ELE LIGHTNING STRIKE - ALL T16s, Shaper, Uber Atziri, HOGM, Chayula, Elder

Planned Updates Coming to Guide:
- Mana leech suggestions: Thief's Torment unique ring (http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Thief%27s_Torment). Credits
- Wanderlust shoes, Fairgraves Tricorne helm
- Magic find and boss runs
- Flasks - including new Jade flask
- Build alternatives: Wings of Entropy, Scion (credits), Daresso's Defiance - Dodge build, [Low-life]
- New level 88 stats
- Update to gear prices

Thanks, Ceryneian. Swap to using Vaal pact with 20/20 LL. It's working fine now.

Here is the latest tree for using "Wing of Entropy", if someone wanna try, it might be a good place to start.

DPS: 15.5K (20K after Hatred) - Dual Strike
EV: 4.5k (9.1k after Grace ; grab a granite flask with 95%+ increase evasion and boost up to 13k eva)
HP: 3k
Mana: 710

Basically, mana issue is very minimal even doing no mana regen map.

Level 87



Btw, you can buy Tabula for gem leveling.

"

The above constraints may be tricky to solve, and so I recommend staying with the Atziri Mirror + Rainbowstride combo.

just read this in item & gear
did you meant?? :

with the Stone of LazWar + Rainbowstride combo


and please Let us know once u updated i cant wait xD


and a question on the side,
how can you run tempest shield, hatred, grace all at the same time and having enought mana to cast your skill? you dont use bloodmagic?


also:
since teh cast on damage taken as been modified is it worth putting enfeeble on it ? or should we manually cast it?, and what about enduring cry? should we put it on Cast on dmg taken? or spam it mannualy?

Hello once again Ceryneian!

(DISCLAIMER! Long post with barely any fancy bolds, underlines or italicizing - read at your own risk.. or something like that)

I've returned to post after a week's hiatus only to inform you that the low-life variant is pretty much impossible to run, as far as my own tweaks go.

I've tried both the low-life/ES version and the low-life without ES version too. I would like to take this moment to mention that my thought process behind the second version was to have a high amount of hp so that even after reduction I would have around 1k health on low-life (I'm not insane I swear). I've had more success on the second version than the first especially when leveling. Leveling as low-life/ES is just rubbish as expected. Anything would kill me - Dominus would just look at me and I'd fall over. The strictly low-life version was much better during the leveling process but upon hitting level 64 I ran into aura issues which led me to just stop trying the low-life variant.

The multiplier from the Blood Magic gem just impedes this variant from ever working even with Reduced Mana. Granted, maybe it's just my gem/aura setup along with my tree that's causing issues but it's as optimized as I could personally take it. I'll post everything I've planned in a document below if you were curious behind it all.



I'd like to explain some of my though process behind my decisions.

Let's begin with my item choices that would help support my other choices. The new chest looks really powerful and it's not just a matter of "Oh it's a new item I better use it" but more along the lines of "This new chest helps to balance the downsides that would've been prevalent if I don't use this" - the armor base just compliments the low-life variant without ES with all of its mods especially the "Onslaught" mod. Next up would be The Blood Dancers which I initially disregarded because of the ES version using Vaal Pact which would've made the regen mod completely non-existent however in the strictly low-life version it helps to balance the chaos degen from using Blood Rage especially when 6-7 Frenzy charges are up. Both of the mentioned items really go well with The Anvil which I've chosen to be the best amulet for this version/variant. Everything about this amulet just works with low-life and the best part is the 10% physical block mod. With this, I could drop many points from the tree to allocate elsewhere whilst still retaining the 65% physical block required to make Daresso's Courage work. You're probably completely against the amulet because of the "downsides" it proposes with the reduced speed all over it. However don't forget, we have 6-7 Frenzy charges, Blood Rage on low-life and the "Onslaught" buff from Daresso's Defiance. The other uniques should be self-explanatory for this version.

The tree should be relatively easy to understand with the routes, being that I'm trying to obtain as many life nodes as possible to have a healthy base, as mentioned prior, following auras ran.

You'll notice that with the resists section that I haven't even factored in a helm at all because that's still undecided. I'm still debating between Alpha's Howl, Rat's Nest or a rare helm. I didn't want to pick Alpha's Howl because of the already over capped cold resistance we have but the other mods are really invaluable. Rat's Nest is there if you have everything else covered which would be nearly impossible (like this variant!).

You weren't kidding when you said that you were struggling to have enough damage whilst retaining the defensive stats required to survive. The auras portion is what broke me upon testing and like I said what caused me to currently retire 2-3 characters altogether from testing. No matter what combination I tried for the aura setup, I couldn't run this version successfully. Even if I factor out Tempest Shield and sink points into 4% block on the tree, I'm still having issues because of what the Blood Magic gem does to costs. I can't even run Tempest Shield and Clarity on life and they cost the least out of all the auras I want to run!

Maybe the only possibility of a low-life build would be the Spectral Throw version you mentioned but that barely retains the initial feel and flavor of this build which was to be melee. If you're curious, yes I did have a look at Laz's CI Crit Physical Dagger Spectral Throw/Double Strike Build (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/626834) and while it looks promising, it's not low-life and the cost of that build is just out of the question.

If I've missed anything that's still uncertain I'd be glad to give all I can in hopes that someone else could make this variant work. I may have given up on the low-life variant build, but I'll be sticking around to try and optimize the original variant to my liking and posting those results.

It was a fun process though Ceryneian to try and make this work - it's probably the most fun I've had in this game so far and it was all because of you. So while this variant may be put to rest, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the enjoyment this thread has provided me.

So with that said,

Thank you Ceryneian!

"

OnlyInferior wrote:

Hello once again Ceryneian!

(DISCLAIMER! Long post with barely any fancy bolds, underlines or italicizing - read at your own risk.. or something like that)

I've returned to post after a week's hiatus only to inform you that the low-life variant is pretty much impossible to run, as far as my own tweaks go.

Spoiler

I've tried both the low-life/ES version and the low-life without ES version too. I would like to take this moment to mention that my thought process behind the second version was to have a high amount of hp so that even after reduction I would have around 1k health on low-life (I'm not insane I swear). I've had more success on the second version than the first especially when leveling. Leveling as low-life/ES is just rubbish as expected. Anything would kill me - Dominus would just look at me and I'd fall over. The strictly low-life version was much better during the leveling process but upon hitting level 64 I ran into aura issues which led me to just stop trying the low-life variant.

The multiplier from the Blood Magic gem just impedes this variant from ever working even with Reduced Mana. Granted, maybe it's just my gem/aura setup along with my tree that's causing issues but it's as optimized as I could personally take it. I'll post everything I've planned in a document below if you were curious behind it all.

Spoiler

LINKS

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgABvrz0xkUKNdYxnrM_T1aQEYqvSsg_JypNFSAs6crTGbRqk9XtwA_STb6nbmmE2WVNR36rxb2BmSu2QUMxG8heE8OG55Gsr90N_MVW-n8r1opnoId2Sn3uDhrb18u30z3i-WMwfFFHjb8FtdQj3ajGojBxS3g6QusU6NabJjIBshnPerb3ES-Ia-OEDkgRlnC72RMvbxzc8Xa1SG17VUsmlYw2hO907XrvYEsFLb3mPs9aGthNpcs2PVBCFfA6WAR-hxkM8oLkOBuRz3_GpzSiLkCgnrlbPSP27_BaSA==

http://pathofpoe.com/builds/passive-calculator/share/AAAAAgABvrz0xkUKNdYxnrM_T1aQEYqvSsg_JypNFSAs6crTGbRqk9XtwA_STb6nbmmE2WVNR36rxb2BmSu2QUMxG8heE8OG55Gsr90N_MVW-n8r1opnoId2Sn3uDhrb18u30z3i-WMwfFFHjb8FtdQj3ajGojBxS3g6QusU6NabJjIBshnPerb3ES-Ia-OEDkgRlnC72RMvbxzc8Xa1SG17VUsmlYw2hO907XrvYEsFLb3mPs9aGthNpcs2PVBCFfA6WAR-hxkM8oLkOBuRz3_GpzSiLkCgnrlbPSP27_BaSA==/


Sockets

21 sockets - 6, 4, 4, 4, 3

6 used on chest(Daresso's DefianceRRRRGX) - Blind(G), Infernal Blow(R), Multistrike(R), Melee Splash(R), Life Gained on Hit(R), Mana Leech(G)/Added Chaos Damage(B)/Melee Physical Damage(R)/Culling Strike(G)/Item Rarity(B)

3 used on shield(Daresso's Courage RRR) - Cast When Damage Taken(R), Enduring Cry(R), Immortal Cry(R)

4 used on boots(The Blood Dancers RRGB) - Reduced Mana(R), Blood Magic(R), Grace(G), Purity of Elements(B)

4 used on helm(?XXXX) - Enfeeble(B), Hatred(G), Tempest Shield(B), Clarity(B)?

4 used on gloves(Facebreaker BBRG) - Cast When Stunned(B), Molten Shell(R), Ice Nova(B), Temporal Chains(G)

Amulet - The Anvil
Ring 1 - Lori's Lantern
Ring 2 - Rare Ring
Belt - Meginord's Girdle


Socket Colours Req:

Green - 4+
Red - 10+
Blue - 6+


Auras (Assuming maxed reduced mana support gem)

Green - Grace(60% -> 42.6% Reserved), Hatred(60% -> 42.6% Reserved)
Red - N/A
Blue - Clarity(Scaling Reserved), Purity of Elements(40% -> 28.4% Reserved), Tempest Shield(25% -> 17.75% Reserved)


Block Info (Requires minimum of 65% physical block)

Daresso's Courage - 31%-32% physical block, 120% spell block
The Anvil - 10% physical block, 3% max block
Passive Tree - 20% physical block
Tempest Shield - 4% physical block


Resists Info (Requires 75%)

Fire - 18(Fire Resistance), 10(Sentinel), 12(Diamond Flesh), 6(Elemental Resistance), 6(Elemental Resistance), 8(Nullification), 27(Purity of Elements), 20(Lori's Lantern), 20(Daresso's Courage), 12(Rare Ring) = 139-60=79

Cold - 18(Cold Resistance), 10(Sentinel), 12(Diamond Flesh), 6(Elemental Resistance), 6(Elemental Resistance), 8(Nullification), 27(Purity of Elements), 20(Lori's Lantern), 17(Daresso's Courage), 14(Rare Ring), 10(Meginord's Girdle) = 148-60=88

Light - 18(Lightning Resistance), 10(Sentinel), 12(Diamond Flesh), 6(Elemental Resistance), 6(Elemental Resistance), 8(Nullification), 27(Purity of Elements), 20(Lori's Lantern), 12(Rare Ring), 15(Lightning Resistance) = 134-60=74

Chaos - 16(Clear Mind), 25(Lori's Lantern) = 41-60 = -19


Item Info

Daresso's Defiance - Chest (Need to buy)
(160 to 200)% increased Armour and Evasion
+(40 to 60) to maximum Life
(2 to 3)% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Life
6% Chance to Dodge all enemy Attacks
You lose all Endurance Charges when Hit
You gain an Endurance Charge on Kill
You gain Onslaught for 1 second per Endurance Charge when Hit


Daresso's Courage - Shield (Currently Owned)

120% increased Block Recovery
20% increased Physical Damage
(100 to 120)% increased Armour and Evasion
+(10 to 20)% to Fire Resistance
+(10 to 20)% to Cold Resistance
+(10 to 20)% to Lightning Resistance
120% of Block Chance applied to Spells when on Low Life
(3 to 6)% additional Block Chance


The Blood Dancers - Boots (Currently Owned)

+(30 to 40) to Dexterity
20% increased Movement Speed
2% increased Movement Speed per Frenzy Charge
3% reduced Attack and Cast Speed per Frenzy Charge
1.0% of Life Regenerated per Second per Frenzy Charge
(20 to 30)% Chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill
Gore Footprints
6% increased Damage against Enemies on Low Life per Frenzy Charge


Facebreaker - Gloves (Need to upgrade)

60% increased Global Critical Strike Multiplier
10% reduced Enemy Stun Threshold
(600 to 800)% more Unarmed Physical Damage
Extra Gore


The Anvil - Amulet (Currently Owned)

+(20 to 30) to Strength
10% reduced Attack Speed
10% reduced Cast Speed
+(400 to 500) to Armour
+(30 to 40) Life gained when you Block
+(15 to 20) Mana gained when you Block
20% reduced Movement Speed
+3% to maximum Block Chance
10% Block Chance
Reflects 200–250 Physical Damage to Attackers on Block


Lori's Lantern - Ring 1 (Currently Owned and yes, that is indeed a perfect Lori's Lantern being retired)

(8 to 10)% to all Elemental Resistances
10% to all Elemental Resistances
(6 to 8)% increased Movement Speed when on Low Life
31% increased Light Radius
+(20 to 25)% Chaos Resistance when on Low Life
While on Low Life, Enemies are Unlucky when Damaging you


Random Rare Ring - Ring 2 (currently Owned)

This could've had higher resists and you're right because I could've used something like:

or

or maybe even

and something like

but I need the physical damage roll which those don't have.


Meginord's Girdle - Belt (Currently Owned)

+(25 to 35) to Strength
Adds 10–20 Physical Damage
+25 to Strength
10% increased maximum Life
+(10 to 20)% to Cold Resistance
25% increased Flask Life recovery rate

I'd like to explain some of my though process behind my decisions.

Let's begin with my item choices that would help support my other choices. The new chest looks really powerful and it's not just a matter of "Oh it's a new item I better use it" but more along the lines of "This new chest helps to balance the downsides that would've been prevalent if I don't use this" - the armor base just compliments the low-life variant without ES with all of its mods especially the "Onslaught" mod. Next up would be The Blood Dancers which I initially disregarded because of the ES version using Vaal Pact which would've made the regen mod completely non-existent however in the strictly low-life version it helps to balance the chaos degen from using Blood Rage especially when 6-7 Frenzy charges are up. Both of the mentioned items really go well with The Anvil which I've chosen to be the best amulet for this version/variant. Everything about this amulet just works with low-life and the best part is the 10% physical block mod. With this, I could drop many points from the tree to allocate elsewhere whilst still retaining the 65% physical block required to make Daresso's Courage work. You're probably completely against the amulet because of the "downsides" it proposes with the reduced speed all over it. However don't forget, we have 6-7 Frenzy charges, Blood Rage on low-life and the "Onslaught" buff from Daresso's Defiance. The other uniques should be self-explanatory for this version.

The tree should be relatively easy to understand with the routes, being that I'm trying to obtain as many life nodes as possible to have a healthy base, as mentioned prior, following auras ran.

You'll notice that with the resists section that I haven't even factored in a helm at all because that's still undecided. I'm still debating between Alpha's Howl, Rat's Nest or a rare helm. I didn't want to pick Alpha's Howl because of the already over capped cold resistance we have but the other mods are really invaluable. Rat's Nest is there if you have everything else covered which would be nearly impossible (like this variant!).

You weren't kidding when you said that you were struggling to have enough damage whilst retaining the defensive stats required to survive. The auras portion is what broke me upon testing and like I said what caused me to currently retire 2-3 characters altogether from testing. No matter what combination I tried for the aura setup, I couldn't run this version successfully. Even if I factor out Tempest Shield and sink points into 4% block on the tree, I'm still having issues because of what the Blood Magic gem does to costs. I can't even run Tempest Shield and Clarity on life and they cost the least out of all the auras I want to run!

Maybe the only possibility of a low-life build would be the Spectral Throw version you mentioned but that barely retains the initial feel and flavor of this build which was to be melee. If you're curious, yes I did have a look at Laz's CI Crit Physical Dagger Spectral Throw/Double Strike Build (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/626834) and while it looks promising, it's not low-life and the cost of that build is just out of the question.

If I've missed anything that's still uncertain I'd be glad to give all I can in hopes that someone else could make this variant work. I may have given up on the low-life variant build, but I'll be sticking around to try and optimize the original variant to my liking and posting those results.

It was a fun process though Ceryneian to try and make this work - it's probably the most fun I've had in this game so far and it was all because of you. So while this variant may be put to rest, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the enjoyment this thread has provided me.

So with that said,

Thank you Ceryneian!

Hi Only, thanks so much for the post! Really enjoyed reading it and following your findings.

I completely 100% agree with you - the game is not really set up at the moment to make an Energy Shield / Evasion build that incorporates Block. We would need to force a lot of things together and we would be left with an unoptimized build with either very low damage or low defenses (i.e. very low spell block) - that is the major hurdle and is what stops us from even getting to a low-life build.

Evasion + Energy Shield by itself is weak and we cannot incorporate Dodge with such a build, because Dodge results in 50% less ES. The really strong EV+ES builds are the crit-based builds with Vaal Pact. Spectral Throw with crit is one such build as you mention and I would argue it is the strongest build in the game because it has the best kiting ability leading to high damage avoidance while still outputting extremely high DPS.

Without going for a Vaal Pact crit-based build, the only other way to make a powerful Evasion/ES build with survivability is with block, but as we have found it is nearly impossible to make a such a build without a game changing EV/ES unique.

If you examine the end game Blocking items below you can see that none of them are really meant for pure evasion users which helps explain why it is easier to make an Armor/Block character (and with ES) than it is to make Evasion/Block character:
- Anvil = Armor + Block Chance + Inc. Max Block
- Aegis Aurora = Armor + Energy Shield + Block
- Bringer of Rain = Armor + Evasion + Block + Blind

Gear pieces with Armor + Evasion items are really designed for armor Iron Reflexes builds. And this really shortchanges Evasion users because there is no node we can use to convert Armor we don't need into Evasion, so those armor mods are wasted on us. The same for Jade and Granite flasks combination with Iron Reflexes. At least Bringer of Rain is more applicable to Evasion users because we benefit the most from Blind, but it is still not optimal for an Evasion build.

Even if we managed to incorporate these items, with Energy Shield it would be very hard to get any damage on the tree and we would have to use Facebreakers (and use Abyssus to get good damage - which again is an armor-based helm) or use Ethereal Knives but as you mentioned this defeats the purpose of making a melee build.

This is before we even get to the chest coloring and an ES chest or EV/ES hybrid chest is extremely unlikely to roll enough Reds that we need for these key melee gems: Melee Splash, Multistrike,Life Leech, Melee Physical Damage. Whereas an Armor/ES chest can easily roll these reds.

I do not intend for this to be a complaint post - just my observations on the metagame after reading your findings and combined with my own attempts to make an EV/ES block melee character. I'm not saying that such a build is impossible - just, as you mentioned, it will never really be a powerful build and will be stuck with 1-2 of the following: low damage/low block/low ES/low evasion.

I'm a bit sad with this as well because I really wanted to make a low-life or at least an ES-variant of this build. But it also makes me appreciate this Tiurakh build even more because I realize how hard it is to recreate this build with evasion, near max block and maxed spell block while still getting good life/ES and damage.

why dont we get teh diamond skin and vaal pact node too?

we do not have a lot of life regen and lifesteal would be way better then lGoH6 with Vall pact right?

"

xenochaos1 wrote:

why dont we get teh diamond skin and vaal pact node too?

we do not have a lot of life regen and lifesteal would be way better then lGoH6 with Vall pact right?

You can get Diamond skin if it helps with your resistances. Downside with Vaal Pact is that you cannot regen any life from flasks, only a big deal against bosses where you need help from flasks - but otherwise up to your preference.

Great guide! I'm currently working on act 3 merciless (level 62) and I found this axe. Will it work well for end game or do I need to save up to buy a better one? I'm currently trying to save up for Bringer of Rain.

Having a blast leveling with this build. Not sure if this is a bug with the weapon or APS but I have been using a mightflay and suffered desync every mob, I changed to a faster attack weapon and the desync vanished. Everything remained the same, my ping and fps is the same. Just worth mentioning if anyone else runs into the same issue.

"

Darkith1546 wrote:

Great guide! I'm currently working on act 3 merciless (level 62) and I found this axe. Will it work well for end game or do I need to save up to buy a better one? I'm currently trying to save up for Bringer of Rain.

Hey! That axe gives 300 dps I believe, it is strong. Bringer of Rain should be your priority.