[2.3] Occ Low Life Crit Voltaxic Sparker

Pros and Cons
+ 7 power charges, 80% spell crit at full charges, diamond flask YOU WILL CRIT!
+ 3 endurance charges, makes ele weakness maps less of a problem especially combined with our pureity of elements and gives phys dmg reduction.
+ High chaos damage, it’s already the least resisted by mobs in the game; in addition, we lower chaos resistance for the few mobs that do get near us and curse them with warlord’s mark for extra leech since these tend to be the more dangerous mobs (e.g. devourers)
+ Elemental Reflect immune as we are running VP + GR with atziri + vinktar’s flask
+ Very high clear speed, spark with faster proj despite the quality nerf is still S tier clear speed. 200M+ xp/hr easily on dried lake
+ Stun immunity on full ES from ascendancy, we deal so much dmg that with the instant leech and the ES regen that stacks we will almost always have stun immunity
+ Easily reach 8k+ es with 9k+ being achievable with good accessories and other gear
+ Purity of elements makes optimizing gear and running a large number of uniques much easier
+ Blink arrow for movement skill :)
- Single target dps is always an issue for spark until your dps gets to the insane level, if you go poison instead of controlled destruction as your 6th link this will be less of an issue.
- Chaos damage hurts us bad, unless you can get more chaos res on your gear, I don’t have this for now but if I can find some gg chaos res rings I would definitely buy them.
- Mana cost is ridiculously high, we are using voidbringer and that 80% increased mana cost makes each cast of spark 100+ mana (skyforth’s would make this issue negligible).
- Voltaxic requires 212 dex, so we need a lot of dex from the tree
Blood Magic lvl 20 requires a 111 str, so we need a lot of str from our gear
- Not going wand + prism guardian means we can’t run as many auras, but we get all the important damage ones.
- Expensive. This build costs a lot...enlightens are not cheap and we need 2 lvl 3s at least, and ideal build would include skyforths (30 ex) although even the rest of it would still be 15-20 ex.
- Not an atziri/uber lab farmer

Skill build:
http://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAMCId-K6QJLrhsl2VttGRFQNbmnKx1PLR8i9GwLkyd711yK74j5N9fPSbG-iqEvytO0DEZx4Ygdqv5JTLOus0GW0PUFQiycIG5QMNte0B_v6xEPrJh0VV8q99eESFxrw21_xqKjD8Q7fLjKwcXsGI_66_VknfId0NBfakcG8uFjQw3R44QrCl3yKgtwUonTjDYDHh9BES_rY9vnbAjxirTFwuwFtbVIjb9RR-dUJP3_3ujWIurDOio4GYqXBsSi-wn22hqP8NVJUeq6DXxwu9kTL28qW3n2QzZS7DfU7T-btYTFgwk0CjdmLKaQ1hpI9Ch-oWnYu_wVfsb3knQ=

Core Uniques


Voltaxic Rift Spine Bow - Very cheap bow this league, I chose to purchase a 6 linked voltaxic since it was a lot cheaper than a 6 linked shav’s. Best option if you have 50+ ex to blow on this build is to go for the 6 linked shav’s and purchase a cheap +1 power charge voltaxic (these are under 15c) then socket, link, and color with Vorici 8 (very expensive 100s of vaal orbs easily). You only need one 6 link since we are not going with a vaal spark setup, although if you have both 6 linked you can drop the curse on hit setup in the boots and use that for the orb of storms pcoc setup and then put in a vaal spark setup in the shav’s. (I will provide link setups later)



Drillneck Quiver - 100% projectile damage from having 100% pierce (gem + nodes in tree), can replace with the ES quiver that gives faster start to energy shield recharge in dangerous maps at very high levels.


Shavronne’s Wrappings - Essential for all low life builds, I would look for 180%+ es roll. This item is much rare in Prophecy due to no Cadiro bro deals and GGG lowering the drop rate itself; it’s build enabling capabilities have made this a 6-7 ex item minimum at the time this guide was written although perhaps later in the league they will go down in price.


Voidbringer Conjurer Gloves - These gloves give a lot of ES, a lot of spell crit, and allows a lvl 21 wrath to go up to lvl 22 (1% MORE lightning damage) and our lightning golem to go up to 21 (1% increased cast speed). They do gives us major mana problems unless you have that certain pair of red boots


Steppan Eards - These are good enough until you can get skyforths. You can get a really nice ES roll, and 3 of those ground mods are really good for rolling maps, needless to say 30% movement speed is always a great stat on boots.


The Vertex Vaal Mask - Cheap helm that allows you to get enlighten 4 rather easily it also gives a free level to your auras and some chaos resistance. Es on hubris circlets can obviously get to 400+ easily but the 300iish that you get from the helm is all you really need, replace with a gg hubris if you want but you will reserve 5% more mana when you lose a level from enlighten.

Energy from within: Convert that life/es wheel into a pure es wheel.

Aura Calculations
https://poe.mikelat.com/#TErU8s/tNrp.Xj/7_NO4d.Zd/RISn.iNh
Note: Vertex has 30% reduced mana reserved for herald of thunder enchantment.

We are running herald of ice and thunder, with curse on hit linked with the herald of thunder, purity of elements, wrath, and discipline. I don’t know what other aura I would want to fit in other than maybe Grace but since it requires so much mana reservation I have not thought of a way to fit it in.

Gem setups
Spark only setup
Bow/Chest: Spark -> Spell Echo -> Pierce -> Faster Proj -> Controlled Destruction -> Increased Critical Strike (note this is BBBBGG so a lot easier to do this on a shav’s than a voltaxic, expected value of 1.1k+ chroms on the voltaxic but I got it in 100 so...all I have to say is RNG)
Other 6 socket: Orb of Storms -> PCOC -> Increased Critical Strike | Blink arrow + Faster Attacks + Less Duration (3L + 3L the less duration is optional for blink arrow I personally put in a portal gem there, 3 blues on a voltaxic has an expected value of 125 chroms)
Helm: Herald of Ice -> Purity of Elements -> Discipline -> Enlighten (4L)
Gloves: Blood Magic -> Wrath -> Enlighten | Lightning Golem. (3L + 1 alone)
Boots: Blood Magic -> Herald of Thunder -> Curse on Hit -> Warlord’s Mark

Spark + Vaal Spark setup (double 6L)
Chest: Spark -> Spell Echo -> Pierce -> Faster Proj -> Controlled Destruction -> Increased Critical Strike
Bow: Vaal Spark -> Spell Echo -> Pierce -> Increased Duration -> Poison -> Faster Proj
Helm: Herald of Ice -> Purity of Elements -> Discipline -> Enlighten (4L)
Gloves: Blood Magic -> Wrath -> Herald of Thunder -> Enlighten (4L)
Boots: Blink arrow -> Orb of Storms -> PCOC -> Lightning Golem

Explanation on why I use orb of storms instead of cast when damage taken immortal call setup:
1. Blue sockets are a lot more abundant than red sockets when you are trying to stack ES
2. Even with diamond flask getting your first 7 power charges off of purely spark and your 10% chance to gain a power charge from ascendancy will take a few mob packs
3. Orb of storms thrown down at the beginning of a map into a large pack will grant you instantly a very large amount of charges if not max especially if you have 20% quality on PCOC and Inc. Crit Strike, after you hit your max charges sustaining with the 10% from tree is very easy but it’s that initial ramp up that you completely avoid by using this setup.

My Current Gear

Bandits
N: Passive
C: Passive
M: Power Charge

Leveling
You can use spark from the very beginning all the way until the very end, although I do think that levelling as a bladefall miner/trapper and then respeccing is a lot easier especially for all boss fights, anyways for spark here is how to do it.

Get your handy dandy lochtonial gloves, elreon rings, tabula, wanderlust, goldrim levelling set out these will carry you far. Dual life sprigs until you can use dual axioms at lvl 10 uses flat added elemental gems from act 1 at early levels put in faster casting asap and heralds too since you should be using no mana with elreon rings, switch to maligaro’s virtuosity whenever you’re 21. Run with this setup and go towards the right for the pierce nodes. Around act 4 in normal you should be able to switch into using the tempest which gives 100% global increased lightning damage and equip a drillneck which will give you 100% projectile damage once you slot in the pierce gem and take the pierce cluster. From here until around lvl 53-55 is pretty rough since you sit at around 800 life with very little ES. You pretty much have to rely on killing things before it kills you. At around 53-55 you get 3 major uniques that allow you to pretty much go hybrid you should definitely have all the life/es nodes from the build. Put on the martyr of crowns which is like 330+ es, rainbowstride conjurer boots which is another 120+ es, and at 55 put on voidbringers which is like 200+ es. At this level try to get the cruel ascendancy so you can get wicked ward 100 flat es, and once your ES starts regening damage doesn’t interrupt it. This should carry you into 60s where you will be able to equip your end game uniques.