Hierophant Poet Pen Pure Lightning (HC) - League Starter Viable

Update on 10 August 2018: This character has died in HC feelsbadman. Got one shotted by a strongbox mob spawn and breach opening at the same time - not sure if there was server lag because I already lightning warped out. Or it could be elemental reflect - I got no idea to be honest. However if not for this, it is overall a very tanky build with insane DPS, clearspeed, life and mana sustain.

Hey guys first time posting here.

I first began lightning-related builds with the Elementalist self-cast Arc - but I found that it lacked the tankiness needed in HC even with MoM. This is why I wanted to create a Hierophant Arc build for the significant increase in mana pool, mana regeneration and 10% more reduced onto mana. However knowing that the Hierophant will have notable reduction in DPS compared to Elementalist if running self-cast Arc again, I decided to go with Poet's Pen to see if this will fix DPS issues - turns out it's actually overpowered.

I will be updating this to include more details as I put this into reality.

Skill Tree and Leveling

http://www.poeurl.com/b1Ef

This is the level 100 skill tree. There is an option to not take Mana Drinker/Extra Frenzy Charge and get the extra jewel slot instead.

You can progress to getting to where this skill tree is from the beginning - since the leveling process during league starting will simply be using self-cast arc without the Poet's Pen and still being able to make use of the elemental/lightning damage nodes. However this will be slower than Elementalist leveling since the damage is significantly lower without Poet's Pen and without cast speed. You can opt to get cast speed in the beginning and then respec out after getting the Poet's Pen.

I will not post the Path of Building link here since I believe this sort of build is highly customizable (ie. opting to go crit instead) and I do not want readers to blindly follow this post.

Skill Gems

The idea is to simply have these gem setups so that every skill scales with lightning damage and elemental damage - since majority of our skill tree nodes contain these scaling.

3-Link Poet's Pen
Arc - Added Lightning Damage Support - Lightning Penetration Support

3-Link Poet's Pen
Ball Lightning - Added Lightning Damage Support - Slower Projectiles

6-Link Inpulsa
Kinetic Blast - Added Lightning Damage Support - Physical to Lightning Support - Elemental Damage with Attacks Support - Lightning Penetration Support - GMP


Clear Speed and Damage

Since we run Inpulsa and Arc and Kinetic Blast, trash mobs melt like butter.

Ball Lightning helps immensely during boss fights and rare mobs.

As I play in hardcore, I would not consider using Essence of Worm to get Wrath (which will scale both the Kinetic Blast and both spells) since I need the life from the ring. However if you are playing Standard, then you could consider using it to get that insane damage multiplier.

The reason why I decided to scale the Kinetic Blast is because Poet's Pen aside from granting bonus levels to socketed Active Gems, it also gains physical damage to attacks the higher level the player is. This means that by level 90, the wand will get +90 - 150 physical damage on top of its 10-17 - along with its fast attack speed. So to me it seemed to be a waste just leaving that on the side and not scale it. The Physical to Lightning gem allows the scaling conversion to be possible.

I am currently using Flame Dash for mobility however I might switch to Lightning Warp to match the Lightning theme. Our Arcane Blessing ascendancy is also useful in this by granting extra cast speed through Arcane Surge (which also increases our Arc/Ball Lightning damage but unfortunately not our Kinetic Blast).

Charges

Our skill tree does not focus on attack speed so we use Blood Rage to fix this and gain Frenzy Charges for extra DPS multiplier.

Conviction of Power grants increased chance to gain Power Charges which increases uptime of Elemental Overload.

Conviction of Power also grants chance to gain Endurance Charges for more physical mitigation. Our Herald of Thunder and Frenzy are also linked with Warlord's Mark for Curse on Hit to increase chance for gaining Endurance Charges as well as more leech.

So it is quite common for us to have all 3 charge types up at max charges during mapping.

Life and Mana Sustain

Life and Mana sustainability are hugely increased through the Mind Drinker and Blood Drinker skill tree nodes. Note that this leech only works with Kinetic Blast. Our Ascendancy Illuminated Devotion will grant the life leech counterpart of Arc and Ball Lightning. Along with Warlord's Mark, this will be how we sustain life and mana through leeching.

We also use Vessel of Vinktar to get 20% Lightning Damage life leech (which is all three skills we use).

Our skill tree nodes and Atziri's Foible grant ridiculous amounts of mana regen.

Defenses

At Level 100, this build will have +226% increase in life and 145% increase in mana from skill tree. This does not take into account 5 jewel slots and potentially 6 slots if you choose to do so by sacrificing two skill points from elsewhere.

Since I am in HC, the stat priority I have for the jewels are:

Life > Mana > Lightning Damage Mods > Attack Speed

As a Hierophant, we have innate 10% damage taken to Mana and we also take MoM.

One draw back with this build is that there are no +Max Resistance mechanics - unless we corrupt an Inpulsa to get it.

We get our resistances capped by getting them from Helmet, Rings, Belt, Gloves and Boots since we only use a handful of uniques - so it is quite easy to achieve this.

Flasks

I have the following flask set up:

Eternal Life Flask - Vessel of Vinktar - Sulphur Flask - Basalt Flask - Quicksilver Flask

Of course you could put in The Wise Oak by replacing it with Quicksilver Flask, however since I enjoy clear speed and walking around faster, this is my current setup.

Since we are immune to shock through Inpulsa, we need only Immune to Bleeding, Immune to Freeze and Immune to Curses. A good to have would be Immune to Poison or Burning.

Your URL only has 10 nodes clicked. No PathofBuilding?