2H Pyromancer FS + high DoT burn/IT DoT

Grim Dawn Classes, Skills and Builds
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1

This a pyro focused on 2H dot. It has reasonable non-dot dps, as well.

The image shows about 50K burn on the Nemesis Zantarin, while I take it easy around a corner and get a nice SS of his shotgun attack. That’s a fairly typical burn dot with current gear and without too much effort. This would be first-iteration build burn.

The burn damage keeps an appropriate pace in the campaign with attention to modifiers(%fire/burn and flat burn) and skills. Bellow are a number of builds that show the progression of the build, as better gear is found.

3. GRIMTOOLS: 3rd and current Iteration of Build. Almost entirely melee now, supported by better item finds Korvak’s Deception Relic allows for much flexibility in melee play…almost like a ranged kite, if desired. Switched a constellation, better components, changed some skills around to suit the new style. Higher DA/OA. Even faster trash clear.

2. GrimTools: 2nd iteration of Build: Tweaked for melee/ranged combo and more burn The DA/armor and phys % resist is boosted with the better set gear, which permits a lot of safe melee fun. The proc on the 2H Mythical Infernal Brimstone is very nice for fast trash clear. Other 2H with fire/burn focus would also work.

1. GrimTools (build at the end of the campaign. skill allocation=almost entirely focused on ranged) This needs to be imagined with worse equipment as most of this shows the better equipment that I found through later farming; In actuality, armor was ~1700 with 80%ish absorption/around 2400DA - heavy reliance on Blast Shield, normal Helborne rifle (not mythical) and Conflagration Relic . Similar augments and weaker rings.

A quick note on DOT:

  1. dot is not particularly influenced by weapons speed. The main effect is to reapply the dot portion of the weapon damage and it will not stack with itself. The highest active dot value on any particular mob is used.

The same mechanics follows for other skill extensions such as Explosive Strike (Fire Strike). ES will not stack with itself - it has the same limitations but it is considered a different dot source from base %wpn and will stack with %wpn dot burn.

  1. weapon speed does influence:
    -more chances to override the current dot with a better dot value from %wpn damage (ie, crit dot)
    -higher non-dot damage
    -more chances to activate your various attack procs that are not in cooldown.

Depending on the mix of weapon damage, combat style may change for the big enemies.

-larger dot on the weapon generally means less reliance on pure attack speed. Once a crit happens, and if you have a long dot duration = most of the weapon damage is wasted for that duration.

For playstyles that are very direct-fire and weapons speed focus = more non-dot focus and less dot

I found this build to be quite fast at farming and fairly durable with reasonable damage numbers. Most of the gear I’m wearing is from farming after I finished the ultimate campaign. I was actually looking for parts to try one of the geared choas DW builds posted for comparison. As I farmed and swapped in the better gear I found, this build kept gaining dps, as well as a significant increase in tankiness.

It stacks burn/IT from weapon + multiple sources. Numbers are in reference to Ultimate difficulty.

I use Oleron’s Blood on the weapon for the large 355% WD effect which allows for a huge multiplier on the WD burn portion. Since this dot persists for quite a while, it overshadows the amount that FS could potentially apply @122%WD; WD of any % is considered the same source. And the extra oomph from the WDx3.5 application shot itself is nice too.
Olerion’s Might is only needed for the tougher kills, so most of the time it is not in use when clearing general mobs.

*Oleron’s Might also applies 20% Damage Reduction to the target for 5s.
This is pretty significant: order is %dmg reduction, armor, % resists, % dmg absorption (Possession), flat reduction (Phoenix Fire, Blast Shield).

One could almost say the build is a poor-man’s Inquisitor wanna-be (inquis does all this defensive with runes/aura and more…the pro/con of Phoenix Fire flat reduction is that it is not tied to a rune and is mobile, but only lasts for 7s)

Max damage gameplay = Stack with a flurry of hotkeys (Flashbang, Curse of Frailty, Thermite mine, Bwc, Canister, Grenado, Firebreath, Kymons pot), throw down mortar trap and tank/shoot or kite/shoot. If you can get away with a small face time, you can do it all. If not, you apply as allowed and live longer. Repeat once dot duration runs out or to add more non-dot damage from grenades and stuff.

Ymmv with what your are fighting (Resists), how often you reapply to get those crits, whether your target stays in the mine/BWC, or if you need to kite them through the mines/Bwc, etc. I think the monster database indicates ultimate mobs get 18% base resists and 5% phys in addition to whatever else.

35k - 100k+ dot is the typical range for burn over a fairly long time period due to +390% duration.

50k dot is pretty common with just basic shot/grenades/mines and breath and minimal effort…fairly average crit luck for a couple of applications. Sometimes you can get that much burn stack from pure crit on WD ( Vulnerability + 30K crit from Oleron’s + ~6k crit from Explosive Strike)

For number observations, I’ll often just lay into the bosses and stand back and watch the numbers tick for a while. Fabius is particularly amusing as you just follow the little DoT numbers on his invisible head; even with mostly kiting, I can usually put at least 60K dot on Fabius the entire time.

The rough damage numbers for the grimcalc with items shown above :
Note Grim Calc seems to mess up some numbers and %boosts so the following is pulled from the character in game, although the items, stats and everything else is identical.

Summary: ~+2200% fire, ~+2000% burn with +400% duration, ~+800% trauma. Flat burn bonuses where possible, with some flat fire.

Typical crit +~50. +25% more for Oleron’s might.

  1. Base weapon apr damage

Standard attack speed for weapon is 2.67 on sheet.
Oleron’s Might does 3.5x when used. If not worrying about putting on burn stacks you have ~15k +3.5 burn here during a prolonged shoot, which would only be the case for heros or bosses.

~ 25 k avg base dps for easy numbers --not including the burn portion (as it follows dot rules).
(2.67x (14000 misc WD - 5k burn) = ~24k dps with an Oleron’s Might shot of ~30k every 3.5 sec. No burn portion or crit. included)

  1. Burn stacking:

Oleron’s Might: 5k x 3.5 =~17.5K
Explosive strike ~3.5k
Cannister ~4.5 Canister will often crit, especially on large targets due to the multiple chances. But only one canister bomb can add to burn. So this is usually >7k
Fire breath from Infernal Helm ~9k
Kymons Wrath Tincture (Faction) ~7k
Helfire Mine ~1.7k (they don’t stack with each other)
Bwc ~ 1.4k
I’ve got Meteor Storm tied to Mortar Trap - MS ~4.5K

~50K
not including crits or %RR (mines, Vulnerability, BWC, Eldritch fire, Elemental Storm), the further potential stacking burn damage from Pheonix fire, Elemental Storm, and Mythical Reign of Ice and Fire burn proc chance. Or temp bonuses like the pants proc, etc.

  1. Internal Trauma stacking for 5 sec:

Oleron’s might ~0.8k
Cannister ~1.6k
Grenado ~1.8k (which can crit x2.2 x 2, if you get lucky)

~4k.
nothing too spectacular for IT numbers , but IT only gets phys %DR and no armor. Also CoF/BWC has a small %RR. So it usually impacts. Not counting crits.

And then there is the fire damage from all the burn sources (Breath, Kymons, Greanado, Mines upon initial application of the burn stacks).

**TDLR: Damage adds up to 50 + 4 dot + 25 wpn dps = near 80K per sec without considering extras or crits. Not too bad.

OA/DA/Crits:
Generally between 10-25 crit%chance on bosses, depending on gear swaps. OA ~2700-2900 depending what I swapped out for the medal; Medals are easy to find with various resists and HP and are a good swap option.
-There are 2 x +50 OA consumable potions (Black legion faction and Elixer of Dragoul) which ends up around 3k OA with % bonuses.
-Flashbang gives -150 DA, at 7/12 and 10/10 Vulnerability’s -75DA stacks with FB for -225DA.
(Roughly crit% ~ your OA relative to monster DA…both OA+ and -DA impact this.)

RR:
fire/burn %RR is -30% Vulnerability - 34% Thermite Mine -23% Eldritch Fire@15% chance. ||- 13 Agonizing Flames OR -32 Elemental Storm@25% chance
Internal Trauma only benefits from -15% Curse of Vulnerability and -13 Agonizing Flames.
If you manage to luckily make this all come together you could get near x2 burn just from negatives, even counting the 18% default elemental resist.

In theory, you could get some very serious burn numbers. However, usually the easy bosses die quickly without this effort and the harder ones don’t let you stack things neatly in front while they stand around and watch.

Btw,
Canister is great for clearing ultimate AoM + GD trash mobs : with high burn they are usually almost dead or dead when stun wears off. Or run through after application while they wilt. Sometimes you gotta watch for hidden tough guys, though!
Further, canister is great for procs. I put Pheonix Fire on it for that reason and the cd is about right for the duration.: ie, 10 x 10% crit chance bombs is ~65% chance to proc. Often the real numbers can be around 20% which is ~90% proc chance.

Leveling:

Basically with mid gear it’s about maxing %fire/burn/burn duration and work on getting flat burn on weapon. Cannister at 9/12 or so until points get easier + FB for more CC and only heros and Bosses are problems = kite.
Blast shield for short protection until armor and DA get decent enough.
Work on boosting Explosive Strike, then Brimstone and lastly FS base skill to base max. then over max ES and Brim.
Initially Get Demo levels with enough Occultist for Witchfire and maybe Cof/Vulnerability.

Devotions:

Intially focus defensive and survival, use to fill defensive gaps. Tweak as you get better gear.

My Final:
Eel for DA and blue
Lion for some health and yellow
Scholar’s light and Quill for bit of damage and purple/yellow
Solael’s Whitcblade for damage and proc
Ghoul,Chariot of Dead, Behemoth defensive procs Da/OA/Regen and colors
Alladrah’s Phoenix for fire/burn defence and a proc that not only burns but the flat absorbtion is very nice when your armor absorption is not 100%
Ulzin’s Torch for damage
Kraken for damage.
Rhowan’s crown to proc for damage.

Note: there is another path that could get about the same damage/hp with slightly more WD dps and OA: Remove Phoenix and Lion and yellow crossroads, complete Kraken (atk speed) and Rhowan’s crown for colors, add Hawk (more OA) and crossroads purple, (OA) for colors, and the first star of Magi (damage). Nets you 20% apr and 33+3%OA

Pheonix fire may not be your thing, but I thought it was really good for filling the armor absorption gap while I found better stuff and basically I wanted to try it. Now that I’ve got much better gear, I’m not so committed to it. Plus, I found my OA to be fine with gear - I mostly used a medal with >100 OA that I bought from the vendor in Blood Grove.

I’ll died a few times as I tweaked and experimented with learning the game and bosses/resistances needed/etc with mid-tier-gear ~1700 armour. At the time I had some Legendary and Empowered gear for most, Conflagration Relic, but no Mythical gear except the Medal which I swapped in for tougher bosses. That got me through all the content, including the first secret quest and second…although I didn’t have the dps at that time to overcome Lokarr’s regen, but I did kill his pack of spawns more than a few times before I gave up.

Oh…and it works about the same with a 2H melee, for damage, but maybe needs some more defense commitment. I found a number of good 2H melee and experimented. Brimstone doesn’t get the AoE, but it does get the flat damage. I probably would consider moving some points into Occultist SoC/destruction from somewhere. I tried this particular respec on Ultimate Sentinel for a bit and I didn’t have the armor items /or dps for life regen yet, so changed back to ranged to kill him.

With good amour and a ranged playstyle, as the grim tools shows currently: I would consider upping Flashbang for more -DA. Maybe moving some points from Possession as current armor gear can reach 3500 (100% absorb) and maybe some from Blast shield. I used to run with maybe 1700 armor at 82%? % absorption and rely fairly heavily on Blast Shield.

I should also mention that I did try pulling the stun from cannister for +25% damage and using a couple of points in Stun Jacks for CC…but canister has much better range and it was just not worth the extra hassle for 2k more burn.

Finally, the gear I have is the best that I could find to date. I originally was thinking of using Ulzins’ set but I have only found the Justice set pieces. I just found an Entropic Ring, which I might swap in for harder bosses/kiting in place of the Ring of Fire and Ice, as Entropic has a nice ranged burn proc. Ring of Fire and Ice is great for general clears, but terrible for kiting, as the proc is stationary and takes a bit of positioning effort; the lesser pair version, the Elemental ring set is quite good for kiting - due to how the proc moves along with you.

There you have it…an alternative to the Chaos DP builds :slight_smile: Also my first build and character, so comments are welcome. I acutally used a game controller. I thought this character would be 4 buttons max and easy for allocation. Little did I know it would end up wanting way more button options than I had, lol.

Attachment: 2Hpyro.jpg

2

I also tested the Annihilation Relic, which I recently found. I really wanted to like the proc, but it is:

1.Slow, so almost impossible to use when having to kite some harder bosses (could potentially be good on Kra’vall and other immobile bosses, though).
2. Small radius so it’s not particularly good at clearing
3. costs a lot of energy…about 2-3x that of fire breath, which does more burn and almost no CD.
4. has a long CD, so if you miss you are SoL
5. Has no % burn bonus on the main!
6. Has no flat burn, which Ulzin’s Pyroclasm has.

3

I was a bit irked for a while that 99% of the really good pyro fire/burn items I found seem to be geared towards Demo/Inquisitor. Even some very interesting MIs. Grr, what is with that Crate …not everyone is automatically going to go ranged demo/inquisitor even with the new class introduction. Anyways I got used to that. At least the Darkblaze belt fits a fire/burn-based demo/Occultist.

4

For a rifle burn pyro i’d really give ulzuin set a shot as well. Especially after 0.5 buffs.

Hellborne kinda needs Bursting round for a chance to stack high DoT

5

That was my first plan. I’ve yet to find more than one piece of it and by themselves, they are kind of lacking (resists, etc) for what you can swap around. (imho).

It would have been really nice if Helborne put some burn to Grenado like the Cindercore pistol. Or burn to Mortar Trap. Those are the only 2 that don’t have any burn to stack. Thus Grenado is a bit disappointing here, but it makes a nice alternate crowd clear when cannister is on CD, since Helborne essentially doubles the radius of Grenado.

Plus…Helm of Infernal truth carries a lot of burn stack with Fire breath. I had the non-mythical version for the entire campaign, but FB on that is almost as good as the mythical. Armor value is lacking, though. I know the Ulzin has a nice proc, but I don’t know how the overall switch would stand up in terms of burn stack.

6

It stacks well:D Especially due to the very high %crit dmg on the Set. %Crit is king for good dots. And the advantage is that you don’t need to stop and cast sthings so much. MAsk of infernal breath animation is very long. I think you can do~200K Dots in campaign. At least with my setup. I didn’t have annihilation relic.

I’ll check my Pyro GT when I get home

7

I tweaked this build to take advantage of the strong armor of the Justice pieces and the stronger gear of the 94+ tier. It clears the general mobs at a pretty rapid pace and puts more burn on single targets.

I use melee a fair bit now armor is bit better. Mythical Infernal Brimstone(2H Mace) has a really nice proc for fast clears and initiating a bit more burn on bosses. The fact that it has mostly identical features to Hellborne Rifle means that I can swap at will and the numbers and intent stay closely aligned. It allows for lots of fun mix and match play and variety when re-running spots (Such as Garbol).

I maintain bleed, pierce and chaos over-capped simply because I run the Grove Roguelike fairly routinely.

I like the Phoenix burn even more now. The flat damage reduction isn’t that notable now, but the 7s of 5m burn aura fits really well for fast clears.

Tweaks:

  1. Canister Concussive Bomb skill removed and Canister itself increased to max. Improved casing doesn’t add much, so left that at minimum. General mobs die so fast now that stun is never needed and bosses don’t typically see any stun anyways. (I’ve upped Flashbang, and that solves any critical CC on harder mob mixes, such as the various deathrooms and such)

  2. Flashbang to 12/12 and moved Metoer shower to proc from this. I used to need Mortar and use it all the time with lesser gear, but now I rarely use Mortar. I rarely use Grenado either, for that matter…

  3. Brimstone reduced to 6/12. Looking at the numbers and my playstyle…it was far more effective to put the extra into cannister.

  4. Blast shield reduced to 10/12. With 3500 armor in most battles (armor +gear procs), BS rarely goes off anymore. Dropping the resist help from 6% to 5% was no big loss.

  5. Changed Mythical Mark of Divinity to a Kymon’s Badge. Better numbers in OA, burn, and same HP. MoD proc was nice when I had squishy armor. Not needed now.

It’s not uncommon to see ~100k + burns on bosses with an effort and since the tweaks my max dps recorded was ~220K. That of course would include normal dps on top of the burn stacks from most sources. I think the highest burn I’ve seen on a boss was 180K.

8

The build is end-game viable.

I got around to Lokarr again and beat him this time with the higher gear. Obviously fire/burn is less than optimal for that fight.

It wasn’t pretty and I ran out of healing pots 1/2 way through, but it was durable enough to keep going more cautiously with just the healing procs and BoD.

Took fairly long, though. However, now that I’ve had a feel for Lokarr, it might be faster next time. Main thing was to just keep enough dot on him to counter his regen, even when having to defensively kite while trying to heal.

I started the first half melee with the 2H mace, but he dishes out a fair beating - so last half was ranged.

This is one of those fights where the Viper constellation might be handy, since he’s got something like 98% resist and it’s not that easy to get him to sit on some mines/Bwc for too long. I’m not sure how I’d juggle the devotions for that, though.- but it should be doable if so desired.

9

Hey man. Good job beating lokarr!

Just a few questions though…

  1. From my perspective, limited as it may be, the build seems very scattered. For example, I fail to see any significant source of IT --> Burn conversion, and therefore am wondering about the relevancy of improved casing. Ditto for shattering blast. If stacking burn damage on bombs is something you’re interested in, I suggest looking into cindercores.

  2. On that front, I feel that splitting yourself between your 'nades and mace gimps the build quite a fair bit. For example, every moment you spend throwing bombs, is a moment you’re not smacking away, and vice versa. I would focus on either one of these 2 aspects. E.g. Maxing out ulzuin’s chosen for better CD, or investing more into the FS line.

I totally get/respect that this build is all about stacking different sources of burn damage, but I’m not sure if this is the most efficacious way to go.

EDIT: Just saw hellborne. Would consider The adversary or Cindercores instead.

2nd EDIT: Once you’re happy with it, maybe you would kinda-sorta-teensy-lil-bit-wanna submit it to the compendium? :stuck_out_tongue:

10

You are not mistaken. (also, feel free to suggest improvements…it’s really a WIP)

  1. There is actually very little IT, it is more of a side-effect. Minimal Improved Casing is more for the +fire and burn bonus.

The build isn’t really optimized for single target, but I suppose it could be. The original goal was more of a fast and lazy clear for trash mobs, and it currently does that well.

Main single target dot comes from Oleron’s Might (355%wpn burn) and FS Explosive Round burn will stack with the %wpn burn. After that it is mostly adding more damage with the non-burn weapon dps (either melee or ranged). ofc mines/bwc and canister can stack burn as well.

  1. As for stacking burn vs pew-pew. It is a different way of combat thinking and not worth it for the little stuff. In a combat where I reach 200K dps, probably 160k+ of that is a crit burn stack. Continuously, for ~8 seconds. If you can stack 30k+ on a difficult group, then 1/2 the work is done by the time you get around to shooting each one - that might be as easy as CoF + one cannister. Sometimes you stack and it allows you to stay focus on the boss while many lesser things die off before they get too annoying.
    Stacking doesn’t really take that much time away from shooting.

Keep in mind, though, that the dot portion of the %wpn is not incremented by more weapon speed, only refreshed (the biggest current dot portion is in play). So dot is indeed limited in that manner. Which might have been your second point.

If you want the main focus to be on weapon speed + %wpn in general - then it is better to focus on non-dot types of damage.

Grenado and Mortar were really handy when gear was lesser and damage was low. Not critical now and those could be moved. They still do damage and Mortar is fire and forget.

Maxing Ulzin’s Chosen has some pros/cons. Statistically a ~1 in 4 CD chance for 1 point investment was acceptable for me and I personally don’t count on that chance in play. 12/10 increases that to only a 1 in 3 chance. With +400% burn duration, the canister burn length would effectively have continuous burn during the normal CD on any target that outlives it. On a large boss target with central placement, the chances are good that at least one of the bombs will crit - so the burn dot wouldn’t really get better with more applications as only the largest bomb dot is used on a target. The other stats of UC imho are of pretty limited value as they only apply to Canister or Gremado.

2H means devotion Kraken big %damage is available. So ymmv with other constellations, but that +170% to everything is nice.

I like Helborne and the Infernal Brimstone mace because they both have a high flat burn and +2 to skills. (I’ve added a bit more flat from Kymon burn augments but it’s not critical). Each also has a flat retaliation burn that could stack but that is not that terribly significant.

The weapon choice is pretty flexible if it has decent flat burn. I’ve used various fire /burn weapons along the way such as a Conflagration rifle and Sharzul’s mace. Primarily ranged.

However before the better gear and for almost the entire campaign, including the initial rouguelike runs, it was predominantly ranged due to mediocre gear. Melee was pretty risky when Blast shield is almost stronger than the armor value (at that time) - and 4s isn’t long if you want to get mixed in. The main result was more points into BS, FS and the tree and less in cannister with the cannister stun helping CC for the slower kill speeds. Meteor Shower was attached to Mortar and Mortar was most always in play.

Current high DPs is listed ~240K. I saw 100K burn on Lokarr a few times but I’ll wager it was 1/2 that or less for most of the fight.
With my non-mythical-and-some-purples campaign gear it was maybe 160K or less.

This evolved into a hybrid melee/ranged possible due to the best that gear I found. Ranged is slightly less dps and safer, but the melee also gets the Shoulder Guards of Justice melee bonus for a little safer melee clear. Some runs I’ll use ranged, others melee and some mixed. The burn stacking doesn’t see too much impact.

It is entirely likely that this could be optimized for either melee or ranged. For pure melee it needs more leech if less kiting play is desired and it could dip into Soc/Destruction for that. Ranged could be possibly better with Ulzin’s Avatar set, or possibly with the stuff you mentioned.

11

(Added this to main post as well)

A quick note on DOT:

  1. dot is not particularly influenced by weapons speed. The main effect is to reapply the dot portion of weapon damage and it will not stack with itself. The highest active dot value on any particular mob is used.

  2. weapon speed does influence:
    -more chances to override the current dot with a better dot value from %wpn damage (ie, crit dot)
    -higher non-dot damage
    -more chances to activate your various attack procs that are not in cooldown.

Depending on the mix of weapon damage, combat style may change for the big enemies.

-larger dot on the weapon generally means less reliance on pure attack speed. Once a crit happens, and if you have a long dot duration = most of the weapon damage is wasted for that duration.

For playstyles that are very direct-fire and weapons speed focus = more non-dot focus and less dot

12

Welp, got the Cindercore blueprint drop and gave 2x cindercore a try.

Overall quite disappointing for this combo of Occult/Demo (see below) and generally a big loss in direct fire burn stack, as well as not too much change in canister burn stack and a fair loss in my playstyle flexibility. I’d say doable in the campaign, though.

I’d recomment that if you want to employ 2x cinder you should look at Chthon’s Lord of Cinder.

Chthon’s runs a similar burn idea (Fiend proc instead of Phoenix proc) with much less emphasis on extra direct dot/non-dot dps and more on rune-defensive burn-stack/aura burn/defense/more OA->inquis buffs.

The biggest issue with Canister is the cd and even with pretty high Ulzins Chosen you’d still not get a free toss 66% of the time. Inquis runes add some flex and so does cindercore Grenado…

Damage-wise, with 2H, Kraken and Phoenix burn boosts (1000% ish), the canister is fairly equal to the big flat boost of 2 x cindercore. Generally a well-place canister has a decent chance to crit even with 15%+ crit chance. [Somewhere around 55% if you can get a 5 bomb-straddle. On a larger target, it’s possible to get them all to straddle]. Longer burn duration of 160% means a few more seconds for a good stack to burn. This is mainly for single target consideration and not thinking about packs of uber-cricibles (I don’t have cruci). Obviously more OA is better, but just saying that canister bomb #s can mitigate it somewhat).

But, on occult/demo, a slot is also needed to permit the dual-pistols…so some loss on choice here.

Ofc, I was just testing with the gear I have in storage…so meh, might be better gear for the mix. I have played with Embercore shoulderguard and found the Magma Orb proc to be lacking: good for slow and stutter-step but terrible for fast and distance kites -so I’m biased here; the free skills are on point, though.

TDLR, I think inquis is better to give the 2x cindercore some real oomph. (lol, what doesn’t Inquis make better?! heh)

13

Update.

3. GRIMTOOLS: Current Iteration of Build. Almost entirely melee now

Alsmost entirely melee playstyle now.

Changes:
-Korvak’s Deception Relic and Blazing Charge (blazing charge is pretty damn useful imho.)
-swapped Scholar’s light to hawk
-changed ring components
-swapped some skills around for efficiency
-moved procs as follows:
a. elemental storm-> blazing charge. [INDENT]Puts on the charge target at 85% success on first attack. Statistically slightly less than 100% if can get more than 1 target tight together. I had considered Flashbang(@45%), for the CD, but mana cost of FB is up now and BCharge allows me to pinpoint the target when a large group. As comparison on weapon@3apr and 25% gives ~58% and isn’t a lead-in attack.
b. meteor shower ->Oleron’s might (same CD, 100% proc)
c. ghoulish hunger-> Possession. When all your buffs get removed, Possession stays on sometimes.
[/INDENT]

Since dot remains (for that one application) at the same value for the entire burn, it is most efficient to have all %RR up before the burn is applied.

Best value attack:

  1. Blazing charge to desired target = elemental storm (32RR)…farily high chance
  2. Vulnerability, Thermite mine, Flashbang (32+34 RR) …+ very small chance for more from Eldritch fire
  3. Oleron’s Might then Canister, flame breath. Cannster usally procs Phoenix Fire. Can also pop a Kymon’s Wrath Tincture at this point.
  4. Whack once with Fire Strike to stack on burn from Explosive Strike

[INDENT]1. This puts over 100K burn on the target for 8+ seconds.
2. The target has 20% DR from Olerons Might for 5s with a buffer of 100+flat reduction from Phoenix Fire for 7s.
= small window to decide on what next tactic will be:

[INDENT]a.tank and dps (note: no dot portion of dps because that is already applied). In this case drop a Blackwater for some -OA to the mob. Drop a mortar.
b. or kite and repeat
c. attack something else in the meantime. You could leave a mortar behind to speed up the demise.
d. other,[/INDENT]
[/INDENT]

etc. Really only need this much effort for bosses. For trash mobs only do the minimum needed, which is usually Charge (maybe + canister)

One caveat: even though 83% over-capped fire res with Blast shield (+5% +flat reduction), you have to pay attention to reflect a little bit. You can stack a fair bit of burn on yourself - which is not terribly hard to counter by itself - but will have some tight consequences if the the enemy is stacking other dots on you concurrently. Some of this build’s burns run for 20s. Blast shield is only 4s and also could be on CD.

Korvak’s Deception Relic’s Blazing Charge allows for much flexibility in melee play…almost like a ranged kite, if you will.

Finally, with the higher skill investment, Flashbang and Canister suck a fair bit of mana, so keep an eye on that. Mana Pots will cover the fat drain but it does drain quickly if you are hopping from group to group like a maniac. More careful play makes for much less drain for the general run.

P.S. Eventually I’d like to try swapping in the #$*%# elusive Shard of Eternal Flame, and using The Justicar set Helm for the full set proc; I think I could get away without flame breath. The Mask of Infernal Truth has the conversion to Canister 100% pierce->fire, which makes for QoL in very fast mob clears.

14

4th iteration GrimTools. Very fast and fluid

No MIs, now. Except the medal, for which there is no great legendary for this build…meh maybe Mark of Divinity. (I used to have one on with poor gear - and it was great in that case - but I swapped it out long ago once the armor and DA got higher with better gear).

Grey Magi boots are ok for the ele% and ather % resists and a for some spirit which = small damage increase and a large QoL mana regen when rushing through stuff. They have kind of low armor, though, and there is little benefit from the proc move bonus; the proc armor bonus is ok, though.

(However, I think a good stoneplate greaves roll: Stalwart of Readiness or other could add a nice bit of DA and be better. Or use something else - I just wanted a to test Grey Magi, mostly)

-moved Giant’s Blood devotion proc to Blast shield (=100% proc @60% health). Better proc defense against nullification when in mob packs (=buffs dispelled).

-swapped the amulet from Essense of Baronathh -> Darkblaze ammy. Gives a bit of cirt/vitality conversion/OA. Works out to slight non-dot dps increase.

-ditched Grenado a while back, so swapped Gargabol’s ring with an Entropic Coil which has a really high chance for a good dot on a single target with the use of Canister.

-similarly, moved to the Justicar Helm for Justice set dot proc .

-moved a few points from Flashbang to Blackwater Cocktail for a little more tank benefit…

I thought I’d miss the extra Pierce->fire conversion from the Mask of Infernal Truth for speed of trash clear, but I haven’t really noticed it. In any case, ~1k of cannister burn was lost.

All in all very fun. Most non-boss stuff is just a few hotkeys. Kamakaze to the center with Blazing charge and let rip. Move to the next group while that last group burns (if not already dead). The only limitation is that some care is needed to watch for item drops at the screen edge.

15

I think this has reached the maximum evolution for what I envisioned:

GRIMTOOLS: Fast and tanky burn dot farmer for ultimate difficulty

I’ve farmed Lokarr for the complete set (about 10 runs) and it zips through the edge of insantiy on the way to Lokarr.

Most stuff can simply be facetanked with only a few hotkeys in play. Really tough bosses require more numerous hotkey action and a bit of divebombing and stutter-step.

Most weak bosses and packs go like this:
-charge to mob center and throw Canister. =dead.
-beefier mobs might require a few seconds of burn tick while you whack the boss. Dead in few seconds.

Gargabol:
-Apply all %RR and facetank until he casts volcanoes (typically last 1/2 of second form)
-couple of dive-bombs and he’s dead. He will already have a large amount of burn stack from the previous step.
More dive-bombing will be needed if he has a ring with huge %fire resistance (I’ve seen up to +100% fire/elemental combo resists on his ring)

Lokarr goes like this:
-charge and tank for about 20-25% HP damage
-stutter-step/kite and dive-bomb repeatedly for about 10+% of HP each time:

*You can also use the Coven Faction"s Cursed Tincture for extra -12%RR. Its short duration is useful on this build since the build frontloads dot damage. It also could be a weaker RR alternative if placing Thermite mines is not your thing. Remember to pop it just before applying dot damage, though.

Step by step Lokarr:

  1. Blazing charge to Lokarr = elemental storm (32RR)…farily high chance

  2. Vulnerability, Thermite mine, Flashbang (33+34 RR) …+ very small chance for more from Eldritch fire

[INDENT]*should have 65RR …and 34RR more if Thermite mines are well-placed.
3. Oleron’s Might attack, throw Canister, pop a Kymon’s Wrath Tincture at this point.
*Canister on a single target usually procs:
a. Phoenix Fire (100% on crit)
b. Rain of Fire (100% on crit)
c. Justicar set proc (10% on attack)
(with as low as 10% crit chance, simply due to the large number of mini-bombs covering that area).
4. A short face-tank melee for some plain old FS non-dot dps until it gets too dicey. Note that he dot burn from Explosive Strike will stack with the other burn dot sources.
*at this point you will have refreshable 20%RR (Oleron’s Might) and phoenix fire 128 flat DR (7s with a CD) to mitigate his damage to you

  1. Kite and repeat[/INDENT]

Because of his 98% resists, burn gets only to maybe max 60K, but your dps damage is actually significant with most of the RR applied.

-side-step his fire wave, don’t try to run away from it (Remember Prometheus movie running scene? - yeah, don’t do that)
-time dive-bomb attacks around his stun AoE (long CD) if possible.
[INDENT]If you get stunned, the build can survive; it’ll slow your tempo a bit if he whacks on you during this stun - as most of your safety procs will have activated and you might want to allow them to refresh.
-depending on gear, use a fire res pot for little extra safety from Lokarr 40 fire RR.[/INDENT]