1 month staff ball lightning [Now Transitioned to RF BL]

Cheap, Tanky, Quick mapping, Easy gearing, and powerful upgrade options.

Videos



Level 85 tree

http://poeurl.com/zijDE0M

Gear as of 4/1/15



Flasks



Flasks in this build are incredibly important. Remove shock health pot is very useful especially once lightning coil is equipped. Remove bleed health flask is pretty standard, much needed for puncture and corrupting blood (you stack corrupting blood very fast). I ride the iron skin granite pretty hard, eventually I will get one with charge recovery and a higher armor percentage. The heat topaz may seem odd but I ride this flask as much as the granite. Haast, freeze boxes, artic breaeth, and other chilling effects greatly hinder clear speed. Quicksilver of warding is a standard for me, always using it.


Ideal Gem Setup




What I'm working on

I colored my Lightning coil and now have my "win more" button setup (vaal storm call). I have also finally hit level 19 gems. So now the goal will be to get the gems to level 20 and go for the 20 quality dream. I have also been toying around with an endgame Righteous Fire Ball lightning variant that I may start collecting pieces for. I would want level 89 to have all the passives to sustain RF and I need a level 20 purity of fire (leveling it in offhand already). Here is the tree I have in mind if this interests you.

http://poeurl.com/ziQeCzt


Leveling Proccess

I leveled with fire trap and lightning tendrils, switching to ball lightning around merciless ledge. I progressed from shadow to witch (skipping heart of thunder), then down to shaper, then into templar. After templar area is complete I got heart of thunder and then moved down to vaal pact. I picked up the life nodes as needed.

Ball lightning worked really well in a +1 lightning gems 3 link (lightning pen, faster casting) through merciless docks, but I was still using lightning tendrils and fire trap until I got my 5 link setup.

To get your 5 link staff, save up 4-5 chaos for a white 5 link staff. ~40 alts to get +2 lightning gems (mine took 20 ish). Once i had a high enough lvl catarina i regal'd my staff and added cast speed.

Prior to using the lightning coil I had an armor/es chest, ran Discipline instead of purity of lightning and was relying on arctic armor for physical mitigation.

Conclusion

After switching my arcer in standard to ball lightning I was pleasantly surprised by the comparable clear speed and higher single target damage. Atziri was a walk in the park compared to the arcer.

Going into the 1 month I needed to pick a setup that made me tanky but didn't require expensive or highly contested uniques or expensive gear requirements.

Lightning coil was purchased day 2 for 8 chaos and it's rolls are near top, Cloak of Defiance is going for 1-2 exalt. The Agnerod set me back 28 chaos but it's a bargain compared to the cost of a pledge or a catalyst/saffel's frame/rathpith setup.


Righteous Fire Alternate Setup


My Gear



My tree

http://poeurl.com/ziWdKzx

Why

In short, I was amassing some currency and I felt it was time to respec my build since I had hit 86 and level 19 gems, which meant I was starting to get bored. So why would you want to try this? Well you shouldn't unless you love ball lightning and love righteous fire. The gains compared to the cost is probably not worth it. Ball lightning is great for running maps and amassing currency. You could easily make a better build.

So with this tree I give up about 100% increased damage in exchange for aura nodes, life regen, and +1 fire res which allows me to get the damage multiplier from righteous fire. Ideally you want want a Doryani's Catalyst as your weapon, but I settled for The Supreme Truth as it was cheap, available, looks cool, and I don't own one in standard. Also because of the +1 level I am able to cheat and do this build early with a lvl 19 purity of fire (normally a level 20 is mandatory). I will eventually upgrade to a catalyst as that will give me more damage and another % of leech.

So what did I gain. Well I gained about 1k armor and 1k evasion switching to this build which is pretty sweet. I also traded vaal pact for insane hp regen with a ruby activated which allows me to plow through reflect. I also gained a nice chunk of tooltip damage, once I get my gems in order I will post a screen shot of my offensive tab.

I still run a lvl 14 arctic armor, but now its not being buffed by inner force or holy might. Over all the build honestly feels twice as tanky though I can no longer run maps with; half regen, vuln, or minus max res. The change has made the build incredibly fun to play and I am now looking forward to grinding onward to complete my 20/20 gems and try to push as much damage out of the build as I can.

At /played 1 day 14 hours here is what I'm up to.

Gear


Flasks



Offense tab



Defense Tab




Now that I 5 linked my Agnerod I will be working on 6 socketing the lightning coil so I can move lightning warp and reduced duration to the 2 link. This would allow me to use the 4 link vaal storm call setup described above.

As far as mapping goes, I have run half regen (turn off arctic armor) and elemental reflect (topaz flask + vaal pact) maps without issue. So as of now blood magic and no regen are the only mods I avoid.

Recorded 2 videos, one is being uploaded to youtube now, other will be up in a day or so. I will be updating the main post with some new stats once I get my ball lightning gem to lvl 19.

As far as gear I was able to 6 socket the coil, so now I just need to chrome it. I'm also in need of a ring and amulet upgrade which will allow a higher lvl arctic armor to be run.

Nicely done bro, was thinking of something similar, but I had to try out the dual wand setup first in one month HC, but that whole time I was playing the build, it just felt really squishy. I tried looking for other ways to make it feel less squishy I suppose, but It kept bringing me back to using MoM (cloak of D.) and that just wasn't an option I liked. I ripped that HC char at 67 unfortunately so I didn't get to test it fully, so Now I'm starting up a new char, but it wont be ball lightning, but if ever my char rips again (hopefully not any time soon), I'll be doing your iteration of it, probably with more hp though I don't know how I feel about 153% hp (in HC), I'll probably want to sacrifice the ele nodes next to inner force if anything, less damage, but from what I've experienced so far, Ball Lightning still does a lot of damage. I'll be looking forward to more updates if anything. (bookmarked)

If you have seen the vid, I hope that shows how tanky the build is. I'm sitting at 4.3k life and face tank a unique beyond boss twice. Leech + vaal pact + coil + topaz + granite is an incredibly powerful combination (I've been quite surprised by the results).

There are plenty of extra life nodes in reach though, so less damage for more life is definitely a possibility.

There will be a second youtube video shortly that shows a jungle valley. I face tank that boss with -60 chaos res.

http://poeurl.com/ziCmhLA

Here's what I have planned atm, I'd like your feed back on it if anything :) I don't know if its too excessive (Hp wise) or if I'm lacking damage but atm, I feel as though its ok. Probably going to start out as a flameblaster till merci. then switch on over.

http://poeurl.com/ziCsjT1

I dropped the number of points down to lvl 90 (only taking oak for bandits) and changed the pathing so you go by more damage nodes.

With this setup at lvl 90 you will sit around 5.2k life which is quite a lot. If you feel the need for more hp their are some damage nodes you can swap for hp nodes, but few builds break 5k life without a belly or kaoms. Also because this build has more mana regen and mana than mine, you can easily sustain an even higher arctic armor than I am.

You do want to find a balance between HP and damage so that way you are not standing around taking even more damage waiting for something to die. That said your health pool is a resource and you do want/need to be able to soak up big chunks of damage.

I have tanked some really heavy hits and have not been one shot yet with my 4.3k hp pool. I'd imagine with another 900-1k life you would feel much safer.

Sounds good bro, yeah I'll most likely be respeccing like 20 points at most come merc/maps into ball lightning if ever I survive long enough with FB and not get screwed over with desync or lag. What would you say would be the most important item to get first off? Lightning coil or Agnerod? in terms of just rushing? If I were to look at it objectively I would think that Lightning Coil would be the safest bet in terms of HC, right?

Synzaku, Lightning Coil first, you can get by with a 3 link +1 wand if needed. The mitigation lightning coil provides is critical for the build.

Updated gear and talked about an RF variant in the main post.

isnt double divinarius vastly superior ? ( highest spell damage , highest area , shitload of crit, dual wield cast speed bonus etc )