Unleash Firestorm Mana Hierophant ES Leech Tank

Someone posted a generic idea of a mana hierophant tank build in the PoE 3.6 paint thread on reddit. I found the idea interesting enough to use it as my league starter.

Pros

* Really tanky for a caster
* Cheap way to get over 9k ES
* Good ES leech and ES on block
* Rather cheap build

Cons

* Does not delete full screen upon entering window

Stats without flasks

* 10k armour >50% phys reduction (Pantheons included)
* 53% evade
* 38% attack block
* 19% spell block
* 71% melee avoid
* 25% of elemental damage ignored
* Arctic Armour

Stats with flasks

* 32k armour > 90% phys reduction
* 53% evade
* 60% attack block
* 30% spell block
* 83% melee avoid
* 25% of elemental damage ignored
* Arctic Armour
* Wise Oak for all three resists

How does it work?

The mana Hierophant converts 30% of mana to ES. On top we use Memory Vault and reserve nearly all mana to gain a ton of armour. You can expect to get over over 8500 mana and thus 8000 armour from Memory Vault alone.

Gems

Flame Dash > Combustion > Ingite Proliferation

Will debuff mobs upon entering with Combustion.

Orb of Storms > Culling Strike > Onslaught

Will generate Elmental Overload, Onslaught and adds 10% more damage.

Vortex/Storm Brand > Curse on Hit > Flammability > Elemental Weakness[/i]

Curse setup. I dislike the Storm Brand cast speed and the Vortex cooldown is really short. Be aware that Vortex only applies curse on hit. Vortex is instant which makes it really nice to use.

CwDT (1) > IC (3) > Tempest Shield (7) > Increased Duration

Another defensive layer

Vaal Discipline, Arctic Armour, Dread Banner, Herald of Ash

Aura setup. We use Dread Banner to reserve up to 95% of our mana.

Firestorm > Unleash > Spell Echo > Concentrated Effect > Elemental Focus > Controlled Destuction

The damage.

How does it play?

I first started the build using Incinerate > CwCh > Firestorm. But that had a lot of problems when clearing which became apparent in Incursions.
I played around with a lot of combinations and have now found a setup that comfortably clears Incursions: Firestorm > Unleash > Spell Echo.

Flame Dash into pack > Vortex + Orb of Storms > Firestorm

Pack should have Combustion. Vortex is instant and can be used at the same time as Orb of Storms. Firestorm will be cast 5 times nearly instantly! Normal Firestorm, 3 Unleash and 1 Echo.

That is enough to delete the pack and move on.

On bosses Firestorm has a cast rate of 0.28 and a duration of 2.9 seconds.
On top you get 1 additional cast every 0.71 seconds from Unleash.

You can expect 49 casts in 10 seconds. Each Firestorm causes 29 impacts.
Each impact does 26000 damage against normal monsters and 14000 against Shaper. If every projectile would hit you would be looking at 2 million shaper dps. Of course they don't. Still the damage will be more than fine to do any sort of content. Unleash is godsent on Uber Elder where you need to move since it stacks charges on downtime.

Ascendancy

Divine Guidance > Sanctuary of Though > Illuminated Devotion > Arcane Blessing

Important. We have a ton of es leech. You will have 100% reduced spell costs nearly all the time. Make sure to do uber lab asap otherwise you cannot proc Arcane Surge.

Jewels

3x Grand Spectrum Cobalt, 2x Healthy Mind

Leveling

Build can be started really cheap as a simple life/mom firestorm hierophant.

Here is a level 62 tree that works as a life/es/mom hybrid.

http://poeurl.com/ckO1

My gear






PoB

https://pastebin.com/wc34GJSc

I want to post an update on the character. I am nearing level 91 and adjusted a few things.

My chest is still a 5 link. Using Vaal RF in my 6th link atm.

I switch the pathing a bit. Here is my tree for 91: http://poeurl.com/cloF

Additionally I dropped Ignite Proliferation from Flame Dash and am using Faster Casting instead.

I dropped Atziri's Promise and put in an Ample Quicksilver of Adrenaline. Leech is already more than fine and movement speed just feels so much better.

Oh right. I bought two corrupted Healthy Mind jewels. One with silence immunity and one with corrupted blood immunity.

The character is a monster tank. The damage is good and so is the leech.

I have died 4 times now in endgame.

* Died while helping a friend in Uber Lab. Made a bad decision on a long path of chainsaws.
* Died to Incursion temple boss. I stood in the center under his location and suddenly my es dropped out of nowhere with him still being immune to leech.
* Died to Atziri trolling me hard. I thought she was going to port to center and spawn zombies. Started spamming Firestorm at the center. Wrong phase and got grilled by reflect.
* Died to Waterways boss. This one buffled me the most since I killed him many times before. According to the wiki he can become immune and reflect all damage. Did not know that and died while panicking because of ES dropping hard out of nowhere. Additionally there is not much you can do here other than logout or hope that Vaal Discipline will do sth. There is nothing to leech from. Bullshit mechanic since you cannot stop Firestorm.

Because two of the deaths being from reflect I switched to the reduced reflected elemental damage taken panteon and away from the increased physical reduction while standing still.

i would love to see some videos of diffrent boss fights. it kinda looks solid but wantto see some end game grinds if possible :)

also have you considered

just to apply that extra curse so not needed to run up and take the extra curse from skill tree? :) can be invested in some more es or dmg etc instead

Yes I thought about them. They are a valid option. You would take the boots, remove the 4 curse nodes and take Written in Blood and the two spell block/spell dmg nodes. Doing that would still give me 9k es at level 91.

any updates for 3.7?

Any Upgrade for 3.8?

3.8 Healthy Mind is now limited to 1