[3.7] Storm Brand Elementalist. League Starter, Deathless Uber Elder.

On looking at my responses to kilo and yalehomo about the mehness of the AoE nodes, and thinking about the clear-speed of non-inpulsa versions of the build, it occurs to me that the chain support gem got buffed this league. Only an 11% damage penalty now.

It is definitely worth trying swapping something out for chain to improve clear speed. If you have a white socket, lightning pen is generally the lowest value support, so swap that. If not, hypothermia would be the only option as it is the only green.

Chain support should ~double the clear speed on large packs. I suppose there's a potential danger that it could chain far enough to kill monsters outside of brand attachment range, and stop brands from automatically advancing through the pack, but I kind of doubt it would be a big deal.

I'm not playing the build this league, so not going to test this out myself, but I invite anybody who's interested to give it a go.

Quality on chain is proj speed (useless) so you could just buy a cheapo 20/0 chain to test with.

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magicrectangle wrote:

Another thing I mentioned in my response to kilo that applies to you is that the AoE nodes are of limited usefulness if you don't have inpulsa. Increasing the area of inpulsa's pops can really help with clear, but if you're running carcass jack you could liberate some points form area nodes to pick up some mana nodes (arcane will, for example).

Doesn't the AOE damage node work for Storm Brand? I ask because it shows a big DPS loss in POB when i lose the + Area Damage on the amulet or the nodes.

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yalehomo wrote:

Doesn't the AOE damage node work for Storm Brand? I ask because it shows a big DPS loss in POB when i lose the + Area Damage on the amulet or the nodes.

The damage works, the area increase is just rather lackluster. In terms of raw damage you can get more out of other nodes (dark arts cluster, or divine judgement cluster).

I don't really think you're hurting for damage right now though. 4459 life and 1775 mana puts you at only 6274 effective hitpoints. I'd focus on getting that over 7k (possibly even 7.5k) before worrying about damage at all.

Here's a tree tweak to up your life and mana a bit at the expense of AoE nodes:
https://pastebin.com/zZQKGXWA

4695 life, 2011 mana = 6706 effective hitpoints. Gains past that will have to come from gear.

So I just hit 94 with this character: https://pastebin.com/J9QpEUXf

The last 20% was grueling. I died three times (once due to latency) due to large hits from bosses. Despite my 7.3K eHp (according to the MoM calc) and a watcher's eye jewel for mana sustainability, I'm still in constant fear of being deleted.

I managed to kill a corrupted phoenix (no mods though), but I don't think I'll be able to go much farther without some tweaking.

advice would be great.

Was hoping you could give me some advice on my br wand crafting, should i get +2 to support gem for lvl7 empower or is it not worth it and i should just go for pure damage?

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dholly wrote:

Spoiler

Was hoping you could give me some advice on my br wand crafting, should i get +2 to support gem for lvl7 empower or is it not worth it and i should just go for pure damage?

Oh, nice base.

I'd go ahead and do the +2 supports. A wand like that is for fast mapping, and you really don't need all that much damage to do that. You can always swap to a different wand for big bosses like uber elder (where brand recall is meh).

After multimod that leaves you with one damage prefix, and two damage suffixes (cast speed, double damage).

There's two main contenders for the damage prefix:
50% increased spell damage / 4% non-chaos as extra chaos hybrid mod
Adds 9-112 lightning damage to spells

With my gear, the hybrid mod wins, but it does so by a relatively small margin, so it is certainly possible that with a different gear set the added lightning to spells mod would win instead.

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nomnaut wrote:

So I just hit 94 with this character: https://pastebin.com/J9QpEUXf

The last 20% was grueling. I died three times (once due to latency) due to large hits from bosses. Despite my 7.3K eHp (according to the MoM calc) and a watcher's eye jewel for mana sustainability, I'm still in constant fear of being deleted.

I managed to kill a corrupted phoenix (no mods though), but I don't think I'll be able to go much farther without some tweaking.

advice would be great.

I don't see any obvious major issues. Your damage is kind of low on account of being on a 5-link and using a shield, but your survival stats are in the right place.

Low damage makes fights last a lot longer, giving you more chances to mess up mechanics and get whacked. There's a balance to be struck of course, but at this point I'd be focused on upping your damage. A cheap yellow 6-link could be used for bossing until you manage to link your inpulsa. The hypothermia is really a big damage boost (it is a lot more damage than added lightning or lightning pen, if you wanted to re-color your inpulsa for it).

I'd also recommend a cinderswallow, it is a lot better damage than atziri's promise.

This is not a tank the universe build, there are some boss mechanics we simply must avoid. Shaper slam, elder's big circle thing, etc. Also with certain map mods shaper's guardians can become very dangerous, at least until you have the damage to insta-kill them.

By the end of last league I was killing minotaur with one set of lightning spire traps before he ever did anything. When he'd go to burrow I'd just move back and throw 3 traps where he was going to come up. He'd pop up in the traps, and fall over.

But in any case, it is certainly doable with lower damage, you may just need to avoid map mods that buff the bosses a lot. Also possibly just need more practice with the mechanics so you can avoid the big telegraphed attacks.

edit: I don't know why I didn't notice earlier, but you don't have acrobatics / phase acrobatics. Of cousre acrobatics won't (always) stop you from getting one shot, but it is a hugely beneficial extra layer of defense when you're in the thick of it. It really does make a world of difference on the defensive front, especially when combined with vaal grace to easily hit 75% dodge chance.

Of course you're in a little bit of a pickle in trying to find the points to get down to it, you're already pretty low on damage, and the most obvious places to pull points out of are damage nodes.

None the less, it probably needs to be done, and then make up for the lost damage with some gear upgrades. Tree would look like this:
https://pastebin.com/NpaAqBsj

Thank you for such a detailed reply, really appreciate it. And speaking of

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You can always swap to a different wand for big bosses like uber elder (where brand recall is meh).

i actually had the same thoughts, maybe even 5-6 linked staff with additional single target spell like storm call or orb of storms or whatever else

i actually am thinking of ways to improve
https://pastebin.com/5sTXLJ2V


i was thinking of making a 2nd wep wand for bossings and delve cuz at depth 300+ the wand with +2 for mapping seems a bit weak...

other thing im currently trying to think of way to craft a 3 linked helmet as mine but with either hp/resists/or -9 light resistannce from fossils.. and neither appears to buy so i might have to resort to crafting, any ideas
?

i got over 70 ex to spend and not sure on what

hey what should i aim next ? going for inpulsa 1st and then start working on dual multimod wand?