Scorching Ray Skill Gem Mechanics

"

Vipermagi wrote:

"

Exile009 wrote:

[..]it's also immune to lightning thorns (which often insta-killed old Incinerate builds) since channeled skills count as just one cast.

It's not that channeling counts as one Cast that makes Scorching Ray immune to Thorns - Thorns reacts to Hits, same as Reflect does. Damage over Time does not Hit, however.

Ah sorry. My bad. Thanks.

Hi guys,

I'm playing a Templar that I'm hoping to have 4 scorching ray totems and it's hard for me to calculate the finer points of damage increase either through support gems or through the skill tree. I'm not sure if I should be going for more pure fire/spell/elemental damage or damage over time.

I have two sample skill trees I am thinking of using, the one with more dex nodes could possibly use Rapid Decay more easily while the other one couldn't without certain equipment.





What is more important, increase to Fire damage, Spell Damage, or Elemental damage (or do they all basically equate to the same thing)?

Also, if I can't use Rapid Decay in the 5 or 6 link with this build what support gem would you replace it with?

Which of these skill trees do you think would work better with a quad Scorching Ray totem build? Is there anything in either of these skill trees not optimal for survival (going too much for damage, not enough defense?) and going for the 3 passives with a bandits okay or is it a big mistake not taking the life boost?

I plan to get great equipment for my build that will hopefully max out my resistance and add lots of life & energy shield.

Any advice to someone who can't understand the finer points of duration vs straight increase to damage would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

To your fire dmg/elemental increase....
It would depend on whether you have avatar of fire. Opposite to what you might think. Increased elemental is better than straight fire.

Take a ten percent node of each:

Fire= +10%

Elemental= up to 20% ( depends on skills or weapon damages)

5% lightning + 5% cold ( converted because
of avatar of fire) +10% fire

Just a thought.... I ran sr with increased elemental + controlled destructon.... Pretty norm right? But instead of totem i used life leech.... Why? Because i also added cast on channel with firestorm.

Sr+ie+cd+coc+ll+fs

At level 50 with moderate gear (i usually run with rarity gear) this will pull around 14k-22k dps depending on how much your firestorm hits. And at 2% leach off of firestorm is around 280-440 per sec.

For comparison my flame blast is 7389 dps without curse or burning target, with both about 13k

Silly auestion. Does this skill inflict burning status? For example will it proc additional dmg from Ngamahu's Flame advance (35% increased dmg against burning enemies)?

I'm currently playing a SR- 3 Totems -Hierophant, utilizing multiple curses and EE (EE is the reason for "only" three totems).

The damage is definitely more than fine. Up to t15 there isn't a single boss, wich i would call hard or threatening. The Dark Forest boss comes closest, because there you will have to deal with the invulnerability phase.

I've killed all guardians with the build and the damage is more than sufficient too. Chimera and Phoenix are easy, Hydra is hard, due to the frostbolts constantly killing and freezing the totems (it's just a bad boss for totem builds). Minotaur should be deathless too, but i keep fucking up and get hit by his grounddiving attack. (I think i'm a decent theorycrafter, but i'm terrible when it boils down to pressing the right button at the right moment.)

I've tried Shaper and, again, i was happy with my damage, but i got hit too often in the third phase - as i said, i'm not great at the keyboard. I'm certain though, that a more skillfull player can take down shaper with the build easily.


My most important observation in terms of mechanics was, that castspeed for totems doesn't seem to be worth it.

Apparently it only matters, how many debuff stacks are on the target, to enable the SR-stage-benefits. It doesn't seem to be important, that the debuffs stem from the same source. In other words having three totems out is as good as having 3x more castspeed. (A dev confirmation that the debuffstacks don't get checked on the skill but only on the target would be highly appreciated though.)

Greetings guys,

I'm gonna try SR out for the first time. Wanted the most fire damage out of a ranged attack I could get for single target DPS (Bosses), and my friend told me about it. Plus with all this +fire damage gear around, I definitely wanna try out a fire build.

So my question is this: Is Rapid Decay viable? I've read on this forum post that it wasn't for sure good, and just wanted to check in with you guys to see.

Right now I have these gems set-up and ready to use: Scorching Ray, Elemental Focus Support, Controlled Destruction Support, Faster Casting Support, and Empower level 4. Just asking about my last gem slot.



TY VM in advance!!! :)
-RexXx

Note above Rapid Decay no longer exists, it's now called "Swift Affliction Support".

"

RexRose wrote:

So my question is this: Is Rapid Decay viable? I've read on this forum post that it wasn't for sure good, and just wanted to check in with you guys to see.

It works for SR so: Yes its 'viable'.

"

RexRose wrote:

Right now I have these gems set-up and ready to use: Scorching Ray, Elemental Focus Support, Controlled Destruction Support, Faster Casting Support, and Empower level 4.

You should use 'Efficacy' link. Its much better than most others.

"

Zrevnur wrote:

"

RexRose wrote:

Right now I have these gems set-up and ready to use: Scorching Ray, Elemental Focus Support, Controlled Destruction Support, Faster Casting Support, and Empower level 4.

You should use 'Efficacy' link. Its much better than most others.

+'Burning Damage' link - also much better than most others.