[3.15]Archmage Ball Lightning Hierophant, will it work in Expedition?

I find ultimatum's extremely difficult around tier 14+. I have 2 6 links, a POH and sire. I use sire on ults because it has less delay and easier to move around. I have played this build in the past and just rerolled into this thinking it would be op for league content, but so far its not. I know my gems are not fully leveled/21 and I dont have a bottled faith or cinderswallow and am only level 86 currently, but i dont think 10 more levels is gonna change too much on ultimatum's. I even have all my awakened gems but it doesnt seem to help. Another thing I noticed is that the proximity shield rares cause lots of problems because I guess they dont take damage from BL unless you are in their bubble. I try to do a good job going in and out of the circle, but after wave 3 or 4 I feel like Im running for my life. I have whispers of doom over mind drinker currently and I dont think swapping will help anything its not like you leech mana from spells anyway and my mana regen is good and will be better once I get mana regen boot enchant. I haven't taken agnostic yet, but Ill test it now although I assume that will just blank my mana in ults. If anyone has any suggestions please lmk.

*agnostic seems to help a good bit.. I did a few tier 16 ults had a few close calls, but was able to complete them. It stil doesn't feel as safe as I would like it to. Im going to try a rumi's and see how that helps since I really don't need more damage.

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Zomphere wrote:

I find ultimatum's extremely difficult around tier 14+. I have 2 6 links, a POH and sire. I use sire on ults because it has less delay and easier to move around. I have played this build in the past and just rerolled into this thinking it would be op for league content, but so far its not. I know my gems are not fully leveled/21 and I dont have a bottled faith or cinderswallow and am only level 86 currently, but i dont think 10 more levels is gonna change too much on ultimatum's. I even have all my awakened gems but it doesnt seem to help. Another thing I noticed is that the proximity shield rares cause lots of problems because I guess they dont take damage from BL unless you are in their bubble. I try to do a good job going in and out of the circle, but after wave 3 or 4 I feel like Im running for my life. I have whispers of doom over mind drinker currently and I dont think swapping will help anything its not like you leech mana from spells anyway and my mana regen is good and will be better once I get mana regen boot enchant. I haven't taken agnostic yet, but Ill test it now although I assume that will just blank my mana in ults. If anyone has any suggestions please lmk.

I looked your build up on PoB, I hope you don't mind. The character's name is NeedleNeck right? I'll just point out the main problems I saw on the build then I'll give you some stuff I do before and during ultimatum that can help you.

On the build side:
- From what I see, you seem to be speccing to the crit version of the build but your crit rate and crit multiplier are currently pretty low. It's understandable because you haven't taken alot of the crit passives like arcane potency, annihilation, and disciple of the forbidden (along with instability to raise your permanent power charges to 5). You also don't have the crit multiplier jewels to make the crit build work. You'd probably have more bang for your buck going for the non-crit version of the build with elemental overload (my suggestion though is don't go for cursed concoction but go for disciple of the forbidden plus instability and use the large cluster node nearby instead for better dps)

- I'd like to correct your misconception about mind drinker. We don't take it for the mana leech. We take it for the 2% mana on kill which is huge for mana sustain especially on Ultimatum mechanic where we kill buttloads of enemies. This is especially useful since Agnostic gimps our mana regen when we get damaged. Though it would feel like you're throwing money if you replace Whispers of Doom for it. Since you already have a Nexus Gloves with a 30% chance to recoup mana spent the next step is to improve your mana pool which is a nice segue to my next point.

- Small cluster jewels. You got to use them. Scintillating Idea gives 20% mana and 5% lightning pen which is a pretty big boost in mana and dps. With a large cluster jewel, you can have 2 small cluster jewels of these. Replace or relocate the jewels you have in your large cluster jewel with these bad boys! If you don't have the currency for them, Openness gives +20 mana and 20% mana and they sell for 1-5c each for a cheap alternative.

- If you're having difficulty with resists, you can try going for Prismatic Heart in your large cluster jewel instead of Disorienting Display though the latter is already a pretty good defensive node with the 10% chance to blind effect. Make sure Prismatic Heart and Scintillating Idea is positioned properly though!

- If you're having trouble being swarmed in Ultimatum, then you can try the Voidsphere gem as suggested by multiple people in this thread. Voidsphere sucks the enemies into it so it's a nice skill to have when you feel like you're being overwhelmed. You can place it with your Sigil of Power set up so it can benefit on the increased aoe and empower.

- I suggest replacing a flask with Rumi's Concoction for more block chance. Very useful especially in Ultimatum.

-If you're having problems with being stunned then I suggest equipping SkyForth which gives use essentially stun immunity and alot of mana. Problem is, it doesn't provide any elem resist so you need to sort that out first through your other rare equipment. Before that, you can initially use the Brine King Panteon.

Alright. Now for my tips:
- Always check your map mods! Be very mindful of stuff like curses (elem weakness, vulnerability, etc.), extra elem damage, more crit chance and crit multiplier, minus max elem resistances, more damage and summoning beyond monsters mod. If you have 2 on your map, you need to be very careful of Ultimatum. If you have 3 or more and you still decided to run the map instead of rerolling, then just skip Ultimatum entirely.

- It's very tempting to just sit inside our sigil of power and just cast while doing Ultimatum but I won't recommend it since you WILL get overwhelmed at one point. Run around and only cast when your Arcane Cloak is up then run again when it runs out. Throw in a voidsphere in the middle for crowd control every now and then (I actually have voidsphere on a second wind set up so I always have one at the ready). For the circle ones, best you can do is run around inside the circle while doing damage and casting voidsphere to keep enemies at bay. As for Sigil of Power, I don't recommend using it during Ultimatum as you won't be able to stand on it long enough to get its benefits.

- Be careful of those firebomb cast on death effects. Majority of my deaths in Ultimatum are due to these f*ckers and almost all of the time that they hit me is because I tried to flame dash away only to be rubber banded back! They're even deadlier when you have the rare greenish mobs that bind you in place.

- Always have your flasks active. This is especially so for your quicksilver flask (for better running), mana flask (especially if you have a debilitating map curse) and Rumi's (for block).

I hope I was able to help. ^_^

Nevermind, not for me.

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Rivi666 wrote:

Nevermind, not for me.

Lol. You gave up fast :P

Hey guys, some of you have experience with BL Archmage as Elementalist?
Is elementalist a viable option or is hiero strictly better?
Thanks.

Love this build! I can do all content and i have tons of damage!/Gabbi

when do we transition to the multi version?

Gotta say, this League I started off in an okay spot, made a quick boatload of currency lately, and decided to give this build a try. It was one I kind of always wanted to try, and I found the guide and the comments here fairly informative. Got to say, I'm fairly impressed and happy with the build, and I'm not very far in. To be fair I started with a fair amount of currency to throw at the build, but I can see it working fairly well for making currency even on a budget. Gonna be looking into doing it more in future leagues. No real questions or looking for advice, just wanted go give my thanks for the work put into the guide and the comments.

To all the people playing this build - I played it last season and it's absolutely awesome, by far the strongest build I've ever played. There's no reason to go the crit-route, EVERYTHING dies really fast with the non-crit build and it's much easier to gear. Build really takes off once you build your mana recovery rate + mana pool.

Is this build normally leveled with the archmage support gem or not used until later? Should I just use the Reverb/amp rod or use a +1 tabby and throw in a random +2 lightning staff for gem levels? feels like it runs out of mana very fast but I dont know if I understand the playstyle exactly around level 38