[3.16] Energy Blade & Spectral Helix Elementalist

Hey Everyone!

So this is my first homebrewed build so it is far from perfect but it's going fairly well so far on a minimal budget.

If you have any comments/suggestions please leave them below as I know there are a lot of improvements to make.

When Energy Blade was announced I liked the idea of not having to craft/buy a weapon so wanted to try and make a build using it. I PoB'd a few ascendencies and landed on Elementalist due to the damage from golems and synergy with shock.

I'm currently just going into yellow maps and the damage is really good. Also, the ability to pre-load damage on scourge by casting spectral helix a few times before shifting feels very nice.

Also been testing out a few other attack gems such as spectral throw, cyclone and frost blades but nothing conclusive so far.

Here's the Pob https://pastebin.com/pjXQEgEN

Gems
Spectral Helix -> Faster Attacks -> Elemental Damage with Attacks -> Added Lightning Damage -> Lightning Penetration -> Inspiration

Cast When Damage Taken -> Immortal Call -> Wave of Conviction

Energy Blade

Steelskin - Bind to mouse 1

Flame Dash

Ancestral Protector

Hydrosphere - I've been trying this out as a method of applying exposure more readily than wave of conviction

Auras
Discipline
Clarity (Whatever level you need to cover your mana regen)
Tempest Shield
Wrath
Precision


Golems
Chaos Golem
Flame Golem
Ice Golem
Lightning Golem



Ascendency
Liege of the Primordial -> Elemancer -> Shaper of Storms -> Bastion of Elements

We're using 4 golems for all the extra damage they give which was a good reason to go elementalist.

Shaper of Storms gives us the 25% more effect of shock.

Bastion of elements makes us immune to reflect (as we only deal lightning damage) and the aegis is around a 2k damage mitigation.


Keystones
Elemental Overload - We're going non-crit but still have a fairly good crit chance so EO is pretty much always up for that sweet 40% more damage

Glancing Blows - Ideally used with a shield with "recover #% life when you block" and "recover #% energy shield when you block" but I think this also interacts with Divine Shield.

Divine Shield - Still testing this one out but should hopefully give a decent way to recover ES. Currently looking for a way to get more armour (currently about 3.4k with granite up) as more armour will help scale this.

Corrupted Soul - Keystone that comes with a Doryani Glorious Vanity Jewel. Gives 15% of life as extra ES which is more damage & defence.


Uniques
I'm currently using:
Crown of the Inward Eye - A very decent all-round helmet for life, ES and mana. The armour also helps with Divine Shield. Ideally with the Spectral Helix damage enchant.

Astramentis - Helps with attribute requirements. I'm not sold on this so if you've got any good suggestions fire away

Valako's Sign - Gives us some more damage (60% as everything is shocked) and some leech. However, the leech doesn't feel good at the moment which I think may be because we kill white mobs in 1 hit so they aren't shocked when we kill them.

Potentials:
Soul Tether - I tried this out before switching to Divine Shield. Provides some more ES and a way to recover it but I couldn't get the leech to feel good. I would probably prefer this over Divine Shield as it could give a very good uptime on having full ES.


Gear
Generally you want as much ES as possible as it's going to scale your damage and although Energy Blade applies a 50% cut, you can still get a decent amount to create a buffer.


Levelling
I tried levelling with smite but it felt a bit rough. I did switch to arc a little before getting energy blade which felt a lot better.

As soon as you get energy blade you can switch to it. Just get some half decent ES gear for your level.


The main issue I'm having with the build is defence. Not enough damage is being mitigated to make divine shield regen alot (although I thought there would be with Glancing Blows) and leech doesn't seem to be gaining as much health as I thought it would (with Soul Tether).

Let me know if there's anything you want to know or if you've got any suggestions
Last edited by Blinxar on Nov 4, 2021, 12:02:16 PM
Last bumped on Feb 14, 2022, 3:05:51 PM
You will probably have to run Determination to get good armor, that plus max spell block should suffice (possibly without Glancing Blows). Also Molten Shell and Determination both synergize really well with Divine Shield. The ES recovery from Divine Shield will be way better than from ES on block once you have over 15-20k or so armor.

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