dual Searing Bond, 1 hander / shield version, cheap and easy, endgame maps easy

thx for the nice reply. you are in 1 month HC, i wish you good luck there.
since you starting maps, i may give you 1 advice:
at your level and the next coming levels and in HC generally:


if you play solo, avoid the following bosses in:
temple map
jungle valley (a big NO!)
torture chamber
museum
residence
crematorium

these bosses (i don't mean the entire maps) are not worth the risk in HC, but i am pretty sure you already know that as a HC player.


the easiest maps are dry peninsula, the good old "gorge" and "plateau" and later on shipyard edit: also shrine. and for all other maps, i have no special memories regarding difficulty - nothing out of the normal - as far i remember.

lightning warp: i know what you mean. lightning warp starts to become comfortable when the gems are at high level and you literally can blink away with it. before that phase, it is not THAT great.
i used it because it can save your life. example, suddenly you stand in the middle of stacked poison clouds. thats why i always avoided map mods with "monster fire 3 additional projectiles" and such. since, when these projectiles are poison bombs, it gets dangerous. a blink away can save your life here.

the blood magic / trap thing: you are right- not a must have, but i thought, why not save that mana costs if there is the oportunity. there are free sockets which can be used for it, so - thats why i blood magiced the trap costs.
*
*
* EDIT: you also can use a "Lesser multiple projectiles" or a "Greater multiple Projectiles" support gem inside the Lightning Trap combo. also a chain support gem.

Bump - I am currently using this build and I am honestly having a lot of fun and ease getting through the quests. A beautiful for beginners, cheap, safe, simple and most importantly, strong.

-The fun begins at level 24. ;)

Hi there, me again! Very happy to report back that I made it past level 80 in 1month HC league with this build - Mission Accomplished ^_^ Almost entirely solo play and self-found gear, never got a +3 fire sceptre so just using +2. Amazing clear speeds and survivability regardless, so this build really held up in difficult circumstances. A+

Thanks for your reply Manni, you are absolutely correct. Those particular map bosses should be avoided, or at least tread VERY cautiously. Although I do have a nagging itch to try tanking the beam in torture chamber with all this light res...but that would still likely be suicide.

As mentioned, lightning warp really comes alive and actually becomes a completely different skill around lvl17. Finally, it's the blink it was meant to be. Helpful hint with this, quicksilvers greatly speed it up at lower levels and even at higher ones, so if you pop one right before you warp you will get a fast blink and already have increased run speed to complete your escape. Lightning warp did indeed save me many times towards the later stages of play, and I learned to love having it included in this build. It's great for escapes, for repositioning your beam on distant mobs, and also for utility in smashing urns/cairns. In fact, lightning warp completes this build, as I view the dual SB build as a movement-based dance with totems.

I ended up with a fair amount of IIR on gear, and used IIR gem with SB. Empower doesn't hit level2 until 83ish at least, and so IIR is probably one of the better choices to use while leveling. This netted me a total of about +130% IIR on SB, which led to some pretty insane drops. Highly recommend doing this while leveling your empower gem.

Thanks again for posting this great build, it's going to be my new go-to for league starts from here on out. Best of luck to anyone else who tries it out, I think you will enjoy immensely!

congrats for making it past level 80 HC :) and you did it with a +2 sceptre, which is way harder. (let me say it again. a +1 to gems on a sceptre, has effect on a lvl 1 empower gem too, and increases it to lvl 2. which would increase searing bond +1 also)

your recommendation to use the item rarity gem while leveling the empower gem, is added to the guide now.

Thanks for the build, working fine in HC so far, lvl 64 starting act3 merciless.
The damage of SB is really amazing even with a new toon ( never played in HC so started with an empty stash ! )

Did you plan to update your build for 1.2 ? I'm trying to adapt the build, i'm not a good theorycrafter but hey, I need to begin somewhere !

And thanks again, it's fun to play, running around pack, burning everything.

Cheap and easy to start with nothing.

As with most elemental builds, getting one of these two items will likely be the biggest damage boost you can get: Windscream unique boots or Doedre's damning unique ring.

Now you can double curse with flammability and ele weakness.

Hi, playing on TW right now.
Got some bad news for you.
They nerfed searind bond in 1.2
lvl 13 searing bond has 699.7 dmg opposed to 823.2 in current version.

BAD GGG D:<!

but they buffed the burning dmg note from 60%->75% and you have easier access to the fire dmg notes.

im not sure if can compensate the 18% loss on the gem itself but it might be still viable. i have a more defensive searing bond build which does only 8k with a lv20 searing bond but i havent taken any dmg note on three beside the two DoT cluster and the templar ele notes till lv84.

for 1.2 one of them is too far away from me but my lv84 char for example would gain from my new route on the new tree at lv84 2.6% hp regen, 15% increased burning dmg and 35% increased fire dmg. my hp would be at 4.9k. im running grace+clarity+discipline (PoL not possible with the auras changes or need a alphas). EB/AA/IR but loose some of the evasion i got by my old routing.

but im not sure if i play it again im a bit burned out (lol) from the skill since i played it even before all the buffing cause i liked it.

i might jump on that SwT train or doing finally a flame or ek-totem build.