Menoitios' PVE Human Torch (Survivability) dps human torch leveling pve pvp
Guide by Menoitios Last update at May 8th 2014, 14:19

Points Available: 0
Going Supernova 1
1  60

Human Torch for 2.45



Johnny has always been my favorite superhero and has been my main since the day he released; however, I took a 4 month break from the game due to real life and recently find myself having the time to play this game again and re-discovered my love for the Human Torch.


This build is tailored towards newer players to Human Torch. If you are a more seasoned player and want a more damage oriented build I have my 'glass cannon' build here.


Power Points / Skill Tree


,
, and
are our main DPS tools in this build but
will also be used.

is used for if we run out of spirit. It happens more often now than before and this skill allows us to stay at a range we are comfortable with.

is for positioning ourselves and now provides a decent heal when used in large groups of enemies.

is our signature skill and has some decent burst damage on activation; however, due to the long cooldown it has I cannot justify more than one point in it (like every other signature move in the game). Also, I personally place this skill on a F-Key (F1-F5) due to the longer cooldown it has compared to the rest of our skill set.

is maxed out due to the high amount of dodge it provides (and the bonus move speed and attack speed don't hurt).

only need 1 point in it for the utility flight will provide us. I put this on a F-Key (F1-F5) and swap to it as needed.

this build is very spirit hungry; however, our artifact choices (covered later in the guide) provide us with plenty of regeneration so you shouldn't need more than one point in this.

only 1 point is needed for the utility this skill provides.

I max this out because it provides a fair bit of bonus spirit and with how spirit hungry this build can be that is never a bad thing.

provides us with some health and spirit regeneration on demand (and a fairly short cooldown that we can manipulate).



One thing to note with the build is that it has five points leftover.

This build doesn't need those extra five points; however, I would place them either in
for more burst damage on activation or
for the extra +Defense Rating it provides per rank.

I personally opt for the latter of the two due Human Torch being the epitome of a 'glass cannon'. The extra defense it provides will add quite a bit to our survivability where as our damage is inherently high already.




The Rotation




I start off with
followed by
, and while it is still doing it's animation you can queue up
and the game will proceed to cast it once the animation finishes. From there I nuke the target with
until our AOEs need to be refreshed and just start back at the beginning.



If you find yourself running low on spirit (or out of it) then substitute in
for
until your spirit is back to a level you are comfortable with and use
as needed to maintain your health and/or spirit.



The Gear




Medallion



[item]39[/item], [item]33[/item], [item]34[/item], [item]41[/item], [item]172[/item], [item]121[/item], [item]202[/item] are all very good choices.

I personally use [item]121[/item] because it now provides 400+ Energy Damage Rating and 400+ DoT Damage Rating, which for this build both stats hit nearly every skill making it a bigger damage boost than even [item]39[/item].

Regardless, any of them in that first list are good just use whichever cosmic medallion you get out of those ones, the extra +1 to all skills is a big damage increase.


Relic



With how this build can be VERY spirit hungry I like to use [item]188[/item] to help with that; however, if you are finding you can manage your spirit fine without it then I would suggest either [item]214[/item] or [item]213[/item] for damage boosting alternatives or [item]187[/item] to boost your survivability if you feel it is needed.


Artifacts



[item]80[/item] is a must have since our target is ALWAYS going to be on fire.

Black Tom's Shillelagh (marvelbase does not have the item in it's database yet) is a very good choice because ALL of our attacks are energy attacks. (It provides +Energy Damage Rating, 3-5% chance proc for damage on hit, and +Energy Defense.)

[item]101[/item] helps fix this build's spirit issue and provides a nice boost to health.

[item]87[/item] this coupled with [item]101[/item] will net us near infinite spirit regen, 1000 crit rating, and with
we will be just over 40% dodge which will give us a lot of survivability.






[item]234[/item] is a good alternative. It provides up to 325 damage rating and +1 to all skills.

[item]198[/item] is another good alternative since all of our attacks (in this build) are tagged with the 'Area' tag and will all benefit from the +damage rating it provides.

[item]239[/item] is now a very good choice. The damage rating on it was buffed to 500+ in the item review while maintaining the revive mechanic.

[item]95[/item] is a good choice as well. It provides +crit rating, +radius, and reduces the spirit cost of everything in this build and is fairly easy to come by.

[item]247[/item] I suggest this as an alternative for spirit regen and it will also provide a nice +defense, +health, and +health regen boost as well.

[item]223[/item] is an all around good artifact but may be a little tricky to come by.





Legendary Item



There are a few Legendary Items that are viable for the Human Torch to include Gungnir, Casket of Ancient Winters, Cosmic Control Rod, and Golden Bow of Apollo.

With the recent item review (which hit Legendary items as well) Casket of Ancient Winters will give us the biggest damage increase over any other Legendary and Cosmic Control Rod will give us the most survivability (however it is hit or miss on bosses due to requiring an affix that summons other mobs to utilize the 'on defeat' rank 2 and 4) while also providing a fair bit of damage (it is only 1-2% behind Gungnir for damage output now).




Blessings



I personally use 4x Fandrals Blessing for 12% dodge rating (unaffected by diminishing returns) and 400 crit rating.



Uru-Forged War Gear / Runeword / Enchantments



I have recently changed from Uru-Forged War Belt to Uru-Forged Battle Breastplate because Human Torch already has a very high damage output but lacks in the defensive department, especially with the gear I opt to use. Due to this the 800 Defense Rating it provides is a huge boost to survivability and should not be underestimated.



For the Runeword there are a several viable ones to choose from.

For this build I personally use Lunar Eclipse (It provides 10 spirit on critical hit (2 second cooldown), 1,000 crit rating when you dodge for 2 seconds (10 second cooldown), become invisible for 5 seconds when your health drops below 20% (20 second cooldown), 100 dodge rating, and 1,000 defense rating) because of it's synergy with [item]87[/item], our blessings,
, and our synergies. Overall it will net us somewhere between 40-50% dodge and provide us upwards of 2,000 Critical Rating on dodge (depending on proc cooldowns).



A few others I also like are Fire Barrage, Bowazon, Heartbreaker, River of the Soul, Brigand's Fortune, and Voice of the Spirit Walker.



When it comes to enchants I use Cattle Enchant of Health (+200 Health per enchant) for extra survivability on slots 2, 3, and 4 and I personally opt for the Fire Enchant of Energy (+50 Energy Damage per enchant) on slots 1 and 5.




Costume Core



With the recent changes to costume cores (mainly the life leach and 25% medkit cores along with the addition of a few new affixes) I find myself still using a 25% Medkit / +1 Energy core. The changes to it don't affect this build greatly; however, it will restore slightly less health and spirit than before but not enough to break the build.




Slot 1



A Cosmic with +7 (or more) to
and +300 or more Energy Damage Rating is going to be best in slot.

However, finding that "perfect" cosmic item is going to be harder than finding a unique drop. the Destroyer Energy Rifle is going to be the best unique to fill this slot currently; however, Human Torch's hero specific unique, Gloves of the Light Brigade, is a very good alternative and may be easier to obtain, especially if you find yourself relying on a basic attack fairly often.


Slot 2



Ideally the 'Any Hero' unique Mechanical Arms of Doc Octopus is what you want for this slot; however, the Human Torch Slot 2 unique, Stark's Unstable Catalyst, is a nice substitute and will further increase your survivability.


Slot 3



The Future Foundation Belt is a necessity and is hands down the best in slot item here. The +Spirit and +Spirit Regeneration it provides minimizes downtime you may have with any build and it provides a little extra dodge.

In light of new 'Any Hero' uniques being added to the game the God of Thunder's Vigorous Belt may be a strong contender for this slot.


Slot 4



The Original Human Torch's Boots are best in slot and you should never pass up on using your best pair of these. They provide a maximum of +19% damage at any range (Yes, the % damage does go that high), +% radius for area powers (which is ALL of our skills), and provides +# to current rank of all skills (up to 6) in the 'Burning Bravo' tree (which is where all of our main damage skills are located).


Slot 5



Human Torch's hero specific unique, Stellar Fire, is now best in slot as of the 2.12 update. It now has +Critical Rating and +Critical Damage on top of the +1 to all powers, +Damage to DoT powers, +1 Durability, % Chance to ignore damage, +Spirit when you take energy damage and it's very high base damage rating for the slot (706 compared to 588 of any other lvl 60 item in this slot).



Synergies




    1. Human Torch: +2% Area Power Damage (Level 25) / +2% Area Power Damage (Level 50)
    2. Iron Man: +2% Ranged Damage (Level 25) / +2% Energy Damage (Level 50)
    3. Ms. Marvel: +2% Energy Damage (Level 25) / +2% Energy Damage (Level 50)
    4. Scarlet Witch: +2% DoT Power Damage (Level 25) / +2% DoT Power Damage (Level 50)
    5. Hawkeye: +2% Critical Damage (Level 25) / +2% Critical Damage (Level 50)
    6. Cable: +1% Critical Chance (Level 25) / +1% Critical Chance (Level 50)
    7. Storm: +15 Spirit (Level 25) / +15 Spirit (Level 50)
    8. Spider-Man: +2% Dodge Chance (Level 25) / +2% Dodge Chance (Level 50)
    9. Squirrel Girl: +2% Damage vs. Bosses (Level 25) / +2% Damage vs. Bosses (Level 50)
    10. Invisible Woman: +2% Energy Damage (Level 25) / +2 Projectile Deflection Chance (Level 50)


These synergies will optimize our boss kill times while also providing some bonus dodge and spirit to help us sustain and minimize our down time.

Some of you may question the Invisible Woman synergy; however, it coupled with the Mechanical Arms of Doc Octopus in Slot 2 will net us upwards of 15% Projectile Deflection which is dodge but for ranged attacks. If you are not using or do not own them yet then I would use Thing's synergy for solo play (a total of 4% Damage versus targets attacking you) or Jean Grey's synergy (her Level 50 synergy provides 3% Energy Damage which is the highest damage increase left that we have not taken so far).






Thank you for reading my guide, I hope you enjoy the build as much as I do.
Comment and vote to help improve the build.







Updates



Update 2.45:

Update 2.36:

Update 2.31:

Update 2.3:

Update 2.2:

Update 2.15:

Update 2.12: