[3.16] Enki's Archmage Hierophant - a beginner-friendly Lightning Caster

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krilovich wrote:

Any tips for uber lab? I have about 3k hp and 7k mana and twice now I got 1 shot by this bad boi lol

Run circles around Izaro, cut sharp corners not round/smooth ones. Think as if you are in a racing game. You need to turn as close to the edges as possible. You'll avoid all his attacks by a hair's breath that way. Its a bit hard but doable. Thats what I do.

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Enki91 wrote:

You're not even using Mind over Matter or the Leap Slam setup for Fortify, of course it's feeling squishy that way.

The passives you put into Sanctitiy should be going into Arcane Chemistry instead. Essence Worm and Sniper's Mark will help with single target. Having the recommended minimum amount of Life and Mana on gear will help with damage and survivability, i've mentioned them for a reason. They can be easily gained by planning out stuff from the trade links and adding the missing stat through your crafting bench.

Last but not least, your weapon has no mana and even worse, it has Cold Damage to Spells, which can ruin your lightning exposure if Arcane Cloak wasn't up during Wave of Conviction.

sorry if my staff sucks

MoM was removed because I was testing how to keep some mana when any projectile hit me

I added essence worm and the fortify setup, and still deal mediocre damage and struggle to clear packs of magic monsters in t1 maps with arc.

I'm sure this build does good after getting the armor and the staff but as it is, and don't take this personnally, I cannot for the life of me seee how this is remotely league start friendly.

Thanks for answering.

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Tomberrox wrote:

sorry if my staff sucks

MoM was removed because I was testing how to keep some mana when any projectile hit me

I added essence worm and the fortify setup, and still deal mediocre damage and struggle to clear packs of magic monsters in t1 maps with arc.

I'm sure this build does good after getting the armor and the staff but as it is, and don't take this personnally, I cannot for the life of me seee how this is remotely league start friendly.

Thanks for answering.

not true, i was able to progress smoothly in white tier maps without any real investment (cloak and pledge), i could even do yellow tier maps so... yeah. maybe check your resistance, make sure they're all capped, use expedition npcs mechanics to get better gear, get life and mana, don't run elemental reflect maps, etc. even with your current setup i don't see how you can get one shot in a t1 map, so maybe change your playstyle too, as enki said before this build is not meant to stand still and tank all attacks, so yea, hope you can figure this out.

enki's build has never failed me, in the past few leagues his guides have allowed me to clear all contents, this build may be harder this league because of the nerfs and mechanics changes, i think this is true for most builds.

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Tomberrox wrote:

sorry if my staff sucks

You don't need much for white maps. Look out for high mana and spell / lightning dmg. If you can get a corrupted one, they're quite cheap: https://www.pathofexile.com/trade/search/Expedition/PWeoVq7sL

Otherwise try to get an unlinked Pledge of Hands and use Harvest to 5-link it. Those 5-link crafts are quite common and that would already help a lot (same goes for the Cloak).

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Enki91 wrote:

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Danknamed wrote:

Hi! I tried the previous Witch build but as it was the end of the League when i started i decided to wait until next league. since you've now updated to a Hierophant i decided to follow put and try this instead!

Having fun with the build so far absolutely. but im feeling very weak and squishy. I'd like any and all feedback so that i can hopefully progress and do more fun stuff!

i know for a fact that im missing the last Lab which would give me 4 End and Pow Charges which would give me mana and some life regen. But what can i do besides that to maybe improve my damage and not be as squishy?

Your boots and Le Heup of All need to be replaced immediatly, check the trade links for this. The weapon looks like it has an open prefix, add either Spell Damage or Mana on it. The Flask setup is also all over the place, check the flask section again and if needed, do the side quests listed in Act 5/7/10 for the base flasks. I've also updated the gem setup a bit today for better damage and sustain, please check that out as well.

Thank you so much for the Feedback!

I've done some updates, I'm trying to fix the Flask Setups aswell. Any other tips or advices that I could currently do to maybe optimize the build? or is it just simply to keep looking out for better gear and level up?

Still feeling that the Arc damage is lacking somewhat versus the Ball Lightning and I catch myself using more Ball Lightning than Arc even on normal packs. Most likely due to my mana disappears rapidly with Arc but not with Ball lightning.

Still having tons of fun with the build as it's far from anything I've played before and I'm looking forward to see where this build takes me!

Just about to bring this build into red maps, So far so good, boss dps is 9/10 and clear speed/damage is 7/10. I skipped arc and use 2 ball of lightning setups.

Iv gotten to The part of gearing where im not sure what to upgrade next.. My 6 linking luck is gone so that will have to wait...

Its my first time playing a archmage build so If someone knowladgeable would like to to check my profile and give me some pointers id appriciate that.

All and all, smooth and quite tanky build, Im currently rocking 10k mana and 70% MoM, rarely die as of now.

Keep up the good work enki!

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Tomberrox wrote:

I'm sure this build does good after getting the armor and the staff but as it is, and don't take this personnally, I cannot for the life of me seee how this is remotely league start friendly.

Thanks for answering.

This is only my second season and i started with this build. Aside from the jewelry, I still have all rares(mostly found) without the endgame staff or armor. It's playing fine for me as I'm starting maps. You must be doing something wrong and missing it.

/e! You're missing Agnostic in your passive tree. That's a big part of your survivability.

I'm currently act 9 SSF, is there any reason to not pick up supreme ego for the time being? I have over 3k max mana and just under 3k max hp and I feel like I could really do with more mana regen. And seeing as I don't have an essence worm yet anyway to run wrath there should be no real downside, right? only slightly more mana reserved.

So I've been feeling like Arc wasn't doing enough for me, and after talking with someone else who was running Red Maps with the same build, I switched to only playing Lightning Ball.

I replace Slower Projectile with Greater Multiple Projectiles, and Spell Echo with Unleashed. It's actually really fun, you shotgun a ton of balls and it's very good at clear packs.
However, you sacrifice single target DPS doing that, so either go double LB with a single target version, or just switch the gems around if you need to do bosses.

I use my torso to make a 6L Arcanist Brand, with Increased Duration & Sniper's Mark, and it makes it so that you have a 4L available, I'm still trying to find what to do with it, probably a defensive option or self-cast Curses.

I don't know if there's a better staff than Pledge of Hands if we're doing that tho, I tend to cancel the Greater Spell Echo and just use the Unleashed, but it's good sometimes to be able to use it.

If people are struggling with Arc, I recommend trying this out, it's very fun to shotgun down packs of mobs and Leap Slam around.

Ive given this a try. Sadly its very very squishy to begin with and unless you have good RNG with currency then trying to fund even the basic gear isnt budget friendly enouugh for me.
Pro's: Simple Arc clear is ok
Cons: low HP pool to begin with and needs RNG to smile on you to get currency quickly enough. Mana is awful too, but thats because of the recent nerfs no doubt :P