And now, part 23 of my controller friendly build series: Physical Flames of Ignaffar Tactician
This is a good build, and I’m sure it could clear SR85 with better greens. Unfortunately, everything I have is terrible for this. I also have never felt less sure when choosing items for a build. Since Physical and FoI have so few synergistic items, there are few obvious choices. I also may have gone too far in putting energy regen in the devotions. Ultimately, it works for SR80, but I won’t claim that there’s not significant room for improvement.
This is my fourth FoI build, and definitely the lowest damage. It’s also the tankiest, but I still manage to die quite frequently past SR80. I’m not sure why. Probably I’m just terrible.
grimtools link. The MI prefixes and affixes are just the best I had.
Playstyle: stand and cast FoI
Screenshot is without temporary buffs.
Video proof of clear
Fight tips
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Offense: War Cry on cooldown, Horn of Gandarr to proc Ulzaad’s Decree. I believe Maul is applied in a 4.5m circle centered on the caster, so use War Cry when you’re within that range of your target.
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Defense: Stand in Inquisitor Seal. You can use Horn of Gandarr to fill in the damage reduction gap between War Cry’s cooldowns.
Gear
As usual, the resists are overcapped to deal with resist reduction on high SR.
Essential Gear:
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Tome of Names: enables this build
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Essence of the Grim Dawn: damage to health makes this key. It has other good features.
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Bloodsworn Sigil: the damage to health is vital. A good one would also give really good stats.
Stuff I’m pretty sure is best in slot:
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Combustion Band: Cast speed, physical resist reduction, and 4 points in FoI skills.
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Gauntlets of Ignaffar: doesn’t have physical damage, but it’s great in other respects.
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Incendiary Casque: Bonuses to FoI are big. It’s possible that something boosting War Cry, a Fleshwarped Casque, for instance. Would actually be stronger, if you have everything else perfect.
Other stuff:
I’m not even going to list all the alternatives. There are so many that I don’t remember.
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Ring of the Black Matriarch: physical resist reduction is about its only virtue, so there could be something much better.
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Loghorrean’s Corruption: The OA and DA are big, but there are other options.
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Boneshatter Treads: I think I chose this for OA.
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Scales of Beronath: I think I choose this for OA, as well.
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Serenity: Oleron’s Wrath, Bane, and Doom are the alternatives.
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Valaxteria’s Arcane Robes: With perfect rolls, this would be best. But without, there are other options.
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Havoc: a good Ugdenbog Flamestrife would be better, but I can’t get one. This ends up giving more damage than any Flamestrife I have, plus the utility of +1 to all skills in inquisitor.
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Arcane Harmony Leggings: “I know I’m probably the biggest fan of these, but I believe a build is only as strong as its weakest link, and without disruption protection you will really struggle against certain enemies. +84/126 spirit is great, and +84/126 DA is awesome as well. The resistances are good too. I don’t know why other people don’t use this as much as I do.” – me, on like 80% of my builds.
Devotions
The way I do devotions is to start with full offense, then redistribute points into defense until I stop dying at my target SR. I went for a bunch of energy regen, which is necessary, but I think I went too far.
Core:
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Assassin’s Blade: physical RR
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Dire Bear: the armor shred is important for complicated reasons.
Energy regen stuff
I don’t even have to use potions, so I went too far here. I’m not sure which of the three I should cut out, so I didn’t.
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Scales of Ulcama: the resist reduction is also useful during War Cry’s downtime.
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Bard’s Harp:
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Harvestman’s Scythe
Skill Choices
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FoI: the point
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Word of Renewal: is there an Inquisitor build that doesn’t use this?
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Inquisitor Seal: not a huge fan of this, but I had the points to make it decent.
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Horn of Gandarr: Something is necessary for Ulzaad’s Decree, and this one somewhat works. Word of Pain is an option, but I didn’t think it was worth putting the points into it that would make it reasonable. I would probably have used Blitz if I had an Ugdenbog Flamestrife, but it can’t be used without a melee weapon so it wasn’t an option.
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War Cry: reduces enemy damage, and has huge resist reduction.
Leveling
There are two paths to levelling this. One, the straightforward way, is to go with a physical Cadence build until sufficient conversions are available, and then switch to FoI. I didn’t do this.
I ran FoI skills, but put all the points towards levelling the final devotions. Early on, when devotions are slim, it just played like a bad FoI build (since Soldier doesn’t offer much there). It wasn’t bad. At level 58 I unlocked the conversion I needed, and it was a straightforward levelling experience after that. Like all FoI builds, you’re going to need to manage your skill choices so you don’t go through your energy too quickly. It’s harder when you don’t put points in spirit. That said, put points in spirit. You may get greens that allow you to remove them at the end, but you won’t be able to equip off-hand sources without them.
Here’s the gear that I equipped at level 58, and the build got strong. Decree of the Circle of Five x2 is a great option, but Gavel of Ravenous souls could also be useful. Beronath, Reforged, gives the conversion from level 75, but the armor piercing reduces your damage.
