Witch - [3.13] Lighthing/Chaos Hydrosphere Elementalist - Forum

Good day Exiles,

Since my last thread of investigating the Elementalist rework, I've been leveling with Hydrosphere and Orb of Storm, it feels smooth even till t14 maps (then the damage starts to fall off due to Maven's boss hp regeneration).

After a few hours of grinding I've managed to get a hold of the Disintegrator and Inpulsa's, and finally 6Linked the staff using a Fated Connection, since then the only issue to tackle was survivability.

I'm gonna share with you what I've created, and laying out the defensive and offensive mechanism I'm using, and what upgrade to expect.

Hopefully this thread would ultimately help you with your own version of this.

Build theory

This build utilizes the new skill Hydrosphere as our main skill, with Orb of Storm as our secondary skill. The interaction lies under the skill tag of Hydrosphere, as it has lightning skill tag, as long as we're standing inside Orb of Storm, each time we self-cast Hydrosphere, it triggers Orb of Storm's zapping.

Defense_Layers(lv.90)

1. 6 jewel sockets 2 of which is large socket for potential Cluster jewel upgrade.
2. 177% increased maximum life excluding jewels
3. Glancing Blows with Staff gives 75% block and 50% spell block
4. Stone Golem's life regen & Chaos Golem's Physical damage mitigation buff
5. Steelskin
6. Bastion of Elements' Primal Aegis which provides elemental shield that only has 5 seconds cooldown that cannot be interrupted anymore.
7. Elemental Ailments Immunity
8. Life leech

Negatives

Still yet to figure out how to fix Chaos resistances, endgame weapons and armours could be expensive.

This build also lacks dexterity which would cost us 1-2 skill points on tree if you don't have the rare gear that has +# to dexterity.

Offense

Hydrosphere converts all physical damage into either cold or lightning damage, we take Shaper of Storm and ensure that every hit would shock, so this version of hydrosphere benefits from lightning damage and physical damage increase. Hydrosphere also provides -10% cold and lightning resistance as an exposure effect via the Drenched debuff that it applies to every units hit.

Disintegrator naturally provides added physical damage to all our spells, and it also gives non-chaos damage as extra chaos damage at the cost of physcial damage taken per second, each shaper or elder item would give us one more charge of siphoning charge which provides even more chaos damage

Since all our damages shocks, it increases enemies damage taken by at least 15%. The elemental damage related cluster jewels have the notable Sadist which we could utilize, if we ignited, chilled, shocked enemies recently it would provide a total of 60% increased elemental damage, which would be achieved naturally if we have some added fire damage and added cold damage to spells.

Flame golem buffs our damage on top of the 25% increased damage per summoned golem from ascendancy.

Lightning golem gives us cast time which is very beneficial since Hydrosphere not only has a fixed pulsing rate, each time you cast the skill it pulses an additional time.

Lightning Impresence gives us conductivity blasphemy aura at 100% reduced mana reservation rate, so we get a constant curse aura that reduce enemies' lightning resistance.

PoB&Ascendancy

https://pastebin.com/SDwJ6VSE

Currently my Ascendancy notable choices are :
Bastion of Elements - Shaper of Storms - Liege of the Primordial - Elemancer

I have used Mastermind of Discord but I think the Primal Aegis provides too much survivability that is too great to miss. The golem nodes now provides a super crucial quality of life change, where if your golems die they automatically response, so this build is relatively smooth and you don't have to recast your golems at all after you summoned them.

Negatives

The staff itself is a relatively expensive unique weapon that could only be obtained by defeating the Elder, so it is not very recommended as a league starter.

Future upgrades:

Because we want explosion effects and non-chaos damage as extra chaos damage, Sporeguard is our next upgrade.

The Fungal ground provides 10% non-chaos damage as extra chaos damage while we're standing (which we will if we are casting), enemies standing on it will be exploded on kill, and enemies deal 10% less damage.

This chest gives around 1500 flat armour which is great at helping with physical damage, since the primal aegis shield only absorb elemental damage, it is crucial to deal with the physical damage and chaos damage taken.

This chest also gives us one extra oil annointment, and you can annoint whatever extra passive notable that you want. (note that each notable would increase our Primal Aegis' shield amount so it's a win-win.)

Comments on this thread to discuss with me further :D
Have a great grinding experience Exiles!

Last edited by Suzu520 on Jan 19, 2021, 9:52:17 PM

Last bumped on Jan 19, 2021, 9:47:36 PM