[1.2.3] Sid's Ball Lightning - EB/Crit /2 Curse on hit/ 4 Auras with Herald of Ice

Thanks so very much for getting back to me! I'll probably go with crit as opposed to noncrit since like you said the master crafting will help immensely. I still have a few questions but your post helped a ton.

Firstly, prior to 31/40 and ball lightning, what still would you level with? Storm Call or Freezing Pulse w/LMP or maybe even spark. Secondly, you say to prioritize AOE nodes and Crit, so would you suggest going to the templar area first or the shadow area? Shadow has more crit along with doomcast while having lower life than the Templar area, although not by much.

Early levels pretty much everything works. Stormcall is my fav but it is just a matter of personal taste. If starting in new league id go with first skill i can get +1 or +2 weapon. So if i find +2 fire fireball or flameblast it is..

Id go for templar first. It is long and tedious voyage and better do it early. Leave aura cluster for latter. Pick all life. Pick curse cluster if you decide to go curse on hit (im surprised to say it.. but curse on hit is viable now..).

Id aim for reasonable crit for cruel domino as he is tough. Artic armor helps little vs him and purity of light is still not high enough to make a difference. So kill him quick as he is the most annoying one.

Ill update OP with curse on hit setup and add some comments on stuff ive tested recently but failed.

Note: knockback significantly helps with survivability so hp requirementa are lower than expected during leveling.

Again, thank you so very much for all of your help! I'll be looking forward to seeing how the curse on hit is setup since I've never really seen it used before.

Ive tested pretty much all setups and there are two worth your time:

Ball lightning + coh + curses

Pros: works perfectly with ball lightning, can pre-shock enemies if you crit
Cons: small coverage without huge aoe investment

Ice nova (quality!!)

Pros: freezes are very nice
Cons: more suited for close range engagements. BL plus knockback produces little of such

Tested both extensively and settled for first setup but second one is also viable esp if you happen to get high q ice nova

Other spells like firestorm or arc are all less effective than these two

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Raths wrote:

Hey, I'm thinking on running this build in rampage and I have a couple questions. First, How would you go about leveling this up, and like which skill would you use till what and where would you go in the tree? Secondly how well do you think it'll preform from basically nothing. I'm sorry for asking nooby questions but I just really like to get all the information down before I start something. Thank you in advance!

I think sidtherat totally missed the point of your question, how to level BEFORE ball lightning. I leveled up with Freeze Pulse. It's extremely strong right now, just craft a +1 to cold gems wand with the vendor recipe and grab LMP from Silk (Weaver quest) in A2 Normal.

ive understood it perfectly and replied as clearly as i could

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Early levels pretty much everything works. Stormcall is my fav but it is just a matter of personal taste. If starting in new league id go with first skill i can get +1 or +2 weapon. So if i find +2 fire fireball or flameblast it is..

maybe i wasnt that clear but in early levels it really is 'anything goes', esp with better starting nodes, ability to craft useful mods for few augs/trans that are easy to come by

spark or ice nova are strong early on, freezepulse is as strong as ever and due to mana adjustments it can be quickly 3linked and spammed

and ofc a staple of any early/early game - fire trap

OP updated with Curse on Hit section, updated tree and gear

Just so everyone knows. Herald of Ice proc's EE last so the monsters always have reduced lightning resist. Pretty goddamn OP!

kindof expected that - however:

- heral of ice adds both flat dmg to spells and 'explodes' on shatter
- shattering is not guaranteed unless heavily investing (added cold dmg gem at least)
- ball lightning strikes many many times so only the first 'zap' per target gets inc dmg, all other are against increased resists (unless, by chance, neighboring mob dies and triggers on shatter explosion)

so it might be very nice for single hit stuff (like glacial hammer, or single target proli-burn) stuff of sorts i still fail to see a practical application for this skill in this build

ill roll few EE low lvl maps to see if anything can be observed (im too cheap to waste 5 regrets to get EE now)

I just rolled an EE corrupted area. They are permanently vulnerable to lightning. Definitely check it out though!