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

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Invalesco wrote:

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ShekaSIO wrote:

Mate i have one question. On the first lvls what gems from quest should i take and what weapons should i use ?

All you need basically is Spark and Fork to start doing well :) Usually I start off by creating a templar for spark, and then using my shadow to get fire trap. After that I tend to get phase run, bear trap, raise zombies and summon skeletons. that's basically all you need to be honest. The subsequent gems you'll need such as spell totem and faster casting don't come till later.

Just use any spell dmg weapon that boosts your dps the highest, such as wands/daggers/sceptres. Also, bear in mind that if an item has the %increased projectile speed on it, that automatically makes it very desirable and even if I have a better spelldmg weapon which would boost my dps comparatively, i would still stick to the increased proj speed item

Very, very thanks for the answer. That was very helpful.
U should add this advice to your guide.

Regards Wehbba

Well I've been playing my sporker and she is the most powerful mass killer I've played (and I've played a few). However, I just cannot work out how to avoid ele reflect situations.

The problem with spark is that it's uncontrolled. You can't just stop casting and therefore stop the ele reflect damage. The sparks last for over 3 seconds which is enough time to kill yourself a few times over.

I thought perhaps carrying a topaz flask would help, but it didn't save me. Do you guys know if ele reflect damage is in the form of physical or ele damage and, if the latter, whether it will be the same type of elemental damage you yourself deal, or random?

Any other ideas how to prevent elemental reflect from totally gimping this build more than any other elemental damage based build?

Petrov.

Edit: hmm, is there a unique shield that gives a boost to max lightning resist, that I can have on weapon switch for ele reflect mobs?

Edit2: Saffell's Frame. With this, a topaz and and purity running I should be able to get to 93% lightning resistance for the few seconds my sparks are spamming ele reflect mobs. I wonder if that is enough to save me....

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ShekaSIO wrote:

Very, very thanks for the answer. That was very helpful.
U should add this advice to your guide.

Regards Wehbba

i will :) will prob make a huge update 2 weeks from now. busy with project deadlines atm!

@pet

you could try enduring cry for the charges as well if you want!

Really cool guide/nice build.

I haven't read everything in this post so maybe someone else has mentioned this:

You Picked up a 3resists cluster in 73point build near the Witch start.
Those 3 points get you 6%all 15%light/cold. That makes 6/21/21 resists.
But you said to pick to pick skill rewards instead of the 8% resists.

That just make no sense since you'd have 24/24/24 resists for 3 lost points instead of that 6/21/21 !

This is actually something I've seen many people do and I don't get it.
Also if you have many %life/%mana nodes an extra 8% will help you less than one or more of the hp/mp rewards that quest will give you, something nobody seems to see.(but to be fair this gets more complicated than the resists thing when u factor in gear/leveling)

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StravoS wrote:

Really cool guide/nice build.

I haven't read everything in this post so maybe someone else has mentioned this:

You Picked up a 3resists cluster in 73point build near the Witch start.
Those 3 points get you 6%all 15%light/cold. That makes 6/21/21 resists.
But you said to pick to pick skill rewards instead of the 8% resists.

That just make no sense since you'd have 24/24/24 resists for 3 lost points instead of that 6/21/21 !

This is actually something I've seen many people do and I don't get it.
Also if you have many %life/%mana nodes an extra 8% will help you less than one or more of the hp/mp rewards that quest will give you, something nobody seems to see.(but to be fair this gets more complicated than the resists thing when u factor in gear/leveling)

thank you :) the thing is, with skill points you have the option to respec them into something else later so it's a reversible option. if you take resists or +life/+mana from the bandits though it's permanent. you don't have the option to change those into something else even when you no longer need them

This build is very fun to play I can really recommend you to play it!

I came up with a very similar build independently when toying with the idea of a caster shadow myself.

EDIT: Adjusted my build due to the full respecc granted by the 0.9.13i patch. My critcaster shadow @ level 57

I've taken the +8 resist bonus from every bandit quest since I'm not getting a lot of resist nodes, and probably won't have the spare mana to run Purity. (Currently using Discipline and Clarity)

It was pretty easy to level this with freezing pulse, but the build is very flexible, and you don't have to focus on any particular element or spell if you don't want to. I often switch around my Spell Totem to a different element in order to kill resistant mobs more easily.

I haven't gone to CI yet, but I haven't got a single life node either. I've died 3 times thus far, but every time was due to being reckless around flicker-strike mobs or not having enough cold resist. If I was playing this character on hardcore I could have avoided every death by just being more careful.

EDIT: I really want to get static blows, the buff effect passives, and the extra totem on the far left side of the tree, but it's going to require a lot of plain stat nodes to get there.

thanks numb! :)

@carkasjak yup the static blows and double totem nodes are attractive aren't they! If I had a nice staff I would also get serpant stance on top of static nodes as well. After playing with this character though, I've realised that you don't really need the extra totem to do well, especially since it's so expensive to get there.

Meanwhile, skill trees have been updated folks! and added some minor updates as well

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Invalesco wrote:

I've realised that you don't really need the extra totem to do well, especially since it's so expensive to get there.

Me thinks too, Main Totem Spark with main skills Arc for mobs and Spark for Boss it's kill speed is really fast enough, another extra Totem might be overkill as well as mana usage in a dent.

skilltrees for this one re-updated too!