[Torment]1.3 Static Mosher-Detailed Pure Lightning Crit Staff Static Striker w/ video

Welcome!










(Working on Firestorm project. I will still check this thread.)

Edit March 14th: Came back to this build and purchased a 6l Hegemony. Added some new videos.

This Crit Staff Static Striker is damage/clear speed oriented (bit glassy). It uses two new skill gems introduced in 1.3 patch, Static Strike and Physical to Lightning, to achieve 100% conversion of physical damage to lightning damage. The trick of this build is the manipulation of several damage multipliers and utilize it to skyrocket the damage output, at the same time open up gear choices for scaling your damage. Also This will be explained in the guide in detail.
I am aware that there have been plenty of static strike builds out there already, but from what I have seen, none of them properly addressed how static strike scales insanely with crit and lightning penetration. I got the idea of creating this build as I level the character in Torment, and therefore I consider my build purely original.

Got them goodies










Staves:
Before the 1.3 skill tree was released, I thought of building a one-hander crit templar using maces. But now as we see, with Deadly Precision cluser completely removed, pretty much the only weapon viable left for critting on the left side of the tree are staves. Despite the fact that the defensive side of staves are nerfed (block), we have some sweet changes for staves in 1.3: Serpent Stance and Blunt Trauma are literally one node away from each other now, and 10% of gaining endurance charge on crit from Smashing Strikes is legitimately good.

Static Strike + Crit + Celestial Punishment + Lightning Penetration(Core Damage Mechanics):
Static Strike functions similarly to Molten Strike, where you have a phys to ele damage conversion initial hit and a secondary damage effect the scales on the initial hit. In case of static strike, the secondary effect is a decent AoE instead of random projectiles in Molten strike. A very essential fact here is that, if you crit on the initial hit, your secondary damage will also crit. This double-dipping effect allows us to achieve amazing damage through critting on Static Strike.

Suppose we have 400% crit multi(easily attainable with this build) and we deal 100 base damage. The secondary static waves deal 70% of the initial hit damage. So at first glance, it seems like we are dealing 100*4 + 100*4*0.7 = 680 total damage here. Not bad, but no.

The static waves also crit. And the base damage for the wave is 400*0.7=280. After applying our crit multi, the wave will do 280*4=1070 dmg. Thus the total dmg now is 400 + 1070 = 1470. Cool, but no.
When you crit with lightning dmg, you shock the enemy. Shock gives 50% more damage taken on the target, in another word a 150% multiplier. We shock the target with our initial crit, amplifying our wave damage to 1070*1.5 = 1605 dmg. From 100 to 1600, this is quite good. But no, there are three other important factors.

We link our Static Strike with Multistrike. When the first hit of a multistrike crits, all of subsequent hits will crit, meaning that the second initial hit will now land on a shocked enemy.
And we use Lightning Penetration. Probably the best thing about elemental damage is the ability to be linked with penetration gem. In this case with Static Strike, the initial hit dmg benefits hugely from penetration (especially against lightning resist mobs), and therefore raising the base damage of static waves. Here's the good part, the already boosted static wave will penetrate lightning resists again.

Finally comes in our new skill node. Celestial Punishment. '25% increase damage against Shocked, Ignited or Frozen enemies.' I am not 100% sure about where this modifier comes in place, since theres people arguing how its 'increase' not more so its simply additive with other increase damage source. But I am mostly sure this node functions multiplicatively since this modifier is absolutely unique anywhere in the game. There are no other 'increase damage' modifiers that can stack additively with this one cuz they scale different thing. (Not incrase phys, not increase elemental, but combined). Thus we have another 1.25 boost here.
After all this. Do the math. And in actual case I have 489% crit multi.


Abyssus:
The core unique of the build, at the same time optional. Immediately after I saw the 1.3 patch notes, I know i have to build an Abyssus character. As our beloved Crit Multiplier gem got nerfed to shit, Abyssus is where we gonna get that big chunk of crit multi now as a melee guy. (If you notice, this item along with many other 'suicidal' items got buffed in 1.3, Oro's Sacrifice, Hyaon's Fury. It's the trend lead by GGG).
On rampage I lvled a Lightning Coil-Abyssus ST guy to lvl 95, the only drawback is not the increase physical damage taken from mobs, it's the damage of your reflected physical damage. But in here, we have the priveledge of being immune to physical reflect while using abyssus since we are doing pure lightning dmg. This is crucial in end-game.

Tooltip with 6l Hegemony with Lightning Pen







Changes to Gem Setup with a 6l:

Static Strike + Phys to Lightning + Multistrike + WED + Lightning Pen + Melee Phys
In Curse Immune map, put in Blood Magic instead of Melee Phys.

Immortal Call + Inc Duration + Vaal Haste + Lv3 Enhance
At the moment 14s immortal call with 14s 54% Aoe Vaal Haste. Pretty GG.

Gearing
Weapon:
Best weapon in slot is doubtlessly Hegemony's Era. I mentioned earlier the static waves knockback as well, combined with hegemony I foresee a really consistent power charge generation. Beside from that it's just hands down the go-to weapon for crit staff builds.
Chest:
Belly of the Beast/Carcess Jack/Death Oath those three not much to say, personal preference. A very considerable choice option is Lightning Coil. It helps mitigate the increase dmg taken from abyssus. I did not choose to use lightning coil because of the recent nerf, my lack in life and the pressure it puts on resistance. But still, it works perfectly in sync with Abyssus and Purity of Lightning Aura.
Belt:
The GG item would be a +1 endurace charge lightning variant Doryani's Invitation. Lightning Leech is sweet.
Things to Avoid:
If you are mostly soloing, avoid cold damage on your gear. For that it will shatter the mobs that are supposed to prolif. It gets annoying at times.

Shock chance and Crit
Since when you crit with lightning damage, you shock the enemy, in this case our chance to shock is rendered useless. However, when you have zero crit chance, your chance to shock operates at 100% efficiency. That is why you wanna pick up Breathe of Lightning on your tree while you are leveling with no crit, it will just help so much keeping herald of thunder up. And as you will see in my final tree, I respecced out of shock chance nodes cuz now they work at very low efficiency. A 60+ crit chance is way more than enough to sustain herald of thunder.

The character is currently lv 91 on Torment. Doing maps and getting gg gear atm.

reserved.

Interesting build for sure, some feedback;
-In your final tree you don't have Purity of Flesh.
-Faith and steel really worth the points?
-You quickly talk about coil, however it seems that Coil + PoL is really nice for this build? PoL syncs nicely with your lightning dmg (for reflect) and coil really benefits from this aura as well.

"

Interesting build for sure, some feedback;
-In your final tree you don't have Purity of Flesh.
-Faith and steel really worth the points?
-You quickly talk about coil, however it seems that Coil + PoL is really nice for this build? PoL syncs nicely with your lightning dmg (for reflect) and coil really benefits from this aura as well.

Thank you for your correction. I was wondering where I missed that skill point.
I addressed the lightning coil issue in the guide. (Certainly Lightning Coil works amazingly well with Abyssus and few ppl know better than I do cuz I lvled it all the way to lv 95).

Interesting build, I was planning to do a staff/crit but decided to go non crit/pure lightning with any twohander I ever get.. doing around the same dps as you, faster attack speed though.

You just leech mana off warlords mark? How does that work for you, e.g. curse immune mobs?

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Interesting build, I was planning to do a staff/crit but decided to go non crit/pure lightning with any twohander I ever get.. doing around the same dps as you, faster attack speed though.

I am a firm believer that you can't achieve the same actually damage with static strike without critting. And dude, I am even using an abyssus. RT can't go over abyssus critter damage-wise unless you have some godly gear. Remember that similar to molten strike, the tooltip in no way shows the damage of the static waves, which in my case will double-dip crit and do way more damage than the initial hit. In your case, neither of your initial hit and static waves will crit. I suppose what you meant is a similar tooltip dps, which is definitely achievebale by speccing into many 2 hander nodes and running around with a 500 dps non-crit weapon.

"

You just leech mana off warlords mark? How does that work for you, e.g. curse immune mobs?

I try to avoid curse immune maps. I do less damage in those and very hard to sustain charges. But against blue packs or rares with curse immune, I have no problem sustaining mana. Notice that I am using a hollowed hybrid flask.

I like your build for a new league character. I'm going to try it out and see how it goes. Thaanks!

This build makes no sense. You have EXTREMELY little life and take increased damage because of the helmet. I would expect to die a ton using this.