[1.3] Balllightning Scion

Hi, this is my first attempt on making a build so forgive me for being noob. I just wanted to share something I came up on my own and did not see in Ball Lighnting Scion guides I was looking at.

Ball lightning benefits the most from cast speed (including Spell Echo) increased AOE and any flat damage buff for spells. So I came up with this build:
4-Link: Ball Lightning + Spell Echo + Increased AOE + Life Leech

Additionally I got Herold of Thunder for the bonus damage. But HoT does more: When linked with a curse on hit it curses enemies close to our scion while she spams her lightning balls. With a Conductivity curse, this has worked so well that I decided to spec into Whispers of Doom for an additional curse.
Herold of Thunder basically always triggers when you get a kill with Ball Lightning. Once a weak mob gets killed, your auto cursing HoT kicks in and severly nerfs the remaining mobs. HoT does a great job at distributing the curse as it hits really fast.

4-Link: Herald of Thunder + Curse on Hit + Conductivity + Asassins mark.

For safety I wear the ever popular

4-Link: Cast when Damage taken + Molten Shell + Immortal Call + Enduring Cry

As for passives, I want to end up with something like this: passives at 99

I beat the entire game solo and without trading for items. My Skill tree looks like this: passives at 68

The progression is pretty straight forward: in the beginning, you make your way up towards witch and templar tree to grab the aoe and damage nodes.
Since you want to spam your Lightning Balls as much as possible, you have to avoid running out of mana. Focus on increased AOE and bonus damage nodes first over faster casting early on. (I had a Faster Casting gem linked with Ball Lighting instead of Life Leech until Merciless act 3 to compensate).
You will also want to grab the Reduced Mana Cost of Skills nodes and all bonus mana regen if you keep running low on mana.
After I switched to the Life Leech gem, I wen't down to Vaal Pact and a bit further to grab the 3 knockback nodes.
For items, I went with Templar gear (armor+energy shield).

Feel free to tell me what you think about it.

Edit: updateded skill build, removed aoe passives and energy shield.

I'm sorry, but

here is some info on the wiki with a dev post (detailed) somewhere from when the skill got introduced.

You can craft leech from masters or use a Unique, this saves you a gem already.

You should wear some Coil and Purity of Lightning for reflect, get 2 Topaz flasks with anti freeze/bleed/burn but since you go life, take the colourization of your sockets into your consideration too.

for reference: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Ball_Lightning
and: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/960492/page/1#p8164387

I'm not sure what you want to tell me. I'm not using multiple projectiles.

Which master lets me craft Lifeleech on spells?

I have to say elemental reflection is not an issue for me. Even with only 50% resistance i leech more life than gets reflected to me, although im only 68 yet. I have little problems doing maps though (in fact i rush through them faster than Sceptre of God).

Hi here are a few things you could probably optimize

Using herald of thunder as a curser isn't probably the smartest idea due to the fact that the thunder only procs when you kill shocked enemies -> so you cast it afterwards without the addiotional shock % or the - lightning res
I suggest you put together a 4 link and instead of herald just use a level 1 arc which would make your extra DPS not dependant on luck

From the Wiki :
Concentrated Effect and "area of effect damage" passive nodes do nothing.

Maybe you chose them because of the radius but i doubt it will make much of a difference

I see you skilling into +2 Power Charges and +1 Endurance Charge but you give us no clue how you're going to achieve charges

Another thing which confuses me why do you bother with Energy Shield if you don't have Ghost Reaver Seeing you only leach life currently you could dump practically all of your Energy shield nodes and focus either on Life or something else

Some suggestions for other Node selection could be -> Static blows which is near your current nodes and the 10% extra shock won't hurt or Storm weaver which has a 4 node + health bubble nearby

Also are the + mana nodes and + mana reg nodes neccesary? Are you running clarity?

There is too few information

The herald of thunder curser works really great. I have amazing solo clearspeed, no idea how it is with more players. My HoT is procced pretty much all the time, Ball Lighting shocks a lot. There really is no luck involved, whenever I kill a monster, HoT procs.

I get Power Charges from the Assassins Mark curse and Endurance Charges from the Enduring Cry.

You are probably right about the energy shield - I didnt skill it yet I just thought it could be nice. In fact I think i might go down into Bloodless and Soul of Steel for some extra tankyness instead.

About the AoE, I'm gonna experiment specing out of it. The good thing about it is that it works with Herald.

As I said, I dont think I need more shocks since I have no problems proccing the Herald and I get Power Charges to boot for crits (which shock always afaik). Since shocks no longer stack I don't think I need more shock chance.