[0.10.0] HP/ES Spork Shadow Battle Mage (Twinkle twinkle deadly Sparks!) [Videos included]

Here's my version of the Sporker - I started from Witch mainly because I had a Witch ready to respec on Legacy, but as you can see this can just as easily be a Shadow start.

Witch Sporker:


I actually did use LMP, so I can just massacre a room. Also, even Gneiss on Merciless I can one or two shot if I just walk up to him and shotgun him. Here's my gear 9I don't have a Light Pen gem sadly in legacy, otherwise it would replace Added Chaos Dmg for sure). Obviously the gear is high end, but you really don't need 6L for this to shine.
Gear:


Spark fires 2.87 times per second (without frenzy chrges from Blood Rage), fires 5 Sparks each time, with each spark doing 3.3k dps, or 6.8k dps when critting (so x5 that for shotgun damage). Crit chance for Spark is 42%. Mana regen is 132 per second.

I run Clarity, Grace and Discipline, naturally.

The only things that hurt me are elemental reflect mobs, as described earlier. For OB, I am seriously considering this build, and also thinking of taking +8% res penalties as the bandit rewards instead of the skill point...

Petrov.

I know this is strange question, but how many jewelers you have used to get 4L wonderlust ? I have burned about 20 on mine so far (only managed to get 1 or 2 socets) and it is pretty annoying.

"

griszka11 wrote:

I know this is strange question, but how many jewelers you have used to get 4L wonderlust ? I have burned about 20 on mine so far (only managed to get 1 or 2 socets) and it is pretty annoying.

type /itemlevel on it, what is it's item level? if it's below 25 or so u can never get 4 sockets on it.

also, that's some beastly DPS pet! and aye I agree, there's not much that 4 extra skill points could get you for an end game spork build, might just go for the resists as well myself

Great guide Inva, very informative and helpful to players of all skill level. It would be interesting to see how much fun the build would be over a longer period of time. I guess if you acquired the gear and kill things quickly, that will always be fun no matter what build you do :)

As Petrov stated, I bet LMP would also be really nice on this build, although, can you imagine playing it in a large party, I am sure it would annoy the hell out of your party members haha.

Keep up the great guides.

I'm playing a spell/lightning damage + shock chance based Spork shadow right now (Spork_the_Illest). I just wanted to add a bit of general advice based on my experiences so far: at some point it's worth picking up Ark and / or EK (build depending, EK is damn good for faster casting + crit builds, Ark fits my build better).

There are some areas we do very well at: underground areas with tunnels, and even open fields where boulders and such will reflect our sparks but still reach all of the mobs on screen. There are also some areas that are very tough for us, such as Vaal Pyramids, or even areas with a lot of cliffs can be difficult, where multiple levels in close quarters prevent your sparks from reaching mobs (in the case of Vaal Pyramids, I could only target some 10-20% of the mobs at once, in the large rooms with lots of stairs), especially ranged ones which will be whittling away at you from relative safety. Lightning Warp isn't always reliable enough to close the gap when the room is flooded and you need to stay on the peripherals to survive, and that's where an alternate spell that can travel over multiple levels comes in handy.

Also, in the case of EK for crit builds, very good for elemental reflect mobs.

Hope this helps ^-^

thanks debris and canhaspants! I'll edit all those into the guide over the next day or so when I have time. Keep the improvement suggestions coming! :)

this might be a noobie question but for a build like this what makes 9% cast speed better than 15% elemental damage with the possibility of picking up 8% projectile nodes off them? (at the start of the shadow area)

is it because you'll end up with a lot of +%damage ? which is additive? and therefore cast speed is multiplicative with that? or because some of the chosen skill gems don't benefit from elemental damage? (although it seems like they would)?

"

namad wrote:

this might be a noobie question but for a build like this what makes 9% cast speed better than 15% elemental damage with the possibility of picking up 8% projectile nodes off them? (at the start of the shadow area)

is it because you'll end up with a lot of +%damage ? which is additive? and therefore cast speed is multiplicative with that? or because some of the chosen skill gems don't benefit from elemental damage? (although it seems like they would)?

Heya, yup I prefer cast speed because it multiplies the other bonuses but also more importantly for this build because faster cast speed = more sparks.

Sparks tend to have a tendency to bounce around randomly so instead of focusing on increasing their base damage by 15% and have the spark miss the enemy, I'd rather have a higher number of sparks with a lower base damage but a higher chance to hit the enemy and deal damage to him :)

Hey Inva

Did you try Elemental Proliferation in place of one of the other support gems?

If so then why did you drop it from the chain?

Because I am building with % chance to shock nodes rather than crit, I will be testing out my build with the EP support. If I get it within the limited amount of time I have to play before the OB wipe, I'll be able to provide feedback.

The main difference between our builds when it comes to EP is that crit is rolled per cast (all projectiles from a given cast will either be a crit or not) and provides a huge spike in damage to begin with, whereas mine will roll chance to shock on each hit, and therefore more likely to spread mass shock status, the status itself providing my spike damage rather than crits.

Edit: Brain farts. I keep typing crit when I mean to type shock >.>