Blargs "Cybilsphere" [1.3 Ball Lightning Build / Dual Cybils / Tanky / HC Viable ]

I wanted to make a build that was end game viable. It didn't have to be Atziri capable but I did want to be able to do level up to 78 maps with most mods to save currency rolling every bad affix so I could essential just Alch and go.

The main inspiration behind this build is the unique item Cybil's Paws. Specifically, the life gained on hit with spells. Most people know it from being used with Incinerate but I wanted to break that trend and use it with something else.


After testing a bunch of skills and different gem combos, I decided to go with Ball Lightning because it's a skill I've always been fascinated with and is overlooked with the current popularity of Lightning Tendrils and Arc.

The original idea was to gain a massive amount of cast speed with slower projectiles to get as many projectiles on screen as possible. This meant enemies would be hit multiple times per second, recovering a huge amount of life from dual wielding Cbyil's Paws. Knockback would also be utilised as it would push enemies back, keeping them both in the balls area of effect longer and out of melee range.

Ball Lightning + Spell Echo + Faster Casting + Slower Projectiles + Knockback

Herald of Thunder and Ice would be used to augment damage and the standard Cloak of Defiance/Arctic Armour/Eldritch Battery/CWDT+IC combination would be used for defense.

Doedre's Damning for dual cursing.
Ball Lightning + Curse on Hit + Projectile Weakness to increase knockback + one of the below
Warlords Mark - Help with Life/Mana leech to sustain Mind Over Matter and survivability
Ele Weakness/Conductivity - More damage
Enfeeble/Temp chains - Survivability

Core Gear:
Chest: Cloak of Defiance for Mind Over Matter
Amulet: Atziri's Foible to help with Mana, regeneration and gem requirements
Ring: Doedres Damning for dual curse
Weapons: 2x Cybils Paws for life gained on hit with spells
Everything else: Rares focusing on life, resists, Mana and regeneration + a bit of Dex/Str if needed for gems

Change 1: Three Dragons Helm

The main reason for this change was to make lightning damage freeze.
This had a massive effect defensively by freezing enemies and offensively by causing more explosions with Herald of Ice


Change 2: Pyre Ring

With Three Dragons, fire damage is needed to inflict shock. As this build only deals lightning and cold, I either needed to convert damage into fire or use an additional fire based skill.

I considered using the Cold to Fire gem but it only converts 50% of cold damage on the linked skill, plus it takes up extra gem slots. The best option I found was to use the unique Pyre ring which converts ALL cold damage to fire, allowing both the added cold damage to other skills from Herald of Ice and the explosions to shock.


Change 3: Agnerod / Storm Call

The biggest downside to this build is the single target damage. My way around it was have a strong single target spell set up on weapon swap.
I chose to use one of the unique Agnerod staffs due to it having a built in 20% lightning penetration which stacks with the Lightning Penetration Gem

Storm Call + Spell Echo + Faster Casting + Concentrated Effect + Added Lightning
6th link would be Life Leech for face tanking or Added Chaos for more damage


Change 4: Ball Lightning Links

Ball Lightning + Spell Echo + Elemental Proliferation + Lightning Penetration + Life Leech

The current links were working better than expected. Slower projectiles, Faster Casting and Knockback weren't really needed as most whites and blues would die in 1-2 casts. Knockback worked really well on stronger enemies but did cause quite a bit of de-sync and ended up being quite annoying. After playing around with different support combos, the changed setup seemed to work best.

Elemental Proliferation: Proliferates shock/freeze from Ball Lightning. At first I didn't think it would be very effective due to the low damage of each individual hit but you definitely notice the difference with it

Lightning Penetration: Helps with both damage and freeze duration. Works nicely when wielding Agnerod as well due to the penetration stacking.

Life Leech: Would eventually switch to Added Lightning for large damage increase. Until then, Life leech provides another source of healing to help with face tanking


Change 5: Curses

Still using Curse on Hit with Ball Lightning but changed curses being used
Dropped projectile weakness since abandoning knock-back.
Using Warlords mark as main curse to generate Endurance Charges for Immortal Call and leech life/Mana for survivability and sustaining MoM.
Swapping between Elemental Weakness for clearing trash and Enfeeble for dangerous Exiles and Bosses.


Change 6: Vaal Storm Call

Vaal Storm Call + Spell Echo + Elemental Proliferation + Lightning Penetration

I had a spare 4-link which I wanted to use offensively seeing as I had good defenses from MoM/AA and life on hit/leech.
I decided to go with Vaal Storm Call for a few reasons.
- It only need 16 souls per use meaning it can be cast on almost every pack
- Works well on Strongboxes
- Adds a nice damage boost to bosses
- Has no reduced damage effectiveness meaning it will more likely inflict freeze/shock

Spell Echo: Effectively gives you two casts for the cost of one

Lightning Penetration: Again helps with both damage and freeze duration and stacks with Agnerod

Elemental Proliferation: Proliferate freeze/shock. Could swap for quality Added Lightning/Cold for pure damage and increased freeze/shock chance.


Change 7: Corruptions

Due to the number of uniques this build uses, you're limited to where you can get resistances and life. By using Pyre + Doedre's Damning, you're pretty much need godly gloves, boots and belt. I was already using Atziri's foible to help with Mana and regeneration so adding +1 curse would allow me to drop Doedre's Damning and have another ring slot for resistance and life

This addition wasn't really intentional, I already had my Vaal Storm Call in here and decided to Vaal it as there's a couple of nice mods I could have gotten. Ended up with +2 level to Vaal skills which is a nice damage boost

Pros
Hardcore Viable
Extremely high survivability due to high effective life pool, insane life recovery and proliferated freeze.
Can handle 78 maps and most bosses
Even on reflect maps + reflect mobs + -max res you can still out heal the damage.
Can handle most map mods. Avoid blood magic and no regeneration purely because of the annoyance.
Can run Arctic Armour on half regeneration maps due to almost 400 regeneration per second
Option between two passive trees. One based on higher life, the other on more damage
Works with 4-link Cloak of Defiance, Agnerod and no corrupted items for cheap alternative

Cons
Corrupting blood. If you aren't aware of it, you'll hit max stacks and die within seconds
Need to have gems in specific gear for weapon switching.
Difficult to over-cap resistances and little room for alternative gear
Optimal gear significantly increases the build cost

There's two ways you can do the passive tree. One will give you more survivability and the other more damage. Both are based around level 85.

I'm currently using the more survivability tree and have just over 5.5k effective hp with 4k life and 1.5k Mana with almost 400 Regeneration for MoM/AA. This is way more than enough for most content I've done so it may be worth dropping a bit of life as the second tree gives quite a significant damage boost

Normal: Help Oak for life
Cruel: Passive Point
Merciless: Passive Point

Ball Lightning + Spell Echo + + Lightning Penetration +Elemental Proliferation + Life Leech/Added Lightning
Used as your main source of damage and life gain on hit through Cybil's Paws.
Spell Echo to increase number of balls on screen
Lightning Penetration to increase lightning damage and freeze effectiveness
Elemental Proliferation spreads shock/freeze - Helping defensively to immobilise enemies and offensively by proliferating shock and creating more Herald of Ice explosions.
Life leech for more regeneration or Added Lightning for damage boost

Storm Call + Spell Echo + Faster Casting + Concentrated Effect + Added Lightning
Mainly used for bosses, exiles and high life enemies. Focuses on maximising single target damage

Vaal Storm Call + Spell Echo + Elemental Proliferation + Lightning Penetration
Really good damage boost for clearing white/magic enemies. Can almost chain it non-stop due to only needing 16 kills per use. Nice damage boost for against bosses as well. I've gone for Elemental Proliferation to give it a nice balance between crowd control and raw damage but could be changed for Added Lightning

Reduced Mana + Clarity + Herald of Ice + Herald of Thunder
Clarity to sustain MoM and Arctic Armour. Heralds for extra damage.

Ball Lightning + Curse on Hit + Warlords Mark + Elemental Weakness/Enfeeble
Warlords Mark for life and Mana leech.
Enfeeble for high hitting bosses and Elemental Weakness for everything else.

Lightning Warp + Reduced Duration + Faster Casting
General movement and escaping danger

Cast When Damage Taken + Immortal Call + Increased Duration
Normal defensive uses. Can be used for something else if needed as this isn't really needed.

Arctic Armour
Normal defensive uses

The core item that inspired the build. Combining the life gained on hit with spells and high hit rate of Ball Lightning to recover a massive amount of life at an insane rate.

One hand has our Lightning Warp in it and the other our CWDT + Immortal Call setup. These basically ended up here as I felt the 4-links would be better used for other skills and these were the only other sockets left


Allows our lightning damage to freeze and converted fire damage to shock. Gives a nice amount of resistance and can have a couple of nice corrupted mods too.

Vaal Storm Call in here due to the lucky corruption which gives it a nice damage boost.


Saves passives by giving us Mind Over Matter while also giving a nice boost to Mana and regeneration

Used to hold our main Ball Lightning. Putting it here is the obvious choice as it's the only 5/6 link available when wielding Cybil's.

The spare 6th socket is used for Arctic Armour. If you're using a 5 socket/link or 6 link and don't have an extra socket, I'd advise dropping Elemental Proliferation or Lightning Penetration in the helm and putting it there. The main reason for this is if it's in one of the Cybil's Paws, when you switch to Agnerod, Arctic Armour will deactivate. The other option is it can go in an Unset ring if it has good enough stats.


Used for the 100% of cold converted to fire damage. This allows any added cold damage to convert to fire and shock with Three Dragons. The extra resistances are a nice bonus making it a bit easier to cap.


An extremely under rated item in my opinion. Helps a lot for sustaining MoM and AA while also reducing stat requirements for gems and items. Corrupting with +1 curse allows us to drop Doedre's Damning/Windscream or save passives going for Whisperers of Doom on the tree



Our answer to the problem of single target damage with Ball Lightning. Nice stat's to boost damage, including 20% lightning penetration which stacks for a total of 58% with a level 20 Lightning Penetration gem and 2% from passives.

Obviously holds our Storm Call setup and if you're only using a 5 link with an extra socket, you can use it to level a spare gem or something.


Energy Shield based for Eldritch Battery. Look mainly for life and resistances but max Mana can be nice.

Holds our Heralds and Clarity with reduced Mana. Important these aren't in main/off hand if using weapon switch


Again, Energy Shield based for Eldritch Battery. Look mainly for life and resistances but max Mana and movement speed can be nice.

Holds our dual curse on hit. Can use any curses you want but I like a good offense/defense balance so I use Warlords Mark for my main curse and switch between Elemental Weakness for general clearing and Enfeeble for nasty maps and difficult bosses


All that matters here is life + resistance. If you can max resistance without a tri-res belt, look for high strength to add more life.


Priority here should be high life and then just whatever other stats you need.
Useful stats are resistances, Mana regeneration, Dexterity/Strength,

With these 4 rares, I'm currently at 4.2k life, 3k Mana with 1.6k unreserved for MoM, maxed resistances and 390 Mana regeneration per second. One thing to note is you'll need 40 or so Dexterity on gear if you want to save a couple of passives


There's no specific flasks this build needs. But there are a few useful things to consider

- "Seething" Mana or Hybrid flask for instant Mana recovery when needed
- "of Staunching" to dispel corrupting blood as it's dangerous for this build
- "of Heat" to dispel freeze as it can be deadly when it does occur.
- Quicksilver "of Adrenaline" for mobility
- Granite flask of "Iron Skin" to help with higher physical damage
- Atziri's Promise for more damage and leech
- Taste of Hate for physical mitigation (Beware of freeze)

The main concept of playing the build is quite simple.

Lead with Curse on Hit Ball Lightning then cast away with your main Ball Lightning until everything dies.

Normally, you'll shock/freeze at least a couple of enemies in a pack which will proliferate and everything will explode from Herald of Ice. Herald of Lightning will have activated by now and finish up any enemies on low life as you move on.

Once you have enough kills for Vaal Storm Call, lead with curses, cast Vaal Storm Call and clean up with your main Ball Lightning. Rinse and repeat.

If you come across a Rogue Exile or monster with high life, clear any extra enemies, weapon swap to Agnerod, curse, cast Vaal Storm Call and then normal Storm Call until dead.

CWDT + Immortal Call will use Endurance Charges from Warlords Mark when needed although it doesn't have a huge impact on the builds survivability

Tips:

- Your biggest defense is your offense with this build. As long as you're shooting Ball Lightning at enemies, there's not a lot that will drop your health below half way.

- For more difficult bosses and maps it's a good idea to take the slow and safe route of just using Cybil's/Ball Lightning over Agnerod/Storm Call as the life gained on hit will make a massive difference to survivablity

- For really easy content you can almost exclusively use Agnerod. The extra lightning penetration and shock duration will improve clear speed while the Life Leech gem on Ball Lightning + Warlords Mark will sustain Life/Mana.

- Watch your Mana as it's not always obvious how much damage you're taking due to the large amount of life being recovered. Most of the time you won't have any issues but the times I have noticed it drop down is either due to reflect or just being piled by enemies and getting stun/freeze locked

- If you know a map boss/Exile is coming up, save a Vaal Storm Call and when you drop it on them, usually the extra monsters around will be enough kills to cast a second one.

- On strongboxes, place a Vaal Storm Call just before you open it, Freeze will normally proliferate everything when it opens, allowing you to Lightning Warp away to safety

- Be careful of high damage physical hits as they're your biggest weakness. Use freeze and Enfeeble to your advantage.

Coming Soon!

Coming Soon!