Please critique my Elemental wander templar

Hi folks, thanks for reading. This is mostly theorycrafting, as I'm leveling a different toon atm, but I used to have an ele wander back in Nemesis, and I plan on making this character at some point.

So Here's the passive tree. 101 points, Bandit Rewards = Oak life, skillpoint, Alira power charge



My old nemesis self (haven't played in awhile, yay expansions!) had a hard time not taking any aura nodes/inner force, but I'm hoping that I will be able to run double heralds of ice/fire along with wrath anyways. Does anyone know if this is possible to sustain without aura nodes?

The single target attack will be:

elemental hit-weapon ele dmg-PCoC-(?)

I'm thinking either increased crit dmg or faster attacks for the last slot. I'm not sure which would be best, and I'd be open to other suggestions as well.

For AoE, i'd link:

Power Siphon-LMP-Chain-Weapon ele dmg-item rarity-(?inc crit dmg?faster attacks?)

I'm also open to other gem ideas for the last 2 slots on my aoe links.

For defensive gems, i'm much more open to suggestion. My one concern with the passive tree setup is that it has literally 0 defensive passives other than life. That being the case I think a CwDT setup linked with

CwDT-decoy totem-enduring cry-and enfeeble, molten shell, immortal call, or summon skeletons. Or enfeeble/molten shell not linked so they could be higher level.

I also would link:

lightning warp-reduced duration-faster casting
and
ele weakness-faster casting-inc aoe

in the weapon and shield. I could also replace faster casting with enfeeble to make more room in the CwDT setup.



Hope you guys like and please let me know any ways you think it could be better!

No one has any comments or critiques? =(. I have one more thing to add.

I'm also curious about whether I should use a skelly brotem instead of a decoy totem. Maybe even both? My concern about that though is that all my gem slots are pretty full and I'm not sure what I would need to drop. Probably the support gems for my curses and maybe even faster casting off of lightning warp

ele wanders died this patch... they were already weak but now, it's really not worth it to build ele wanders anymore.

What is it that caused them to die? Is it just the aura nerfs? I was hoping the addition of the herald skills would counter that.

This build is all over the place. It's not an ele wand build, it's confused ele/phys build, leaning more on the phys side. (Especially with blood and mind drinker passives taken)

True ele wand builds do not take any of the "% of wand physical damage converted to __element___" nodes, because you're not going to have much physical damage to begin with. Ele wand builds rely purely on ele damage from the wand and auras, using the passive tree only to amplify it. If you've been gone a while, go look at the unique Piscator's vigil, that's the go-to ele wand (and they aren't that expensive, usually level out to ~1 exalt).

Problems I see here aside that: Ele hit is horrible for single target. You're going to oneshot yourself to reflect, guaranteed. Apart from that, you're also going to ace yourself to reflect with aoe as well. You need to build some serious (10k) evasion into the build without Ondar's guile if you're going to survive your own aoe dps.

Better single target: Barrage, PCoC, faster attacks, WED
Aoe: Power Siphon, LMP (gmp once you get the regen to use it... mana cost is brutal), chain, WED, life leech. (5L is necessary)

Also, templars aren't the best base class for an ele wander anymore. Witches usually turn out better.

As to your comment about Heralds helping ot make up for the nerf to auras, a few points:
- Your build is not set around running lots of auras, you have zero aura nodes.
- There's almost never a case where using both heralds is a good idea. If you're using ash, that means you have strong physical base damage, and you should couple it with hatred. If you're using ice, you're going pure ele damage from auras, and you need to couple it with anger and wrath. In either case, you must use clarity, and with nearly zero defensive nodes, you also need to run grace.

Sorry my response is a bit disorganized, but there's some good points in there. Someone had a really good piscator's vigil wander guide from 1.1.2, but I don't know if it's been updated for 1.2 yet. I believe it was a witch build. I'd go look over there and see if you can find it.

Thanks. This is the type of feedback I was looking for. I was really hoping to give Mr. Old n fancy no pants man some love, and on my nemesis wander leveling with ele cleave was a breeze, but if it's really not viable I guess I'll try witch. On the flip side, I might stick with shadow(by far my most played class) and go for a physical wand build with just herald of ash and hatred. I'll play around with a few more passive layouts and post an update.

Thanks again!

So these are the 2 new passive trees I've come up with.

Templar Elemental wander:


Shadow physical wander:


My thoughts on the two...

Templar tree has only barely enough life to seem viable and 0 other defensive nodes. I'm not sure if i can afford to sacrifice a 60% dmg aura for grace, although maybe just wrath and herald of ice is enough. And maybe even after i get all the rediced mana nodes I can run 3 60% nodes with a high level reduced mana or at least with an alpha's howl super late game. In other words, it seems like this build could work but it would be pretty tricky to stay alive.

The shadow build, on the other hand, is trying out being a hybrid life/es guy. I know hybrid builds are rare and very unexplored this patch, but the stats of %111 increase life and 193% ES seem quite nice to me. I would imagine I could get a pretty large total life pool and with Ondar's guile I shouldnt die to reflect. Also shadow build has more crit which i very much like xD.

I wish templar was more viable, but It looks like I'll be rolling another shadow soon