HLD low life caster - Dragoje

don't u like having 30% more dmg gained from Pain Attunement, and having 4 auras without needing to invest in to aura nodes? The relatively big con here lies in the time one needs to cast these auras since you can be easily rushed. The solution is not easy - dependent on arena you will need to cast one aura, relocate, cast 2nd and so on till you are ready to fight.

In my opinion Low life caster is right there at the top of the HLD food chain, surpassed only by top EA and some crit bow specs. One can argue non crit whispering is there too, I did not play against them enough to say for sure. Anyway I feel I am evenly matched to all apart the highest of dmg 2-3 EAs currently playing. I may lose some duels vs others but its usually caused by sloppy movement, bad flask usage, general unluck etc.

the amount of damage one can deal per second can not be matched by non crit builds. The big con here is that there are numerous ways of reducing crit dmg but on the other side few people use them and even if they do I feel you will still deal more dmg then if you speced in to non crit.

1. With the introduction of jewels, I feel as if maximizing jewel slots and filling them with top 4 mod jewels is way better than taking a notable here and there. So this is one of my concerns.
2. I feel that just having one layer of defense no matter how big it is (like huge ES pool) is simply not good practice hence I invest in to block. The current EA meta disapproves me since block has no business vs EA but I still like to stack it if the nodes are close by. I also like having ES regen hence why I take Zealots Oath, it helps a lot vs dot builds.
3. I don't like getting stunned and I don't like using auto cast spells via CWS since I feel it defeats the whole purpose of PVP, we might as well watch Bot vs Bot the way things are evolving so I take Unwavering stance, the con is its really far from the tree but the pro here is there are some nice regen and block nodes near by.


basic tree

This is the tree structure utilized by all my low life builds. From this basic structure, you can develop more crit, cast speed, dual curse, more ES, area nodes relatively easy.

Lats say you need more ES and cast speed?
tree

that's 18% speed, and if you slap Energy from within unique jewel near the melding cluster an additional 40% increased ES (without tte 12% from the mentioned jewel), and an additional 10% MS.

It relatively easy to get more life regen by taking combat stamina notable

or area nodes

or dual curse


EE is one point away

Well you get my drift... the tree is quite flexible

However, to be able to compete with other low life trees one needs to invest in jewels which should really have 4 beneficial mods on them - 4 dps or 3 dps + %ES. This can be costly but on the other hand one can obtain a general spell caster jewel that has beneficial mods for all spells. Than you can try different spells with minimal tweaking of the tree.
Example of such a jewel:

As you probably already found out to compete in HLD you really need top of the line gear, on the other hand self cast casters are not really that popular now so if you want such gear now is the time to buy. Shavs is at an all time low (talking about legacy too, but I wouldn't advise getting legacy at first. Rather upgrade that last when you are satisfied with the rest of your setup since the extra 100-150 ex spent on it will hardly be justified by 300-400 additional es in total)

1. weapon: I advise getting a dagger, you will lose the benefit of cast speed that is accessible to wands as well as projectile speed, but you will gain additional crit and a lot more mobility via whirling blades since lightning warp is hardly usable now. For the current build the best dagger base would be the Sai dagger because of the whooping 6% block chance implicit, which, in the current tree state is simply insane. If you can't get a good Sai then go for Kris because of the high implicit crit chance. The slow bese attack speed of Kris should not trouble you, since its not taken in to consideration for whirling blades which has its own base attack speed that can be increased only by nodes and gear affixes but is not affected by weapon base speed.
On this dagger you should really go for the following mods: at least
50% spell damage
80% crit chance
25% crit multi
a free prefix to craft block reduction is nice but not mandatory.
For reference my dagger is


the extra dex prevents me from multimoding it for spell dmg and block reduction but since dex is lacking in the build anyway I find it great on the dagger. As you can see from links, you gain the advantage of fortify in some circumstances too.

2. shield: the BiS shield for this build is Plague Weaver titanium spirit shield.


You want those stats on your shield, lesser values are ok too. Anything with 400 es+ with decent crit chance and spell damage is ok.

another good option for the not so wealthy is the rathpit globe since it gives you spell block so you can free you amulet slot.

I use


Even tho i has slightly worse stats than the BiS shield, I prefer the ability to change colors, since PvP is all about trying different setups.

3. amulet: legacy dual crit amulet with added ES and increased ES as well as cast speed and spell dmg is what is BiS.
I use


but there is really no need for such expensive stuff, one can just buy a bad legacy multi amulet and use the master meta crafting to remove the bad mods and craft it to something really nice. If not using rathpit, vs casters using a Stone of lazwhar is preferable. One of the following corruptions wont hurt either
.

4. gloves: I prefer using maligaros of the legacy kind over high es gloves, but this is up to preference. Investing in to more ES on the tree and using maligaros or investing in to dps on tree and using some 250 es+ rare gloves evens out in my opinion. Maligaros do have an advantage because its easier to get favorable corruptions on them, like curse on hit, and they do have additional dex to releave the rest of your gear or to save you some points. If you can sustain the mana voidbringer should be considered too.

5. boots: I use 25% block rainbow strides preferably to some high es boots, if you are rich get high es boots and use them vs all but casters. The additional pro for the strides is you can get favorable corruptions like +1 gem which will allow you for more reserved mana reduction via enlighten gaining one lvl. Or for can not be knocked back, which can be great in rare situations.
I use:


6. chest - shav. Nothing to say here that I did not already. If filthy rich proceed to get a +1 shav.

7. rings - there are some really good unique rings that should be considered
-dream fragments - the biggest weakness of low life caster is well... the low life, you'll get freezed quite easy and often. If you are not using it as main setup you need to have it in inventory always. The additional mana and mana regen are great also.
-lori's lantern - good res, move speed, chaos res, and unlucky hits make Lori one of the best cheap rings for this build to consider.
-ming's heart - not for regular use but vs poison arrow is a life saver, if you are playing EK then the additional dps boost is not to be disrespected either.
-rare diamond ring with ES, cast speed, %ES, resistances that you lack and mana regen. You can craft your own for a few ex with the desired mods. I use often.


cheap unique rings have the advantage of relatively cheap corrupts like:


8. head, at least a 400 es, int, dual res helmet.
I use:

9. belt. One of the best belts you can use as an ES base character is in fact a 1 chaos belt:
.
It will give you more ES than any rare belt because of the int roll, the faster ES regen is a blessing, and the dmg is just a cherry on top of a cake. However one big con this belt has is the lack of resistances, which are really hard to come by if using similar to the BiS shield I linked, maligaros and the lapis amulet. So perhaps it is worthwhile experimenting with rare gloves and this belt. Furthermore if you choose this path you will be able to switch freely to
Belt of the Deceiver vs nasty crit builds.

currently I use:

I advise using discipline and clarity on life, the lvl of clarity being the thing to tweak based on your enlighten lvl and if you put them in a +1 item (be careful not to go bellow 10% life reserved :)). This will allow you to cast a dps aura and an additional support aura on your mana if needed (vitality, purity of..., arctic armor based on circumstances). The problem with this setup is that you will need to cast 2 auras to go low life which can be a problem vs rushers so a totally legit setups is to use a dps aura on life and to go low life and full dps just by getting one aura. But in this case using 4 auras is a bit difficult without investing in aura nodes.

Tempest shield provides a decent 3% block and I always keep it on my self, turn it off vs EAs it will just allow them to auto spam frost wall near you. I use it non linked since I do not have room for Tempest shield supports, but if you can slap on light pen and empower/block pen/added light it can be a good auto dmg dealer.

I don't like using molten, the reason is it requires a 4L and I don't have the space, vs melee its too overpowered while vs ranged it does next to nothing. And melee are not quite the problem in current meta.

My CWDT setup is temporal chains + enfeeble + enhance, some setups utilizing spells can be effective but I am against that sort of thing so I avoid using spells in auto cast setups. Its up to you to see if arctic breath + GMP is your thing. Vs melee frost wall is great, but avoid it vs EAs.

As for a list of viable spells I can not really be of much help. EK is decent but not top, Arc can be made good but I feel not as good one would want, Pulse, fireball well all suffered a lot from the shotgunning nerf so they fall behind badly. Currently most of the ususal low life HLDers use firestorm, me included. The reason is great area control paired with decent dmg.

To make firestorm work you will need all the area nodes on tree, and all the cast speed you can get so you can spam overlapping firestorms hopping for consecutive crits which really shred enemies. You ill need to predict your opponents movements too if you want to be successful.

My firestorm links are:
firestorm + empower + fire penetration + echo + faster casting/crit dmg + BCR/culling

like this I am able to cast around 4 firestorms per second, with 40% crit change I crit on average 1.6 time/s. This is a very important aspect to optimize since with such a spell that deals fast low dmg hits, the non crits deal next to no dmg.

I swap crit dmg instead of faster casting vs aegis users and also I put on the legacy crit amulet instead of the spell block lapis and in most cases (if its not a troll build or someone who just runs all the time) I can kill aegis users before they can kill me. I mention this because by mechanic aegis block is a natural counter to firestorm.

What ever spell you choose be aware you will need a lvl 4 empower and a lvl 21 spell, for most spells 21/20 is the way to go. I know it costs a lot but like I said that's the gear check PCP puts upon you.