[3.2] Scionic Flametank "16k ES ed." (ES-CI-ZO-GR, SR-CWC-FS, extensive guide)

What's going on guys?

Some good news for ES regen builds:

1) Sulphur Flask Creates Consecrated Ground on Use - 40% increased Damage

2) Enchatment on Gloves Regenerate 2% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit recently

Whaaaaaaat????????????

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What's going on guys?

Prematurely calculating optimal chassis for ascendancy flametanks based on incomplete information, what else? :D

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Some good news for ES regen builds:

1) Sulphur Flask Creates Consecrated Ground on Use - 40% increased Damage

2) Enchatment on Gloves Regenerate 2% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit recently

Whaaaaaaat????????????

a) 4% ES/s (+40% increased damage) is awesome - we all want them (preferably with extended duration - let's see what sort of modifiers they can get.)

b) I'd heard that was a boot enchant, but boots or gloves, this aspect of GGG's perverse fascination with RNG is something I could do without. I hate the idea of repeatedly visiting the Labyrinth, overwriting enchants on the equipement I use, until I get what I want. Given the number of random possibilities available for ascendancy enchants, I know from experience that this is the sort of grind that can kill my interest in a game, as it requires me to be willing to accept either a) investing hour after hour without coming closer to my goal, or b) push me even further into accepting that I'm playing PoT (Path of Trading) rather than PoE.

Hmmm.
Hmmm.
Hmmm.

A thought struck me. While it would be fun to dual-curse Temporal Chains and Enfeeble for survivability, the build is already plenty surivable as it is and I added it in the first place to get me Ghostreaver ES leeching... something that Scion-Berserker can now bring.

What if I were to drop the dual-cursing aspect entirely - could I use the points saved up to ensure a) at least as good survivability as in 2.1, while b) doing more damage?

With a bit of tree optimization, it looks like by 92 I can trade off:

Enfeeble Curse (or other 2nd curse)
1 Jewel slot (worth, say, 40% damage or 30% damage and 8% ES for a typical good rare jewel)
8% maximum mana
1% maximum lightning resistance

for

16% ES
49% increased spell damage
18% increased cast speed
20% increased chaos damage
8% movement speed
8% to all elemental resistances
55 dexterity (taking the total to 95, making dex requirements MUCH easier to hit)
5 intelligence

The dexterity goal being reached fairly early, such that the player would never have to collect more than the remaining 16 dexterity on gear, and the majority of the positive tradeoffs being achieved in the mid-80s.

This would pretty much destroy the build for other than Scion-Berserker/* and Marauder-Chieftain as others would be limited to one curse, and it would be pretty iffy with the Marauder as he has 8 skillpoints less to play around with*, but it does look like a rather neat package. Then again, there's nothing wrong in optimizing the build for Scion just because alternative chassis are available!

* 3 wasted skillpoints to lead into the build compared to Scion's 1
* 2 skillpoints less because Scion gets 2 from ascendancy
* 3 skillpoints spent on extra endurance node and 0.2% life regen/endurance charge in the tree
* 1 skillpointe trading a Bandit skillpoint reward for an endurance charge.

Very interesting food for thought. You weren't kidding about being a mathematician. :)

I'm trying to figure out how high I can get my ES for my Witch with the Occultist mods I want. The extra 24% ES should give me around 600+ to my max...and the +100 to ES I'm guessing around 500-600. So that would put me around 15200. With one jewel slot left to go, optimizing current jewels and some gear tweaking I'm thinking I might be able to get total ES to 15500...possibly 16000 but having already invested quite a bit (for me anyway) into my Witch I may have to hold off as I have other characters who will need some attention.

That would put the regen up to around 2350...hmm...possibly overkill...hard to say. Especially with Vile Bastion. Hmm.

Taking advantage of the revamped Precision node (that was key to the above suggestion), I ended up making a compromise build that loses a jewel slot, maintains dual-cursing and gains 14% casting speed, while the remainder of the benefits are pretty much a wash with the lost jewel slot. Pretty nice, all things considered.

The guide in the first post has been updated for 2.2 with respects to ascendancies, skill trees, recommended leveling etc for a Scion Ascendant.

Help! Thanks to the update to the Path of Exile Website for Ascendancy, all the Skill tree links fail now, has anyone got a working link ?

Bloody hell. They worked in Emmitt's skill tree viewer. I'll look into it, Morigaine.

Okay, quick and dirty.

THIS is the core passive skill tree build that is achieved by level 85.

OMG, thank you, only just getting into the League, started playing this morning, got my first level, went to check the build and it was GONE ! Was too afraid to put any points down in case I went wrong. Again, thank you so much, played the Flame Tank last League, really enjoyed it, looking forward to greater achievements this league !

Cheers!

Word to the wise - don't try the Labyrinth with a friend who is drunk (well unless you're drunk too, I suppose). All of those traps are surely a Royal PITA, but I finally Ascended and turned my Witch into an Occultist. Getting the first node and Wicked Ward boosted ES from 14108 to 14946...not too damn shabby! Regen is now 2172.

Also I tried out an experiment by switching out my 20/20 Added Chaos gem for a 19/20 Increased Critical Strikes to see the new change to ICS. Sure enough, it gave my Incinerate a 5% chance to crit. Not as much fun as a Diamond Shrine...but with almost 10 casts a second it crits pretty damn often. On a whim I refunded two passives and grabbed Elemental Overload since it was so close to my main tree and gave it a go.

I was able to keep EO up most of the time. But...dropping my ACD gem dropped my DPS by nearly 3000 points. And getting EO only increased it to about 300 points past my normal set up. Not very spectacular...especially since getting one more level will allow me to use that point and these two temporary points (mana and spell damage currently) to get my final Jewel slot which could easily give me more benefit than Elemental Overload.

Still, kind of fun to make a Crit Incinerator....even unlocked the Specialist achievement which I didn't know existed. Perhaps with Assassin's Mark and some crit multiplier it could be interesting...but I think those skill points would best be used elsewhere.