#pathofexile #speedrun

Fireball, or some variant of it, is a classic starter skill for casters in ARPGs, but how does it work as a speedrun skill in Path of Exile? Turns out, its a bit of a uphill battle the entire way through. This is the second the starter skill speedrun series where I try to take a starter skill use it for the majority of the run and get a time somewhere thats reasonably within the range of established A10 Pts+Lab speed runs. This run was done as part of Wraeclast Rally 3.25, a speedrunning event. The fireball run was more of a struggle than double strike slayer and I would not recommend leveling it through campaign. Fireball has a lot of quirks to work around and can require quite a few more utility based supports to really start getting it feeling good. In a speedrun context thats a tall order given how limited sockets can be while you are trying to blast. Ultimately, I kind of went with a pseudo-hit ignite hybrid, trying to capitalize on both portions of the damage while retaining some QoL utility through support choices as its still possible to find that balance within campaign. That might have been a failed mission from outset conceptually as I never really found the support loadout I wanted to accomplish that and I ended up towards end on more of a hit-based fireball than anything. In campaign, you can typically find a decent balance between hit and ignite portion for fire skills on elementalist, but you start focusing more exclusively on one or other as you get towards mapping, fireballs base functionality of the box kind of did not allow this. Nonethless, run was sent. Fireball became main skill at Level 8 once Lesser Projectiles Support could be equipped. I ran two fireball setups early in campaign to have a clear fireball and a single target fireball. This was eventually trimmed down to one fireball setup around Act 4. Scorching Ray Totems on bosses to supplement Fireball dps provided some nice extra juice and an exposure source. This might be a run type, I might revisit in the future and try to iron out some of the quirks and build concept choices I use to end with a smoother product. Campaign fireball at your own risk as the as the confines of using fireball are really restrictive and somewhat overbearing compared to just using a different fire skill that is more ready to go out of the box like Firestorm and you will be in for more of a battle than with other fire skills.

Unfortunately, I accidentally sent the character to shadow realm before saving a capture of its gear/skill tree with PoB. This was the planned skill tree I had before run: https://pobb.in/F04wwzWwV5zb and it mostly was followed. Only differences were that I didn't quite get enough levels to get all of the points in the cast speed wheel above witch and I had to put one point into Lightning Walker for resistance issues

Table of Contents

0:00 - Act 1

22:56 - Act 2

44:48 - Act 3 and Normal Lab

1:17:49 - Act 4

1:35:47 - Act 5

1:52:54 - Act 6

2:12:39 - Act 7 and Cruel Lab

2:36:05 - Act 8

2:56:19 - Act 9

3:15:19 - Act 10 and Merc Lab