[3.15]Archmage Ball Lightning Hierophant, will it work in Expedition?

small thread of hope here can get +1 unleash seals, +1 curse, mental rapidity, and dark arts (we can't use the 5% cast speed for dual wielding, but we get 5 % cast speed, 30% mana regen if we use a movement skill, along with 10 dex) for a total of 5 points (dropping the 2 cast speed notables on the way to mental rapidity)


as loathe as I am to hurt our resist even more, this seems like quite a bit for 5 passive points?

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SkylerOG wrote:

The base travel rate of BL is 36 units per second.

I am afraid the travel rate is 48 though. I recorded a video in celestial hideout where the tile is 12 units long. Each second the ball can travel through 4 tiles.

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vladimars wrote:

Good call on not needing the large chunk of aoe now, i'll have to recalculate it. However, having one socket is pretty easy with vorci crafting in syndicate. Something to consider.


Edit: with slower projectiles and adjacent animosity 65% increased aoe allows 13 hits. (so any repeats from echos will have way more aoe then needed which helps clear and aiming like a monkey which is ok)

without adjacent animosity 100% increased aoe is required with slower projectiles.

without slower projectiles, but with adjacent animosity, requires 235% increased aoe, which would only happen with the final 2 repeats likely. (since they gain 100 and 150% increased aoe from the repeats only) This means that using unleash pretty much requires slower projectiles to make the increased aoe required since they don't get the increase from echo.

This leaves use with either controlled destruction or elemental focus to drop. Awakened controlled destruction gives the same more multiplier, but an increase in cast speed, and possibly some extra damage from shock (at the cost of being exepensive), elemental focus gives better damage then controlled destruction (not awakened), and doesn't require us to proc EO with storm brand as badly, since were more likely to maintain with just BL (not sure here tho)

Also unleash has a slightly higher mana multiplier (resulting in an extra 270 something flat damage from archmage) which is almost 8% more from that (applied to all echos, and negating the lost damage from the reoccurs)


Edit: so with pretty good gear (controlled destruction) average hit is 392029 (x4 casts x 13 hits)= 20.3 million shaper damage per CAST.

unleash's main damage for casts (no reoccurs) is 288239 (x4 x 13)= 14.9 million. Plus 3 initial and 1 on the last cast reoccurs. The reoccurs damage (removing greater spell echo and spell echo and adding in the less modifier for reoccurs and doing some fancy shit to get the mana cost right after removing those) 195000 x4 x 13= 10.1 million for a total of 25 million damage per CAST. This gets slightly better (2.5 million) with an additional seal. Seals (assuming 3) would take 2.1 seconds to come back, with casts before that being a bit less. A small amount of cast speed could probably be dropped.

This is not quite dps, it takes about .8 seconds to finish a full cast sequence. so the dps of controlled destruction edges a bit on unleash if your chain casting. You will get 1 unleash seal, then 2 unleash seals for each chain cast. 2 seals being 20 mill damage per CAST and 1 seal being 17.5 mill damage per CAST. But with the agnostic applying a drain on our mana, chain casting can be quite difficult right now.

3rd Edit: have we considered a lvl 1 cwdt-wave of conviction-coh-curse-curse-curse for our 6L? so we don't have to cast storm brand?

I think slower projectile is still needed as the travel rate of ball lightning is 48.
I just tried to use unleash on PoH and noticed that repeating cast from great spell echo cannot trigger unleash seals.
I think the downside of cdwt-curses is you have to get hit first to apply curses.

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I think slower projectile is still needed as the travel rate of ball lightning is 48.
I just tried to use unleash on PoH and noticed that repeating cast from great spell echo cannot trigger unleash seals.
I think the downside of cdwt-curses is you have to get hit first to apply curses.

I agree with slower projectiles being used, i was doing my calculations with the spreadsheet for ball lightning, which assumes a travel speed of 48 units per second. I think controlled destruction is personally the one i would drop, especially if picking up the extra seal.

Interesting that pledge doesn't use seals, the wiki makes it sound like it should. Well, with good cast speed we still sit around .8 seconds to finish a full cast. When i was playing last league i didn't normally chain cast, as it was a bit mana intense, i have a feeling this league will be even worse on mana with the agnostic drain and the loss of ES so all damage taken gets half taken from mana. If i feel like my mana is good enough to cast almost without stopping i think i'll take CD if i have to take a second or one and half to restore a bit of mana i think unleash will be better.


What did you think of the thread of hope there? it could save us some passive points? I'm also thinking of working holy flame totem into the build, it would allow us to drop skyforths (since totem summons give 50% chance of power charges for bosses w/o adds) and give 6% life regen when standing on the ground. Getting a pair of boots with life/mana/ms/resists and an open suffix for dexterity craft will save a passive point as well.

would you recommend cluster jewels?
if yes - which noteables?

So i have question, is pledge of hands and spell echo better than going double wands/ wand+shield with unleash?

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Aniki_Leads_people wrote:

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SkylerOG wrote:

The base travel rate of BL is 36 units per second.

I am afraid the travel rate is 48 though. I recorded a video in celestial hideout where the tile is 12 units long. Each second the ball can travel through 4 tiles.

Looks again like we need to confirm this, then.

Mark_GGG says BL travel time is 36 units per second here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/960086/page/14#p8249654



Also, when you did your 13 hits test, if you still have that char setup like that, you could simply re-run the test without slower proj and with 36 AoE and see if you can still hit 13 poison stacks. If so, then we have our answer.

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SkylerOG wrote:

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Aniki_Leads_people wrote:

"

SkylerOG wrote:

The base travel rate of BL is 36 units per second.

I am afraid the travel rate is 48 though. I recorded a video in celestial hideout where the tile is 12 units long. Each second the ball can travel through 4 tiles.

Looks again like we need to confirm this, then.

Mark_GGG says BL travel time is 36 units per second here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/960086/page/14#p8249654



Also, when you did your 13 hits test, if you still have that char setup like that, you could simply re-run the test without slower proj and with 36 AoE and see if you can still hit 13 poison stacks. If so, then we have our answer.

That quote is from 2014. both radius and travel speed has increased since then.

3.3.0
Now deals 2-35 lightning damage at gem level 1 (up from 2-32), up to 22-420 lightning damage at gem level 20 (up from 14-260). Now has an added damage effectiveness of 35% (up from 20%).
The projectile's base speed is now 33% faster. The projectile hits 33% more frequently to compensate. The base radius has increased by 10%.
Disabled the "Reduced Ball Lightning Projectile Speed" enchantment from appearing.
Ball Lightning no longer has a 10% damage boost against players.

Great build, and I'm having a lot of fun with it as my second build in harvest. The civil and high-level mechanics discussion here is also really interesting, and thank you to you both from the rest of the community here.

I'm still short a few fuses to link my staff, but in the meantime, I wanted to pass on some budget tips to people just starting out:

- I've comfortably leveled from 36 and cleared high yellow maps on just an amplification rod for a weapon and 3-link BL. If you're broke, try this 1c option (reverb rod + prophecy) that also gets you a fated item upgrade for your challenge.

- If you don't have clarity watchers, and they're expensive, don't run clarity. Run Clear Mind instead. It's a cheap jewel with mana regen and an ton of spell damage. While leveling, Survival Secrets is handy with its 3 base mana regen and ele damage.

- Anoint Mind Drinker - Teal/Teal/Verdant. It's very cheap, and provides great mana/mana regen on a budge while mapping.

- Remember your support skills give a ton of mana regen. Having sustain issues? Watch your uptime on arcane surge (Dynamo is really important here), make sure you're hitting cursed enemies (Cursed Concoction cluster), etc.

- Check out OP's character in harvest. He's still working into his 3.11 build, and seeing what he's doing show's a slightly different gem arrangement and some innovative ideas for people still gearing/leveling, like taking Battle Rouse.

Thanks again Aniki for such a fun build.

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Socaro wrote:

So i have question, is pledge of hands and spell echo better than going double wands/ wand+shield with unleash?

Here are the pros and cons of PoH vs wand(s)/shield:

- spell echo's each get a compounding +35% more damage and +50% AoE per successive echo, which includes the one from spell echo support, which is why it's a great combination. That second and third echo are massive damage with ridiculously large AoE radius.

- two 6-links (staff + body), which allows you to do an extended curse on hit setup on your body armor with either 3 or even 4 curses, OR a very hard hitting secondary DoT setup, such as brands or totems. (curses are really the way to go here, especially with a level 5 awakened curse on hit).

>>> just for example, if you had level 5 Awakened Curse on Hit + Whispers of Doom + Windshriek boots, you could do a curse setup on your body with Storm Brand/Wave of Conviction + lvl 5 Awakened Curse on Hit + Projectile Weakness + Elemental Weakness + Enfeeble + Temporal Chains, and you would add some insane damage mitigation to your char while not hurting any of your DPS.

- combined with archmage and unleash, you get the dynamic of up to 9 BL's launched from a single large mana cost cast. That's a potential of 120 total hits per cast, with 13 at 35% more damage & 50% increased AoE, 13 at 70% more damage & 100% increased AoE, and 13 at 105% more damage & 150% increased AoE at the tail end. This allows you to burst, move, burst, move, and so on. And the 1.5s echo animation is just enough time for you to cast, flame dash, and your unleash seals to regenerate, so the sequence synergizes almost perfectly.

While the wand unleash only setup only allows a max of 6 BL's, or 80 total hits per cast 1x, and then you're either waiting for your seals to regenerate or you're casting with fewer seals, which means less BL's on each successive cast. Especially if you just stand in one spot and hold down your BL key. You miss boatloads of unleash BL's Or if you add spell echo support, you can get 7/93, but you do not get the 35% more dmg/50% increased AoE on the echo since no PoH. But you're still dealing with waiting on seals to regenerate.

- the 100% increased maximum mana on PoH is a huge damage boost due to archmage, and even arcane cloak. Not to mention the staff also comes with up to 160% increased damage built into it, so it's no slouch on stats. A wand/shield setup is not going to be that much better, especially when you consider the echoes. However, you will get some additional block chance with the shield as well, obviously, and of course, you're not locked in place for 1.5 seconds waiting on echo animations to cast.

- spell echo support adds 70% more cast speed, which greatly speeds up the casting animation when combined with PoH. If you just go wand setup with unleash, your char isn't really locked in place due to any casting animation. If you add spell echo to that, it's about 0.3 seconds. With PoH + spell echo (with or without unleash), the casting animation locks you in place for about 1.5 seconds.

And honestly, this is probably the only serious downside/con to PoH, but it's a big one to some people who can't stand the burst-move-burst-move style of play with small animation sequences sticking your char in place for a couple seconds. I personally love that playstyle, so it suits me just fine.


I'm probably missing some pro's and con's that others will fill in, but I think I hit the main ones.