Mathil's Crit and Non Crit Ball Lightning/Vaal storm call
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Disclaimer: I don't consider this character complete or fully endgame (77-78 easy map clears) ready. Take the videos/guide as a general outline of how the build will get you going to do almost everything but feel free to take some liberties in adjusting passives/gear/gems as you see fit. Usually I would play a char for quite a while up to low 90s in which time I make many changes and feel out the build but this one is rather fresh so I haven't had the chance to do that.
Video guide/gameplay that will cover most of what you need to know. I have recently made the change away from Lightning Tendrils however, because Ball Lightning does quite enough of the dps and Tendrils feels as if it wasn't being used enough to justify the gem slots it was taking. The other change I made since this video is wearing Windscream boots and adding Warlord's Mark to my curse on hit setup. This was done to get extra leech and keep up 3 endurance charges to help my defence. 104 pt passive tree - Many of these passives aren't essential so change what you feel you need to for what you need. For example you may choose to lose the lighting nodes at the top of the tree in favour of more mana regen, or reserved aura % or more life. Gear
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Gear Discussion
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Helm - A good rare helm with resists, life and probably the easiest slot to fill out any dext you still need for your gem requirements. Chest - I went with Carcass Jack for the area effect range and mana/life/res it provides. Something like Cloak of Defiance is a decent choice too. Keep in mind whatever chest you choose should be able to house your ball lighting setup of mostly blue gems which is why Lightning Coil might be a tough one to make work. Gloves - VoidBringers - Massive crit, +1 gems for your Vaal storm Call and high ES for your EB to convert into mana. Pretty solid choice of glove. Boots - Windscream are a good choice if you're going to go the dual curse route otherwise a decent pair of ES/life/MS/resist boots will work great too. Also a decent choice if you'd rather use a Doedre ring for dual curse Weapons - I personally went for 2 rare daggers with as high crit as possible (implict/spell) along with some spell damage if possible and lightning leech from Catarina. Other good bonuses include mana regen, crit multi and resists. Divinarius is also a decent choice and using a shield can also be an option. Try to get life/spell damage/crit on it if you choose to. Belt - A Doryani's Invitation is a solid choice here as it gives good lightning damage and 1% leech. You can however use a very high life/resist belt if you would rather, also a good choice. Rings - Diamond rings are preferable with mana regen most importantly, along with life/resists/mana/cast speed. Amulet - Try to get life and mana regen. Crit multi is very desirable too and crit chance if possible. An amulet with dex will help cover some of the gem requirements. Leveling - Video of character in action at level 58 and still leveling
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Leveling is quite easy for this build. Start off with lightning tendrils and get vaal storm call as soon as you can. These 2 spells will carry you up until 31 when you get your ball lightning but at that point ball lighting might still not be too worth using. I remember starting to use it more around about low 40s.
Passive allocation should be more towards elemental/spell damage and life/cast speed rather than the crit nodes. You won't be able to get enough crit early on to make it worth your while. By late 40s you can fill out a lot of the crit from the passive tree and that's when you can start focusing on your crit. Around this time you likely want to pick up a crit dagger or two with spell damage preferably. Bandits - Passive pt(normal), Passive pt(cruel), Power charge(Merciless) Gem Setup
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4L Helm - Auras: Herald of Ice + Clarity + Purity of Lightning + Reduced Mana 5L Chest - Ball Lightning: Ball Lightning + Faster Casting + Critical Damage + Lightning Penetration + Added chaos damage You may choose to replace faster casting or added chaos with something else like life leech, added lightning, crit strikes or other things. This is the setup I'm liking most though. 4L Gloves - Vaal Storm Call - Vaal Storm Call + Echo + Critical Damage + Lightning Pen Echo is quite useful in the setup because it allows you to cast Storm Call twice off of your soul buildup. Then it's about boosting the damage as much as possible with pen/crit damage. 4L Boots - Curse on Hit setup - Herald of Lightning + Curse On Hit + Assassin's Mark + Warlord's Mark Quality on your two curses can be very helpful to keep up power/endurance charges so I recommend trying to get some quality on these gems. Non Crit Ball Lightning Gear:
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1 month HC gear:
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Passive tree I'm working towards. A list of all my builds and guides - http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1099189 Twitch.tv/Mathil1 streaming daily Last edited by Mathil#3128 on Apr 14, 2015, 8:46:49 AM
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Nice, might try this soon. Any reason you use faster casting instead of spell echo for your main attack?
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" It seems to not be needed. Just watched the video and he mentioned that 1 or 2 balls kill a pack. Since that is the case it is not really worth it to lose the damage just to get that faster casting. As an argument for Inner Force, would it not be worth it to take because it will buff the effects from Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder. I am not sure if it will buff the explosion or lightning strike damage, but it should buff the added damage it gives which is always a nice bonus. I am not entirely sure why you took the sniper node. Is the 28% damage worth having ball lightning go faster? http://poeurl.com/y4gVLJ0 I was thinking of doing something link this since it seems from watching your video it doesn't really matter about cast speed if the ball can kill a pack. Last edited by Darksparkru2#0072 on Oct 29, 2014, 2:58:30 PM
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As I said, customize to your liking. As for Inner Force it has ups and downs. Overall yes absolutely worth taking if you can manage it but the problem is Inner Force buffs all of Arctic Armor which includes the mana degen. After taking Inner Force I was losing mana while running rather than being marginally above the degen. If I had mana regen on my amulet too I would be able to run Inner Force comfortably.
Ball Lightning going 10% faster is hardly an issue, I'd rather the 14% dmg per pt so I took it. As for spell echo, yea the cast speed isn't particularly important but it of course still helps to shoot a bit faster and move on to help the fast playstyle. The problem with Echo is it shoots twice and when you didn't stack cast speed it grounds you for a long enough time to make you more vulnerable. On top of that the way Echo works is it casts a spell twice and replicates it, so if you cast a non crit BL, the second one will not crit aswell. Not using Echo means you can fire off more ball lightning that have a chance of critting. A list of all my builds and guides - http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1099189
Twitch.tv/Mathil1 streaming daily |
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AFAIK projectile damage doesn't increase the damage of ball lightning. when i watched ziggyd's explanation of the skill he said that the balls were aoe projectiles, but the actual zaps that do the damage aren't aoe or projectiles. they're more similar to arc than anything. so those nodes are actually decreasing your damage slightly. but it's a weird skill though, i could be wrong
EDIT, ziggyd was wrong in his video, apparently projectile damage does scale them. thread here http://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/29to5a/ziggyds_ball_lightning_analysis/ Last edited by conradcompagna#7262 on Oct 29, 2014, 4:11:12 PM
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NVM question I asked I answered myself in head.
Last edited by Darksparkru2#0072 on Oct 29, 2014, 4:54:47 PM
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Wouldn't Added Lightning be better than Added Chaos, due to the +145% lightning damage bonuses you have from the passive tree? A L20 ACD will add an average of 201 chaos damage [221 with Q20], while a L20 ALD will add 125 lightning damage * 2.45 = 307 lightning damage. And it'll get even more effective since you're using it in conjunction with a Lightning Pen gem. Both of these will get hit with the 30% effectiveness, but that's the same reduction for each of them.
I tweaked the tree a bit, dropped some AOE in favour of elemental damage. Yours deals +145% lightning and +28% cold, while mine does +203% lightning and +104% cold damage. I'll probably use Added Lightning and Added Cold instead of Added Chaos, too. About the only thing I'd wish for is that Athleticism be a little closer. Combining that with Inner Force would mean I could get +1% max resist on Purity of Lightning. Oh well, can't have everything. |
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" FYI Curse on Hit requires it to be linked to an attack or spell From the POE WIKI: " http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Curse_on_Hit so I am a bit confused with that bit since "Herald of Thunder" is neither an attack nor a spell, again according to the wiki http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Herald_of_Thunder |
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" The Lightning Strike part of HoT triggers curse on hit. |
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" Added chaos actually gives roughly the same damage for me (just a smidge more actually) than added lightning of the same level. I mention my choice in the video but I stuck with added chaos to help on lightning resistant mobs and have a bit of extra damage that has nothing to do with reflect which also helps with the leech from our Atziri flask. That said it's a pretty marginal gem slot so do with it what you will. If you think added lightning is better for you for lightning leech/deeps then by all means go for it. As for dropping AoE, not sure I'd do that. Ball lightning, Vaal storm call range and herald of ice explosions all rely on it and you can seriously feel a difference when adding a decent amount of AoE items/nodes. You'll still get by without it but it makes quite a difference when you do have it. If you want that 1% lightning resist you can also go for Influence. " Try it out yourself. When you attach curse on hit and a curse to herald of thunder and crit to proc your herald, the lightning strikes surrounding you curse every enemy they hit. A list of all my builds and guides - http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1099189
Twitch.tv/Mathil1 streaming daily |
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