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

So first, thanks for the extensive reply. That's sweet :)

Next: yes, a lot of those "You should probably divine/buy perfect rolls" things I've known about. I'm just lazy. Lol. Like the ET's...

As for stuff that needs to be divined, divines are expensive and I'm low-ish (6ex or so) on raw currency atm. I'm somewhat invested in as a crafting project (not for this build, but for funzies)

SO yeah, the 5% EFW, 16% Watcher's eye (actually did divine this a few times) the 20/22 str ET's...pure laziness/oversight. I didn't even bother buying the +70str/18 cast speed Doon until I wanted to use a skin transfer on it XD

As for the currency investment into that helmet....I think I got pretty lucky. I spent about 12ex that day crafting(Essences, annuls, beastcrafting-add/remove prefix+suffix crafts are hella cheaper than exalting) that and throwing 30+ Loathing Essences at a shield. So somewhere in that 12ex I successfully managed to upgrade my helmet

This is my old one, also self crafted:

Everything else....This character is the culmination of 4 other toons this league. I self craft a lot of gear and end up selling for profit and I sold all the gear from the previous ones each time. THings like life recovery belts, Watcher's Eyes with good mods that I picked up low and ended up selling high, chancing 2 6L Quill rains for 2ex and sold both for 4ex each...Things like that. I farmed a LOT of Hall of Grandmasters and sold the completions to people on Trade 820; this funded my Red Nightmare in a day (8ex at the time). I also sell TONS of red maps. I run pretty much only t15-16 maps these days and all teh T11-14 sell for the vaals/chisels I need. Shaper sets (before I felt comfortable trying him) also sell nicely. Makes guardian maps fairly profitable if you can sustain them.

Self Linked the Chest (about 1k fuses, see earlier progress post)
I bought the belt for 20c after dumping 3ex into trying to craft one. Then exalted lightning res onto. (similar belts sell for 5-10ex)

The amulet...I got that for 30c. Again, it's worth WAAAAAAAAY more than that. But hard to put a number on it because of how unique it is. I was using a 3 Rat talisman before.

These are actually really great if you don't care about spell block.


the rings I got for pretty cheap and never upgraded them. I needed the dex at one point for something. A quick removal of the ring and everything still works. Idk why I never upgraded it. I might do that now and either try to overcap my resists or just get more strength.

As for the Arsonist wheel...yep, never even considered dropping it. Was never a thought on my radar. That makes a lot of sense though (Same logic I used for choosing Elder belts with %Attributes over Shaper belts with ES recovery). So that's easy to do. I may do some experimenting with the tree with that cluster gone in mind....yup and I did just that while writing this post.

Not sure how I feel about it overall, but I managed to bring myself up to 73/51 Block chance, Overcap my resists, and still maintain 15.1k es after a tree change with the item optimizations you pointed out. I lose some more damage and regen too. Dropping to 5226 es regen/s (4698 net) and 9995.5 fireball under your damage configs. But I rarely concern myself with the dps of this build so long as I can stand there. :D

This configuration would allow me to drop Rumi's altogether in favor of something like a Wise Oak as well. Not sure how I feel about it overall, but I thought I would at least put it out there for now and allow you to peruse it.

https://pastebin.com/wtezx22U

Of course if I am successful in crafting a block shield all this extra block chance is really unnecessary.

That's all I got for now. Thanks for your awesome feedback and writing up an awesome guide and starting point for my most successful character in POE so far. :)

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3.3 Build OP?

I have enjoyed the hell out of the Flametank after a rocky start. But I'm stuck at 91. I keep getting one shotted by bosses in maps. Losing my XP on the way to 92. 91 Was rough also. I'm not ready for the Ubers or Shaper and can't take Atziri on my own. 13K ES but just not sure where I can improve, but need to as I'm not quite ready for prime time. Even got bitch slapped by Izzaro today in uber lab and very demoralized by that. Usually Lab is where this build shines.

I got some cash but I don't know which gear/gems to replace.

Help.

Okay, this is a very, very, later answer DumpsterJedi, and probably too late to be of any use to you as we are in the last days of the league and you've probably moved on, but it might bring closure to your character to read my comments and otherwise might be of use for people in the next league, so here goes.

You are level 91 and only have 12.8k maxES. That's a major problem unless it is due to you focusing on damage and your being more willing to move around to avoid boss slams. Looking at your gear to explain this, I find:

...well, the first thing I see is that you only have a total of 1280 strength. That's low. That's very low for the endgame, so I look a bit further to find out why this is the case.


Weapon:

You use a +58 strength Doon Cuebiyari at level 91. This is a disgrace. That's 12 strength below optimal and 8-10 strength below what is normally easily affordable for 5 chaos or less except near the start or the end of a league. 8-10 strength may not sound like much, and it really isn't, but 10 strength here, 10 strength there, pretty soon we are talking about hundreds of maxES (and corresponding increase to regeneration). It all adds up.


Shield, Helmet, Body Armour, Gloves:

Fine, no complaints. It would be ideal to have a Light or Reflection enchant on the gloves, but it is no big deal not having it.


Boots:

You are using a +16% strength Alberon's Warpath boots despite the guide explicitly stating that you should go for the +18% strength boots. 2% may not sound like much, but when you apply it to more than 1000 base strength, well, as I said, it all adds up. To make it even worse, you've got a dodge enchant on them rather than either leech or (the ideal) regeneration.

So you've got a major area of improvement here. These boots are just about as bad as they can get while being the right unique.


Amulet:

This one is a weak spot. It is certainly a good amulet, it just isn't a great one for the endgame: It simply has too low strength.
+19 strength and intelligence
+27 maxES
+20% maxES%
+1% damage per 15 strength

Let me illustrate. You've got a bit less than 1000 base strength without the amulet, but for simplicity's sake I'll pretend it is 1000. You have a 1.26 multiplier to strength (10% from Chieftain, 16% from boots) and no multiplier to intelligence.

So that is 27 + (19*1.26*.4) = 36.6 maxES, 20% + (19*1.26*.2 + 19*.2) = 28.6% maxES, and (1000*1.26)/15 + (19*1.26*(1/5 + 1/8 + 1/15)) = 93% increased damage

So a good damage necklace without doubt. These things are are all useful - it is just that a good amulet providing high strength (and ideally also regeneration) would be more useful.


Let us compare to what a e.g. a decent but not great Shaper amulet providing 12% attributes, 40 strength, with a +15% maxES% mastercrafted enchant and nothing else useful would give you. (Let's say you got it with 10% attributes, a decent strength roll, some useless stats, and a free suffix, then divined it until it hit 12%). Apart from the base 1000 strength you currently also have around 180 intelligence, so that gives.

12%*1000 + (1.26+12%)*40 = 175.2 strength. 12%*180 = 21.6 intelligence. That gives you 175.2*.4 = 70 maxES, 15% + (175.2*.2 + 21.6*.2) = 54.3% maxES, and 175.2*(1/5 + 1/8 + 1/15) = 68.6% increased damage. That's around 800 maxES difference (give or take a bit) at a cost of around 25% increased damage (i.e. a loss of 4-5% total damageoutput). And, of course, it is also an upgrade that would make every other strength increase you can get your hands on even more valuable.

Of course it doesn't have to be a Shaper amulet with max attributes - such one with other good rolls is pretty much best in slot for the build, but a marble amulet with high strength and some good ES or maxES% other good rolls is also pretty damn good.... Again, your current amulet isn't bad - indeed, for damagedealing it is better than any of the suggestions I make here, it is just that when your problem is that you keep getting killed, the easiest way to address this is by boosting your maxES, which both helps you survive spike damage and increases your passive regeneration overall.

To optimize this build, always ask yourself "could I easily get more strength from this slot?" and if the answer is yet, then there's probably an upgrade out there somewhere.


Rings:

One ring gives you +35 strength. The other +40 strength. Need I say more? :D

...no, seriously, if the other stats on the rings were stellar for the build, 35 and 40 strength would be okay at this point in your characters development, but they aren't - the other stats are merely decent-to-good. So if we weren't in the very last days of the league now, it would have been trivial to upgrade them.


Belt:

This is a very good crystal belt. +80 and +51 maxES, +46 strength, +21% fire resistance. It doesn't get much better when non-shaper/elder items are concerned, the only possible improvements being higher strength or more resistances.

But, it is beaten by an elder belt (of any type, so any implicit, no manner how useless) that has the +10% to +12% to all attributes AND equivalent or somewhat lower strength and maxES explicits (and if you use such one, every strength upgrade you get in other slots is worth even more as well). Such a belt may not be easy to come by, but if you can get one it will be a major overall upgrade.



Jewels:

Efficient Training jewels: 24, 17, 17, 16. That means you are 22 base strength below optimal from these jewels alone, and some 18-20 below what is cheaply attainable during the middle stretches of a league. I fully support using dirt cheap low-strength ET jewels at start, but it all adds up and one should replace them with high strength ET jewels in the endgame.

Watcher's Eye: You have one with one of the recommended mods, but it is the weakest of them (2.4% ES regeneration), so there is definitely room for improvement here. You would be much better off with the life leech%, the +ES on hit, or the +ES recovery rate, to say nothing of the (absurdly expensive) maxMana=>maxES ones.

Spirit Prism, Crimson: This jewel does not belong in this build. It is a +%global crit, +%crit multi with 1H, +% melee damage, +% physical damage while using shield. Replace it with ANY jewel that actually benefits the build.

Hollow Orb, Searching Eye: Good jewel; +16 STR and +50 maxES are very good, and +0.6% life regeneration when moving is certainly acceptable.

Whispering Vision, Hypnotic Eye: Good jewel: +50 maxES and +10% all ele. res are very good, and while +1 to +23 lightning damage to spells is pretty weak, it is at least useful.

Enthralling Strike, Searching Eye: Decent-to-good jewel: +47 maxES and +10% all ele. res are very good, but +5 to +68 damage to bow attacks is worthless.

--so apart from the ET jewels where 3 of 4 are decidedly subpar, and the Spirit Prism which can only be there due to a boneheaded oversight on you part, the other three random jewels are actually pretty good. All three are a bit weaker than would be ideal at this stage since two very good attributes and one poor or decent one is generally weaker than three good attributes, but we can't always get what we want so let that lie.


Well, that's it pretty much. At least checking up on your character and writing advice has given me impetus to further expressing just how valuable strength is in the next iteration of the guide, so there is that even should you never return to read this. :)

Thank you for the excellent guide. I was looking for something temporary and tanky to try during flashback that I would be playing for the long term through 3.3. This went up and beyond in fitting that bill. My question is, will you be continuing to update for 3.3 and then going forward as the game progresses? Apologies if this has been asked in a prior post, as I haven't read through them. Again, thank you for such a good build.

@Phinsky

I don't play every league, as to me Path of Exile is mostly light relief from the complex strategy games I prefer to play. Mostly I do an update to the build whenever I feel a hankering for playing the game again, which happens every few months, taking into account how things have changed. That means there'll be gaps of months where there are no updates and no responses from me as generally I don't read the forums at all when not playing. That's just how it goes - while I do gain a certain vicarious enjoyment from other players using builds I make, I do this mostly for my own entertainment as an exercise in mathematical optimization rather than as a community service.

I am not planning on playing 3.3. so I don't expect to be giving regular feedback there unless I get really bored this summer.

Though the 3.2 build should do quite well in 3.3 based on the announced changes so far (nothing really affecting it except for making it a tiny bit stronger with Vaal Discipline) I do expect to do a 3.3 update within the next days based on my experiences playing it in 3.2, since the end-state for the build for my L92 flametank I leveled in 3.2 (CHI-INQ with a number of link changes) was considerably stronger for the endgame than what I laid out in the original 3.2 build without being appreciably weaker during leveling, so I'd have to update the build post with it one of these days anyhow.

Ideally I should get that update written and published latest by June 1st, but I give no promises - I have higher priorities on my time right now.

Thank you so much for such a prompt response! I have the page bookmarked and will continue to refer back to it as time progresses. I look forward to anything you may post in the future and wish you good luck and pleasant days!

No clue if you've played this league or not, but if so I'd love for you to take a look at my character like you did to the above persons.

I'm rolling pretty hard now can clear any piece of content as long as I'm not falling asleep.

Really not sure where to go from here in terms of optimizations it almost feels complete o.0

Would you like to tell me where my toon is lacking? Im 93 and only have 13k es I thought that was a good place till I saw your review of the other guys stuff lol