[3.13] Storm Brand Necro. Retired no longer. All content viable and Whiskey Proof™
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Hello Exiles. Originally conceived as an alternative to hierophant in 3.10, this Archmage Storm Brand Necro has been brought back to life as a dodging, regenerating murder weapon with some QOL tweeks to approach whiskey-proof™ gaming in 3.13. I present to you A Song of Storm.
As is tradition, feel free to leave any questions and comments here, Youtube or join me on Twitch!
Pros and Cons
+Great bossing: Brands allow us focus on positioning. Dodge and regen allow us to take some hits. +Fast and safe map clear: Not as fast as she once was, but all levels of content remain viable and Juiced t16s are still a snooze fest. +Tanky: 75 Dodge/75 spell Dodge. 50% MOM. Insane regen +Simple play style: Buffs either triggered or permanent +Builds should not be this relaxing to play +Whiskey-Proof™ -Cannot run Elemental Reflect -League Start depends on a trigger-craft weapon -Has a gear ceiling. This build will not scale to 500M DPS regardless of currency. -Reluctance to play other builds after this
TL/DR POB and Vid NAO!!
My current POB. Still evolving: https://pastebin.com/m2zNzgcZ
Videos: Gameplay Demo
Build Mechanics
This build
1. Uses Archmage to scale our damage with unreserved mana 2. Uses Arcane cloak to scale or survivability with unreserved mana 3. Uses mind of matter to scale our EHP with unreserved mana 4. Uses Agnostic to scale our regeneration with unreserved mana. >I'm detecting a pattern there. 5-9. We then layer our self with Dodge, Evasion, a pinch of Block, Kitava's Thirst and enemy damage reduction. 10-16. Finally we use two trigger weapons to apply curses, desecrate, use offerings, summon golems, chill, shock and apply exposure. I think I got them all
What happened to Pledge of Hands?
The gutting of brand recall removed our ability to permanently sustain brands. As a result, we cannot afford to stop and cast 3 brands at once, repeatedly (Greater Spell Echo). So gone is our ability to 7-link our archmaged brand. We were able to compensate for the lack of CWC set up with triggered weapons however.
What is The Agnostic
At the cost of any energy shield, this allows us to sacrifice 20% of our mana per second to gain that much life. Coupled with the generous mana regeneration provided by arcane surge, essence glutton and Cloak of Defiance; this will keep our life topped off at all times. It's so effective, in fact, that we can run Omeyocan boots and Blood Rage for frenzy charges without batting an eye. In the previous version we ran permanent RF. This is still possible but requires the active regeneration of Kitava's thirst, Mana Flask or Cinderswallow to keep up. Let's call that softcore only.
Play Style
1. Bind Detonate to left mouse button.
2. Bind Arcane Surge to space button. 3. Bind Storm Brand to right mouse button. 4. Cast blood rage and RF 5. Hold buttons, ignore content* and win. *disclaimer: do not ignore reflect content or you will not win.
Detailed Gearing Section
Crown of the Inward Eye
Required Stats: Unique
Luxury: Storm Brand Penetrates 12% resist [enchant]
Atziri's Foible
Enchant: Runesmith
Luxury: 20% Quality
Cloak of Defiance
Highest maximum mana possible
Luxury: Duration or AoE gem level corruption [for Storm Brand] Ultra Uxury: Double corruption duration and AoE gems [for Storm Brand]
Rare 1 handed weapons
Trigger a socketed spell?>Maximum Mana>Added lightning Damage to Spells>Increased Lightning Damage.
Luxury: Non-Chaos (or lightning damage) as extra chaos damage. Bonus: Oscillating Sceptre Base to save skill points on Elemental Overload.
Rare Paua, Coral or Cerulean Ring
Maximum Life>Maximum Mana>Resists>
Luxury: intelligence and strength [additional mana and life] Ultra Luxury: %Life
Essence Worm
Literally nothing else to it
Rare Gloves
Maximum life>Maximum Mana>Resists>Dex for gear
Luxury: Culling Strike [Warlord Mod] Ultra Luxury: Switch to Asenath's Gentle Touch for much faster clear.
Rare Stygian Vise
Maximum Life>Maximum Mana>Resists
Luxury: increased maximum life [Hunter Mod]
Abyss Jewel
Resists>Maximum life>Maximum mana
Omeyocan Boots
Luxury: Enchant: Mana Regen if you've cast a spell recently
Flasks
1. Enduring Mana Flask. More Regeneration.
2. Quartz Flask. Dodge and Spell dodge to round out our 75% values. 3. Optional flasks. Each of these below have their own benefits so choose your preference. Remember to grab curse, freeze and bleed immunity somewhere.
Optional Flasks
A. The Wise Oak: This will provide lightning penetration as long as lightning is, or is tied for, your highest resist. Bonus!! Having all of your resistances equal (including uncapped value) will cause this to reduce elemental damage across the board as well.
B. Basalt flask. Extra physical damage reduction. C. Atziri's promise. Extra damage, leech and chaos resistance. D. Bottled Faith. Damage. Damage. Damage. E. Cinderswallow: More recovery please. F. Quicksilver Flask. "I wanna go fast".
Cluster Jewels
Large
2 jewel Sockets for our medium jewels.
Scintillating idea increases our mana and provides lightning penetration. Disorienting Display blinds nearby enemies. Stacking With dodge for even less chance to be hit.
3 mediums
1 jewel socket
Remarkable increases cast speed for DPS boost. 3 of them gives us 100% chance to cast two brands at a time. Huge QoL boost. Brand Loyalty for a large DPS boost.
1 small
Kitava's Thirst. Recovers 5% mana/life per second. Also consumes a corpse keeping the 8% mana regeneration from essence glutton up 100%
Watcher's Eye
10% of damage taken from mana before life clarity mod. This helps push us to 50% Mind of Matter.
Luxury: 15% increased mana recovery rate while affected by clarity. Recovery rate is a MORE multiplier to regeneration. This will be enough to keep RF up even in boss fights.
Curse Selection
Conductivity: This gives us more damage in the form of lightning resist penetration. Keep in mind this is additive with our other sources such as Helmet enchants, cluster jewels, support gems etc. As a result it loses relative value with each additional source.
Enfeeble: Enemies deal 30% less, Bosses deal 15% less and all monsters have 30% reduced critical strike multiplier. This is our go-to defensive curse.
Gem Links
Damage 6L
(Divergent)Storm Brand>Archmage>[A]Controlled Destruction>[A]Lightning Penetration>[A]Elemental Focus>Concentrated Effect
4 Link
(Anomalous)Clarity>(Sigil of Power>(Anomalous)Blood Rage>Enhance
4 Link
(Divergent)Arcane Cloak>Arcane Surge>Second Wind>Increased Duration
4 Link
Vaal Righteous Fire.>Second Wind>Smoke MineIncreased Duration
3 Link
Flesh Offering. Spell Cascade.>Second Wind>
3 Link
Lightning Golem. Wave of Conviction. Conductivity.
ring
Wrath
Ascendancy | Bandits | Map Mods
1. Essence Glutton. Increased mana and tons of mana regeneration. 2. Plaguebringer. Gives us more damage and has our enemies deal reduced damage. 3. Mistress of Sacrifice. Flesh offering now affects us. Skill duration helps maintain brands. 4. Corpse Pact. Increased damage. Increased brand activation. Chill and Shock enemies near us. Bandits: Kill Them All Map Mods to Avoid: Elemental Reflect [this will instagib us] No Regen [our build relies on regen more than most]
Pantheon
Major: Soul of the Brine King. Stun me twice shame on me.
Minor: Soul of Abberath. Burning Ground Immunity.
My Current Gear
Bonus Block Version
This version drops Dodge Keystones, flesh offering and Boots in favor of Block. We take bone offering, Switch to Skyforths and change the tree. The purpose hear is to take the uncertainty out of being overwhelmed by smaller hits, such as in a Juiced delirium t16+, 80%+ delirious or T19 map. The life gain on block mitigates most small hits we take completely. This version also has a substantially higher regen, allowing us to run permanent RF with ease. The trade off is less ability to survive big hits..Shaper Slams, Sirus Beams etc.
This is included in the original POB via drop down menus.
Change log
5/10/20 - Posted, Can I actually keep up with 1 guide per month?
5/12/20 - Flask section added. POB cleaned up 5/20/20 - Video posted. Boot discussion. Curse discussion. 5/24/20 - Significant POB Overhaul [shoutout ph3l0n for inspiration] 6/3/20 - Brand announcement changes! Begin work on 3.11 integration 10/30/20 - Yeah so above was a lie. Let's bring this back around shall we?
3.10 Version
Pros and Cons
+Great bossing: insta-phase most bosses. +Top tier map clear: Fully juiced t16 delirium runs are no problem +Tanky: 74 block/54 spell block. 10% dodge/spell dodge. 9k EHP. Insane regen +Simple play style: Buffs either triggered or permanent +Builds should not be this relaxing to play -Cannot run Elemental Reflect -Cyclone is not for everyone -Hearing offering sound effects in your sleep -Reluctance to play other builds after this
Build Mechanics
This build
1. Uses Archmage to scale our damage with unreserved mana 2. Uses Arcane cloak to scale or survivability with unreserved mana 3. Uses mind of matter to scale our EHP with unreserved mana 4. Uses militant faith to scale our regeneration with unreserved mana. >I'm detecting a pattern there. 5-8. We then layer our self with block, a pinch of dodge, some extra physical damage reduction and enemy damage reduction. 10-15. Finally we use a Cyclone CWC set up to fortify, increase block, generate corpses, shock, chill and provide enough regen to run RF and blood rage forever. I think I got them all
TL/DR POB and Vid NAO!!
My current POB. Still evolving: https://pastebin.com/6iRNMhub
Videos: Game Play Demo
Why Pledge of Hands?
Pledge of Hands gives us:
-100% increased maximum mana; this scales our damage, shield, and effective health pool significantly. Due to diminishing returns, it allows us to focus the rest of our gear on, the less expensive, flat mana versus %mana most builds have to stack. -Attack Block. -A healthy chunk of increased spell damage. -Greater Spell echo. This casts 3 brands for the price of one, streamlining our set up immensely. More importantly, it gives a 150% mana multiplier for storm brand. In conjunction with Archmage, that is a massive damage increase [rougly 47% of our damage comes from this one affect].
What is The Agnostic
Militant Faith Timeless Jewel converted by High Templar Venarius At the cost of any energy shield, this allows us to sacrifice 20% of our mana per second to gain that much life. Coupled with the generous mana regeneration provided by arcane surge and essence glutton, this will keep our life topped off at all times. It's so effective in fact, that we can run Righteous Fire and Blood Rage at 100% up time for 40% more spell damage and Frenzy Charges. For those keeping count, our storm brand is now on an 8-link.
Play Style
1. Bind Arcane Cloak to left mouse button.
2. Bind Brand Recall to space button. 3. Bind Cyclone to right mouse button. 4. Cast first 3 brands, cyclone until full, cast remaining brands. 5. Cast blood rage and RF 6. Hold buttons, ignore content* and win. *disclaimer: do not ignore reflect content or you will not win.
Detailed Gearing Section
Rare Intelligence Helmet
Required Stats: Life>Mana>Resists
Luxury: Enemies have -9% to lightning resist [crusader mod] Ultra Luxury: Storm Brand Penetrates 12% resist [enchant] | Increased maximum mana [Elder Mod]
Atziri's Foible
Enchant: Runesmith
Luxury: 20% Quality
Cloak of Defiance
Highest maximum mana possible
Luxury: Duration or socketed gem level corruption [for bone offering] Ultra Uxury: Double corruption duration and socketed gems [for bone offering]
Rare Paua, Coral or Cerulean Rings
Maximum Life>Maximum Mana>Resists>Dex for gear
Luxury: intelligence and strength [additional mana and life] Ultra Luxury: Conductivity on hit [switch conductivity in 6L to empower for bone offering]
Rare Fingerless Silk Gloves
Maximum life>Maximum Mana>Resists>Dex for gear
Luxury: Intelligence/Strength for more base stats Ultra Luxury: Culling strike or Spell damage [Warlord Mod] | Unnerve enemies on hit [Hunter Mod]
Rare Stygian Vise
Maximum Life>Maximum Mana>Resists
Luxury: increased maximum life [Hunter Mod]
Abyss Jewel
Resists>Maximum life>Maximum mana
Boot Options
The Stampede
These boots prevent our cyclone from slowing us down. and provide us an extra space to annoint passives. Note that movement speed and action speed are different. These will not prevent slows or temp chains from ruining our day. Purely offensive choice.
Offensive annointments: Heart of Thunder 6%. Spiritual Aid 9%, Crusader 14% Defensive annointments: Blood Siphon [life]. Enigmatic Defense [block/sblock]. Weathered Hunter [Dex/Res]
Omeyocan
These boots provide us increased mana, movement speed, onslaught and 20% dodge/spell dodge. They will give us a huge hit to mana regen however, making permanent RF a non-option without the 70% regen lab enchant. Purely defensive choice.
Rare Boots
These provide a nice balance to the extreme positions taken above. They also make your resists much easier to manage. Life>Mana>Movement speed>Resists Luxury: Dodge/Spell Dodge Ultra Luxury: Tailwind
Flasks
1. Rumi's Concoction. This increases our block and spell block chance so it's a no brainer.
2. The Wise Oak. This will provide lightning penetration as long as lightning is, or is tied for, your highest resist. Bonus!! Having all of your resistances equal (including uncapped value) will cause this to reduce elemental damage across the board as well. 3. Optional flasks. Each of these below have their own benefits so choose your preference. Remember to grab curse, freeze and bleed immunity somewhere.
Optional Flasks
A. Silver flask for onslaught. This increases all action speeds (movement, cast and attack). Brand activation frequency scales 1:1 with cast speed.
B. Basalt flask. Extra physical damage reduction. C. Quartz Flask. Dodge and Spell dodge as an extra defensive layer. D. Atziri's promise. Extra damage, leech and chaos resistance. E. Bottled Faith. Damage. Damage. Damage.
Cluster Jewels
Large
2 jewel Sockets for our medium jewels.
Scintillating idea increases our mana and provides lightning penetration. Corrosive Elements takes care of our exposure so we don't have to use WoC and risk physical reflect.
2 mediums
1 jewel socket
Chip away for Brand activation frequency. [Brand recall is not a brand skill] Brand Loyalty for a large DPS boost. Honorable Mention: Grand Design. Stacking these can give us extra brands to increase clear speed.
1 small
Scintillating Idea for damage and all around scaling
Fettle if you feel you need the extra life
Watcher's Eye
10% of damage taken from mana before life clarity mod. This helps push us to 50% Mind of Matter.
Luxury: 20% of damage taken gained as mana over 4 seconds. Due to our MOM>Agnostic loop this is essentially a 5% damage mitigation per second.
Fevered Mind
These increase the mana cost of our skills, interacting directly with archmage for extra damage.
Curse Selection
Conductivity: This gives us more damage in the form of lightning resist penetration. Keep in mind this is additive with our other sources such as Helmet enchants, cluster jewels, support gems etc. As a result it loses relative value with each additional source.
Enfeeble: Enemies deal 30% less, Bosses deal 15% less and all monsters have 30% reduced critical strike multiplier. This is our go-to defensive curse.
Gem Links
Damage 6L
Storm Brand>Archmage>[A]Controlled Destruction>[A]Lightning Penetration>[A]Elemental Focus>Concentrated Effect
Utility 6L
Cyclone>Desecrate>Cast while Channeling>Bone offering>Conductivity>Fortify
3 Link
Clarity. Brand Recall>Second Wind>Empower
4 link
Arcane Cloak>Arcane Surge>Second Wind>Increased Duration
remaining links
Vaal Righteous Fire. Frostblink>Second Wind. Blood Rage
Ascendancy | Bandits | Map Mods
1. Plaguebringer. Gives us more damage and has our enemies deal reduced damage. 2. Mistress of Sacrifice. Bone offering now affects us. Skill duration helps maintain brands in conjunction with brand recall. 3. Essence Glutton. Increased mana and tons of mana regeneration. 4. Corpse Pact. Increased damage. Increased brand activation. Chill and Shock enemies near us. Bandits: Kill Them All Map Mods to Avoid: Elemental Reflect [this will instagib us] No Regen [our build relies on regen more than most]
Pantheon
Major: Soul of the Brine King. In the event you get caught not-cycloning. This will keep you from getting stun locked.
Minor: Soul of Shakari. Poison immune DOT damage reduction, both are nice QoL.
My Current Gear
Last edited by f1rstborn on Jan 21, 2021, 2:23:34 PM Last bumped on Apr 14, 2021, 11:38:01 PM
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Very nice idea :)
I would definitely try it, but I just can't stand the constant offering sounds haha. Good job though and thanks for sharing. | |
" It took me some time to get used to playing with the sound lowered so that they didn't give me a stroke. The tankiness behind the build proved to be worth it [for me]. Coming from a hierophant version that flew on the seat of it's pants, albeit successfully, this feels so much smoother. | |
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Hey looks nice so far , I gonna try it in HC (= thx
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How did you level this build and are you unable to switch over to the main playstyle of this build until you get to the uniques?
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I've followed your Hierophant version of the build and loved it, but this is even more intriguing!
Sorry if I'm missing it in the guide, but what's your recommended flask setup? |
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" Oh man that's the big leagues! I'll be doing a SSF version shortly with the intention of being HC as well. I'd love some of your notes as you play. | |
" Thanks for following me on this journey! You did not miss it. I will add that section in shortly. I'm currently using Rumi's for block Wise oak [with balanced resist] for pen and elemental reduction Silver flask of warding [Action speed is not limited by The Stampede] Basalt Flask of heat for extra physical reduction Quartz flask of staunching for a pinch of dodge. All are defensively leaning but you could also use Atziri's and bottled faith for damage. If you are using boots besides The Stampede you can use quicksilver flasks I'd also suggest a mana flask if you are going to run Omuyecans as they eat up a bit too much of our regen to feel safe with RF on. | |
" Classic storm brand leveling. Probably one of the most well documented racing builds in PoE. I will add a leveling section very shortly detailing the differences. | |
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This sounds like a really cool build!
If archmage doesn't get nerfed to the ground, I might try this next league. Have you considered including Wave of Conviction into the Cyclone setup instead of Conductivity? Conductivity you could also get from a ring. Keeping WoC on low level should avoid the phys reflect problem I suppose? Perhaps Crown of the Inward Eye might also be an option. You would also get damage for all your %mana and %life increases and could use another annoint then Crusader. Perhaps Heart of Thunder, which should make up for the missing -9% on the helmet. Just checked, the crown with enchant is very expensive! If you use an abyss jewel with corrupted blood immunity and onslaught on kill, you could probably drop the silver flask and don't need the bleed immunity on flask anymore as "normal" bleed should hardly be noticable with all that regen. That would free up another flask slot for Atziri's Last edited by blah2k6 on May 13, 2020, 8:20:50 AM
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