The Chieftain is focused around fire damage with attacks and totems. He can greatly enhance the utility of his totems, making them more resilient, taunting enemies they hit, and weakening nearby enemies, or boost his own fire damage with physical-to-fire damage conversion.

This build throw conversion trap to convert enemy in the middle of pack. Pack will kill that enemy. Explode the dead converted enemy. Throw up the middle finger as everything burns to death. Explode another corpse, inflicting an even stronger second ignite (TY Emberwake). If it's still alive, tea-bag it with culling strike flame dash. 

 

Pros & Cons

Pros

• + Cheap, only requires 1 unique, others are a bonus.
• + Reflect can be done. Keep detonate at level 1 for minimal fire dmg received. Only use 6% max life of corpse anyhow.
• + Tanky. Lots of phys dmg reduction, vaal immortal call with endurance charges will keep us safe, endurance charge generation is ezpz with 20% chance after killing an ignited enemy. 100% ignite.

Cons

• - Slow. It's meant to get to the bottom of the delve slowly but surely. You may not be able to explore very far without having to turn back soon either.
• - Max life is low without items with +max life. Too many uniques may hurt you.

 

Skill Tree

Ascendancy

1.Ngamahu (Fire DMG Penetration)

2.Tawhoa (Endurance Charge Generation)

3.Hinekora (Fire DMG Leech, more Str, 20% dmg from Ash) 

4.Ramako (life regen, phys dmg reduc, immune to ignite)

You can swap 1&2 if you'd rather have Endurance Charge Generation earlier.

Bandits

all for 2 passives

Passive Tree

 

Gem Setups

Main

Vaal Detonate Dead-combustion-ignite proliferation-increased aoe-deadly ailments-culling strike

Debuff

Scorching Ray-Cast While Channeling-Vulnerability-Flammability

Dominating Blow/Converstion Trap/Aura

Purity of Elements or Clarity- Increased Duration-Conversion Trap-Dominating Blow

Dominating blow only needs to hit, it doesn't matter how much damage you inflict. This is a great skill if you're about to head to a boss fight. Getting a few 40 seconds mobs ready to use before the fight is a smart idea.

Movement

Flame Dash/Leap Slam-Faster Casting-Culling Strike/Desecrate

Flame Dash or Leap Slam. Desecrate for boss killing outside of delve.

Immortal Call and Golem

Vaal IC-Chaos Golem/Flame Golem-Increased Duration-Cast when damage taken

Keep cast when damage taken at level 1 and don't level up your Vaal IC too much. Read the tooltip of cast when damage taken closely.

 

Items

Required

Emberwake Ring

Second Ignite, Increased Fire DMG. Without this ring we won't hit the required amount of DMG to kill our enemies after exploding.

Wands

Ashcaller

What fire build is complete without Ashcallers for leveling?

Body

Cospri's Will

Extra Curse, and they hit hexproof enemies. Lots of evasion and a chance for poison on top of our ignite.

Weapon

The Goddess Scorned 

Ignite Burns 50% faster but only ignite will deal damage. Will help with clear speed but will remove your second hand weapon which is a sacrifice for survivability if you want a shield. Literally only for 50% faster ignite. May be better to get %increased fire damage and fire penetration wands, though. Question is, can you deal double fire damage with wands, or would you rather just cut the ignite time by half. Since you're dealing two ignites, it may be possible to deal double overall fire damage, and gain mana regeneration something in the wands.

Boots

Abberath's Hooves

“When you kill an ingited enemy, inflict an equivalent ignite on each nearby enemy.” This will provide an immediate double ignite of the highest damage. We have elemental proliferation support in our detonate dead which is great, but it's only one ignite of the highest damage. With these boots you'll but 2 on them bad boys. Plus 1% fire dmg for 20str, since we're stacking strength as best we can it'll be great later down the line when we have way more str.

Flasks

Lion's Roar

Great flask for keeping the mobs off us. Knocks em back, and 75% chance to fear. They're run away screaming with their hair on fire.

The Overflowing Chalice

Use this flask before the others, you'll receive a damage boost and the other flasks will regen twice as fast.

Stats to look out for

• %Increased Damage/Fire Damage/Elemental Damage/Burning Damage/Damage over time/Area Damage in that order.
• %increased max life, +max life, +resists

Spell Damage is useless, it doesn't increase the corpse explosion dmg, thus not increasing our ignite.

 

Leveling Guide

Skills

• Start out with sunder for clear, and molten strike for bosses.
• Use added fire damage and anger/wrath auras for more fire damage.
• You'll be grabbing a bit of fire damage at the start and quite a bit of life and strength nodes.
• Go straight for Celestial Judgement and Punishment.
• Switch to Tectonic Slam, and make sure you cap your resists and grab a granite flask.
• Check to make sure all of the support gems you'll be using are socketed somewhere so they level along with you.
• Your physical and elemental protections will be fine all through act 3/4 if you have good flask management.
• When you grab the fire damage tree at the tippy top, you're ready to switch to desecrate totem w/ your detonate dead setup. 4-link will do you for awhile.
• If you need survivability add a Taunt totem.
• Be sure to use scorching ray to debuff bosses and then explode the corpses from desecrate.

Tree

Celestial Judgement and Celestial Punishment first. Then look for building out to the endurance charge nodes and that big phat fire circle at the top. Your fire dmg will be fine until late game. Notice how multiple nodes are branching out from the main path so to speak. Grab those here and there, when you feel you need something.

Items

Ashcaller is a great leveling item, and usually cheap. Or you can just use a nice 2h axe/mace for tectonic slam. Get your ring asap. Get tanky gear, %increased fire damage for spells on wands. You won't get fire damage increases till later, so having that on your wands will help.

 

Expectations