[3.20] The case for level 1 Stormbind - Occultist poison + other variants

It used to be used in conjunction with Voidbringers//mana stacking setups (not archmage, but similar). However since voidbringer's bizarre nerf (lets discuss this another day!), almost every mana cost ramping setup is unplayable - the only exception being indigon which is more of an endgame setup that has no progression towards (I've never played stormbind-Indigon so no further comment), and forces a comparison with generically every other indigon build.

Outside of Indigon, there are other approaches; using totems to lay the runes, however this leaves you on a 5 link, and still ~1.5 button build. Using base mana costs leaves you with a painfully slow build up, probably requiring something like 5 seconds to lay a field and pop every mob pack pretty much. Finally we are left with scaling purely cast speed and supporting mana stacking, clunky, but the only real way to play the skill outside of indigon - but is a clunky 2 button non-instant channeling skill x2 setup, and requires absurd amount of cast speed + mana, with mana especially not being in a good state currently (auras, Agnostic, recovery, defences, etc)

But what if we used a level 1 gem instead...?

Stormbind has interesting scaling: there is no benefit to levelling the gem in terms of; damage effectiveness, hits/ailments multiplier, area of effect... a level 1 and level 30 gem is identical except for mana cost and base lightning damage. Powering the runes has a higher mana cost as we level the gem... but if scaling mana is so rough, we could use a level 1 gem - to minimise the mana needed to power the runes and benefit from all the scaling that remains constant.

Furthermore this level 1 gem has very powerful scaling mechanics. It has high capacity for aoe overlap with 90% base aoe at full ramp + player aoe scaling: its possible to relatively easily get to a 9x9 grid , where all 9 runes hit the central target, this can go higher (15ish) with more scaling, but at relatively costly aoe investment. There is a hit/ailment multiplier of 300% more damage, which remains constant. In a world where we can discard the mana cost & cast speed investment, getting scaling into these effects will boost skyrocket the damage..

Do not have to scale mana, nor cast speed, beyond a fairly typical character (if you do not understand stormbind this is a huge deal)
minimise stand still channeling time RELATIVE TO level 20+ stormbind (excluding indigon setups and legacy voibringers). this is still a stand still channel build though.
extra overhead to invest in other elements - damage/defence/etc
Not forcing the obsolete archetype of mana stacking/mom/Arcane Surge / 1 aura etc
Better flexibility to do many things - non lightning damage, tri element, no unique requirements necessarily (providing you play inquis, even as poison possibly)
Easy to use divergent gem because you only want the 1/20.

Gem links specifically

6 link stormbind (damage link), level 1 active skill gem, supports high level as normal. (use divergent ideally)
4+ link runeblast level 21 ideally (higher would help, but only marginally, and not worth taking global +gem levels. Use regular superior gem)
Other gems/auras etc as usual

A level 1 gem x 3 improvements costs 15 mana total. A level 21 gem x 3 improvements costs 75 mana total. So its 1/5th the mana required. If you look at ~9+ runes, this same ratio becomes 135 vs 675 mana. The 675 requires a specialised character - no normal character has that mana lying around, and would take a lot of cast speed to dump out that much mana. 135 however is pretty much inline with what most characters have available, a touch high perhaps. Furthermore if, as a regular spellcaster, we scaled +gem levels this gets even higher, a level 26 for example would push it to 30 per, or 820 mana total. Furthermore as mentioned, scaling gem levels has zero benefits to other factors, like aoe of effectiveness - all it does is raise the base skill gem damage and increase the mana costs.

The mana cost required to charge the runes is based on the stormbind host's gem (i.e the damage gem), however there using a high level gem to power the runes is fine. So a level 20+ Runeblast (subskill of the stormbind gem), in a separate 4 link, can dump mana out depending on their cast speed, at a high rate because of the higher skill gem. For my ssf character (medium investment about 90% cast speed + faster casting [=140 total], this is ~370 mana/s, which in fact is higher than I need. If we needed to do 675+ mana though, I would need to channel for an extra second, and/or have much more scaling into cast speed and mana

So in summary we are comparing adding flat damage to level 1 and blasting runes - to the 5x slower (or same speed at much higher opportunity cost) blasting runes of a high level gem. Intuitively we should be able to see that at some level of added flat damage, the speed of a level 1 gem is going to outweigh a high level gem. As seen below, at around 130 flat added damage the level 1 gem becomes more effective, in terms of cast/detonate rune cycling over time.





This is assuming the 5x mana cost reduction to charge the runes correlates to a 5x increased cast/detonate cycle. While in some cases this is fair, in many other cases it is not - the difference will be corroded by various efficiencies and build optimisations. There are naturally other variables in play...

Indigon uses very different scaling and is not compared against.

As a rough guesstimate, a real number would be between 2-5x multiplier. The real question is, is the opportunity cost of scaling mana and cast speed justified vs the opportunity of utilising Battlemage setups & lvl 1 gem??. Honestly i think in a post voidbringer nerf and not using Indigon, the battlemage setup is superior (not to say its necessarily worth playing, but as a comparison).

Three options. Ignite, hits, and poison. First, can discard ignite, because the aoe overlap does not benefit ignites, and that is the majority of our scaling. Hits and poison is what my theorycraft points me towards.

Poison I am drawn to, because it solves 2 issues - firstly Plaguebearer + profane bloom offsets the the lack of clearing, and carries that aspect (especially if Occultist). However it requires that the added flat is phys/chaos, which is difficult to come by, especially as this setup really wants to be on Occultist (difficult to get battlemage). There is a strong case for Poison Inquis.

Hit based gives more flexibility, but trades on the clear speed (no plaguebearer + profane bloom). Added flat especially from battlemage weapons is much more cheaply accessible, i.e triple flat weapons vs single flat chaos, or expensive phys weapons.

other sources like added to spells, added damage gems, etc.

The obvious for poison is Echoforge, giving a ton of flat chaos, combining with battlemage for poison, then combined with the Cadigan's Crown, or played on Inquis

Disintegrator for Occultist poison is BIS (surely!). This is not that much worse than Echoforge, and provides the battlemage inbuilt. furthermore with some elder rings/amulet, gives goo damage for extra chaos. Staff + aoe scaling has some natural synergy too. Black Cane is an interesting option + spiritual aid

Also possibly a rare item (for poison), using the temple mod, or similar, would be good mid-budget option (2-10 div). for example. a regular chaos damage/chaos dot/cast speed is also good. Some cast speed, i.e profane wand, is nice, but you don't need that much.

Voltaxic Rift is great, need battlemage from another source again. Very similar but can run a quiver, another contender for BIS

Various other flat sources, again battlemage. One way or another, I think battlemage will be the best setup due to how desperately this setup needs base damage (it gears more like an attack build in that sense).

Playing Inquisitor provides a ton of flexibility, as can use the battlemage with anything. This lets you do so many options - pure phys (crit impale), trinity, pure elemental (i.e phys> cold convert with hatred scaling), even Energy Blade and doing lightning again despite discarding the base gem levels and using that alternative source, pretty whack (i'm thinking of rolling this next league ! :))

Occultist in comparison (or assassin/etc) is much more limited options, because using only specific battlemage options or med-high budget rares.

Something like: (its flexible not prescriptive. This is geared towards poison, but you could do any element, i.e trinity battlemage inquis, pure phys, pure cold, etc etc)

Farm temple for Apeps shield, and/or Tacati incursion mod weapon (chaos to spells, cast speed). These both drop from t3 toxic grove rooms - so theres a good chance you get 1 or both. Can be done in white maps.

From there, you can keep fishing for a better base - a profane would be ideal. Getting the vial to upgrade the Apeps shield would be great, but is an excessive grind and not worth it.

When you have Tacati bases you are happy with - isolate that suffix (so only suffix is Tacati) using annuls - this may take 1 or two depending on your luck. Prefixes don't matter.

Then spend 4 div on Multimod + chaos damage over time multiplier (suffix) + a prefix of chaos damage/skill effect duration. You could spend many more divines (~4-8ish) to unveil this chaos damage prefix and you would craft mana or something instead, but this is a small upgrade, and likely better spend divs elsewhere. Super endgame should use a battlemage option almost certainly.

From there upgrade rest of gear, as per direction you want to take it. Notable key pieces

- 4 link gloves with Essence of Hysteria (more cast speed). Getting good implicits i.e poison chance saves passive points.
- If doing disintegrator, crafting elder rings, amulet, belt would be ideal. You don't need to use any elder mods necessarily.
- body armour is flexible - Carcass Jack, lightning coil, Brass dome etc. Skin of the Lords, Dendrobate i do not recommend, as these are about scaling gem levels that you do not need. Dendrobate level 10 poison chance has almost zero added flat, and you have plenty of poison chance from other sources, especially cluster jewel Septic Spells when you can get them
- At least 1 set of cluster jewels - 1 chaos large, and 2x chaos dot mediums. These are included in the endgame POB as a rough outline. These mainly serve to increase your generic chaos damage (also effecting profane bloom, plague bearer + main damage), and give good secondary stats like %mana, cast speed, poison chance - allowing to drop those sources from the tree and gear.
towards endgame drop the Apeps shield for a 2 hander like disintegrator or something else.

PROS

You are playing stormbind (not a skill for everyone, user beware!!)
Incredibly flexible - can do any element type/combo you want
Enjoyable least clunky version of Stormbind
flexibility = allows you to use meta broken combos i.e currently plaguebearer. If phys spells next league are broken, can switch no problem
Interesting and satisfying progression curve, very fresh and unique
Maximum hipster points (hipster take on a hipster skill, its a multiplier)
Opportunity to scale aoe very high for feels good that also boosts damage
ability to focus damage on single target, doesn't just fall off a cliff
Can use a 1/20 quality divergent very easily, as don't care about 21/20 like most builds.

CONS

You are playing stormbind (not a skill for everyone, user beware!!)
slow and uncompetitive progression curve
not meta, maybe lacking a determination or suppression buffer etc
Can't use diadem (haven't tested this but i assume it needs to spend mana specifically)
not hc recommended
unclear numbers (if you are a stickler for the details, you will get very bogged down)
Atrocious levelling (if you must play it, at least wait for around act 5 or 6 when you get 4+ links and some decent added damage, poison chance, etc). Ofc level with meta and switch later is recommended option.

This build is super fun, I'm such a fan of it. Firstly i've tried maybe 3x stormbind builds, and all of them i've quit in around the 80s, I don't mind the weirdness and badness oif them, but they've never clicked with me. This one I want to play more, and league start either next league or the events depending where they are.

It has a really interesting (SLOW AF) progression curve, that I've never really felt elsewhere. You go from 100 added flat to 150, and your damage goes through the roof relatively. Having such good aspiration scaling options feels really good, like eventually i could get a disintegrator etc, and my damage would quadruple or something. but also without that stuff it still does t16s relatively cleanly, which gives you a lot of confidence in your ability to scale towards those stretch goals.

High castspeed builds just always feel really nice, and this makes use of it really well. Finally being able to juice AOE scaling, effecting profane bloom, plague bearer, your main skill overlap, and void sphere makes for such a satisfying mapper.

There is a ton of 'skill expression' with profane bloom, void sphere and plague bearer. This is what makes it really replyable. Moving small mobs onto a rare, or Unique, and pops them all with the on death effects is a subtle thing that makes you multiply your clear speed by so much. Only having to do stormbind for half a map and using plaguebearer for all the bullshit - proxy shields, random spawns, breachlord etc - makes it so much more pleasant as you have options and a toolkit available and not just a sitting duck when the difficulty ramps up suddenly.

This sort of still expression/gameplay loop is what I really look for in poe builds - there's so many that are just spam this button and run around and hope. This has a really high cap, that makes it engaging and replayable. But then having a lot of 'relaxed clear' with the PB+PB (profane bloom + plague bearer, how has anyone missed this weird coincidence lol) that you don't need to be 100% effort all the time, makes it more long term relaxing/playable etc.

I've set the configs up, to be pretty much accurate (obviously wither and etc will vary, but i've erred on the side of underrepresenting damage.) Some setups include Punishment, so as enemy goes below half the damage goes up substantially. Also Plague Bearer does a lot.

These are more just to show a couple key uniques, and basic tree outline. They are not optimised nor highly detailed. Skills/curses/auras are optional extras and not prescriptive

To ballpark DPS

Look at Stormbind, 3 improvements (make sure using the right gem as 2x stormbind links)
Look at Poison DPS
multiply that number by 9 (this is equivalent of 1 full channel, fully charged, and released with 9x overlap
Optionally consider that number to ramp to about 1.5x, because of recasting for tough opponents (poison ramping + temp chains). Depending how much you can stand and cast.
This will be pretty innacurate though -
9 overlaps can vary wildly, I suspect with some aoe you can do a lot more, and obviously depending on positioning can do a lot less
Cast speed/mana balance will vary a lot, but roughly is about 2 seconds/cycle
Most contexts the target will either die quicker, or not stand around letting you freely cast.
targets that move out of your casts will not take full damage.

Live character (SSFSC, 'proof run', fresh start. NOT OPTIMISED ) // https://pastebin.com/jA3PGG0V

Endgame trade setup, only rough outline. This is just plugging in a bunch of ideas - a battlemage weapon (Echoforge or disintegrator) is going to be pretty much BIS. OPTIONALLY Badge + power charge stacking + Maven belt is an idea, and should get to around 15 overlaps instead of the 9, can go higher. Otherwise its more of a blank slate POB //// https://pastebin.com/UrtrX3Vh
Reference for aoe overlap in comments... can't confirm accuracy, but is probably about right. Could 'easily' test it with golden rule, low damage and seeing how many poison stacks you get.

Inquis naturally gets battlemage, far more flexible especially in ssf

Occultist gets to use plague bearer + profane bloom really, really effective. For a skill that needs help to clear this is really nice.

Other ascendancies can use unique package for battlemage - the hat + weapon, or Disintegrator etc. There is a case to be made for pretty much anything. Standout is PF, Champ to provide defences, and other options like trickster, chieftain, elementalist etc that offer benefits if you want to go that route.

Ultimately theres no right answer - but I would recommend Occ or Inquis as default.

Honestly, its fundamentally going to be lacking. You have to stand still and channel, twice, to do content. This is jsut a fundamental issue that makes it less defensive than any other setup.

Beyond that tough you can plug in whatever you want. I will say block, max res and etc setups are unlikely, because you likely want to use a 2hander, a quiver, etc, at some point.

Defences that could work is flagellants flasks (Pathfinder), regen hybrid EHP (inquis), Blasphemy temp chains (occultist) and etc. Ultimately i've left it pretty blank because its a matter of personal preference.

https://youtu.be/IwMtqNnKouU

3 minute partial map + conqueror kill.

This is a low investment, fresh start SSF. Pretty much just a 6link + life/res gear, everything self farmed on that build. Think of it as a proof of concept rather than a wow this build is great. Same character as the SSF pob