[3.9] Pirate's Sire of Shards Fireball Miner [Beginner/console friendly]

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InvisiblePants a écrit :

Three points/questions:

1) Does Ice Bite actually function with the fireball mines? The skill gem says "Supports any skill you use to hit enemies yourself. Cannot support skills used by totems, traps, or MINES."

WOW, I don't know how I missed that one. Good catch, guess I can stop levelling an Ice Bite for when I get my 6L, going to replace it with Added Cold for now.

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2) What are your thoughts about using a Snakepit in the left ring slot for free Fork? The build uses a ton of rares (helm, ring, amulet, belt) and has a ton of %resist on the tree and Alira perk, so I've not had a problem overcapping my resists despite running a Snakepit for a pseudo-7link Fireball

When I first made the build in Synth, the 10% More Damage on the Fork gem plus damage modifiers and life on a rare ring made it perform slightly better than a Snakepit, but it's certainly not a bad option. I haven't tested one out yet in 3.8 for myself to see if that's still the case.

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3) What are your thoughts on Blastchain vs High Impact Mines for the fireball setup? I'm leaning towards blastchain as with 23 mines + ~15 thrown, a sequence of 38 mines gives an average of 95% more damage across all mines, while high impact is only 46% more damage and only applies to nearby enemies and not those struck by far-flying fireballs.

This is a choice I went back and forth on a LOT (I made a spreadsheet the day before league launch debating the pros and cons of both gems while I was supposed to be working), before eventually coming down on the side of High-Impact mines. The biggest reason is that Demo Specialist doubles the effectiveness of mine auras, making them give you 4% more effective damage instead of the usual 2%. If I were building this on a Scion, I probably would go with Blastchain Mines.

It's also worth noting that the damage boost from HI Mines also applies to your other mines; in a lot of endgame single-target situations I've been using a mix of both mine types. Phoenix for one was a natural fit for a couple Fireball mines mixed in with the Pyroclasts, making sure those little fire birds didn't chip away at me while I had my back turned, but even against solo bosses like Elder the occasional fireball mine to sustain your frenzy charges is a no-brainer. You might as well get a little boosted damage from it!

The final thing that swayed me over to HI was the simplest of all: 20% less damage vs 25% less damage. Most of the time I detonate my fireball mines in very small groups of 2-3 anyway, which makes the damage I lose more than the damage I would have gained. That one is purely my own playstyle, though: if you find yourself typically detonating chains of 10+ mines while clearing BC Mines would almost definitely give you more bang for your... bang, I guess.

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Thanks a ton for your guide!

Hey, no problem! Thanks for reading, and for all the feedback!

You should add to cons:
-incompressible SFX: no sane value of bitrate will allow you to showcase this build's main skill via streaming or videos with decent quality, with problem increasing exponentially with every rolling flames inserted :)

On more serious note, I have a question, concerning Pyroclast mines and Sire of Shards. It doesn't really provide much of the boost, doesn't it? I tried swapping weapons for map bosses (Sire of shards vs +2lv Fire Gems staff) and the gain seems substantial, not to mention other possible prodamage staff mods.
I'd say it's not hard to compensate for +5 all res, +15 to all attributes and +3lv to fire spells with a host of other boosts beats +99%dmg increase easily.

And it's not really a matter of making another 6l, because if the spell is in the helmet... Though making another 6l staff would be possible workaround for getting the elder helmet, which is another SSF friendly modification. Making +3 lv 6L staff is just a matter of resources, while dropping the elder helmet might happen who knows when.

And now to the real question here: since builds rarely mention weapon swapping as basic tactics, I feel like I am missing something... because why isn't this a thing? It looks like it should be a thing :) This +3lv to fire gems is massive boost to pyroclast, not to mention remaining five mod slots. Am I missing something? Swapping weapons is not harder than using flask (I remapped it under the ~ key).

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vonzgred a écrit :

You should add to cons:
-incompressible SFX: no sane value of bitrate will allow you to showcase this build's main skill via streaming or videos with decent quality, with problem increasing exponentially with every rolling flames inserted :)

On more serious note, I have a question, concerning Pyroclast mines and Sire of Shards. It doesn't really provide much of the boost, doesn't it? I tried swapping weapons for map bosses (Sire of shards vs +2lv Fire Gems staff) and the gain seems substantial, not to mention other possible prodamage staff mods.
I'd say it's not hard to compensate for +5 all res, +15 to all attributes and +3lv to fire spells with a host of other boosts beats +99%dmg increase easily.

And it's not really a matter of making another 6l, because if the spell is in the helmet... Though making another 6l staff would be possible workaround for getting the elder helmet, which is another SSF friendly modification. Making +3 lv 6L staff is just a matter of resources, while dropping the elder helmet might happen who knows when.

And now to the real question here: since builds rarely mention weapon swapping as basic tactics, I feel like I am missing something... because why isn't this a thing? It looks like it should be a thing :) This +3lv to fire gems is massive boost to pyroclast, not to mention remaining five mod slots. Am I missing something? Swapping weapons is not harder than using flask (I remapped it under the ~ key).

Oh, undoubtedly. Weapon swapping is often a powerful tool that, for some reason, not a lot of people are generally a fan of using. The only downside is that you can't level up 6 additional spell gems, which is really not a downside at all. In the original version of the build I used a Martyr of Innocence in a weapon swap for endgame, in fact.

You're 100% right about the Sire not giving as much damage as a +3 Fire Staff, though. 100% increased projectile damage is nothing compared to, for example, a Shaper Eclipse staff with some beefy spell damage mods. I'll have to play around a bit in POB to see what kind of damage numbers I can get with a "serious" weapon, which I'm sure will be an exercise in pure overkill due to how insane pyroclast mines already are without it.

But if this build is about anything, it's overkill.

what i suppose to do if i hate summon my litle-always-dead golem? :)

how about that one? :)
https://imgur.com/a/Rs4aX0l

How do you deal with mana?
Im playing this and on stuff like blight encounters i often find myself to be out of mana and having to cast and detonate mines one by one. With enlighten level 3 on all auras i only have 156 mana unreserved, am i missing something?

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Wiizper a écrit :

How do you deal with mana?
Im playing this and on stuff like blight encounters i often find myself to be out of mana and having to cast and detonate mines one by one. With enlighten level 3 on all auras i only have 156 mana unreserved, am i missing something?

I think it's mostly because you look like you got your 6-Link earlier than I did. I've got low-mid 200's of unreserved mana, and it regenerates faster than I can spend it even constantly throwing out mines.

Getting some flat Int and/or mana on your gear can go a long way, if you're still having some mana issues by the time you hit lvl 80 (but I don't think you will be).

I'm taking a bit of a break from levelling this build to try some other stuff, but I'm toying around with the idea of taking Influence, since the aura effect apparently does work on mine auras.

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unhack a écrit :

how about that one? :)
https://imgur.com/a/Rs4aX0l

Nice! I'm still using that talisman so I haven't been looking at good Annoint options too much. The end goal is Constitution, but ER is a great idea for a (much) cheaper annointment that'll enhance the mapping experience.

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate a écrit :

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Wiizper a écrit :

How do you deal with mana?
Im playing this and on stuff like blight encounters i often find myself to be out of mana and having to cast and detonate mines one by one. With enlighten level 3 on all auras i only have 156 mana unreserved, am i missing something?

I think it's mostly because you look like you got your 6-Link earlier than I did. I've got low-mid 200's of unreserved mana, and it regenerates faster than I can spend it even constantly throwing out mines.

Getting some flat Int and/or mana on your gear can go a long way, if you're still having some mana issues by the time you hit lvl 80 (but I don't think you will be).

I'm taking a bit of a break from levelling this build to try some other stuff, but I'm toying around with the idea of taking Influence, since the aura effect apparently does work on mine auras.

Dunno if it's just me but i really struggle with Blight encounters with this build, damage wise. Anything i can improve on?
And im extremely squishy, one melee hit and im on like 10% hp

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Wiizper a écrit :

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ARealLifeCaribbeanPirate a écrit :

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Wiizper a écrit :

How do you deal with mana?
Im playing this and on stuff like blight encounters i often find myself to be out of mana and having to cast and detonate mines one by one. With enlighten level 3 on all auras i only have 156 mana unreserved, am i missing something?

I think it's mostly because you look like you got your 6-Link earlier than I did. I've got low-mid 200's of unreserved mana, and it regenerates faster than I can spend it even constantly throwing out mines.

Getting some flat Int and/or mana on your gear can go a long way, if you're still having some mana issues by the time you hit lvl 80 (but I don't think you will be).

I'm taking a bit of a break from levelling this build to try some other stuff, but I'm toying around with the idea of taking Influence, since the aura effect apparently does work on mine auras.

Dunno if it's just me but i really struggle with Blight encounters with this build, damage wise. Anything i can improve on?
And im extremely squishy, one melee hit and im on like 10% hp

The build certainly isn't as tanky as it used to be, but that's a little much. I think mine has about 6500 life right now, which is enough to keep him from being one-shot in anything but the craziest T16 maps.

Anyway, about Blight: lock down lanes with summon and/or freeze towers, and fill them with pyroclast mines if things are too tanky for your fireballs to handle. Damage is something this build certainly isn't lacking for, so focus on building utility towers that create killboxes for your overlapping AOE to do some work.