[2.1] Non-crit Spark! 5k+ life, 13k tooltip dps. Beginner-friendly

Vs. 109% Quantity Gorge Map
Vs. Temple Piety
Vs. Catacombs Map

This build stalled out for me around level 89 and level 78+ maps. I was just dying too often to make real progress. I have since re-rolled whispering ice.

This build got me to level 80 maps and about 8 ex worth of currency but beyond that, it really struggles. So it's not a worthless build, but not really suited for the most end-game content. It's a cheap build, probably a good beginner build to get into the fairly deep endgame, and then maybe reroll something more powerful.

I have ideas for improving it and may revisit it in the near future:
- Incorporate life leech / vaal pact
- Consider going CI instead of life. 5k life doesn't really compare to 8-10k ES ...
- Incorporate the new T2 pierce talisman, which will allow us to get to 100% pierce as witch

Just an average player, with 800+ hours logged in the game, who thinks he's come up with a pretty good build.

In the past I have played elemental buzzsaw, various summoners, rain of arrows + concentrated effect. This build is as good as or better than anything else I've played.

This is a really simple build that attempts to utilize Spark to it's fullest potential.

This build uses Life, Armour, Arctic Armour, Warlord's Mark, and Immortal Call to provide good damage reduction and a relatively high health pool.

The main reason is that it's cheaper than a crit build. We don't have to worry about crit on items, and can instead get more life, resists, or magic find.

The build is quite beginner friendly.

- No special gear is required. It's possible to use all inexpensive rares.
- Spark clears effectively throughout the leveling process.
- The play style is very simple. Cast auras, keep golem up, spam Spark. Use Vaal Spark when in trouble.
- If you go with the Repentance + Astramentis setup I use, that will cost about 1 exalt on Talisman, but it isn't required.

This build offers on-the-fly customization, always a good idea to work into your build in this game.

You have a choice of two blasphemy auras you can run at any time: Enfeeble, or Conductivity.

For easy maps, just run conductivity. It makes most enemies vulnerable to lightning, and since we're dealing so much lightning damage, everything will just melt melt melt. Great for clear speed.

In the situations where you are contending with high physical damage, run enfeeble. For example, those exploding quill monsters.

For leveling, Enfeeble is probably best. It will have poor range before level 20, but the time you need it most is when monsters are in melee, so it works out well enough.

In addition to the aura thing, you can swap Lightning Penetration out of Spark for Itam Rarity (while running Conductivity), for a bit more magic find. Though I wouldn't suggest it before you get a 6 link armour.

I say "tooltip dps" because I think that in the case of piercing Spark, the tooltip is too dumb to accurately calculate the dps. This is because one spark can hit a single target one, two, three, or more times.

Then there is Lightning Penetration and Conductivity which greatly increase dps yet aren't taken into account by the tooltip at all.

I think the actual dps is much higher than 13k.

Play this build if you enjoy the Spark skill. I think it's a lot of fun to fill the screen with fast-moving sparks.

Up until about level 78 maps, they aren't hard at all.

Watch out for monsters with Corrupted Blood as our lots of little hits make us susceptible to dying quickly from the effect. Carry flasks "of staunching" to counter.

This build can't do elemental reflect maps even with warlord's mark because we deal damage so quickly. Maybe if life leech were incorporated it'd be doable (looking into that ... possible future update).

Blood Magic maps NOT doable due to our high mana reservation.

Curse immune maps are slow but doable.

At the very highest levels of maps, say level 78 and over, our 5k health pool becomes a real liability. Lots of effects can nearly one-shot us.

Repentance: These unique gloves grant a free Iron Will effect to all of your damaging skills. In our case we have three skills that deal appreciable damage, so this unique is quite valuable. It's basically a free link with Iron Will socketed in it. The drawback is the 306 Strength and 306 Intelligence requirements.

Astramentis: The amulet grants between 90 and 116 to all attributes. For this build, it's great because it takes care of the bulk of the Intelligence and Dexterity requirements we have while also providing a nice chunk of Strength.

Winds of Change: These gloves grant 30% projectile speed and 30%-50% projectile damage, so can be a good alternative to Repentance if you don't want to stack the large amounts of Strength and Intelligence required.

Poacher's Aim: This unique jewel is a quest reward. We want as much pierce as we can get, and this jewel grants 15% in addition to some projectile damage, making it a must.

Efficient Training: Placing this jewel in the right spot in the tree will convert a large amount of intelligence to strength, which is great because once we equip Repentance we want as much Strength as we can get.

My current tree (also showing jewel socketing)

Level 92 build

First 20 points

First 41 points

64 points


The most important thing to do with the tree is to grab both sets of Increased Duration nodes, which are very good for Spark and Vaal Spark.

Then, we grab damage, strength, and life nodes, and nodes which boost our chance to Shock. With lightning builds, you can either rely on crit to shock enemies or you can find other ways to shock. Since this isn't a crit build, we want to grab some of the chance to shock nodes. Especially since our Herald of Thunder is dependent on enemies staying shocked.

In the late game, once you have Repentance and about a 30% chance to shock from the tree, the goal is to stack as much Strength and Life as possible.

It often makes sense in the part of the tree that we're in to go for Jewel sockets and then get % Max life jewels, preferably with + Strength and Faster Projectiles.

Body: Spark -> Faster Projectiles -> Pierce -> Controlled Destruction -> Spell Echo -> Lightning Penetration/Item Rarity

Faster Projectiles and Pierce are very useful for Spark. More detail under "General Spark Theory" below.

Spell Echo is a must for any self-cast spell. I'd place this in 4th link.

For 5th link I think Controlled Destruction is the best. It's a "more" effect, which means it is multiplicative instead of additive, and therefore boosts damage by a large amount. At level 85, without Controlled Dectruction tooltip dps is 9k, and with it is 13k. About a 40% increase, just as the tooltip says.

For 6th link I alternate Lightning Penetration or Item Rarity. If I'm running Conductivity, it's usually not needed to have the Lightning Pen. If I'm running Enfeeble, sometimes it's a good idea.

Another good choice here is Iron Will, since we stack a lot of Strength, but if you opt to use the Repentance unique gloves, you can get Iron Will effect as a free 7th link.



Head: Cast When Damage Taken -> Immortal Call -> Ball Lightning -> Knockback

This is not set in stone, but works fairly well for me. Warlord's Mark will generate endurance charges, which through Immortal Call, makes you invulnerable for short periods of time. Ball Lightning + Knockback serves to keep enemies at a distance some of the time.


Hands: Arctic Armour -> Herald of Thunder -> Curse on Hit -> Warlord's Mark

Arctic Armour provide great mitigation to us, preventing a percentage of physical and fire damage.

Herald of Thunder casts Warlord's Mark on the targets it hits, which gives us a great deal of life and mana regeneration. The only issue is that it takes a little bit to get going (it's triggered on enemy death). This is why we use Clarity as well.


Feet: Vaal Spark -> Pierce -> Lightning Penetration -> Spell Echo

Vaal Spark is a very powerful attack that can burst down a boss or a pack of enemies very quickly. This particular combination of gems is geared towards taking out a boss at close range. Set off Vaal Spark with a wall behind the boss, and it's likely that each projectile can hit the target more than once (as it bounces off the wall).

You can continue to cast Spark while Vaal Spark is active, and you should, to maximize DPS.



Weapon: Blasphemy -> Enfeeble -> Conductivity

Once might argue that you could just cast Enfeeble or Conductivity, since the build is a caster.

I prefer to use Blasphemy because it's more convenient and eliminates any margin of error.

Don't use Enfeeble and Conductivity at the same time; choose one or the other, depending on the map or where you are at in leveling.


Shield: Clarity -> Blood Magic -> Chaos Golem

Chaos Golem is very useful as a stand alone skill. He's quite durable, distracts your enemies, and can be recast easily.

Clarity is optional, as is the blood magic. If you have enough mana, you can cast Clarity from your mana pool. If you don't have much mana, Bloom Magic is an easy way to cast Clarity cheaply.

Clarity itself is optional to use. Once Warlord's Mark is up and running, you will have plenty of mana, but there will be pauses, particularly when you first engage enemies, where you will struggle for mana if you don't have Clarity. Mana flasks can serve the same purpose, but Clarity makes things easier and therefore faster.

In general we want on our gear:

+ Strength (assuming Repentance)
+ Life
+ Resistance till 75 cap
+ Dexterity till 111 (for gems)
+ Intelligence till 306 (Repentance req)
+ High armour values where possible

For weapon,
+ Faster casting
+ Faster projectiles
+ % Spell damage, lightning damage
+ Adds x - x lightning damage to spells

Normal: Oak
Cruel: Kill all
Merciless: Kill all or Oak

In general we value these effects to help Spark:

- Increased Duration
- Piercing
- Projectile speed
- Lightning Penetration
- More damage

Increased Duration allows your Spark and Vaal Spark to stick around for longer, and therefore cause more damage by getting more hits in on enemies. We get 95% increased duration from the skill tree.

Piercing allows one spark to hit two enemies, or a single enemy more than once. This effectively means that spark has done double damage, so can be viewed as a 100% damage increase. Therefore Pierce is very valuable.

Projectile speed (and Faster Projectiles gem) allows our Sparks to go further, and therefore damage enemies offscreen, and have more chance for the sparks to bounce, and get more multiple hits. Projectile speed is very useful.

Lightning Penetration and increased damage effects are good to have, and we can get these from gems and from the tree.