[2.2 Perandus] Battlecookie's FlameSurge RF Chieftain (Cheap - AtziriViable - Videos inside)

Idea:

The Ascendancy expansion gave us alot build potentials and I want to provide a build, that got heavily buffed with this expansion. RF Totems is for sure the new FOTM build, but also the selfcast RF in combination with a damage spell has a huge potential nowadays.

Let's have a look at the changes in 2.2, that improved this build alot:

- Elemental Focus Skillgem fits perfect for both, RF and Flame Surge
- Chieftain Ascendancy class brings alot bonuses: 1% spell leech, 1,5% life regeneration, 10% increased strength + 20 flat strength, 10% spell pen
- Stone Golem provides bonus life regeneration

Basically the Elemental Focus gem provides us 50% MORE damage without a downside in our case, since flame surge can't ignite anyway and RF can't inflict elemental status ailments, since it is a degen effect.

The new ascendancy class provides alot more survivability, since we got a fair amount of bonus health regen, alot more strength and 1% life leech.


Why Flame Surge?

Flame Surge fits perfectly for a melee caster build. It's range is quite equal to the range of RF. The huge advantage of Flame Surge is 50% MORE damage vs burning enemies. Since RF keeps enemies burning the synergy between these two spells is just awesome.

Furthermore Flame Surge got one of the highest base DPS values and provides a huge single target DPS, while RF can clear large packs in a decent amount of time, so we got a nice synergy between single target DPS and AoE DPS.


Pros & Cons

(+) Decent clear speed due to RF-AoE
(+) High Boss DPS with Flame Surge due to very high fire penetration (up to 90%) and good dps values
(+) High survivability, especially high physical mitigation (8k life / 15k armour easily possible)
(+) super cheap

(-) relies on mana regeneration -> have to invest jewels/skill points into it
(-) can't play every map modifier -> LowReg/NoReg and -max resist absolutely not possible
(-) Melee


My current stats



At the moment i'm using a 6L with a Lvl 19 Flame Surge, as you can see in the image. My Gems have 0% quality atm and i'm missing some nodes in the skill tree due to my level. So the stats are quite abit away from the maximum. 80k+ DPS on Flame Surge seems totally realistic here with decent gear. Furthermore the 50% MORE damage against burning enemies is not calculated in the tooltip, so the real DPS is way higher.

~20k DPS (RF)
51k DPS (Flame Surge)
59k DPS (Flame Surge + Atziri Flask)
7329 Life
1175 Life regen (16%)
14405 Armour (63%)
928 strength
87% Fire resist
75% cold/light resist
24% Block

Core Items:



Rise of the Phoenix is just mandatory for increasing the max fire resist
Doon Cuebiyari just provides a heavy amount of DPS due to our high strength and has an awesome synergy with the build

MIRROR HYPE!

Nice, I'll give this build a try in Perandus HC!

"

Raye wrote:

Hi OP, this is similar to something I've been thinking about doing. I've had several thoughts about it, but I just remember one atm:

Do you rely on FS crits in any way for damage? You have no crit chance nodes that I can see, which means you have the base 6% chance.

I don't rely on crit at all. Basically tankiness stands beyond damage in any way in my build. A melee caster needs that many survivability, so i doubt there would be any possibility to include a decent amount of crit, without losing survivability and "just a little bit" of crit is not really an option in my opinion.

"

Raye wrote:

1. Controlled Destruction, 44% MORE damage to FS instead of conc effect would forego 13% MORE damage for the benefit of much larger AoE, maybe it's something to think about? Its decrease in crit is nothing since hits are lower bound capped at 5% so you'll effectively loose 1% crit chance without any other increases.

the point here is that I actually dont see any difference in wideness and range, when using conc effect. I tested the skill with and without conc and it really felt the same. And since conc effect gives higher values than Controlled Destruction (59% more compared to 44% more) i was going with conc.

You can also go with conc and Controlled Destruction if you can manage to get 306 int to use repentance. That would free up the iron will spot to use both spells. On the downside, you'll have to use astramentis to get that much int, which will result in a loss of survivability, since neither repentance nor astramentis give flat HP.

"

Raye wrote:

2. Elemental Overload, 2 points of in the three, gives 40% MORE ele damage for 8 seconds, affecting both RF and FS. All you need to do is crit once every 8th second, which 5% FS with echo easily does, or just a 1 socket Ice Spear or 2 socket with inc crit strikes.

you are totally right. I don't know why I didn't include that node. It's absolutely beneficial for just spending two more points. I'll update the skill tree and include this definitely

"

Raye wrote:

Just food for thoughts :)

Thanks for sharing them :)

as the leveling build?

could go to the increased skill effect duration nodes near shaper and level with firestorm. maybe take some additional damage nodes from the templar area, since with tank nodes only leveling will be slow as hell.

if you can afford tabula + elreon-rings incinerate would be possibly the best spec, since it doesn't need mana with good elreon-rings at low level and incinerate doesn't need that much damage nodes to get a quite decent leveling DPS.

totems might also work for leveling, didn't tried them.

Really like the build and I've been wanting to do a Flamesurge RF character for ages so I decided to try it for this league. My only issue with your tree is wouldn't getting explosive impact for 55% inc fire and 5% radius be better than 70% inc burning from holy fire? As far as I know inc fire will affect both RF and flamesurge while inc burning only affects RF.

this is actually a pathing thing. i might want to go to the +1 curse cycle and/or to sovereignty (reduced mana reserved), which is pretty close to the burning cycle. in general the fire cycle provides better bonuses, but you are further away from the nodes i mentioned. actually I'm not sure if the cycle is worth taking at all (neither the burning, nor the fire damage cycle). mental rapidity might be a good option aswell.

updated skill tree:

- removed burning damage cycle near avatar of fire and changed pathing a bit to include max life/chaos resist cycle (Purity of Flesh).

updated my current stats with the linked gear on level 88.

another gameplay video should follow this weekend (probably some T13+ map)

Can you give me some hints on your leveling please ? I fucked up my first character (triple flame golem is not really suited for the beginning of a league xD) so I decided to try this one. The last time i leveled as a searing bond totem guy, which was a huge pain in the butt..