While I really liked your previous Chieftain build a lot, transformation to Elementalist is just bad.
The reason is RF requires you to go toe-to-toe with dangerous enemies which makes you take lots of high damage hits. Surviving those hits is a key and Elementalist is too squishy.
Let's compare what we get from Elementalist ascendancy:
+2 golems, 150% increased buffs from golems, 105% increased chance to avoid elemental ailments and some increased damage.
+18% all elemental resist.
And now Chieftain provides:
+4% life regen (4x0,5% + 2%)
+1 endurance charge and passive endurance charge gain
0,5% life regen per endurance charge (7 charge = 3,5% regen)
+110% fire resist
Lots of damage increases.
For RF the core of survivability is life regen, and ascendancy alone provides 7,5% against 0% from elementalist. Also double elemental resists, which allow you to be more flexible with gear choise.
Basically you want to have as high chaos resist as possible, since lots of dangerous bosses deal chaos damage. And it will be so much easier to get it in gear if you are not so stretched with ele resists.
Spending 4 ascendancy points on golems made me scratch my head. I have played full golemancer build with 10 golems and even then I got occasionally 1-shotted by bosses. Buffs golems provide are so mediocre at best.
But I agree, there are no better choices in Elementalist ascendancy.
In addition, if you start levelling the build, you need lots of life regen to sustain RF. But most of these nodes in passive tree are in marauder and templar area. It takes quite long time to reach it from witch starting area.
So at best you could start using RF when you reach maps and have some of the necessary uniques. It will be tough to make up the 7,5% life regen you get for free.
Hi! Long time RF player here. You are heavily underestimating Flat Regeneration values and Golem buffs.
While the buffs don't add up per golem the effect of Ascendancy does. That means 200% Increased Golem buffs (or 230% counting tree) as you will have 4 golems. That is -
Stone Golem: ~380 Life regeneration. Translates to ~4.2% Life regen for 9k Life build and 9.5% Life regen for 4k Life build (early progression/leveling).
Chaos Golem: 14% Physical Damage reduction.
Flame Golem: 74% Increased Damage.
The +18% all elemental resist allows for more flexible gear than Chieftains +110% Fire resistance. Chieftain requires less resists on the gear however there are more options for Witch as Fire resistance isn't a dead stat if we are talking about efficiency.
Witch also has considerable amount of damage increases:
80% from 4 Summoned Golems.
40% Increased Elemental damage from Minor Nodes.
Pendulum alternates between AoE (clearing) and damage on equal cycle giving 37.5% Increased Elemental damage on average.
Additionally having over capped Elemental Ailment avoidance means you have to only worry about ground effects. This is especially relevant with Shock.
Overall Chieftain is more specialized and Witch is more all rounder. Neither are the most durable (Guardian) or fastest clearing (Trickster) ascendancies for RF. When comparing both, assuming a league start, Witch is more beginner friendly as well as you have easier access and can level with provided gems and have smoother transition to RF.
While I really liked your previous Chieftain build a lot, transformation to Elementalist is just bad.
The reason is RF requires you to go toe-to-toe with dangerous enemies which makes you take lots of high damage hits. Surviving those hits is a key and Elementalist is too squishy.
Let's compare what we get from Elementalist ascendancy:
+2 golems, 150% increased buffs from golems, 105% increased chance to avoid elemental ailments and some increased damage.
+18% all elemental resist.
And now Chieftain provides:
+4% life regen (4x0,5% + 2%)
+1 endurance charge and passive endurance charge gain
0,5% life regen per endurance charge (7 charge = 3,5% regen)
+110% fire resist
Lots of damage increases.
For RF the core of survivability is life regen, and ascendancy alone provides 7,5% against 0% from elementalist. Also double elemental resists, which allow you to be more flexible with gear choise.
Basically you want to have as high chaos resist as possible, since lots of dangerous bosses deal chaos damage. And it will be so much easier to get it in gear if you are not so stretched with ele resists.
Spending 4 ascendancy points on golems made me scratch my head. I have played full golemancer build with 10 golems and even then I got occasionally 1-shotted by bosses. Buffs golems provide are so mediocre at best.
But I agree, there are no better choices in Elementalist ascendancy.
In addition, if you start levelling the build, you need lots of life regen to sustain RF. But most of these nodes in passive tree are in marauder and templar area. It takes quite long time to reach it from witch starting area.
So at best you could start using RF when you reach maps and have some of the necessary uniques. It will be tough to make up the 7,5% life regen you get for free.
Hi! Long time RF player here. You are heavily underestimating Flat Regeneration values and Golem buffs.
While the buffs don't add up per golem the effect of Ascendancy does. That means 200% Increased Golem buffs (or 230% counting tree) as you will have 4 golems. That is -
Stone Golem: ~380 Life regeneration. Translates to ~4.2% Life regen for 9k Life build and 9.5% Life regen for 4k Life build (early progression/leveling).
Chaos Golem: 14% Physical Damage reduction.
Flame Golem: 74% Increased Damage.
The +18% all elemental resist allows for more flexible gear than Chieftains +110% Fire resistance. Chieftain requires less resists on the gear however there are more options for Witch as Fire resistance isn't a dead stat if we are talking about efficiency.
Witch also has considerable amount of damage increases:
80% from 4 Summoned Golems.
40% Increased Elemental damage from Minor Nodes.
Pendulum alternates between AoE (clearing) and damage on equal cycle giving 37.5% Increased Elemental damage on average.
Additionally having over capped Elemental Ailment avoidance means you have to only worry about ground effects. This is especially relevant with Shock.
Overall Chieftain is more specialized and Witch is more all rounder. Neither are the most durable (Guardian) or fastest clearing (Trickster) ascendancies for RF. When comparing both, assuming a league start, Witch is more beginner friendly as well as you have easier access and can level with provided gems and have smoother transition to RF.
Hey BaltazarDZ, thanks for that nice explanation!
My worry is one-shots/bursts. With the previous, Chieftain version my only problem was that every now and then I would die instantly, or so quickly that I have no time to react. Especially when I have a large number of mobs hitting me, eg. Blight encounter, or monsters from beyond spawning on me. I even started planning for a Kaom's Heart only because of that.
How do you think this one compares in that regard?
we need to bring your attention to an issue with Elemental Overload which will affect people attempting to create builds with this keystone. Previously, its described behaviour didn't match its functionality. It now correctly only grants its damage bonus while you have the keystone selected, rather than persisting after the keystone has been removed. We'll make another change soon to reintroduce an icon that indicates when the damage bonus is active. The Augyre Unique Item will be reworked in future as a result of this change
I'm confused by this. Can someone explain what this means?
Oh, and:
"
Curse On Hit Support has been renamed to Hextouch Support
My worry is one-shots/bursts. With the previous, Chieftain version my only problem was that every now and then I would die instantly, or so quickly that I have no time to react. Especially when I have a large number of mobs hitting me, eg. Blight encounter, or monsters from beyond spawning on me. I even started planning for a Kaom's Heart only because of that.
How do you think this one compares in that regard?
Same question for Wrecker. :)
On average they will perform equally however the threats that are especially deadly are different.
Both rely on Life Regeneration for sustain so quick bursts of damage can RNG nuke you as the regeneration won't keep up. Even with the nerfs using Glancing Blows with Recover Life on Block is a decent end-game countermeasure.
Boss monsters generally depends on your mechanics, gear quality and modifiers. They though are reasonably telegraphed so are less of a build issue.
For Chieftain a huge threat is Nemesis mod because a lot of defensive power comes from the Endurance Charges. If a Nullifier hits you from a larger pack it's a huge drop in defenses.
For Witch a huge threat is projectile modifiers paired with physical monsters (Chain on Maraketh encounter). While the Golems are immune to Elemental Damage and have a considerable life pool a boosted Maraketh archer pack can nuke them and all the chains will RIP you. In this scenario minions are a drawback.
For Chieftain physical packs would be less dangerous due to Endurance Charges and Physical Taken as Fire and the Nullifiers are less dangerous to Witch as Golems can take some beating as well and the buffs can not be removed. Both share a strength and a weakness on conditions. For Chieftain it's Endurance Charges being up and for Witch it's Golems being up.
CWDT setups (Vortex for Chill, Guard skills, Curses), Fortify, Block, Flasks, Skitterbots, Warcries, Arctic Armour (when using Scorching Ray), Phys taken as Fire, more Maximum Resistances are all viable mechanics to help with survivability and can be freely slotted in the build depending on what you like and your gear availability.
I got exited for new build as I want to use it from start but then got worried when it turn out to be Golems and RF... I will trust you on this one and I think I will use this as starter build. My only advantage is that I play on PS4 so will have a week to see what people will think about it.
Hope it will help me as I started your RF bit too late and Spellslinger ED Con Soulrend I used in Harvest got stuck in high red maps and I didn't manage to get trophy for clearing full Atlas. Hope this build will take me to the end...
we need to bring your attention to an issue with Elemental Overload which will affect people attempting to create builds with this keystone. Previously, its described behaviour didn't match its functionality. It now correctly only grants its damage bonus while you have the keystone selected, rather than persisting after the keystone has been removed. We'll make another change soon to reintroduce an icon that indicates when the damage bonus is active. The Augyre Unique Item will be reworked in future as a result of this change
I'm confused by this. Can someone explain what this means?
Oh, and:
"
Curse On Hit Support has been renamed to Hextouch Support
EO is functionally the same, except for an exploit where people were using Augyre to get EO and then weapon swapped while still keeping EO up. Basically you need the keystone itself or the item giving it to actually keep the buff up. Since this guide is using EO in its normal way, there is no change.
Curse On Hit will now only work with Hex skills and not Mark skills. The Mark skills are:
Assassin's Mark
Poacher's Mark
Sniper's Mark (previously Projectile Weakness)
Warlord's Mark
Flammability is a Hex and will still work perfectly fine with this build.
