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

What would be the stats on an elder/shaped 1H weapon that would be better than Doon? I think this was mentioned a few pages back as an option but wasn't sure what it had to roll.

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Forfex wrote:

What would be the stats on an elder/shaped 1H weapon that would be better than Doon? I think this was mentioned a few pages back as an option but wasn't sure what it had to roll.

Did somebody post an example that would do the job? If so, I want to see it. Perhaps they've found a different way from what I did in POB. :)

I theorycrafted one in POB while writing the guide and had to come up with something ludicrously expensive to beat the Doon to a noticeable degree when having 1452 strength with my 3.0 geared flametank and the 3.2 skilltree and you can get even higher strength in 3.2 due to the existence of +increased attributes on amulet and belt.

To give you an idea of the trouble involved, for comparison, let's say you run around with 1400 str including that from a 70 str Doon and that you do NOT have other increased attribute% than those from Chieftain and Alberon's Warpath so you have the minimal 1.28% strength multiplier.

Doon Cuebiyari with 70 str:
32% increased elemental damage
70 str on Doon ~ 1.28*70*0.2 = 17.92 maxES%, 70*1.28*0.4 = 35.84 maxES
1400 str total ~ 1400/8 = 175% increased general damage

So you need something that beats a flat 207% increased damage to both Firestorm and Scorching Ray, while ideally also providing as much strength, or at least not much less, unless you are willing to give up on a very substantial boost to your energy shield.

Note that you strictly speaking don't need an elder/shaper weapon to do that.

Just get yourself a Sceptre with maxed T1 increased fire damage prefix, T1 Adds x-y to spells prefix, T1 strength suffix, and you are some 5-10% damage from matching the damage of a cheap Doon Cuebiyari, while only losing a few hundred ES.

Get such a Sceptre with another T1 damage modifier as prefix or suffix (e.g. the 28%/30% increased spell/fire damage) and intelligence as well and you'll beat the Doon damage by a little bit, and that's only using 5 out of 6 affixes.

So ignoring intelligence for a moment, all you need is thus 4 T1-T2 affixes, mostly T1 (including some of the most sought) to roughly equal a cheap Doon Cuebiyari (in damage at least), and something much better than that to beat it to a meaningful degree.

(Except, of course, if you have the wealth to buy something like that off the market you probably also have better gear in general and thus higher strength and thus you probably need to meet a 1500 or 1600 strength Doon, something much more achievable in 3.2 but ignoring that..)

It isn't guaranteed that any such sceptre that beats a Doon enough to be a meaningful upgrade rather than a sidegrade or slight upgrade exists in a given league or is available for sale if it does.

Elder and Shaper changes that.

Elder: 1% damage per 16 str prefix - is 87.5% increased damage right there; That's a minidoon from only one affix and together with a T1 prefix in fire or spell damage that's a really good start
Shaper: Gain 20% of elemental damage as extra chaos damage prefix; that's not quite as good, but it is still very good. Also, Damage penetrates 5-10% elemental resistances is very good.


But even with those.... Let me show you stats that I theorycrafted with POB that would beat my Doon Cuebiyari for the level 93 OP flametank and increase total damage by 10% while giving equal ES.

Elder
Void Sceptre, 40% elemental

87% increased fire damage (split any way between the damage prefix and damage suffix)
adds 49-85 fire damage to spells from prefix
1% increased spell damage per 16 strength from prefix
55 strength from suffix
32 intelligene (or more) from suffix

For Shaper, substitute the ele->chaos max T1 roll for the 1% per 16 str, and either 10-15% higher fire damage (is possible: max is +109% from both) or some damage penetration on the suffix...

Let's just say that if you play enough that you can afford the type of rare weapons that beats the Doon Cuebiyari, and if they are available for sale in the league in the first place, you can definitely afford the time needed to import your build with gear into Path of Building and comparing the stats of the new item with your Doon before purchase. :D

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Pi2rEpsilon wrote:

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EpicFailTrain wrote:

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Pi2rEpsilon wrote:

Ps: Nobody has yet chimed in on how the build performs against Red Elder. I expect there to be few problems, but absent a report from somebody who's tried it who knows? If/when you fight him, let us know how it went?

I found it fairly easy. I died to something at some point (not sure exactly what, was on close to full ES as well if I recall correctly). The only issue I had was Shaper died so I had to "kill" Elder myself (still on a 5L, most if not all of my non-uniques were <5c bought to start mapping, didn't have the DPS to take the null portals down fast enough) but mostly it was tank/cast.

My profile/character's a public if you wanted to check it out.

Shaper couldn't hack it, so a scionic flametank on a budget did the dirty work. There's a story there, I just know it... :D

Thanks for the confirmation on Red Elder.

I looked at your gear and can see what you mean with your budget gear. Low ES, str, and int on all your rare gear for your level (91) with the outstanding exception of your high-stat amulet, so you are "only" running around with 11.7k ES, but apparently that was enough. Nicely done.

You do have an outstanding Watcher's Eye with both ES recovery boost/Disc and life leech/Vitality (I'm envious :p); Is that new gear after the Red Elder kill (like your 6L Geofry's Sanctuary must be) or did you have that at the time?

I was only level 90, 5L, worse amulet, no watcher's eye when I killed him. Yesterday was a good day. I got lucky and finally, 6L'd the spare chest I was working on (saved 7-8ex) meaning I could spend the ex I was saving to buy the chest with, and lucked into that Watcher's Eye for 3ex(!). The amulet I upgraded for just 10c, hit 91 which gave me the jewel socket to put Watcher's into. I think I had around 11k ES at the time, maybe just under.

Last night I also killed red purifier again, he killed me the first time I think, but with the new jewel, I was able to just stand in one spot and flame him into oblivion.

Thanks for the build, enjoying it this league. Now to see what else I can kill as I farm enough currency to get off my budget rings/helm/shield.

So, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that there's no chaos damage in the Elder fight. Would be a solid strategy to regret CI for Pain attunement and add Blood magic+Purity of Ice for this fight if this is the case. Can anyone confirm this?

Also

Dumped about 1k fuses into it before I let my wife try. She got it in less than 30. Moral of the story: let my wife 6L my stuff. :)

Just want to post an update on my progress with this character:

I have successfully face-tanked a T15 Elder with no problems. Crappy PC and all. Teleporty Slam thing? NO PROBLEM!

I have 13,256 ES and 47% Block Chance.



The only change I made for Elder fight was to specc out of CI and into Pain Attunement. I put 21 Purity of Ice + Empower+ Blood Magic for the fight since there is no chaos damage. Free 30% More damage and +5% Max Cold res.

So far my other Accomplishments have been thus:
Several Guardian kills. Not all deathless as I've been learning the mechanics. Hydra got me 1 time before I added teh Block layer of defense that I have. Now i jsut face tank him.

I killed Minotaur with 60% Less Recovery + 2 Damage mods first time I tried.

Chimera is a joke.

Phoenix whooped my butt. Then I Equipped Rise of the Phoenix and Ruby flask. With that I can facetank his big bomb. (I try to avoid this though)

I will probably get a 330+ES Shield for shaper since the ES recovery on block won't matter much there. I *should*, in theory be able to tank the slam. That is my goal.

Red Nightmare is placed in the jewel socket by Elementalist. It gives me 14% Extra block chance with the Res+Block Chance Nodes allocated as well.

Also to note: Pure Talent is used because I went for Chi-Inquisitor ratehr than Elementalist or Occultist. 5% Damage Pen+25 Attributes is very nice.

Let me know what you guys think!

As I new player, I found this build frustrating and very very expensive.

The mid game was extremely difficult, and I found no other option than sticking with dual wild molten strike with a life leech gem, as the recommended skills did no damage at all. So leveling was rough (btw, the life leech jewel you mentioned, Watcher's Eye, doesn't seem to have life leech.)

The final build is compelling (new players get tired of dying) , but getting there is tough.

Also, at level 70 I haven't the Dex for your recommenced gear ( your recommended shield requires 85 dex and the build only has 70.

as for this: "You should only use this CWDT once you have upgraded the soul of Araakali via capturing the soul of the Arachnoxia boss in the Toxic Sewer map." What does one do until then?

The shield is the only piece that requires watching the level of the gems, is that correct? I think I over leveled a few times.


Thanks for you efforts

@DumpsterJedi

I am sorry for the late answer. I suffered an accident three weeks ago and have been mostly absent from the forums while recuperating. It is nearly a week since you posted so my answer may be too late to be helpful, but nevertheless here goes:


I regret to hear you found the build very, very, expensive.

For a build that is not designed as a leaguestarter, it is fairly cheap to make the build work - the most expensive item in a league until the endgame optimization is usually the Energy From Within jewel that early in a league might easily run 30-40c - and it is only supposed to be expensive if you are optimizing it for the endgame, getting a 6L and great rare and unique items. (As well as enchants; I ran über-Lab 10 times with 2 enchants/run enchanting different 18% Alberon's this league without getting the 2% life regeneration enchant, worse luck. But I did end up with some 8-9 boots that had valuable enchants, so I finally spent part of the proceeds from selling those boots on buying a pair with that enchant from somebody else. :D)

Starting out if you don't have much currency you start out buying cheap jewels, low-roll uniques, amulets and rings that have some but not all the desirable stats etc. You can usually get these for a handful of chaos each.

I have tried to explain in detail what is needed to make the build work, but due to the complexity of the mechanic interactions I exploit it does require some knowledge of the game to figure out where to get most bang for the buck, knowledge that as a new player you may quite understandably lack.

Unfortunately, due to the 50,000 character limit per post there is nowhere near enough space to write a shopper's guide or "how to write good search macros for POE trade" as part of the first post. Also, that would be a lot of work.


Mid-game crisis: Sorry you felt that it was a chore. I played my 3.2 Bestiary tank as leaguestarter and breezed through it so this may be a question of different expectations or what weapon we used. The worst stretch I had was that I felt a bit gimped molten striking in the mid-30s before I could switch to SR-CWC-Firestorm.



Watcher's Eye: As noted in the guide, the Watcher's Eye jewel can have many different mods. The leech related one is "% of damage leeched as life affected by Vitality". If you have such an eye and don't have the vitality aura active, you won't life leech (ES leech with Ghost Reaver). If you do you will.


Dexterity: I do not recommend any particular shields with dexterity requirements. The 85 dexterity requirement you've run into must be from the green gem in the shield (Blood Rage). As the guide says, "The level of the Blood Rage gem is fairly irrelevant, higher levels providing minimal benefit. Just ensure that a) it is 7 or less so it can be triggered by a level 1 CWDT, and b) you have dexterity to match its requirements."

In essence, the build does not have enough dexterity to reach the max desirable level for the green gems because the cost of guaranteeing that it has that by spending skillpoints on it is too high for the marginal benefit of those particular green skill gems being higher level.

So it is up to the player to choose between getting a bit extra dexterity on gear if they want to use the max desirable gem or NOT doing so due to the affixes that can provide dexterity (all suffixes) being highly valuable for strength, intelligence, resistances, and more. (Once one is optimizing for the endgame one will usually get enough extra dexterity from some high +all attributes rolls, but early on, most likely one will fall short.)

The relevant gems in the current suggested build are: Blood Rage, Cremation, Arctic Armour.

Would formulating it differently, e.g. "use the highest level of Blood Rage than your dexterity allows, but maximum 7" have been more understandable or did you just overlook that paragraph regarding dexterity in the guide?


Arakaali CWDT: Until you get the Soul of Arakaali, "do something else with those links or don't do anything with them". But frankly, given that you get that soul from a T5 map (Toxic Sewer) and that once you've got all the uniques working you should have no problem whatsoever running a T5 map as soon as you get access to the map device and can spend a chisel or two buying the Toxic Sewer and 2-3 chaos on buying a Divine Vessel, that's one of the easiest things to check off the to-do list.


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I took a look at your character profile; Since your scion, NiceTits, is now 88 you've obviously progressed considerably beyond where most of these questions were relevant. I'll leave the answers in case others were interested.

There is only one clear mistake in your build currently and one "why did he do this?"

The mistake: You are using a melee damage/crit jewel in the slot closest to the Scion - this must be a leftover from dozens of levels ago when you were using molten strike?

The "why..": You have not spent the 3 skillpoints on getting Potency of Will. That's 45% increased duration you are losing out on, which corresponds to an effective 45% MORE sustained damage when flaming down mostly stationary bosses and less but still useful damage increase in general when you are swiping your ray back and forth over a field of mobs. The difference between each cast lasting 2s generating 20 balls and 2.9s generating 29 is substantial in all cases except when enemies are so weak that they pretty much evaporate on touch.

Thank you for the build m8! It's a pleasure to play having it!

Okay, I haven't posted in a while because I wanted to see how far I could push this character.

First: These are the major changes to the build that I have made:
I have invested heavily onto block. Currently 66/46 block unflasked.
I am utilizing a shaped shield with ES Recovery on block for the absurdity that is is.
And I chose to go the route of Chieftain+Inquisitor for the consistent Consecrated Ground, Extra Damage to nearby Enemies, Pure Talent Jewel, status ailment immunity, and bonus 20 strength.

So here's what I've done:

Vaal Temple - 2 man hp, solo kill. 1 VERY avoidable death
Uber Atziri - Deathless
Shaper - 1 Death on first attempt. Taking Shaper slams like a boss.
Red Tier Elder - Deathless, always. He's a joke
All the T16 Guardians several times over with curses/damage/etc Can completely face tank all but phoenix. He still requires a little attention with damage mods. Can do these with Less Recovery, but facetanking not recommended on Hydra for that one.

AAAAAAAAND I successfully killed Uber Elder after 3 tries and figuring out mechanics. :D



So, I almost finished Uber Elder on first try. Got shaper down to a sliver of life and died. Then lost my last 3 ports to nonsense. Then I tried to specc into more dps via elementalist Ascendancy. That was horrible. Inquisitor provides Freeze immunity and constant CG. So on the third try I went back to that and added Purity of Ice+Empower on my life and specc'd out of CI. Got them about half way, and had an arena filled with anomolies and decay'd ground. After dying 3 times, I tried to get some help...he died in seconds and wished me luck.

Reentered, found a clean patch of dirt and stood there till they were dead. (Okay I had to move once for an anomoly) Killed em dead. Got sweet juicy lewt:



I have thoroughly enjoyed this build and hard hard it is to die. Up until 3 days ago I had a very poor graphics card that made a lot of the game unplayable for other builds I had. No issue for this one.

I will say I have been min-maxing this build like crazy. Easily 40+ exalts invested. Self crafted the Helmet and have been working on a shield that has yet to pan out. (Deafening Essence of Loathing on a Shaped Titanium, trying for Block%+Spell Block, and ES Recovery suffixes--a pipe dream, I know)

First of all, congratulations, Gryphenprey, and I'm happy you've enjoyed the build.

I'm deeply impressed that you managed to free up the skillpoints to turn it into a block build as well, but looking at your gear explains a lot. With sufficiently good gear one can drop the 72% ES from the Witch branch, freeing up

40ex+? That's way beyond what I've ever accumulated in any league, and your gear reflects it. Awesome but impractical for any but the most devoted player. :D

At first look I thought, "no wonder, he's using a maxES/life leech" Watcher's Eye - just the maxES alone costs 10ex+, so what the price for something that great would be I don't know... then I noticed your helmet.

Just how many deafening essences did you go through to craft that ES helm with a high +ES roll and two good resistances? The mind boggles.

I do wonder at a few missing microoptimizations given your already huge investment:

• Belt not divined to 12% attributes. The important explicits on it are strength 55 (51-55) and increased attributes 11% (10%-12%) (and of less importance lightning resistance 20% (18%-23%). With 12% increased attributes you'd gain from of 5 STR, 2 INT and 85 ES (with a 51 STR roll) to 11 STR, 2 INT, and 161 ES (with a 55 STR roll like your current)
• You take all four max ES% nodes in the Written in Blood wheel, spending 2 skillpoints there to avoid tracking through the INT node NW of Chaos Inoculation; That's usually a good optimization, BUT, because of all your increased attributes from amulet and belt also affecting intelligence and because you are using maxMana=>MaxES conversion Watcher's Eye it is very slightly worse than taking the INT navigation node NW of CI and a +30 INT node. It is a truly minor increase so not really worth doing unless you have respec points to spare (unless you also divine the Watcher's Eye to give 18% maxMana=>MaxES, which you should)
• You have the spent three skillpoints on Arsonist rather than on Occultist's Dominion major nodes. This is a mistake. You end up with roughly the same damage with either investment, but the Occultist option gives you nearly 500 additional maxES, which means that the reduction in recovery from regeneration from losing out on Arsonist's 1% is minimal
• 20, 22, and 24 STR Efficient training jewels - with so much invested surely they should all be 24 STR, or 23 at worst
• 5% Energy From Within -- You've spent 40ex but couldn't find 30-40c to get a 6% EFW? :p Okay, this is a truly minor issue.. 1% increased maxES givers a mere 20 maxES, so it is a truly minor optimization... It is just that when considering what you've already poured into the build it stands out to see a 5% jewel there
• I'm a bit surprised to see you running around with a level 59 ring with STR/DEX/RES as suffixes - surely you can find a better ring that one that wastes a suffix?

I've created a POB link for you to inspect showing how some of these changes would impact your build. It has consecrated ground, recently hit, frenzy charges used, and 8 stacks of Scorching Ray set, and I have added the Pantheon in a Bottle to simulate standing still and having Arakaali active

Your current build as default: 10594 average damage/fireball, 14975 maxES, 5806 ES/s recovery from regeneration.

Skill tree changes only: 10538 average damage/fireball (-0.5%), 15441max ES (+3.1%), 5755 ES/s recovery from regeneration (-0.9%)

Skill tree and unique jewels: 10563 average damage/fireball (-0.3%), 15719 maxES (+5.0%), 5859 ES/s recovery from regeneration (+0.9%) - this one assumes perfect EFW and ETs and a Watcher's Eye with the best possible 18% maxMana=>maxES BUT the worst possible 4% maxES roll, so the ES numbers here are the minimum if the eye is divined to 18%.

And if you also use a divined 12% attributes belt with the worst possible STR roll (item included in POB link ready for equipping) that makes: 10600 average damage/fireball (+0%), 15807 maxES (+5.6%), 5892 ES/s recovery from regeneration (+1.5%).


EDIT: Given that you get a lot of your ES recovery from blocking on top of leeching and regeneration, you might want to spec out of Combat Stamina rather than Arsonist to afford taking Occultist's Dominion, swapping a ES/s hit for damage.
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More generally, I've been playing quite a lot while recovering from my accident the last two weeks and have been testing out CHI-ELE and CHI-INQ in high tier stuff too though with somewhat cheaper gear than you. :D

Here is the POB link

level 92: 15595 maxES, 11890 damage/fireball, 7160 ES/s recovery from regeneration. (Got myself a ES recovery rate/Disc + life leech/Vit Watcher's Eye for 2ex, which I consider a bargain. So I'm at 130% ES recovery rate for regen and leech at all times and 180% when Arakaali triggered)

(Err, looking at it I have a "free" microoptimization of my own: removing the 8% maxES skillpoint and linking the Templar and Marauder areas via 2 STR nodes rather than 1 DEX node. Oh, well. Not sure it is worth doing that before I'm optimizing again at L93.)

I don't have your list of kills, but based on my experiences so far:

CHI-ELE remains my absolute favourite for breezing through early mapping using Herald of Ash due to being able to completely ignore issues of elemental reflection - all I had to worry about on maps were whether the regeneration was affected or not. Granted that one can reroll maps so long as they aren't corrupted or get around relection with Sibyl's Ring and pantheon, it nevertheless made everything smooth.

CHI-INQ with VIT/AA/DISC and life leech Watcher's Eye is my favourite in high tiers and end-game bosses due to the ailment immunity and (nearly) permanent CG so long as you are hitting bosses... And having Overflowing Chalice available to clear all ailments and set CG in emergencies when not hitting bosses.


I really should get around to updating the guide. It was planned to be done a month ago but RL intervened.