SEASONAL CHANGES
Difference to Season 14 Firewall
The 
Firewall: Ring of Fire DoT effect can now only apply to Direct Damage from Pyromancy skills.
- Casting Pyromancy skills like
Meteor instead of 
Blizzard - Casting
Flame Shield or 
Hydra instead of Charged Bolts or Familiars
Difference to Season 14 Meteor
- Meteor was technically never the Meta in Season 14 – nevertheless, this spec appeared on the leaderboard at season end, going without effort directly to T150, multiple tiers above the previous highest clears which were done on Firewall meta.
- That S14 Meteor iteration relied on an unintended game-breaking interaction involving animation cancelling on a massive scale. It was also reported for the Druid class.
- According to Patch 3.2.1 notes, it should be fixed:
"Fixed an issue where teleporting to War Plans could cancel skill animations."
Cauldron Set is fixed
The bug that caused losing part of the Set Bonus was fixed on the PTR:
"Fixed an issue where Cauldron set stacks could reset erroneously."
ATTACK STRATEGY
Firewall Do's
Our primary goal is to generate as many instances of Direct Damage as possible ("number of direct attacks" simply said). They trigger the DoT from Firewall: Ring of Fire which powers the entire damage of this build when scaled. That's why we are using skills that generate a lot of hits and focus on high attackspeed.
- Each individual Meteorite from Meteor: Air Burst and Flame Shield: Firebird counts as one instance of direct damage!
Unstable Currents is the gold standard for this spec. It triggers 4 possible Direct Damage skills upon cast, 3 of which we can turn into Pyromancy variants, qualifying them for Ring of Fire's DoT effect.
Ball Lightning: Implosion counts as direct damage (even though it says it deals the damage over 2 seconds)- Crackling Energy pulses count as direct damage.
- Flame Shield: Firebird Meteorites number scales with attackspeed (9 max)
Firewall DON'Ts
- Standing in multiple Rings of Fire at once does NOT increase our damage.
- Increasing the damage of direct-damage skills does NOT increase Firewall's damage (only the number of DD attacks matters)
- Firewall's DoT stacks only on targets that have been hit by direct damage.
The 30 second rule – How to pull and progress in Tower
- Only kill Elite packs (don't waste time on non-elites)
- Aim for an elitepack kill every 30 seconds, ideally within one activation of Unstable Currents (which also approximately alignes with Raheir's Bastion cooldown)
- This way an extra Elite will spawn after the 2, 4, 6 and 8 minute mark – on top of the Elite that you just engaged! That's doubling our effective killspeed.
TIER SCALING
Below T110, Monster HP increases by 17 % with every Pit or Tower tier.
Past T110, Monster HP drastically increases by 32 % with every next tier!!!
- This means you need 4x more time to kill anything when moving up 5 tiers!
- Monster damage increases by 2.37% per tier past Tier 110 (4.74% before T110)
- Monster damage doubles when going up 30 tiers!
ATTACKSPEED BREAKPOINTS
I manually tested attackspeed breakpoints for Meteor
> 79.50 attack speed = 24 frames per attack (2.500 attacks per second)
> 87.00 attack speed = 23 frames per attack (2.609 attacks per second)
> 93.50 attack speed = 22 frames per attack (2.727 attacks per second)
"Reaching over 93.50 attackspeed on paper will equal 22 frames in game for 1 cast. That results in a cast rate of 2.727 attacks per second for Meteor."
Breakpoints explain how the attack speed calculated on paper (in decimal numbers) translates into the actual cast rate in game, which is limited by frames (in absolute numbers)
Only when the next breakpoint is reached, that means you're actually attacking faster (because you need 1 frame less)
Since casting Hydra reduces the Cooldown of a random skill, increasing Hydra attackspeed leads to more Cooldown Reduction.
WHICH STATS INCREASE DAMAGE
Damage increase when close to best-in-slot gear:
Damage:
+2.90% damage (+100 Int)
+6.50% damage (+225 Int)
"Acquiring +225 Intelligence leads to 6.50 % more Damage dealt."
+4.16% damage (> 79.50 attack speed: 25 frames to 24 frames breakpoint)
+4.34% damage (> 87.00 attack speed: 24 frames to 23 frames breakpoint)
+4.54% damage (> 93.50 attack speed: 23 frames to 22 frames breakpoint)
"Reaching over 93.50 Attackspeed means dealing 4.54 % more Damage overall because it's a breakpoint for Meteor."
+2.31% damage (+10% damage over time multiplier)
+4.96% damage (+21.42% damage over time multiplier) (rolls 2.142 times as high as vuln)
+4.96% damage (+10% vulnerable damage multiplier)
+4.32% damage (+10% fire/all damage multiplier)
+1.54% damage (+1 to Firewall/Core/Mastery/All skills) (if not reaching a breakpoint)
+2.20% damage (+1 to Firewall/Core/Mastery/All skills) (going from 54 to 55 skillranks)
Toughness:
+13.9% EHP (+2750 life)
+0.49% EHP (+1.5% all resist)
+0.38% EHP (+1.5% armor)
"1.5 % more on Armor results in 0.38 % more Effective Health Points aka Toughness."
BEST STATS EXPLAINED
GLYPHS
- Tactician, Pyromaniac and Adept are the set best picks for this spec (highest damage value)
- Imbiber is a huge damage boost, but can be annoying to activate
- -Elementalist is good when using CEH rune (Frost damage from Wolves and Lightning damage from Chain Lightning during Unstable Currents) for another 1.15x
- Unleash can be handy to get more mana regeneration (more mana spent = more Hydras from the enchant)
ASPECTS
Aspect of Ancient Flame (highest multiplier aspect => goes on amulet)
- has no breakpoints (does scale with decimals)
- is a 4.15x on neck with 7 sec Firewall cooldown
Writhing Aspect
- -up to a 1.9x multi
- it can be worth to delay the use of Unstable Currents for this aspect to stack up first, if you reach a point where you can not kill an Elite within one UC activation (using it early)
Aspect of Inner Calm
- 1.75x multi, because teleporting is not moving
Aspect of Shredding Blades / 
Overheating Aspect
- can be on boots or amulet (Kullean Prism)
- Getting a high roll (29.3 - 30%) on either Shredding Blades or Overheating on the amu allows us to use the other aspect on the boots
Aspect of Elemental Attunement
- does not substantially increase our damage, but highly increases our survivability by resetting Ice Armor, Flameshield (more Meteorites) and Teleport nearly instantly
- This way we can play more tanky and aggressively, and socket more offensively
Aspect of the Untarnished Blaze (Madman version - only)
- 1.7x damage multiplier
- Requires training to play that squishy build version
CHARMS
Cauldron Set:
"Fixed an issue where Cauldron set stacks could reset erroneously."
- It does not really matter if you have +pyromancy/core/mastery skills on your charms/gear because only the Firewall ranks matter.
- Having resistances is recommended as well because they increase the survivability a lot now (highly valuable, especially for the squishy “Madman version”)
- In some cases, a non GA skill charm with +Fire/Lightning resist will beat a GA skill charm
Unique Charm:
- On paper,
Blood-Mad Idol is the best-in-slot unique charm, because it multiplies the base 1.25x with its effect (2.3x as mythic) for a total damage gain of 2.875x - The downside (taking a lot more damage from incoming attacks) should not be overlooked! Flameshield helps a lot to survive, and even though you are immune, the game still thinks you are burning from its effect! That is why you still benefit from the multi during FS.
The Furnace (if available for Sorc) is a very good alternative, with its <=2.6x multi on elites- It is also beneficial to have non-elite monsters survive longer (Hydra Reset scales with density)
SEASONAL GEMS
- Abyssal Splinter of Hellfire (1.5x damage) is a no-brainer for this spec
- Abyssal Splinter of Anguish (20% attack speed) is really nice for reaching 100% attack speed
- Abyssal Splinter of the Black Soulstone is another offensive option, working on Trash
- Abyssal Splinter of Pain is recommended for the “Madman” version
RUNES
Best combos:
- CIR + VEX grants the needed +3 to all skills (increasing damage and maxing Barrier from Ice Armor)
- NAGU + LO grants flat 25% damage, if working correctly for Firewall
Optional alternatives:
- NAGU + CEH is a self-sustaining combination (Wolves trigger Meteor enchant and do Frost damage for another 5% damage increase when using Elementalist Glyph)
- IGNI + LAC: 20% damage reduction is welcome for the "Madman" version
Maximizing Damage Multipliers
How to maximize the three multipliers (DoT, Vulnerable and Fire/All damage)?
Think of them as dimensions of a Cube – you want it to be as big as possible:
X Axis: DoT dmg
Y Axis: Vuln dmg
Z Axis: Fire/All dmg
If you only have 1 GA per Item, the biggest Cube is:
X: 412.5% DoT dmg
Weapon (60%) + Focus (60%) + Ring 1 (60%) + Amu or Gloves (120%): GA+Masterworked
Ring 2 (37.5%) + Amu or Gloves (75%): non GA, not masterworked
Y: 136.5% Vuln dmg
Ring 2 (28%) + Amu or Gloves (56%): GA+Masterworked
Ring 1 (17.5%) + Amu or Gloves (35%): non GA, not masterworked
Z: 136.5% Fire damage
Gloves (30%) + Amu (30%) + Weapon (12.5%) + Gems (64%): non GA, not masterworked
- You want Fire damage on Gloves and Amu because it rolls higher than All damage. On the weapon it does not matter: Fire damage and All Damage are the same "bucket".
- Ideally you want to have a GA+MW Damage over Time multiplier on either your Gloves or Amulet, and on one of your Rings. Same goes for the Vulnerable damage multiplier. This way you maximize the effectiveness of both “buckets”.
All of this combined increases your total Fire damage over time by
= 28.67 times!
TRANSFIGURATION
There have been no changes for the Transfiguration system for Season 15, therefore we are stuck with ... transfiguring on average 1200 Items(!) per slot, until we hit modifiable Fire damage %
This is because:
- 10 items with 12.5% fire damage % as the transfiguration outcome
- will increase your total damage done by 1.125^10 = 3.25 times
- 10 items with 17.5% fire damage % as the transfiguration outcome
- will increase your total damage done by 1.175^10 = 5.02 times
if being able to masterwork the fire damage % (on some items like gloves and amulets, it's better to keep the masterwork on a multi)
It has no diminishing returns and it is multiplicative with itself!!!
Compared to
- 10 items with 225 Intelligence as the transfiguration outcome (with 2800 base Intelligence)
- will increase your total damage done by
- (4850÷615+1)÷(2600÷615+1)
=> 1.70 times only
This means: The best outcome (Fire damage %) gives you up to 2.5x MORE damage than the second best outcome!
In other words, missing 2x to 2.5x damage ... because you were not able to roll fire damage % or modifiable fire damage % ... will exclude you from competing in high-end content.
This is a consequence and criticism of the current Transfiguration system.
TOWER AFFIXES
Moster Affixes to watch out for
Avoid these Elite affixes:
- 1. Shielding (instant skip)
- 2. Life Link (only kill them if desperate)
- 3. Monsters that shield themselves (Languishers etc.)
- 4. Monsters which teleport or run away all the time
Be cautious if you're not tanky:
- 1. Reprisal
- 2. Lightning/Fire enchanted
- 3. Crackling Souls
- 4. Lightning Obelisk
- 5. Earthquake
Tower Bosses:
- some of them have devastating attacks
- The wolves summoned through
Ceh rune do a great job tanking bosses most of the time - When using Blood-Mad Idol
- to keep up the buff, it is very important to get hit by an attack or ground effect every 8 seconds
- This is especially important before using Unstable Currents
If you have more questions, contact me on YouTube and I will gladly answer/add them to the FAQ! @Zaramos666
Sorcerer
Ice Armor and 
Teleport: Blaze
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