[2.6] Hardcore CI Crittle Sparks - Legacy ability for a Legacy league!
I'll continue to update with videos, DPS snapshots, and a leveling guide. However please feel free to ask any questions and I'll respond in the thread, or to PM's as quickly as I can.
Philosophy With this build we'll be focusing on Spark as our primary damage skill (not vaal spark). With the age of voltaxic over, we need a new way to make spark viable. That method: crit. All the crit. With enough crit on gear you should be able to hit 100% crit chance at full power charges, my build currently runs 94%, but with diamond flask running you'll hardly notice if you're missing a little bit of crit chance. We'll be leveraging occultist and going Chaos Inoculation for the high energy shield and reliable energy shield regen, and adding leech and endurance charges to make our self extra tanky. Your high ES makes it hard to get oneshot, and your high regen and leech makes it hard to get burned down over time. As with any CI build, it can be a little rough to level, and being crit based, we don't get our damage until later when that crit chance really starts rolling in. However once you hit maps, the switch flips, and it's game on. Example Video This is just a quick example video for the build. I'll replace it with higher a higher tier map run when a T15 decides to drop. This map was fairly easy mods, all I really care about is that there isn't elemental reflect or blood magic - nothing else matters. Temporal chains is annoying, but not problematic. I just remembered I needed a video, so just quickly uploaded one of my map replays. As you can see, this build is so tanky I really don't care about rushing into the middle of packs, or facetanking twinned argus. My ES might dip for half a second, but I honestly wasn't even paying attention because I didn't need to; the leech and regen easily had it handled. Note that the current guide and video I'm using a dagger with whirling blades ala' 2.5. I will be updating the gear and video in 2.6 as I redo the build to use a scepter instead due to the dagger nerfs. Character Sheet
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While in Hideout Combat Sheet Each cast of spark can theoretically hit the same target up to 3 times, though usually only twice with proper positioning). Defenses in Hideout Nothing too special to note in defences. You will note my resistances are what I consider "bare minimum". 169 while in hideout will cover you for elemental weakness maps. However it won't cover getting cursed for a specific element (eg. conductivity) while inside of an elemental weakness map. To cover that you will need 209 to all elemental resists, or do what I do and swap out chalice for another flask with curse immunity to deal with specific maps (eg. Core map). So what makes us so "tanky". Well, other than large leech and endurance changes from warlords mark, we have: Ascendancy Our energy shield basically never stops recharging, and if you're clearing a map, you may have up to 25% of your energy shield regenerating per second on top of your base ES regen as well as your instant leech adding to that. Your Energy shield should be large enough to absorb almost any blow, then with these effects, it will refill at record speed. Choir of the Storm This is per hit, can hit multiple targets in a small area (quite small), but that's an extra 32k dps ability since we're critting so fast so often, it's proccing on CD (880ms) which is great in general, amazing for our build that normally isn't great on bosses. (procs can't exceed cast speed, with enough cast speed, procs can't exceed cooldown time, so could *potentially* be as low as 500ms between procs) Leveling Guide
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See In Depth Leveling guide in second post if you want more information, this is just a quicker overview! If your level doesn't quite match the points spent in the marked trees, it's due when you're getting your extra free passives. You should match up at level 70. Level 1-15 If you've picked up a quality spark gem, you can start using it right off the bat. Otherwise pick your starting spell of choice. We aren't picking up any damage type specific nodes for a long time, so choice doesn't matter. I prefer either freezing pulse or magma orb (takes a while to get used to, but it hits hard early). Flame totem/flame trap can also help with higher health targets. You can also grab Raise Zombie to help form a front line since you'll be fairly squishy until late game. Use Flame Dash for mobility, and clarity if you need it. Try to stick to wands, if you don't have lifesprig, craft a +1 gems wand through vendor crafting. Start picking up some basic energy shield nodes and making your way through the tree. I also like to pick up an early jewel node to get some more damage in there. Level 16-31 Pick up a bit of crit, some health, base attributes to help with leveling gems and Mind over Matter for now. If you can, Axiom Perpetuum is an amazing item at this point, and will likely carry you a long way with its damage, crit chance (wooo) and +damage to spells. Level 32-51 Complete Normal Ascendancy when comfortable: Wicked Ward Start making your way to Vaal Pact. Pick up attribute nodes as you require them to level gems. Be very careful during these levels. You'll want to get spark to a 4-link at this time if you haven't already. Also try to set up some other defensive links such as CWDT+immortal call. Equip and use discipline, and Herald + curse on hit + warlords mark ASAP. If you can spare the ring at 38, equip your essence worm and wrath. Note that this is a reasonably long stretch without picking up many meaningful wheels right now. Your damage likely won't be amazing, and you'll be fairly squishy during this time. Play safe. IceTomb is a great chest piece during this time for its high armor, es, cold res and chill immunity. Level 52-70 Complete Cruel Ascendancy when comfortable: Vile Bastion At some point during this period, your gear should be changing to rares and hit high enough ES that you'll be safe to respec out of life, and into CI/Ghost Reaver. Place "Energy From Within" jewel into node near Melding to convert the life to more ES. I usually do this at when I hit 3k ES~, though you can do so earlier. If possible, do this before cruel Maligaro, as with your fairly low life, and likely lack of chaos resist, his chaos damage really, really hurts. If you can't, ensure you turn off herald of thunder (wait for it to time out before entering her room) and don't orb curse Doedre. She consumes any curses on her to grant herself 30% more damage as chaos damage (unholy might). Also during this time, start picking up some damage wheels while dropping Mind over Matter. Next, pick up the pierce nodes, and finally make your way to duration. Level 71-85 Complete Merciless Ascendancy: Forbidden Power Pick up your power charges (you should have just gotten your merciless ascendancy to start generating them), grab a bit more ES, and start making your way to some more damage nodes. We leave power charges and power charge generation until merciless, as it's only 10% chance on crit. So until you have fairly high crit, it's hard to sustain any sort of power charges, making the other ascendancies far more useful. Dried lake is a great way to safely and easily get from 67-80~ Level 84-100 Complete Uber Ascendancy: Profane Bloom (a little bit extra damage, best of the last two options) Pick up your final damage nodes, additional Energy shield, and jewel nodes. Tips & Tricks
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Can I do this on a Budget?
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Technically, yes. This build would fall into the categorization as a "budget" build, but that would come with a grain of salt. By saying we're budget, we're saying "this build does not demand any expensive items in order to work." This build is an ES based build, and a crit based build. I personally feel that calling either type of build is unfair, as good ES gear is far more expensive than life based gear, and crit builds require damage from gear to multiply - so better quality gear is scaled harder. A good "budget" build is a build which has a large amount of damage baked in to make up for sub-par gear. A good budget build does not scale into end game, instead its purpose is to be very effective at farming low level maps for currency for a scaling build. So yes, you can do this build on a budget, but it's going to scale very quickly, and perform far better the more you invest into it. But, I'm not going to try and lie and delude you; while it's possible, I wouldn't recommend this build as a league starter, or a first build. This is a build you would typically use another build to farm towards. If a build says its both a "budget" build, and end game viable, I feel like that's a lie - that's what we have here. High costs aren't demanded, but it really performs on higher cost gear. I'm currently playing a Solo self-found hardcore version of this build to see just how viable it is on a 0 budget, and I'll update this once I get to end game with that character, but this is where I currently fall. Certainly possible, but not the intent. This is an end game build. Attributes
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You may notice the tree picks up a number of large attribute nodes. This is because our pathing doesn't pick up much small attribute nodes (it's mostly int on the paths). It's possible to get the str/dex on gear, so you can drop some of the primary stat nodes from the tree. However finding these items can be hard. Both Str/Dex, and resists/damage on gear are "suffixes" (rares can only have 3 suffixes), meaning attributes are competing with or damage and elemental resistance on items. You'll get more out of having damage and necessary resists on gear and losing a couple passive points, than getting lower damage/resists on gear to get attributes and having a couple spare passives. Though if your gear does so align, you can grab "Deflection" near the pierce wheel if you have three spare points, and/or "Energy Shield on Shield" near witch power nodes if you can only muster 2 spare points. Using Spark
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You want to try to pick up the habit of casting at walls rather than at targets. A Spark can only hit the same target once per second, so you want to get the distance right so rebounding sparks get back to the target a little after one second. I usually find the right distance is to have the wall just over a screen away, and have the enemy/boss half way across my current screen. This ensures I'm a safe distance from the target, and my sparks are doing optimal damage. Of course, spark is quite random, so sometimes it's best to just watch your positioning, cast "anywhere", and let spark's randomness do your job for you. Spark can be a little buggy at times. Make sure you don't stand right against obstructions (walls, ledges, rocks), as sometimes spark will think it's casting "inside" the obstruction, and just instantly dissipate. This can also happen when standing on bridges, or in the middle of doorways. You want to be out in the open regardless so you can stay on your feet, but putting yourself literally up against a wall can not only put you in a bad defensive position, but also prevent you from doing any damage. A couple mechanics of Spark: 1.) Spark can only hit the same target once per second, only one spark per "cast" can hit the same target. So you cast spark, it launches 6 sparks, only one of those can connect with a target. After one second, any one of those can again hit the same target. You can not shotgun targets, either by getting close, or by bouncing sparks (see "shotgunning" targets below). 2.) Spark can only travel 150 units from you. It can bounce around within that radius theoretically indefinitely. However, if it reaches 150 units away from you, it dissipates. When you're in an open map, you generally want to cast spark in a direction, then move along with it to get the most of its duration, basically riding your sparks like a wave - recasting when they finally run out, or something survives the wave of sparks. 3.) Spark cannot hit flying targets. Through "normal" play this typically won't stop you, however it is something to be aware of. "flying" entities are very... confusing. There's no real rhyme or reason to what is deemed a flying enemy and what is not. Basically the big ones you'll encounter are Raging Spirits, and Animated Weapons. Rampage league animated weapons and Arsenal map animated weapons have been fixed so spark can now hit them! This mechanical interaction has been a matter of discussion in the Spark ability thread for some time, but GGG has not shown any interest in making spark able to 'complete' the game, so we just kind of have to suck it up and carry on, skipping what we can't fight. Thankfully a recent hidden fix allows us to complete the rampage league and all maps! Wooooooooo. "Shotgunning" Targets
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No. Projectiles in PoE have a bit of odd programming. When a projectile hits an obstacle, and the projectile is set to "reflect" off of obstacles, it actually doesn't. What happens is the original projectile dissipates, and the game creates a new projectile granting it velocity equal to the reflection angle. Think how Magma orb when it hits the ground actually creates a new magma orb for the next bounce, so multiple "bounces" can hit the same target in a short timespan, even though multiple magma orbs in the same bounce (GMP) can't. Because of this mechanic, we used to be able to "shotgun" targets by putting them into a corner or hallway and have the sparks rapidy bounce off the walls, generating new projectiles and bypassing the hit cooldown for stupid levels of damage. This was patched in 2.3 when they at the same time put a max travel distance from caster on spark, so that the newly generated projectile maintains the "hit history" from the projectile it was spawned by. So we can no longer shotgun. We still do tons of damage, we just can't do stupidly broken levels of damage by abusing this programming. Using Flasks
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If you're using the suggested flasks, you should be able to maintain 100% flask uptime while you're fighting. You want to follow these uses: 1.) Use Diamond + atziri 2.) Flasks wear off - Use Diamond + atziri + chalice - This should drop diamond+atziri to 0~ uses, which will quickly be regenerated by chalice 3.) If diamond + atziri not full charged, repeat step 2, else go back to 1. 4.) Go back to step 1 Basically you keep chalice on standby for when diamond and atziri run out of charges and use it as you use your last atziri charges engaging the next pack. All your flasks should have two uses, except chalice which has 3. This keeps all flasks on the same rotation. I typically keep basalt + topaz on standby for as required, and just constantly rotate the three dps flasks. If you find yourself out of flask charges before a boss, vaal breach in your weapon swap is a great way to get flask charges and power charges ready. The enemies won't grant experience, items, or vaal souls, but they will grant you flask charges and trigger your charges. Engaging bosses
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Try to have vaal spark ready before engaging a boss. Then just run in, hit diamond+atziri+chalice, and smack him in the face with it, quickly move, and start regular damage. At tier 15 I have only had a few boss fights where the boss lasted longer than a single flask charge, and they were all enfeeble maps. Remember to stay mobile. Cast spark - whirling blades away. Circle strafe the boss. Many bosses punish lack of movement. While this build is quite tanky, the best damage mitigation is not taking the hit in the first place. You don't need to be standing still. We're not a channeling build, or a melee build, stay on your feet. Fighting Atziri
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The map up to Atziri shouldn't be a problem. You have enough damage and survivability that so long as you watch your positioning and don't just eat unnecessary damage it's a cake-walk. For Atziri herself though, you're going to need to make a couple adjustments. Do not use spark during mirror phase. You will completely wreck yourself. Spark is far too random, and you will end up hitting the mirror clone, which with your high damage, you don't have a chance. Instead, before entering her room, put your regular spark into your vaal spark 4-link (storing away vaal spark in your inventory for now), put Ball Lightning into your 6-link, and swap out pierce for slower projectiles. For regular phase, ball lightning her. It's not optimal, but its high hit rate works well with generating our power charges and our crit build, so it works perfectly fine. For zombie phase, use your 4-link spark, it should have more than enough damage to randomly clear the zombies. And for the mirror phase, just ball lightning a non-mirror target, making sure the ball doesn't pass over other clones. If you're not sure how to chose your target, look for one spawning with a bright blue arm. That will be the storm call clone, and is always safe to attack. Easy fight so long as you watch your positioning and don't eat too many flame blasts or storm calls in a row. Low Damage?
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A crit build is a scaling build. Your base damages aren't that heavily augmented from the tree, so you start out a bit slow. However with all that crit, any increase you get to your base damages are heavily amplified. Skill gem levels, and +% increased damage from where you can get it (gear, jewels) scales far harder than any non-crit build. Get a few gem levels, and watch that dps exponentially go up. For example, a single +40% jewel (about 15-20c) is worth over 1k tooltip dps in hideout. Getting gems to level 20, or even 21 will give the largest increases. Your priority for level 21 gems are: 1.) Spark 2.) Herald of Thunder 3.) Lightning Penetration (x2 for vaal spark) 4.) Pierce 5.) Increased Critical Strike Chance (x2 for vaal spark) 6.) Increased Critical Strike Multiplier 7.) Spell Echo (x2 for vaal spark) You also want to get Wrath to level 20, as this will make it 22 with essence worm which is when it grants +22% more damage. Level 21 wrath does nothing, as it doesn't give another point until level 25. For example, when my gems were only level 18, I only had about 24k dps in Hideout. With a few jewels, level 21 spark, and more level 19 gems, it's up to over 48k in hideout. Scaling happens fast. Don't be dispirited because your damage isn't that extreme when you first hit maps. Why such high crit chance?
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Note the primary theory here still applies, but the math is using old dagger implicits. Scepters are now the preferred choice in 2.6 We aren't picking up any innate chance to shock, so we're counting on our crits to shock our enemies. That shock is going to grant us 50% more damage against anything that survives the first hit. Increasing our chance to crit is doing more than just that crit's multiplier, it's also increasing our overall dps by increasing shock uptime. A lot of the crit chance we get in this build is dynamic crit chance, such as that from power charges. The occultist ascendancy only offers a 10% chance to gain a power charge on crit, which means for every 10% crit chance, you get an additional 1% chance to gain a power charge on "hit". Having a higher critical hit chance before power charges is imparitive to get the power charges in the first place. A lot of the current crit chance also comes from Choir of the storm (offering >100% crit chance by itself), so if you're using a rare instead, you're going to need the crit chance elsewhere which the build covers. Even with choir of the storms, we don't drop crit chance as previously mentioned with shock, and with choir's 50% increased lightning damage only on crits, we want to crit pretty much as much as witchingly possible. Lastly, we're putting a lot of focus into crit multiplier instead of into increased damage. The result of this is when we're not critting, we're doing far less damage than when we crit, it's not a very subtle curve. Say our base damage is 500, increased damage is 500% , and our crit multi is 500%. Now, we can chose a scepter with an implicit 30% increased elemental damage, or a dagger with implicit 80% global crit chance. Scepter with 30% increased elemental damage implicit: (500 * 5.3) * ( 1 + 0.8 * (5-1)) = 11130 dps Dagger with 80% crit chance implicit: (500 * 5) * ( 1 + 0.856 * (5-1)) = 11060 dps Of course this doesn't take into account shocks or choir of the storms increased damage on crit, as that just gets a bit too complicated. We just know once these are factored in the numbers might be even closer, if not even the dagger taking the lead. But does that hold true? Those numbers are a bit low... What if our normal increased damage is 700? Scepter with 30% increased elemental damage implicit: (500 * 7.3) * ( 1 + 0.8 * (5-1)) = 15330 dps Dagger with 80% crit chance implicit: (500 * 7) * ( 1 + 0.856 * (5-1)) = 15484 dps Crit chance works as a multiplier with damage, so maintains effectiveness with increased damage sources, where increased damage has a diminishing return. This means the higher crit chance is going to scale better as your damage from other sources increases. The mathiness is a bit complex, but this build hits the point in the curve where the crit chance is more effective than trading for base increased damage (though jewels aren't balanced, increased damage is more effective then crit chance there, simply because the numbers are horrible for crit chance on jewels) In the tree, all of the crit chance we pick up is in the pursuit of crit multiplier. We never extend ourselves for pure crit chance. Diamond flask will certainly cover a lot of missing crit chance. You could likely pull it off dropping crit chance, and depending on diamond flask, but I like the automation from the build innately sustaining itself for those mindless grindy leveling maps. So in summary, what is the justification for the high crit chance? It comes naturally in the pursuit of crit multiplier, offers better quality of life with power charges, and doesn't lose by much if at all to trading for increased damage. Why not voidwalker boots?
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You could use voidwalker if you wanted, but there's a couple drawbacks: 1.) Voidwalker has a horrible ES value (52-61). As CI, we generally want to get as much ES as possible, so losing 100+ base ES on an item is quite a sacrifice 2.) High ES gear is fairly expensive as is, high ES gear with high resistances becomes stupidly expensive. By sacrificing another possible resistance slot, the rest of your gear has to pick up the pace. You'll need an average of 36~ resist to all elements per remaining piece of gear. But lets say you could pull that off. You had tons of resists and high ES on all the rest of your gear, would Voidwalker be the better option over rare boots? Yes. Yes, they would. You would drop the pierce passives, and go for Heart of Thunder. Next, drop the pierce support for one of: Added lightning, Controlled Destruction, Point Blank (would need to test to see which one would end up being the best. Why not sacrifice base ES to pick up better resistances to take this route instead? Survivability is more important than damage. We have more than enough damage, more damage is great if you can, but it's not worth sacrificing defenses for when we already have so much damage. Why don't I have this as part of the build? Because the gear you'll require to hit this point will likely be in excess of 1.5 mirrors if not several mirror quality items to keep the defenses and get the damage from going voidwalker. It's expensive, and unnecessary. But if you're rich, go for it, it would potentially be a superior option Skill Tree
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POE Link PoePlanner Link There's a couple points where you end up making straight line sprints, but it's to pick up a couple very big key nodes: Potency of Will: Spark can only hit the same target (per cast) once per second. The base duration of spark is 1.5 seconds, so you need duration to enable a single wave of sparks to 'reliably' hit the same target multiple times for a large effective DPS boost. This also buffs our Herald of Thunder, Vaal Spark, Vaal Discipline, Vaal Haste, and Immortal Call, and Warlord's Mark. Vaal Pact: 'Life' leech on ES is fairly ineffective with occultist's massive regen bonuses. You can only leech so much per second, and without any leech bonuses, we would be loosing out on tons of leech. Vaal pact regens our ES instantly from the leech, and ensures we get the full benefit. If your innate high occultist regen isn't enough, Vaal Pact is there. Bandits
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Normal: Kraityn (10% all resistances) Cruel: Kill All (passive) Merciless: Alira (power charge) Once you're confident with your resistances later, you can respec Normal to a passive point. Or just start with the passive point if you don't want to spend 20 regrets to respec it. You can also optionally get the cast speed (Alira) in cruel, but I've always felt it was a "meh" bonus, and cast speed isn't a specific interest for us. Your call. Gems (Skills/Links)
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PoeCraft Link: http://poecraft.com/gemplanner#v11.1O=H1W.=S1y1T.2p371W0c.192f272U2X2T.2H2f2X34.0t2N=b11.==.1H.== These are set up to all be fairly easy to colour, huzzah! The only "difficult" one will be the shield, which even then isn't that hard thanks to vorici. Chest (main link) Spark + Spell Echo + Lighting Penetration + Pierce + Increased Critical Strikes + Increased Critical Damage (in that order of priority) Until you get high crit, you can drop increased critical strike damage for life leech for even better sustain/endurance Gloves (Room Clear link) Vaal Spark + Spell Echo + Lightning Pen + Added Critical Strike Chance (in that order of priority) If you feel like gambling, Increased Critical Damage. Critical damage would be a large DPS boost - if it crits. I personally go with Critical Chance just to ensure it hits like a train, but either would work great. Make sure you use diamond flask before vaal spark to get the highest chance to crit possible. Boots (Curse link) Herald of Thunder + Curse on Hit + Orb of Storms + Warlord's Mark Herald should have near 100% uptime while clearing, giving nice auto-cursing. Orb of storms allows us to apply curses while we focus on positioning further away, or are unable to have herald up, such as for bosses. Bladefall instead of Orb of Storms would also work for instant cursing at longer range (you have to initially get close for Orb), but orb continually re-applies the curse for a longer time. We're going with Warlord's mark for the life leech survivability (instead of using a lifeleech support, and both might be overkill), the mana leech to make mana a non-issue, and free endurance charges for even more tankiness. I don't think anything else really competes in this build when it means losing a support gem for leech. This also provides a great immortal call duration for high periods of physical dps intake. Helm (utility link) Vaal Haste + Lightning Golem + Increased Duration, Discipline Nothing really to say here. Need to put discipline somewhere (doesn't necessarily need to be linked), and some temporary power. Weapon (OhCrap Link) Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call + Increased Duration I leave CWDT and Immortal Call at level 1 until much later (until about 6k ES), then I move them to Level 7 CWDT. Shield (Movement Link) Shield Charge + Faster Attacks + Fortify Optionally you can use a dagger instead of a scepter, using whirling blades instead of shield charge for a bit faster movement and less dependency on boot movement speed. It will be a bit more difficult to colour, and a scepter will offer superior damage. Only really use a dagger if you can't find/afford a good scepter. Ring (Damage Bonus) Wrath This requires Essence Worm, but 22% more damage is worth it. with all three buffs, you'll be sitting at 84% reserved, but should have more than enough mana for casting, particularly with the leech from Warlord's Mark. Jewels
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You'll want one Energy from Within later on to convert the melding wheel to ES. Other than that, your stat priority is going to be cobalt jewels. Some other types will work, but cobalts have your widest variety of stats you're interested in. Optimally your jewel will have a total of 40%+ increased damage for you. P: (prefix) S: (suffix) Jewels can only ever reach 2P/2S, below is listed priority on attributes Cobalt Jewel: Prefixes: 1.) Increased lightning damage (14-16%) 2.) Increased spell damage while holding a shield (14-16%) 3.) Increased Critical Strike multiplier with lightning skills (15-18%) Suffixes: 1.) Increased Projectile Damage (10-12%) 2.) Increased Spell Damage (10-12%) 3.) Increased Damage (8-10%) 4.) Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier for elemental skills (12-15%) 5.) Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier for spells (12-15%) 6.) Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier (9-12%) Viridian Jewel: Prefixes: 1.) Increased lightning damage (14-16%) 2.) Increased Critical Strike multiplier with lightning skills (15-18%) Suffixes: 1.) Increased Projectile Damage (10-12%) 2.) Increased Damage (8-10%) 3.) Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier for elemental skills (12-15%) 4.) Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier (9-12%) Crimson Jewel: 1.) Increased lightning damage (14-16%) 2.) Increased Critical Strike multiplier with lightning skills (15-18%) Suffixes: 1.) Increased Projectile Damage (10-12%) 2.) Increased Damage (8-10%) 3.) Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier for elemental skills (12-15%) 4.) Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier (9-12%) Equipment (examples of my current gear included)
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Resists is as always, your first priority. After you cap, your top priority should be ES. If possible, try to pick up a little dex or strength here and there so you can drop stat nodes from the tree. However I prefer to prioritize greater damage and resists on gear over a couple passive points. Remember going over cap (even *far* over cap) on lightning resist is damage for you through Choir of the Storm. Resistances are always suffixes. Generally speaking: defenses = prefixes, damage, attributes and resistances = suffixes. All rares (with the exception of Jewels) can roll up to 3 prefixes, and 3 suffixes for a total of 6 modifiers. Jewels can roll up to 2 prefixes, and 2 suffixes, though most you'll find have 2/1, or 1/2, as they have been regal upgraded from magic jewels which can only have 1/1. Chest Until you find a Really nice Vaal Regalia (750+ ES), I recommend Skin of the Loyal. It's reasonably priced at 100c~, and the 100% bonus global defense works great in an ES build (100% increased ES from all other sources). Priority: Resists, ES, Int, stun recovery (very low priority) Gloves Priority: Resists, ES, Int Enchant: None preferred Boots Priority: Resists, ES, Int, movement speed Movement speed isn't important if you're using whirling blades. Is important if you're using shield charge. Enchant: [x] % of damage leeched as life and mana if you have killed recently Helm Priority: Resists, ES Enchant: Must have +3 spark projectiles 40% spark damage is much cheaper, and would be better for single targets, but there's a reason spark damage is so much cheaper. Get the projectile count. Belt Implicit: +[X] ES (chain belt, crystal belt). You'll definitely want to upgrade to a crystal belt as soon as you can due to its much larger implicit energy shield values. (resistances to cap above all these, these are just after resistances are capped, and resistances are far superior to any other suffix for us) Prefix: 1.) +[X] Energy Shield 2.) +[X] Armor 3.) +[X]% Increased Movement speed (expensive, but it's better than the last preference) 4.) +[X]% Increased Flask Mana Recovery Rate (only any use when doing players can not regen maps) Suffix: 1.) +[X]% Increased Flask Effect Duration 2.) +[X]% Decreased Flask Charges Used 3.) +[X]% Increased Flask Charges Gained 4.) +[X]% Faster Stun and Block Recovery Main Hand (weapon) Prefer scepter over dagger, though both can roll with what you want. Scepter offers better base spell damage, but dagger offers better crit synergy. Because we're a crit build, small increases to base damages (+ X-X damage to spells) is massive, as we heavily amplify these numbers with crits. These modifiers are far more powerful than in most builds. Also, only 5 of our passive nodes, and maybe a few of our jewels have any sort of elemental alignment, so element damage type isn't as imperative (though we have lightning pen, so lightning is still best). Until you can afford a great rare, doryani's is an amazing scepter for us. Priority: Implicit: 1.) +[X]% Increased Elemental Damage 2.) +[X]% Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier 3.) +[X]% Increased Global Critical Strike Chance Prefixes: 1.) +[X]% Increased Spell Damage 2.) +[X] Lightning Damage to Spells 3.) +[X] Fire Damage to Spells 4.) +[X] Cold Damage to Spells 5.) +[X]% of Lightning Damage Leeched as Life (Catarina mastercraft) Suffixes: 1.) +[X]% Increased Critical Strike Chance For Spells 2.) +[X]% Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier 3.) +[X]% Increased Attack Speed 4.) +[X] Intelligence Offhand (shield) You could potentially dualwield for even more damage, but with CI, there's just so much survivability to be gained from a shield, and our damage is perfectly fine with a shield. Priority: Prefixes: 1.) +[X] Energy Shield 2.) +[X]% Increased Energy shield 3.) +[X]% Increased Spell Damage Suffixes: 1.) +[X]% Increased Spell Critical Strike Chance 2.) +[X] Intelligence 3.) +[X]% Increased Stun and Block Recovery 4.) +[X]% Increased Chance to Block Rings Priority: (resistances to cap above all these, these are just after resistances are capped) Implicit: 1.) +[X] Elemental Damage (Opal) 2.) +[X] Critical Strike Chance (Diamond) 3.) +[x] Energy Shield (Moonstone) Prefixes: 1.) +[X] ES 2.) +[X]% ES (Elreon mastercraft only) 3.) +[X]% Faster Start of Energy Shield Recharge (Leo mastercraft only) Suffixes: 1.) Increased lightning damage 2.) +[X]% Increased Critical Strike Chance (Elreon mastercraft only) 3.) +[X] Intelligence Amulet I'm using choir of the storm for a massive crit chance boost, increased lightning damage on crit (pretty much always), and the special proc which is worth about 32k+ DPS. You won't notice it proccing, since it looks exactly like herald of thunder, but that proc can really go to town. Though it can only proc every 880ms with our cast speed, it is a very substantial amount of damage. Every once in a while you'll notice a rare enemy just get deleted off the face of the map in a single lightning calldown. That's Choir of the Storm doing its thing. This is best in slot for this build, though you can use a rare instead if you can't afford a choir yet. Alternatively a rare priority: (resistances to cap above all these, these are just after resistances are capped) Implicit: 1.) +[X]% increased lightning damage (talisman) 2.) +[X] Strength and Dexterity (Citrine) 3.) +[X] All Attributes (Onyx) Prefix: 1.) +[X]% Increased Spell Damage 2.) +[X] Energy shield 3.) +[X]% Increased Energy Shield (available as prefix, and elreon mastercraft, can be stacked) Suffix: 1.) +[X]% Increased Lighting Damage 2.) +[X]% Increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier 3.) +[X]% Increased Global Critical Strike Chance Flasks
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We can't use health flasks, and we don't need mana flasks, so it's pure utility. - Diamond Flask works as a bootstrapper for your power charges. It gives you two rolls to crit on each cast, meaning you get high crit before you get your power charges. This allows you to get those power charges from your ascendancy much quicker and more reliably. Once they're up you should be rocking 85-95% crit, and the charges will sustain themselves. - Topaz Flask is just all around good. It helps against reflect, lightning breaches. Make sure it has "grounded" to remove and make immune to shock. - Basalt Flask is just good survivability, though you could swap it out for a penetration Vinktar's, just make sure you use topaz flask at the same time to negate the shock. You'll need to also swap out another flask to ensure you have freeze, bleed, and shock immunity from flasks. - Atziri's is a large damage bonus, and even more leeching goodness. Also a very cheap flask, even with good rolls. - Overflowing is great and highly underrated since we don't have any flask nodes. This will help us maintain flask uptime (massive damage and survivability), and it also offers a bit of damage while you're using it. - The Wise Oak offers amazing synergy with our preferred resistances with Choir (stacking lightning resistance). This allows some resistances to be less than perfect as it will offer 35% all res, helping with elemental weakness + curse, and offers even more crit with Choir. Potentially use this instead of overflowing, or diamond flask - though be careful as you'll lose a status immunity from a blue flask. You'll have to chose what you want to be immune to - typically bleeding and freeze, and just be careful around lightning enemies. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away, and I would be happy to answer. I've been having a lot of fun with this build, and it's been performing quite well. As mentioned, I'll be actively monitoring and updating this guide with more information. Last edited by VapidActions#1355 on Apr 2, 2017, 1:00:34 AM Last bumped on Jul 4, 2017, 9:21:49 PM
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In Depth Leveling Guide
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Normal
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Act 1 (Levels 1-14)
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Skill tree by end of Act 1
Act 2 (Levels 14-24)
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Skill tree by end of Act 2
Act 3 (Levels 24-34)
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Skill tree by end of Act 3
Act 4 (Levels 34-42)
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Skill tree by end of Act 4 Note Once you have a spare four link, get your vaal spark up and running (Vaal Spark + spell echo + increased critical chance + lightning penetration)
First Ascendancy (Normal)
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There's nothing special with the normal ascendancy. I normally complete it after Act 4. At this point the fact that you're aiming for CI hasn't really started to impact your survivability, so nothing special. At this point with the life/es you've been grabbing and MoM you're probably abnormally tanky if anything. I had about 1800 EHP during normal lab immediately after killing Malachai with honestly very poor gear. Grab Wicked Ward as your first ascendancy. Cruel
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Note: Around mid -late cruel, you're might start to feel fairly weak. You're going to have low damage, and towards late cruel you're going to get squishy if you can't afford high quality gear to edge the weakness. Get a diamond flask to help with damage, and just play safe. Start keeping an eye out for ES gear for the CI conversion in late cruel (if possible), and hope to get lucky to get a 5l to help with your damage problems. It's a rough time, but stick it through and you will be rewarded! Note 2: This section won't include quest by quest steps. It's the same song and dance, I'll just be making notes where special actions occur and providing end of act passive trees. Act 1 (Levels 42-47)
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Skill tree by end of Act 1 Gear Check Flasks: At this point you want your flasks to be (note immunities can be on different flasks):
Defenses You'll start encountering Elemental reflect. While you likely won't have all resists capped, focus on capping lightning resistance to help with reflect and if you have Wise Oak you want lightning resistance to be your highest. Your ES should now surpass your HP. You should be sitting at about 900hp, 1100 ES roughly, though higher ES is better. Offense You should be swapped out to rare wand(s). Essences are a good way to get an easy 60%+ spell damage wands. Spark should be at least 1200DPS, though if you have skin or tabula it can be as high as 3k with the 6 link in effect. Act 2 (Levels 47-51)
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Skill tree by end of Act 2 Bandit Selection You can either kill all bandits (my preference), or help alira for 5% cast speed. Cast speed isn't very big for our build, but it's your call - either is an equal option. Act 3 (Levels 52-56)
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Skill tree by end of Act 3 Make sure you grab Ghost Reaver before Vaal Pact to make sure your leech is always working for you - and that you have your curse on hit links running. Act 4 (Levels 56-59)
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Skill tree by end of Act 4 If you're able to invest into gear (doing this as a following build) you should be able to hit 3k ES before belly of the beast. This is a great time to make the CI conversion. If you aren't able to hit the 3k ES mark yet, don't panic. You just need to make sure you use safety portals for maligaro (he spams tons of chaos damage), and make sure you don't curse doedre or she'll do a ton of chaos damage as well. You can see the chaos conversion tree in the "Chaos Inoculation Conversion" section below. Second Ascendancy (Cruel)
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You should be safe to do Cruel Ascendancy after Act 4 if you either: successfully converted to CI after meeting the 3k ES mark, or have a 6 link setup and at least 3.5k EHP (ES + MoM Life). You'll also want to be fire resistance capped for Izaro's fireball volley attack. Don't be afraid to put off doing the ascendancy until much later if you don't feel confident right now. Your second ascendancy should be Vile Bastion, once you're ready to grab it. Merciless
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Through merciless you should be looking to complete your links. That means getting your vaal spark up and running if it isn't already - and your shield charge links (swapping to a scepter) to start moving around a bit faster. The skill tree links at this point will be based off of the CI conversion having occurred at the end of Act 4, however there's no difference in further point allocation between CI and MoM builds. You should be focusing on finding an ES base 5 link if you haven't already to get that pierce support added for the large effective damage boost. As you play through Merciless your damage and survivability will continue to scale quicker and quicker. This is largely due to your damage scaling up providing more leech. If you have the CI conversion completed, don't be afraid to get into the face of enemies and put down an orb of storms. Your regen and leech should start being enough to out tank their damage and really lay into them. Act 1 (Levels 59-61)
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Act 2 (Levels 60-63)
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Skill tree by end of Act 2 After killing Kraitlyn when heading west, detour north to Oak, killing him and grabbing the waypoint heading back to the Riverways to continue west. This allows you to get your power charge while clearing the western forest without backtracking. Act 3 (Levels 63-67)
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Act 4 (Levels 67+)
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Skill tree by end of Act 4
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Not my lightning res is currently my lowest res. All are over cap, but my lightning res *should* be my highest res for the Wise Oak - this is something I'll need to ensure when I upgrade gear. Merciless Ascendancy
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I typically do Merciless ascendancy during my dried lake farming, around level 75-76. You should be just fine for lab at this point - having 5.5k ES minimum. While you're farming dried lake and filling out your tree you should be grabbing your power charges, so you'll pick up your power charge generation (Forbidden Power) as your ascendancy here. Chaos Inoculation Conversion
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I normally aim to have this completed just before Belly of the Beast in cruel, as such the trees provided represent that point in time. However this conversion can certainly be made latter on. I find a good "check" for when you're ready for CI is 3000 ES in hideout. Before CI Conversion: Skill Tree Link After CI Conversion: Skill Tree Link For this conversion, you'll want one Energy From Within jewel to place below the Melding wheel to convert that life to ES. The other jewel slot you'll pick up with this conversion is just a regular jewel slot, put a good damage jewel in there. You can now drop your bubbling life flask and replace it with another utility flask - Likely a Basalt or Topaz flask depending on what you feel you need. You're going to notice during this conversion you're losing a *lot* of mana and mana regen. Be prepared to be dependent on a mana flask for a while until your damage gets high enough for your leech to sustain your mana. Changelog
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Changes in 2.6
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Log Notes
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2017/01/18 18:17: Added Bandit information, Jewel information, Enhanced equipment information, and basic leveling guide. 2017/01/18 23:47: added character sheet images for tooltip dps display 2017/01/19 19:10: Updated DPS screenshots from level 21 spark 2017/01/19 22:44: Added tips section. Adjusted affix information for some gear 2017/01/19 19:07: Started fresh HC SSF character to follow this build to test a.) low budget viability, and b.) re-write the leveling guide as I go to make the leveling guide more clearly broken up and more informative. 2017/01/28 23:00: Added quick example video of map clear. Will be updated with higher tier content as soon as a T15 map drops. 2017/01/29 4:41: Added defenses to character sheet examples. 2017/02/01 16:52: Added comments on crit chance, voidwalker boots, and budget to primary build guide. 2017/02/01 20:01: Completed Normal Playthrough section of in-depth guide. 2017/02/24 00:42: With the nerf to dagger implicits, The superior option will be a scepter, using shield charge instead of whirling blades. This will also result in an easier time colouring, though does put a higher demand on movement speed on boots. I'll update the guide once full patch notes are released to see if any other changes are expected first. 2017/03/09 14:04: updated guide to 2.6 preferences and adjustments. Fixed skill trees not loading in PoE's skill tree / odd ascendancies being displayed in planner. 2017/03/09 17:19: Updated in depth leveling guide normal guideto account for Siosa and change to mind over matter. 2017/03/11 15:43: Updated cruel Act 1/2 sections of in depth guide, adding trees and gear check information. compressed changelog into spoiler. 2017/03/11 20:20: Completed Cruel section of in depth guide 2017/03/12 13:18: Completed Merciless section of in depth guide. Removed WIP title! woo 2017/04/01 13:49: Changed tree, dropping a jewel node for Alchemist Last edited by VapidActions#1355 on Apr 1, 2017, 4:48:53 PM
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Currently levelling with this builds it pretty entertaining, but i just noticed that your trees have the large +30 to attribute nodes and i was just wandering if its possible to fit them stats into gear entirely and if so where would you put the new points
do you know the total required amount of dex,int,str? Last edited by moistsausage#0563 on Jan 19, 2017, 10:12:33 PM
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You could absolutely put the large stat nodes into gear instead. I picked up the nodes since getting gear with high ES and stats can be incredibly hard (attributes and defensive bonuses are both prefixes, so ES and dex/str compete for gear modifiers).
If you were to pick up the stats on gear, I would recommend just accelerating through the tree. In the end, you would put those stats into +shield defenses (such as the +40% increased defenses from equipped shield near pierce wheel, and near witch power node). You'll have more than enough int from traversing the tree, no worries there. You'll need: Dex: 155 (vaal haste), or 114 minimum (21 pierce support) Strength: 114 (20 increased duration). Warlord's mark requires more, but leveling it up only grants increased chance to gain endurance charge, not important. I only have it at level 10, and it works perfectly fine. Last edited by VapidActions#1355 on Jan 19, 2017, 11:20:51 PM
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" thanks for the response |
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" Just to correct you on one thing, attribute rolls on gear are always suffixes not prefixes, so they compete most importantly with resistance, critical multiplier/chance, cast speed and mana regeneration rolls. The problem with prefixes on ES gear is that you need at least two rolls (flat and % ES) for decent ES quantity and three rolls for exceptional gear. |
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You're absolutely right. It was one of those things you learned a long time ago, then somewhere along the line got skewed and never bothered looking it up to confirm because you "knew", haha. Even my recommended prefixes/suffixes were correct in listing the stats as suffixes. I've updated the guide accordingly. Thank you kindly.
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I may be missing something but how does this build deal with stun?
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Occultists ascendancy prevents stun on full energy shield (Vile Bastion). So basically the first hit you take can't stun you. So long as you're positioning properly, and staying on the move, you shouldn't take stunning-level blows repeatedly - your high regen granted by occultist and leech should get you back to full very quickly so you need to take those stunning-level blows at a very high rate.
Energy shield offers 50% avoidance by itself, and we pick up 40% avoidance while casting. It is possible if you position yourself in such a way that you could get repeatedly stunned, but I haven't encountered that situation. This build doesn't pick up permanent stun immunity, but I haven't found stun to be problematic. |
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Let's say I can only get one: spark level 21 vs spark 20%. Which one should I get?
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