The Flame thrower

[BlameGBush]

I AM REBELLING AGAINST THE METEORB/BLIZZARD SORC/ METEOR-FBALL WORLD!....




.... which basically means im working out a lame but fun build yet again

I call it the flame thrower. Heres the skill break down

20 Inferno
20 Warmth
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery
20 Shiver Armor
1 frozen Armor (The ONLY prereq in this, which is a really good plus)
total: 101 points (which is fine, since i dont plan to go to level 99 with this.)

there are a couple of bonuses to this build. Firstly it can be finished at level 89, your next 10 skill points after this can go into a synergy for shiver armor (for energy shield, but that takes 6 skills just to get to it). Secondly, its INCREDIBLY cheap to make this build. Heres your item break down (non tweaked obviously)

Leaf staff (made out of a +3 inferno regular staff)
Vipermagi
+3 fire circlet
+3 fire amy
Mage Fist
60 ias phaseblade/mosers blessed circle on switch

Told you it was cheap. For boots I guess you can go with inferno stride just cause theyre cool. If you do notice, SOJs are not listed as rings, but thats mainly because this is supposed to be a fun, cheap build. Sojs are too expensive to be wasted on an non serious build like this (what kind of idiot would even ATTEMPT to try to tweak this build?!?!?)

heres the statistics. With this gear alone (no charms or any other additions that you might stumble across) your inferno will register at 5.5k max damage per second. The damage that you read on your screen is actually halved so you do 2.7k damage per second (I may be wrong here). The thing is, you have a 21.3 yard flame (which i really dont need to say this, but TOTALLY Beachin at taking out a hoard).

Since 2.7k damage isnt really that great anymore, you back it up with your enchant ablity. Enchant yourself, and your HF merc (accept no subs). Your enchant should add 1.7k damage per hit. Jab/enchant is a wonderful thing.

Also, you may want to upgrade your vipermagi armor (getting you about an 800 defense armor) so your shiver armor is more effective.

So theres my bizzare toaster character. What do you think of this flame thrower? Any suggestions.

BTW: I'm one of those weird people who like to make a unique character, unlike all those uniformed exactly the same characters out there. So don't flame me and tell me to make one of the effective characters, Ive already made them several times before in the past.

Also, I head somewhere about a melee enchant bug, anyone know anything about it?

[Pitboss_2000]

I heard that Inferno is bugged and does only 25% of the listed damage or so. Can anyone confirm this?

(One of my friends thought of using inferno as a backup for his Frozen Orb because of the synergies with Warmth (he never heard of a meteorb sorc) and he says it does pathetic damage, even though it says it should be like 1k per second, so it might be true :/ )

[melianor]

I heard that Inferno is bugged and does only 25% of the listed damage or so. Can anyone confirm this?

(One of my friends thought of using inferno as a backup for his Frozen Orb because of the synergies with Warmth (he never heard of a meteorb sorc) and he says it does pathetic damage, even though it says it should be like 1k per second, so it might be true :/ )

Indeed it is bugged, actual percentage i am not sure. Something between 25%-30% or so. So its rather useless :(

[DECOYBOY]

why couldn't blizzard just fix such a glaringly obvious mistake? lame.... :(

[Frostburns]

Sorry double post.

[Frostburns]

Blizzard? Fix an obvious mistake? :lol: :lol: :lol:
Thanks, I needed a laugh.

Test character made, using the best damage gear legitly spawnable. Wait for it... 10,734-11,253 damage per second. Even without the bug, that seems a bit... low, considering it'd cost at least 20 high runes to get all this on realms. On a side note, that same character did 22-26k with eschuta melee attack. :lol:

[sk8brdnick]

*cough* anya bug... It's downright criminal that bug still exists...

[BlameGBush]

so we're looking at a mere 1.7k damage out of 5.5k average? damn what the hell is blizzard smoking.

[Uzziah]

Indeed it is bugged, actual percentage i am not sure. Something between 25%-30% or so. So its rather useless :(
Its 1/3 not % but =~33% and it exist with inferno, WoI, and artic blast some wierd calculation error. The LCS has serveral of these errors in displayed versus real damage. Firestorm has 3 streams and gets counted for each stream passing an enemy, same with WoF which damage is a per second even though the blast is less then a second in length when passing.

fire skills with the per second damage have this bug most often.

[BlameGBush]

Its 1/3 not % but =~33% and it exist with inferno, WoI, and artic blast some wierd calculation error. The LCS has serveral of these errors in displayed versus real damage. Firestorm has 3 streams and gets counted for each stream passing an enemy, same with WoF which damage is a per second even though the blast is less then a second in length when passing.

fire skills with the per second damage have this bug most often.

which just goes to show THAT BLIZZARD HAS SOME LAZY PROGRAMERS! I find it quite funny when just youre average joe on the net can figure out your calculation mistake that you have in supposively one of the best RPGs on the net (action-rpg, same difference).

[Soepgroente]

I pooped out 28% before and people told me it was 50%. Still sucks though, any percentage up to 50%.

I think the least they could do if they don't want to fix it is simply double the damage so it comes down to the actual intended damage.

PS- Ice bolt & Ice blast are also pre-requistes for shiver armor

[BlameGBush]

oh ya, thanks for the correction soepgroente. After a few more hours of analyzing them, heres the skills breakdown

1 static field
1 telekinisis
1 teleport
1 ice bolt
1 ice blast
1 frozen armor
20 shiver Armor
20 Inferno
20 Warmth
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery

Build finished at: level 95.

[Dennis_KoreanGuy]

I don't get it. Why max Shiver Armor?
I thought the only time you would max Shiver Armor is when you max Frozen and Chilling armor along with it for synergies with CM to go all out cold.
W/o any CM and unmaxed armors, would it do even more than 200 dam?

[Soepgroente]

For the defense, not the damage.

[mathil]

first of all i think saying "only lvl 95" and "only lvl 89" is a little obsurd. i get bored at 85 tops.

i'm with soep on the actual percent. last i heard someone said the method they used was flawed and that the real percent is 50. but it still sux.

the reason you use inferno with the build instead of enchant is because melee hits 3 times a second on one monster. inferno has a 100% chance of piercing. so it can hit an entire line of monsters.

the enchant bug is that firemastery is applied twice. once for posted dmg, once after. (i may have the timing of the dmg off, but it does apply twice for melee)

i had a pvp inferno sorc in 09 classic. before she got rolled back, she could tank any melee char long enough to kill it. and she was 2/3 of thier lvl. so the skill at full power is no slouch. she had no +skills, as much defense as i could fit on her and a low blocking shield. blocking breaks up the inferno so you would have to recast. i was going to max one of the cold armors for better defense, but that was before i lost 20 or so lvls and all her gear (including a soj mephy gave me) on the rollback.

[BlameGBush]

oh ya, thanks for the correction soepgroente. After a few more hours of analyzing them, heres the skills breakdown

1 static field
1 telekinisis
1 teleport
1 ice bolt
1 ice blast
1 frozen armor
20 shiver Armor
1 firebolt
1 fireball
20 Inferno
20 Warmth
20 Enchant
20 Fire Mastery

Build finished at: level 97.

Didnt add in enchant synergies... damn im careless

[BlameGBush]

first of all i think saying "only lvl 95" and "only lvl 89" is a little obsurd. i get bored at 85 tops.

i'm with soep on the actual percent. last i heard someone said the method they used was flawed and that the real percent is 50. but it still sux.

the reason you use inferno with the build instead of enchant is because melee hits 3 times a second on one monster. inferno has a 100% chance of piercing. so it can hit an entire line of monsters.

the enchant bug is that firemastery is applied twice. once for posted dmg, once after. (i may have the timing of the dmg off, but it does apply twice for melee)

i had a pvp inferno sorc in 09 classic. before she got rolled back, she could tank any melee char long enough to kill it. and she was 2/3 of thier lvl. so the skill at full power is no slouch. she had no +skills, as much defense as i could fit on her and a low blocking shield. blocking breaks up the inferno so you would have to recast. i was going to max one of the cold armors for better defense, but that was before i lost 20 or so lvls and all her gear (including a soj mephy gave me) on the rollback.

thanks for double checking the enchant bug for me. I wasn't 100% sure that was the case and didnt want to look like an idiot if i was wrong (well i did that anyway by forgeting to calculate in prereqs, but hey). I say max level ONLY at level X because i've actually seen some guides here that go higher than level 99 with their synergies and all that. Besides, i just want to point out that it isnt impossible to complete the build (if you dont invest any points in teleport and decide to go with frozen armor over shiver armor you actually finish the build 5 levels earlier at a reasonable 92)

What I'm just trying to point out is that you don't need to be "uber 1337" to use this build. Most the stuff required can be traded for with only a few pgems. I actually thought about changeing this build to be tweaked (using stuff like beast runeword and ormuses robes, but I wanted to show you can make a good character without the best stuff.
(imagine the defensive/speed benefits from being in werebear form with enchant and shiver armor! ahhhhh so sweet)

[Soepgroente]

Didnt add in enchant synergies... damn im careless
Warmth is synergy for enchant too :)

Mathil: You don't have to go to lvl 97, you can max shiver armor last but I reckon the build would work almost as good with lvl 1 shiver as with lvl 20. That would put the minimum requirement to level 76, which I think is very reasonable :)

[royalesse]

This build get's pricey for merc equip if you ever plan on having a back-up for fire damage. Either that or you'll be making good use of the 'run' skill in the game.

Have you checked the numbers for HoJ vs. either the phase or the leaf staff? I am glad you said armor vs Eshield. I tried this once with Eshield... for those of you who are thinking about it... DON'T!!! Gameplay becomes about as entertaining as driving a nail underneath your kneecap and then flicking it as hard as you can. It's just down right painful. Even if your Eshield can take all the hits you still have to go through hit recovery and watch the Inferno animation over and over again.

It's better to just not get hit. Ergo... defense... you won't go into hit recovery as often.

I have a sneaking suspicion that anyone trying this build will eventually stick a Demon Mach on it and go as a ranged enchantress... but hey... that's just me.

I still give you an "A" for effort... but we aren't into judging people now are we? :scratch:

[Mooker899]

I love your name Blame. :thumbsup:
-MoOk

[BlameGBush]

well actually i think that melee will be beter because of the fire mastery bug. Plus, wouldnt it be beachin to have a sorc up front fighting and fireing right behind the rest of the meat shields?

[royalesse]

well actually i think that melee will be beter because of the fire mastery bug. Plus, wouldnt it be beachin to have a sorc up front fighting and fireing right behind the rest of the meat shields?

Equipment wise you'll be better suited for ranged. Using the Exploding Arrow feature on Kuko or Demon Mach you'll do more damage at low lvls with ranged. Melee does marginally more damage at lvl 15 and if you take into account the piercing and the games you can play lining up shots it's arguable which would be better PvM. Hands down it will dwarf the benefit of using Inferno. Which to me is a problem if the build is supposed to be an inferno build... but hey... that's just me.

Blame's name is funny... didn't get it at first. Have you been to their prospective websites? They each have their plans for America on their websites JFK's is 253 pgs while GWB is about 50 pgs :cheesy: . There's accusations of this admin being Nixonian and secretive... but then again Nixon with detent was able to use Communist China as a buffer for Communist Russia... not a small feat during the cold war. But... I'm probably stretching there. I should probably stay quiet before I go on a OT tirade on why I don't like either or Nader :grrr:

[prion]

as i understand it the inferno/etc bug is a bug in the missiles file where you are actually only firing about 1/3 of the "missiles" you are suppposed to be firing.

this build is no fun to start. you'll get an inferno going and then someone else will come along and just smash your target and you have to keep restarting the inferno. and it takes way to long to kill even in players 1 with chilled targets.

[ToSpiteMyself]

There was some testing over at the Amazon Basin a while ago. It is 50% of the displayed damage that inferno deals, and I am guessing the same for arctic blast. WOI actually does 100% of the damage it says it does.

The biggest problem with these skills, however, is that they do not pierce for some reason. They only hit one enemy at a time.

[royalesse]

The biggest problem with these skills, however, is that they do not pierce for some reason. They only hit one enemy at a time.
Really? I thought they did pierce... At anyrate... as I understand it the bug is that the programmers unsuccessfully merged the graphics that they wanted with the damage that's calculated. You actually fire two streams in Inferno yet only one can hit at a time... graphics wise they're able to show the fire jet getting larger as it goes further out. All they do is have the missiles increase and size and diverge a little.

Unfortunately on the damage side you only hit one stream at a time ergo 50% damage

[BlameGBush]

well just going from my experience from starting this build (Im actually making it right now to see how successfull its going to be) I can hit a line of targets just fine. I havent had a problem with this "no piercing bug". If its stilll there, maybe im not noticing it.

[prion]

I had no problem with piercing either.
There was some testing over at the Amazon Basin a while ago. It is 50% of the displayed damage that inferno deals, and I am guessing the same for arctic blast. WOI actually does 100% of the damage it says it does.

The biggest problem with these skills, however, is that they do not pierce for some reason. They only hit one enemy at a time.
I got my info from amazon basin also where someone dug into the mpq's.

It doesn't really matter tho which bug is the real bug....or maybe they both are :(