Bought a Xoph and Enlighten 4 then tried Anger/Flammability/HoA and I only had 6 mana left to use..... that was expensive and didnt work. What gives??
How is this better than Impresence with Anger + Flammability + HoA ??? Considering now I cant run anger + flammability and HoA when using Xoph???
Because Flammability (and all curses for that matter) is simply not that good outside of helping you clear trash faster which this build can already do fine without. Everybody needs to realize that curses were nerfed hard when you absolutely need them the most. There is a 60% reduced effectiveness penalty vs map bosses and a whopping 80% reduced curse effectiveness vs guardians and shaper. At 80%, a level 20 Flammability is reducing Shaper's fire resistance by approximately 8% (down from 44% vs trash).
Xoph's on the other hand gives you a guaranteed 10% fire penetration vs all targets, so you're already into positive damage territory from that. Then, you save at least 6 points on the tree, allowing you to allocate more life or head over to Primeval Force for even more guaranteed fire penetration. Finally, you also cover all enemies in ash when they hit you - including bosses, which reduces their movement speed by 20% and increases fire damage taken by 20%. This won't fail you when you need it the most, in fact it be more guaranteed to activate since a hard boss will hit you plenty.
Finally, if you don't believe me, plug it into PoB. Here are the numbers for me vs Shaper/Guardians:
(I have not activated any flasks or any other temporary on-kill buffs like Onslaught or Frenzy charges. These basically middle-of-the-fight numbers.)
Current build, with Impresence + Anger + Flammability + HoA
Cyclone DPS: 176K
Meatball DPS (per ball): 17.2K
With Xoph's in PoB, it's important to check the "Is the enemy covered in Ash?" box because this is triggered when the enemy hits you, and Guardians are probably going to hit you.
Replace Impresence with Xoph's, disable Flammability, allocate all nodes defensively
Cyclone DPS: 209K
Meatball DPS: 20.6K
(I also gained approximately 400 life)
Replace Impresence with Xoph's, disable Flammability, allocate nodes towards Primeval Force
Cyclone DPS: 234K
Meatball DPS: 23.2K
Let's say 3 balls hit. I'm going from 227K DPS with Flammability to 303.6K DPS with Xoph's and Primeval Force. This is a nearly 35% damage increase. That's why Xoph's remains BiS for this build.
As for being unable to run all 3 with Enlighten, I'm going to guess you need more max mana because an Enlighten level 4 is an 88% mana modifier. (50+35+25)*.88=96.8. So you'll need that 3.2% to be a more significant amount.
Last edited by CadmiumFlow#0683 on Jan 11, 2018, 3:23:26 PM
Thanks for the replies and keeping the build updated, going to grab and anger and start leveling it and look for a watcher's eye jewel.
Should i also focus on changing up colors/gems for my weapon and chest? I guess i grabbed the info for them before they were updated and now its a bit confusing with the back and forth amongst the comments on what is best.
Bought a Xoph and Enlighten 4 then tried Anger/Flammability/HoA and I only had 6 mana left to use..... that was expensive and didnt work. What gives??
How is this better than Impresence with Anger + Flammability + HoA ??? Considering now I cant run anger + flammability and HoA when using Xoph???
Because Flammability (and all curses for that matter) is simply not that good outside of helping you clear trash faster which this build can already do fine without. Everybody needs to realize that curses were nerfed hard when you absolutely need them the most. There is a 60% reduced effectiveness penalty vs map bosses and a whopping 80% reduced curse effectiveness vs guardians and shaper. At 80%, a level 20 Flammability is reducing Shaper's fire resistance by approximately 8% (down from 44% vs trash).
Xoph's on the other hand gives you a guaranteed 10% fire penetration vs all targets, so you're already into positive damage territory from that. Then, you save at least 6 points on the tree, allowing you to allocate more life or head over to Primeval Force for even more guaranteed fire penetration. Finally, you also cover all enemies in ash when they hit you - including bosses, which reduces their movement speed by 20% and increases fire damage taken by 20%. This won't fail you when you need it the most, in fact it be more guaranteed to activate since a hard boss will hit you plenty.
Finally, if you don't believe me, plug it into PoB. Here are the numbers for me vs Shaper/Guardians:
(I have not activated any flasks or any other temporary on-kill buffs like Onslaught or Frenzy charges. These basically middle-of-the-fight numbers.)
Current build, with Impresence + Anger + Flammability + HoA
Cyclone DPS: 176K
Meatball DPS (per ball): 17.2K
With Xoph's in PoB, it's important to check the "Is the enemy covered in Ash?" box because this is triggered when the enemy hits you, and Guardians are probably going to hit you.
Replace Impresence with Xoph's, disable Flammability, allocate all nodes defensively
Cyclone DPS: 209K
Meatball DPS: 20.6K
(I also gained approximately 400 life)
Replace Impresence with Xoph's, disable Flammability, allocate nodes towards Primeval Force
Cyclone DPS: 234K
Meatball DPS: 23.2K
Let's say 3 balls hit. I'm going from 227K DPS with Flammability to 303.6K DPS with Xoph's and Primeval Force. This is a nearly 35% damage increase. That's why Xoph's remains BiS for this build.
As for being unable to run all 3 with Enlighten, I'm going to guess you need more max mana because an Enlighten level 4 is an 88% mana modifier. (50+35+25)*.88=96.8. So you'll need that 3.2% to be a more significant amount.
Thanks for the reply. Am noob.
Also I guess I need to figure out then what gems to run instead of flammability and blasphemy now that I have free sockets
Because Flammability (and all curses for that matter) is simply not that good outside of helping you clear trash faster which this build can already do fine without. Everybody needs to realize that curses were nerfed hard when you absolutely need them the most. There is a 60% reduced effectiveness penalty vs map bosses and a whopping 80% reduced curse effectiveness vs guardians and shaper. At 80%, a level 20 Flammability is reducing Shaper's fire resistance by approximately 8% (down from 44% vs trash).
I will echo this. EW looks great on your gloves. It really does. Albeit being a level 10-12 curse, having an additional ~30% penetration looks amazing, but it's actually one of the biggest noob traps. Once you put respectable gear together, clearing maps is only hindered by your movement speed, not your damage. In lieu of this, it is a far better investment to pick up a pair of gloves with Temp Chains on hit. The added slow won't help much with Shaper/Elder/End-game bosses but does wonders in clearing maps (and is a defensive boost as well), especially in more open maps. We can't run toxic sewers all day ;)
Everyone is always so yolo on damage when rounding out the weaknesses of a build nets a you better experience on the whole.
It's one thing to be scraping by on a 4L without Xoph's and some key components of this build, but entirely different when you have all the preemo gear and have so much overkill damage that stacking even more nets you literally nothing.
Deliver pain exquisite
Last edited by ultratiem#0592 on Jan 11, 2018, 5:01:03 PM
Because Flammability (and all curses for that matter) is simply not that good outside of helping you clear trash faster which this build can already do fine without. Everybody needs to realize that curses were nerfed hard when you absolutely need them the most. There is a 60% reduced effectiveness penalty vs map bosses and a whopping 80% reduced curse effectiveness vs guardians and shaper. At 80%, a level 20 Flammability is reducing Shaper's fire resistance by approximately 8% (down from 44% vs trash).
I will echo this. EW looks great on your gloves. It really does. Albeit being a level 10-12 curse, having an additional ~30% penetration looks amazing, but it's actually one of the biggest noob traps. Once you put respectable gear together, clearing maps is only hindered by your movement speed, not your damage. In lieu of this, it is a far better investment to pick up a pair of gloves with Temp Chains on hit. The added slow won't help much with Shaper/Elder/End-game bosses but does wonders in clearing maps (and is a defensive boost as well), especially in more open maps. We can't run toxic sewers all day ;)
Everyone is always so yolo on damage when rounding out the weaknesses of a build nets a you better experience on the whole.
It's one thing to be scraping by on a 4L without Xoph's and some key components of this build, but entirely different when you have all the preemo gear and have so much overkill damage that stacking even more nets you literally nothing.
I totally agree with you but ele weakness still provides -6.2% resistance on guardians and shaper which is still a huge DPS boost once you start reaching the bigger numbers.
Thank you for the kind words! And thank you for the wonderful build and guide, as well as your continued dedication in supporting it. It's pretty amazing you're still here 374 pages later posting several-paragraph long replies to everyone's questions.
And I thank you too for helping to answer some of the queries posted by other players. Appreciate lots. :)
Thanks for the replies and keeping the build updated, going to grab and anger and start leveling it and look for a watcher's eye jewel.
Should i also focus on changing up colors/gems for my weapon and chest? I guess i grabbed the info for them before they were updated and now its a bit confusing with the back and forth amongst the comments on what is best.
Weapon color is fine unless you want to have the flexibility of swapping Ignite with Elemental Focus gem.
For chest, changing to 3R2B1G will definitely give you a big damage boost.
I will echo this. EW looks great on your gloves. It really does. Albeit being a level 10-12 curse, having an additional ~30% penetration looks amazing, but it's actually one of the biggest noob traps. Once you put respectable gear together, clearing maps is only hindered by your movement speed, not your damage. In lieu of this, it is a far better investment to pick up a pair of gloves with Temp Chains on hit. The added slow won't help much with Shaper/Elder/End-game bosses but does wonders in clearing maps (and is a defensive boost as well), especially in more open maps. We can't run toxic sewers all day ;)
Everyone is always so yolo on damage when rounding out the weaknesses of a build nets a you better experience on the whole.
It's one thing to be scraping by on a 4L without Xoph's and some key components of this build, but entirely different when you have all the preemo gear and have so much overkill damage that stacking even more nets you literally nothing.
I totally agree with you but ele weakness still provides -6.2% resistance on guardians and shaper which is still a huge DPS boost once you start reaching the bigger numbers.
Second what @Djangooo said.
A level 12 Elemental Weakness curse on hit gloves will still give you at least 5% more damage on Shaper and it definitely scale upwards with better gears.
And pushing for more damage on Shaper is something that you don't want to miss.
the lightning golem is usually dead, just a summon for bosses? or thoughts on switching warchief and golem so he's cwdt? also are people really spamming enduring warcry or everyone go for that gem?
thoughts on switching warchief and golem so he's cwdt?
In theory it sounds solid, but in actual practice is actually terrible; a waste of links. Forget the golem. They are absolute trash and get annihilated end-game even if you beef them up with support gems. They are for leveling and mid game.
