Full Fire Molten Strike AC Concept, Help Needed

So I came up with this build for my first-ever truly selfmade build.
I'm currently leveling this in Abyss League and would like some help concerning gear and other general tips.
Here's the Path of Building Pastebin Link: https://pastebin.com/W8F8XatP

I would really appreciate any feedback.
Thanks in advance!
Also, I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask this, i didn't find anything else on the forums.

Passive tree:

Ascendancy: I think it would be best to change it. And this advice partially assumes that you do change it to something like Berserker or Slayer (although Slayer is a duelist), but much of the advice still applies regardless.

Don't get the Str at the start, get the life passives. For only one extra point you get +17% life and some armor. It's a complete no-brainer.

Take Iron Grip since Molten Strike balls are projectiles not normally affected by Str bonus.

Go all the way along the bottom to take point-blank. It gives something like 40% more damage on average to the balls or something, which is your main source of damage. Along the way you can invest in that big 2-handed damage cluster.

Obviously take the jewel and life along the way as well, plus the small axe cluster near Point Blank.

Underneath RT, take Cleaving as well, not just Slaughter (I don't know why you didn't).

Tireless isn't necessary nor really worth it.

For the rest, you should uninvest in every single fire-specific passive (aide from Lava Lash which you didn't even take), including that "Templar triangle" at the top-left since they are not optimal for damage compared to IAS/IPD passives (as long as it's not melee damage passive). The little bit of peneration you get doesn't make up for it, and the burning isn't good for Molten strike, not to mention slow and unnecessary even if it was good.

Invest into Devotion, as well as the jewel socket near Cleaving and Slaughter.

Aside from that there are some other small changes that could be done, but it's not major, and may depend if you're taking certain passives like AoF (which I noticed you didn't even take. Xoph's Blood ain't cheap so it may take a while to get, if you're even getting it at all)



Supports/skills:

You shouldn't need Vigilant strike for single target. Molten strike would do just as well assuming you have a good number of balls. Try to trigger an AC vs single target for double the balls too (generally only works for ranged or slow targets).

I have strong doubts about Melee Splash being worth it. I think that it's almost certainly not an optimal choice. If you wanted splash you should have gone Slayer which works good for Molten Strike too (even then it might not be worth getting the splash passive).

Conc Effect and Elemental Focus are optimal support choices. They'd probably replace Fire Penetration and Melee Splash. You seemingly forgot to use WED support, that is a must-have, and would probably go instead of faster attacks or added fire (or one of the others I mentioned)

Alright!

First off, HUGE thank you for taking your time and having the patience to actually look into my (kind of trashy) build and writing such a detailed post. This really means a lot to me.

Now, I've made some changes to my Passive Tree according to your tips. Calc-wise, it looks a lot better already. By the way, I actually took the life passives at the start in-game, I just didn't notice the autopathing in PoB not taking them. So that is not too much of a problem.

As for my Ascendancy, I've already done the Lab and i like the defenses Chieftain provides. However, I'm not too sure if there are min/maxing problems if I do take Chieftain over Berserker (Noobie-Problems).
I'll stick with Chieftain for now until I get enough Refund Points, but I've changed it in PoB.

Looking into the skill setup, the main reason I took Vigilant Strike is because I didn't know what to put in my theoretical second 6l, so I decided to look for a single target.
If I use Molten Strike as a single target, do I just put another Molten Strike into my second 6l with more single-target-heavy support gems? If not, what do I do with the unused slots?

Lastly, you said something about Avatar of Fire. I wasn't sure whether I should take it or not when planning the build. Do you recommend me to take it although I probably won't have the gear for it for quite some time? Or should I wait and take it later?

Aside from all that, as I've already said, many thanks for your tips. I hope I don't bother you too much if I ask again. Should you decide to look into this post once more and answer, here is the updated PoB Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/cfL8XVQp
Again, I can't thank you enough.

For optimal damage you'll need to be dealing entirely elemental damage, since there are some decent elemental damage nodes in the passive tree, as well as on rings/belts, not to mention the new abyss jewels which tend to give added elemental damage of a random type (or even just other rings/amulets which do the same thing)

To deal entirely elemental damage you'd need to either get Avatar of Fire (pretty easy to do), or else add another unique into the mix such as thew new Stormcharger unique boots (which isn't that good, nor does it convert to the necessary 100%, making it still problematic), hrimsorrow/hrimburn gloves, or some new unique jewel that does some conversion to which I forgot it's name.

The benefit of not going AoF is if wanting to benefit from something like Hatred, and with a side-benefit of getting a bit more damage out of added flat elemental damage on gear  as well(although because the most efficient damage nodes on the passive tree buff physical damage before it gets converted to elemental damage, it means it won't buff the added flat elemental damage sources). Overall it's debatable if it's really worth it, especially compared to still getting AoF, and swapping some piece of gear to get +1 curses, and run dual curse blasphemy.

You don't really need any gear to run Avatar of fire. The reason to get it is to make the Elemental Damage With Attacks gem (I call it WED gem, it used to be called WED gem), as well as the Elemental Focus gem, as well as possible Fire Penetration gem (I think it's only worth getting if the map has added resist, Elemental Equilibrium, or against a super boss, such as Shaper or a guardian. Without it only 60% of your damage gets buffed by these skills, making them not good options. Now there are many good options to buff molten strike (PPAD, multistrike, Added Fire, Conc Effect), but 3 of the best are only good when all damage is fire or elemental damage.


With regards to skills, you won't even need a second 6L which is pretty great, granted molten strike isn't alone in this (I ran Shrapnel Shot and Blade Flurry in the same way the previous 2 leagues).  Before Ancestral Call existed (it was just released this week) there would maybe be some reason in having a single-target plus wide-area sets, or at least to swap out a gem, but AC is really strong in that it can increase both AoE  by a ton, as well as single-target. Aside from the fact that molten strike is good damage on it's own AC can result in one ancestor hitting that target, as well as the balls of your attack as well. This is if your attack is out of range, but the ancestor's additional range makes it still hit. It does require being a distance away from that target though, so if they are the type of enemy that is fast and melee range that tactic won't really work against them. That said, if you really want you could swap AC for something else like PPAD, added fire, multistrike, etc. against certain targets to deal even more damage to those medium-fast melee bosses that chase you (there not a whole lot of them, at least not without map mods making them faster).


Assuming you don't just buy a Kaom's heart (Belly of the Beast doesn't have that much less life, plus gives the nice utility of 6 extra sockets), you could put more utility in, such as CWDT + immortal call + increased duration, Vengeance with Fortify + Stun + endurance charge on melee stun/cast on melee stun, + maybe WED support or Life gain on hit (or something, if you really need to fill up extra slots). Generally you just won't bother spending the extra money to get a second 6L though, since they're not cheap.

edit: I don't know how this post magically became so huge. Sorry if it is a long read. It didn't seem like it when writing it.

I also forgot to mention the rather obvious Ngamahu's Flame as an option for elemental conversion.
I don't know if it's the best option but it seems like it could be pretty good. At least if one doesn't have Dying sun and +2 or +3 balls head enchantment.

ive been playing my own build this league feel free to check out my gear and profile for tree

I've been doing a very similar build to yours; I am going to be going berserker for my asendency. Here is my PoB, feel free to take inspiration from it. Regarding Vaal Pact, I have specced into it for now, but its pretty likely that I will be speccing out of it later if it dosen't feel too good.

https://pastebin.com/mwr3UXYY


Edit: I am going to be using the grelwood shank swords for my weapons, dual weilding them gives me 4+ proj if I get hit. As I am going to not have very much evasion, and the swords themselves give me iron reflexes anyway, I am going to have quite a large number of projectiles especially with the wildfire jewels. Another option for weapon, as another poster already mentioned, is the nghamaus flame axe which would give you quite a bit of damage as well.

I had very much the same idea as you. I have made a guide for what I ended up with this league.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2046563/page/1

I'm currently playing a MS Chieftain and succesfully defeated 3 Elder Guardians pre lvl 80.
Will post my guide after Holidays when I'm back home.
I don't see any advantage in playing Berserker/Slayer over Chieftain.

I've leveled up as a berserker MS to mid 70's. I decided to spec out of Vaal Pact but I kept the leech nodes around that area. I have to say it is quite fun so far; I think I can easily hit 7k life by the time I get to level 80ish as I still haven't taken the scion life wheel (brick?) yet. I've only been doing low tier maps so far however, so things may change in the upper tier stuff. As I am a berserker, I have no complaints about the damage :)