[No longer updated] Pizza Sticks: Flameblast Totem Hierophant

Ok, so Tukohama's and life based was my plan. Farely new to totems and some parts of the game. I equipped the shield and nearly killed myself with only 300hp left. I am guessing you just cant run Aura's with this shield setup? Is that the case? If so, how do I best set myself up Gem wise? Thanks!

You can also use Essence Worm Ring, I'm currently trying to increase my survivability because i don't have enough life.

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DarkShad0wZ wrote:

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maykay wrote:

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DarkShad0wZ wrote:

So I've decided to switch to 1h/shield and I absolutely do not regret losing a little bit of damage for the survivability boost, I also swapped to a blasphemy/enfeeble setup and am still not running anger.
Any T15 content is easy, T16 isn't too bad so long as you can avoid mechanics, Uber izaro is also easily farmable.
I haven't done uber atziri or shaper yet but I am fairly confident that this character can handle it.

I'm looking for ways to improve this build primarily finding ways to get energy shield to regenerate at a quicker rate, besides getting better equipment I'm not quite sure just how much more I can squeeze out of this setup. 21/20 gems will be a huge damage boost. I would really appreciate some tips if anyone has any xD
These are my stats with power charges up

stats

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maykay wrote:

You should get Crit strike chance for spells on your dagger. That 19% increased crit chance is 100% useless, and crit chance for spells would, in my opinion, be better than crit multi.

I'm aware of this but this dagger as it sits is a very powerful dagger. The crafted critical multi at the moment has a much higher value than the raw critical strike for spells so it ultimately gives much higher DPS (do the math).
Once I manage to craft something better or once I find something that is ultimately stronger than my dagger that isn't sitting at a ridiculously over inflated price then I will upgrade it.

You are right that, in normal circumstances, and in that situation, crit multi is mathematically much better than crit chance. However, don't forget that our ascendancy makes our crit strikes bypass enemy elemental resistances, so critical strikes do an enormous amount of damage that is not reflected in the character screen.

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Once I manage to craft something better or once I find something that is ultimately stronger than my dagger that isn't sitting at a ridiculously over inflated price then I will upgrade it.

I suspect "over inflated" is incorrect.

Cast speed daggers must be made with essences, and given the large number of essences you need to craft "good" daggers, ie with no wasted attributes (for FB totems purposes), good ones can cost.

I paid 5ex for my dagger and instantly saw results (check my profile for my gear)

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maykay wrote:

You are right that, in normal circumstances, and in that situation, crit multi is mathematically much better than crit chance. However, don't forget that our ascendancy makes our crit strikes bypass enemy elemental resistances, so critical strikes do an enormous amount of damage that is not reflected in the character screen.

^^ This. If you happen to get crit multiplier on top of everything else, then more power to you, but it is not really the strength of this build. The whole point is to crit as close to 100% of the time as possible. With flameblast stages bypassing resists with the ascendancy, multiplier isn't as important as in a standard crit build. Most of the damage you get with this build is not ever going to be visible on tooltip. Sure, you want multiplier on your amulet, and there are a few nodes where we get it, but if you notice most of our nodes are getting crit chance and cast speed. You want to crit all of the time if possible, and with maximum stages on your flameblast. (cast speed) - On top of that, really things like spell damage, fire damage, or +damage to spells (fire preferred due to +fire damage% nodes) is going to show you the most results with this build / ascendancy. My last few nodes have been the multi nodes in the doom cast wheel, but that's because I'm set otherwise.

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VenGanZa9 wrote:

(check my profile for my gear)

I checked your profile and i wanted to ask do you run discipline, clarity and anger all the the same time? that doesnt seem possible.

i run just discipline and clarity + lvl 3 enlighten and i only have 277 mana left. I have 58.2 mana / sec regen and i can still run out of mana when spamming totems. Though at least i can whirl around all the time. I feel as though i can't change my 2nd dagger because the mana regen loss hurts to much.

I dunno. I don't think i can upgrade my gear anymore w/o many exalts. But i am not sure i even need to either. Still somehow throwing anger on top of this would be insane.

But for me personally the lack of mana is a deal breaker. I tried running anger instead of clarity for bosses only and i found that it just made me more likely to die.

Also whats with the mana flask? Don't you have very little mana unreserved. I assume you would have to pop the flask after every totem cast. On packs that would be ok but what about bosses?

Edit: Tried Chayula : lost to the timer. Didnt reach the boss.

I suppose I didn't take Inevitable Judgement into consideration while doing maths but I don't really know how I would be able to put that into a formula, This build has been very difficult to min/max.
Right now I'm sitting just under 86% crit chance running 5 power nodes (I sacrificed the sixth for the additional 30% multi on doom). I suppose you would consider this to be too low of a crit chance?

Would someone be able to explain to me why I would want Eldritch Battery if I am running Tukohama's Fortress? I mean, moving the ES over to the Mana side of things really doesnt seem to change anything correct? Your still taking hits to your ES before Life either way. And with the Tukohama's giving blood magic you arent using mana for skills anyway? Never used that node before so a bit confused.

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DarkShad0wZ wrote:

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damelon wrote:

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maykay wrote:

You are right that, in normal circumstances, and in that situation, crit multi is mathematically much better than crit chance. However, don't forget that our ascendancy makes our crit strikes bypass enemy elemental resistances, so critical strikes do an enormous amount of damage that is not reflected in the character screen.

^^ This. If you happen to get crit multiplier on top of everything else, then more power to you, but it is not really the strength of this build. The whole point is to crit as close to 100% of the time as possible. With flameblast stages bypassing resists with the ascendancy, multiplier isn't as important as in a standard crit build. Most of the damage you get with this build is not ever going to be visible on tooltip. Sure, you want multiplier on your amulet, and there are a few nodes where we get it, but if you notice most of our nodes are getting crit chance and cast speed. You want to crit all of the time if possible, and with maximum stages on your flameblast. (cast speed) - On top of that, really things like spell damage, fire damage, or +damage to spells (fire preferred due to +fire damage% nodes) is going to show you the most results with this build / ascendancy. My last few nodes have been the multi nodes in the doom cast wheel, but that's because I'm set otherwise.

I suppose I didn't take Inevitable Judgement into consideration while doing maths but I don't really know how I would be able to put that into a formula, This build has been very difficult to min/max.
Right now I'm sitting just under 86% crit chance running 5 power nodes (I sacrificed the sixth for the additional 30% multi on doom). I suppose you would consider this to be too low of a crit chance?

Don't get me wrong, your gear is better than mine, so I'm really not in a position to start saying what is too low and what isn't. 86% crit chance with power charges is good, better than what I have.

All I was saying was that, in my opinion, crit chance is much more valuable than crit multi in this build, because of Inevitable Judgement. Mobs in maps are often capped on resists, due to both their natural resists (which can vary from mob type to mob type) and eventual map mods, and so our non-crit blasts will be heavily resisted (because we don't have any penetration).
So, in my opinion, since the damage difference between crits and non-crits is so massive (way bigger than just the 'standard' crit multi), the value we get from getting these massive hits MORE OFTEN (i.e., getting more crit chance) is much, much higher than the value we get from making these massive hits do a bit more damage (i.e, getting more crit multi).


I don't know if I explained myself well, but to make it short: I think crit chance is always better than crit multi. A more frequent "lowering mob resists to zero" outweighs a bit more damage when we crit.


EDIT: I did a bit of napkin math. If my calculations have not gone horrible wrong, then they have shown me that getting crit chance for spells on that dagger would be more valuable than crit multi IF and only IF getting that crit chance for spells would make your total crit chance (with charges) 91% or higher.
Now, I didn't do the calculations for your character, so I don't know if the max roll for crit chance on that dagger will get you to 91% crit chance, but if it DOES, then I think it's worth it. If it DOES NOT get you to 91% crit chance, then I think that you should stick with the crit multi.
Again, very much napkin math, it was done quick and dirty, but I think it's sound.

EDIT2: the calculations didn't take into consideration ignites from crits. The ignites, coupled with the fact that crit is calculated per blast (so when you crit, you crit for every mob hit), would probably tip the scales a bit towards crit chance, so that 91% is probably slightly lower - but I don't know by how much.

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ride1226 wrote:

Would someone be able to explain to me why I would want Eldritch Battery if I am running Tukohama's Fortress? I mean, moving the ES over to the Mana side of things really doesnt seem to change anything correct? Your still taking hits to your ES before Life either way. And with the Tukohama's giving blood magic you arent using mana for skills anyway? Never used that node before so a bit confused.

If I understood correctly: it is assumed that you have some ES from gear; by moving this ES to mana (Eldritch Battery) and taking MoM, you create a buffer (ES+mana) to absorb 30% of incoming damage. At the same time, you prevent Blood Magic (from the shield) from basically making that ES useless --> if your ES was on your life globe, it would never, ever regenerate, because you would always be whirling around, casting totems, casting Orb of Storms, whirling some more, and every time you did that, you'd be spending life, so ES would never regenerate, effectively making it useless, making you less tanky.