Level 55 Armageddon Brand Witch^3.25

Notes

> IMPORTANT, READ THIS <
When you switch to Detonate Dead you want to do the following:
1. Equip a Raise Spectre gem
2. Raise a Kitava's Herald from Cathedral Rooftops(Both the act 5 and act 10 versions work)
3. Throw away the Raise Spectre gem
This permanently adds Kitava's Herald(a high hp monster) to your Desecrate pool, it persists even if you logout.
Having Kitava's Heralds in our Desecrate pool is where a lot of our damage comes from, do not forget to do this.

> 3.22 CHANGES <
The main difference between the build in 3.21 and 3.22 is that Sadism support might be strong.
Since we don't have numbers yet we're not sure about it yet though, if this support would replace a gem it would replace Swift Affiction, so make sure to play around with that in PoB.
Likely not worth it when you have Replica Emberwake(or Replica Emberwake might not be worth it if the gem is good), make sure your ignites still last long enough to deal damage.

> FAQ <
Where does the 150.000 corpse life in the config come from?
This is around the amount of life a Kitava's Herald corpse will have in a level 85(Uber boss) zone.
Since only the strongest ignite applies we'll always hit the Herald eventually, so we can use it for our dps.

Is there an easy way to improve clear?
Yes, just use an Obliteration wand while clearing, the explosions will ignite and cause even more explosions, it feels great the more packsize there is.

I don't have enough energy shield to cast Malevolence, help?
First of all: if you're having issues you can keep your Divine Blessing gem at level 1, this reduces the cost of Malevolence.
After that make sure you use a Supreme Spiked Shield and maybe 1 or 2 other pieces(usually gloves and/or boots) with energy shield on it.

What's that "suppress chance is lucky" mastery all about?
This build can have some issues getting suppress early on, that mastery really helps if you have some suppress, but not 100% yet.
You don't want to rely on it for endgame bossing in HC, and as soon as you get 100% suppress this mastery becomes useless.

Why is Unbound Ailments used endgame, x support is better!
I don't deal any damage after getting Replica Emberwake?
We want our ignites to last long enough for our Arcanist Brand to refresh them using the Defiled Forces notable on the tree(minimum of 2 seconds)
If you're using Unbound Ailments and you still have issues you can take the "ignite chance/ignite duration" nodes at Breath of Flames to make your ignites last a little longer.

I feel like I'm dealing "literally" 0 damage, are there easy mistakes to make?
These mistakes are pretty easy to make:
1. Not reading the "IMPORTANT, READ THIS" section of these notes/not watching the video
2. Not leveling up your Desecrate, this causes your corpses to be lower level, and this means they'll have less life.
3. You named your character "Quin69" or some variation of that

Some people use Wave of Conviction, and some don't, what do I do?
Elementalist's "Mastermind of Discord" node basically requires you to apply exposure. The easiest way to do this is through the Eater of Worlds implicit on gloves.
Since this implicit can be annoying to get really early on you use Wave of Conviction instead until you get this implicit, all your Eater of Worlds currency should go into getting this implicit though.

Why don't you take Elemental Overload on the endgame tree?
We get Elemental Overload from our sceptre, if you don't have an EO sceptre yet you'll have to pick up EO on the tree.

Is the 15% increased life when your body armour has no life mastery worth it?
Yes, but only if you have a chest that gets a good amount of armour and evasion in return, or if you have a Cloak of Flames.
I opted not to put it in this guide by default because it's too easy to do wrong, but feel free to take it if you know what you're doing! 

> LEVELING <
Leveling this build uses the classic Magma Orb into Arma Brand + Cremation. We only switch to Detonate Dead in act 10, while you can technically use it before then it just feels much worse than Arma Brand + Cremation.
For weapons you ideally either want to use sceptres or the wand bases that give flat fire damage to spells. Any wand base is kind of fine though cause while leveling the implicit doesn't matter too much for you to worry about it a lot.

We start out with Rolling Magma, Holy Flame Totem and Flame Wall. For most packs you'll only need Rolling Magma, and you can leave a Holy Flame Totem to finish up some packs behind you.
For situations where more damage is required you place your Flame Wall so that both your Holy Flame Totem and Rolling Magma go through it before hitting the boss/pack.
A slightly more advanced strategy when using Rolling Magma would be aiming slightly before the feet of mobs(mainly useful for bosses) and NOT namelocking on them, this causes Rolling Magma to hit twice, doubling your damage.

After talking to Dialla in the Solaris Temple level 2 in act 3 you should walk to the little side area right next to her and pick up the recipe for "added fire damage to spells". Try to craft this on both your weapons for some great extra damage.

At level 28 we switch to Armageddon Brand + Cremation. Most stuff will die with just your Arma Brand, some blue packs might require you to throw a Wave of Conviction in there as well, and some rares and all bosses will require you to cast Desecrate + Cremation(3 times).
Don't get baited by the Controlled Destruction support, this causes your Elemental Overload to basically never proc, making the support kind of useless for this build.
Placing Flame Wall in the middle of your Cremation gives your Cremation a bit of extra damage, pretty neat!

We switch to Detonate Dead around level 68-70. Try to get a sceptre with cast speed cause this will make it feel much better to play.

> PLAYSTYLE <
For clearing we shield charge around casting Desecrate + Detonate Dead to blow up packs, some tanky rares might require a Wave of Conviction(if you don't have exposure gloves) and/or Arcanist Brand but you should mostly be fine with just DD.
You can improve clearspeed by using an Obliteration wand, as you shouldn't need the damage of your regular sceptre. You do want to pick up Elemental Overload on the tree if you was using a sceptre that provided this before though.

For bossing you should make sure an Arcanist Brand is always on the boss, this is what extends our best ignites(Using Defiled Forces on our skilltree). You also want to keep your Malevolence Divine Blessing up all the time.
Vaal Detonate Dead has a much higher chance to proc Elemental Overload, so it's important to use this whenever it's available.

For endgame bossing Cruelty doesn't really cut it anymore, make sure to check the Skills tab on this PoB to see what gems to swap it out for. This will likely require a white socket on your gear.