Archmage - Acolyte vs Stormweaver

"Eldritch Battery" seems to have changed compared to PoE1, so we will have to wait and see whether it is useful for this concept.

For Many people the Stormweaver Ascendancy of the Sorceress seems to be a go to.
One example of this can be found here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3592387

The idea here is to gain a bunch of mana regeneration from Arcane Surge with the "Constant Gale" Ascendancy and scaling that with up with mana stacking and the "Forced Will" Ascendancy, which increases Arcane Surge effect per maximum mana.
This also leaves 2 more Notables for things like:
- "Strike Twice" letting you shock enemies multiple times, potentially activating "Cast on Shock" more frequently
- "Heavy Snows" and "Shaper of Winter" for more chill and freezing enemies even without much investment into cold damage



Having constant independent mana recovery should give this build a good amount of sustainability and casting ability.

The core idea behind choosing an Acolyte over something like Stormweaver are it's leech ascendancy notables:



"Ravenous Doubts" makes mana leech instant while "Consuming Questions" allows mana leech to also Recover energy shield.
The entire concept of Acolyte Archmage is heavily dependant on sources of mana leech, which we can also scale with some passives:
- "Manifold Method" increases the amount of mana leeched and chance to inflict ailments on uniques
- "Immortal Thirst" grants us %more mana leech
- Speculation: there may be a source of mana overleech on the passive skill tree

However: so far there don't seem to be any good sources for mana leech on the passive skill tree, which is required to make this concept work.


Since life is said to become a rare resource on the passive tree, this makes using some of the (IMO) very strong energy shield Notable Passives to gain and sustain large hitpool an enticing prospect, while often ignoring a lot of the downsides:
- "Patient Barrier" grants 60% increased energy shield at the cost of slower start of energy shield recharge
- "Dampening Shield" grants more %ES and adds 12% of ES to stun threshhold
- "Heavy Buffer" grants more %ES at the cost of %life
- "Calibration" grants both %ES and %mana
- "Pure Energy" grants more %ES

This also leaves 2 more Ascendancy Notables, which can be spent on getting a lot of free (max) Chaos Resistance from "Chayula's Gift" and extra Chaos Damage from "Reality Bending".

Alternatively, with having a large hitpool from ES and mana, this may make "Chaos Inoculation" a viable choice.
Ascendancy points could then be spent on "Waking Dream" and "Lucid Dreaming" for more sustain and damage from "Flames of Chayula", which leech mana and thus ES when collected, or grant up to 70% increased damage.


[spoiler:"Zealot's Oath"]
From the wording of the "Zealot's Oath" it will not profit from the "Flames of Chayula" leech. However, this may still be a valid option to gaining more ES regeneration, depending on the options for flat life regeneration that may be available.