[2.2] 7L Low-life RF Incinerate Inquisitor - 150k+ DPS - 9k ES

Gorge

Atziri

Summary: The build gets every multiplier it can, and makes it easy to sustain the mana cost of incinerate by using buffed up sulfur flasks. It layers defenses through high ES, enfeeble, fortify, and blind. When needed, it can kill RF and gain additional physical damage reduction and high regen to tank damage.

Incinerate is the fastest casting skill in the game, and becomes stronger the longer it is cast - up to 150% more damage. It cannot normally crit and does damage through a large number of small hits. Because of its high cast speed, incinerate is also one of the most mana intensive skills in the game. Typical incinerate builds will use expensive Elreon jewelry, which reduces the mana cost by a flat amount, to sustain the mana cost, or use blood magic. This build is able to sustain on mana without using Elreon jewelry. Incinerate also benefits heavily from projectile speed, which improves clear speed. A 20% quality incinerate is therefore important to acquire since quality on incinerate gives projectile speed.

The Pain Attunement notable gives 30% more spell damage when you are low life, which is when your life is below 35% of its maximum. This is easily achieved by reserving most of your life using a blood magic gem and auras. Going low-life means relying on ES as your health pool, so taking the Zealot's Oath notable makes life regen apply to ES.

Righteous Fire provides a 59% multiplier to spell damage at level 20, but requires a large investment in life regen and maximum fire resistance to be able to sustain the substantial burn degen it imposes - 90% of your maximum life and 70% of your maximum ES per second. Going low-life reduces the required investment into life regen and maximum fire resistance needed to sustain RF.

The Elemental Overload notable gives 40% more elemental damage for 8 seconds when you crit. Incinerate does not normally crit, but this can be triggered using other skills. This build uses orb of storms to trigger elemental overload and curse enemies.

Putting this all together, the ideal ascendancy for this build will help to deal with sustaining the mana cost of incinerate and help to sustain RF. Other benefits are a plus. This can be found in the Inquisitor that takes Sanctify, Pious Path, and Instruments of Virtue.

Sanctify by itself isn't very interesting. It gives you a chance to create consecrated ground when you are hit, or when you kill. Consecrated ground gives 4% life regen, but is easier to create and lasts longer using sulfur flasks. This node needs to be buffed. However, it does lead to the Pious Path node.

Pious Path is also underwhelming - for most other builds. It is used to good effect in this build, but first let me explain why it is underwhelming for other builds. It gives you increased damage - not more - on consecrated ground, immunity to status ailments on consecrated ground, and 50% reduced mana cost on consecrated ground. Nothing exciting for most builds because increased damage is easy to come by and doesn't feel rewarding when compared to many other 4 point ascendancy nodes which give more damage, and most other skills will not need 50% reduced mana cost to sustain on mana. This leaves the immunity to status ailments, which is really good, but a questionable use of 4 ascendancy points for most builds and then requires using sulfur flasks to create consecrated ground, as Sanctify is simply inferior to a sulfur flask.

For incinerate, though, reduced mana cost is amazing. Good Elreon rings and amulets are very expensive and for good reason - Elreon needs to sell them to you first, and they are very hard to craft. With low-life, consecrated ground can act like life flasks for ES. Finally, with RF, consecrated ground becomes very good for getting life regen over the amount needed to sustain RF. These alone would be enough to consider Pious Path on this build, but immunity to elemental status ailments as well makes this a fantastic choice. A buff to damage, if relatively small compared to other ascendancy nodes, is a nice bonus.

Instruments of Virtue is quite good for two ascendancy points. Since whirling blades is used as the primary means of movement, you have 20% increased cast speed for 4 seconds when you start casting incinerate, as well as 20% increased spell damage. In testing, I found that this outperforms Augury of Penitence, which gives 10% more elemental damage to, and 5% less elemental damage taken from, nearby enemies.

The minor nodes are important as well. Specifically, the minor nodes leading through Sanctify to Pious Path provide a total of 1% life regen. Combined with a Stone Golem, a Shaper's Seed amulet, a level 23 purity of fire, and the life regen gotten from the rest of the tree, this allows RF to be sustained without consecrated ground up.

The Consuming Dark converts half the damage to chaos and then applies poison on hit based on the chaos damage. This makes reflect easier to deal with and improves single target DPS against bosses by about 20% after 2 seconds, when the number of poison stacks is maximized. Poison has little impact on trash mobs since they die quickly anyways.

Flasks play a key role in this build. As mentioned previously, sulfur flasks give consecrated ground that is buffed by pious path as well as damage. Additionally, this build uses a ruby flask for defense against fire damage and a regen flask when RF is up, a stibnite flask to blind enemies and dispel freeze, and a basalt flask to give physical damage reduction and kill RF when more regen is needed. Refer to the flasks section below to read a more thorough description of the flasks recommended for this build and why they are recommended.

Play style
Putting everything together, the build works as follows. You whirl into a pack, gaining fortify, and start casting incinerate while putting consecrated ground down with a sulfur flask. Against tougher packs, you would cast orb of storms first to trigger elemental overload and curse them with enfeeble. A stibnite flask can also be used liberally to blind enemies and dispel freezes that happen when off of consecrated ground. You are immune to all elemental status ailments while on consecrated ground and thus will rarely be shocked, frozen, chilled, or ignited.

When heavy damage is taken, RF can be killed with a dousing flask if vaal discipline is not up, in order to gain more regen. Even without RF up, the build still does good damage and this allows map mods that make RF unsustainable to still be run.

Here are some comments on other ascendancies that might be considered in making your own variant of this build. The passive tree will likely need to be modified to better suit these Ascendancies.

Requires Elreon Rings





Elreon Rings not required

Level 90 Tree

Notables
Zealot's Oath - life regen applies to ES
Pain Attunement - 30% more spell damage on low life
Elemental Overload - 40% more elemental damage after critting for 8 seconds. No crit multiplier.

Key Stats From the Tree
10.8% life regen
216% increased ES
348% total increased damage
42% increased cast speed
10% projectile speed
4 jewels

Bandits
Kill All or Help Alira (mana) / Kill All / Kill All

Main Skill - without Consuming Dark:
Incinerate - LMP/GMP - Elemental Focus - Fire penetration - Faster Projectiles - Controlled Destruction

LMP provides more damage while GMP provides slightly more AOE for clearing packs. Choose whichever you prefer.

On a 5L, I recommend dropping controlled destruction.

Main Skill - with Consuming Dark:
Incinerate - LMP/GMP - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destruction - Faster Projectiles - Pierce

With the Consuming Dark equipped, fire penetration is only half as effective. I recommend replacing it with pierce in this case, because pierce will scale the chaos and fire damage, as well as the poison since projectile damage double dips with poison.

Whirling Blades is OP:
Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify - Flame Dash

Whirling Blades is the primary means of movement. It is much faster than walking manually and would be even if the build didn't have negative move speed, and gives you fortify as a bonus. Flame Dash is used to get over gaps or up/down cliffs.

Orb of Storms Utility:
Orb of Storms - Curse on Hit - Enfeeble/Temp Chains/Poacher's Mark - Increased Critical Strikes

Orb of storms has two purposes. First, it is how enemies are cursed. A defensive curse is recommended - enfeeble or temporal chains according to your preference - but poacher's mark can also be used to generate frenzy charges and gain 12% more damage and 12% attack and cast speed.

Secondly, orb of storms with the increased critical strikes gem reliably triggers Elemental Overload, providing 40% more damage. Losing crit multiplier is not a downside at all for incinerate since it doesn't crit anyways.

Golem + Vaal Discipline:
CWDT - Stone Golem

A Stone Golem provides extra life regen, and allows RF to be sustained in this build without any flasks up. It is put in a CWDT setup so that it doesn't need to be manually re-summoned constantly.

Vaal Discipline triggers ES regeneration that is uninterrupted by damage. Very useful for any ES build.

Auras on Mana + RF:
Purity of Fire - Discipline/Purity of Lightning - Empower - RF

Level 23 purity of fire is needed to sustain RF, and this setup allows this to be achieved. Discipline also benefits from being empowered. Purity of lightning is recommended over discipline for Atziri.

Empowering RF gives a little bit of extra damage scaling to incinerate.

Auras on Life:
Blood Magic - Arctic Armour - Clarity

Incinerate requires continuous casting to get the highest damage output, and so arctic armor is useful in reducing physical and fire damage taken from hits.

Clarity is needed to help sustain the mana cost of incinerate.

Shavronne's Wrappings enables low-life while reserving nearly all life and without needing to cap chaos resistance.


Shaper's Seed gives 2% life regen. Ideally, you want to corrupt this with +1% to maximum elemental resistances.


Lioneye's Paws gives stun immunity, and enough strength and dexterity for gem requirements.

Most boot can enchantments work for this build, except for stun avoidance, the movement speed buff, and increased crit chance. The best enchantments are life/mana regen (defensive) or attack and cast speed (offensive).

The Vertex is the easiest means of getting purity of fire to level 23 due to having +1 level of socketed gems, while having 300+ ES. Level 23 purity of fire is achieved by using a level 20 purity of fire gem and level 2 empower.



The Consuming Dark provides a 7th link to incinerate by converting 50% of fire damage to chaos and then providing poison on hit. With my current stats, this provides a maximum increase to DPS of about 20%. Having 50% damage as chaos also helps to deal with reflect. The damage increase due to poison will only be noticeable in single target, and the build functions fine without the Consuming Dark.

Your shield is where you can get a lot of ES. It needs an open suffix to craft the level 3 Leo mod, reduced damage taken over time. This mod can be rerolled by removing it with a level 7 Haku until it hits 20%. Resists are useful, but can be gotten on other pieces of gear.


Your gloves should have high ES and some resistances.


Your belt is one of the best pieces of gear to get resists on. After resistances, other useful affixes are ES, reduced flask charges used, and increased flask duration.


Your rings are some of the best pieces of gear to get resists on. Focus on getting high resists, and then flat ES. When you can afford to do so, get high resist rings with an open prefix to craft % increased maximum energy shield from a level 7 Elreon for 1 exalt.

Sulfur flasks are a core component of this build. They synergize with Pious Path by providing consecrated ground on demand, and by making them staunching flasks, they provide you with immunity to all elemental resistances and bleed during their duration. The consecrated ground gives 4% life regen, making them a life regen flask. Furthermore, they are a damage flask, providing 80% increased damage. A sulfur flask should be kept up at all times. I recommend using 2 sulfur flasks of staunching to ensure permanent up-time on them.

Ruby flasks boost max fire resistance by 6%. This provides 4.2% life regen while RF is on, and so function as an additional life regen potion that stacks with your sulfur flasks. I recommend using one ruby flask of warding.

Stibnite flasks blind nearby enemies, cutting their chance to hit by half, and have a low flask charge use allowing them to be spammed easily. They make an excellent defensive flask. I recommend using a stibnite flask of heat. While sulfur flasks make you immune to freeze, it does not dispel freeze if you were already frozen before using it. So a freeze dispel flask is important to have, and works well with the spammable stibnite flask.

Basalt flasks provide physical damage reduction. The hardest-hitting damage type for this build is physical, so reducing the amount of physical damage taken is quite useful. And if a lot of damage is taken, it is useful to have the option to turn off RF to more quickly regen your ES. For these reasons, I recommend using a basalt flask of dousing as your final flask.

The two jewels near the Witch area should be Energy From Within. These unique jewels convert the nearby life scaling to ES scaling.

The other two jewels will be rare jewels. Priorities for jewel affixes are:
Resists (if needed)
Increased Maximum Energy Shield
Cast speed
Projectile Speed
Projectile/All Damage Increases
Other Damage Increases

Have to Reroll
No life/mana regen

Doable With RF Turned Off
Reduced life/ES/mana recovery - Can't sustain RF with less life recovery. Mana can be difficult to sustain over longer casting periods with these mods active.
Vulnerability - Can't sustain RF.
-Max - Can't sustain RF.
Elemental Reflect - Can technically be done with RF on, but is far safer with it turned off due to having lots of regen to help tank the reflected damage. Avoid casting into large groups of mobs.

Turning off RF on these map mods means less damage, but this is made up for by having lots of life regen. Damage is still good even without RF on.

Doable, But Not Fun
Temporal Chains - A map mod designed to make you want to reroll unless you are playing some a build which self-curses with temporal chains. It is simply not worth your time on any other build.

Level with Spark and Flame Totem until you can equip Firestorm. Have a 20% incinerate leveling as soon as you can equip it.

Level with Firestorm and Flame Totem until you complete Cruel Labrynth. You are able to sustain incinerate then and can start leveling with incinerate then. This switch can be done earlier, if desired, with constant motion flask use.

Switch to low-life at level 62, when you can equip Shavronne's Wrappings.

Turn on RF at level 70, when you can equip a level 20 purity of fire gem.

Leveling Tree - 30 points
Leveling Tree - 60 points
Leveling Tree - 80 points

Tooltip DPS with RF turned off


Tooltip DPS with RF turned on


Tooltip DPS with RF turned on, after whirling and casting

Tooltip DPS for incinerate does not account for poison or the more multiplier gained for each stage of incinerate. The above screenshots also do not contain the effect of elemental overload.

Poison increases the maximum DPS by about 20% after 2 seconds of casting, when the maximum number of poison stacks are applied to an enemy. This effect will only be seen against bosses. So, to determine the maximum effect of poison on DPS, multiply each tooltip DPS by 1.2.

To determine the effect of elemental overload, multiply each tooltip DPS above by 1.4.

To determine the effect of incinerate stages, multiply each tooltip DPS above by 2.5.

Total Cost of my Gear: ~21ex
Total Cost with a 5L Shavronne's Wrappings and cheaper rare gear: ~6ex


6L Voltaxic + 2.5ex


20c


40c


1c by itself, 20c + 20 vaal so far in failed corruptions


1ex + 3 divines to improve ES rolls + 15c rolling 20% reduced damage taken from DOT


40c + 1ex craft


20 fus + 1ex craft + 1 divine to reroll low % ES roll


3c


2c - was underpriced


1 fuse


~300 alts to roll these flasks with the affixes I wanted

Energy From Within jewels - 1 alch each
Decent rare jewels - 2c each
Level 20 Purity of Fire - 7c (was cheap and corrupted)
Level 2 Empower - 8c (was cheap and corrupted, 10% quality)
Various quality gems - 25c so far