Free-To-Play Fire with Gilgamesh! (Patch 2.3)
This guide is part of my article series on fire builds. If this build is not to your likeing, have a look at the rest of my builds on the lightning build page. I have multiple builds for any taste available, IB, PvE, arena/ToS builds and F2P/cheap builds.
This article is on free to play fire with Gilgamesh. We take advantage of fire’s inate ability to burst out insane damage to create a pumped-march that can deal a ton of damage – beware tho! Some luck is required when fighting against stronger foes.
It is the beauty and curse of fire to be reliant on RNG. We are building to deal crazy damage through critical hits and chase procs. If you are unlucky on your critical hits, it will feel very underwhelming. But on the other hand, a few solid crits makes you feel like a god amongst men!
This is a free-to-play setup. All Immortals, artifacts and Tower of Knowledge skills used for this build is 100% free to obtain and max!
Fire is a team that can be run in many different ways. One thing is for certain though. If you want to run fire well, you have to embrace the fact that fire is a glass-canon setup made to deal tons of damage in short time or die horrible trying.
It can work very well, and is especially strong against teams that rely on backline damage dealers and on slow ramp-ups.
Personally, I use Fire to nuke wind and shadow setups.
However, you need to be aware before committing to fire, that because we are building to deal crazy damage through critical hits, this build is subject to a lot of RNG. If you are unlucky on your critical hits, it will feel very underwhelming. But on the other hand, a few solid crits makes you feel like a god amongst men!
How does it work?
This setup is pretty standard and revolves around pumping big burst damage from Wu and Gilgamesh.
- William adds a solid 20% crit rate.
Because we are scaling critial hit rate and critical hit damage, this setup scales extreemly well with combat buffs adding a solid 5% boost to your critical hit rate. Furthermore, you want to get to VIP level 13 as quickly as possible to get the 9% Base Critical Value.
Embrace the chaos of RNG Fire!
Running fire you will always be subject to some RNG. Trying to mitigate it through defenses, running Charles, shelter, Cyrus control builds, etc. is admirable yet ultimately futile. Fire is and has to be a glass canon of a build. It is what makes fire awesome and what makes it frustrating. If you are not getting the crits you need, you will loose. No matter the build, not matter the power. If you do get the crits, you will absolutely melt the face off of most any enemy.
ToK passive setup (main)
For the passive setup, we want to maximize the amount of damage we can output as possible. This means, barely any defensive passives! For Defense, the only two things you want are Malice and Oaken Guard. We want just these two, as they are extreemly high value passives giving us major defense and thus protecting troop count. There are no other defensives strong enough to make the cut. Against full magic damage, swap Oaken Guard into Resist. Otherwise, we are full on damage!
Fighting Master ensures our Gilgamesh never is Interrupted and thus that his continuous AOE pressure is reliably upheld. Furthermore, the mitigation protects his troop count nicely.
We want to get ahead in the fight as quickly as possible. Hence William runs Energy Suppression, which in combination with Hippolyta’s energy redcution keeps a nice damper on the enemy energy bars allowing our fire to be the first to cast spells and hence get ahead in troop count right off the bat.
You likely heard the saying “the best defense is a good offense?” Well this is it. By being the first to cast spells and pumping massive damage in the first seconds of a fight, we are reducing enemy troop count and thus boosting our damage comparativly!
Fighting Will is the last skill I will spend significant time on. You should run this because you will take a lot of damage and therefore quickly reach the % triggers. Having a few seconds of control can get you back in the game if you fall behind early.
This lands us with the following setup. You want to run this passive loadout:
Empress Wu: Chase, Annihilation, Toxic Nova
Gilgamesh: Death Breath, Anger, Fighting Master
William: Fighting Will, Energy suppression, Malice
Hippolyta: Weakness, Oaken Guard, Blessing of War
Published: 25-10-2022