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

If you need strenght and dexterity I would suggest picking up Practical Application in the Witch area, it gives you 20 Strenght and 20 Dexterity and you can get it with only 2 skill points.

If you want a good wand, I suggest looking at wands that have increased Lightning Damage and hybrid Spell damage/mana, and that can still craft the Catarina Spell Damage mod.

For example this poe.trade Query: http://poe.trade/search/duyetitetamazu

Many of those Wands can still craft the Catarina mod, so they are all around 90-100 Increased Lightning Damage. But you need to be careful to make sure that the wand is still craftable before buying it and there is always a chance that what you thought is a Hybrid mod, are actually 2 separate Mods.

If you want more Survivability you could replace your Shield with a high Armor shield, and run a Cwdt+Ic+Increased Duration setup, you will gain enough Endurances Charges with Warlord mark. This should stop you from being one hitted.

Also, you could try to run "Flame Totem" instead of the Blind, and then use the Flame Totem to tank.

Running all three Auras is very hard, I even leveled an Enlighten to level 2 and still the only way I can sustain my mana is by constantly leeching

Thx for your reply

"

Yoshi94 wrote:

If you need strenght and dexterity I would suggest picking up Practical Application in the Witch area, it gives you 20 Strenght and 20 Dexterity and you can get it with only 2 skill points.

I have found an other solution. I bought a rare jewel with 6 all attributes, 10 dex, 10 str and 7% life. I think it is good deal, the jewel nod was only 2 points away :)

"

Yoshi94 wrote:

If you want a good wand, I suggest looking at wands that have increased Lightning Damage and hybrid Spell damage/mana, and that can still craft the Catarina Spell Damage mod.

For example this poe.trade Query: http://poe.trade/search/duyetitetamazu

Many of those Wands can still craft the Catarina mod, so they are all around 90-100 Increased Lightning Damage. But you need to be careful to make sure that the wand is still craftable before buying it and there is always a chance that what you thought is a Hybrid mod, are actually 2 separate Mods.

I was using Moonsorrow before for more light damage, but the damage wasn't that great compared to the sceptre I use.

For crafting a good lightning damage you must have catarina at level 5 right? I just checked the possible +lightning damage that catarina can craft, the highest light dmg you can craft is 19%. How do you come to 90-100%? The wands you have shown me have max. 30 light damage. That would make 49% light damage in total (with catarina's 19% added light damage craft).

"

Yoshi94 wrote:

If you want more Survivability you could replace your Shield with a high Armor shield, and run a Cwdt+Ic+Increased Duration setup, you will gain enough Endurances Charges with Warlord mark. This should stop you from being one hitted.

Also, you could try to run "Flame Totem" instead of the Blind, and then use the Flame Totem to tank.

Thank you for the hint, I will try that out.

"

Yoshi94 wrote:

Running all three Auras is very hard, I even leveled an Enlighten to level 2 and still the only way I can sustain my mana is by constantly leeching

Yes, but it works fine with mana leech. Actually I can all 3 auras, but if I do this I have not enough mana for casting my ball lighting ^^. I will level a bit to get more passiv points and get more mana on my items. Maybe with a good jewel I will be able to run all 3 auras.

I meant that you would craft the Spell damage mod from Catarina, which is 24-34(lvl 4 cata) or 35-44(lvl 6 catarina), on a Wand that already has hybrid Spell Damage, Lightning damage and Cast Speed.

This is how I got my wand:

I didn't even know that you can craft spell damage on the wand if it has already two times spell damage on it :/

Thats an amazing wand, wands like this are worth some ex.

Hm I should better wait for catarina level 6

Hey guys!

Can I ask why people are doing their 5l all blue? I feel like slower projectiles is amazing for ball lightning. If anyone could shed some light on this, I would really appreciate it so I can start looking for either.

Thanks,

Circa

"

Sazed wrote:

So I'm new to PoE. I've done this build so far and was looking for easy improvements upon my gear. More for survivability on bosses than anything else. I know I need better boots but I haven't found anything with a decent 4L yet. Is anything in this gear setup decent, bad? Can you help tell me why? Much appreciated!

Spoiler

Hello Sazed,

sorry for the late response.

I don't know how many currency you have, but if you have some chaos (or other curreny that you can trade into chaos) I would buy all that stuff you need at poe.trade. I don't know if you already know the site, but it is an amazing way to trade nice cheap stuff. There you will get all your stuff :)

Normaly you leech enough mana with assassins and warlord mark curses. I would use discipline aura gem or warth aura gem instead of clarity. If you still have mana problems after that, then I would trade for the unique amulet atziri's foible (cost only 1 chaos).

First of all you need to cap all your elemental resistances to 75% (fire, cold, light, besides chaos resistance you don't really need chaos res). Plus you need to increase your life and energy shield.

So life, energy shield and resistances (besides chaos) should be your 3 priorities to watch on your items if you want to have more survivability. Try to get them on all items (besides your weapon) until you feel save and your elemental resistances have 75%.

If you buy items pay attention that it has a good energy shield (I wouldn't buy gloves, boots or helmets below 100 energy shield).

For a shield search for one with spell damage on it (at least 30+), resistances (if you need) and life, critical chance or multiplayer (if you are rich ;). Or if you don't feel save at all you can trade for the unique shield "Lioneye's Remorse" , someone here in thread uses it for a better survivability. It is a great shield which gives you a very good defense.

For a 5L armour, I have bought a white 5L energy shield armour and I have put an alchemy orb on it (which turns a white item into a yellow rare item). Probably you will need some tries to make one with accetable stats on it.

On the rings and amu you can get even stats for increasing your damage like spell damage, castspeed, critical chance/multiplier and so on.

For a better wand I would follow "Yoshi94" concept for crafting a good wand which he clarified on page 7. I don't know if you already know how crafting with the crafting benches works? Or try to find/trade a wand with "cast speed, spelldamage (40+), critical chance or multiplier (but not a must have), lightning damage.

I hope this helped you a little bit

"

CircAGG wrote:

Hey guys!

Can I ask why people are doing their 5l all blue? I feel like slower projectiles is amazing for ball lightning. If anyone could shed some light on this, I would really appreciate it so I can start looking for either.

Thanks,

Circa

Its a good skill gem too, but didn't try it out yet. Which gem did you put out for the slower projectiles? Area of effect?

The main idea of increased are of effect is to hit the most monsters as possible so that you get the most life leech, mana leech and hits as possible wiht every ball. Maybe someone else can clarify that, I am using increased critical strike chance instead of AOE gem, cause I am lacking of crit chance and for killing bosses faster. But it is personal choice.

"

Yoshi94 wrote:

I meant that you would craft the Spell damage mod from Catarina, which is 24-34(lvl 4 cata) or 35-44(lvl 6 catarina), on a Wand that already has hybrid Spell Damage, Lightning damage and Cast Speed.

This is how I got my wand:

I took your advice and bought one of the weapons on the search. It tripled my "damage per second" sheet damage. Thanks for the advice. Any other advice you can give a newer player with this build to help with staying alive? I have max resists but bosses in act3/4 still give me a lot of trouble.



Afura thanks for the tips. I will look into them. Another problem I have is running these aura's. I can only run 3 with Wrath because it takes up so much mana reservation. I guess it just takes more mana over time.

Also how do curses work? MY warlords will hit with my HoT thunder proc but I can't see any other curses on the enemies. How many can I apply at one time?

"

Sazed wrote:

Afura thanks for the tips. I will look into them. Another problem I have is running these aura's. I can only run 3 with Wrath because it takes up so much mana reservation. I guess it just takes more mana over time.

Also how do curses work? MY warlords will hit with my HoT thunder proc but I can't see any other curses on the enemies. How many can I apply at one time?

You are welcome.

3 aura's are alreday good. Most of use here (including me) are running only 2 aura's, cause we don't have enough mana to run 3 of them ^^. I am still trying out to find a good way to run 3 ^^ (warth, herold of thunder and discipline).

Normaly you can cast just only 1 curses. But with the skill "whispers of doom" we can cast 2 curses. Did you take the skill in your passiv skill tree "whispers of doom"? If not, you will not be able to cast 2 curses.

First I would use a second ball lightning for the curses instead of herold of thunder, herold of thunder is very unreliable in my opinion.

If you have took the skill "whispers of doom" than you have to link assassins mark, warlord mark gem and ball lightning with curse on hit, like here:

Normaly you can cast curses simply by clicking on it. But here with this build we are using the gem "curse on hit" (it curses automaticaly once it hit something) if you link this gem to ball lightning and to 1 or 2 curses, the balls you cast will cast the curses automaticaly for you (due the to curse on hit gem linked to it). But don't forget to put the second ball lightning in your skill bar (the one which is linked to the curses and curse on hit gem).
In a fight you will cast first your ball lighting which casts curses and then you cast your ball lightning ball which is linked to the spell echo, faster casting and so on. So don't forget to put both ball lightnings on your skill bar.

Afura,

Ok that makes more sense. I have not got to the passive node yet as I went another direction (to the right for energy shield leech) first. I'm only level 60 so I'll make my way to that passive node next. Hearld of thunder works OK. Right now I just put warlord's on another hotkey to cast it separately as well. I'll try BL with it soon. Thanks.

Yea take your time. I took the whisper of doom skill also pretty late in the game :)