Flame Warden builds

[Derrin_Watson]

In light of a thread discussing builds for the new classes, I thought I would share my flame warden build. JewelsToon is level 40 and performs admirably in PvE. I don't PvP and can offer no suggestions there.

There are many different approaches to the game. I found myself experimenting with many different approaches, and choosing those that I most enjoyed playing. Others will doubtless prefer other approaches and I wish them well. This post is to share some ideas to spark your creativity but are no substitute for your own play testing.

I have two builds I use for JewelsToon, a boss mob and a mob build. The boss works well for boss onslaught and for boss phases. The mob build can handle the occasional keeper and other solo encounters but is best for group situations. After playing with these builds for awhile, I have tweaked them and edited this post to reflect the current builds.

Each is a two handed build and each uses a mixture of melee and magic gems. The mob build is weighted slightly in favor of melee (13,286 vs 12,321), while the boss build now uses all magic gems.

Mob Build:
Fire Attacks
Flame net 1
Incinerate 3
Magma jet 3

Physical attacks
Brutal strike 3
Cleave 3
Execute 3
Whirlwind 3
Smoke bomb 3

Passives
Weapon focus 3
Elder fury 3
Flame mastery 3
Ignite 3
Vengeance 1
Riposte 1
Amplify red
Amplify yellow

It is weighted for physical because i usually lead with the whirlwind and that ends matters. If I'm up against a buff group (such as phase 1 of SQ), I will lead with the magma jet and then the whirlwind. Cleave is for quick cleanup, while the other attacks focus on single opponents.

Boss build
The boss build is the same as the group build except:
Fiery strike 3 replaces cleave 3
Execute goes down to level 2 and Vengeance goes up to level 3
Riposte disappears

For a toon with all the agility of a justi, the flame warden fares remarkably well in phase 3 TSR. I use spirit runes but the real key to keeping the hunter off his game is magma jet. Otherwise, I largely alternate between brutal strike and incinerate, and try to time things so brutal strike is the first attack with a "new" hunter (with whirlwind being helpful there). Smoke bomb and flame net deal with disarm and dragon breath. Fiery strike keeps the very important DoT going in the face of the hunter's high resistance at that level. and Execute is there for the occasional quick kill. With a speed elixir and haste potion, she almost never dies.

With the originator in phase 3 of PM, I lead with magma strike and follow it up with brutal strike and then incinerate. If needed, I do smoke bomb next and can polish him off easily from there.

[Bbbb]

I won't talk about OS or PvP. Out of my 8 toons, my FW is my last choice for an OS situation so it basically never happens. It has the same flaws as the Justicar for OS without backswing. Also, I am not going to spend 90gs on an OS build right now - need them for engravers.

So my FW serves the same purpose in my new toon set that my Justi did in the original set. 1. Mob Clearer 2. Boss killer.

I am a strong believer that Luck is the best PvE enchantment hands down so I had to choose on damage enchant and I chose melee.

I have a single build and am completely stacked on melee gems. I clear mobs with whirlwind and then cleave if that fails (infrequently). I can't think of a single situation where I would ever use Roast. I also passed on Flame Mastery and Incinerate. I use Whirlwind instead of Incinerate against bosses. I picked up Execute which I use all the time against bosses. I find Riposte to be helpful too.

[Illy_the_Red]

For my Warden (only a little over 22k right now) I have a similar approach with both magic and melee attacks but generally favouring melee. Physical attacks stay strong right up to SQ/TSR where really it's magic abilities that have the most punch. So as it grows I will likely take the same approach as on SWs and separate into melee and Magic builds. It may be OK to stay hybrid to some extent but it impacts the damage of whatever attack you're doing. That said it may be that magma offsets that enough and they use 2H weapons so do far more damage.

A lot of toons I see make me wonder if hybrid builds are just held over because at first, you just don't have the gems to do anything else.

[Derrin_Watson]

I agree with the value of specialization for the justi and the shadow walker. That's the way I've built those toons. Diluting gems means diluting firepower.

I'm not sure I agree with the flame warden. At 70K might, I focus on fire, particularly with bosses. It is a sure hit and provides DoT.

But I like what the attacks do together. Brutal strike gives the DoT more time to work. It is also an important defensive tool in dealing with SQ and TSR onslaught. Whirlwind, pound for pound, is the most potent group attack in the game, and it is nicely split into two halves with independent dodge rolls, so one half or both will almost always hit. And the bonus 15% dodge is sweet in OS.

The damage from the combination of Incinerate/Brutal strike, my key OS combo, is roughly the same whether I have four melee gems or none. But, since the DoT is based solely on the magic, I'm going to experiment with using fewer magic gems in the boss build.

Let me add that I use both fire and physical enchants. If I were to limit myself to one or the other, it would affect the build. As I said, there are many styles of play.

[Illy_the_Red]

I agree with the value of specialization for the justi and the shadow walker. That's the way I've built those toons. Diluting gems means diluting firepower.

I'm not sure I agree with the flame warden. At 70K might, I focus on fire, particularly with bosses. It is a sure hit and provides DoT.

But I like what the attacks do together. Brutal strike gives the DoT more time to work. It is also an important defensive tool in dealing with SQ and TSR onslaught. Whirlwind, pound for pound, is the most potent group attack in the game, and it is nicely split into two halves with independent dodge rolls, so one half or both will almost always hit. And the bonus 15% dodge is sweet in OS.

The damage from the combination of Incinerate/Brutal strike, my key OS combo, is roughly the same whether I have four melee gems or none. But, since the DoT is based solely on the magic, I'm going to experiment with using fewer magic gems in the boss build.

Let me add that I use both fire and physical enchants. If I were to limit myself to one or the other, it would affect the build. As I said, there are many styles of play.

It sounds like you're focusing on fire and primarily using the melee attacks for utility, which is sound. If your damage isn't really affected too much then you can afford it. For now I've went the other way as melee is so powerful at low level (or any level really until you hit SQ/TSR) and I don't have the gems to switch to fire.

I like the fire/physical enchants approach - I love Luck but you have to sacrifice a large amount of damage one way or the other to get it.

[Bbbb]

I spoke to Derrin recently and also Vlad specifically on what Derrin calls Boss build and what I called OS build. They couldn't have been further apart from one another.

Vlad's build is completely fire except for Caltrops:

30002
33303
00303
33033
and all three gem boosts

I did a lot of testing over the past week (over 100K HS worth!) with both of their ideas. Even though I started out as a physical/luck FW, I quickly realized I was doing much better with Vlad's build. The major problem with physical is all the misses. I have switched over to fire/luck as there is no need for physical bonuses (only helps with caltrops).

I made a few tweak to Vlad's build and ended up with:

30031
33303
00303
13330

The differences - first, I have run the math of Blazing Onrush, there is a very narrow window of haste values where it makes any sense and even then very little. I moved those points to Weapon Focus. I feel strongly about this change.

The other change is that I weakened Flame Net and Smoke Bomb to get Ignite 3. I don't care about the Net CD reduction and am rarely using Smoke Bomb. This just makes it easier to keep the fire going on SQ. This is more personal taste and I could see the reasons to go the other way.

Also, Caltrops is another ability I don't feel strongly about. I mostly use it on TSR P3 to offset rampage.

[Llyan]

Nice to see the Warden getting some love, especially from B4 (hater).

I have been playing the Warden for a long time, and have shifted from melee to hybrid to fire. I've tried many builds, and I feel the Warden is very versatile. The build I have settled on is a fire build, with whirlwind and calrrops. Lots of similarities to the builds here already.

While not ideal, this is the only PvE build I use:

30021
33300
03303
33303
Red and yellow gem amp

While vengeance is great, only in SQ and TSR p3's do you get hit enough to be worth it. I understand it does make a big difference in these phases though.

Fire mastery does increase damage on caltrops as well as burning, so the caltrop dot can be pretty formidable.

Another note not mentioned yet, major fire runes create a separate burn dot from your abilities. So it possible to have two triple stacks of burning and caltrops going at the same time. With burn dot crits there is a lot of dot damage going on here.

For os I just basically try to keep magma, caltrops, burning, and whirlwind dodge boost up at all times. If something is resisted, smokebomb can give you a second chance to stick it. Onrush, incinerate, smokebomb, incinerate is a high damage combo.

I also have PvP ideas, but I won't discuss that here unless asked. I just wanted to add to the discussion a little bit.

Happy hunting Wardens!

[Bbbb]

Nice to see the Warden getting some love, especially from B4 (hater).

Let's get this right. I'm a SW Hater (TM)! Only a FW Disliker.

Another note not mentioned yet, major fire runes create a separate burn dot from your abilities. So it possible to have two triple stacks of burning and caltrops going at the same time. With burn dot crits there is a lot of dot damage going on here.

Is it worth giving up the Spirit Rune boost though?

[Jumper]

I'm a SW Hater (TM)!

YOU CANNOT TM THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bbbb]

Bumping because another player was asking for this info.