[Archived] Archmage Hexblast | 4M+ Ignite DPS | Budget Options League Start to Endgame

Hi, I've been lvling with this build for the past few days after several years of not playing, and I'm loving it. Haven't bothered committing to endgame yet as the league is on it's last days, but looking forward to doing so with new league.

On that note, I've been theorycrafting a bit in the meantime. I'm looking into the viability of dropping the chieftain ascendancy in favour of elementalist, with swapping one of the medium clusters for master of fire + burning bright/circling oblivion.

By making these amendments to your lategame PoB,the ignite damage is almost identical.

Theory however can be very different then reality, and I'm curious about your thoughts on the practicality of this. Obviously the benefit would be that you could do reflect maps, but might not be worth giving up the 10% str and 2% life regen from chieftain?

https://pastebin.com/ZVpqjLTe
Last edited by Luyeh#7685 on Jul 13, 2021, 2:12:01 PM
Rest in peace to one of the most fun builds I played last league. I will miss you! <3
Alright, I might have overreacted to the 3.15 changes.

I updated PoB for 3.15 and overall this build lost around half of its damage. However, it is still pretty good - reaching 5M ignite dps with late endgame gear - that just shows how overpowered it used to be.

I will not play it myself this league just because I want to try something new but if you try it out in 3.15 and have some footage to share, let me know!
"
Luyeh wrote:
Hi, I've been lvling with this build for the past few days after several years of not playing, and I'm loving it. Haven't bothered committing to endgame yet as the league is on it's last days, but looking forward to doing so with new league.

On that note, I've been theorycrafting a bit in the meantime. I'm looking into the viability of dropping the chieftain ascendancy in favour of elementalist, with swapping one of the medium clusters for master of fire + burning bright/circling oblivion.

By making these amendments to your lategame PoB,the ignite damage is almost identical.

Theory however can be very different then reality, and I'm curious about your thoughts on the practicality of this. Obviously the benefit would be that you could do reflect maps, but might not be worth giving up the 10% str and 2% life regen from chieftain?

https://pastebin.com/ZVpqjLTe


Elementalist is definitely comparable to Chieftain in damage potential but overall less reliable as the shocks that you apply usually do not last as long as your ignites do, so you have downtime on them.

Also, remember to uncheck "covered in Ash" in the configuration settings when you switch from chieftain to elementalist and check the "is the enemy shocked" setting.
block version of this build is no longer viable at end game, without some very costly investments. dps too low
This build still works for damage, but, you might get eaten alive before you can move out of the way of mobs jumping you. The main issue is not even that, it's that you cannot interact with Expedetion efficiently because:

*Immune to Fire
*Immune to Chaos
*Immune to Curses
*Immune to ailments

Good luck to anyone playing this build this league.
Is this build back in 3.16?
"
Exilaner wrote:
Is this build back in 3.16?


I am definitely going to try and revive this build this patch, I did 3 different builds last leagues and none of them were even remotely as fun as this one. Looked over adjustments this evening and just adjusted the passive tree on Gimbos late endgame build without looking much at items (besides clusters), and this is my draft so far.

https://pastebin.com/Xhc74Wug

PoB doesn't support the new equilibrium yet, so you can add another 2 mill dps or so to this putting us at 10~ mill dps (45% reduced fire res from equil exposure + elementalist bonus, if you open the menu for crafting fire dmg over time cluster and mouse over Master Of Fire, that'll give you the numbers for added 30% exposure). I think I might anoint Dirty techniques or possibly Heart of Flame instead of Growth and Decay. Crunched some numbers and it seems even with blowback on clusters, you could perpetually ignite with max doom (50). I'm estimating that this should equate to about 10 mill dps.

Unfortunately the buffs also come with some nerfs:
1. The node that contained Cursed Concoction seems to have been obliterated entirely. The notable itself is not that important imo, but not having the passive leading up to it, that gave 2% mana regen on kills for cursed enemies might lead to noticably slower mapping.
2. Supreme ego has been put quite a ways off our path, and I can't justify the investment for it.

I'll let you guys know how I get on.
Last edited by Luyeh#7685 on Oct 21, 2021, 12:17:02 PM
It seems PoB haven't implemented the new numbers for hexblast yet, my previous estimate is likely very unreliable currently. We're getting a big boost to base and added damage, but we're losing a bunch of more scaling on both hit and ailment. Added a snippet here for easy reference.

"
Hexblast now deals 103 to 155 Chaos Damage at gem level 1 (previously 74 to 110), up to 965 to 1447 at gem level 20 (previously 689 to 1034). It now has “40% more Damage with Hits per 5 Doom on Hex with most Doom” (previously 60%), and “15% more Damage with Ailments per 5 Doom on Hex with most Doom” (previously 40%). It now has 210% Effectiveness of Added Damage at all gem levels (previously 150%). Because of base Ignite damage changes, Ignite with the skill is now 95.6% higher at 30 Doom, and 83.3% higher at 40 doom.
"
Luyeh wrote:
"
Exilaner wrote:
Is this build back in 3.16?


I am definitely going to try and revive this build this patch, I did 3 different builds last leagues and none of them were even remotely as fun as this one. Looked over adjustments this evening and just adjusted the passive tree on Gimbos late endgame build without looking much at items (besides clusters), and this is my draft so far.

https://pastebin.com/Xhc74Wug

PoB doesn't support the new equilibrium yet, so you can add another 2 mill dps or so to this putting us at 10~ mill dps (45% reduced fire res from equil exposure + elementalist bonus, if you open the menu for crafting fire dmg over time cluster and mouse over Master Of Fire, that'll give you the numbers for added 30% exposure). I think I might anoint Dirty techniques or possibly Heart of Flame instead of Growth and Decay. Crunched some numbers and it seems even with blowback on clusters, you could perpetually ignite with max doom (50). I'm estimating that this should equate to about 10 mill dps.

Unfortunately the buffs also come with some nerfs:
1. The node that contained Cursed Concoction seems to have been obliterated entirely. The notable itself is not that important imo, but not having the passive leading up to it, that gave 2% mana regen on kills for cursed enemies might lead to noticably slower mapping.
2. Supreme ego has been put quite a ways off our path, and I can't justify the investment for it.

I'll let you guys know how I get on.


Hey, that is great to hear! If you actually create an updated version for 3.16, could you create another thread on the forums? I will unfortunately not have that much time to play so I will not be able to update this build for 3.16. If you want, you can copy-paste some parts of the guide that would still be relevant.

Overall, I would not worry that much about damage. It will definitely be up there. I especially love the new Flame Surge which is a straight-up 25% damage boost for all ignite builds on a single target.

The defences might be rough though. At least until the endgame version (all the mana and flask changes from 3.15 hit this build hard).

I saw some people consider occultist, but I think that's a waste for hexblast. Elementalist will be great for damage but even worse for defence, especially since you cannot go the dodge route now.

A lot of people sleep on inquisitor hexblast though. You can scale it really high with battlemage and you can also scale armour with energy shield and the new Divine Shield. If I have time in this league, I think I will try to make the inquisitor version.


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