what do you guys think about the current state of fire damage ?
I know there is some S tier build (Necro flame wraith) but overall do you think it could be improved ?
And when I say fire I am also extending it to ignite.
Generally speaking I have being seeing more cool and powerfull lightning builds around. I think cold has also more diversity nowadays.
The scenario is even more restricted if we take mages and accolyte out of the conversation.
I guess Sentinel has some limited fire support, but Primalist and Bladedancers is extremely difficult to build around it.
I asked about some suggestion about cool fire builds (it could not be mage or accolyte),
and so far very limited options. Specially if trying to find something for primalist or bladedancer, the two classes I most focused in the moment.
I tried a version of bladedancer umbral blades with ignite source of damage, but it was not engaging enough for the moment, and another idea I had was the fire tornados with druid (will test it yet).
The third suggestion was BD with cinder strike. this one is not even a contender because cinder strike is just meh as a skillā¦
I also have read a thread about burning daggers with BD but overall it fails in the same ways with lack of enough support to truly become something rewarding.
Out of this, I was recommended with Paladin with either warpath or Rive, or judgement builds.
Hail of Arrows with Fire conversion is very strong. Stacking flat dmg with Elemental Arrows, speccing into Skystrike to trigger ignite chance after consuming 3 Ele Arrows, fire dmg against ignited enemies.
Also Dragonsong can still put out decent dmg, just needs alot of optimized gear compared to 0.8.5. I would play it hybrid as Decoy Bomber+Dragonfire.
Iām a sentinel main myself and in this regard I have no problems agreeing with fire based sentinel builds tooā¦ There are a lot of synergies with fire hits and dots for increased damage - some are hidden behind procs and slightly obscure skill nodes so they are not immediately obvious but can make them work really well. I find that just picking a skill with a fire tag is usually insufficient to really shine - its how multiple mechanics link for sentinels that is important for fire damage. If I were to make a direct comparison between elemental damage types, fire in sentinels is probably second to lightning in terms of pure dps but its not bad.
As @TriKster mentioned, Dragonsong based builds in Rogue are still also pretty decent and relatively simple mechanic wise but definitely need the gear at higher end game. Its also one of those weird slightly āis this stupidā builds that is really fun to play - a marksman getting into melee range to proc a spell on a crit bow hit. Makes no sense but works.
thanks for the input, I really want to try a fire build outside mage and accolyte.
And being playing a lot around primalist and rogue I want to try sentinel as my third class.
Just when I was leaning to launch a fire sentinel (probably paladin) the game start fooling me around with this drop
Yip. Murphys Law. and unfortunately for your fire idea - Devotion lightning Smite builds are pretty damn powerful in comparison. I havent messed with a sentinel fire build in a long while but I actually dont think there is a fire sentinel that can compete directly with it, especially with good supportin gear.
Typical of the RNGods to show you a new Bugatti Chiron when you have just drooled over an old Veyron.
The amount of the game that revolves around fire damage and fire damage builds is actually one of the things I find frustrating. Iām sure thereās builds on many characters that do more damage, but it feels like itās the easiest thing to get Uniques, Idols and Blessings to allow you to do across multiple classes / specs. Well, that and, too many builds are only validated by which endgame items enable them to be efficient lategame. Heaven help you if you need more than five ideal Exalted items slotted to make your build work in Empowered Monolith. This wouldnāt be such an issue if either there was a good Unique for every skill, and/or there were more Uniques that offered general/generic bonuses to damage and skills. Then you could kind of pick and choose what you wanted to do instead of the game determining that for you as much.
Recently I played through 0.9 with five different characters trying to finish each one as fast as possible. To that end, I ended up using the gear and items I collected on the characters before. I kept every Unique and Set item I received, as well as a large chunk of the Idols that dropped. (Talking almost all of them, until about halfway through the fourth character.) In order, those characters were a Fire Bone Golem Acolyte, a Cold Earthquake Primalist, a Beastmaster Primalist, a Judgement Sentinel and an Exploding Umbral Blades Rogue.
I didnāt strictly play fire damage on the Acolyte since it was a pet build. And the Beastmaster Primalist and Cold Earthquake Primalist obviously didnāt run fire either. However, all three of these decisions were based strictly on the best items available for the spec I was running. It turned out to be the case on both my Sentinel and Rogue that fire was the way to go. Iām fairly sure if I had played Mage, it probably wouldāve been the case on it as well. And the one off-spec I tried on my Sentinel using Eternal Eclipse with Void Cleave still would have used both Void and Fire damage.
So on 2 of the 4 classes I played, fire was the option that felt the easiest to access, and it could have potentially been 3 out of 5. And the only way I managed to escape using it on other characters was using super-meta set items from Monolith that informed my damage type or pet builds.
All of that to say, I think fire is probably fine the way it is. Itās some of the other damage types that need help here and there.
