Foreword; Unlike bow builds, I have experience with fire builds. I ran a firestorm-zombie hybrid build, way back in Talisman League, I have also recently run a flameblast character in Breach. For more caster experience I have also run essence drain, blade vortex, and spark. I actually think I know what I'm talking about here.
Bandits: Whatever you want. I like 10% all resist and 5% cast speed if you wanna FB but that's up to you. All passives are viable as well.
Ascendancy: Shaper, Beacon, Pendulum, Mastermind. Each one is a huge dps boost. Shaper and Beacon are fun to play with, you'll like them.
Leveling as CI sucks. This is a pretty okay half and half leveling tree. Go for the fire damage at the top, level with firestorm or scorching ray. Grab stuff as you want/need it. Convert to the next tree when you feel you can. I usually do act 3 or dried lake in final playthrough. Witch has shitty life nodes, so while leveling you are looking for ES gear with life on it. You will regret out of a lot of life nodes, so converting can make you more tanky and give you more damage
I've changed the skeleton. Here is the old one for comparison. There's not a lot different... I've taken out the bottom section. I've come to the conclusions EE isn't worth it unless you're pure SR. I also get aura reservation for mana issues once you hit cwc. With 10 per piece chaos gear you will have 7-8ish thousand ES. 9 with a crystal belt. 10 with amazing stuff. I did this for accessibility and late game options. I'll talk about those now.
What do you want to use lategame?
Presuggestion: CI characters need either a Valyrium or an Eye of Chayula. Period. Fire characters especially. Nothing sucks like not being able to get an FB off because your constantly getting stunned. This build's biggest unique is a Doryani's scepter. Until then you can use any wand or scepter you can find with ele, fire and spell damage. preferably all three. You can also use a fire Doryani's belt initially as they are super cheap and offer leech and damage, although late game a crystal is probably better.
I heavily recommend picking up a Doedre's Damming for all late game fire builds and running 2 curses. One curse aura, one curse on hit. This means a CoH setup that's not Orb. You could drop Inc Aoe on orb and run CoH with Ele Weakness tho! Another fun option? The fire spell you don't use! Like Firestorm CoH or Flameblast CoH! This removes the pesky GMP dex requirement! You can also just pick up the aura nodes in the top left and run double blasphemy, but that's 4 points. And severely limits your mana pool for Flameblast if your using that.
All in all your shield, helmet, body armor, gloves, boots, possibly belt and one ring, should be yellows with ES and resistances on them! That's most of your stuff!
There are many options for a fire character. Imma talk about each one.
Scorching Ray: This skill solo is powerful, but slow. It actually can't ignite and doesn't hit! It is effected by all fire spell modifiers and interestingly damage over time and duration. For a pure SR link setup, it would be SR>Controlled Destruction>Elemental Focus>Fire Pen>Rapid Decay>Increased Burning Damage, and the DoT would ramp up and do a lot! Your tree at 100 would look different with this, as you don't need chance to ignite and like DoT damage, your ascendancy picks change also because of this! You pick up 2 flame golems and become reflect immune! All in all it would look something like this. Of note is the aura cluster picked up in the top left. That's if you have mana/sustain problems. I know Flameblast runs into them, idk about this. If not, stay with that one node in the top right by CI. This is the 1 setup I recommend running Elemental Equilibrium with Herald of Thunder/Orb of Storms. You also don't need that int and jewel node until you get an Energy from Within. This spec doesn't need the Doryani's as much, and can run a Consuming Dark for free poison that benefits from your DoT nodes! Sounds pretty op. Of special note for pure SR is Doedre's Tenure. Less ES for a lot of damage.
Firestorm: This is a very safe skill. You can hit and run, something you can't do with SR or FB. You want FB>Spell Echo>Faster Casting>Fire Pen>Conc/iAoE>Controlled Destruction. All of those are huge damage increases to Firestorm. Overall Firestorm is a little less damage than either option, but safer. The tree picks up more damage and skill effect duration, as this helps Firestorm dps, and Curse effectiveness which is actually a lot of damage, and you're right there. I don't really recommend pure Firestorm for softcore unless it's like your first character.
Flameblast: Is pretty broken and bar none the most damaging fire skill in the game. It doesn't even need a 6 link, the 6th is just quality of life. FB>Fire Pen>Controlled Destruction>Conc/iAoE>Faster Casting>Chance to Ignite. It's super damaging and feels really good once you get cast speed nodes to make it usable. My 100 tree in Breach woulda been this. It's similar to the firestorm tree except you pick up the mana reduction nodes and some cast speed nodes. You want a Divine or Lavianga's mana flask for FB, it restores mana the fastest.
SR CwC Firestorm/Flameblast: To abuse CwC to it's most absurd, you want to stack absurd amounts of damage to make up for the two missing links. With any CwC build, a Lavianga's Spirit is almost necessary! This build has worse mana problems than FB! Maybe even 2? This tree is dependant on your mana issues. If Lavianga's and your mana is ok, you could cut the mana reduction nodes and even the aura reservation ones and get more elemental/spell damage. For CWC Firestorm and Flameblast are somewhat interchangeable. I would say Firestorm for clearspeed and Flameblast for single target, but that depends on how fast FS and FB cast and all that. Swap for bosses maybe? The links themselves are SR>CwC>whatever skill>Fire Pen>Controlled Destruction>Conc Effect. For both. Again, CwC is highly dependent on a 6 link. If you would like and want more damage, fully drop the hybrid life/es nodes to get more! Up to you really.
Other shit
4 LINKS!
Auras/Curses: Discipline, Blasphemy with Flammability, Herald of Thunder, as Elementalist's ascendancy will proc it quite often. Believe it or not the Herald is important for proccing Mastermind of Dischord once you get it. If you can't sustain mana with HoT then you just need to use Orb of Storms more...
Orb of Storms: You use Orb to easily proc Ele Overload and your acendency on bosses and rare packs. The amount of times you hit per second and the Herald will help too. It is not super necessary to keep track of this. Just use it when you want basically. Just run Orb>Inc Crit> CoH> Ele Weakness! This frees a four link for movement.
Shield Charge: You move with this. It will be slow as heck unless you are speed farming with a Brightbeak, which should be possible up to like t13. Don't under estimate the brightbeak. SC-Faster Attacks-Inc AoE-Fortify. You can also run leap slam or lightning warp.
Lightning warp would be different links and would proc Mastermind of Dischord. The links would be Lightning Warp>Less Duration>Rapid Decay>Faster Casting. I recommend this once you get that.
Throw a flame/lightning golem with CwDT and Immortal Call in one of your weapon slots. Then you got a 3 link for whatever.
Fantastic guide! I look forward to giving it a go!
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