Storming Hell: Making Firestorm work in Hell

[Calizzar]

Planned Skills:

20 Firestorm
20 Molten Boulder
20 Fissure
20 Oak Sage
1 Arctic Blast, Cyclone Armor, Raven, Spirit Wolf, Dire Wolf, Grizzly Bear, Poison Creeper, Carrion Vine, 1 Werewolf, 1 Lycanthropy
Total Skills: 90
If i go into the 80's, i'd probably invest in fissure's other synergy, volcano, or go for points into summons.

I plan on leveling this character in nightmare baal runs till 75 before I start hell.

Stats: Enough for equipment
Dex: Enough for equipment
Vit: Everything else
Energy: Base

Equipment:

weapon: 6 5/5 faceted phase blade // hoto
armor: enigma
shield: 4 5/5 faceted shield // spirit
helm: 3 5/5 faceted helm
ammy: mara's
ring: soj
ring: soj
gloves: magefists
belt: arachnids
boots: waterwalks

In inventory:
anni, torch, 7 elemental skill gc's, 7 20 lifesc's, 6 bo cta
In stash:
414% ed ebotdz

Act 2 Defiance Merc
wep: infinity gpa
armor: coh
helm: vamp

With this setup, i will have:

-A very good amount of life with a lvl 40 oak sage and lvl 17 BO.
-Decent defense with the defiance from my mercenary.
-Enemies will have -150% to their resistances, greatly upping my firestorm damage. (85 from conviction, 65 from facets)
-Firestorm will be at level 40 with both synergies maxed and +65% fire skill damage.
-Wolves and bear will be at level 18, which makes for respectable crowd control (wolves) and tank (bear). Also a level 18 carrion vine to help with life.
-Conviction will help summons and merc to hit things.
-If summons/merc cant take care of FIs, then i can slap on the zerker, turn werewolf, and join the fun.

1 problem i see is terrible, terrible resists, but hopefully my summons and merc will keep me out of elemental damage's way for the most part (can't wait for those LE's).
Another is no fcr, but even 163 brkpt wont help my damage output that much.

I haven't caculated what the shown damage will be from firestorm, but i'm thinking it will be atleast 8-9k. (and then the fact that monster will have -150% to their fire resistance).

I haven't started this character, and probably won't for a week or more (i'm working on a palabear dreamer right now), so plenty of time for suggestions!

What do you think?

[jordy666]

fcr works with firestorm, didnt it?

and firestorm is more of a 'melee' cast skill.

if you are at melee range all streams can hit the same monster, so instead of facet shield maybe shael stormshield or pdiamand whistans, hell u can even go facet mosers!

btw whats the damage of a synrgized firestorm ?

[Calizzar]

well according to the fire druids guide, its like 5000 per snake at level 40 fully synergized. So then with +65% skill damage, that gets it up to over 8000.

Problem is, I really don't want to invest craploads of dexterity for max block. So I plan to get minions and merc into place, then come up behind them and try to avoid being hit.

[Valvolux]

Jordy is right, seeing Firestorm is a point-blank type skill, you'll need block and DR. Another thing I don't see you surviving long in hell with those resists and no FHR that I can see. And any build that 'needs' 13 x 5/5 facets to work, isn’t worth making sorry. Nice first attempt tho.

[Calizzar]

well i can switch out enigma for coh, shield for spirit, and helm for 5/5'd jalals, or maybe double 5/5'd coa for dr.

With that setup, i would have decent dr and with a few res all charms, max resists.

But i dont know if i'd want to spend all those points in dex for blocking. If i had over 30% dr, maxed resists, and atleast 2.5k life with cta, could i get away with no points in dex?

[Calizzar]

So my setup would be:

weapon: 6os phase blade with 6 5/5 fire facets // hoto
armor: ap coh
shield: spirit troll nest // spirit troll nest
helm: 2 socket coa w/2 5/5 fire facets
gloves: magefists
Boots: waterwalks
belt: arachnids
ring: soj
ring: bk (for the extra life.. won't need the mana as firestorm is only 4 mana a secon)
ammy: maras
anni,ptorch, 5+ 20 lifers, some 5 res all sc's, 5+ elemental skill gc's

defiance merc:
wep: eth infinity gpa/ca
armor: coh or shaft
helm: vamp

This setup gives me max resists and well over 4000 life. What do you think?