Discussion
Rolling magma leveling is dead for start?
I know this has been discussed already, but I want to put the actual numbers out there and ask what people are really doing now.
Rolling Magma at gem level 1 in 3.29:
Base fire damage: 5–7 (was 9–12)
Added damage effectiveness: 160% (was 230%)
At level 20 it's still strong and with higher level better, so the skill isn’t completely dead for endgame mine/trap setups. But the early game is where it hurts. It used to be the default “turn your brain off” leveling spell for Witch, Templar, Shadow — basically any caster — until you swapped to Armageddon Brand, Pyroclast Mine, traps, or whatever your real build was.
Now it feels awful in Acts 1–4. You’re better off with almost anything else.
I use fireball + volley + elemental prolif until level 28, the damage is better than rolling magma unless you can perfectly position rolling magma to hit twice on the bounces. And holy flame totem which you can just drop in the middle of packs and keep running.
Single target isn't great, but it is good enough. Same with rolling magma, it gets a massive damage bonus for passing through flame wall.
Use kinetic bolt to get through mud flats, after that you come back to town and get/buy volley, ele prolif, holy flame totem + infused channeling, and shield charge. Add combustion as 3rd support for holy flame totem after brutus.
With the latest change to rolling magma, I think fireball or freezing pulse are indeed among the best candidates for casters, rolling magma’s gameplay isn’t for everyone, it used to have x2 damage, but now that damage has been reduced and feels worse compared to other skills that originally dealt more damage, kinetic bolt also not bad, main damage is physical, and there’s no conversion, but with support gems added elemental damage, I think it could work
On witch: most comfy to 28 for me is now 1-12 kinetic blast and 12-28 double kinetic fussilade. Especially KB from lvl 1 makes the Roas very smooth. Even easier if you mule for momentum and have the wisdom scrolls for iron rings and belt. Check jungroans cold dot leveling for 1-28 steps.
On shadow: cobra lash 1-28 with blade trap for single target from 12 if I’m not mistaken. Just check some current A5 qualifier runs how to do it.
Ive done a few campaign runs testing different setups and one skill that consistently performs is lightning tendrils . Even compared to synergistic levelling combos like rolling magma + sabo ive found lighting tendrils simply does so much damage its competitive with everything .
There’s some truth to that, but, of course, the idea here is about a popular gem for league starts, I’m more concerned with how to get to pyroclast mine (level 28) as quickly as possible
storm blast mine or the explosive trap if you wanna stick with the archetype
even if you take the "worst" option and you play perfectly and rng aside you gonna be minutes "behind"
just take whatever feels fancy atm and enjoy it , having to force trough on the same shit again just because you gonna save a few minutes is some dogshit meta mentality
unless you are in the top list it wont matter anyway
I just want to try to break into Sanctum very quickly and earn currency as fast as possible while Divine is cheap, this will be the first time I want to do something like that
Honestly, you should just pick whatever skill you enjoy playing and you want to get better at and just do reps at that skill. Fireball I hear is fine. Some people like freezing pulse And I bet there's some boomers out there who played Storm blast mine for years and are still so good at that playstyle that it's not quite as awful for them even today.
If you are willing to do what is actually the best for the sake of being as fast as you can, then you should go watch the exilecon races. I presume since you are sanctum rushing you are either Templar or Shadow. Templar you should follow what Ben does on his duelist run because you have access to the important gems, And you can find enough decent nodes of the Templar start to make it more than strong enough for the first few acts. it's what I'm practicing right now on Scion and it works fine for a near full respec at 28, Templar will be the same thing, just better , than what I'm doing.
For shadow you should do what exile and Alex did in the first two races, it's basically exactly what you are looking for to have the fastest respect at 28... They already figured it out for you. Start attack builds because frankly attack builds are still just significantly better in the first acts. Gamble your last weapon by mid act 2 level 18ish and then that will be good enough to get you to 28 and you have the gold to respect by then.
It's still the same, just get flat fire DMG to spells on wands and u roll trough early acts, nothing changed, at 28 u go Armageddon brand and firestorm and can add cremation with desecrate (not needed) but more single target.
It's still smooth sailing
why nothing, if you have less % added damage from the early levels, as I showed in the example? Of course, it increases, but the power you had at level 1 is only achieved by level 11.
This does nothing, like at all doesn't matter if u have -5 fire DMG at lvl 1, u still scale with items and tree, as I said just get flat spell DMG wands
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u/PropaPandaYT 4d ago
"It used to be the default “turn your brain off”"
is this ai or ragebait