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

Level 90 tree (elementalist version) by request:

https://pastebin.com/F2f70in5

If you really want dark arts for the mobility (which is very nice) you could drop a bit of life and mana instead.

hey hey!

in your opinion, how is the clear speed now in 3.7 compared to 3.6 on assassin?

can you league start with assassin?

Yes you can league start it, storm brand is a very strong no-gear skill. Clear speed is definitely worse than it was with elementalist in 3.6 prior to beacon of ruin nerf, though.

I'd consider the build to be only medium at clearing now. There's quite a few builds that can achieve better clearspeed, on a league starter, such as ED/contagion, cyclone, and more. You could prop up the clear speed at the cost of survival by adding herald of ice to the build though.

It is still a great bossing build, especially for uber elder, as you get to run around while the brands do the work. It is pretty good for the 4 and 5 way legion battles too. It doesn't have the insane clear speed of trash that ED/contagion offers, but it has much higher boss DPS making it more well rounded for that purpose.

The reason I picked assassin in 3.7 was the dominus legion jewel. Without that jewel I think I would probably prefer a trickster build. Trickster can be built pretty nicely with eb/mom tank, or evasion/dodge tank, or evasion/CI tank, and all of those options allow you to reserve mana on nice stuff like herald of ice without sacrificing survivability.

There's also some stuff that I didn't get around to trying before I dropped the build. One such thing being vaal arc or vaal ice nova in a 2nd 6-link or pseudo-6link to help with clear speed / legion. I also considered but didn't get around to trying a shaper mace with the fire explosion mod to help with clear speed.

Any suggestion on what anointment to put on amulet?

I was looking at Primal Manifestation (for 24% increased Damage with Brand Skills and Brand Skills have 20% increased Duration) but there's so many passives in the list, I wasn't sure if there's any obvious passive/s, that would make the most sense.

Maybe something that gives increase to max life, like Constitution (14% increased max life)?

Maybe Golem Commander (20% increased Damage while you have a Summoned Golem
30% increased Effect of Buffs granted by your Golems
Golems have 15% increased Maximum Life
+1 to maximum number of Golems)

Also seeing people use Divine Judgement (this looks like it will give me the second largest DPS increase for any of these anoints on Storm Brand after Heart of Thunder), or Heart of Thunder (25% increased lightning damage, 6% lightning resist penetration, ES leech from lightning damage).

EDIT: Actually I see heart of thunder requires a golden oil, don't have the coin for that now, but think that's what I'm leaning towards once I can. For now I think I'm going to go with Divine Judgement.

I haven't updated this guide for 3.8, and don't have the time to do so right now. I think it probably needs a significant rework to lean more into the golem branch of elementalist now that that part of the ascendancy has been buffed.

That said, for the build as it stands right now, the most interesting anointments look to be:

1) Prodigial Perfection (clear + azure + azure) as a nice offense and defense combo (15% max mana, 50% spell damage).

2) Disciple of the Slaughter (amber + verdant + gold) for pure offense (+1 minimum frenzies, 5% increased damage per frenzy, 5% gain frenzy on kill).