[3.10] LL Storm Brand Hierophant 8k+ ES, 10k Mana, 10M+ DPS per brand

Pro:
Clears most things very quickly.
Can Shred bosses as long as you know what you are doing.
It's hilarious to have 5k+ Mana as a non guardian.
Archmage is just an insane support. With the mana this build has you end up with a single brand costing about 2500 mana, which means 3000+ Added lightning damage to your brand.

Con:
Very expensive to optimize (watchers eye, skyforth, unnatural instinct, etc. You can probably sink 2 mirrors worth of gear into this build and still not have optimal gear)
Not a leaguestarter, even though I managed to transition from mine.
You can't facetank things. This build strives on putting brands on its target and waiting until said target dies.

The build plays pretty much like any life base stormbrand build with the difference that your mana is somewhat your life.
One brand costs like 5ish% of your mana, so when you spam it, you run oom pretty fast, for that reason you should only recast them when you really need to and else use brand recall to reposition.

Bosses tend to melt pretty quickly if you use storm call and RF, phased bosses can be a bit of a pain.

During clear you are generally invincible as long as you don't run into packs like a berserker. Cast brands, see if things die, normal packs can usually be charged, but with Delirium you always have to be careful.
If you die to explosions or porcupines, you probably are better off using Immortal call instead of arcane cloak, but you are losing dps, especially against bosses.

While the build does not have the mana regen to sustain itself, thanks to a bubbling mana flask it doesn't have many issues with mana.

T14 Drox and Defiled Cathedral
T14 Fungal Hollow + Delirium Redeemer at awakener level 6
Sirus on awakening level 6 Deathless (This was my third time ever doing the fight)
Sirus awakening level 8 Deathless

(Note that the gems are awakened, so switch out for your stormbrand setup if you want to roughly see your damage)
https://pastebin.com/QnJ41hmh

there are two trees in there one for a level 90 goal and another one that I'm currently using for my own goal at level 95-100.

This is using the Open identity community fork, so might cause issues on the normal POB.

This goes up to 4 million shaper DPS per brand with my current setup and 5.3 million or more with the more expensive endgame stuff I'm aiming for.

Since somebody asked how I leveled this

First a note: you will need regret orbs to make the transition. I'd say about 20-30 Respec points will get you through depending on how you build. I do not recommend just levelling with my tree, but using a "normal" mom to start out from.

Here a pob with multiple trees:
https://pastebin.com/pNWD5vqC
(again using the fork, so might be normal POB doesn't like it)

First you wanna rush runebinder, then pick up mom as soon as you have some half decent gear. I'd recommend using Atziri's foible from level 17, that alon will probably make mom work.
As for gear, go with the usual tabula + lifesprig + Goldrim and wanderlust and you should be good. If you have an essence worm on hand then grab that too and throw a wrath in there until you go lowlife.

Before going low life I suggest picking up the following ascendancies:
Sign of purpose -> illuminated devotion -> conviction of power.

Illuminated devotion gives you a tiny bit of spell leech during arcane surge and will give you some extra survivability. However if you do not want to spend the extra 10 regrets, go for divine guidance directly. Flasks should be able to keep you alive no problem.

Once you transition the tree assumes you have a foible, ivory tower, prism guardian and mind spiral.

Then grab a Voidbringer and make sure to cap your resistances via rings, belt and boots, worst case even a weapon. If you do not need the weapon Slot for resists Apeps rage is a good substitute for a fevered mind.

Your next goals then should be to get the jewels sorted out and grab a fevered and healthy mind. Healthy mind should be cheaper and higher prio to get as it will massively boost your mana and ES.

This is basically just my current gear, going to around 12.7 million shaper dps per brand: https://pastebin.com/6kui0aPv

There still are some things that can be optimized, i.e. a helmet with lightning pen. Technically I could also get a better watchers eye with pen. There also is the option of getting cerulian rings with the delve mod for %Increased mana. But those are most likely mirror tier items with the other stats we need.

Chest Armor:
Storm Brand - Archmage - Concentrade Effect - Controlled destruction - Energy Leech -Lightning Pen
If you feel you need more clear, get a white socket and slap a chain in for lightning pen.

Late game:
Storm Brand - Arch Mage - Concentrated Effect - Awakened Lighting Pen - Awakened Controlled destruction - Awakened Elemental Focus
(I'm running these myself and it works like a charm)


You can also use other supports, like Added Lightning or Elemental Focus. But these theoretically do the highest damage.
A lot of people seem to also really love to chain in their setup for clear, if you want that get a white socket unto your Ivory tower and swap as needed.

Weapon (Trigger spells variant):
Blade Blast, Wave of Conviction, Conductivity

Weapon(Non Trigger):
Cast when dmg Taken (lvl1) - Conductivity (lvl5) - Wave of conviction (lvl 7)

Shield:
Zealotry, Discipline, Wrath

Helmet:
Cast when damage taken - Arcane Cloak - Increased Duration - Summon lightning Golem
Personally I use lvl 9 CWDT but you can max out if you want to.
You can also instead use a immortal call setup. Makes dealing with shotgun effects much easier.

Gloves:
Brand Recall - Arcane Surge (level 2) - Flame Dash - Second Wind
orb of storms would probably be better here, be I'm too lazy to change it now that the item is linked and Orb does minimal damage compared to the brands.

Boots:
Orb of storms - Power Charge on Crit - Archmage - Portal
If you really want to try hard to get even more damage (which you don't need) Try icebite in here. If you get frenzy charges somehow the Builds damage explodes even further.

You'll need a healthy mind and two Fevered Mind. It's fine to start out with one fevered mind first and use that. I went to t12 maps that way without issues.


As for the fourth socket, I'm using a cluster jewel (which also provides a fifth socket:

This is probably the highest damage combination you can get, but there are a bunch of brand nodes out there that are interesting as well.

In the cluster I then have another small jewel with mana nodes:


Scintillating ideas is great for extra damage and mana while Mind Shaper grants additional ES. You'll notice that both of them are three pointer jewels instead of 2pointers. The reason for that is that the build needs some extra strength. My end goal is to have one that gives +10 Strength on each node so I can drop Retribution and use the point for something else. There are also other interesting jewels out there like chaos res, but so far I have not had a problem with chaos damage as long as you know what to look for.

Annother option is to get a voices unique cluster jewel:
Here you can smack in extra fevered minds, which greatly improve damage.

If you got the cash for it you can also add in an Unnatural Instinct.
Personally I put mine to the right of the shadow area for some es, mana dex and other stats. You can also put it to the right of witch to get ES and mana, but fiddling around with both sockets, this way seems better to me.



As for possible watchers eyes:
The perfect watchers eye would probably be Wrath pen + Zealotry Pen on Crit + Clarity mana as ES.
If you get any 2 of those on an eye you are probably good. If you get a clarity one, just sacrifice the archmage on Orb of storms, or the portal for a level 1 clarity, reserve the 20 mana and enjoy your free 1k+ extra ES

Just grab Alira for crit multi mana reg and resists.

Sign of Purpose -> Illuminated Devotion -> Divine Guidance -> Sanctuary of Thought

Lategame, when you have a skyforth and watchers eye with clarity es, you can drop Sanctuary of thought and go for Arcane Blessing instead and get that sweet sweet Ailment immunity. You can go for Arcane Blessing without the watchers eye, however you will be much more squishy since you lose a bunch of ES!

Major: Brine King for stun. Unless you have skyforth then the goodl old SOlaris/Lunaris switcharoo
Minor: Ralakesh or Shakari depending on taste really.

Ele Reflect: You die
Phys reflect: Take out wave of conviction or you can die.
No regen: Can be run, but is a massive pain.

Also: Anything with procupines and multiple proj/crit is a total bitch to run.

Q: Why no Indigon?
A: Because it would completely break everything. it gives 50% increased mana cost per 200 mana spent recently. That's like socketing an extra 12 Fevered minds into your tree for the second cast. You won't have the mana for another cast and the item becomes useless.

Q: I can't use all my auras with prim guardian, what's the issue?
A: You need the Sanctuary of Thought node from Hierophant before you can reserve all your life. If you transitioned over from life based and used essence wurm before also make sure that that is no longer equipped!

Q: What lab enchants are good?
A: I honestly don't bother with these too much because they are one big RNG fest, but the storm brand lightning pen one would be amazing. But take what you can get.

Q: Does this work with inquisitor?
A: Maybe? I doubt you'd be able to go low life with an inquisitor. Instead you'd probably go the MOM route and try to push as much damage to your mana as possible. But I have never done a build like that, so I got no clue.

Q: What about a third fevered mind?
A: Heck why not? Technically fevered mind gives more damage than an average watchers eye, so you can go all out. I'd say after the 4th it loses a lot of punch though.

Q: Corruptions?
There are a few that would be nice, like +gems and + dmg on chest, +auras or plus aoe on shield. But like lab enchants these are rng-fests so I just farm money and wait what shows up on the market.

2020-03-17: Initial Post with Chayula
2020-03-18: Reworked tree with new items
2020-03-18: Added Video of me being crappy at the game
2020-03-18: Added some leveling stuff because somebody asked nicely.
2020-03-20: Updated everything and added a new video.
2020-03-20: Added deathless sirus kill
2020-03-22: Added lategame tree and updated stuff. Also added more jewels and rings.
2020-03-23: Added new POB link since Open Identity added archmage support.
2020-03-23: added Sirus woke 8 and updated some leveling stuff
2020-03-31: Added my current endgame setup and rewrote some stuff
2020-04-03: minor updates and some details regarding weapon stat prio
2020-05-07: Clarified (hopefully) that watchers eye should be there before you drop sanctuary of thought.