[3.8] Ultra tanky Ball Lightning Guardian | CI 11-15k ES | 3-5m Shaper DPS

Yeah, I just did Uber Elder with this build - level 91 - and I can officially say it sucks. It takes me about 90 seconds to clear uber elder with my Oneshotkill hierophant templar, and this build took over 5 minutes, thanks to the shitty ball lightning mechanic. I love the tankiness of the build, but that is all it has going for it. If someone can figure out another RELIABLE skill to use, instead of ball lightning, then this might end up becoming a good build in the future.

As it currently stands, however, I give this build a D-. Avoid.

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Kadamose wrote:

Yeah, I just did Uber Elder with this build - level 91 - and I can officially say it sucks. It takes me about 90 seconds to clear uber elder with my Oneshotkill hierophant templar, and this build took over 5 minutes, thanks to the shitty ball lightning mechanic. I love the tankiness of the build, but that is all it has going for it. If someone can figure out another RELIABLE skill to use, instead of ball lightning, then this might end up becoming a good build in the future.

As it currently stands, however, I give this build a D-. Avoid.

Just from curiosity i took a look at your build - you forgot to take elemental overload

Also on my video it took me about 2 minutes 30 seconds to clear uber elder (with just decent gear, nothing spectacular), so you have to be doing something horribly wrong

And yes, you could use arc for example, tree is going to be different though. Single target damage is going to be lower as well (most definitely)

Also idk about that ranking. Of course, not everyone has to like everything, but this build isn't that much different from my howa jugg - you flame dash/shield charge in, kill everything with 1/2 clicks and repeat, while being close to immortal. And this was easily one of the strongest builds ever made

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grizzly40 wrote:

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Kadamose wrote:

Yeah, I just did Uber Elder with this build - level 91 - and I can officially say it sucks. It takes me about 90 seconds to clear uber elder with my Oneshotkill hierophant templar, and this build took over 5 minutes, thanks to the shitty ball lightning mechanic. I love the tankiness of the build, but that is all it has going for it. If someone can figure out another RELIABLE skill to use, instead of ball lightning, then this might end up becoming a good build in the future.

As it currently stands, however, I give this build a D-. Avoid.

Just from curiosity i took a look at your build - you forgot to take elemental overload

Also on my video it took me about 2 minutes 30 seconds to clear uber elder (with just decent gear, nothing spectacular), so you have to be doing something horribly wrong

And yes, you could use arc for example, tree is going to be different though. Single target damage is going to be lower as well (most definitely)

Also idk about that ranking. Of course, not everyone has to like everything, but this build isn't that much different from my howa jugg - you flame dash/shield charge in, kill everything with 1/2 clicks and repeat, while being close to immortal. And this was easily one of the strongest builds ever made

I respeced out of it temporarily, as I am currently messing with crit/crit multi with no success. I'll be respecing, again, i'm sure. Lovely build, but it just feels underwhelming for some reason. It is painfully slow compared to my totem templar, and even more so compared to my tornado shot build. I'll mess with it some more, as there are other improvements that can be made, such as +2 proj corruption on shav's and a better wand. Maybe even a better watcher's eye. My only real complaint is the speed, as I've been participating in the clear speed meta for too long.

I don't find it that slow, the fact is this is more of a melee build than all of the meta-melee build out there. The range is really low, the balls are soooo slow to move.

The tankiness was awesome, but like you I have also put the build aside and went back to something more screen shattering (hiero FP totem), I find it super hard now to play something that does not reach a minimum bar of clear effectiveness.

If you find any other setup with as much tankiness but much better speed, I'm very interested.

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thomzon wrote:

I don't find it that slow, the fact is this is more of a melee build than all of the meta-melee build out there. The range is really low, the balls are soooo slow to move.

The tankiness was awesome, but like you I have also put the build aside and went back to something more screen shattering (hiero FP totem), I find it super hard now to play something that does not reach a minimum bar of clear effectiveness.

If you find any other setup with as much tankiness but much better speed, I'm very interested.

You can also use faster projectiles instead of slower projectiles, but that doesn't make sense i guess, it's a tp in - cast once - destroy pack type of build

But in all seriousness, idk maybe my standards are completely different, but less than 2 minutes for guardian map full clear (+ legion and boss) is considered ULTRA slow nowadays? Because for me it's pretty good

If a map takes more than a minute to clear, then you're doing it wrong. At two minutes per map clear, you're literally cutting your efficiency in half. I finally got a mirror to drop this league, and there is no way I would have had one drop by playing something so slow.

This build is good for leveling, though - I can see reaching level 100 pretty easily. However, it will still be a long journey considering how slow it is. You should make it a mission to make a build that is as tanky as this, but is far more efficient.

Well having a mirror drop has nothing to do with speed. The odds are so low than even by killing twice more monsters (and so having twice as much chances to drop one), having one drop at all is just pure extreme luck.

grizzly, the build is not so slow per say. For me, it "feels" slow, even if clearing a map is not that different in speed than with other builds I play.

For me, for a build to feel fast, it's not about the time in which you clear a map. It needs to:
1. Kill monsters very quickly. That means, when you launch your main ability, most if not all of the screen must be dead within 1 second.
-> Ball Lightning kills everything alright, but it's not instant enough for me to feel good

2. Pass a certain threshold in move speed, even without movement ability. Otherwise picking up loot just breaks any kind of flow/rythm I get into when killing stuff.

Strangely, I found your MS build better feeling-wise, it's one of the 3 builds that I fully cleared the atlas with, I really enjoyed it a lot.
But this one, meh. It's great build-crafting, but it's not for me.

A few points.

1. Yes this is a less efficient build, maybe we can improve it.

2. Each player plays their own way, there is no right or wrong way to do something (within reason obviously), just different ways to do it.

3. This build is not the slowest I've played. You dash to a pack, kill pack and then dash to next, rinse and repeat.

4. I will say this particular build is not great for Legion encounters, due to slow balls and limited use of flame dash.

5. It's tanky but not as tanky as Howa Jugg. I seem to be getting "stuck" every now and then and not sure if it's the bad server performance this league or if something else is doing it.

6. It kills guardians, shaper and elder fast. Uber elder takes longer since there is a lot of positioning you have to be mindful of.

I'm not going to try to take it to 100 because I want to move on to another build. But I have enjoyed playing it.

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Kadamose wrote:

If a map takes more than a minute to clear, then you're doing it wrong. At two minutes per map clear, you're literally cutting your efficiency in half. I finally got a mirror to drop this league, and there is no way I would have had one drop by playing something so slow.

This build is good for leveling, though - I can see reaching level 100 pretty easily. However, it will still be a long journey considering how slow it is. You should make it a mission to make a build that is as tanky as this, but is far more efficient.

Swap slow proj to faster proj, use haste instead of determination, use quicksilver flask instead of wise oak - there, almost 2 times faster. I'd love to see videos of that totem character, just from curiosity

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grizzly, the build is not so slow per say. For me, it "feels" slow, even if clearing a map is not that different in speed than with other builds I play.

For me, for a build to feel fast, it's not about the time in which you clear a map. It needs to:
1. Kill monsters very quickly. That means, when you launch your main ability, most if not all of the screen must be dead within 1 second.
-> Ball Lightning kills everything alright, but it's not instant enough for me to feel good

2. Pass a certain threshold in move speed, even without movement ability. Otherwise picking up loot just breaks any kind of flow/rythm I get into when killing stuff.

Strangely, I found your MS build better feeling-wise, it's one of the 3 builds that I fully cleared the atlas with, I really enjoyed it a lot.
But this one, meh. It's great build-crafting, but it's not for me.

Same treatment as above, should "feel" better

I have to say that this build's clear speed is nearly the same as howa jugg's clear speed (he was faster thanks to shield charge that's all) and nobody complained about clear speed in 270 pages of comments. That's why im confused, don't get me wrong guys, just trying to realize what's wrong here, because for me build felt really good

This build will never complete in the clear speed meta that's for sure, but it depends on what you expect from the build. If you start it for the zoom zoom than you clearly weren't paying attention.

However if you're looking for a build that does not die that much this seems to be it. Personally I dislike dying a million times and getting stuck at lvl 91-92 so I'll give this a go.

What's the best helmet enchant? extra ball?