[3.13] Aziire's CwC Hydrosphere Elementalist - Maven Ez Clap | Ritual League Starter
 TLDR: Path of Building Link Read Notes in PoB for some useful Information Videos: Video Build Guide How to Level with Hydrosphere Hydrosphere Vs Sirus and Endgame Update Build List: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2688401 For the Path of Building I use the Community Fork. It is exactly the same as PoB but better, and very easy to install. Link here. Update: Real quick update. For the Merciless lab instead take Liege of the Primordial. Our Surviability is a big issue in Maps so building as a Golemmancer instead is our best bet. Our damage will still be relatively comparable but our boost in survivability will be huge. Uber Lab will be Elemancer. The new Path of Building for this is above. Start following it from when you get your Merciless Lab and onwards. I've also added a Levelling Cheat Sheet to help you with Gems at the bottom of the guide. The gem links are also in the notes of the Path of Building link above. Build Intro: If you have any questions jump into my stream and hit me up. I will be streaming daily and it's incredibly easy to answer questions while I am actively playing around with the skill myself :). Drenching and shocking enemies with the only new skill introduced this patch, Hydrosphere :D! At first glance Hydrosphere might seem a little bland however there is always a way to spice things up in Path of Exile. Hydrosphere itself comes with a built in debuff referred to as Drenched which is applied to enemies within it's area or those it moves through. While Drenched, enemies suffer from Cold and Lightning Exposure which lowers their matching resistances by -10%. You are then able to hit Hydrosphere with either a Lightning or Cold skill to cause it to pulse and do damage to any enemy that is Drenched. It's a lot all packed into one cute little sphere and we can work with that. By triggering the Hydrosphere rather than self casting we are going to be able to abuse its pulse frequency and instead make it viable as a proper skill. It's partner in crime will be Storm Burst which perfectly fits the agenda. Add on top the brand new Elementalist with some ridiculously strong, new, Ascendancy Passives and we have quite the mix on our hands. If you want to see the build in action check me out live on Twitch, or if you prefer video build guides over written then the best place to do so is on my YouTube links above/below (my one moment to sell out). I also check this forum daily so if you have any questions, build related or not, just leave a reply and I'll respond fairly quickly (hopefully, sometimes I'm slackin). If you are big brain, 500 iq, and find someway to improve the build let me know, I'm not perfect :D. Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/aziire YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7vLIcfmXcyxst2uhc9woSg Discord: https://discord.gg/YTCjmwK  Pros: - Elementalist is jam pack full of goodies that make the build seamless - Stonkers dps, looking at probably 20m dps with top tier gear - A relatively clear upgrade path makes for easy gear changing - Can do every map modifier, mana flask for no Mana modifier - Predominantly a one button build with map wide clear thanks to some cheeky chain mechanics Cons: - Last time I did a new skill it was riddled with bugs for two weeks - Quite a lot of tree travel, build might take a minute to find its footing - Hybrid with little defense mitigation (Kill or be killed, we should have enough eHp though) Offense: - Permanent Shock and Chill with Elementalist and Cluster Notables - Herald of Ice should be able to proc throughout multiple packs on its own - Due to our AoE damage this should be a perfect League Start for Maven fights - 100% Elemental Damage, the only thing limiting our clear speed will be Flame Dash cooldown (could use Shield Charge if it is that bad) Defense: - 5,000 Life + ES When being a greedy softcore player, easy access to more - Enemies will be perma Chilled reducing their Action Speed immensely - Enough %chance to Blind that it should be up majority of the time giving us 50% Chance to Evade. This +60% Block Chance should keep us breathing. - 3,000+ Damage Shield thanks to the new Primal Aegis. This automatically comes back 5 seconds after we lose it.  I've designed the build around Level 90, as that's what I aim for as a Build Guide Standard. Feel free to substitute out any damage for the extra Life/Defense that I grab in the Level 100 Tree (I'm just being greedy for dps). Every Level after 90 provides huge benefits to the build however so this is a great build to push hard on. If you are following the tree in Path of Building, then you can simply go to the bottom left to switch to the levelling trees I have created. Due to the huge Elementalist changes the on site Passive Tree links will not have the Ascendancy for launch so I opted to use Images instead. Same effect either way. Bandits: Alira is our Bandit of choice. The Crit Multiplier and Elemental Resistance makes building far easier. It's also just great DPS. Eramir is also always a solid choice as getting Passive Points sooner is never not wanted. These Trees are currently outdated, please refer to the PoB. Level 21 Tree: Click Here | Progressing through Act 2 | Help Alira Level 34 Tree: Click Here | Up to Dominus Level 45 Tree: Click Here | Up to Act 5 Kitava | Should have your first 2 Ascendancy Points Level 63 Tree: Click Here | Up to Blood Aqueducts | Should have 4 Ascendancy Points Level 75 Tree: Click Here | Up to Maps | Should have 6 Ascendancy Points Level 90 Tree: Click Here | End Game | Core Build Done, Should have 8 Ascendancy Points. Level 100 Tree: Click Here | God Gamer | An extra 15% Life as well as close to 50% more Damage Ascendancy: TLDR: Bastion of Elements > Liege of the Primordial > Elemancer > Mastermind of Discord
Spoiler
Elementalist has received a significant rework for the Ritual League and she will perform well with practically any Elemental Skill. For that purpose we may as well use her for our Hydrosphere. New skills can be a little whack at League Start but with the strength of this Ascendancy I'm sure we will be fine regardless.
Bastion of Elements Triggers Level 20 Primal Aegies when Allocated. Primal Aegis can take 100 Damage per Allocated Notable Passive Skill. Other Aegis Skills are Disabled and you Cannot take Reflected Elemental Damage. Grabbing this in our first Labyrinth is perfect as it will provide us defense for the early and later Acts where Witch is fragile. This is actually quite a significant defense and even if we lose the Aegis it comes back within 5 seconds of being destroyed. As those notables come in this will be a very noticeable defense. Being unable to take reflected Elemental Damage is also huge and makes our mapping ability unparalleled. Liege of the Primordial gives 25% increased Damage per Summoned Golem, 25% increased Effect of Buffs granted by our Golems per Summoned Golem, Summoned Golems are Resummoned 4 seconds after being Killed and +1 to maximum number of Summoned Golems. Originally I wanted to go the route of taking Mastermind of Discord and Heart of Destruction however Witch is just a little to fragile. Because of this we instead bolster our defense with Golems. These Golems will give us huge defense bonuses, especially in the end game where one Stone Golem will give us almost 500 Life Regen. The dps is also still fairly comparable. Elemancer, Summoned Golems are Immune to Elemental Damage, 35% chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments per Summoned Golem, 25% increased Effect of Buffs granted by your Golems per Summoned Golem and +1 to maximum number of Summoned Golems. With this our Golems are basically immortal through general mapping. On top of us being immune to Elemental Reflect we are also now immune to Elemental Ailments. This means we don't have to muck around with things like "remove Freeze & Chill" on our pots. Also by the point we get this our Summoned Golems are getting a huge % Increased on their buffs which boosts us immensely. Mastermind of Discord is our last Ascendancy and grants the Exposure we inflict applies an extra -25% to the affected Resistance. We also get Regenerate 1% of Mana per second if you've inflicted Exposure Recently. Tossing up between this and Shaper of Storms was difficult. Overall it seems that for bossing lowering their resistance through exposure was the best way for us to increase our DPS. This is especially noticeable on some of the final bosses such as Sirus and Conquerors. Anointment: TLDR: Exceptional Performance
Details
Always make sure you are getting a non-corrupted Amulet so that you can Anoint passives, as they are a huge dps / defense boost (and so you can Quality them). This time around there is such a distinct difference that I am only listing one offense option and that is Exceptional Performance. Skill Effect duration improves our Storm Burst damage immensely however it only matters when we hit a multiple of 0.4, as that is a bursts set duration.
With this anointed we are able to hit either 2s Duration or 2.4s Duration much easier. Pathing to this point of the tree would be too difficult. Exceptional Performance | Clear Oil + Amber Oil + Black Oil I think the Skill Duration is too good to pass up however if you want something a little tankier than these are some great defense passives to anoint: Purity of Flesh | Clear Oil + Black Oil + Silver Oil Constitution | Silver Oil + Golden Oil + Golden Oil Pantheon: For your Major God you want to either choose Soul of Lunaris or Soul of Solaris. These are both super solid options and just depends on whether you want to be mapping or bossing more. If you think you won't fuck with bosses then take Lunaris, otherwise take Solaris. I personally use Lunaris as it helps when suicide running into packs like a lunatic, which I do frequently. Lunaris is even more ideal this expansion with Maven and her multi boss arenas. For your Minor God your best bet is Soul of Shakari. Reduced chaos damage is a nice quality of life. Soul of Abberath makes you immune to Burning Ground which might come in handy if there are any surprises for us in the new Atlas. Those are your standards and I never really choose anything else.  Hydrosphere is a new orb skill that has neat interactions with Cold and Lightning Skills. We will be playing this skill like we were swinging a huge wrecking ball around. Swinging the orb around the screen and inflicting Shock everywhere alongside our Storm Burst explosions. I'll list the Gems in order of priority, with brief explanations in boxes below them. A side note for Awakened/Alternate Quality Gems. I have them as being used in Path of Building but these are not mandatory and are purely for squeezing out bonus damage. I almost always play with the default skill gems. It's just easier to list the ideal ones so you have something to aim for when min maxing. Storm Burst > Cast while Channelling > Hydrosphere > Inspiration > Infused Channelling > Concentrated Effect
Spoiler
This is going to be a mechanic explanation on Hydrosphere. Hydrosphere pulses every 0.4 seconds OR when created/moved. This little detail is what we will abuse. The frequency timer actually pauses for the very brief time while it is moving but then continues from where it was. We can blast it all over the place and sometimes get a double pulse as the frequency will continue to tick at its interval of 0.4.
Inspiration is always a top tier pick for both damage and utility as it provides us with a reduced mana cost. Infused Channelling won't provide any benefit for our Sphere but it's benefits are too huge to ignore and will help Storm Burst tear through enemies. Summon Stone Golem > Summon Chaos Golem > Summon Lightning Golem > Summon Ice Golem
Spoiler
It's much easier to roll our Golem Gang in one 4 socket setup. They don't need to be linked but it saves all the room for Gem Links elsewhere. Stone and Chaos provide such a huge benefit to defense and are the primary reason we are going Golemancer to begin with. We sadly can't run a Curse on Hit setup with this however we can look for it on a Ring when we are much further into the game.
Shield Charge > Faster Attacks > Fortify
Spoiler
Shield Charge is the mobility skill I will be using. It gets us around maps a lot faster and the less damage from hits provided by Fortify is huge.
Flame Dash is another great option if you don't mind the slight cooldown between uses. Use it with Second Wind and Arcane Surge. Arcane Surge is a lot of free universal Spell Damage and will always proc off Flame Dash if we leave it at Lvl 7. Having these gems on standby is essential for Sirus fights. Just gem swap from your stash for this particular fight (all other fights I have done deathless). Cast When Damage Taken Lvl 7 > Immortal Call Lvl 9 > Vaal Righteous Fire > Tempest Shield
Spoiler
I suggest keeping these at the Level I listed so that they trigger more reliably but it is up to you. I always aim for 20% of my Hp as the trigger point.
Vaal Righteous Fire is a great skill. We only want to use the Vaal version. It provides a huge spell damage buff when activated and is great for bursting down bosses. You take a small portion of damage on activation but it is negligible. Tempest Shield is actually really cool. Thanks to our duration scaling this thing lasts 22 seconds. It grants us additional block and does damage when we block, which resets the duration. It's nothing game breaking but this is the perfect buff to cast at the start of every zone/map and it shouldn't expire thanks to its own reset function. You could keep this a lower level for CwDT if you want but it really isn't necessary Herald of Ice > Hatred > Herald of Thunder > Enlighten
Spoiler
The auras in this build do a lot of work. Herald of Ice blows packs up like it is nothing. Especially once you get an Inpulsa you really notice the screen wide destruction, perfect for Ritual. We go with Hatred as it allows us to double dip on conversions. Herald of Thunder is great but only put it on when you can afford it with an Enlighten.
Wrath is pretty strong but I think it might only be just as good as Hatred if we were rocking it with a nice Watcher's Eye or something.  Our gear is actually kind of on the simple end, and only really gets ridiculous when the budget skyrockets. At that point it can be quite minimal gains for huge cost though. That's why this character is actually a great League Starter. It can function on the cheap and can also be your one and only if you don't have quite as much time. For all the gear options I will embed a Path of Exile Trade link so that you don't have to go search yourself and you can instead just open the link for what you need. These are set to search in Standard Temp Leagues so if you are playing in a different League then change it in the top right. Using these when searching for Rares can be confusing at first as I use a lot of filters to find cheap but good gear. The best way to look for the ideal stats are to check out the different item sets in the Path of Building link. For "Best ____ in Ritual" click the SUM: text under the item to sort by best. Shop for what fits your budget. Please respond to the forum if you have found anything confusing at all and I can explain in further detail. Recommended Gear:
Spoiler
Rare 1h Caster is our ideal weapon. Best mods for us are Gain #% of Phys Damage as Extra Lightning, # to Level of Spell/Physical/Lightning Skill Gems. Fill the rest with generic Caster modifiers such as Spell Damage, Crit and Cast Speed.
Light of Lunaris is a great Mid Tier Shield. Otherwise any Rare with Max Life and any mods listed for our Sceptre. Best Shield In Ritual. Rare Helmet, ideally a Hubris. Juice up on Maximum Life and get the Resists you need. If you can get an Enchant related to the build Storm Burst related would be best. This practically means you would have to craft it yourself. Best Helmet In Ritual. Inpulsa's Broken Heart is one of the only things that are crucial to the build. The idea is to send huge chains of explosions via Herald of Ice + Inpulsa. 6 Link ideally as we lack supports due to Cast while Chanelling. Rare Gloves, Fingerless Silk being the best for us. Max Life is #1 priority as always, followed by Unnerve. Try find one with an Empty Prefix or a crafted Prefix that Converts Physical Damage to Lightning Damage(one that doesn't benefit us). Best Gloves In Ritual Stormcharger is by far our cheapest and simplest item for the build. This grants us Physical Damage Converted to Lightning and an astronomical amount of Lightning Resistance. If you can get this with Enchanted with "Damage Penetrates #% of Enemy Ele Res if you haven't killed Recently" then you are looking at an 8% Dps increase for those big bosses. These won't need replacing unless you get a Watcher's Eye with Phys to Lightning Conversion, in which you would just go for Tailwind + MS + Lightning. Choir of the Storm is one of the best Amulets we can get for Damage. Some Amulets might increase our Storm Burst DPS a lot more but the juiced part about this is that it adds a passives skill called Lightning Bolt that triggers on Crit. The DPS from this + increased Storm Burst DPS is enough to beat out anything I have found so far. Call of the Brotherhood and a Rare Ring. Call of the Brotherhood is perfect for giving us big damage with Ele Conversions as well as aiding our Freeze + Shock Explosions. For the Rare we simply want to get Max Life + Resists, whatever you need (Strength and Dex if you couldn't get it on Amulet). Best Ring in Ritual (Use Same Link as above, just have no budget :)). Rare Belt, hopefully Leather Belt for more health. This is our Life and Resistance and they are the #1 things we need. This is the last piece of gear so make sure you have everything capped and squeeze out as much life as possible. Best Belt in Ritual is just the same link as above except use SUM to search. For our pots we want to grab a Quicksilver Flask of Adrenaline, Diamond Flask of Heat and Seething Divine Life Flask of Staunching. Atziri's Promise and Rumi's Concotion are our Unique flasks. The damage we get from Atziri's is huge due to the multiple conversions we do. If you got the big bucks then Bottled Faith will replace our Rumis pot. I really don't think it's worth getting this unless you are min-maxed out of your mind. Max Life + Crit Multi Jewels will make up the majority of our Jewels. If you need to you can squeeze resistance on these and they usually don't cost much extra. Replica Pure Talent and Thread of Hope for Skill Duration and Thread for access to a lot of great notables at the top of our Passive Tree. Watcher's Eye with two Wrath Passives for the mega rich. Large Cluster Jewel and we want the passives Overshock, Snowstorm and Disorienting Display. These boost our Lightning Damage, Ailments, and provides us with Blind. Medium Cluster Jewel #1 gives us Cold Conduction and Stormrider. This is what gives us our permanent Chill thanks to Elementalist as well as our Power Charge generation. Medium Cluster Jewel #2 gives us Precise Focus and Rapid Infusion. These boost the damage of our Storm Burst. The increased effect of Infusion is huge and is one of our largest increases in DPS. For the Cluster Jewels make sure to check out the Notes section in the Path of Building. I listed out the notables we want to look for and in order of priority. This will make them far cheaper as you can search for multiple combinations. The Gear I'm Currently Using: (I never updated this I'm sorry D:, it's all over a bunch of characters now) Levelling Cheat Sheet:
Spoiler
 Thank you for reading/following the build guide. Feel free to leave any questions/comments in the replies as I make sure to spend an hour every day responding to people (during the first month of a League). Also if you have made it this far, feel free to support me by Subscribing to my YouTube or Twitch. Viewership helps me a lot, especially as someone who pours a lot of time into these guides. Have fun in Ritual and good luck in your Maven fights :D Last edited by AziiRe on Jan 24, 2021, 4:01:15 PM Last bumped on Apr 16, 2021, 9:35:39 AM
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Reserved :)
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If you believe in the build this much, so shall i!
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@Kageromero
Maven won't even know what's coming  | |
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Could storm burst be swapped for another skill as in arc or spark?
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Awesome was waiting for someone to post a hydrosphere. I was screwed with cobra lash on release but lets go!
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Sounds interesting. Think I might try it.
It should be "fine" pre-Impulsa, right? Won't have the clear, but just from a pure starter? Edit: Also, looking at it, we won't be 100% reflect immune without the hunter gloves? Last edited by zz9za on Jan 14, 2021, 11:15:00 PM
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Hello and thanks for your build mate !
Might try it aswell, looks cool and guide is well written. Will it be ok without inpulsa at first as someone else also is asking ? I'm a shitty player and i'll not have currency so quickly. Any ideas if it will success vs bosses ? Cheers :D | |
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I kind of missed the delirium league, how hard will it be to obtain the cluster jewels in upcoming league?
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" Generally easy, but not cheap. They drop rather a bit so it's not hard. I haven't looked at exactly what this build is using but a good (e.g. minimum # of nodes) cluster can be anywhere from about 10 chaos to 5 exalts depending on how in-demand that exact combo is. But it's not like you need gloves with some obscure corruption that only one guy who's always AFK is selling. Last edited by zz9za on Jan 15, 2021, 12:07:05 AM
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