[2.1 Updated] [Budget] Crit Ball Lightning Dual-Curse Witch - EB/MOM/ZO. Detailed Leveling Guide

Ball Lightning got a nice buff in damage in this patch (20%) so I expect this build to be better than ever. The only change to the tree which matters is in the Shadow area, which actually makes considerably more HP available(!!) All-in-all I think this build is an excellent choice for the upcoming league.

An updated late game crit skill tree would look something like this:


Also, with the addition of Controlled Destruction gem, a non-crit version also starts to look very appealing (and is even more budget-friendly). Swap Conductivity in for Assassin's Mark. Can also remove the Voidbringer gloves and pick a good rare instead. The largest downside is that without crit you shock less often, causing Herald of Thunder to trigger less, so curse application becomes more unreliable. In this case, removing HoT (and AA) and then using Blasphemy on the two curses may be the correct move.

A completed non-crit tree would look like this:

Are you interested in a build that is new player friendly, can be done on a budget measured in chaos rather than exalts, and still has the damage scaling to tackle mid- to late-game content? Then this might be for you.

During The Awakening beta, Ball Lightning was "the skill" for awhile. Everyone was using it, with totems, self-cast, etc. For the final release, the damage for BL was nerfed 20% and the skill seems to have fallen off the radar somewhat in 2.0. I've been playing Ball Lightning and having a blast in the 1MHC so I decided to write a brief guide.

The concept: We want to be able to run Wrath, Herald of Thunder to apply curses, plus Arctic Armor for some extra damage mitigation. To do all of this we'd either have to (a) take a bunch of aura nodes which are inefficient and have mediocre payoff, (b) make a low-life build, which is high-budget and pretty difficult in a new league or (c) use the synergy of Eldritch Battery and Zealot's Oath to reserve all our mana with auras and cast spells off of energy shield. Obviously, I choose (c).

If you want pure damage, lightning skills are the way to go. The reason being, SHOCK! Shocked enemies take bonus damage, which means if you shock/crit something, the next hits will kill it very quickly.

As lightning skills go, the viable choices are either Arc or Ball Lightning (or Storm Call... ha).

Arc is also great and a perfectly viable skill. Its inherent chance to shock makes it viable in non-crit builds as well. However, I want the damage scaling available from high crit chance, so inherent shock is less necessary.

Ball Lightning has several attractive features. The ball lingers in the air, so you can cast several and it will continue to clear enemies. This actually offers a defensive bonus, because if you cast BL and walk behind it as you move forward, anything that tries to leap on you gets zapped. It's also much better at single target than Arc.

A quick note on the mechanics of the skill: the "ball" itself is both a projectile and AOE, which shoots projectiles at nearby enemies. Increased AOE will extend the range that enemies are zapped at, but increased AOE damage does nothing for BL's damage (which is all from projectiles). In practice, this means we can skip all the AOE nodes on the passive tree.

All filmed during Beyond + Onslaught in the 1MHC. Character is only level 76 in the videos, but this gives an idea of what it's capable of.

Wharf (Level 69) https://youtu.be/j-zPCZWXcG8

Vaal Pyramid (Level 70) - Features appearance of a Beyond boss - https://youtu.be/oHFwpY9v08k

Phantasmagoria (Level 71) https://youtu.be/vy5VLVrTQTE

Phantasmagoria Boss Kill - not very clean but no RIP https://youtu.be/-41tCrFt45Q

Underground Sea (Level 72)
- Part 1 https://youtu.be/mFhxJSipkds
- Part 2 https://youtu.be/3ZaXJs0b_-c

Pros:

- Relatively cheap to gear, can reach maps in a 4-link. The recommended uniques can be acquired for a total of 15 chaos or less.

- Tanky as a caster can be: Arctic Armor, Endurance charges, Immortal Call, a Chaos Golem, and Enfeeble curse. I designed it for the 1MHC flashback league and it has handled every bit of nastiness thrown at it so far.

- Good DPS thanks to Wrath. Crit gear can scale this well for late content.

- Melts hard mobs and bosses with Vaal Storm Call.

Cons:

- Extremely vulnerable to bleed effects, which halts "mana" (ES) regen. Many staunching flasks are required. Corrupting blood is also very dangerous because BL delivers many hits to each target.

- Relatively short range as casters go. Swapping out Slower Projectiles for Faster could change this, but at the cost of DPS.

- A high ES + Life 5-link is nearly required later, which is likely the most expensive/difficult to acquire. I found a Vaal Regalia and chaos spammed it a few times and got a good result, you may be less lucky and have to save up and buy one.

Required: Voidbringer Conjurer Gloves. These offer a huge amount of energy shield, lots of spell crit, and a boost to socketed elemental gems (used for our single-target Vaal Storm Call setup). Most importantly, the "energy shield on kill" property lets us sustain casting based on ES.

Recommended: Heartbreaker dagger. Gives a boost to ES and ES recharge time, which is nice if your ES pool becomes depleted and you have to run away. Culling Strike essentially means all mobs have 10% less HP. This could be replaced with Divinarius or a good rare, however I think the Culling Strike and ES from Heartbreaker are very valuable. Also dirt cheap (1 chaos).

Highly Recommended: Blood Dance boots. Has great synergy with Zealots Oath, improving your mana situation, also creating Frenzy charges which are very powerful. However, losing ES/life/resists from boots means the rest of your gear has to be a bit better to make up for it.

For convenience: Restless Ward is a solid chest armor for this build, and dirt cheap to buy. The HP gain from endurance charges makes ES sustain quite a bit easier. However, with all the other uniques that you'll want (Blood Dance, Voidbringer) getting enough resists may be hard, so a rare chest is often preferable.

Not Recommended: Call of the Brotherhood. Very good item for the ability to freeze, and general damage boost. However, the mana regen on it is largely wasted, and it lacks the HP/ES/crit we'd otherwise want on a ring. Also, this makes you more vulnerable to reflect (as a topaz flask alone won't be enough) and your lightning penetration from the tree/gem is much less effective. The passive tree should be changed if you want to use CoB, basically.

You will need some +Dexterity items for Slower Projectiles, or be forced into taking some Dex notables which is undesirable.

Otherwise, important stats (aside from HP/ES) are: Crit Multiplier, Spell/Lightning Damage/Cast Speed. Cast speed benefits this build less than, e.g. Arc, because BL doesn't have to be spammed to clear packs.

Ball Lightning + Spell Echo + Slower Projectiles + Lightning Penetration + Increased Critical Damage

Herald of Thunder + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark + Enfeeble

CWDT + Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Enduring Cry (we are self-casting EC, but want it linked with Duration)

Vaal Storm Call + Spell Echo + Lightning Penetration + Added Lightning

Chaos Golem + Minion Life + Minion Resists

Flame Dash, Arctic Armor, Wrath

Explanation: Slow Projectiles is fantastic with BL, as it both gives a "more" multiplier to the damage and slows the ball down, giving it time to hit enemies more frequently.

The dual-curse setup offers good defenses while also granting us power charges with Assassin's Mark. SOme swaps could be made here: for highest DPS, you could swap Enfeeble for Conductivity (not really necessary). For better defense, you could run Temporal Chains + Enfeeble, and generate power charges by making the 5th link on Ball Lightning be Power Charge on Crit. However, Assassin's Mark also grants life (which becomes ES) on kill, which makes sustaining your ES easier.

Vaal Storm Call is the secret weapon for melting tough, dangerous packs very quickly. Accept no substitutes, this skill is a must have! Especially deadly when socketed into the Voidbringer gloves for +1 spell level.

This may be old news to some but I'll recap the idea briefly here.

Eldritch Battery: energy shield protects mana instead of life.

Zealots Oath: life regeneration applies to ES instead.

Mind over Matter: take 30% of damage off of mana first before taking it off of life.

The combination of the three essentially means that your ES/life becomes one big pool for defensive purposes, while you cast off just the ES part (sort of like Blood Magic but slightly more complex to use).

The life regeneration we can get off the Witch part of the tree is not nearly enough to sustain our 300+ mana cost/second of spamming Ball Lightning, however. To confront this we need a few (cheap) uniques, plus frequent use of Enduring Cry.

Enduring Cry grants 200-300 life regeneration over a short period of time. With ZO, this is like a mana potion that also gives you endurance charges! Linking it with Increased Duration also increases the amount of mana regenerated.

Normal: Oak (HP)
Cruel: Kill all (passive)
Merciless: Alira (power charge)

What not Alira for cast speed in Cruel? This is also a legitimate option. However, the build is simply not that reliant on cast speed for DPS. As you'll see from the videos, most mobs are cleared with a single Spell Echo'd cast of Ball Lightning. It is not a spammy skill, so 5% cast speed from Alira just isn't all that impressive.

113 points:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwMA37CCEI-mRKtVriycBUIQWEGWdhGus9D1TLPQHy0fIG7v65UgUDBrF8Hz21686oIeoqMRD8BU2wt_xqyYfq9qQwj0kyd-WRGWOlj3140ZvorviAceDkhVxpuh4BKhL_k3lS4N0V3yg9uPRhhq2V_Xz_DVY0N-M3DVpwg5Ut2MSbFJUY_6pJGJ052u6-5YB-v1E55wUhpsHNya4IUyZJ2MNuQiNumPGkWd8h1VS9WmJKpTUmHi7TwWbyaVmjvjaha_gpvhcwMe7DiiAB9BOtiFe_AfBLMnL2ZUwGaQVRo4

1-24:


25-50:



51-67:



68+:

Scoot and Shoot: Generally you don't want to be casting from the same place repeatedly. Move along the edge of the pack, letting loose a cast at a time to rip through enemies. In closed quarters, cast and then move forward to cast again. The result is a wall of BL that will travel with you, zapping enemies that try to close.

Enduring Cry is your mana potion! Use it at every opportunity to recharge your ES, because if that runs out you're in big trouble and have to retreat. Keeping up endurance charges also has the benefit of damage reduction and powering Immortal Call.

Vaal Storm Call liberally. This charges up very quickly so use it to shorten fights against tough rare mobs, map bosses, or generally stubborn packs.

Can I do this with Shadow instead? Yes, but it's less efficient (the elemental damage nodes off Shadow are not as good as the Witch spell damage nodes).

Can I do this with Templar? Not recommended as traveling out of the Templar starting area is a bit awkward, and also less efficient than witch.

Is this Atziri viable? Not sure, but probably not (at least in HC). However it is cheap to get up and running in a new league, and can take you through mid-level maps to build up wealth for your eventual Atziri character.

If there's anything I haven't addressed here, I'll do my best in the comments.