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

Me again! I added you ingame.

Just came here to say that very similar regen, with superior damage, can be obtained by going Inquisitor Templar.

They have a sweet 6% ES regen bonus on consecrated ground and a nearly 100% uptime on it. On top of that you get an 8% elemental damage reduction (basically +2% to max elemental resistances) and lose the Marauder increased damage debuff.

The difference is 5300 regen with your setup and 5000 regen with an Inquisitor setup. I simulated the regen from Arkaali in Path of Building by adding:


50% increased Energy Shield Recovery Rate

to an armour piece.

Inquisitor is perhaps better as it does not require you to kill a burning/ignited target to get bonuses.

That is a cunning way to test the Arakali result. I like it!

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I tried looking at the Templar-Inquisitor option when I was first plotting the revamped flametank and came to the conclusion that while it was marginally better for damage purposes, and while it would be handy to have consecrated ground created automatically rather than having to use a flask, and while it would certainly provide a higher base regeneration in percentage, it would lag behind in both total energy shield and recovery compared to Scion by a fair margin, and possibly in regeneration itself as well when the going got tough.

Getting 7% extra base regeneration over what the build already has (from 6% extra on consecrated ground apart from the 6% the scion also gets) and 1% from minor ascendancy nodes, and having both energy shield regeneration and leech affected by a 50% recovery bonus just doesn't cut it mathematically compared to getting 100% recovery bonus to both regeneration and leech with the Scion.



I've imported my current Scion in path of building and added the "50% increased Energy Shield Recovery Rate" to the Amulet. The result is this:

89 Scion with modded amulet:
https://pastebin.com/5EX7D1XV


12207 ES, devalued somewhat by taking 5% more damage (largest survivable hit is 12207/105% = 11625)
7543 avg. firestorm fireball hit
75197 dps from scorching ray

"Did get hit recently, and killed somebody dotted recently so Trickster baby is happy"
5340 ES/s recovery from regen
2441 Es/s recovery with maximum leech
7781 ES/s total recovery with maximum leech (devalued to 7781/105% = 7410)

"Didn't kill anybody dotted recently but did get hit recently"
4005 ES/s recovery from regen
2441 ES/s recovery with maximum leech ((1+50%)*2441 ES/s leech cap)
6446 ES/s total recovery with maximum leech (devalued to 6139)


The Templar has problems with the build at 89 due to having 5 fewer skill points to play with and spending one more on getting away from start. He would probably look like this, just one skill point missing before getting the 4th rare jewel slot, but feel free to take my Scion above and turn it into a level 89 Templar (110/121 points) that better fits your vision.

89 Templar Inquisitor with modded amulet:
https://pastebin.com/NuKqhEji

11079 ES, not devalued
8346 avg. firestorm fireball hit
83114 dps from scorching ray

"Did get hit recently, but Templar doesn't care whether killed anybody dotted"
4762 ES/s recovery from regen
2215 ES/s recovery with maximum leech
6966 ES/s total recovery with maximum leech


So the Templar has higher damage, lower ES (both absolute and effective), substantially lower total recovery vs large groups, higher total recovery vs solo bosses, 8% reduced elemental damage taken where the Scion has no such modifier at all, but on the other hand the Scion leeches 1% when it has killed with the situationally present Warlord's Mark on top, whereas the Templar only leeches with Warlord's Mark, so not only does the Scion (situationally) recover more for the same amount leeched (the 100% vs 50% issue), it leeches more in the first place (up to the cap) except hypothetically if leech is capped on on solo bosses where they will recover the same (and leech will never cap on solo bosses - not enough hits per second).

I'd say that overall that comes out in the Scion's favour, but then, I would, wouldn't I? The one thing that is clear is that the Templar Inquisitor flametank will perform well (as expected), but that it is a mixed bag of goodies - it has some strengths and conveniences coupled with some downsides when compared with the Scion.

EDIT: Fixed leech calculations.

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Pi2rEpsilon escribió:

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Carlovski escribió:

Have you looked at using the Flow Untethered belt? Up to 20% es recovery rate, cast speed plus I think the cooldown recovery would help CWC? Obviously at the cost of loss of ES, strength and resists.

Might not quite be worth for you, but I'm looking at using on my pure SR trickster regen guy, at least for mapping. Probably swap in a crystal for t16+

I have looked at the possibility, but it just isn't worth it worth it to me.

The improvements to CWDTs would be nice, and 20% increased ES recovery sends the bonus recovery from +100% to +120%, i.e. total ES recovery goes from 200% to 220%. That's a 10% relative gain.

But the cost is brutal since the build apart from base ES needs suffixes to cover resists, strength, and intelligence - and it can never have enough strength, and more intelligence is pretty good too, though strictly inferior to strength.

Take a decent T2/T3 ES belt: It'll have around 110 ES, 40 strength, and two resists - let's say 70% resistance total or so. The 40 strength becomes 47.2 with Alberon, which results in a total of 128.88 ES, 9.44% maxES (and some damage). With even half decent equipment in the rest of the slots, you are looking at roughly a 8-10% loss of maximum energy shield and hence also recovery, as all recovery scales by maximum energy shield, meaning that not only will the Flow Unthered leave you more with a noticeably smaller energy shield and the vulnerability to death through a few heavy blows in a short time interval, it also will not increase the absolute energy shield recovery per second by a noteworthy amount and may indeed decrease it.

The situation is slightly better when fighting bosses where only one of the +50% recovery bonuses apply because you have nobody to kill for the Trickster bonus, as you go from a total of 150% to 170% recovery, or a 13.3% relative improvement... but the ES loss issues are the same and you still lose out on valuable resistances you somehow have to make up for elsewhere, and the strength loss isn't too nice either.

Even worse, perhaps, the better equipment you get, the worse the Flow Unthered is relative to a decent or good crystal belt with stats appropriate to the build.

Thanks for the maths! For my build I'm going to use it for mapping, it's a pretty nice clear speed buff as well as the regen (Which is unconditional). But I'll swap it out for a crystal belt (As I'll have to manage without resists/stats on belt I can go greedy for a pure ES and flask duration belt, or an auxium) for guardians etc. Actually plan is for a big switch in 'bossing mode'. For mapping I'll run brine king as I'll get recovery rate from kills, and use my +1 curse amulet.
For guardians where curses are less effective and can't guarantee kills will use Arakali for regen, and drop amulet for a chayula.

So, I have hit level 92 and am sitting very comfortably with 13.4k ES and overcapped resistances for elemental weakness maps.

Inspired by an agonizingly long fight vs a Rigwald clone where a long streak of non-crits resulted in long EO downtime, I replaced the CWDT20-Flame Surge20-Fireball20 and CWDT1-BR6-IC3-IS8 with the old tried and true CWDT1-ICS20-IS8-FB11 to more reliably proc Elemental Overload when no adds are around and the Arakali trigger on a separate 3L CWDT1-BR6-IC3, and have updated the guide accordingly.


Here is the updated POB pastebin, with the amulet modded to simulate Tukohama and Arakali bonuses: https://pastebin.com/j2Hsz4Jd

I am slowly completing the Atlas and have reached my first T15 maps and the first guardian, the Hydra frost archer, who proved a complete pushover compared to the nasty spectral throwing boss I encountered in the T15 Overgrown Ruins map earlier in the day, who brutally slaughtered my scion four times in a row before I figured out that I had to keep moving. (So I'm slow: I thought it was a special attack, but there was no telegraphing and it seemed to happen at random. Turns out I should have been looking out for circles at my feet from CoC mines rather than looking at the boss. Didn't matter much since I'd waited with the unknown T15 maps until I dinged, so little XP was lost).


I have now updated the guide in the first post, adding a leveling guide with skill tree illustrations and providing more information about what to look out for when equipping the Scion.


Also, enjoy the glorious sight of TWO flametanks engaged in synchronized flaming during a relaxing Beachhead visit this weekend, as my friend WyvernG saw the Scion in action last week and thought "What a woman! I've got to lay my hands on her twin sister" or something like that, and raised one from 1-86 in what seemed like no time at all.

A few thoughts based on levelling my own Flametank. Firstly this really is a very very robust build. I was able to enter Uber labyrinth at level 69 (dinged 70 halfway through it) and killed Isario without any problem at all. Think I had just over 8K ES at the time.

I'm level 89 now, and have been running T13/14/15 maps for the last few levels without any issues. It's not the fastest of mappers, but it sure is the safest character I've ever built.

For levelling, if you follow Pi2rEpsilon's build tree, you'll struggle for survivability when you meet Innocence and Kitava for the first time, so make sure to pick enough life nodes for comfort, and get your CwDT warlords mark up and running early. I also slotted in a life leech gem into my scorching ray (was using a tabala) which helped a lot. Once past that lvl 45-50 blip, things improved, but the build only really starts when you slot in the builds uniques.

Anyway, kudos on a really nice, and clever build.

Four guardians down, thus answering that question. Next target: Shaper.

I'd love to see some videos of gameplay please

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livejamie escribió:

I'd love to see some videos of gameplay please

I suck at making videos. The only one I have right now is a short demonstration of ES recovery on boss showing the difference in recovery with and without bonuses triggered. I chose a boss with simple game mechanics for clarity of view, the T15 Kaom.

I have uploaded it now, but I doubt that's really what you are looking for? A video of a leisurely waltz through a T14-T16 map with me spending way too much time being distracted by shinies, going AFK somewhere nominally dangerous and returning 10 minutes later to a pile or corpses (sounds like the most boring video, ever), or a short video of me walking through über labyrinth traps? Something else?

Video: ES recovery demonstration vs. boss

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Pi2rEpsilon escribió:

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livejamie escribió:

I'd love to see some videos of gameplay please

I suck at making videos. The only one I have right now is a short demonstration of ES recovery on boss showing the difference in recovery with and without bonuses triggered. I chose a boss with simple game mechanics for clarity of view, the T15 Kaom.

I have uploaded it now, but I doubt that's really what you are looking for? A video of a leisurely waltz through a T14-T16 map with me spending way too much time being distracted by shinies, going AFK somewhere nominally dangerous and returning 10 minutes later to a pile or corpses (sounds like the most boring video, ever), or a short video of me walking through über labyrinth traps? Something else?

Video: ES recovery demonstration vs. boss

Yeah any of those videos would be great. The guide is so well done outside of that. :)

Other question: What would you adjust to fit in a Shield Charge? Fortify Support is probably not needed, I assume?

Shield Charge -> Faster Attacks

Fortify isn't needed, but it sure would be nice to have even though using it resets the regeneration and physical mitigation bonus from Tukohama (and doesn't get boosted by the +45% duration nodes) - it would be a good way to barge into a group of mobs to start a fight.

There's no doubt that it would make the tank even stronger in many situations at the cost of requiring the player to move around every now in a while rather than just flame on.

The main reason it isn't in the build is that:
a) I've got a severe case of missing links to add something nice like Shield Charge - Faster Attacks - Fortify
b) I really like the ability to teleport across gaps with flame dash
c) I tend to forget moving around when caught in the midst of battle in favour of just standing still flaming unless things are going terrible (but not terrible enough that I'm already dead before noticing. :p)

I guess it one were to use unset rings that just happened to have high STR, INT, ES, and ideally a RES roll as well, one could move the auras to rings and gain room for SC-FA replacing FD, or SC-FA-FO replacing it with two such rings, but there's no guarantee that any such unset rings will appear on the market in any league.

Alternatively one would have to cannibalize one of the CWDTs.

The Molten Shell/Firestorm is one I really cannot recommend removing as it adds substantial damageoutput when the tank is suffering serious damage. The main link firestorm does around 50% more damage per invocation at 5L, about 100% more damage at 6L, and activates roughly three times per second, while the CWDT firestorm activates 2-4 times per second in any hard fight when regularly being damaged. And the Molten Shell explosion is just gorgeous.

If you are willing to give up this, you'll trivially find room for SC-FA-FO, but if not you have to cannibalize either the Elemental Overload or the Arkali Trigger or meld them together, either the way they were in the first iteration of the 3.0 build I published where I used CWDT1-BR6-IC3-IS and had the shield 3L used for CWDT damage (but that would be at the cost of good EO uptime on single bosses, so I cannot recommend that), or in another way.

I guess one could take advantage of the CWDT trigger order on equipment... currently both parts of the Arakali trigger are on the same CWDT, but they don't have to be given that CWDTs on different equipment pieces are processed in a deterministic order, and CWDTs of the same level will try to execute their spells in lockstep due to triggering on the same damage (with the spells own cooldowns, 250s or higher if the spell has a cooldown of its own) determining whether it does, and if they were on separate CWDT1's placed in the right order it would be just as good.

Interesting idea. I'll need to think a bit more about that.