Would be awesome if there was a little bit more (Melee) Aether Fire Strike support in the game. Currently (if you go Necro + Demo) you have to somehow convert fire/phys/lightning/cold/vitality and chaos damage to make it work.
Having an Aether Fire Strike Conduit or some strict conversion for it on something like a Dreadfire/Mindwarp or Scion of the Screaming Veil would be super helpfull.
Make Defiler great again (ehm… finally).
Aether Defiler definitely needs more support. Now cold Defiler might be a possibility as well with the new RR.
The worst thing for Defiler is no CC res in masteries… Also no armor and no phys res… And practically no resistances as well. Only vit res on Master of Death which is non usable outside of pets anyway.
And the item support is maybe the worst of all class combos…
Maybe only vitality Gargabol gunner works? If it still does?
In theory aether FS and aether Stun Jacks should work. But it is meme tier.
I find aether fire strike to be pretty damn good this patch, thanks to updated Veilkeeper. Not melee but ranged. Sure it doesn’t have impressive physical resist or mad absorb numbers, but the usual necro+ demo defensive toolkit is fine enough. And regen and leech keeps the build quite competitive.
I agree on that front, but my post was mainly about the melee version. You really need a melee weapon that converts 2 damage types fully, otherwise it’s too scuffed imo.
Here’s a pretty solid DW Melee Aether Defiler that gets almost complete conversion:
Yes and that build ends up having no phys conversion and only half of the cold/lightning damage gets converted too. Even some vitality damage is left over… All that whilest pretty much exclusively going for items that help you to convert your damage.
firestrike phys modifier wouldn’t matter there anyway; it doesn’t apply for explosive strike
and that’s the sole source of phys dmg the build has
personally feels like it’s a bit “much” to expect tertiary/flavour conversions to be included too, eg cold/vit that would be exclusive to necro, and has nothing todo with firestrike itself
Simple check would just be to compare it to other firestrike conversions, they don’t get 6 conversions for free, or even close to if they are lucky, 2-3-4 or maybe even just 50% of X converted instead of 100
So expecting 100% fire, phys, lightning, chaos, vit, cold, all at the same time, to be uniquely applicable for defiler/aether might be a bit out of the usual.
that is to say it’s relatively normal for builds to look for global conversion items, or even many cases not get 100% full conversion down the entire line and have bits left over/skipping ex static strike and getting partial global flat converted etc
I didnt ask to specifically get vit/cold conversion tho. But its a fact that this is something a build like this would love regardless.
My point is that someone basically only equipped items that give conversion and it is still not enough. You basically have no freedom here. And than that build ends up having super poor armor and stuff like OA/DA too. Btw temper gives alot of flat phys too. Every other fire striker gets much easier access to conversions and has more room fore items they actually want.
Having atleast Chaos conversion for free would be really nice and allows you to get other rings than the standard dual albrechts. If that is already too much add some flat Aether for Fire Strike?
I mean we have Dreadscorcher which gives 2 full conversions and 2 half conversions, but you dont seem to mind that.
Also:
Fire Fire Strike converts everything
Cold Fire Strike converts everything
Lightning Fire Strike converts everything
Physical Fire Strike converts everything
Acid Fire Strike converts everything
Not so sure about Vitality Fire Strike. But atleast the conduit gives 3 conversions.
(Atleast Fire Strike itself or even more)
i’m no disagreeing on the notion that aether fire strike should exist/get an item, imo firestrike and cadence should exist in all 10 variants
Just to maybe curb the conversion requirement/expectations; this stands out much more when lamenting a conversion a particular build don’t even benefit from because of the fire strike mechanics/secondary effects, - before even going into the whole tertiary flats stuff
i would suggest you recheck those, because they infact do not all convert everything
easiest showcase of this, aside from direct item modifiers not covering it, is the top 20(v2)/“best fire strike builds in the game” that don’t get all conversions, but ofc especially not tertiary conversions
/“it’s totally normal to not get full down the line” mention
But they ALL do infact convert ATLEAST your Fire Strike damage fully. And they all do a pretty good/decent job at converting WPS and secondary flat damage sources. Thats why I typed “(Atleast Fire Strike itself or even more)”.
If we just talk about the Fire Strike Conversion:
For Phys Beronath Reforged just globally converts eveything into phys.
Fire gets Blazeheart and Incendiary Casque.
Lightning gets 2 Stormhearts.
Acid has its conduit.
Vitality has its conduit.
Aether has nothing dedicated to it.
Cold gets Nex and Nightstalker Pendant
Chaos gets Voidspire, Sigil of ChThon and Darkblaze Headguard.
Not to mention that some of them get bonuses like flat damage and crit to fire strike too. Aether gets none.
again, i’m not saying or even remotely trying to argue against aether fire strike getting an item, it should most definitely have/get one
literally doesnt’ convert fire, requires you to use/“chase” globals for fire, so now you’re eating into those slots/tertiary like above
locks you in to the suboptimal combo, still doesnt’ convert explosive strike, again points to top20 examples
which is a happy accident because phys has to deal with armour, no other dmg types come close to amount of free conversion because of it, hence the additiona dmg type and ofc also aether comparison not being the same
doesn’t convert chaos
and exonerator doesn’t
and you can’t use sigil on ember’s sabo so doesnt’ get full, hence top20 example
darkblaze also doesnt’ grant you 100% but only 50
^this is actually one of the reasons people have been miffed about darkblaze and dags for a while, including exterminus/devil because fire requires 3 global items just for partial.
And since modifier trumps global, everytime you have a 50% mod you still need 100% global (if chasing conversion, which isnt’ always “optimal” i’ve been told 
)
again, i’m not saying or even remotely trying to argue against aether fire strike getting an item, it should most definitely have/get one
But you’re both missing how fire strike mechanics operate, and how all the other conversion builds are handled atm, seemingly expecting extra treatment for aether beyond just a basic enabling item (eg the defiler lamenting mention not getting 100% full down the line despite being totally normal already)
And i can totally get if the 6x emphasis for defiler was misread/taken disproportionally, but likewise i’m similarly just making light note of the conversion disparity/exiting conversion approaches and fire strike interaction/explosive strike etc,
“you shouldn’t lament the defiler not getting the 6x conversion/it’s not the detractor you assume” is basically what it boiled down to
@Alex_Dreamer i’m just realizing you have this in build discuss and not feedback section Ideas and Feedback - Crate Entertainment Forum
unsure how much different attention Z pays to direct requests made here vs that specific forum section 
Okay here is the thing. I dont know what the “optimal” combos for all those fire strike builds are. I just glanced over its overall support and some mis and thats it and figured that aether is kinda left out. For cold I left out a tone of good convo items like voker, medal and helmet. Fire ofc can go Alladrahs spellbade too. While beronath is a happy accident its still convo at the end of the day. Didnt notice vatality not getting chaos convo so thats my bad.
Going 2 voidspire and sigil is already all your convo, darkblaze was just an example and ofc you dont need it and can go for ember. (Doesnt ember lose its chaos rr next patch?)
Also i have only looked at melee builds. Whilest you are right that you dont actually convert 100% of FS damage for every type, I would still argue that the overall conversion and support is pretty solid.
Iam not advocating for an aether fire strike build to get ALL of its damage types converted. However I would like to see more direct support for the Fire Strike conversion itself like all other Fire Strike builds do. Having 100% Chaos + Phys conversion on a weapon would be fair/ good enough IMO.
But I guess we agree here for the most part anyways…
What I would love you to explain to me, is how exactly the physical conversion is differently handled on fire strike. 
Because I thought standart phys to X conversion is enough…
Thanks for letting me know! Just changed it.
nor am i pretending to know them all
the overarching point was just very basic; it’s not always “best”/good to chase 100% conversion on everything - also even if it might sometimes be easily available.
As for the sigil/voidspire thing, i’m mentioning chaos sabo for a reason, because ember’s set straight up blocks out sigil medal, so ember’s chaos voidspire sabo doesn’t get sigil/100% conversion, but is still toptier FS build
and yes, as i started out saying, melee aether firestrike most definitely should get an item, because FS(and cadence) should have every 10 variants possible being “unique”/the fun AAs 
it’s because explosive strike is what’s called a secondary effect mechanic on both melee and ranged (brimstone is only secondary effect on ranged)
Secondary effects are unique in that they are wholly “separate” from the main skill effects, thus are unaffected by modifiers and boosters applying to the main skill. So in firestrike’s case a conversion mod, ex 100% phys to aether, would not apply to explosive strike, it would have to be global conversion.
*the list is not 100% correct anymore as some stuff like Blood Burst has changed (stuff like brimstone/vile eruption also isnt’ “listed” but mentioned in the writedown)
Okay thanks for the explanation, I didnt know that. So I guess having a decent chunk of general phys to aether would help than? In the end you could always pair it with Mindwarp too I guess and get some decent phys → aether conv.
yes global phys would be the way if caring about explosive strike native flat phys
hence why i said it wasn’t really a big deal for that defiler, since it has/had basically 0 phys, and even a few temper points wouldn’t really skew that much/doesnt’ get worth chasing conversion over.
With mindwarp it then becomes a bit different consideration since now your entire weapon’s base dmg is phys, making the extra 25-35% global phys that more valuable (or even a 100% conversion mod).
It’s basically the same scenario for other builds where they don’t care much about ex lightning conversion, because they are simply not investing a lot into static strike/don’t have the points etc. ex top20 Saboteur, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
What you care about on Explosive strike is probably more the 30% wd than the 50 native flat.
But if you’re using mindwarp/kilrian mace/nortus/base flat phys weapons you want some conversion by default since phys is now also inherently a significant portion of your regular FS aside from explosive strike wd/flats
So if Ford’s setup had used cryptstalker or edge of sanity etc in one of the hands instead, suddenly it would be impactful and even a phys conversion mod not applying to explosive strike would then factor more/be worth lamenting. Since he only had 1base phys and 50 flat on explosive, not having phys conversion then just doesn’t present the same issue there.
Well maybe by an off chance Zentai sees this and decides to help out a bit 
Looks like this is mostly about melee, but for ranged you have pretty good conversion with dreadfire, like here: Sorcerer, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.3) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator (not saying this is an optimal build)
… ok now I’m confused. I checked what the damage is in-game and it has a bunch of chaos in the tooltip, while it has 100% Chaos->Aether on Flame Touched. Is that not a global thing?
I also thought I had much more than 200k sheet damage on it
It also has lightning damage on fire strike… but the gun has 100% Lightning->Aether on fire strike 
Is this thing completely borked, or what’s going on?
This makes no sense to me. 
I must be missing something, or the tooltip is simply wrong?
brimstone+explosive strike is a secondary effect on ranged, so doesn’t get the modifier conversion applied, and dmg breakdown does display offensive secondary effect dmg calced in to FS dmg
*i’m almost guessing it’s just explosive strike dmg it’s showing chaos from tho, given how small it is
