[1.0.0.9] BWC Pyromaniac - because some men just want to watch the world burn

I. Concept

I like fire. Though Fire/Chaos caster pyromancer build already exists here, it’s quite out dated (I actually made this build before finding that thread) so I decided to post it anyway.

You can call this a glass cannon build but it’s quite sturdy for a caster, with really high single target and AOE damage. After all, everything burns :smiley: This build make use of every best bits of damage from BWC, Thermite Mine and Sigil of Consumption: Fire and Chaos. This is a true Fire/Chaos caster pyromancer

  1. Pros:
  • Massive AOE damage, you can burn the whole screen with just a few buttons clicked
  • Extreme RR, when everything aligned, you can have up to -140% RR :rolleyes: and that is with 16/16 thermite mine, 26/16 would add -10% more. But this is a build that makes me wonder if I ever need that much RR
  • Press-all-the-buttons kind of fun game play, with just a few buttons
  • Little energy management as long as you don’t spam Thermite mine
  • Good sustain, for a caster build
  • Abundant in skill points, I think I sprinkled the last 10 points around without know what to do with them, and that is with 50/50 mastery
  1. Cons:
  • Squishy, sub 9k HP. While sustain is good, you can get 1 shot and die, so don’t face tank (aka don’t play badly like me)
  • Have some trouble killing fast moving bosses due to the static mechanic of mine and BWC
  • No mobility skills, must run everywhere

II. Skills and Gears

  1. Skills and devotions:

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/O2GDjlVd
Grimcalc build (with +skills)
Grimcalc build (without +skills)

Stats: All physique

Devotion bindings:

  • Flame Torrent —> Thermite mine: This is not important, you don’t lack AOE
  • Eldritch Fire --> Flash Bang: spam Flash Bang to trigger Eldritch Fire
  • Fissure —> BWC: Create a danger zone with BWC
  • Elemental Storm —> Curse of Frailty: You curse can kill trash with it
  • Giant’s Blood —> any aura

The point in Witchfire and Second Rite is just to get a few flat chaos damage and %, since I have too many skill points anyway. If you don’t like them you can spec them out.

Going for Lantern devotion will sort out a lot of energy issue plus some CC resistance, it is better than going for Chariot, although Chariot offers more OA

Other than that the build is quite straightforward

Why not max Sigil?

Sigil consumes quite a bit of energy. I have to balance around the AOE, damage and energy for smooth game play, this is what I come up with. If you can manage, feel free to add more. After all, higher level of sigils only add the AOE, since the main fire/chaos damage come from Destruction anyway

  1. Gears:

Head: Infernal Knight’s Faceguard (Leathery Hide / Mankind’s Vigil (Black Legion))
Shoulders: Infernal Knight’s Pauldrons (Silk Swatch / Mankind’s Vigil (Black Legion))
Chest: Infernal Knight’s Jacket (Chains of Oleron / Mankind’s Vigil (Black Legion))
Main hand: Warpfire (Enchanted Flint / Creed’s Cunning (Black Legion))
Offhand: Aldanar’s Vanity (Enchanted Flint / Creed’s Cunning (Black Legion))
Hands: Wyrmbone Handguards (Unholy Inscription / Outcast’s Warding Powder (Outcasts))
Waist: Infernal Knight’s Girdle (Dense Fur / Outcast’s Warding Powder (Outcasts))
Legs: Seraphim Solael-Sect Legguards of Incantations (Silk Swatch / Outcast’s Warding Powder (Outcasts))
Feet: Stonehide Exalted Treads of Nature’s Bounty (Mark of Mogdrogen / Outcast’s Warding Powder (Outcasts))
Amulet: The Peerless Eye of Beronath (Soul Shard / Survivor’s Ingenuity (Devil’s Crossing))
Rings: Entropic Coil (Mark of Illusions / Survivor’s Ingenuity (Devil’s Crossing))
Rings: Entropic Coil (Mark of Illusions / Survivor’s Ingenuity (Devil’s Crossing))
Medal: Mark of Fierce Resolve (Soul Shard)
Relic: Ulzuin’s Pyroclasm

Thanks to the Infernal Knight set we have abundant of skill points. I think I have +15 on BWC :rolleyes:

If you don’t have, or don’t like Aldanar Vanity, Skyreach Bulwark is a good alternative which offers some better defense but a bit less damage (and you don’t really need more damage in this build)

The components on accessories are solely for energy management. If you somehow can manage it, feel free to change them

Just remember to keep the leathery hide on the helmet, because you need that stun reduction, trust me.

III. Leveling and Combat

Start with demolitionist side using firestrike or BWC, leveling should be easy, then add occultist for curse

The basic rotation is

  • Curse mobs first. Curse slow them so you don’t get swarmed
  • BWC + Flash bang on mobs, at the same time. You don’t really need mine for normal mobs, just tough bosses
  • Sigil on mobs or on your feet if you are swarmed
  • Run and wait for skill on cooldown
  • Keep spamming flash bang so you don’t get bursted down

IV. Dungeons & Bosses tips
Doing dungeon with FPS drop from recording on a squishy build is no fun :frowning: However as long as you play with care (aka not face tank) you should be fine. If you don’t get one shot, sigil and blood of dreeg will heal you back in no time.

Steps of Torment:

Stun resistance is important for Alkamos fight. Also feature a Moosilauke kill, which is very easy because he moves so slowly

Bastion of Chaos:

Just avoid the swarm of mobs and Shar’Zul’s Wind Devils, everything melt quickly anyway

Port Valbury:

Yeah, damage reflection is an issue, you can kill yourself just by standing near those cursed arcanists (thanks aura and on attack proc :rolleyes:) so watch out for them. Bosses melt like butter

Mad Queen:

Standard trap and kite

Nemesis:
Fabius and Iron maiden are issues because they move fast and have shadow strike. If they spawn next to each other then don’t try it, you can take them 1 by 1, not both, just run around, A LOT

Other nemesis bosses are easy because they move slowly

V. Crucible tips
Wave 1-100 fight in Crucible of the Deeps, it’s the easiest and fastest map for this build

Wave 100+ fight in Crucible of the Sands, it’s the best for chokehold trap (see video)

You will need to buy stun resist and HP buff, no needs for damage buff, and probably better control than me to go further than wave 120 at x10. Anyway it should be pretty viable, probably better if I use a shield instead of Vanity :smiley:

You just loooove burning stuff, don’t you :slight_smile:

Nice build and good guide!

Interesting, any thoughts on using non-transmuted BWC as a pyro?

Can you make up the energy needs somehow without losing too much efficiency, or is going Sorc (Demo/Arcanist) really the only option for non-transmuted BWC?

Why do you want non-transmuted BWC? The burn duration is longer than the 5 seconds cooldown, and you get the benefit of 275% multiplier. The only upside of non-transmuted BWC is that you can throw many at the same time, but you need to throw 2-3 to make up for the loss of AOE from transmuter

Hmm, hadn’t thought of it like that. I just find that trying to move quickly through the game means there’s constant enemies from multiple directions and since BWC is a main damage and RR delivery method, I feel like I wanna “lay down cover fire” in all directions all the time.

So waiting for the cooldown timer feels limiting, although it seems I’m just thinking about it wrong.

Even in crucible, the most swarmed place, you can still afford the 5 seconds cooldown. In vanilla game where you move from one group to another, 5 seconds per group is perfectly acceptable

I’ve read your build and have some questions:
-Why caster need fire strike, you are not face tanking so its uselss, also you can save point only to reach Blast Shield and spend more points into important skills.
-No need High Potency as caster as it reduces your dmg output.

  • Double enchant flint is no need as only 1 buff applies, a rift stone sound good for it grants blink skill.
    -Put 1 point on grenado or canister bomb, good for crowd control as it knockback all lesser.
    -Have you try Judicator’s Signets set? as it raises your OA a LOT.
    Try Chariot of the Dead more tanky and OA instead Magi, I love more dmg but survival too.

I feel that Sorc is a better option that Pyro for burning transmuted BWC caster. With Star pact you can drop caster offhand for Siedgebreacker, dmg loss is minimal. Aslo, transmuted Ct onepointer with maxed inferno burn like hell, literaly :smiley: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52280

You don’t need firestrike, it’s a fun thing to have in crucible where you can spread Warpfire proc quickly. And it’s only 3 points. In this build you have 10 skill points you don’t really need, feel free to put them anywhere you like

Theoratical damage isn’t everything. BWC damage doesn’t stack with itself, so throwing it repeatedly on the same mobs doesn’t do any good. There’s nowhere in the game (crucible included) that there are so many mobs that you can throw BWC everywhere. And as long as you move for 1 or 2 seconds, you wasted the cooldown of base BWC, which brings down its DPS, while with High Potency you can easily time it every 5 seconds

The 2 auras stack

Flash Bang is all you need for CC, it also affects bosses

Those 2 rings doesn’t offer good resistances. With Entropic Coil you can deal a lot of damage just by standing still

Chariot only gives OA, no survivability. Magi gives the needed flat fire/burn damage

If you want Chariot you can swap Lantern + Jackal out, but that makes it difficult to manage energy

Yes Sorc is the best for burning caster due to zero energy management and most fire/burn bonus. However, Sorc lacks consistent RR, because you depends on mine to proc, if enemies move fast out of mine then you are out of luck :rolleyes:

Sorc was my first fire/burn character, and having played the 2, Sorc damage isn’t all that higher (50k vs 60k tick) but a lot harder to land a good BWC

Strange, in offencive setup my sorc deliver up to 200k tick crits against MQ. If im lucky with Olreon crit, poor insect die in less that 10 sec. Even with Siedgebreacker i still do more that 100k DoTs on her.

How much benefit does a shield really bring to a BWC Pyro/Sorc over a solid offhand like Tome of Arcane Wastes or Aldanar Vanity or something? Without Soldier shield buffs, is it worth the tradeoff?

https://gracefuldusk.appspot.com/items/8062-Siegebreaker
18% Physical Resistance = 18% less dmg.
godlike AoE embeded skill with 380 flat IT half of wich you should convert to burning DoT. Its like an extra BWC every 4 second. And some life on top of it.

I meant using the same setup, your items are obviously better and more fine tuned than mine. I used the very same setup in this build for my Sorc

The shield can block up to 1k damage per second, though only 35% chance, it can still be counted as 350 damage block per second, which is equivalent to 350 HP regen. That alone is already worth it

The advantage of offhand are usually energy regen and CDR, but in BWC build you don’t really need CDR, and energy can be managed elsewhere, making the only benefit of offhand is damage bonus. If your damage is already enough, you are better off boosting your defense

Every build needs CDR, sorcerer even more than others.
Having like 2.7 s less CD on blast shield and 3.5 sec less CD on mirror on top of dmg and in most cases + skill bonus with offhand is way larger than anything shield can offer you.
Stating that AV is not such good off hand for even sorcerer much less pyro any more, you should consider changing it.

This is clear case of exaggerating, first converting half of IT to burn on setup that is using siegebreaker and warpfire in most cases is not so easy task cuz it requires dedicated conversion amulet and rings and 18% phys resistance is nice and strong but in any case is not 18% less dmg.

Maybe it’s just me but I think Blast shield is overrated. Yes it’s a good circuit breaker that can save your life, but if you need to have blast shield up constantly, maybe you should consider changing the play style to be less risky.

I’m having bad luck with some codex drop, only blue ones, no purple ones for now

I dont have problem with you thinking that blast shield is overrated but can you plz explain me again why do you think that shield is valuable? I mean both of them are offering flat dmg adsorption, with BS offering it, among other things, for every hit you take and shield only for some % of the hits with recovery time in between.

Hmm? I don’t really value the shield, that’s why I use Vanity. I said it’s a good alternative if you don’t need more damage. Some people (like me) would prefer a more relaxed play style where it’s hard to die and it’s ok to take 10-20% more time to kill stuff

In your upper post you just pinpointed the thing that I consider a flaw in your judging.
W/o soldier mastery to boost shield passives and overguard, having less CD on BS and mirror (or in pyro case BoD) will give you in worst case same if not more survivalbility than having a shield.

Oh, yeah, thtat right i completly forgot that Warpfire has no phyz conversion and it cold to fire dosent work if dmg was alredy converted. So it should be ~25% burn conversion for single enchanted flint and 35% with double enchanted flint. Another 30 % goes to frostburn and 5% for electrolute.
18% phyz res could be more that 18% dmg reduction from IM sticky atacks if you have some phyz res alredy. And IM is the most annoying mob in the game. :roll: