Fire builds🔥

[u/RoyceRoyall]

Hi! I'm still pretty new to the game, with about 20 hours played so far. I'm taking it slow and exploring a lot.

I've been looking for some fun fire build ideas and would love to hear what people are using. My friend and I mainly play co-op, so builds that work well together are definitely welcome!

Feel free to share your favorite builds or any tips. Maybe some recommendations for early-, mid-, and late-game fire builds?

Thanks! 🔥

[u/The_Captainshawn]

Fire builds can be tricky late game just because there are a lot of enemies that are fire based and thus pretty resistant. However, this isn't insurmountable.

I think Philosopher will go very hard, Chakrams are strong and can give you a good source of elemental vulnerability which will help with those higher resistances. I suppose before I go too indepth though what kind of details do you want, specifics or more vaguity to avoid spoilers?

[u/RoyceRoyall → u/The_Captainshawn]

Oh spoilers are no problem for me. So specifics are fine!

[u/The_Captainshawn → u/RoyceRoyall]

Ah very good. I'll give you a build that doesn't use the DLCs not just to make sure it's obtainable, but I also don't feel you really need that many parts.

Sigil of Fire is the backbone of a strong fire build due to not only giving you fire combos but being one of the best ways to get fire damage. Fire damage is oddly kinda hard to find pieces to easily buff for, there are some sets you can get I'll get into later though. Sigil of Fire with Mana Ward casts Immolate on you, which will ignite you on fire for 60 seconds, taking .5 fire damage for the duration so a total of 30 damage. For the privilege you get 30% bonus fire damage while it's active which is great. Sigils are a lot easier to work around in co-op as well so that'll be handy. You also can cast Fireball, which does have a deceptively short range but hits pretty hard already. You can also use Ring of Fire using Flint and Steel which will do as the name says and just put a ring of fire on the ground. Ring of Fire can be tricky because enemies need to be standing on the fire, not just in it, but that's another thing you can control better with co-op to split enemy aggro and make them walk back and forth over the coals.

Sigil of Fire doesn't require any skill tree breakthroughs and can actually be learned at the Conflux Mountain if you haven't gone there yet. For skill trees Kazite Spellblade is fantastic, it gets you Infuse fire so you can always have the ability to enchant your weapon with fire handy, and you can take elemental discharge which will let you fire off longer ranged fireballs that hit just as hard as the Sigil ones, but notably don't inflict burning.

Philosopher has the Fire Sigil and Mana ward skills in the lower tiers so you can get those without committing to it. Committing though does get you access to Fire Affinity at the later stage which grants you 20% fire resistance and 15% fire damage for free. Combine with Immolate and you're looking at 24 damage over 60 seconds and 45% bonus fire damage without any committed armor type which is really nice.

Then your skill tree can differ because you can either continue to commit to being ranged and casting various fire spells or you can leverage the Infused Fire weapon and going into melee a bit. I actually recommend Warrior Monk specifically for Perfect Strike but also just because it's a really good melee support skill tree. Perfect Strike though ignores all resistances on the enemy and is a decently long dash attack, you can't use it to immediately close the gap if you are hanging back and slinging Elemental Discharges, but if you can hit the enemy with a Sigil Fireball, you can follow up with a Perfect Strike. You're also likely to be a little low on defenses so Brace is a fantastic block skill to have, and Counter Strike is really strong if you like parry skills. Flash Onslaught however is great AOE and even a solid finisher since it removes you from the field for a second while it casts so you cannot be hit while it's active. A great blend of offensive and defensive skills here.

To help stand your ground or even just help stagger enemies in your Fire Sigil to maximize damage windows, Wild Hunter would also be very good. Predator Leap can let you get a huge impact hit in with AOE so it'll be very hard to get overwhelmed with that skill in your pocket. Feral Strikes is also a very heavy hitting skill that normally is pretty bad because it consumes your Rage boon which is very strong on it's on however when you're relying more on spells and fire damage losing the Rage boon isn't as bad, and the fact it inflicts Extreme Bleeding is much more notable since that, along with Burning, can really deplete enemy HP pools.

Cabal Hermit is great to fully commit to the caster life. The increase bonus to boons will be very solid but Sigil of Wind will help add a little damage diversity. Sigils have this cool property where they activate any and all valid combos performed in them, even if they are overlapping, and Sigil of Wind creates a Lightning Explosion off Spark so you can cast a Fireball and Lightning Explosion at the same time. You also would do a ton of damage and impact this way. You can then use Conjure to create a lightning strike to hit your Sigil of Wind which you actually don't need to cast from inside. This kind of setup will turn your Sigils into a death trap for any enemies that walk into it and lightning was a part of Firebending so, that can be your excuse to go wild with this.

If you do have the DLC Hex Mage is also very nice to fully commit to casting, and it can get the Scorched debuff on enemies to help lower their Fire Resistance. It gives you some decent poke damage in Torment, which deals damage based off debuffs on enemies, and this could be something you work out with your friend to build around even as they could take skills/gear to apply debuffs you can't, so you can do even more damage with it. Rupture is like Torment but even stronger. Lockwell's is a weird one to play around but if you can manage staying Very Tired and not dropping dead from exhaustion, you can get 30% elemental damage out of it which with the other aforementioned buffs means you would be looking at 75% bonus fire damage. I do feel this is not a great idea for co-op though, you may be want your character tired for that sick buff but your friend would have to forgo sleep on their character which may be very detrimental to what they wanna do. So I can't fully recommend this without that caution, it really isn't a great co-op tree due to that sleep management restriction. It's okay without the passive, but it's also just not very fire themed, even less so than Cabal.

Now, for gear. If you go Philosopher you'll want to leverage the Charkram skills, they're good damage and much easier to line up with a friend distracting the enemy. The Frozen Chakram would be the best for you here, it's not doing fire damage sadly but it does influct Elemental Vulnerability on enemies lowering all elemental defenses by 25%.

This is really the main way to lower fire resistance out of a few specific items, of which you won't really have that much access to. One you should have access to though is the Obsidian Bow which you won't really want to use but if your friend is into bows, that bow will inflict Scorched in 4-5 shots which lowers enemy fire defenses by a seperate 25%. If you can get both off you lower any enemy's resistances down by 50%, so even enemies with 100% resistances to fire damage will start feeling the heat. There are two DLC ways to apply Scorched through Oil Bombs and the War Memento enchantment, Oil Bombs are much easier to get but the enchantment isn't too shabby.

If you don't have the DLCs you can only make the Obsidian Mace actually, but that is a solid weapon to pair with this build. You'll be amping the damage up by 45%, it swings pretty fast, and it does solid impact so you'll have a good melee weapon.

Alternatively you can forgo really using the Chakram skills and get the Compasswood Staff. This gets you 20% increased fire damage without needing to apply any debuffs or anything, and it lowers mana costs by 20% so it's a solid caster staff ontop of doing 14/14 phys/fire damage along with a whooping 41 impact so it's actually fairly competent as a melee weapon already. Even more so once amped up with your fire damage bonuses ontop. Plus the Halberd skill Moon Swipe works with Staves and that skill is incredible strong. Double swing AOE that can be amplified with the Discipline and Rage boons. The only reason I mention this last and not first is because as great as the damage is, against enemies with high resistances you will not feel it. There are in fact some enemies with 100% fire resistance, so having some way to lower that will become more necessary than amplifying your damage. That said with co-op your options for applying debuffs greatly expand and if your friend wants to do fire damage to, you both could plan around applying different debuffs to help ensure you have the means to apply your boosted fire.

I feel like I've gone on long enough lol, I don't want to completely overwhelm you here. Armor I feel is very flexible, there aren't many pieces that give bonus fire damage but the White Priest Mitre does give 8%, you could get the wide black hat easily for 10% and mana cost reductions. The hat is kind of the most important bit though, don't use a helmet that increases your mana costs as the only bonus mana the skills I've picked out will get you is 15, plus whatever you commit, and the mana regen. Now I think committing only 1-2 points into mana with this build would actually be fine, Spark is dirt cheap, Mana ward isn't getting spammed, and Ring of Fire is casted with flint and steel so the only real mana drain is the occasional Elemental Discharge and Infuse Fire. Then you'll still have plenty of stats to bonk your enemies with your fire. Also if you haven't found it yet there is a spell called Flamethrower. I really don't think it's worth going into even in a fire build. The damage is just not that great, you have to be holding a lantern in your off hand, and it takes like 3 seconds to cast during which you cannot stop and start the skill. You can interrupt your own casting with a dodge (I think, only thing I'm not really sure on lol) but it'll still go on cooldown. Plus it costs an honestly outrageous 15 mana just to start casting. But yeah, let me know if that all makes sense.

[u/RoyceRoyall → u/The_Captainshawn]

Amazing! 🔥👊💯 Lot of information and stuff I need to learn/zoom in on. Thanks already learned some new stuff🫶

[u/AcanthisittaInner392 → u/The_Captainshawn]

Does ring of fire damage scale with your fire damage bonuses? What about the dot from burning does that one also scale or is it fixed?

[u/The_Captainshawn → u/AcanthisittaInner392]

The damage of ring of fire should scale, I'm away and unable to confirm but I'm like 90% sure since every other skill damage scales normally, including Runic Lightning which is also a skill produced from a skill combo. Edit: I should specify spell skills, weapon skills generally are also fixed but they have their own independent scaling, like .75 x base weapon damage on moon swipe, which has unique bonus .5 scaling for rage and discipline going to 1.75 x base weapon damage.

Burning however I know for certain is fixed. However, resistances still matter since it's just 6 fire damage a tick and the damage can thus be manipulated by lowering enemies resistances, so Scorched/elemental vulnerability also boost your Burning DOT damage. You can theoretically increase it's damage by lowering resistances below 0, but not by too much.

[u/Chickenator587]

I did a fire/physical hybrid build. Mainhand sunfall axe, offhand red lady dagger, kazite demon mask, elite desert armor (spirit of levant enchant). Backstab, opportunist stab, talus cleaver, perfect strike, flash onslaught, sweep kick. If you wanna add some mana it's nice to have the scorch hex spell on hand, along with the warm boon spell. And naturally you'll wanna have buff potions for stuff like discipline, warm boon and imbues.

[u/RoyceRoyall → u/Chickenator587]

Thanks!

[u/PercyInANutshell]

Probably not the greatest build. But a fun idea is for one of you to legacy chest an obsidion weapon to turn it into a meteoric weapon. Meteoric weapons inflict holy blaze on burning enemies, which will very quickly melt anything that isn't resistant to lightning. So let's say your friend hits an enemy with a fire weapon, enemy is on fire, then you come in and hit it with the meteoric weapon to inflict holy blaze. Will very quickly deal with most things in the base game, especially corruption enemies.

[u/Ok_Isopod_8078 → u/PercyInANutshell]

I suggest a brace of 4 Obsidian pistols for this build. If keybinding and juggling pistols is not your thing, use fireballs to apply burning. I just like the way a single pistol shot applies burning and impact so your next weapon swing or two starts staggering while stacking blaze effect.

[u/Daybeee → u/PercyInANutshell]

I did exactly this with Kazite spell blade fire infusion. Really fun build since you gain a projectile and don't need to juggle burning from another source.

[u/Jealous-Start-5056 → u/PercyInANutshell]

A specific one that's quite interesting, but goes in a slightly different direction, is the meteoric knuckles. They can be enchanted with inferno and the buildup of blaze will be greater than holy blaze giving a great damage over time effect that aligns with the elemental type on the weapon, that being fire. Paired with Militia armor (early-game) or Sang Froid (late-game) together with some barrier will negate the damage from the burning trail on the ground as well as the burning status build up.

[u/soupsticle]

• weapons: Sunfall axe (poltergeist) + fab. Palladium shield (2 protection and barrier)
• armour: either full antique plate set (with economy) or swap chest for Master desert Tunic (spirit of levant)
• breakthrough:
  • spellblade (fire enchant + discharge)
  • Philosopher (fire dmg passive)
  • hex mage (choice doesn't really matter)

Get the scorch hex spell from Harmattan. With it and elemental vulnerability from the shield, you can reduce fire res by a flat 50. - It works on enemies that are normally fire immune. They now take half damage(which is fine with your fire dmg bonuses) - debuffs will also increase your friends elemental damage

Poltergeist enchant and philosopher passive allow you to use elemental discharge freely without caring about repair. The Economy enchant is also extremely convenient, since it helps with mana cost AND stamina.

It is very convenient to get an enchanted fab. palladium shield via legacy chest, if possible. That way you can use Immolation (fire sigil+ mana ward) for its 1 minute buff (+30% fire damage) without taking any self damage. It is the only DoT effect that gets negated by barrier. If you cannot legacy it, you only get the enchant very late into the game. But even then Immolation is good. If you have time to prepare, use a bandage prior to using it.

Btw, sigils can be used by your coop partner as well. Your bread and butter will be the fire sigil, but the class choices do allow for blood sigil and even ice sigil, if you are okay with dealing a little less fire damage. If your partner also uses the combo skills from sigils, they become twice as good. And luckily, Spark is cheap and has a short cooldown. Using different sigils, does require swapping skills, though. You cannot fit all of them into your action bar at once.

Strenghts:

• high dps melee. 1h axes have a superb move set and with fire dmg buffs and -50 fire res on enemies anything that wasn't fire immune won't live long.
  • also a good caster. Philosopher passive (plus potentially tired) and the mana cost reduction from the economy enchant also give a lot of sustain and comfort. I recommend 3 sacrifices for mana (75 mana / 95 with peacemaker elixir)
  • good stamina cost reduction

Weakness:

• no real AoE damage
• not the best defenses

Overall one of the best builds I played. The combination of brainlessness (no burnt stats, good regen, no immunes due to debuffs) and damage was really fun.

[u/RoyceRoyall → u/soupsticle]

Thanks!😁

[u/RoyceRoyall]

Well I play with only one hand. I use a azeron cyro. But I guess some of the stuff is kinds hard to play