[1.3] The Ultimate Caller of Storms (non-crit)

- Get decent cast speed so you get a lot of Storm Calls off, more hits means more chances to shock and get the Herald of thunder rolling. 20% chance to shock should be more than enough (10% from tree, 10% from quality added lightning, also a quality storm call has more crit chance).
- Go for a lot of area of effect, I think this is underrated. Concentrated Effect will lower your clear speed significantly.
- Storm Call works good as single target as well, I find myself never needing to swap in a concentrated effect when I play solo, the extra help from 2 Vaal Storm Calls adds up as well.
- Use Herald of Thunder with Curse on Hit as a big portion of your defense : Dual curse gives you the opportunity to use one or two defense curses on it if you want. Especially Warlord's Mark works wonders, Temporal Chains would be my second choice. I used Temporal Chains while leveling, I switched to Warlord's Mark when I got Vaal Pact. So basically Herald of Thunder basically gives you life leech (and mana leech which is also life with MoM) and endurance charges. I use elemental weakness as my second curse for damage, but as said you can make this even more defensive, even on the fly with enfeeble which is the same color.
- Don't look at your tooltip DPS for Storm Call, it just shows the damage of 1 strike, you will be doing 10-12 of them before they go off, add shock and Celestial Punishment, which are both not factored in. Lightning penetration is huge of course, so get as much as you can from the tree. That's why I use elemental weakness instead of Conductivity, the quality of elemental weakness is superior to the shock, even in this non-crit build. I have a Conductivity in a spare socket though for now just for the initial shock on single target to get the Herald of Thunder off faster.
- Extra shock duration is barely necessary because your storm calls strike so fast after each other.
- You should get enough mana with EB even without Discipline to never run out of mana. Your Herald of Thunder will not have a Reduced Mana so you lose a bit of mana there though.
- Storm Call is awesome to pick out the biggest threat/annoyance in a pack, be it a necro, totem, invulnerability aura ...

* Storm Call + Spell Echo + Lightning Penetration + Added Lightning + Faster Casting (+ Added Chaos). A quality added lightning is preferred from the start, it basically doubles your shock chance. As the 6th link I would probably go for added chaos, but I don't have a 6L yet so it's open for testing. You can also use Life Leech, which means you can possible replace Warlord's Mark with another defensive curse.

*Reduced Mana + Purity of Lightning + Clarity + Herald of Ice. How far you level Clarity is up to you, just adapt to your Arctic Armor and mana regen you need. Herald of Ice not only adds damage to your Storm Calls but you have 10% chance to freeze from the tree so on small hp monsters you'll get the effect as well (fractured for example).

*Herald of Thunder + Curse on Hit + Warlord's Mark + Elemental Weakness. Thanks GGG for Herald of Thunder, this opened so many possibilities. It finishes off remaining monsters after a Storm Call sweep, which saves a lot of time as Storm Caller especially. These small things makes Storm Call so much more enjoyable.

*Vaal Storm Call + Vaal Storm Call + Lightning Penetration + Increased Duration. I would say this 4L is optional, but it adds a lot of fun and theme, especially when you use the Tribal Storm Call MTX on one of them so you can distinguish and even watch a light show when you use both at once, especially useful on bosses. The damage is not overwhelming so hence why it is optional. For hardcore I would probably free this 4L up for a better or extra Cwdt setup.

*Cast when damage taken + Enfeeble + Decoy Totem. Enfeeble will of course be replaced by the 2 other pretty fast but the time it's on it can save your life, hence my choice. Decoy Totem is invaluable in this build.

*Arctic Armour, Lightning Warp + Faster Casting. If you can put your Arctic Armour somewhere else, add Reduced Duration. Personally I'm not a fan of Lightning Warp, but you need an escape skill and for me it's fast enough, I don't use it to move faster. For hardcore I'd do more effort to put my Arctic Armour somewhere else.

I have Conductivity in the 6th socket but I actually barely use it. I really want a 6L (I never had one, ever) so I don't want to put a skill in there I can't miss. I also keep a Vaal Summon Skeletons with me for maps with harder bosses like museum. After the boss fight I remove it (3 Vaal skills takes some time to charge up). If you don't play solo I'd keep a Concentrated effect with me for bosses (and only if you have a 6L), you could also do this solo but I never felt the urge yet (haven't done maps above 74 but my main skills are currently only level 18 as well so I don't think high end maps will be a problem).

If I would use a Staff I would drop the Vaal Storm Calls and use a 4L Cwdt setup and use the 5-6L for a triple curse on hit Herald of Thunder. But as this is not my intention I won't go deeper in this. But you could go explore the options. You will somehow need to get a +1 curse item and gear requirements for resists and life will be harder.

Current tree for level 86 :
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBBAcEswj0DH0QfxEPFLAWbxcvGGoaOBvxHRQkqicvKPoqODWSNuk6WDrhPV9Bh0WdRtdMLUyzTeNSU1NSVcZV1lcrWAdfKmTnZp5qQ20ZcYV0VXgvfOV-r37HgKSCHoKbgseD240Zj0aQVZZ0l5WX9Jo7muCboZ2un9-iAKZXpwipbqyYsUK18raGtz64k7zqvYLAGsBUwGbGnsy31XXVpti92V_audsL3Yzfit-w4BLhc-Nq5YvpAuvu7DjtIO0873zwH_JF99f56PrS_gr-j_6z

After that you could go for more mana, endurance charge, cast speed and/or spell damage. It's a matter of preference.
Also if you have a +1 curse item you can save quite some points.

Normal : +40 life
Cruel : Passive kill point
Merciless : Passive skill point, in hardcore I would have gone for an extra endurance charge.

Sadly I have to say a Cloak of Defiance is probably needed, especially for hardcore as you need that extra damage mitigation. The Cloak also gives so much mana and mana regeneration that your other gear pieces require less of those stats.

Dexterity is the stat you will need to look out for on gear, as you can only take 1 +30 node from the tree and that will not be enough especially if you use Temporal Chains.

Elemental/lightning damage is the best damage stat you can get on gear, followed by cast speed. Hence why sadly a badly rolled Doryani's Catalyst is an easy option, even if you don't use half the stats on the item.

Again, a +1 curse item will save you about 5 points, so if you're lucky or rich enough I'd go for it. This also opens the option of adding in a 3rd curse if you keep those 5 points. I'd go for Temporal Chains as 3rd curse.

You will need enough energy shield items because you don't have Discipline yo boost your mana pool and regeneration.

I think this is more personal preference thing than something tied to a build, but a big hybrid flask is something you need, as mana is also a part of your health and when in a bad situation both life and mana will be replenish so you will be able to take a bigger hit than with just a life flask. A Topaz Flask is pretty much mandatory, and I wouldn't go without a Granite as well.

My gear besides the Cloak and the Doryani's Catalyst are far from awesome, so there is a lot of room for improvement for when I enter lvl 75 maps+.

Currently 870 mana unreserved and 276 mana regeneration per second.

No boring flameblasterino for this one, at least not for me. You can level with Storm Call, but I used Lightning Tendrils until I had a 4L Storm Call including Spell Echo. I think I used Added Chaos for a while as well to make up for the lack of Lightning Penetration (leaving out Faster Casting). No respeccing, all straightforward, this is how it should be imho.

I think you can do every map mod with this build except Blood Magic. Half regen and even no regen is possible thanks to Warlord's Mark and Vaal Pact, but it's tricky. I'd use conductivity instead if Elemental Weakness if you want to attempt these for the extra shock chance.

I'd avoid elemental reflect maps obviously, it's possible but not worth it.

Fractured isn't an issue, it's actually really fun even. The moment you kill a monster they split but a fraction of a second later the next Storm Call hits and in many cases shatters all recently split monsters and procs Herald of Ice. Herald of Thunder and the Vaal Storm Calls clean up pretty nicely. (Video below)

If you are careful nothing can happen. The Topaz Flask should save you in normal situations but in heavier situations drop Storm Calls in small amounts and you should be fine. In the Gorge video below you will see I almost died to a reflect pack (map was -25% resists), I did see it and popped the topaz in time and lived, but barely.

Random Dry Peninsula map
Fractured Canyon map
-25% resists Gorge map