[1.2.x] Storm Shot; Pure Lightning TS (Challenge Build w/ Storm Cloud Unique Bow)

[[I've turned this idea into a fully formed build - click here to see!]]

Near the end of the temporary leagues I like to challenge myself to make a build out of under-used or lackluster uniques, strange skill combinations, etc. It keeps things fresh and sometimes I find something that works far better than it should.

My current self-imposed "Challenge Build" is focused around this:



Storm Cloud is a fantastic leveling bow, but I believe it has some use into the late game as well.

My goal is to take this weapon and try and get as far as possible with it. I'm not really aiming for anything specific and I'll just go with the flow and see where the build takes me!









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Yea, I think I'll try running Light Pen in my 5th slot and try running a couple well rolled life flasks for regen (maybe a 1% light leech corrupted neck).

I want to avoid Anger and see how far I can push just lightning, but if the build hits a wall I'm open to just turning it into more of a buzzsaw build. I'm going to try Wrath/HoT and probably Purity of Light as well for the Lightning Coil.

Thanks for the input!

I've been re-thinking crit and I'm going to first try a chance to shock focused build. I think it works well using Thunderfist, quality Added Lightning and Conductivity to support non-crit shocks.

I've basically made the same tree Panini_aux_olives posted with some different pathing. I've kept the old crit tree in my post for reference.

I think I'll end up using Wake of Destruction and Berek's Grip in addition to Lightning Coil, Thunderfist and Storm Cloud. This means I have to cap resists (and over-cap lightning) with a quiver, one ring, amulet, belt and helm. I think I can do it and manage to sneak in some extra added lightning and weapon ele in a few places, too.

Planning now to run a Purity of Lightning to make up for most of the lost lightning res. The max light res will help so much with both reflect and the lightning coil conversion.

I might need to make significant changes to the build to deal with mana cost until Standard where I can buy a Berek's Grip.

Imo the damage is just too low to make it past late game.

The good thing is that you can just swap with Voltaxic and pump high damage without a care for reflect.

You are probably right, but hey! no harm in seeing how far I can push this :)

I really like the idea of swapping to Voltaxic at the very end, though. I was thinking Windripper, but this way I keep my "pure lightning" (it will be all chaos and the bow has a tiny bit of phys on it, but that's minor) theme going. I'm not sure how I forgot all about that bow seeing as Storm Cloud is just a baby Voltaxic.

But that 1.95 AS...

i dunno, im very heavily biased now (because it works so well) but i think you should run a curse on hit setup with conductivity for the chance to shock and penetration, and maybe even run dual curse with elemental weakness for even MORE pen, or projectile weakness which will basically be a free pierce effect, or assassin's mark for sustain (on kills) and a flat 9% chance to crit.
run the curse on hit on a secondary attack so you don't suck up all the support sockets for your main.

also tho i think you should run split arrow over tornado shot. the reason is you can save yourself a socket by not needing to go LMP or GMP, which also heavily lowers the dmg of tornado shot. having an extra socket for more support will be extremely valuable to make up some damage.

links such as split arrow/wed/added lightning/lightning pen/additional accuracy(faster attacks)(elemental proliferation), and whatever optional 6th link.

but ya im just spewing my bias around

Windripper would probably be the wisest choice as you're bumping your crit chance super high, but then it's not really the pure lightning build indeed, also Windripper is not that original, it's basically faceroll shit and stuff...

Voltaxic could be cool that's for sure, you could replace the Lightning Pen with Quality Added Chaos or Faster attack to make up the loss os AS.

Yea I was thinking FA instead of the light pen if I go Voltaxic. Would make my tooltip a lot more shiny not having to run a pen gem, too.

@xMustard, Split Arrow needs chain or pierce to actually do much of anything, meaning I need the same amount of gems as TS in the end. Plus it's just blah DPS compared to TS. I am planning to curse on hit conductivity for sure, just not 100% set on what I'm going to link with that. If I get a +1 curse neck I'll do Split/Chain/CoH/Conduc/Ele Weak though, since that is the easiest way to fit a dual curse in a 5L I think. But if I'm only using a single curse, I can get a bit more creative in a 5L than just split/chain.

thats what im saying, is with projectile weakness as a curse it gives you that pierce chance without needing to socket the actual gem, assuming the 30% pierce passive.
however, even if you do socket the gem its a much smaller mana cost as well as no negative impact on the damage compared to LMP or GMP. so the actual DPS will be quite a bit higher than tornado shot because of this very fact.

not only that, but this is also leaving tornado shot without chain/fork/pierce for itself, meaning its first projectiles will pierce, but anything after that will not hit anything more than one target, if even one target. so in reality a split/pierce is far superior in both paper DPS as well as effective AoE compared to a tornado/lmp or gmp

tornado does hold an advantage on single targets, but only because there is a chance that once you shoot through something once it spreads that single target could get hit again but it certainly doesn't happen every time.

its these very reasons and experience why im not sure everybody has a hard on for tornado shot. it is a pretty mediocre ranger skill as far as im concerned. my personal build DOUBLES its DPS from tornado/gmp to split arrow, and about 40% more from tornado/lmp, and it clears far superior considering i have projectile speed, meaning i can hit things off screen. but tornado shot you cannot shoot it off screen, but merely to the edge of the screen and hope the resulting projectiles go where you want afterwards.

tornado shot = less dps, less aoe, less control. split power! *raises open hand*