The Lightning Reaver - affordable, good map clearer

Offense:

At level 80, this build reaches a bit over 30k DPS plus about 40% lightning penetration. There’s also some extra damage from shocks and Herald of Thunder lightning bolts going on. I’ll show the tooltip DPS with five Frenzy charges here, but it’s too low for dual-wield Reave since it assumes I’m going to use Doryani’s Catalyst for every second hit (which doesn’t work).



As I mentioned, you’ll get some penetration added to this, so every monster with less than 40% lightning resistance will take additional damage.

Defense:

The first and most important line of defense here is damage avoidance through 40% dodge, 30% spell block, and nearly 30% evasion. This already makes three out of five attacks miss you. However, eventually you WILL get hit, so we have some mitigation in the form of Arctic Armour and three Endurance charges for nearly 25% physical damage reduction. The damage that still goes through will hit a life pool of about 5k at level 80. There’s also a bit of block to have but it’s not something to write home about.



Mana and life sustain:

The problem with sustaining mana is that we REALLY want all of Wrath, Herald of Thunder and Arctic Armour for this build, which would reserve all our mana. In order to sustain our attacks, I have opted to take Eldritch Battery and use two to three jewels with +3 Energy Shield on hit. This allows me to reserve all my mana for auras and works out well unless I hit the empty air too often in a row, in which case I’ll activate Vaal Clarity and let my Energy Shield restore itself while continuing Reaving. Of course, there are other options – Blood Magic, Soul Taker or taking an aura cluster and wearing an Alpha’s Howl – but I think that this is the most efficient and least costly (in terms of passive points) option.

Life is leeched back via Warlord’s Mark. For no-curse maps, swap out Weapon Elemental Damage for Life Leech or Life Gain on Hit (depending on your damage output) - it will decrease your DPS quite a bit, similar to a map with Enfeeble or lightning resistance, but you will survive.

Reave + Multistrike + Faster Attacks + Weapon Elemental Damage

The classic four-link setup for elemental Reave. With lots of flat damage from auras (and not many supports for elemental melee), increasing attack speed is the best option, and the more multiplier from WEP is just too good to pass up.

Lightning Penetration/Increased Area of Effect/Added Lightning Damage

These are all good options to go with the classic four. I go with Lightning Penetration as it increases damage the most, but if you have enough damage – for example, farming low-level areas – Increased Area will have you clear faster. I’d take Added Lightning Damage as the sixth link.

Whirling Blades + Fortify

Movement and defense in one. Note that you don’t want to end up in the middle of a pack but rather towards the edge while still getting Fortify up. I combine it with

Culling Strike + Item Rarity

to do double duty against bosses. MF build!

Wrath and Arctic Armour

Wrath is self-explaining, and Arctic Armour is very good for an attack which requires you to stand still for a bit and which can't achieve much armour due to Acrobatics.

Herald of Thunder + Curse on Hit + Warlord's Mark

This is our way of cursing enemies before we engage them to provide leech and Endurance charges. Herald of Thunder bolts can also do quite some damage with all the lightning scaling from tree and Hyaon’s.

Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 1) + Warlord's Mark + Chaos Golem

Warlord’s Mark again? I found Herald of Thunder not reliable enough to curse everything I want to, so I’m using two links to make sure everything works out well. If you want to use Conductivity as a curse, that’s perfectly fine, but I think some sort of life leech besides Hyaon’s life gain on kill is needed so you’d have to run Life Leech instead of Penetration. This wouldn’t be optimal because low-level Conductivity (with CWDT) gives less resistance reduction than Penetration while low-level Warlord’s Mark gives still the same leech as high-level.

Vaal Clarity and Vaal Grace + Increased Duration

Vaal Clarity for when you run out of Energy Shield, Vaal Grace for boss fights and difficult situations in general. Once Vaal Grace and a Jade Flask are up you won't get hit a lot.

As mentioned, there’s really only one non-negotiable item, which is Hyaon’s Fury, recently pushed up to about one and a half Exalted by a new build from Mathil. There are some items which fit this build very well but can be replaced by cheaper options.

Weapons:



Catalyst is what I believe to be the best option for offhand due to its massive damage boost. For a bit less currency, you can use scepters or wands with increased elemental/lightning damage or something like Supreme Truth which I used for leveling up to 75. Relentless Fury is also always an option for fake dual wield. There are no really good shields to use here, but if you do use one, make sure to mastercraft some increased elemental damage with weapons on it.

Body Armour:



Pretty much the best option here, as it increases your AoE, gives damage, gives life and resistances, and provides a crucial amount of energy shield to sustain our attacks. I didn’t think about other options as this just fit so perfectly, Belly of the Beast and other such things are of course usable here but won’t provide everything this provides.

Helmet:

There are two very good options here...



Both come without any real drawbacks and give good evasion and high attack speed. Starkonja’s will give you about 300 life extra while Devoto’s has an extra 6% attack speed and Chaos resistance – your call. Starkonja’s is very cheap and has life so I’d take it over a rare helmet any time unless you’re desperate for resistances. If you want to take the build the crit route, a Rat’s Nest is also very viable.

Gloves:

Thunderfist seem to fit the build very well and will give you more damage. Myself, I opted for some rare gloves in this slot since I needed life and resistances. If you do as well, make sure to get some attack speed on the gloves.

Boots:



Hyaon’s Fury get a lot better with the amount of Frenzy charges you use, and this is the easiest way to acquire them. Blood Rage is an option (we have 2% regeneration from the tree) but still too dangerous for me. I’ve tried Poacher’s Mark, and while it’s very good for charge generation the life gain on hit never reaches the amount of life that Warlord’s Mark provides, again making it rather dangerous. If you go one of these routes though, I’d recommend either Atziri’s Step or Darkray Vectors in this slot.

Jewellery:

Rare jewellery with the usual life/resists. Ideally, you’ll also want some flat lightning damage or at least increased elemental damage with weapons, and you will need at least one high Accuracy roll (250+) and some strength increase (as Hyaon’s needs 122 strength). Lightning Doryani’s Invitation is not bad but there are cheap belts with higher elemental damage AND a life roll out there.

Level 85 tree:



Bandit choices are either Oak or kill all on Normal, Kraityn on Cruel and Merciless.

I’m not too good at leveling, so there are probably faster options out there than what I did. I also used some items in my stash so not sure how to go about leveling in new leagues. Anyway, I equipped



as soon as I could, put



in the jewel slot near Acrobatics, and was thus able to run Wrath and Herald of Thunder and sustain Reave with a high amount of lightning damage on mana from Normal to Cruel. Mainhand I used a weapon with as fast attack speed as I could. I also ran



in offhand as soon as I could.

I recommend to get Acrobatics/Phase Acrobatics around level 40, and then just mix damage and defense. I’d go towards the Scion life wheel early to get the necessary strength nodes and also Master of the Arena for the range and Art of the Gladiator for speed. Depending on whether you use something like Thief’s Torment to cheat on mana, you should switch to Eldritch Battery and two +3 Energy Shield on hit jewels by level 60 at the latest. The build will acquire most of its power by level 62 when you can use both Hyaon’s Fury and Carcass Jack.

It’s not very complicated – run towards enemies, hit Reave a few times, look for new enemies. There are some things to note though. Reave + Multistrike works the fastest (and is safest) when you’re not in the middle of the pack but facing all enemies to one direction. This makes using Whirling Blades somewhat difficult as you want to hit enemies for Fortify but not whirl right into the middle. It takes some practice to achieve that. You’ll also want to develop a feeling for when you’re going to run out of Energy Shield and thus have to activate Vaal Clarity, preferably not in the middle of a pack of mobs.

This build can do almost all of them. Additional Lightning Resistance as well as Elemental Equilibrium can make for rather slow clears, similar to Temporal Chains. Immunity to Curses is doable if you can switch out Weapon Elemental Damage with Life Leech (or just play carefully and use flasks liberally). Reflect is doable with careful play. Blood Magic is the only one I wouldn’t really recommend since you need your auras.

Why no Resolute Technique?

Resolute Technique is very strong, and I’d like to have 100% chance to hit with this build. However, apart from no critical strikes making Herald of Thunder (and thus Warlord’s Mark) proc less often, it’s also many semi-useless passive points away, and the only other things to get in the area would be life and elemental damage, both of which would already be available in the Ranger area as well (Thick Skin and Forces of Nature cluster). So I think it would take away too many points from other things.

Why no Vaal Pact?

I’m actually not sure about this one – it might be a really sensible thing to take for only three passive points. I hope I’ll get to test it soon.

Hardcore viable?

I won’t pretend to be an expert on Hardcore, but I doubt it a bit. The build doesn’t die often but melee with evasion is already in a spot where you WILL die at least once to unlucky rolls, and the increased damage from Hyaon’s doesn’t help this. Of course, I’ll be gladly proven wrong there!

Why are there no videos of the build?

It’s not that the build sucks and videos will reveal that, it’s that I’m playing on a potato laptop which won’t be helped by recording. The only thing a video would show you is that I’m experiencing a lot of lag spikes (which I take as proof that the build is solid, since even with that I manage to survive in maps!). I will gladly link any videos of others using this build.