Mathil's Crit and Non Crit Ball Lightning/Vaal storm call

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Chronodroid wrote:

lvl 82 atm.

ROCKING it.

really.

IDK if Mathil is afk or gone to Nirvana, but it has all it needs:

This is what I got atm. no lvl 20 gems, no Q gems, and I can do 73+ maps and just exiles and box-lags pose a slight problem.

Notice that I got Vaal Storm Call and Vaal Spark for massive burst if needed. PAir it with Atziri's Flask and a Topaz = everything melts. I'm still missing some points here and there in the tree, but it's absolutely fabulous

Can you please post your other stats?? DPS, life, mana...etc

I am playing a variation of this build too.
Not many ppl play Ball Lightning this league.

I got to lvl 75. 3.5K Life, about 2k Mana (200 regen) and 2.6k BL DPS on a 4L.
It melts everything at my lvl of maps (68-70).
The only thing that gets me killed is high burst phys damage. I run a lvl 16 AA which does nothing vs a pack of leaping mobs (Scepter of God type). So I guess best defense is mobility and LW if you can't one shot everything. So the only threat right now are Rhoas and Leapers.

I personally walked away from VP since I don't see any effect at my DPS lvl, even with Life Leech gem. If I facetank I die regardless if I use VP or not. I don't plan

I am also tinkering with Projectile Weakness for the Knockback effect. I don't really want to use the gem.

EDIT: Another concern of mine is the HoT curse setup.
Since BL skill is a very long range skill and usually offscreen packs of mobs with it, HoT basically doesn't curse anything. Another issue is I kill a pack before HoT gets to curse. So for HoT curse setup has a 50% efficiency out of which less 20% Power Charge sustain. I almost never get all the power charges from Assassin's Mark.

IMO you need to be facetanking or be semi-ranged in order for HoT to be able to curse and benefit from this setup, otherwise the mobs will be out of range of HoT.
I plan on trying out BL/Arc + CoH + Assassin's Mark + Warlord's Mark / Proj. Weakness

Mathil
thanks for the guide, 2 questions:

1 - why not slower projectile
2- what's the last gem that u'd probably use

I've gotten to lvl 70 so far and the build seems really good. I'm curious how well it will scale though. Has anyone done high level maps or atziri? How did it go?

I leveled and did Atziri on a non crit version of the build found at the bottom of page 1. Maps and Atziri are all pretty comfortable.

Here's the Atziri run

Congratulations on the smooth Atziri kill. I've been running a similiar build with a shadow using dual wands. I just liked mapping with this character and never thought of doing Atziri. Seeing you do it, I'll attempt once I level up :)

I'm not a big fan of delayed damage aka Slower Projectile. Same goes for Static Strike(besides long fights), I'd rather kill in 0.75 sec instead of waiting for my damage to come. And you've been wondering what to link instead of Slower Projectile during the stream as I remember and I think you should try 20Q Culling Strike. It works wonders for me. Try it out once you get your 5L.
I think you want to add Spell Echo but good luck with getting 5B on Carcass Jack :D

I can give Slower Projectiles another try but I'd have to do a slight modification to my tree. Or even drop Dark Arts and go to Ballistic Mastery at ranger start. I'm aware Ball Lightning procs more with Slower Projectiles and getting those projectile speeds doesn't sound like a good idea.

It looks interesting, I wanna a new char using this build.
Any suggestion for using Cloak of Defiance? I'm lucky to get a 6L. Current passive tree doesn't provide enough mana to utilize CoD.

Where you running crit or non-crit spec when you facerolled Olmec's Sanctum on stream yesterday?

Hello, as always Mathil, thank you very much for this build.

I have tried the Critical version with a Templar.
This build is a blast, I destroy everything with only one or two balls and it's so much fun to play.

My Skilltree (not really optimised yet) :
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgUAAx4EswVCBx4Jqg5ID8QQWBEPES0RlhOeFLAWvxo4H0EmlScvKPoqCyo4LJwy0TWSOlg7fDvjPAU9X0GHQZZE-0VHRZ1JUUwtTLNQMFJTU1JVS1XGXfJfKmHiY0NkCWSdbRlwUnDVdFV2EXyDfjN-r3_Ggh6Cm4LHidOKKIuMjDaNGY_6kFWVLpeVl_SaO5rgn9-iAKKjpJGpbqyYrrO18rc-uJO4ysBmwJrB88360PXVpti92V_Z_NsL217djOAS6-7r9ew47TzvfPDV8h3z6vnd-ej-Cg==

My items (selfound) :





Stats :
- 4k life
- 5.6k DPS without charges (level 18 Ball ightning)
- 56% critical strike chance without charges

Notes :
- Increased Area of Effect is very powerfull, one ball can destroy a full room and can hit a lot of times the same target.
- Increased Critical Strike Chance is a very good option. When I crit everything dies, so I prefer to use ICSC instead of Increased Critical Damage. More critical chance is more interesting than more critical damage because you don't really need more damage when you crit.
- Crafting good daggers was quite easy, I just spammed Alteration Orbs on daggers with a 77 level.
- Elemental reflect was too much dangerous, I switched to a life Leech gem which is far more reliable than the curse on hit combo.
- Your DPS tooltip could be low. Mine is only 5600 without power charges. With a good AOE bonus it doesn't really mean anything, you will only cast a few balls to kill entire monters packs, so cast speed is not really important, cast a ball or two and move.
- Ball Lightning looks like a slow and static skill, but with this build it is not, because you just have to throw few balls and move between casts.
- My survivability is surprisingly good. I have some difficulties to explain it because I have only 4k life + CODT & Immortal Call combo as defense. The combination of extreme AOE + Life Leech gem + Vaal Pact give instant life leech very soon when you cast a ball. You can kill monsters behind you. I have done 77 maps without any problem, but somes bosses are dangerous for me (Torture Chamber). Very High AOE DPS & leech + good mobility + ability to cast delayed DPS seem to greatly boost survivability.
- I don't feel the need of the Vaal Storm Call combo : Critical Ball Lightning with extreme AOE does so much DPS, I prefer to spam it and use a 4L combo for something else.

I have a 88 Witch with 5L Pledge of Hands with Arc (27K dps with charges) with 4.5K life and Lightning Coil. This critical Ball Lightning Build seems to have more clear speed and equal survivability. That's really amazing (and strange).

Just hit level 41 and equipped a 4-link ball lightning using the crit variant of this build and... just wow!

It's simply amazing. Packs just melt after a ball lightning cast or two.

And with the dual-wield nodes, my lightning tendrils outputs amazing dps against single targets.

Another amazing build from Mathil!