[2.6] The Quadfire Chieftain - 275k+ DPS Fire everywhere! Searing RF Ray Firestorm

We self cast Searing Bond and Scorching Ray. With the new Cast when Channeling Gem, Scorching Ray will cast another spell like Firestorm. Both Ray and Firestorm are used in a 6 link chest and will therefore work as a 4 link with 3 support gems that increase the damage. From CwC Gem, Firestorm even gets another 9% MORE damage, so its more like 4 Link + 4,5 Link. RF also gives an additional 59% more damage to both, as well as to the Searing Bond totem we will use on bosses and harder rares.

Pros:
- Can play one handed and have the other hand at your girlfriend, beer, food
- Very tanky (6k+ life, 6 endu charges, armour, 27% block, fortify)
- Very easy to gear because you dont need any additional Intelligence or Dexterity and only about 260 res from 8 items (thats only 33 res per item)
- Very cheap (only one mandatory item that is only a few C)
- Two new gems: Ray & CoCH, you will have a totally new experience
- Easy to understand and build (no respeccing)
- Easy to play: just cast Searing Bond totem and channel Ray

Cons:
- Not your fastest uber farmer
- You can use one of the four spells (RF) not before lv 65
- Stationary while channeling, might be a littlee more squishy at boss fights that need movement (like Atziri)
- New mechanics and skills, meaning there was no chance to test it

Lv 91 Tree

The build uses scorching ray with CoCH to help clearing. Imho the worst point of the Ray is that you very often dont kill the mobs and they have like 10% hp left. It would be very annoying to hit them with the ray again. Therefore we add Cast when Channeling and Firestorm to clear normal packs. With Righteous Fire we also get a real nice boost (59% MORE damage) and can kill everything that comes too close. On bosses and harder rares we also cast Searing Bond for additional damage as well as more survivability.
We also utilizes a lot of defensive stats. When casting the ray, you have to stand still, therefore you are vulnerable to damage and need a lot of mitigation. The build has a lot of life, armor, 6 endurance charges, fortify and 27% block.

In case we have mana problems, I created another tree. This tree sacrifices some life and defenses for more mana regeneration and cast speed. With this tree you should be able to sustain a full scorching ray cast even without warlords mark.

Tree Lv 89 more mana reg

This build uses the Chieftain Ascendancy.

I suggest using those nodes (in this order):

Tawhoa, Forest's Strength:
We get 40% increased armor, 10% to all res, 10% reduced mana cost and 10% strength.

Ngamahu, Flame's Advance
We get 35% increased damage against burning enemies (= every enemy because the Ray applies Burn to everything) and 15% chance to ignite, what will bring a litte additional damage from Firestorm.

Ramako, Sun's Light
Probably the most important node to sustain RF and add survivability. We will get 3% addition life regeneration from Endurance charges (0,5% per charge), we cant be ignited and we get a 20% chance to get an endurance charge when we kill a burning enemy (which is every enemy).

Arohongui, Moon's Presence
Adds survivability with 8% less damage of enemies around your Searing Bond totem and adds 16% more damage to all four spells.

SC:
Normal: Skillpoint
Cruel: Skillpoint
Merc: Endurance Charge

HC:
Normal: 40 Life
Cruel: Skillpoint
Merc: Endurance Charge

Main Damage Link (6L: BBBBB B/R): Scorching Ray - Elemental Focus - Controlled Destruction - Cast When Channeling - Flamesurge(Bosses)/Firestorm(Clearing) - FasterCasting/Iron Will

Helm (30% Ele damage Essense 4L: BBBR): Righteous Fire - Elemental Focus - Increased Burning Damage - Inc AoE / ConC Effect

Boots/Gloves (4L: RRGB): Searing Bond - Increased Burning Damage - Rapid Decay - Elemental Focus

Boots/Gloves (3L: RRB / 1L: R): CwDT Lv5+ - Stone Golem - Tempest Shield + Purity of Fire

Weapon/Shield (3L: BBR): Blasphemy - Flammability - Warlords Mark

Weapon/Shield (3L: R/G GR): Shield Charge/Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify

With Firestorm you can focus less on killing everything with the beam. Just move the beam once over everything and the mobs will melt. If they still have some hp left, the Firestorm will do the rest.

Flame Surge greatly benefits from the burning of the Ray (50% MORE!) and from RF (59% MORE!) and should help with bosses.

Firestorm/Flame Surge also profit from RF (59% MORE!) and 250% increased spell damage from the tree as well as from all the gems in the main link. They get 40% more damage as soon as they crits from Elemental Overload. With 2+ casts per second this should happen quite often and we also have CwDT linked to detonate dead, molten shell and tempest shield that could help with the crit.

I think about using it as a league starter because the build is VERY cheap. The only really mandatory unique is dirt cheap (Rise of the Phoenix). All other items can be 1C items from poe.trade and the build would still work. Of course it gets better with a 6L, so you probably need to invest ~20C before having a 6L and then another Exalted to get the 6L.

For the gear I would be looking for this stats:
- Life
- Strength
- Armor
- Capped Resistance
- fire damage
- faster casting/spell damage

Weapon: Doon Cuebiyari Sceptre
Amulet: Xoph'ethula's Heart
Shield: Rise of the Phoenix

Shield is a must have. Amulet and Weapon are close to BiS for this build. The other items would be a 6L Armor/ES Chest (since we need a lot of blue gems) and armor based Helm/Gloves/Boots.

For the defense part we get the following stats from the tree:

191% increased life
224% increased armour
8,7% life reg / 12,9 with 6 Endurance charges
3+3 Endurance charges, giving 24% reduced phys damage and 24% res
38/30/30% resistances
+1% max fire resistance
20% chaos resistance
Cant be ignited
20% increased life flask recovery
1% fire damage leeched as life (only applies to Firestorm)
10% increased strength
292 strength
154 intelligence (will be enough to use any gems you need)

You should be able to get 80 life and 30 strength on every item except the shield (Chest + Helm + Gloves + Boots + Belt + Ring + Ring + Amulet = 8 items).

(8 * 30 strength from items + 60 from weapon + 312 from tree)+ 10% from tree = 673 strength
( 66 base life + (8 items * 80 life) + (12 * 88 level up) + 336 life from strength ) * 3,05 from tree/jewels = 6.399 life

If you take into account that we can get more than 15% life from three jewel slots and that some items like the belt, helm and chest easily go past 80 life, we can easily reach 7k hp.

We also use Fortify (25% reduced damage inc), Tempest Shield (3% additional Block), a fast movement skill (shield charge when we use mace, whirling blades if we use dagger) and we have 3% leech from Firestorm damage. When we use Searing Bond, monster deal 8% less damage. Last but not least we have a very good chance of creating Endurance Charges (about 50% on every kill, 20% on Hexproof enemies).

All in all we should be VERY tanky!

I tried to calculate the damage, assuming the following:
- Level 20 gems with 0 quality
- 0% mob res
- Full Lv 88 tree
- Elemental overload procced
- All spells hit

We use three spells to deal damage:

Scorching Ray
520 dps at Lv 20

Increased damage:
70% burning damage from tree
35% increased damage against burning enemies from tree
18% elemental damage from tree
196% fire damage from tree
39% spell damage from tree
135% from Iron Will gem (6L)
116% from Doon Cuebiyari
= 609% increased damage

More damage:
420% Implicit Scorching Ray bonus at highest stacks
59% Righteous Fire Gem
49% Elemental Focus Gem
44% Controlled Destruction Gem
40% from Elemental Overload


Max Damage
Damage = 520 * 7,09 * 5,2 * 1,59 * 1,49 * 1,44 * 1,4 = 91.564 dps


Righteous Fire
3.200 dps at Lv 20 (assuming we have 6.400 life (see "Defense") and little to no ES what should be doable with 205% life from tree/jewels)

Increased damage:
20% area damage from tree
70% burning damage from tree
35% increased damage against burning enemies from tree
59% burning damage from Increased Burning Damage Gem
18% elemental damage from tree
196% fire damage from tree
116% from Doon Cuebiyari
= 514% increased damage

More damage:
59% Righteous Fire Gem
49% Elemental Focus Gem
40% from Elemental Overload

Max Damage
Damage = 3.200 * 6,14 * 1,59 * 1,49 * 1,4 = 65.167 dps


Firestorm
2.542 dps at Lv 20 (calculated with Firestorm DPS calculator, 3 casts per second, 20% Inc AoE)

Increased damage:
18% elemental damage from tree
20% area damage from tree
35% increased damage against burning enemies from tree
196% fire damage from tree
39% spell damage from tree
135% from Iron Will gem (6L)
116% from Doon Cuebiyari
= 559% increased damage

More damage:
59% Righteous Fire Gem
49% Elemental Focus Gem
44% Controlled Destruction Gem
40% from Elemental Overload
9% from CoCH Gem

Max Damage
Damage = 2.542 * 6,59 * 1,59 * 1,49 * 1,44 * 1,4 = 87.209 dps


Searing Bond

1.756 dps at Lv 20

Increased damage:
18% elemental damage from tree
35% increased damage against burning enemies from tree
59% burning damage from Increased Burning Damage Gem
196% fire damage from tree
70% burning damage from tree
116% from Doon Cuebiyari
= 494% increased damage

More damage:
59% Righteous Fire Gem
39% Rapid Decay Gem
40% from Elemental Overload

Max Damage
Damage = 1.756 * 5,94 * 1,59 * 1,39 * 1,4 = 32.274 dps

Combined damage:
Scorching Ray = 91.564 dps
Firestorm = 87.209 dps
Righteous Fire = 65.167 dps
Searing Bond = 32.274 dps
Together = 276.214 dps

Arctic Breath = 74.593 dps
Flame Surge = 94.540 dps


Resistances / Penetration:
Also keep in mind that all those four skills have 68% fire resistance penetration on max scorching ray stacks.

This build is very easy to play. You just pop Righteous Fire and run through the mobs. On harder mobs you should use shield charge to get Fortify (25% reduced damage taken) and to apply Elemental Weakness (40% lowered resistance) and then cast Scorching Ray.

This build is also perfect to farm Merc Dried Lake. Just make sure you have one or two Quicksilver Flasks and 25% or better 30% Movement Speed on Boots. Since this build melts big bosses in seconds, I always killed Voll on Merc Dried Lake and was able to sell some nice items I got from him (798% face breakers, 15% int helm, several other uniques).

Quick advide:

Dense areas with low threat: Just start Righteous Fire and run through the mobs.
Dense areas with high thread: Cast Ray from far away and Firestorm + Ray will melt the mobs. All mobs that actually reach you will burn in the Righteous Fire and Searing Bond Totem.
Wide areas with low threat: Just bring a Quicksilver Flask with increased recharge, increased charges or less charges used and run through everything with Righteous Fire.
Wide areas with high threat: Move and cast the Ray from time to time. Let the Firestorm do the killing.

18 Points
Just grab the first life nodes and first damage nodes so you can level with Firestorm. Craft a +1 sceptre and use it with Firestrom. Ask a nice witch to buy you scorching ray ;) And ask her to buy Controlled Destruction (1x) and Elemental Focus (3x)

34 Points
Make your way up to the Templar area and grab all that additional damage nodes as well as life.

60 Points
Grab more life and burning/fire damage. From this point on you can decide if you want to grab all the important nodes for RF first (Regeneration!) or if you want to go for more damage. Since RF hits only near targets, you will need it late in the game to be safer against bosses or packs.

82 Points
I will probably start to specc into RF when I reached this tree (probably around 65) and grab the second curse (Warlords mark for Endu charges) and the additional Aura nodes for less mana reservation.

Just to name a few things you could change if you want.

Flameblast If you prefer, you can also use flameblast. You wouldn`t need much adjustment and you could use scorching ray on your totem instead of Searing Bond to still add the 24% resistance penetration

Molten Shell You can also add Molten Shell to the Setup (instead of Tempest Shield). When linked to a lv70 CwDT it could help you in tough situations. As soon as you take >3k damage, it would explode for 25k+ fire damage (+ resistance penetration) and might save your ass.

Vaal molten shell If you find an unset Ring that gives you the right stats, you can also add Vaal molten shell for some tough situations. It will get 400+% increased damage from the tree as well as 100% more damage from RF and elemental overload.

Fire Trap You can also use Fire Trap. It will profit from a lot of the tree nodes as well as Elemental Overload and Righteous Fire.
Base explosion damage is 642 * 3 = 1.926 * 5,04 * 1,59 * 1,4 = 21.608 DPS
Burning ground damage is 519 * 5,74 * 1,59 * 1,4 = 6.631 DPS
With 8 seconds burn duration laying down three fire traps would give additional 75k Damage during a boss fight or for Strongboxes.

Swap Warlords Mark for Elemental Curse If you are able to sustain the mana cost and your life, you can substitute warlords mark with another nice 40% elemetal resistance reduction and get a huge damage boost.

Does this work with Blood Magic? No, it doesnt. You can only use Blood Magic to cast Searing Bond at the cost of one damage support gem.

Does this work with the Inquisitor Ascendancy? Yes it does. The tree is almost the same.

Current Version: 1.0.3 Five days after League Start
GGG fixed the targeting bug (Ray casted Firestorm at the end of the Ray) so we can go with our initial choice Firestorm!

Update 1.0.3: Firestorm back in business!
Update 1.0.2: Adjusted with the first hours of experience!
Update 1.0.1: Adjusted the levelling part!