[2.0] Angryaa's beginner's guide to Ball Lightning Shadow.

What is your opinion about Innervate gem as 6th link?
running Tabula Rasa atm and the Onslaught buff is almost permanently on.
Do we need more castspeed?

Would you recommend using the gem or is its only use an arc-build?

Thx! loving the build so far!

I haven't try innervate yet, but I guess for shocking enemies Arc would be better. Plus we don't use shock nodes in our passiv tree, so I would say you can get more damage with other gems. Added lightning damage is good too.


You can never have enough cast speed ;)

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wraeyth wrote:

What do you think of using a Staff in this build? I've got access to a +2 light, with +22% lightning dmg, and space for crafting Spell Damage on it.

If you have your element resistances to 75% , try it out, that would interest me too :)

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wraeyth wrote:

Also, in your endgame gems, you have Discipline + Wrath listed as 3L - is there a missing gem? Reduced Mana maybe?

Reduced Mana gem doesn't work anymore with aura's :( . So we have to make a choice now which aura we are going to take and which we can drop.

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armsinmotion wrote:

I was still running HoT with HoI with 50% reserved mana and a ton left over. Never had mana issues so I've gone to HoT and Wrath and still going strong with a decent damage increase. Is anyone running anything off their health globe?

I am not running out of health globe, but of my mana globe lol. Having mana issues, but I am not using the two curses right now, I will use them later. With Atziri foible the mana issue is better now.


How are you gem set up guys with cast when damage taken? I have seen a lot of different gem set up's with this gem.

PS: I am afk for some days.

I'm just using what was suggested by OP for CWDT but I think some changes could be required here, tempest shield & arctic breath don't seem very effective.

Note I just killed Malachai on Merciless - it took 26 deaths :/ Level 73 My HP is at 2363 and ES at 2094. I know this is probably way too low but I just wanted to get him out of the way. Couldn't imagine doing this in hardcore. Most of the mechanics would either 1 shot me or leave me with such little health spamming insta flasks didn't do anything. Some times I'd port into his room and spawn on red circles/traps/death.

Why not get the projectile damage nodes like Sniper since ball lightning is effected by projectile damage.

I think that in combination with slower projectiles (having some faster helps counter the low range at higher level of slower projectiles) gives it a MASSIVE dps boost.

Also i think linking a second ball lightning with curse on hit and your two curses is way better then herald.

Herald is fun and it nice for auto curses but its super unreliable especially if there isn't trash to kill.

When should I change heralds for wrath/discipline? And how can I use wrath, discipline and HoT? It's 50%+35%+25%=110%.

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starwanderer wrote:

When should I change heralds for wrath/discipline? And how can I use wrath, discipline and HoT? It's 50%+35%+25%=110%.

16% reduced Mana Reserved from the passive tree.

I'd run wrath and HoT until you think you have the reduced mana reserved nodes then see how you go with discipline i guess. Personally i'm not really able to run it yet at level 68 but maybe that's just my gear and mana regen.

**EDIT**: RIP@72 to Detonate Dead Strongbox


Diggin this build! Ball Lightning is pretty satisfying.. I'm level 66 in Tempest at the moment and things are finally smooth. I've made the minor change of removing HoT and adding CoH to a second ball lightning and it has made mana much more manageable due to the consistent leech. So I run discipline and wrath with a 140 mana left after reserves. Curse immune baddies are a pain though because there's no way to sustain mana other than spamming flask til they drop.

My Tooltip BL dps is: 1516 (I know this really means nothing but gives a point of reference I guess)
Life: 2982
ES: 2235

Current Passive: Headed for Arcane Focus and Doomcast next


Gear is only soso

Excellent help for people looking at Ball Lightning builds. Thanks for the info!

Cheers for the information so far in this thread.

Took it up, and just into Cruel Tempest.
Struggling badly with mana regen, but it's kinda working,
using Rallying Cry for the dps boost and mana regen, but clearing content fast.

Don't have all the auras up yet, my mana pool simply not that big yet.

My question is, is the low max life (+95% to max life from the guide tree) a worry,
or is the massive amounts of ES that we get, counteracts this nicely?

I don't like HoT for CoH, it doesn't seem that reliable, so going for 2 cursed enemies I am unsure of.

This is my major point,
What is the correct time to switch into VP and GR? (I was thinking cruel a4, or merci a4).

Thanks.

Is there anything you'd change in curse or cwdt setup specifically for hardcore? Arctic breath in cwdt doesn't seem very good defensively. Also wasting 3-4 links on buffing ur golem seems excessive.