[Something Clever about Burning]: Chaos Flames of Ignaffar Mage Hunter (SR80, controller friendly)

Part four of my controller friendly build series: Chaos FoI Mage Hunter
1.1.9.7 grimtools link (get one good stun resist and two pierce resist or physical bonuses.

Update for 1.1.9.8: the DPS is increased, and the healing from Essence of the Grim Dawn is too. I’m not sure why my old screenshots had such low DPS compared to now, maybe they were pre- 1.1.9.7? (231k to 318k without buffs, and 310k to 447k with buffs active.) Regardless, this build is substantially stronger than when I first cleared SR80 with it.

Update for 1.1.9.7: they buffed the voidsoul set so it has a bit more damage. Playstyle is the same.

Playstyle: cast Word of Pain, throw down an Inquisitor Seal, cast Solael’s Flame, use Flames of Ignaffar to burn them all!

Stats with Deadly Aim, Abomination, and Dying God inactive:

Stats with Deadly Aim, and Abomination and Dying God active (but only at level 14 right now)

Introduction

AAR is super popular due to its strength, but awful to play on a controller due to target lock; you can’t aim between targets to make sure you hit multiple enemies, since it just snaps onto one. FoI, since it does its damage in a cone, doesn’t suffer from this, so I wanted to try to make an FoI build. My first attempt was with a purifier, coveting the chaos RR from Hellfire Mine, but it was awful; in order to get enough energy regen, it had to sacrifice pretty much everything else. It was left with little defense and nowhere near enough OA to capitalize on FoI’s big crit multiplier, and I didn’t see a way to make it work. Since Arcanist has a big passive bonus to spirit and OA, and can handle any remaining energy problems with Mental Alacrity, I thought a mage hunter might work. Since it can clear SR80, I think it’s safe to say that it works. With good mutators, it probably can do 85, but I don’t really feel any desire to try.

There is a Voidsoul chaos FoI on the compendium, but it seems about as different as a Voidsoul FoI build can be.

This build is very controller friendly: although FoI does still have the frustrating target lock that AAR does, it’s a lot less noticeable and a lot less infuriating. I also had to choose between using nullification and putting Acid Spray on Inquisitor Seal, or using Horn of Gandarr. Ultimately, since this build’s RR is a little on the low side, and since it depends on lifesteal for survival, I decided that I wanted to guarantee that I got the RR from Acid Spray out as reliably as possible, so I use Horn of Gandarr to proc Abomination.

Video proof of clear
Fight tips
  • Offense: you shouldn’t automatically use Solael’s Flame if you’re fighting an enemy without high Chaos resist. It triggers Dying God, and you want to save Dying God for tough enemies and long fights. With only five points in Arcane Empowerment, you don’t need to be in Inquisitor Seal. It’s just nice.

  • Defense: the most important thing is to keep casting FoI, since its lifesteal will quickly heal you to full.
    Be careful when casting Inquisitor Seal, Word of Pain, Horn of Gandarr, or Solael’s Flame, as they will interrupt the healing from FoI.

  • Controller: if you have FoI bound to “A”(xbox)/“X”(sony)) When you interrupt FoI by casting another spell, there will be a slight delay before restarting FoI. If FoI is on “A”, the game will initiate an auto attack before realizing that FoI is available, robbing you of damage and delaying your healing. If you bind FoI to another button, this should go away.

Without shield buffs, Voidsoul Bulwark doesn’t provide great blocking, so don’t expect that to save you. With 2300 armor, up to 49% physical resist, the slowed attack and impaired aim from Word of Pain, and the Fumble from FoI, auto attacks aren’t much of a threat. It’s magical/piercing attacks that are, so position yourself accordingly. With only four points in Inquisitor Seal, you don’t need to be in it. It’s just nice.

Gear

As usual, the resists are overcapped to deal with resist reduction on high SR.

Essential Gear:

  • Voidsoul set: core

Stuff I’m pretty sure is best in slot:

  • Vampirris: seems like it was made specifically for this build, weapon damage, good ADtH, great skill buffs, and it even helps you stack physical resist!
  • Voidheart: this build is a little low on chaos RR, so this item is crucial.
  • Combustion band: this build is a little low on chaos RR, so this item is crucial.
  • Voidsteel Gauntlets: Gauntlets of Ignaffar are a tempting alternative, especially if you find yourself pressed for energy, but Voidsteel Gauntlets offers better damage (and therefore healing), and it’s hard to beat the much needed poison resist that they offer.
  • Arcane Harmony Leggings: there aren’t any pants that are great for chaos FoI, and with the importance of lifesteal to your survival you really need max disruption resist. This build is also a little tight on DA, so these are great. Plus I have a pair with a 12% stun reduction crafting bonus.
  • Timewarped Walkers: chaos damage, some useful skill points, and a boatload of important resists make these an excellent choice. There are other good boots for this build, but it’s hard to beat slow+poison+bleeding+aether+physical resists.
  • Ignaffar’s Combustion: this is slightly awkward, as you don’t benefit a ton from its stats. Mostly, it’s an important source of chaos RR for mosters with high chaos resist. You should probably be fine running Serenity though, as long as you have all the other sources of chaos RR.

Other stuff:

  • Sash of the Bloodlord: with Tained Flame, you don’t need these conversions for FoI, and you should haeve 22 points in Infernal Purge regardless. The bonus OA and spirit are good, and so are the resists, but I think Arcanoweave Cord could be better with +1 to all skills.
  • Essence of the Grim Dawn: I’m not entirely convinced this is better than a Conduit of Runic Whispers with the 20% weapon damage to FoI bonus.
  • Serenir’s Commendation: gives 100+ DA, increases max elemental resists, give an insane boost to vitality resist, and helps make your shield a little more useful. All logic tells me this is a great choice, but it feels weird to use on a caster build like this. A Demonic Bloodsworn Sigil of the Cabal should also be really strong, but good luck getting one to test that.

Components

  • Symbol of Solael: I haven’t seen this too much in end game builds, but I really like the chaos RR here, and it’s great for proccing Dying God.

  • Seal of Resonance: I love this component, since it boosts a ton of important CC resists. I think it’s best with this on the shield and Symbol of Solael on the weapon, but I’m not 100% sure.

Augments

  • Rune of Murmur’s Kiss: great for disengaging, or just for using when your back is up against a wall. This build doesn’t have good damage reduction (does this stack with Horn of Gandarr, or overrule it?) or OA reduction, so this really helps you stay alive in a pinch. I suppose there may be better options if you aren’t using a controller.
Devotions

Core

  • Solael’s Witchblade: Chaos RR

  • Manticore: this is the next best source of RR there is. Plus, this build does a not insignificant amount of burn and vitality damage, which benefit from this too.

Core 2

  • Abomination: this gives a huge boost to damage, plus useful health regen for mitigating Dying God’s health cost.

  • Dying God: this gives a ton of damage, great OA from the passive points, and total speed to help you lifesteal back its health cost.

You could try a version of this build without either of these, relying on the high base damage of FoI combined with defensive devotions. Honestly, I thought I would end up doing that, or at least dumping Dying God, but I found that this has enough defense to avoid having to do that.

Not core

  • Everything else: with the above requirements, the rest of the devotions almost picked themselves.
Skill choices
  • Word of Renewal: I really needed the DA it provides.

  • Steel Resolve: I really needed the resists it provides, in order to have enough overcap to deal with high SR bosses.

  • Mirror of Ereoctes: I’d really like to have more than 3 points in this, but I feel like more aren’t actually necessary.

  • Elemental Balance: it might seem like this is inferior to Arcane Empowerment, but I prefer it for its reliability.

  • Inquisitor Seal: I despise this skill, since it forces you to stay put instead of positioning yourself dynamically. It is really useful though for when you are stationary, so I felt compelled to put a single point into it. If more defense was needed, points could’ve been taken out of Elemental Balance, but I never had to.

  • Aura of Conviction: while the piercing is basically useless, this build loves crits so the OA is not. And going from 33 physical resist to 46 is a huge deal. The skill disruption and damage reduction of Aura of Censor are tempting, but ultimately unnecessary.

Leveling tips

My main tip for leveling this build is: don’t. Do a leveling specific mage hunter, then swap the points over once you hit 94 and can use the gear. I tried not doing that, and from level 65-84 it was absolutely brutal. I didn’t have the resists to minimize damage taken, the health to survive it, or the lifesteal to heal through it. I died a LOT. This was probably the worst leveling experience I’ve had in this game. At level 84 I was able to use good enough items that it was manageable, but I still died at the slightest mistake.

It probably would have been a significantly better if I had a Bloodsworn Sigil for its damage to health, but I don’t even know if that would be enough. About the only thing that went well was keeping the cost of FoI manageable, and not only because you can’t cast skills when you’re dead.

I think it’s important when creating a build to level with its skills, so that you get a better idea of the nuances of the build. I’ve done that so you don’t have to, and you can spare yourself a lot of pain.

Try to get Dying God and Abomination as soon as possible because they take so much experience to max out.

Final note: If you get a good crucible or SR clear, let me know and I can update the build. Suggestions are welcome.

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Hello!
I’m very new in this game,and i have a question about transmutation of damage types,and maybe you can help me to understand.
I read the topic about conversion order,and it’'s clear. BUT.

The thing i dont understand is the order of damage multiplier application. I try to build an occultist-inquisitor with chaos damage. and here is my question:

i have FoI whith conversion fire damage to chaos. And i have some item that give me both fire and damage increasing. Let me put here some theoretical numbers:
i have 100 fire damage form FoI.
it is converted to chaos.
in item i have 20% fire and 20% chaos increase modifier.
Now,what is the order?

100 fire damage get the 20% fire increase,and that converted to chaos,and then it get the 20% chaos as well,so it will be 100 * 1,2 * 1,2

OR

100 fire damage is converted to chaos,and then get the 20% chaos,so damage will be 100 * 1,2?

It’s important because i dont rush to fire damage modificators in item or devotions if the second one is true.
The game is cool,i like it so much,but this thing confused me very much…

Thanks for your answer in advance!

You can check the various damage type components of your primary spell if you go to the second tab, and mouse/controller over the spell.

example picture in this spoiler


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Do note that the DoT components shown are per cast, but they do not stack with other casts of the same spell, only get refreshed, so they are a MUCH smaller contribution to your damage than they might seem at first.

For each damage type, the multiplier is added last, after all conversion has happened; you only get the benefit from the final multiplier. If you have a spell that does 100 fire damage and convert all of it to chaos, and have a 1,000,000x fire multiplier, and a 1x chaos multiplier, you will do 100 chaos damage. If you convert half of it to chaos, you will do 50 chaos damage, and 500,000 fire damage. For this reason, you usually only care about the multiplier of the main damage type you’re doing. Because FoI+Tainted Flame gives 100% fire to chaos, you will always do 0 fire damage, so your fire multiplier is irrelevant. (There may be some 100% conversions that don’t affect weapon damage applied on the skill, but I’m confused about them too.) Conversions normally affect the damage over time version of a given damage, eg burn as well as fire, and vitality decay as well as vitality. However, since chaos has no DoT component, the burn damage can’t be converted. But as you can see, it’s not particularly relevant.

There are occasionally builds which do substantial damage of a secondary type. For example, this build does more than 10% of its raw damage output in vitality. However, the vitality multiplier isn’t actually very important. This build has as much as 135% chaos resist reduction, compared to 63% vitality resist reduction (unless I missed something). As a result, the actual vitality damage isn’t very important, so you just stack chaos multiplier.
Particularly with elemental damage types, some builds can stack multiple damage multipliers and multiple resist reductions, but this isn’t one of them.

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