Path of Exile - Page 1160

On January 01 2017 11:32 incinerate_ wrote:


Hmm, that sounds interesting. I am just not sure whether it's better than the following alternative which some people use: Kongor's Undying Rage + Elemental Overload using Call of the Brotherhood, Pyre, Phys to Lightning (and Xoph's or Avatar of Fire). Kongor's has higher dps (and is 3c while Ngamahus is >= 60c in BHC) and EO is the better multiplier (compared to the 10 Fire Pen that Nagamhu's gives you). You can probably make that up with two good rings though.

The ignite is a really good point which I hadn't thought about yet. Does Phys Damage that is converted to fire double dip on the ignite? Probably not?

I leveled a Marauder (plan to go Chieftain) but I see the appeal of Elementalist with the additional fire penetration.

On January 01 2017 12:15 -Archangel- wrote:

Ngamahu's Flame has 20% fire pen. With that weapon and Xoph's Blood you get full 100% fire penetration so you can skip wasting two ring slots and a support slot (and you can get two 35% elemental damage on rings). Also it has better attack speed. I also use Elemental Overload with OoS+IncreasedAoE+IncCrit+CoH+Flammability setup.
For Ngamahu's Flame I did need to invest into accuracy but only 5-6 points. Accuracy is easy to get on rings and other gear (personally I chose to use Shaper's Touch gloves so my high Int also gives me Accuracy, while high Dex also gives me bonus life and bonus melee physical damage).

But for BHC I would also go a more tankier class. Elementalist would probably work better as a CI version but that gear costs A LOT so since I play on BSC I chose to go life. I might try to switch to CI if I can get enough currency to buy awesome gear for it :D

Since you get 100% conversion to fire you don't need to take any physical damage nodes. I only took fire and elemental damage nodes and those all double dip. And Elementalists has lots of elemental bonus damage as well. I also use two golems (fire and stone) for even more bonus damage.

On January 02 2017 02:13 Lachrymose wrote:
There's nothing "full" about 100% penetration. Penetration allows you to go below 0% resist. You shouldn't stack it super high though because penetration represents a (much) larger more damage multiplier against high resistances. (Example, against an enemy with 90% fire res, 10% pen represents 100% more damage. Against an enemy with 10% fire res, 10% pen represents 11% more damage.)

Enemies generally don't have super high resists and even when they do they're subject to the same 75% softcap we are, in most cases. This means the values where pen. stops equating to more damage than other gems or affixes or nodes is actually quite low.

Furthermore, pen. doesn't lower enemy resists and as such it only applies to hits, this means it does not double dip for damage over time, so you're not even getting extra bonus value in that way for ignites/burning.

On January 02 2017 01:25 incinerate_ wrote:


What auras do you rune with that setup? I guess one advantage of the kongor's approach is that you can use hatred all cold dmg is converted to fire rather than only 50%. Anyway dual curse should be insane with the amount of fire pen you have.

On January 02 2017 02:33 -Archangel- wrote:

Penetration is always a MORE modifier so it is as good as any other and often better when enemies have high resistance.
And while Fire Penetration support (and other penetration) does not double for Ignite, Flammability curse does.
If you depend on Ignite to do most of your damage then stacking double dip modifiers IS preferable to overdoing on Penetration. But Penetration will make the initial hit stronger and make base Ignite damage better.

I guess a Elementalist with Mastermind of Discord can ignore using a Fire Penetration support and use some other More damage support that can double dip. Other classes cannot really ignore that support.

On January 02 2017 04:04 Lachrymose wrote:
With 55% pen. and Flammability then a pen. gem is significantly less damage than added fire in any reasonable situation and there's no way it's even remotely close for melee phys.

Like, the resist fire monsters have an 'allies resist elemental damage' rave party under a resistance shrine and melee phys is still better kind of not close.

Also, the ignite would take a lot of scaling to get to that point without an Emberwake. Let's say you have the Slowest Totems On Earth (this is the best case scenario for ignite as a DPS boost) and they hit twice a second each. So together they hit 16 times during the duration of an ignite, which, before scaling, is .8 extra attacks in that time frame. To be an extra totem your double dipping has to increase that 0.8 attacks to 8.0 attacks worth of damage, that's 900% increased damage. To be double damage you have to double that again.

On January 02 2017 06:48 Lachrymose wrote:
You are wrong. Fire Penetration Support does not give 37% more damage unless your target has exactly 0% fire res and you convert the other 50% of your phys to fire, which I understand you are doing but you have to understand you can't just consider that as free.

Your average target isn't going to have 0% fire resist. They're going to be significantly into the negatives and fire pen. support is going to be significantly less than 37% more.

And again, you are wrong. As I stated, those crazy 105%+/85% resist/max resist mobs (that are extreme best case scenario/don't really exist/don't really matter) will still take more damage from Melee Phys than Fire Pen. Support. Seriously, do the math. Or don't. Look, the fun part of PoE is making builds and I don't want to stand in your way, but I also don't want other people reading this to be convinced that what you're saying is true based off your intuition and feelings when the math is very clear that it doesn't work out that way.

Using Flammability doesn't reduce max resist. It reduces resists. This means whenever a monster is overcap the portion of Flammability that brings them down to cap is completely wasted.

Using Flammability doesn't make your penetration do "even more". It makes it do less. Less. Every point of penetration or reduced resistance makes the next point less valuable. Not more. You are wrong.

And the last thing is, going down that route just opens you up to curse immune and burning immune enemies. The Ngamahu character scaling phys and fire wherever it's most efficient and socketing Ele. Focus instead is still going to truck those monsters just hard as everything else and they're going to truck that everything else way harder than you.

A small amount of lowered resists/pen. against a high resist enemy is by far the most efficient, biggest damage boost you can get in the game. But that's not what is happening here.

A large amount of lowered resists/pen. against low/no resist enemies is really terribly god-awful compared to every other way to scale your damage. This is the category that you're going to be in almost every time you hit anything.

On January 02 2017 09:10 -Archangel- wrote:

Ok, I get it. Once you start reducing resists into negative each additional penetration % works as increased damage instead of more damage. So OK, with Elementalist I don't need Fire Pen gem in any setup, better to use Melee Physical support as it will boost both weapon and Herald of Ash.