Kenzorz's Balls Deep Ball Lightning! [Patch 1.2.4.]

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Passive Tree
1.3 tree as close to my old build as possible, 111 points used

Bandit rewards:
Normal: Help Oak (for +40 Life)
Cruel: Kill all (for +1 passive point)
Merciless: Help Alira (for +1 Power Charge)

Leveling

This is a rough outline of what areas of the passive tree you should aim for at different stages of the leveling process. Begin taking any nearby power charges whenever you have access to a Voll's Protector.

20 points
40 points
60 points
80 points (take EB whenever you feel like you're starting to have mana problems)
100 points


Useful gem setups for leveling:

Cast when Damage Taken + Warlord's Mark + Decoy Totem
Trap + Cold Snap

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Gear

"Fashion is important too!"

Before you ask, yes I still have my gear. It's just not verified because it shows up like that when used in forum quote boxes.

My Gear

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Flasks
Main Flasks

Sometimes switching between these flasks:

Gear stats to look for

Stats for each equipment slot is listed in order of priority. Refer to the Forsaken Masters section for any master crafts that are relevant.

tl;dr version of this section: Get life, resists, strength, dexterity, spell crit, spell damage, mana regeneration.

Chest Armour: Voll's Protector, aim to get a 5L at least and use a 4L for the leveling process.

Weapon: Needs Spell Damage, Critical Strike Chance for Spells, and a prefix slot for crafting Lightning Leech with Catarina.
Shield: Needs Spell Damage, Critical Strike Chance for Spells and if possible, life and resists.

Helmet: Life, resists and any Strength and Dexterity you need to equip your gear/gems.
Gloves: Life, resists and any Strength and Dexterity you need to equip your gear/gems. When possible, try get gloves with Vorici's special "increased life leech rate" mod.
Boots: Life, resists, movement speed.

Amulet: Global Critical Strike Multiplier, mana regeneration and any Strength/Dexterity you need to equip your gear/gems. You can use an amulet with Vorici's special "increased life leech rate" mod if you like but you sacrifice some stats that only amulets can roll such as critical strike multiplier and mana regen (although you can craft mana regen with Elreon)
Rings: Life, mana regeneration and any resists/Strength/Dexterity you lack.
Belt: Either a Leather or Heavy Belt base with life and resist mods.

Note: Strength adds base life too so there's nothing wrong with having a lot of strength on your gear!

Forsaken Masters Crafting

This section will outline master crafts that are useful for this build. Look up a crafting guide if you're not sure what I mean by prefix/suffix.

Catarina Lvl 6: She can craft 1% Fire/Cold/Lightning Leech on weapons. This mod is a prefix and is mandatory for the build. If you find a really good weapon you plan to use end game, save the craft slot for this mod.

She also can craft spell damage or cast speed which you can use for weapons you intend to only use for leveling. In addition, she can craft cast speed on shields if you do not need the craft slot for anything else.

Try to get Catarina to Lvl 6 ASAP if you do not have anyone trusted to craft the leech mod for you.

Haku Lvl 5: Can craft a good amount of life, resists, strength/dex on any piece of armour or shield that is lacking it. Life is a prefix mod, resists and attributes (strength/dex/intelligence) are suffix mods.

Tora Lvl 5: Can craft life and resists on belts as well as movement speed on boots that lack it. Movement speed is a prefix.

Vorici Lvl 4: Can 4 socket and 4 link your gear easily.

Elreon Lvl 5: Can craft life and resists on accessories.

Vagan: Can craft global critical strike multiplier on weapons but it's generally not needed.

Flask to look for

Mandatory Flasks:

Surgeon's Topaz Flask: used to protect yourself from elemental reflect, and since it has the Surgeon's mod you can constantly refill it.

Surgeon's Eternal Life Flask: used as a means of recovering from damage when you're not under pressure. Eternal Life flask was chosen because it heals a large amount of life quickly.

Seething Divine Life Flask: used as a panic button, and should be spammed when taking a lot of damage while under a lot of pressure. Divine Life Flasks heal more than Eternal Life Flasks but are slower but since it's a Seething flask speed does not matter.

Flask of Staunching: can be additionally crafted on any of the above 3: needed to remove bleed damage such as Puncture and Corrupted Blood.

What these flask mods do:
Surgeon's: Recharges 1 charge when you deal a critical strike.
Seething: 66% Reduced Amount Recovered + Instant Recovery.

Optional Flasks:

Surgeon's x Flask of Warding: The combination of Surgeon's and Warding allows you to keep yourself immune to curses almost all the time.

Uniques that can be considered

Helmets

Geofri's Crest: could be good for boosting a secondary skill and especially if you feel like using self cast Arc in your skill set, Arc chains 6 times at Lvl 21

Rime Gaze: gives Lvl 15 Concentrated Effect to make whatever gem you socket in here essentially a 5L, if you really wanted to use a secondary skill that would benefit from that.

The Three Dragons: Makes Ball Lightning more likely to freeze than without this helm relying solely on Herald of Ice's cold damage.


Chest Armour
None, Voll's Protector is the core of this build.


Gloves

Atziri's Acuity: Extremely expensive GG unique otherwise get them if you can and it'll likely solve any reflect problems as well as boosting overall survivability by a lot.

Maligaro's Virtuosity: Crit gloves synergises with this crit build simply enough. I don't use them because I sacrifice life, resists and other stats and don't feel I need the extra damage, they're still a good choice though!

Null and Void (Rampage unique): I have never tried these since I cannot sacrifice my glove slot but they seem like a interesting defensive choice if you have all the stats you need already on other equipment slots. For anyone who doesn't know what these gloves do

Shadows and Dust (Rampage unique): similar stats and purpose to Maligaro's Virtuosity except with an interesting Rampage passive, could be good.


Boots

Gang's Momentum: Could have interesting synergy with The Three Dragons and Herald of Ice's cold burn.

Windscream: If you have sockets for curses, Windscream allows you to double curse!


Weapon

Apep's Rage (wand): Even without any spell crit chance on this weapon, it still is a huge DPS boost for any self-cast spell build. Chaos damage also doesn't hurt against reflect!

Divinarius (dagger): Synergises very well with the build but I don't use it because I need a rare dagger for the lightning leech. If you have life leech from some other source feel free to use Divinarius.


Shield

Saffel's Frame: while you lose a lot of crit chance and some spell damage, the maximum resist and spell block will help you out a lot against reflect.


Amulet
None are worth the slot, just get a rare amulet.


Rings

Berek's Grip (legacy unique): would synergise quite well since this build shocks frequently and sometimes deals enough damage to freeze.

Gifts from Above (legacy unique): Gives a lot of crit chance and a life regen ground effect when you crit, both very useful to this build.

Voideye (legacy unique): Good for Arctic Armour.

Yes it sucks these are all legacy uniques.


Belt

Doryani's Invitation (Lightning): A more expensive means of obtaining Lightning Leech without having to worry about crafting it on your weapon.

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Gems

My Gems

Main skill:
This is the entire point of the build but using different AoE skills also work since my passive tree isn't really specialized in any element. Support gems are in order of priority.

Ball Lightning + Spell Echo + Lightning Penetration + Increased Area of Effect + Increased Critical Damage + Added Chaos Damage

Supplementary skill(s):

Vaal Storm Call + Spell Echo + Lightning Penetration
For this 4-link setup, you can either link Added Chaos Damage for more stable damage and DPS per Vaal Storm Call or you can link a second Vaal Storm Call.

Vaal Storm Call is an optional part of the build but I really enjoy using it as it hits really hard when it crits (I have about 50% crit chance on it with my 7 power charges up), it is also a good fall back method for when you need to kill a rare mob with elemental reflect since the bolts hit at most 2 mobs at a time instead of the hitting the entire pack like Ball Lightning does.

Spell Echo is used because it works with Vaal skills and casts them twice, so instead of a regular Vaal Storm Call slowly striking 1 mob at a time with the lightning bolts, when supported by Spell Echo it strikes 2 mobs at a time or strikes at an isolated mob really fast.

(OLD LINKS) Storm Call + Spell Totem + Faster Casting + Lightning Penetration
A completely optional part of the build, Storm Call totem adds decent supplementary damage and is useful against rares when you need that boost in single target damage. Having a spell totem is also useful to use against elemental reflect. Feel free to replace Storm Call with any other kind of spell totem you prefer. A Glacial Cascade totem fits well with this build too.

(ALSO OLD LINKS, I'M NO LONGER USING FLAME TOTEM)
Flame Totem + Greater Multiple Projectiles + Faster Casting + Added Chaos Damage
As with Storm Call totem, this is a completely optional part of the build. I use it because it adds a lot to my single target DPS.

Auras and Buffs:

Clarity: necessary for keeping your mana up.
Purity of Lightning: mandatory for mitigating reflect damage.
Herald of Ice: It's a very nice boost to all your spells' DPS and gives you slight chilling/freezing ability without the use of a cold spell.
Herald of Thunder: Another nice DPS boost for spells, also complements the use of Lightning Penetration linked to Ball Lightning.

Arctic Armour: Extremely useful for mitigating physical and fire damage. It's pretty much free damage mitigation.

Mobility:

Lightning Warp + Reduced Duration
This will be your main form of movement pretty much always. Feel free to link Faster Casting in there if you do not yet have a quality Lightning Warp or enough cast speed. Faster Casting is not needed at all with 20% quality Lightning Warp.

Defensive Trigger:

Ice Spear (Lvl 16) + Cast when Damage Taken (Lvl 15) + Elemental Proliferation + Shockwave Totem (Lvl 15)
Useful for freezing packs when you take a big hit, since my build has a lot of critical strike chance and critical strike damage it synergises very well with Ice Spear allowing it to do enough damage to freeze mobs for a few seconds. Also since Ice Spear is a single target ability you don't have to worry about it triggering against elemental reflect and killing you since the damage reflected from a single mob will not be enough to kill you. Shockwave Totem helps by pushing enemies away from you and acting as a decoy and since it's high level it can take a few hits too.

(OLD, I AM NO LONGER USING THIS SIMPLY DUE TO LACK OF SOCKETS)Cast when Damage Taken (Lvl 1) + Enduring Cry(Lvl 5) + Immortal Call(Lvl 3) + Increased Duration
Replaced my totem setup with this since I felt like I was using my totem much, really helps against multiple bursts of physical damage.

Other options to consider!

Offense

Arc: while this build isn't optimal for Arc, Arc hits less targets than Ball Lightning and doesn't deal multiple continuous hits per cast so you're safer against elemental reflect. Decent fallback method against those mobs I guess.

Fireball: You could link this in 4L to power up the ignite damage for use against elemental reflect mobs, throw one Fireball crit and watch things burn without worry about reflect.

Flame Totem: My build already has a lot of cast speed and crit, Flame Totem would be great for additional DPS. I would support this with Greater Multiple Projectiles, Faster Casting and either Added Chaos Damage or Faster Projectiles depending on whether you want longer projectile range or not.

Glacial Cascade (Totem): Good DPS and freezing potential.

Vaal Ice Nova: This skill will be able to clear screens easily especially when it crits.

Vaal Flameblast (Trap): A good pack clearer and boss nuke I suppose.

Vaal Spark: as long as you get your power charges up before launching this skill, there's a good chance you'll land a crit and destroy rares/bosses instantly with it.


Defense

Arctic Breath (Cast when Damage Taken): Chilled ground is a very powerful defensive tool and this skill synergises with your AoE passives.

Ball Lightning (Cast when Damage Taken + Blind): Ball Lightning hits multiple times and makes blind more likely to be applied.

Cold Snap: Since this build runs on power charges, you can cast Cold Snap whenever you like! or put it on a Trap. Cold Snap's base freeze chance got nerfed so I wouldn't use this on my Lvl 15 CwDT setup over Ice Spear.

Decoy Totem: Either casting the totem yourself or linking it to Cast when Damage Taken gives you some space to breathe when you're being overwhelmed by mobs.

Ice Spear (Totem): The crit chance is pretty much 100% or very close to it making for very reliable freezes (as long as you deal enough cold damage.

Summon Skeletons (Cast when Damage Taken): Acts as a distraction for mobs, giving you a second of breathing space every time this CwDT setup is triggered.

Tempest Shield: If you have high block chance Tempest shield supported by links such as Blind or Mana Leech can be helpful. Also with Herald of Ice, Tempest Shield's crits can possibly freeze or at least chill things.



Curses

Enfeeble: Great for those hard hitting bosses.

Temporal Chains: Great for mob pack control and giving you more room to dodge boss attacks.

Warlord's Mark: The extra life leech is very useful for almost any build.

Why not x support?

Ball Lightning

Knockback: it's a decent choice but simply put, it's annoying and desyncs shit like mad.

Life Leech: 1% Lightning Leech does the job well enough.

Faster Projectiles: Faster Projectiles means the Ball Lightnings spend less time zapping mobs and just flying away.

Lesser/Greater Multiple Projectiles: Kind of shitty that this is a hidden, unexplained and unintuitive feature but Ball Lightning cannot shotgun with LMP and GMP so all you're doing with these supports is increasing AoE coverage (when it's already got good AoE) and severely lowering your damage.

Slower Projectiles: Slower Projectiles means less distance travelled and the balls just move too slow making clear speed actually worse despite the damage increase.

Added Ligthning Damage: Many other supports take priority.

Concentrated Effect: Again a shitty hidden, unintuitive feature but Concentrated Effect does not increase damage like you would expect, since the zaps from the ball are considered non-AoE projectiles.

Faster Casting: Other supports take priority and Added Chaos Damage is a safer option as a 6L against elemental reflect.

Increased Critical Strikes: other supports take priority and there is no need for this when you have 7 power charges, a passive tree that also grants a lot of crit chance and gear that grants it.



Vaal Storm Call

Increased Duration: deals less damage than with a 4L except it lasts longer, I think more damage over a shorter time is more valuable. Alternatively having 2 Vaal Storm Calls linked to a 3L is longer duration when used one after the other or higher damage over a shorter time when used together.

Trap/Remote Mine: Spell Echo is far better and unfortunately you can't use Spell Echo with Trap or Mines

Concentrated Effect: I'm not sure how this interacts with Vaal Storm Call to be honest.

Increased Critical Damage: other supports take priority in a 4L.


Herald of Thunder

Curse on Hit: While it is pretty convenient it takes up a 4L with Reduced Mana and the lightning strikes do not strike that fast, it's better to just self cast the curse. Also you can't self cast this curse without proccing Herald of Thunder's on kill effect.

Stat Screenshots

NOTE: I am honest with all these stat screenshots (unless stated otherwise, also some screenshots might be outdated), I do not pull any of that "equipping impractical gems/gear just for the sake of faking my stats so I can post on the forums" bullshit.

Normal DPS




Increased AoE replaced with Faster Casting

Pre-Herald of Thunder patch Ball Lightning DPS

Ball Lightning DPS tooltip:

Vaal Storm Call

Flame Totem

Life, Mana, Attributes

Defense Tab

Normal:


Demonstration of possible stats with flasks:

Example of my build working well for other non-lightning spell:

Trying Glacial Cascade

Swapped out Increased Area and Lightning Penetration for Concentrated Effect and Faster Casting everything else (gear, build, links) is the same.

Solo DPS:


DPS when partied with an aurabot:


(nevermind the 3% cast speed loss, didn't realise I was using a lower level Faster Casting)

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Valentia wrote:

I run almost the same setup but with Faster Casting instead of Added Chaos- I've always just assumed FC was better.

What's your opinion on the two gems?

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Polarization wrote:

Why don't you get the power charge bandit reward? Even if you don't want to get 8 power charges, you could get that instead of the power charge in the Templar area and save a skill point.

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MatrixFactor wrote:

Some thoughts:

I wasn't really able to tell, but how useful are vaal storm call and the storm call totem? What about replacing them with vaal haste?

Have you thought about using staff for +3 light and replacing added chaos with empower? (You could also take serpent stance)

What about getting double curse and using a 6L ice spear or freezing pulse or cascade to generate charges and curse? Then you could drop voll's.

If you drop the templar life and aoe nodes you could get vaal pact. If you add a life leech to your ball lightning, you could go insane with crit chance/mult on gear, potentially reaching more DPS while having instant leech.

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Kenzorz wrote:

Swapping between a power charge generator skill and your actual main skill is a really clunky playstyle and doesn't necessarily mean you're dealing as much DPS as your tooltip says since:
1. you can't always generate charges
2. the charges do not generate quickly unlike with Voll's that gives 1 charge per hit instead of per cast.
3. every time you lose your charges, you have to spend time generating it again and that really hurts you clear speed.

Double curses is fine if you have a equipment slot free for Windscream or Doedre's Damning.