So I tweaked this pyro build from my past videos on it here:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jIxQxjdcbOU&t=26s
I thought it was more crucial maxing the ash duration as a “support” build and ignoring the final node in the top tree especially when I’m using max health over firepower for the gear. I’ll also say you can use this exact set up with firepower on gear instead of health to do substantially more damage and still survive quite well just from the ash maxed and gigantic weapon leech buff. I just don’t do that because you’ll still die inevitably eventually just by being more squishy in the wrong situations and I prefer being an ultimate tank as I always say.
But I will say I realized the fact I have 180% status power with a 15% ash duration node in the skill tree and ash blast maxed on the cool down, what is an extra 15% right? And incinerate skill node is useless anyway since any enemy I’m focused on will hand both burn and ash perpetually on them anyway.
So I got rid of those two for the final top tree node effectively giving this build the 45% weapon damage buff permanently. Now I thought I would go for trial by fire for 5% more damage on burned enemies as the final small compliment but decided a further 20% weapon damage increase was better.
Why? Especially when most of my damage is STILL from claymore torrent and death chains getting buffed dramatically not literal gun damage?
Two reasons: anomaly rifts and weapon leech. I realized this build can already destroy anomaly rifts quickly in EOTS even without going for max firepower so increasing my gun damage more would help me carry people on this build through EOTS. Also more gun damage means more weapon leech healing still. Since I have so much health my cap for weapon leech heals will never be reached so best to just pick up as much gun damage as I can just for the tank component to the build ironically.
And consequently I must say my gun actually does decent damage now. And I can tell it went up dramatically as critical hits on a behemoth before only did 50ish k damage and now it’s almost 100k. So my volcanic round damage almost doubled to the point it became my 2nd best damage this expedition surpassing even death chains for once. And of course all that extra damage means much more healing too.
And as you can tell…I was right about the ash…that skill node wasn’t actually helping me much anymore. So this build can STILL keep the battlefield of adds almost perpetually immobilized while it can now do a decent chunk even more damage and self healing.
So I take it back now: it WAS worth investing in the final skill node of the top tree for this funky build.
Final thoughts: yes I am still using a non legendary epic primary because again I prefer having weapon leech on my gun and for good reason. Weapon leech is by far how I heal the most because I have such tiny skill leech by not being in the middle tree. The 6% I have combined with a large status power for burn damage is not bad at least but hardly sufficient to survive.
And yes my ashes to leeches mod is incredible and is on me ALMOST all the time but that’s what is key…if I didn’t have weapon leech on my actual gun there would still be a good 2-3 seconds where I would have almost no healing active suddenly which I believe would get me killed sometimes like when I’m stun locked. By having over 20% weapon leech with large enough gun damage and death chains (which heals you over its duration based off weapon leech I’ve learned) I can still survive well even without that buff active.
I will say if you go for all firepower over health on your gear then it probably WOULD make more sense to just max your primary gun’s damage through a good legendary and most likely Damascus Offering (especially with the crit bonus damage seeing as how you keep your enemies immobilized so much).
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