leech (1.47 from watcher's eye and 0.4 from boots enchant), you think is enough to drop warlord's mark?

IF SO, which other curse should i use instead (enfeeble?)

IF NO, where shall i get more leech and how much more?

Thanks a lot for this build and the 3.2 update, it rules!!

@Novalisk

I imported your Novamon character into POB to take at look at her.

a) I love how your build makes effective use of having high values for all three attributes; that's very nice use of Shaper's Touch.

b) I admire the way you carefully keep your DEX higher than INT so you get Cyclopean Coil's Freeze immunity together with the Ignite immunity. It is something that would never make sense for my build (as I don't use the dex aspects of Shaper's Touch) but here it absolutely does.

c) The build looks deliciously tough against anything but spike damage, serious AOE, and degeneration - but the latter two can be avoided by an alert player most of the time; I'm assuming Solaris pantheon to effectively eliminate extra damage from crits and reduce the spike damage issue to unlucky streaks of block failure.

d) You won't be able to tank nasty boss slams, mostly, but then, no build can do everything

e) Astramentis - works really well here as you use your high INT, DEX, and STR. I can be beaten by a an 11-12% increased attributes shaped necklace with high +str and +all attributes and ES/life prefixes, but apart from that it seems nothing comes even close.

f) Le Heup of All - temporary leveling rings, right? OR are they your end goal?

g) Unless you are planning on progressing further via the Harrier node, have you considered exiting the Scion wheel via Shaper instead? You replace some cast speed for regeneration, which is always nice against degen if nothing else, but more importantly it will allow you to pick up Potency of Will for 3 points for another +45% duration.

The lost cast speed affects only the damage of Scorching Ray, which is the least part of the damage you do, while getting Potency of Will in addition to Exceptional performance gives you a total of +45%, for an effective 190%/145% -1 ~ 31% more damage against enemies living long enough to stay in a sustained firestorm, i.e. bosses and certain red bestiary animals.

Overall: Really nice build; Can't wait to see how you develop it further.


@All3x

I consider around 1% leech to be good enough to drop Warlord's Mark, as that is more than enough to hit the leech cap when raining fire down on large groups of mobs, which is the situation where Warlord's Mark shines for the build, and while it won't make you hit the leech cap on solo bosses it will still provide more than Warlord's Mark did on the Guardians, Shaper, and Elder due to their lowered curse effectiveness. So your Watcher's Eye will do the job nicely.

Get yourself a pair of Alberon's Warpath with the 2% regeneration enchantment to replace your ok-kill leech boots and replace Warlord's Mark with Enfeeble, Temporal Chains, or Elemental Weakness. I recommend a 20/20 Enfeeble as being the all-round best choice, but if you are cruising through content and just want to kill bosses faster Elemental Weakness should be the choice. (Neither will do much on Elder/Shaper/Guardians, but every bit helps and most of the game consists of crushing weak mobs and normal bosses anyway)

It is possible to get more leech than your Watcher's Eye from an elder amulet. E.g. I got lucky buying this elder amulet for my level 82 Bestiary tank-in-training at a comparatively low price of 30c, an elder amulet combining regeneration and fire leech:



I wish, I wish, I wish that amulet had more strength, and it does not leech enough that I drop Warlord's Mark, but it must be said that otherwise it suits the build nicely.

Just remember that the leech component of the build is hard-capped - you simply cannot recover more from leeching than 20% of ES/s, so while getting additional leech would allow you to hit the cap easier on bosses you are probably better off using an amulet with regeneration and high stats.