D.Wands CI Crit Shadow (Chaining Power Siphon) - pre-OBT

Specialist Dagger ST Scion

Specialist Mace ST Scion - Some Critical, no power charge

Specialist Mace ST Scion - Less Mana Reserved, no Critical

90 Low Life ST Shadow
90 Bino ST CI Shadow
65 ST Bino Scion
70 ST Bino Scion
75 ST Bino Scion
90 ST Bino Scion
CoC ST CI Scion
85 CoC Dagger Shadow
85 CoC Wand Shadow
(Can use the 12% spell damage start to save 3 more points by forfeiting 12% attack speed)
85 CoC ST Dagger Scion

Old Field Merceless (Stat Screen at 15 seconds in)
Underground River

Power Siphon:
Since I am lazy and didn't feel like switching between Elemental Hit and Power Siphon for greatest dps effect, I am simply using Power Siphon for its power charge granting ability. The critical gives a huge damage boost, the low mana cost let me use one extra support gem instead of mana leech, and it also have cool visual effect.

Increased Critical Strikes and Increased Critical Damage:
What more can I say, this build focuses on critical, and you should never miss out any opportunity to get more critical damage or critical chance.

Faster Attacks:
Dual Wield gives 10% more attack speed, plus Faster Attacks always gives the most dps boost among all support gem. Extremely crucial against high hp mobs and boss. A nice to have if you don't have time to aim and have to spray and pray.

Chain:
As per Electrospine and dragomob's request, I decided to give chain support gem a try. It is just truly amazing. I no longer need to line up mobs as when I had pierce, and the bouncing bolts are such a magnificent sight.
Due to the high cost multiplier and reduced damage, I will probably use a 4L equip for a non-chained Power Siphon against boss in the furture, or maybe even using elemental hit, linked with FA, ICS, and ICD.

Aura:
Discipline: Good es boost; important for tanking a nuke.

Wrath: Low mana cost but high bonus damage, plus I took arcing blow, why not get the extra lightning damage. Also nice to crit and shock enemy for extra damage boost.

Blood Rage:
Due to the nature of CI, blood rage's chaos damage is immune'd; therefore you get a free buff that grants frenzy charges upon killing an enemy. Each 5% increase in attack speed means about 250 dps boost.

Flasks:
4 Mana flasks for mana regen; 2 of them can also dispel
burning, one can dispel chill/freeze, and one gives additional ms for escape. One small life flask for the fast recharge chill/freeze dispel; since 4 flasks + other sources for mana is enough, and water elementals are so annoying.

Curses:
Critical weakness for extra damage against slow but bulky monsters (not sure about this, but I should reach 99.3%% crit with this curse); temporal chains for fast hitting and fast movement enemies that will down my energy shield really fast.

Totem:
Skeleton totem is the best distraction you can hope for. With totem at 1, and summon skeleton at 9, you can summon up to 5 skeletons, and 2 skeletons per cast. Great for flicker spiders. Added faster casting as the cast speed for this build is rather slow.

Summon:
Raise Spectre is a great way to provide additional resource, additional dps, and are used for tanking when unable to cast skeleton totem, such as a preemptive ambush situation.

Raise Zombie is used as an alternative for distraction at higher level, as totem and skeleton die rather quickly, so against mass flicker mob it's not tankable at all.

Traps:
Fire trap is used sometimes for the high explosion damage and DoT AoE, great against slow moving monster that clot in a group rather than in a line; or against low hp monsters that the explosion should 1HKO. Also, aginst the dreadful physical reflect mobs.

Bear trap is used occasionally for the elemental reflect mobs, and sometimes on boss.

Conversion is used a few times to convert rare monster, or distracting fast enemies for a short bit. Good for taking that "allies attack/move faster" rare monster out temporarily.

This was what I have been using before switching chain with pierce support gem.
As title suggested, this build uses pierce for AoE capability.

Although not as strong in clearing mobs as chain support gem, this still gets the job done (requires running back and forth to line monster up).

Pros:
(1) Very Low mana cost, 33 mana per cast.
(2) More dps on lone target than chain; 7.6k dps (aura); 12.2k dps (full charges).
(3) One skill for all, good for boss and decent for mobs.
(4) Cheap and easily obtained quest reward gem.

Cons:
(1) 60% pierce chance is similar to 40% reduced damage on mobs.
(2) Requires lining up the mobs.
(3) Hard against flicker mobs without distraction.
(4) Lesser mob killing power overall compared to chain.

*Note: This comparison was Pierce Support Gem instead of Chain Support Gem, so the numbers are higher.
Used to have Elder Wand, but took Fusillade instead since those 24% elemental damage + 4% attack speed boost is already better than 82% physical increase, not mentioning I get much more damage once I get 5 power charges.
Current Build(image)7.6k dps non charged, 12.2k dps fully charged.

Elder Wand Build(image) 7.4k dps non charged, 10k dps fully charged.
Elder Wand build will leech more mana, but would still rely on mana flask; and there's no difference on performance after switching to Fusillade build.

In Closed Beta, CI gives 50% MORE ES, plus ES gear and Discipline, you get a huge amount of ES. The extra ES makes ES leech quite insignificant, even when you tear through mobs after mobs. And most important reason was that I usually gain my ES back through ES Recovery, since moving from one mob to another was sufficient enough time.

That being said, the new change to CI in upcoming OBT might completely change this build, as you will take chaos damage in ES instead of life and no innate 50% more (Blood Rage = unusable; chaos damage mobs = more damage; less ES = might not have enough to survive an encounter).

Mana is always an issue when you have many support gem linked to a skill. The cost can get really expansive, and many people uses mana leech gem to compensate, as it is the only source to leech mana from non-physical damage.

But I prefer a different approach. Using a low mana cost gem, such as power siphon, and mostly low mana multiplier support gem, such as increased critical damage and increased critical chance, I can keep my mana cost at a reasonable amount. And, with the help of my high critical chance, I can refill my flasks very fast, so I can get unlimited amount of mana as long as there are things to crit/kill. On boss it might be a bit mana consuming, but I have never been to a case where all four mana flasks are depleted and the boss is still not dead.

I have thought about this after using chain support gem. I do really high damage, and many time the mobs gets obliterated very quickly and my shots just hits dead corpses. But there are also times I found faster attacks helpful as my first hit might miss and mobs will be onto me. The ability to shoot a second attack before mobs start tearing you apart is very crucial for glass cannon build like this one. Therefore I am keeping faster attack for now, plus the ability to shoot projectiles 3 times per second is quite addicting.