[1.3.0]PewPewPews official Starter-Friendly Incinerate Build | Stronger than ever!

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAAAecFLQhnDH0UIBZvGDwZihpVHwIhYCHDJ-0o-iqNLJwtHy2DLag1kjbFNtg26DrhPC1AoEGHRKtFnUkbTeNQR1WuVcZWLVfhWK9gS2EhZKNtGW-edO108XgNeqp674IegseDCYTvhTKHZYjxj0aPppDWkzqXBpeFmuCbtZwtnrmfy6ZXpwinMKlurFmsf6-3sZC18rc-t9a4k70nwfPDOsSixPbGrspKz2XQ0Ngk2wvbWedj6-7sVfJF8935Zfno_gr-jw==

This is going to be a bit tough to quantify as I don't actually how much damage per hit most folks are getting on incinerate at high levels. I can say that the break even point is 94 damage per hit at level 20 life leech, assuming you have a +8 paw. Note that this is actual damage done (after resists and such), not tooltip damage. If you are doing 95 or more damage per hit on average, then switching to Cybil's Paw should result some loss of survivability. If you are doing 93 or less average damage per hit, then Cybil's Paw should increase your survivability. The break even point for +7 paw is 82 damage, +6 is 71 damage, and +5 is 59 damage.

Damagewise, Cybil's Paw gives us 8-12% cast speed and likely between 36% and 78% spell damage. A "ideal" endgame wand tops out at 100% spell damage, 20% cast speed, and either 26 or 30% fire damage (not sure on exact number. It is also important to consider that using the Paw allows us to socket an additional support gem, and the damage from that gem must be factored in as well.


Conclusion: I suspect that for this change to work you will need a high roll on Paw's life gain per spell hit. That said, if you are willing to also go in for a lot of block chance passives it seems competitive with even high end wands, although an optimal wand will smoke Cybil's Paw on pure stats. That said, the ability to socket an additional support gem should provide a major DPS boost.

*Life return may be better or worse depending on paw roll and your damage. Paw benefits more from cast speed.

*Paw is probably going to provide worse damage than a nice wand, but it frees up a support gem which might easily make up the difference

Rathpith Globe vs. Saffell's Frame:

Globe provides +25-30% spell damage, +10% maximum life, +4% block chance, +150-200 energy shield, +7% lightning resist, and the ability to block physical attacks

Frame provides full spell block, +150-200 armor, +5% max resists, +18% fire and ice resists

Rainbowstride provides a nice bump to all resists, pushes up your spellblock, increases run speed a moderate amount, and provides a good chunk of mana and energy shield.

Not using Rainbowstride provides you with a lot more gearing options as you can find boots with whatever affixes you need. Some things that you might find on a pair of rare boots include magic find, better run speed, more resists, and life.

SJ says that the Anvil is only used in specific situations, so I'm not going to put too much effort into analyzing that vs. other amulets.

Conclusions: In terms of effectiveness, Rathpith Globe and Rainbowstride almost certainly gives you significantly better damage than Saffell's Frame plus whatever boots. It also should be a dramatic boost to survivability against physical damage. Your spellblock potential is roughly equivalent. You can get better spellblock with Saffell's, but not tremendously much. The advantage of Saffell's is that you gain quite a bit more elemental defense due to boosted max resists. Without flask use, you will take 20% less elemental damage with Saffell's. During the effect of a flask, you will take 33% less elemental damage with Saffell's. As far as other defensive stats go, Rathpith + Rainbowstride will give you a major boost in mana over Saffell's and rare boots, but you lose the opportunity to have a mana regen affix on your boots. The 10% life bonus from Rathpith is probably competitive with any life boost you are likely to get on rare boots.

Pros of Rathpith/Rainbow:

*Better damage
*Much better avoidance of physical damage
*More mana
*More lightning resist

Pros of Saffell's + Rare Boots

*Better elemental mitigation (20-30%)
*Maybe slightly better spellblock
*More gearing flexibility (can get resists, mana regen on boots)
*More cold/fire resist

First, lets compare Cloak and Mantle:

Cloak: +90-100 mana, +40-50% mana regen, 10% more mind over matter, no risk of extra damage when low on mana

Mantle: +350-400 ES, 5-10% more spell damage, 25-35% more fire damage, 9% better BASE damage for incinerate, 25% of fire damage as chaos damage

Now let's look at the changes to the skill trees:

Original tree: +2% max ele res, +24% armor, +22% to all ele resists, +70 raw life, +6% bonus life, +.5% life regen, -15% mana reserved (66 mana for clarity, ~270 mana for an extra aura) , +29% buff effect (+~15 mana per second from clarity, +160 mana from discipline), +36% fire damage, slightly better stun protection

SJ's tree: +34% chance to block, +2% evasion, 9% cast speed, 20% spell damage, +44 mana, +10% energy shield, +12% chaos resist, buffs to shock, +65% energy shield from shield (~+130 energy shield)

Conclusions: The original version provides a substantial boost to direct damage, featuring around +56% more fire+spell damage at the cost of 9% cast speed. The original version also provides a nice tool for bypassing fire resist to a degree through the chaos damage conversion (which is further improved if you have quality added chaos damage). It also has somewhat more life, with an additional 70 raw life, +6% bonus life, and +.5% life regen. If you are running Discipline, it also gives you around 250 more max mana and another 270 unreserved mana. If you are not running discipline, it only improves your max mana by about 100. It also provides a substantial improvement in your elemental defenses with an extra 22% to all resists and 2% max resists (an 8% reduction if no Saffells, 10% reduction with Saffells, 13% reduction if flask/no Saffells, 20% reduction if flask with Saffells).

SJ's version provides some chaos resist, potentially much higher damage if you take advantage of shock, +40-50% more mana regen (which should make up for the difference in clarity effectiveness and the differences in max mana and possibly exceed them), 9% higher cast speed, more effective Mind over Matter, basically double the block chance, and no risk of extra damage when at low mana. The higher block chance makes this much better against physical damage and provide good defense against spell damage as well, making up for the lower resists. Note that your incoming damage will probably be spikier as you are relying on avoidance rather than mitigation.

Pros of Mantle/original spec:

*More base damage
*Slightly more life
*More available mana if you use Discipline, moderately more max mana (but regen is comparable)
*More elemental resists and better elemental mitigation (allows more flexibility in gearing)
*Some fire penetration through chaos damage conversion

Pros of Cloak/SJ spec:

*Much better damage avoidance of physical attacks
*More effective Mind Over Matter
*Much higher spellblock
*Comparable mana regen despite somewhat lower max mana
*9% cast speed
*Chance to shock, which may result in more damage than the consistent base damage of the original spec

The basic differences here are Added Lightning and Added Cold instead of Faster Projectiles/Mana Leech and Life Leech. I can't really calculate the DPS increase because I'd need to know how much damage you are doing at baseline and that is going to vary a lot from character to character. I can say that added cold is going to give you an extra 33 damage per hit on average, and added lightning is going to give you an extra 38 damage on average per hit. This is before any bonuses are applied, but it does factor in the low damage effectiveness of incinerate. I suspect this will be a significant damage increase. As an added bonus, you get to shock and freeze enemies if you spec for it (see above) and use quality gems. This will dramatically improve you and your party's damage and the freeze will give you some added crowd control. Adding in the Taming should further improve your damage (a lot), especially if you are in a party where other players are inflicting burning/freezing/shock.

The clear disadvantages of this are that you are forced to use Cybil's Paw (see above), you lose some attack range and you lose the ability to mana leech. I'd think that this would make it harder to do maps with regen penalties. A compromise might be to keep access to two sets of gear, one with a blue slot and one with a green slot so that you can drop cold damage for mana leech in maps that require it. That's going to be pricey though.

Conclusions: This change should boost your damage substantially, particularly if you are in a party, but at the cost of restricting your gear choices and ability to do certain map affixes (albeit this latter disadvantage can be countered by being a rich bastard who can afford two well linked chests).

Pros of new gem configuration:

*More damage. Not sure how much but should be quite substantial especially in parties and especially if you use The Taming
*Chance to freeze

Pros of original gem configuration:

*Fewer gear restrictions (no need for The Taming, can opt to not use Cybil's Paw)
*Can more easily deal with maps with regen penalties (although this may be untrue if you can afford multiple well linked chests)

Dropping Discipline substantially boosts your max mana at the cost of some mana regen. Getting an extra +42% mana regen from gear should negate the difference in regen (see math in previous post). Adding a different aura is somewhat difficult, as you will lose a lot of mana to the reservation. That said, it still might be worth doing if you have a ton of max mana and can afford the reserve.

Some reasonable choices might be:

Purity of Elements (frees up gear for other affixes, smaller reserve)
Anger (more damage)
Wrath (more shock chances if building for shock)
Tempest Shield (some added shock chances if building for shock, a bit more block, small reserve)
Haste (more cast speed and movespeed)

Conclusions: If you can manage to get some more mana regen from your gear this is probably worth doing.