[1.2.] Serge's Ultimate Ball Lightning (3 Versions: EB-MoM-AA / hybrid HP-ES Crit / CI Crit!)

The more i think about critical the more obvious this skill is designed for it. 2x divinarius gives 20% aoe! Then you can swap inc aoe for crit multi/add lightning.

Seems similar to what I have however I have decided not to take the flask wheel due to flasks been buffed and have taken the area of effect & blast radius nodes to increase the amount of AoE damage done by BL.

Build: http://tinyurl.com/los32fd

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Boltonsquads wrote:

Seems similar to what I have however I have decided not to take the flask wheel due to flasks been buffed and have taken the area of effect & blast radius nodes to increase the amount of AoE damage done by BL.

Build: http://tinyurl.com/los32fd

The AoE damage nodes do not affect Ball Lightning, because BL doesn't do AoE damage. You can only get larger AoE, but not any damage boost. That is also the reason why Concentrated Effect gem does not work with BL.

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Dmillz wrote:

PoeBuilder won't let me edit for some reason. If we took your latest tree there, dropped Lightning Walker and the Elemental Damage node and spec into the first two with 16% nodes, I think that's definitely the best we've come up with!

Damage wise sure that would be more efficient however as you near towards endgame 80+, reflect maps will be a nightmare as with any Arc build, I would suggest sticking with Lightning Walker and the elemental damage node.

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ComradeSerge wrote:

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Boltonsquads wrote:

Seems similar to what I have however I have decided not to take the flask wheel due to flasks been buffed and have taken the area of effect & blast radius nodes to increase the amount of AoE damage done by BL.

Build: http://tinyurl.com/los32fd

The AoE damage nodes do not affect Ball Lightning, because BL doesn't do AoE damage. You can only get larger AoE, but not any damage boost. That is also the reason why Concentrated Effect gem does not work with BL.

The AoE alone makes taking area passives worth it in my opinion. 40% increased radius from the tree basically means each cast of ball lightning hits mobs ~40% more times, so 40% more damage modifier.

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Boltonsquads wrote:

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Dmillz wrote:

PoeBuilder won't let me edit for some reason. If we took your latest tree there, dropped Lightning Walker and the Elemental Damage node and spec into the first two with 16% nodes, I think that's definitely the best we've come up with!

Damage wise sure that would be more efficient however as you near towards endgame 80+, reflect maps will be a nightmare as with any Arc build, I would suggest sticking with Lightning Walker and the elemental damage node.

I do reflect maps all the time with my arc witch. Just get Vaal Pact, and throw a Life Leech gem in.

You also haven't included Empower in with the Ball Lightning which will be a huge DPS increase

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Boltonsquads wrote:

You also haven't included Empower in with the Ball Lightning which will be a huge DPS increase

Depends
I did math and empower is less effective then add lightning unless +4levels
And effective only when 1 ball hits more then 5 times single target.

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Boltonsquads wrote:

Damage wise sure that would be more efficient however as you near towards endgame 80+, reflect maps will be a nightmare as with any Arc build, I would suggest sticking with Lightning Walker and the elemental damage node.

In dump league you can chose not to do reflect maps if its a problem for you.

Also getting corrupted divinarius with 1% lightning leech helps.

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Boltonsquads wrote:

You also haven't included Empower in with the Ball Lightning which will be a huge DPS increase

BL is very low base damage, +3 levels will yield about the same dps as
added lightning. added lightning wins due to shock from quality.

under a lot of builds/circumstances faster casting and spell echo will also beat
empower for this spell.

lightning pen should always result in more dps as well.

Side note, my calculations have crit build being _very_ far behind non crit on dps
for ES build, haven't looked carefully at life base but I suspect it will be behind there as well.
Additional damage is very plentiful here, getting enough crit to outscale it is unrealistic IMO.
Even using added chaos and scaling purely from spell damage and cast speed beats crit.

EDIT: also forgot to mention as leech was mentioned. one of the masters offers elemental leech as a mod, wont even need to atrizi to get some leech on