[3.5] MoM Crit Storm Brand Inquisitor - Uber Elder down

So today I just managed to kill my very first Uber elder ever with my build and thought I'd like to bring some awareness to it, it's a really strong build and I would love to hear opinions. So far downed all content more or less except Atziri (due to reflect) & "uber" mastermind lair due to lack of chaos resist which is my next goal. Since this is my first ever selfmade build I'd figure that maybe I can get some input from some smarter people. ^^



Backstory

I started out not knowing what I wanted to play, so I decided to go storm brand which lead me to the big questions, specially because the only video that was out of storm brand wasnt really all that amazing looking (no offense to the author of the video).
How I figured to go Inquisitor was actually through a stream chat, I was watching a stream and asked into it and other people in the very stream chat then suggested inquisitor, hierophant and elementalist. Inquisitor really caught my eye to this build because, that I remember people used it for spark and for that it was quite popular and I figured storm brands flashing around super fast was the way to go.

Uber Elder, Shaper & Guardians

I feel this needs a section, so I'm roughly gonna explain how these fights feels, so if you dont wanna know and wanna explore yourself, then dont click the spoiler below.

Spoiler

Uber Elder - This was my first ever kill, so I cant say if it was hard or not, but looking at others do uber elder, I'd say the damage is quite nice in all honesty and also the best part is that the last 25% goes really fast if you otherwise are allowed to, since both bosses are active, you gain a massive damage boost when they are close enough together, however due to the physical squishyness of this build, you really have to dodge stuff, you can get hit by 1 maybe 2 tentacles but after that you really gotta dodge, the shaper balls 2 shots and the slam obviously oneshots. Elder portals was easy, shaper portal the same, I killed all elder portals fairly fast.

Uber elder guardians - Never have I ever expected them to be so easy, they dont one shot you from my experience.

Shaper - I only killed shaper once before, but I'd say that it was a pretty smooth run, shaper doesnt seem that hard for me and dont really remember any issues.

Shaper Guardians - Hydra & Phoenix are easy, Minotaur is easy aswell but you have to kite due to low physical resistance, Chimera can be really annoying, you have to kite him and thats not the problem, but the cloud phases... Those are an issue, he hits you while your running for each cloud and it can 1-3 shot you due to physical resistance being so weak, I managed to do Chimera deathless once but in all honesty I think it was more about luck.


Videoes



Pros'n'cons

Pros;
• Strong clear speed in all map tiers.
• Fairly strong boss damage.
• No auras - you die, you release, you run back in.
• ~7k hp (7k is combined with mana, es and life and can get up way higher)
• Uses Loreweave
• Obliterates twinned/multibosses

Cons
• Like most other builds, can be expensive to min-max
• Very squishy to physical damage
• ^ Not very tanky vs syndicates
• Cant do ele reflect
• Does a little less damage vs single target (it's still fast)



Levelling Process

Levelling with storm brand wont be an issue at any point honestly, its just important to get the Runebinder passive somewhat early to not struggle with any bosses. It's important to notice that Runebinder works differently from "You can cast another brand" cause it doesnt give you an extra brand, it allows you to attach 2 brands to the same target, initially you can have 4 brands out on a boss fight but only 1 can actually attach.

I dont have a leveling guide as to what else nodes to go for but any direction should work just fine, you wont lack damage with this build.

Bandits, I killed all.
Pantheons, I went with Arakaali + Shakari but honestly Lunaris might be better.
Ascendancies; Instruments of Virtue -> Righteous Providence -> Sanctify -> Inevitable Judgement

Gearing

Spoiler

Helmet - For helmet I recommend a +1 to socketed gems for Brand Recall to open up for another ring + QoL arcane surge, there's also a betrayal one that makes you get Eldritch Battery, but I personally dont recommend that.


Neck - I recommend a rare with multiplier, resists and life, lightning leech isnt required, just a QoL, any of these stats will do tho Multiplier - Cast Speed - Resists - Life - Mana - Light leech - Spell dmg - Lightning damage - Dex Not neccesarily in that order.


Rings - Some rings with elemental/lightning damage, life and resists, cast speed could be useful aswell here, opal rings are not neccesary, but probably is the high end for this build.


Belt - Rare belt also to fill out your resists but try to get as much life/energyshield/mana you can on this and enchant cooldown reduction if theres room for it or get shaper belt for cast speed during flask effects, any cooldown reduction or cast speed helps for the brands/brand recall to give your mapping a more smooth flow.


Chest - I went from tabula to Loreweave, it just brings too much to the table giving armour, life, mana, 80% resists, crit, ele dmg its just too good in my opinion.


Boots & Gloves - These slots you fix your resistances and get as much life as humanly possible of all the 3 healthbars (life/mana/ES) then life is still weighting the highest by far. Recently I went to get chaos resist up + get more armour for that slightly phys reduction.


Weapons - I've always used Wands, but you can use scepters aswell, might even be easier early since you need an attack skill to trigger some caster effect from inquisitor, high end weapons I would say is double Void Battery. As for rares I would go for 15-20% cast speed, 80%+ spell power, 70%+ spell crit and maybe some mana and/or crit multiplier



Flasks - 1 mana 1 life flask and then I recommend Atziri's Promise, Cinderswallow Urn (It's really good for mapping) and a Quicksilver flask, you can switch out Cinderswallow for a Atziri's Promise if you want more damage.


Jewels - I use 2 which are Intuitive Leap and Clear Mind, it's just some I found and I made a really good use of clear mind I guess, intuitive leap just saves me from 1 passive point on the left hand side to give me only power charge and Devotion point which gives 20 strength, 8% max life.


Passives

Spoiler

My passive tree is still work in progress, but it works as is, I've done uber elder so it must be working. I'm focused on getting a lot of power charges since I got Void Battery x2 however even without it, the crit from all these charges are really nice. There's also a lot of focus on crit.
PoB link;
https://pastebin.com/XB0Ag1BW


Stats

The stats I've focused on is cast speed, but since I get so much from my build, I only really run cast speed on my wands, its more than enough for me however more cast speed isnt really bad I guess.
Second stat is crit and multiplier, this build is heavily dependant on this I think, atleast it feels like thats the way to go and its ever so nice a feeling to hear all these crits going on.
Life pool is very mixxed based of life, mana and energy shield, I use the energy shield as a buffer, so whenever I see my energy shield is gone, I start to move around to avoid stuff. I also find it very exciting to use ES as a buffer with the new flask that gives you 3% life, mana and ES back for each kill.

With all buffs up and running I sit around 200% cast speed 80% crit chance around 400-450 multiplier and with that I can rush through guardian maps with ease.

Gem links

Spoiler
Most of my gem links should already be visible in the gear section but I use;

Brand - Ice Bite - Added Lightning Damage - Power Charge on Crit - Increased Critical Strikes - Conc Effect

Brand Recall - Arcane Surge (lvl 1) - Increased Duration - Empower

Flame Dash - Faster Casting // Vaal Haste (vaal haste doesnt have to be linked)

Lightning Golem (lvl 20) - Cast when damage taken (lvl 20) - Minion Life (lvl 20)

Power Siphon - Curse on Hit - Enfeeble // portal/optional

Immortal Call (lvl 3) - Cast when damage taken (lvl 1) - Increased Duration




Thank you for reading so far and I hope that this will open some eyes for this build, I'm looking to upgrade it all the time so please if you play this build, let me know what you found out. I'm sure there's so many things I've missed here and there.

Current situation;
Fixxed my chaos resistance and got a bit more physical damage reduction to the change of gloves and boots. I've killed uber elder a couple of times, might upload a video soon, just would hope I could do a deathless one it really only comes down to me mastering the fight since this build kinda kills it fast.

I've also uploaded videos since start incase people havent noticed, T16 guardian kill, Shaper kill and Red elder kill.


Change log:
04/01-2019
Updated PoB link
Changed Ascendancies in level process
Updated items to my current state
Updated Gem links (No more conductivity)
Last edited by Fientelo on Jan 4, 2019, 12:43:30 PM
Last bumped on Mar 6, 2019, 1:59:14 AM
Im curious how you feel about subbing out the instruments of virtue for inevitable judgement since it seems this build lacks a little ele pen it might help boost boss DPS for sacrificing a little bit of clear speed.
"
Bayothound wrote:
Im curious how you feel about subbing out the instruments of virtue for inevitable judgement since it seems this build lacks a little ele pen it might help boost boss DPS for sacrificing a little bit of clear speed.


Spoiler
That was my first thought going into this build aswell, however that node is too big to lose. 30% spell damage and 30% cast speed is way too much to lose and if you plan to try this out yourself in any ways then Pious Path is the one you wanna skip for it and then change out Conductivity with Enfeeble or some other defensive curse, this way it would make you tougher but I dont think it would make you more dps since Conductivity gives you -44% pen alone and if you look at shaper he only has 40% all resist as far as the wiki goes.

So to sum up the gems incase it was missed;

Cast when damage taken lvl 20+
Enfeeble lvl 20+
Summon Lightning Golem lvl 20+

This setup is for survival purpose, if you take a strong hit, then the enfeeble will help you recover.

Power Siphon any level
Curse on Hit lvl 20+
Conductivity lvl 20+

This is for the cast speed buff from Instruments of virtue + it gives the light pen you need for tougher oponents like uber elder and shaper.

I hope my answer was sufficient and I appreciate your comment. :)


Edit;
Actually scratch what I said, I forgot that bosses have less curse effectiveness, but still Pious Path would be the more relient way to go in this scenario. I could give it a try but honestly the only boss that is challenging at this point is Uber Elder which even dies fairly fast. :)

**
Posted 2 new videos in the video section containing a red elder kill and a shaper kill with Inevitable Judgement.
With that being said, I've tried it out and it might be slightly better overall and stronger on boss fights. I found a shaped belt to compensate for the missing cast speed.

I will update the guide later today or early tomorrow, with new PoB link.
Last edited by Fientelo on Jan 3, 2019, 11:54:04 AM
Thank you that was a great response and makes a lot of sense I totally see the sense behind it now!
hey i'm trying this build out and was curious if you've tried using or considered shimmerons
No lightning spire trap?
"
hey i'm trying this build out and was curious if you've tried using or considered shimmerons


As far as I know shimmerons are only useful to totems and traps(?), anyways brands are concidered self-cast to reflect so shimmerons would kill you.

"
ClassicEnergy wrote:
No lightning spire trap?


No, I have come by nugi's stream yesterday and saw he ran inquisitor storm brand aswell, I think he traded damage on brands for more survivability + he doesnt have the gear to boost the damage to the top, that goes without saying that I only saw it for a short while.
Long story short, I dont need the traps as far as I'm concerned.
"
hey i'm trying this build out and was curious if you've tried using or considered shimmerons



Shimmerons got hard nerfed overall, so the lightning damage basically just kills anyone who uses it, now including totems and traps since they changed it so it still counts as though you are casting it, unfortunate nerf.
Hello, trying your build in ssf. What would the order of importance be for gem links while leveling? only have a 4link atm in act 6
"
roeshamboner wrote:
Hello, trying your build in ssf. What would the order of importance be for gem links while leveling? only have a 4link atm in act 6


For a 4 link early you got multiple options, I would probably wait with the crit for a 6link and run the following;

Storm brand - added lightning damage - ice bite - and on the fourth link I would do concentrated effect for bosses and faster casting for clear

Once you got tabula I would probably suggest to go brand - lightning DMG - ice bite - concentrated effect - crit - crit multi

From this point on, I cant tell exactly when you should get in the Power charge on crit, but I would assume once you get ~5 power charges in your spec it would be worth it.
Last edited by Fientelo on Jan 6, 2019, 6:42:43 PM

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