[3.13] [HC] Mat's march of the legion Ball lightning totem hierophant

I didn't play hardcore this league, however I created this build with hardcore in mind.

If you want to try it in hardcore, I'd recommend getting around 5.5k hp and 2k mana. Good luck and stay safe!

-Required Unique-



March of the legion introduces a unique support gem called Blessing.

Blessing adds a cast time and duration to any auras socketed in the boots. Additionally, the auras both have a mana cost and a small mana reservation duration. The mana cost will always be the same as the mana reservation of the aura, even with mana cost reduction. This means that any effect that requires you to spend mana actually counts your auras (e.g. arcane surge, indigon, sigil of power, etc.)

Since your auras will only last around 9 seconds per default, getting skill duration is very important to make the build run smoother and for your own sanity. I ended up using only one of the skill duration cluster but you can add more nodes if you feel like it. Do note that skill duration will also make your aura reservation duration longer, leaving you vulnerable for a little longer (about .4 seconds with +90% skill duration)

Finally you'll want A LOT of mana regeneration to make the build run smoothly since you'll want to cast your auras quickly one after another.

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-Supreme Ego-



Since the build will be centered around temporary auras, it made sense for us to use Supreme Ego

Supreme Ego is an incredible keystone for this build since we can manage to have one permanent aura and four temporary auras from our boots, making all of them 50% more efficient!

However, the 50% more mana reservation will put even more tax on our mana pool, making mana regen much more important still.

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-Why totems?-

March of the legion adds many skills to use for this build, so I decided to use Totems as a main skill to have more quality of live.

Totems also provide alot of regen if used with the Hierophant ascendancy, so it fits nicely with our very high mana regen requirement.

Lastly, totems use all your own buffs, meaning Supreme Ego's "Auras from your Skills have 50% more Effect on you" will work for your totems

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-Defenses-

Defense-wise, since we'll aim for alot of mana and life regen, this build requires less full damage mitigation mechanics (such as dodge or original block) but many partial damage mitigations



Mind over matter is an obvious choice here, adding our 1000 mana regen to our 1000 life regen, making any source of damage that is less than 2000 dps negligible.



We'll also choose the Glancing blows Keystone to have alot of chance to block some of the incoming damage, achieving about 70% attack and spell block chance. the way you should consider Glancing blows is "70% chance to resist 35% of hit damage". Of course, adding on block effects also helps us survive and even improves our dps (more information in the gear and strategy sections)

Sirus fight (awakener 9)
Minotaur & Hydra map
Maven fight (awakener 9)

- Current POB -
https://pastebin.com/MgPypRHa

- Bandits -
Kill all or crit multiplier

-Pros-
-Tanky, HC viable
-10 mil+ potential dps
-Immune to elemental ailment
-Onslaught / Blind triggers
-Do most map mods (apart from no regen)

-Play style-
-Very active play style
-Multiple abilities to use

-Cons-
-High dex requirement for Haste
-Gets expensive in the very late game
-Not a brainless build, needs actual skills to maximize dps

For this build to work, we have two major strategies to work on, aura timings and totem placement.

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-temporary auras-

Whenever you cast a temporary aura, you'll be vulnerable for a short period (Mana reservation is around .4 second if you use one of the skill duration wheel)

Because of that, you ideally want to refresh your buffs during a safe moment, after a boss slam for example. The key here is not to stress! The only important auras you have are
Vitality and Clarity because they provide you with alot of survivability! If you treat Haste / Wrath / Zealotry as dps cooldown and don't rush if they run off, you'll have way more success.

Personnally, I always use Arcane Cloak before refreshing my auras, it provides us with insane mana regen and the extra damage reduction helps mitigate possible problems.

Finally, if you prefer to keep your aura refresh to a minimum, you can add more skill effect duration to the build, I started with alot of it before respeccing the points after I felt more comfortable with them.

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-totem placement and Ball lightning-

First of, if you have the taunt chance node from our cluster jewel (see gear section), your totems will constantly taunt your ennemies.
It is important that you keep that in mind when refreshing your totem, you ideally want to refresh them slowly, to keep some of them as targets for monsters.

Also, you'll want to place your totem at a certain distance from the boss to apply proper dpsm leaving your totems at the boss' feet can reduce your dps by up to 50%!
This is because ball lightning is an AOE spell that constantly triggers, and it ideally needs to be at least a distance equal to its aoe radius while passing through its target to deal full dps.

Finally, separating your totems is important to keep some of them out of danger. Leaving them in a bunch may result in all of them dying from a slam!

Again, the key here is to relax, perfect placement is not required to win a fight

In construction

-Main skill (body armour)-

Ball Lightning - Spell Totem - Multiple Totems - Awakened Added Lightning - Slower Projectile - Elemental Focus

-Auras (boots)-

What you'll put in your boots entirely depends on the type of amulet you're wearing (more information in the gear section)

The five auras you want to use for this build are

Clarity - Vitality - Wrath - Zealotry - Haste

If you use an Aul uprising, simply put your "free" aura outside of your boots.

If you're not wearing an Aul uprising, I'd suggest using Vitality as your permanent aura, since it reserves less mana (you'll probably have to adapt your tree and take more mana reservation nodes)

CWDT (helmet or gloves)

Since we're short on gem slots, I only put 2 spells with Cast when damage taken. However, if you have an unset ring, you can add a Blade Blast for its built-in Unnerve debuff or any golem other than lightning (lightning golem has a lightning damage aura that would disrupt our elemental equilibrium)

Also notice we're using both Steelskin and Arcane Cloak, that's a personal choice since both use the same cooldown. My thinking is that Arcane cloak is not always up and you might want to have a layer of protection just in case.

Cast when damage taken [lvl 14] - Steel skin [lvl 18] - Tempest shield

-Utility (shield)-

I use flame dash as a movement skill, but choose whichever you like most (regular dash would be solid here).

You can technically put shield charge with fortify here, but in my experience it didn't help as you need to be close to the boss and this build already has a lot to do.

Flame Dash - Second wind - Faster Casting

-Utility (wand)-

In our wand, we want 2 trigger spells. Ideally you want your cursor to be close to your target if you want it to be affected by the spells

Storm Brand - Power charge on crit - Sniper's Mark

-Utility (ring)-

In our Malachai's Artifice, we want a summon that will deal non-lightning damage. In this case Raging spirits are really great! With the Phantasmal alternate quality, you can make sure they can't be damage for 2 seconds after being summoned, leaving plenty of time for them to attack their targets.

NB. Since the build uses Supreme Ego, your summons won't be affected by Wrath
NB. You CANNOT use a lightning golem with this setup, because they cast an aura that adds lightning damage to nearby allies

Summon Raging Spirit (phantasmal)

-Utility (Helmet or Gloves)-

This is our Arcane Cloak setup. Since this build rocks a +110% Arcane Surge effect, we want to link it to Arcane Cloak to trigger the highest Arcane surge level we can

Arcane Cloak - Arcane Surge - Increased Duration - Second Wind

In Construction

In Construction