[3.22] ❄️⚡CantripN's Hadoken! - Lightning Conduit / Crackling Lance / Arc Permafreeze⚡❄️

Got Infinite Money? Try this version if you want (3.20, but can update easily):
https://pobb.in/aEEijUk0EOf8 (by Noslon)
Fair Warning: Glass Cannon alert. But that cannon! (add dual curse for 3.20)
This version will not work without proper understanding of the mechanics and fine-tuned gear, and even then will remain a glass cannon.

Extra Option:
Call of the Void + Winterweave + Self-Chill (Trigger Weapon + Forbidden Rite)
Expensive but highly effective. You take Shaper of Winter then.

EB stuff you should know:
1 - You constantly recover ES, it doesn't stop when you take damage (since it no longer protects life, and we don't have MoM)
2 - Base Recovery Rate for ES/sec is at 33.3% of Energy Shield, before % increased energy shield recovery rate (we have +20%) and 50% Less from EB.
3 - You can (and will) also Leech ES, from either a cluster jewel, a small 1 point for 0.3%, or even the Energy Leech support
4 - Base ES Leech Rate is at 10% of you ES/sec (we don't do anything to scale that atm)
5 - There's a Belt/Body Veiled mod for 150-200 ES Regen/sec while a rare/unique is nearby, that can help a lot and is probably worth getting.
6 - You can pay Divine Blessing costs with ES now!
7 - You cannot gain Arcane Surge from the gem anymore (get it elsewhere)
8 - You cannot use Inspiration Support anymore for your main skill

Spell Suppression Mechanics:
It's the % to take half (eventually, 47%) of incoming spell hit damage. Once you hit 100% it's not RNG based at all, you just always take less damage.
If this sounds borderline broken, it's because it is.
Always strive for 100% or as close to it as you can!

Jewels:


Flasks:


Sometimes swapped to a Granite Flask.

CL Swaps:


Never found a Watcher's Eye worth using in SSF... Not even this was:

Lightning Conduit is built somewhat differently, due to needing constant/reliable Shock, as well as needing % Shock to be as high as possible (even more than usual).

Lightning Conduit relies on Orb of Storms for high Shock for high DPS.
Use Unbound Ailments as needed on OoS for max shock, but if you have enough to get there, use a damage link.
You can also use Storm Brand to Shock bosses instead, you'll just have to cast Assassin's Mark manually, and it'll be worse for mapping.

Keep in mind Skitterbots don't work at all for bosses, you only get the one cast every few seconds.

Here's some testing done for other Shock Methods:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbUeeQ7TJ0A

Other good options are 4L Shield Charge, Exsanguinate, Hydrosphere, and the Secret Method (tm) - Choir of the Storms (amulet). Try them all out, see what feels good for you. Hell, do Abberath's Hooves and just walk around.

--

Generally speaking, I went with a different pathing and defensives layers, with Spell Suppression, and Eldritch Battery for sustain and Divine Blessing (Zealotry). This can be done with Arc / CL, but is more or less mandatory for Lightning Conduit due to the insane mana costs.

--

If going for Clusters (don't)...
I suggest getting a Large Cluster Jewels with:
Doryani's Lesson (0.2% Life Leech, 25% Elemental Damage)
Storm Drinker (0.5% ES Leech, 8% Light Pen)
and a 3rd Notable that will be in the back from this list:
Prismatic Heart
Snowstorm

***All other 3rd notables don't go in the back with this combo - don't trust PoE Planner on this, it's wrong******

This also frees your gloves for a Spell Suppression Implicit / Exposure on Hit (amazing for clear).

If you go for Doryani's + Overshock, the 3rd can be (easier to craft):
Snowstorm
Inspired Oppression
Paralysis
Prismatic Heart
Scintillating Idea
Thunderstruck

Use Alt/Aug/Regal to make these (start with Doryani) or use Harvest Reforge Life.

Crafting Notes for a Jewel with Harvest (credit to Roraver)

---

Important Notes for Gear and other things...
0) You'll get confused with this often, so here's a reminder. You can't Shock with Lightning Damage, but you *can* shock with any and all other types of damage.
1) Inpulsa is BiS, not something you need to play the build though.
2) You need enough % Effect of Non-damaging Ailment / Shock to get to 65% Shock (65 / 15 / 1.25 = 347% = 100% Base + 247% Increased Effect). The tree has more than that, play around with it as needed.
3) You *must* have Flat Fire/Cold/Phys/Chaos damage somewhere on your gear to be able to Shock - I recommend a ring like I have here, or an Abyssal Jewel (Hypnotic Eye Base).
4) If you have 3 Minimum Frenzy Charges, you get 9 Seconds of Onslaught from Rotgut without burning those charges away. Feels great, not at all a must, just a nice trick.
5) You need Freeze Proliferation to map safely, it's available either as a Glove Implicit, or on a Medium Cluster Jewel (Ailment Effect - Blast Freeze) as used here.
6) You need Shock Proliferation if using Inpulsa to map even faster, available as a Mastery (not optimal) or as a Glove Implicit as used here.
7) Life Leech can be had from a Large Cluster Jewel (Lightning Damage - Doryani's Lesson), or as a Glove Implicit as used here.
8) Eldritch Battery allows you to use Divine Blessing to have Zealotry as an extra Aura. You still need a bunch of ES gear to pay the costs.
9) Eldritch Battery prevents you from getting Arcane Surge from the gem. Get it from a Crusader Wand like here, or from a Watcher's Eye (Zealotry).
10) You'll get confused with this often, so here's a reminder. You can't Shock with Lightning Damage, but you *can* shock with any and all other types of damage.
11) Freeze Duration is a *big deal*, until it isn't. It's a matter of dps vs content. At some point you may not need any on your tree. It acts as a "more damage for calculating freeze duration and whether you can freeze this target".
12) "Why am I not Freezing?!" - Either your damage per hit is too low, you're using Elemental Focus, your Crit Chance is too low and unreliable, or you're in a map or encounter where Freeze isn't possible.
13) Spell Suppression is quite a big deal for being Not Dead. If you don't mind being Dead, skip that and free some points and gear modifiers. I wouldn't.
14) Don't forget to spec out of Elemental Overload in maps. It's great while leveling, but do make sure it's gone :D
15) Make sure your Gloves and Boots have Evasion (preferable Evasion + ES) so you get your +12% Spell Suppression (Mastery). The gloves used in this demo don't.
16) Temple Gloves (as used here) are your BiS. Get some with Life, resistances as needed, Spell Suppression, and maybe even with a slot for Elemental Damage + Crit Chance.
17) Fun fact - You need Evasion on your Gloves, no one said it needs to be an Evasion Base. Feel free to craft Life + Flat Evasion if you must.
18) Temple Mods (Flat Fire vs Burning / Increased Damage vs Chilled) can be swapped with Harvest for the Crit Chance vs Shocked mod.
19) Make sure you get 100% Spell Suppression with gear. You have 44% to start, get the rest on Gloves/Boots/Shield.
20) You'll get confused with this often, so here's a reminder. You can't Shock with Lightning Damage, but you *can* shock with any and all other types of damage.

Problematic Content for Lightning Conduit:
1. Hall of Grandmasters: Lots of Tempest Shield and other shock immune characters here.
2. Blight: Lightning lane monsters including Blight Boss Ephrexix are Immune to Shock.
3. Oshabi: Groveguard Vine summons cannot be shocked. Can just brute-force kill Oshabi herself but good to keep in mind.
4. Vinktar Square: Whole map is immune to shock.
(Source)

Shaper of Storms Mechanics:
1) Your Hits always Shock = Simple enough. All hits, Crit or not, Always Shock. Normally this would mean just Lightning damage, and with the helmet just Fire, but...

2) All Damage can Shock = Hey look! You can now Shock with all damage types. You dealt 5 Physical Damage? Shock. 12 Chaos? Shock. 42 Cold? Shock. The only damage type that won't be Shocking is Lightning, but as long as you have even 4 flat damage of any other type, which you do from any amount of flat non-lightning damage from a jewel/syndicate mod, all your hits Shock.

3) 25% more Effect of Lightning Ailments you inflict with Hits if the highest Damage Type is Lightning = Even though Lightning damage doesn't Shock, it is still your highest damage type, so you get 25% MORE Shock Effect.

4) Shocks from your Hits always increase Damage taken by at least 15% = You'd think this only makes it so the minimum is 15%. Not so. It sets the BASE SHOCK at 15%. If you have +100% Shock? That's now 30%. And since you're doing Lightning Damage, multiply by 1.25, so 37.5%. Basically, you can easily reach 50% Shock on any target, no matter how much Life it has.

By the way, PoB doesn't do this math correctly (fixed in 3.19 update, woo! Mostly. You can add "50% Increased Shock Effect" in the custom mods section in the configuration to add the Critical Mastery it doesn't calculate). The right math here is:
Shock % = 15 x 1.25 x (100 + % Increased Shock/Lightning Ailments/Non-damaging Ailments Effect) / 100.

Example for 200% Increased:
Shock % = 15 x 1.25 x (100+200) / 100 = 56.25%.
Unless you have a Lightning Mastery to raise the Shock cap to 65%, this becomes 50%.
The target's hit points, resistances, or anything at all, don't matter so long as you do hit (well, Spell Block/Spell Dodge would prevent this, I guess).

So to repeat, you need +167% for 50% Shock, or +247% for 65% Shock.

Ok, so if Shock is relatively simple, you just need to hit and it happens, and you get to almost 50% or more basic effort, Freeze is more complicated...

Wiki: FREEZE

I'll try to keep it simple:
1 - Using The Three Dragons, all your damage CAN Freeze.
2 - You still need Chance to Freeze, or Critical Hits (we're going with crits) since those have 100% to Freeze.
3 - Even if you did "Freeze", the game checks whether the damage you did was enough to actually Freeze the target. This I call a "Freeze Cap".
4 - The number the game looks at to figure this out is (Actual Hit Damage) x (100 + Increased Freeze Duration) / 100. This is why Freeze Duration is a crucial stat, it's a multiplication on your damage for Freeze purposes.
5 - You need BIG HITS + FREEZE DURATION

Relevant Wiki:
Base freeze duration is 0.06 seconds for every 1% of the target's maximum life (before party scaling) dealt by cold damage, up to a maximum of 50% (3 seconds). Freezes with a duration smaller than 0.3 seconds are discarded, effectively requiring a hit of 5% enemy life.

If you go into the Calcs tab in Path of Building, and hover over Freeze Duration, it very nicely presents what's your Freeze Cap for an Average Critical Hit (keep in mind this is Average, and Lightning Damage varies wildly, so you can Freeze targets with much more, just less reliably).



My Arc shown here Freezes T16 map bosses, even with Spell Echo which actually hurts Freeze. Most Archnemesis Rares, too (the base creature matters). If you want to Freeze/Slow Guardians+, you need that number to be much higher, which only happens on Crackling Lance, not on Arc.
30+ Mil for Guardians without mods, even more for Sirus and Maven.

Reminder - End-game Bosses are NOT Immune to Freeze. They Cannot be Fully Slowed. That makes them 30% Slower when they would otherwise become Frozen. This is still a big deal if you can reach that, and you can.
The Freeze Cap for end-game bosses is actually based on 1/2 of their Life, in case you care.
---

Final note - The Wiki is mistaken on one point. Frozen does NOT mean Chilled. It's usually the case when doing it with Cold Damage, but in the case of The Three Dragons you NEVER Chill with your hits. Do NOT use Hypothermia!

See here for more about this - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2789151/page/1

Eater/Exarch Mods

Large Cluster Jewel (Elemental / Lightning) - if using Clusters:
Doryani's Lesson (0.2% Life Leech, 25% Elemental Damage)
Storm Drinker (0.5% ES Leech, 8% Light Pen)
and a 3rd Notable that will be in the back from this list:
Prismatic Heart
Snowstorm

Medium Cluster Jewel(s) if using Clusters - (Effect of non-damaging ailments):
Blast-Freeze = Freeze Proliferation
Astonishing Affliction = Freeze Duration, Shock/Chill Effect, Damage

Also good on Medium:
Overshock = Shock Effect, Damage
Stormrider = 10% to get Power Charge on Hit, 25% Damage (great way to get and maintain power charges) UPDATE: Doesn't work, we're using Power Charge on Crit gem now.

Normal Jewels:
Life (Prefix)
Crit Multi with Lightning Skills (Prefix)
Crit Multi / with Spell (Suffix)
Resistances (Suffix)
% increased Cast Speed (Suffix)

Abyssal Jewel:
Life (Prefix)
Flat Lightning Damage to Spells while dual wielding/two-handed/holding a shield
(Prefix)
Flat Lightning Damage to Spells (Suffix)
Crit Multi (Suffix)
% increased Cast Speed / if you've crit recently (7%!) (Suffix)

Unique Jewel options:
Apex Mode (for things like The Feared / Maven / Sirus) (for Crackling Lance only)
Nadir Mode (for Crackling Lance only) - Massively good for Clearing. Nadir Mode is better than Apex Mode most of the time.
Watcher's Eye (Zealotry/Wrath/Determination/Clarity/Vitality/Precision)
Thread of Hope (Witch Location)
Glorious Vanity (Doryani, Corrupted Soul)
Lethal Pride (Akoya, Chainbreaker, Berserk)
The Vigil (Fortify)

Weapons:
+1 Spell Gems
+1 Lightning Gems
% increased Cast Speed
Spell/Lightning Damage
Penetrate Resistances
Crit Multi / Crit Chance for Spells
Flat Lightning Damage
Non-chaos as Chaos / Lightning as Chaos
Zealotry/Wrath Aura Effect
Trigger Socketed Spells (can be used instead of Arcanist Brand)

Shield (mostly for Spell Suppression version, Supreme Spiked Shield is best):
Life
Energy Shield
Spell Suppression (if going for that, preferable as a craft)
+1 Lightning Gems
Crit Chance for Spells

Body Armour:
Life (Temple Life if you can)
10% to get Frenzy on Hit (if not using Min Frenzy)
15% of Physical Damage taken as Cold/Fire/Lightning (Maven+)
+% to Spell Critical Strike Chance (Maven+)
Consecrated Ground while Stationary (Maven+)
Spell Suppression (if going for that)

Unique Body option:
Expedition's End - All your Damage can Freeze
Freeze Chilled Enemies as though dealing (50-100)% more Damage
Nearby Enemies are Chilled
BiS for mapping - Inpulsa's Broken Heart - Max your clear speed, gets lots of DPS while you're at it.

Helmet:
Unique Only - The Three Dragons

Helm Enchants/Vaal options:
Enchants:
Lightning Conduit has 12% increased Cast Speed
Lightning Conduit deals 40% increased Damage
Crackling Lance deals 40% increased Damage
Crackling Lance has 16% increased Cast Speed
Crackling Lance has 36% increased branching angle
150% increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Lightning Golems
150% increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Stone Golems
100% increased Effect of the Buff granted by your Chaos Golems
Wrath/Determination/Zealotry has 30% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency
Arc deals 40% increased Damage
Arc Chains an additional time

Vaal:
(25–30)% increased Effect of Shock
*0.5% of Lightning Damage Leeched as Life* <= Get this ASAP!
+1 to Maximum Power Charges
(4–6)% increased maximum Life

Gloves:
Life
Do NOT get Mana!
Resistances
% increased Critical Strike Chance against Shocked Enemies / % increased Damage against Chilled Enemies (Temple Mods)
% chance to Unnerve Enemies for 4 seconds on Hit (Maven+)
Crafted (if needed) - 30% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments
Spell Suppression (if going for that)

Unique Glove options:
Algor Mortis - Sap, Ailment Effect, a LOT of DPS (if on Chilled Ground). This is pretty darned nice with a Trigger Wand for Cold Snap
Southbound - Freeze Duration, Life. Make sure you also deal at least 4 min Cold Damage to Ignite in case you can't Freeze and thus kill. Use Abyss Jewel or Syndicate Flat Cold damage mod on a ring.
Storm's Gift - Used to be part of a set with Inpulsa. This makes explosions spread. Go max zoom zoom. Worse than the implicit for gloves or a mastery nowadays...

Boots:
Enchant = 1-160 Lightning Damage if you haven't killed Recently / 10% Penetration / 35% Mana Regen / Life Leech (early)...
Life
Movement Speed
Do NOT get Mana!
Resistances
Increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments
Regenerate % of Life per second
Tailwind :)
Crafted (if needed) - 30% Increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments
Spell Suppression (if going for that)

Unique Boots options:
Atziri's Step - 26% Spell Suppression, Life, 30% Move Speed (Probably BiS)
Ralakesh's Impatience - Max charges for free while casting, Resistances, 30% Move Speed

Belt:
Life
% Life
% Life Recovery
Do NOT get Mana!
Resistances
% increased Elemental Damage
% increased Spell Damage during any Flask Effect
% increased Critical Strike Chance against Shocked Enemies
% increased Damage with Hits against Chilled Enemies
% increased Damage
Damage Penetrates 5% Elemental Resistances during any Flask Effect

Belt Enchant:
Elemental Ailments inflicted on enemies Exposed by you have 20% Increased Duration

Amulet:
Life
Do NOT get Mana!
Resistances
% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
Damage Penetrates % Elemental Resistances
Damage Penetrates % Lightning Resistance
+1 to Level of all Lightning Skill Gems
+1 to Level of all Intelligence Skill Gems
Wrath has (20–25)% reduced Mana Reservation
Zealotry has (20–25)% reduced Mana Reservation
Determination has (20–25)% reduced Mana Reservation
% increased Spell Damage
% increased Lightning Damage
% increased Cast Speed
+1 to Minimum Frenzy Charges

Unique Amulet option:
Aul's Uprising (Wrath/Zealotry/Determination) - would let you add Aspect of the Spider or save points / mana on gear

Ring:
Life
ManaDo NOT get Mana!
Resistances
% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
% increased Spell Damage
% increased Cast Speed
Adds # to # Lightning Damage against Shocked Enemies
% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments
+1 to Minimum Frenzy Charges

Unique Ring options:
Berek's Grip - Life Leech, ES Leech, Life, Damage, Minor Res.
Mark of the Shaper (if you have an Elder Ring as well)
Adds (13-18) to (50-56) Lightning Damage to Spells
(6-10)% increased maximum Energy Shield
(6-10)% increased maximum Life
(60-80)% increased Spell Damage if your other Ring is an Elder Item
Call of the Void - Chill Enemies, debuff their damage.
Winterweave - Chill yourself with various means and get Action Speed.

---

Super Duper Different Unique Items that Transform the Build Entirely:
1) The Annihilating Light - Deal Triple Damage with Elemental Skills! Reduces Elemental Resistances Massively, you may need to run Purity of Elements, but it's a great end-game option. High gear cost to make it work with Suppression and/or EB, but doable.
2) Crystallised Omniscience - Transforms your gearing and tree into stacking Attributes, win the game if you have enough. Expensive is an understatement.
3) Doryani's Prototype - Get -200% Lightning Resistance (easy with Lake of Kalandra rings) and it applies to enemies. You'll need decent Armour and other ways to survive the downside (Legion Jewel / Talismans can help).

***Those are just guidelines! Check PoB/Discord for what's best for your gear and plans.***

6L Lightning Conduit:
Lightning Conduit
Increased Critical Strikes
Increased Critical Damage
Lightning Penetration
Energy Leech (or one of the below)
Cruelty / Elemental Penetration / Added Lightning

6L Crackling Lance:
Crackling Lance
Intensify
Concentrated Effect
Increased Critical Strikes
Increased Critical Damage / Inspiration (if you don't have great mana sustain - before EB)
Lightning Penetration
Awakened Added Lightning Damage level 5 is also an option

Did you notice no Spell Echo? Good. You need big hits, not just DPS. Once you can Freeze with it, though? Do use it.

6L Arc:
(Vaal) Arc
Inspiration / Cruelty / Empower
Increased Critical Strikes
Increased Critical Damage
Lightning Penetration
Added Lightning / Spell Echo
Awakened Added Lightning Damage level 5 is also an option.



3L Auras:
Zealotry / Wrath
Determination
Skitterbots / Arctic Armor / Discipline / Herald of Thunder/Ice

3L Movement + Molten Shell:
Dash / Flame Dash
(Vaal) Molten Shell (10)
Cast When Damage Taken (1)

4L Divine Blessing:
Zealotry / Wrath
Divine Blessing
Inspiration
---
Conductivity

4L Orb of Storms:
Orb of Storms
Unbound Ailments (if Lightning Conduit)
Power Charge on Critical
Chain / Onslaught (bossing if you want)

(Best option instead of OoS if not using Conduit...
4L Galvanic Field
Galvanic Field
Power Charge on Critical
Lightning Penetration
XXX - Insert Damage Link you like)

4L Debuffs:
Arcanist Brand
Assassin's Mark
Hydrosphere / Wave of Conviction (if you have Flat Lightning on gear)
Power Charge on Crit / Culling Strike

4L Debuff Option 2:
Hydrosphere
Onslaught
Arcane Surge
Assassin's Mark

4L Debuff Option 3:
Arcanist Brand
Hydrosphere
Arcane Surge
Assassin's Mark

Trigger Socketed Spells, or Watcher's Eye mods of course change things...

3L Weapon:
Assassin's Mark
Hydrosphere
Onslaught / PCoC / Cold Snap (if using Algor Mortis)

Power Charges:
Assassin's Mark and/or Power Charge on Crit on Hydrosphere.

Frenzy Charges:
10% to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit (Redeemer Influence Rare Body Armour)
or
Legion Jewel (Elegant Hubris) with Eternal Fervour

Seriously, it's not rocket science.

Use Stormblast Mines / Spark / Lightning Tendrils until you can use Arc, or really any spell you like. It doesn't really matter, and you get Arc at level 12 anyhow. It's Arc from then.

Following that, in maps, transition to being a Crit build and start Freezing. There's just not a lot of point in it early.

Basically, Elemental Overload for 40% More Damage, and Non-Critical Lightning Damage is Lucky from a Mastery, that should carry you to maps.

Bandit: Help Alira!

Act 1 Start - Spark/Lightning Tendrils/Stormblast Mines + Orb of Storms, use links like Added Lightning
Cavern of Wrath => Talk to Nessa, get Arc.

You can use stuff like Orb of Storms / Skitterbots early, both are pointless later on.

Stolen directly from Enki's Arc Guide:
Craft two wands with this recipe: Magic-rarity Wand + Topaz Ring + Orb of Alteration
‣ If needed, the recipe for Topaz Rings is: Iron Ring + Green Skill Gem
‣ At level 14 = Craft two wands with this recipe: Magic-rarity Wand + Magic Topaz Ring + Orb of Alteration
‣ At level 20 = Craft two wands with this recipe: Magic-rarity Wand + Rare Topaz Ring + Orb of Alteration

If you need more help than this, watch Zizaran's tutorial to the game

So, first of all, relax. I've done this as solo-self-found (SSF) many times. You can get anything you need with 0 trade.

Let's talk priorities, shall we?

You don't need to Freeze anything until maps, there's just no real point. Any spell skill will carry you to maps just fine with trash you find on the ground and a basic bitch 4L.

Basically, craft two wands with this recipe: Magic-rarity Wand + Topaz Ring + Orb of Alteration
‣ If needed, the recipe for Topaz Rings is: Iron Ring + Green Skill Gem
‣ At level 14 = Craft two wands with this recipe: Magic-rarity Wand + Magic Topaz Ring + Orb of Alteration
‣ At level 20 = Craft two wands with this recipe: Magic-rarity Wand + Rare Topaz Ring + Orb of Alteration

...or just use rares from the ground like I generally do :D

Once you hit maps, you want to gradually swap to crit rather than non-crit once you have the gear, and start Freezing.

That means getting The Three Dragons, the Cold Mastery on the tree (Fingers of Frost + 60% Freeze Duration), and better and better gear.[/b]

Apex Mode should cost next to nothing, and is nice for harder boss fights. On SSF you need to do the Heist questlines to get it, it's 100% guaranteed, eventually.

Those should be more than enough to get you to red maps with just a Tabula and rares you pick up or buy for cheap. Again, Heist is the best way to get a Tabula, Trap Disarmament / Agility Contracts often drop that.

Leveling with Arc should be fine, though at some point you're likely to feel you need more DPS, and that's where Crackling Lance comes in, or Divine Ire.

I don't recommend wasting time on trading for rares while leveling unless you really feel stuck, but feel free if you enjoy that.

Agnerod West should be a very cheap mapping staff if you want one.

Yeah, I get it, you wanna go fast, Sonic.


Inpulsa's Broken Heart + Shock Proliferation (Gloves Implicit / Lightning Mastery)

Basically, exploding things on death is amazing. Shock Proliferation brings Inpulsa's explosions from "nice" to "wtf is going on" level.

It happens. Especially early before gear. Make sure you're running Clarity.

What can help a lot is getting Righteous Decree over at the Templar Area, and anointing Dreamer (cheap and effective) early.

Eventually, you should be able to out-gear both.

Also, Inspiration is a usable link.

And yes, some version will be using Eldritch Battery now.

42% Tree
26% Atziri's Step (8% Enchant optional, unreliable)
---
68%
+
10% Shield Craft (more with Eva / Eva+ES shield, but no impactful caster mods then) or Gloves with "Real" Suppression or a Body Armor Craft (without Inpulsa). I don't recommend Shields myself, unless you love Shield Charge.
+
6% Glove Craft (more on natural mods: 5-6 to 13-14)
+
15% Annoint (Inveterate - Black / Black / Golden) / 15% Annoint (Courage - Azure / Violet / Violet). Either one is good, Courage is a lot cheaper.
---
99%
+8% Enchant Boots (after)
+5-10% Spell Suppression (Gloves - Eater of World Implicit, best not to use that)

Yes! https://discord.gg/tNEmmPQfne