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

Was messing around to test out Phys to Lightning to see how high I could push my DPS since Phys to Light is double boosted from both phys increases and elemental increases, just like lightning strike itself. This gives opportunity for some serious DPS:

6L: LS + WED + Multi + FA + Phys to Light + Melee Phys Damage
Helm: swap Bringer of Rain for Abyssus
Amulet: swap Stone of Lazhwar for crit amulet
Flasks required: Taste of Hate, Atziri's Promis
Reckoning set-up: PCOC + Curse on Hit + Ele Weakness
To sustain attacks you will NEED Berek's Grip and Acuities.



Result: 755K DPS with flasks and charges. No phys damage - pure lightning, fire and cold damage. Melee Physical Damage gem boosts your melee phys part of lightning strike. Phys to Light then benefits from both Melee Physical Damage AND WED. Taste of Hate adds cold as % of physical damage before physical damage conversions of LS and Phys to Light. Atziri flask then adds chaos as % of your phys as well as a % of your elemental damage.

If you want more survivability you can take out a gem and use Life Leech gem.

Reckoning curse on hit with Ele Weakness further amplifies your high elemental damage.

You can run phys reflect maps with impunity. Do not try ele reflect with this.

Much less defenses but way more DPS with this build. Helps to show that you can build different ways with this build without changing the tree and only tweaking your gear and gems. You will have to weigh whether you prefer to lose blind, some block, and some spell block, for about 3x more DPS while being at risk for higher phys damage taken due to Abyssus (partially mitigated with Taste of Hate).

Gear used (was testing links on Tabula Rasa - to use this build long-term just swap to good rare chest):

Wanted to share with you guys a variant of this build meant for Uber. It has lower damage than my main build but much higher defenses. It relies on permanent Immortal Call (~7-8s) for physical defense.

It is DIFFERENT from other Marauder/Duelist permanent IC builds because I also have evasion, dodge, max spell block, and spell dodge; as well as Ondar's - for elemental attack defense and spell defense.

You generate Endurance Charges by auto-attacking with the Voll + Romira set-up. Can get Endurance Charges EXTREMELY quickly (often can get 4 charges in less than 1 second) and you do not need to use Enduring Cry. I can maintain permanent Immortal Call at Atziri fight in this way.

For spell damage I use Saffell's Frame for the max spell block with Rumi's (boosted by Alchemist nodes). I also take Phase Acro. I then have +max resistance also from Saffell.

Weak spot of this build is elemental attacks - so this is where evasion+blind+enfeeble comes in to play, as well as Acro.

Interesting to note that Taste of Hate gives so much DPS when boosted by Alchemist node that it is almost enough to compensate for taking out ~8 dagger damage nodes from original build.

IMPORTANT!: you can do this with non-legacy gear as well but it would require Stone of Lazhwar. In this case you will have to manually cast enduring cry to generate your endurance charges.


Gear and Gem Links:


Tree:


WARNING: This will probably get nerfed.

This is my map of defenses:



Managed to do Uber but still getting used to playing this build:

Glad you could make something so awesome out of this idea of stacking spell block with Acro/Phase Acro !
I'd love to see a video, to see how well it performs : how much DPS do you get with this ? And why do you think this could get nerfed, is it that powerful ?

Also, mind if add you and chat with you in game one of these days ? I'm quite interested in making a non-legacy version of this, based on what I suggested in the other thread.

"

Vadler wrote:

Glad you could make something so awesome out of this idea of stacking spell block with Acro/Phase Acro !
I'd love to see a video, to see how well it performs : how much DPS do you get with this ? And why do you think this could get nerfed, is it that powerful ?

Also, mind if add you and chat with you in game one of these days ? I'm quite interested in making a non-legacy version of this, based on what I suggested in the other thread.

Thanks xD. DPS I feel is very good 114K with auras. Taste of Hate brings this up to 150K. I do not benefit from any power charges and I do not use Atziri's Flask. You can get higher DPS by taking out PCOC gem from BofR - however you will not gain endurance charges as fast as with PCOC.

I feel this level of DPS is pretty good considering that I took out about 11 DPS nodes from the original build.

I use curse on hit with Ele Weakness on Reckoning because the mobs on Alluring Abyss all have "resists elemental damage".

I've never been a fan of Immortal Call - it is very cheesy skill. However I've been trying to do Vaal Temple trio on my original Lightning Strike and just could not do it anymore consistenly without Immortal Call.

So I finally just said "fk it".

I made this build with Immortal Call that layers in all my other defenses with the exception of no regular block due to Saffell.

Unfortunately my LS build has been nerfed nearly every time with a new major patch so I would not be surprised if this gets nerfed as well =(.

Feel free to catch me in-game: Tiurakh or Windestanz. I agree with your calculations and this can still work with non-legacy gear but may need to use Rainbow / Lazhwar.

I am still getting used to this style of play but I will upload a vid in a bit. I died once to Vaal taking smash to the face by mistake xD.

Uber Atziri vid, excuse my noob mistakes:

http://youtu.be/8EwZ0UaBCGw



Updated tree:



EDIT: If you combine Taste of Hate with Atziri Flask then instead of 150K from just Taste of Hate you reach 190K with both.

One weak spot on this build is elemental attack damage since we have to rely on evasion and dodge (0% regular block with Saffell's). I made a new video of Vaal Temple level 79 map showing both Chilled Ground + Temporal Chains, as well as 6x bosses map. As you can see, when I take damage it is coming from Y'ara'az's fire attack getting through my evasion and dodge.

I use my Rumi's flasks in case I mess up with Immortal Call or de-sync. I have messed up before where I double-press IC by mistake xD.


Level 79 Vaal Temple Map Compilation - Chilled Ground + Temporal Chains; 6x Bosses

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaQM-bkMEKU


After doing these maps I realized with my gear that I was miscalculating my spell block and I do not need flask nodes even with Acro penalty on spell block. So I have unspecc'd from the flask nodes and put them back into dagger damage nodes and Acuity cluster for more accuracy. So my DPS with only auras is about 20K higher than previous when I had specc'd into the flask nodes. However my final DPS (auras + flasks) is 199K. So only about 8K higher than with the flask nodes where I got 191K with flasks up.


I made a google spreadsheet calculator where you can input your block and flask numbers to see how much spell block you end up with from Acro penalty. It is view only with my gear values, but you can download to use it. Thought this might be helpful if you are trying to do this build but want to see whether you need flask nodes / Stone of Lazhwar etc.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vewwEKiupKK19_IiyWjcJOM8SZyL2WjpN1eUS50fOz4/edit?usp=sharing

If there is enough interest I can make a more detailed post and video overview on this new build.

Added you in game :)
Though I don't really have much time to play right now so I'll just ask my questions here :

1) How do you feel about using a CwDT setup for your Immortal Call instead of self casting it ?
Especially in the non-legacy version. I always found it a real pain in the ass to cast Enduring Cry AND Immortal Call, so if you could use that to proc it when necessary, it would really be more comfortable. That's what Havoc did to maintain IC on his Uber Atziri kills in Bloodlines during the Atziri fight. Or maybe in our case, life is too low to risk it, since it could mean a one-shot at some point.


2) I think non-legacy BoR + non-legacy Saffell + Lazhwar could also work really well here, but I thought about using Purities on top of all this stuff, leaving 6% block BoR out and taking an Alpha's Howl with probably a high evasion chest. Then, we should focus on aura nodes, aka get the cluster between Chaos Inoculation and Pain Attunement and the cluster between the Shadow and the Ranger zones, to be able to run 2 Purities + Hatred + HoA. We also lose blind but the very high resistances would probably help a lot against elemental attacks.

Here would be the tree (it has more life but it's kinda unnecessary considering that purities give you high effective HP than your version and you had less life, just a question of personal comfort) :

Featuring 85/98% all resistances without/with flasks and with non-legacy Saffell's and lvl 21 Purities :)

How do you feel about losing prolif on both Hatred and HoA ? You also could run 3 Purities in Alpha's and only HoA with prolif, but I'm not sure about what DPS would be like then. A 6L vs the low lvl support gems with no quality of BoR could help bridge that DPS gap, maybe.

3) If you have a Bino's or a medium budget dagger lying around, could you tell us what DPS you get with it on this quad-defence version, just to know what most of us could expect with this build ?

Also, last but not least, I don't really think this will get particularly nerfed, at least not directly : Acrobatics/Phase Acro is in a good spot right now, and being able to reach max spell block with a build focused around this is not something I find to be that overpowered. Imo, this won't get nerfed, since there is no overused mechanic here, just a good combination of gear and skill tree with a clear goal in mind, unlike max block/spell block and dodge in 1.2

1) This is interesting. I like the idea, but feel that it is too hard to pull off as Ranger. Problem with going for Immortal Call as Ranger/Shadow is that you are so far away from endurance charges. Max endurance charges you are lookign at is probably 4-5. Your life is also a relatively low compared to Marauder/Duelist builds, so this will limit your damage threshold for CWDT. I think overall you will get too low Immortal Call duration to make it worthwhile.

The danger as you point out is also that some of the damage (i.e. Uber trio, Vaal Temple map) has enough physical to one shot you so this is a big risk.

Another risk I have found is stun. This can interrupt your ability to cast Enduring Cry in some cases.

The whole problem is how to reliably and quickly generate ECs. CWDT-EC doesn't really make sense with manual IC - so you are left with your suggestion, or manual EC and manual IC, or Romira's+Voll's.

Who knows - maybe GGG will make some new mechanics to generate ECs in the upcoming expansion.

2) This is the next step upgrade. I really like your tree! The trade-off is you will get hit more by elemental attacks, but upside is you have higher mitigation against both elemental attacks and elemental spells! I'm worried about the loss of damage since Bringer of Rain also adds a good amount of damage, but still this is a very enticing idea. Are we able to fit all those auras in? Losing prolif on HoA would reduce our AOE which is kind of a weak point for Lightning Strike. Still very enticing idea to run around with Purity of Light and Purity of Fire up, and boosting to 98% res with flasks.

I'll have to test this out if I can find the gems and regrets!

3) I should have tested this out before I unspecc'd from the flask nodes xD. With 234 dps Bino's right now I am getting 60K base with Hatred and HoA, with Atziri flask this goes to 73K. With both Taste of Hate and Atziri Flask this gets to 89K. As reference I get 198K right now with my main dagger. Keep in mind this is with my PCOC slotted in which I do not really benefit from due to conversion to ECs. Since you are using non-legacy gear then you will have to manually cast EC. So you can drop PCOC and use ICD instead - this gets me to 104K max with Bino's.

This should be close to what you get by dropping those points and specc'ing into the flask nodes, but a ~10K lower.

4) I hope so too! Unfortunately we have seen many things nerfed 2+ times by GGG. Since this was 1st nerf to Acro, I'm not sure if GGG ever wanted people to build block + Acro again. The real problem is the max spell block + Phase Acro combo. Throw in Vaal Grace to this combo and it is a bit ridiculous the stuff I could do in 1.2, and this build is even crazier than that version now because you are compounding with physical nullification and very high elemental mitigation.

Best we can do is enjoy this while we can! Your aura version is the icing on the cake because that would work perfectly for Uber Atziri run and reducing how much you need to move around for Atziri.

We'll have to wait and see what comes out with the new expansion, but for now I am loving this quad-version and it is the strongest I have ever played.

Hope you have fun with your other point blank build!

About the auras :
https://poe.mikelat.com/#LaPFF7h/ScPAatc/WTd5Ub 2 Purities + Hatred + (HoA + prolif)
-> The problem is, there's probably not enough mana left to use Lightning Strike and other skills/spells. If you drop Ele Prolif and the 140% mana multiplier on HoA, then it's perfectly fine
https://poe.mikelat.com/#LaPFF7h/UUkhumd/WTd5Ub 3 Purities + (HoA + prolif)
-> Low DPS but 98% for all elemental resistances with elemental flasks. Cold resistance is not that important, and totally useless for Atziri, so it's probably not worth it
https://poe.mikelat.com/#LaPFF7h/ScPAatc/sTd5Ub 2 Purities + Hatred + HoA
-> No prolif here but it's probably the most viable version of all in my opinion.

All these require an Alpha's Howl for the 8% reduced mana reserved (and the +2 to auras, allowing corrupted lvl 21 Purities to reach lvl 23 for that 6% max resist (counting the increased aura effect from the tree))

I'm not going to try and run this in 1.3, but I'll surely respec my Point Blank Ranger (which I'm leveling) into this build in 1.4 if it's possible, I'm super excited about this playstyle and what can be achieved with it :D

"

Vadler wrote:

About the auras :
https://poe.mikelat.com/#LaPFF7h/ScPAatc/WTd5Ub 2 Purities + Hatred + (HoA + prolif)
-> The problem is, there's probably not enough mana left to use Lightning Strike and other skills/spells. If you drop Ele Prolif and the 140% mana multiplier on HoA, then it's perfectly fine
https://poe.mikelat.com/#LaPFF7h/UUkhumd/WTd5Ub 3 Purities + (HoA + prolif)
-> Low DPS but 98% for all elemental resistances with elemental flasks. Cold resistance is not that important, and totally useless for Atziri, so it's probably not worth it
https://poe.mikelat.com/#LaPFF7h/ScPAatc/sTd5Ub 2 Purities + Hatred + HoA
-> No prolif here but it's probably the most viable version of all in my opinion.

All these require an Alpha's Howl for the 8% reduced mana reserved (and the +2 to auras, allowing corrupted lvl 21 Purities to reach lvl 23 for that 6% max resist (counting the increased aura effect from the tree))

I'm not going to try and run this in 1.3, but I'll surely respec my Point Blank Ranger (which I'm leveling) into this build in 1.4 if it's possible, I'm super excited about this playstyle and what can be achieved with it :D

Yup I agree you do not really need cold for Atziri. It seems like an awesome build for even more defensives. At this point you might as well remove Ondar's Guile since you will not really need it (i.e. Piety arrows). So I guess trade-off is even more defenses but less DPS. Although that max res is extremely enticing since you will get a ~70% damage reduction going from 93% res to 98%. I might make 2 versions of this xD.

I will try and look to see if there are other ways to improve the DPS for the aura version.

Don't forget that if you are using Stone of Lazhwar I think you could find a corrupted one with +1% max fire/light/ice res. So you could get to 99% for one resistance.

This is some ABSURD level of defense when you consider how it compounds with spell dodge and spell block. This is OP stuff man. You have chance to avoid 83% of all spell damage, when you do get hit by spell (17% chance) you have 98% resistances. You can even manage this and conserve your flasks and rely on spell dodge and spell block for lower damage spells that you don't mind being hit by.

This is OP stuff. You probably will not even need to take a life flask with this kind of build lol.

From what I understand CWDT is being re-done for the new expansion and will no longer work with EC. So I think planning manual EC and IC for now is the way to go.