Hi, folks. I’m putting together a build for my brother’s Demolitionist (and attempting to urge him to go into Arcanist for the offensive and defensive buffs he can find in that mastery). Mostly, I am curious what you think of the devotions picked up and if you see any areas that can be improved there. The concept is 2H ranged with Fire Strike combined with Cannister Bomb and Grenado. Fire and Lightning focused.
Any feedback would be very appreciated (except, you know, don’t be a Demo). Thanks!
I would recommend to pick either going caster style with Blackwater Cocktail and you can still use Grenado and Canister Bomb with it and unlearn Fire Strike, or ditch the spells and Ulzuin’s Wrath and focus mainly on 2h rifle. IEE can boost your rifle damage with those burn/frostburn/electrocute bonuses, which would make your damage mainly physical/pierce/fire/lightning with a small bit of cold.
PS:
In case you want to stick with your plan and going for both, I would recommend to take Grenado (lower CD than Canister), maybe something like this: http://grimcalc.com/build/Fcub40
The idea here is that Flame Touched gives Offensive Ability while Temper gives physical/pierce and boosts your Armor. Olexra’s Flash Freeze is crazy - everything on your screen will freeze instantly (and probably die on lower difficulties), and that which survives will have -100% fire resist and -50% physical resist. A word of warning - multiple bosses are immune to this freeze, however for that you can use Canister Bomb with transmuter that makes it stun stuff.
I will pass this along. I can see why you’d say that.
- Canister Bomb and Grenado use casting speed, while your rifle will use attack speed, you will be required to pick between these two stats.
This is a good point. I would say the build relies on Fire Strike for single-target damage and Canister/Grenado for those satisfying screen-wide wipes. I suppose then attack speed would be the one to focus.
- The only skill that gives both (Vindictive Flame) is the one you put only 1 point in…
I like VF in melee, but doesn’t it require being hit to be active? I’m not sure how I can sell this to him…
- Ulzuin’s Chosen only affects Grenado and Canister, not the Fire Strike line.
True. I think he’ll take it either way, though.
- Fire Strike contains a lot of Physical damage, your weapon will also create some Piercing damage, and Brimstone’s spikes deal Chaos damage. So your damages will be actually split between physical/pierce/fire/lightning/chaos.
Ugh, you’re right. That’s pretty annoying.
I would recommend to pick either going caster style with Blackwater Cocktail and you can still use Grenado and Canister Bomb with it and unlearn Fire Strike, or ditch the spells and Ulzuin’s Wrath and focus mainly on 2h rifle. IEE can boost your rifle damage with those burn/frostburn/electrocute bonuses, which would make your damage mainly physical/pierce/fire/lightning with a small bit of cold.
He’s definitely not going BWC and he’s definitely not ditching Grenado/Canister. He hates the way BWC plays and loves the screen-shaking booms. So I guess that puts us in a tricky, less-than-optimum playstyle. But you gotta play the game the way you enjoy playing.
PS:
In case you want to stick with your plan and going for both, I would recommend to take Grenado (lower CD than Canister), maybe something like this: http://grimcalc.com/build/Fcub40
I like this a lot. It may be hard to convince him to use Canister as CC, but I agree it’s good for that.
The idea here is that Flame Touched gives Offensive Ability while Temper gives physical/pierce and boosts your Armor. Olexra’s Flash Freeze is crazy - everything on your screen will freeze instantly (and probably die on lower difficulties), and that which survives will have -100% fire resist and -50% physical resist. A word of warning - multiple bosses are immune to this freeze, however for that you can use Canister Bomb with transmuter that makes it stun stuff.
I think I could pull off convincing him to use OFF for the fire debuff. He’d probably prefer I do it (I used to run ice/piercing spellbreaker, so he’s used to me having the OFF). Looks really strong.
Also, thanks a lot for all of the feedback. Very helpful. Any thoughts on the Devotion choices?
Vindictive Flame is a permanently active buff, giving you HP regen and speed. Plus when you get hit, it procs a damaging AoE with chance to stun.
Screen shakes at ANY critical hit you do, therefore to make your screen shake you need to prioritize Offensive Ability 
More OA = more crits.
Devotions…
Meteor Shower, Reckless Tempest, Fissure and Flame Torrent… you have 4 attack devotions, but only 3 attack skills to bind them to. The node in Ulzuin’s Torch you ignored gives decent Burn damage.
Compared to permanent bonuses you can get from passive devotions, two of your devotion skills will be partially wasted, because Canister and Grenado are cooldown skills, so you will have a 25% chance to proc the devotion once every 3 seconds with Grenado and once every 8 seconds with Canister. Also I can’t tell you how will you survive the Ultimate Difficulty
Are you 100% certain? I feel like the hp regen only occurs on hit - I’ve never seen it heal me between fights.
Screen shakes at ANY critical hit you do, therefore to make your screen shake you need to prioritize Offensive Ability
Gotcha. I think it’s the aoe more than anything. Just so much fire!
Devotions…
Meteor Shower, Reckless Tempest, Fissure and Flame Torrent… you have 4 attack devotions, but only 3 attack skills to bind them to. The node in Ulzuin’s Torch you ignored gives decent Burn damage.Compared to permanent bonuses you can get from passive devotions, two of your devotion skills will be partially wasted, because Canister and Grenado are cooldown skills, so you will have a 25% chance to proc the devotion once every 3 seconds with Grenado and once every 8 seconds with Canister. Also I can’t tell you how will you survive the Ultimate Difficulty
Wow, I hadn’t even thought about number of active skills and cooldowns. How do most people spec? Are active skills generally bad because most builds don’t use more than 2-3 skills anyway?
I didn’t so much ignore that node as I did drop it to make the build work. I could have kept it, but I would have had to drop Hawk for a better affinity - granting Eldritch node.
Which passive constellations would you recommend? This is really my first pass at this kind of build - any feedback that would help me get it right would be very appreciated.