4th support gem for Herald of Thunder?

I have a HoT setup with:

Herald of Thunder
Curse on Hit
Warlord's Mark

Pretty basic stuff. A 3-link for HoT with curse on hit. Now, this is in a build that I'm testing for Ascendancy, which is going to be a Hierophant. Among other things, I'm trying to make the best use of the Illuminated Devotion Ascendancy Passive, which provides this:

Skills from your Helmet penetrate 20% Elemental Resitances
Skills from your Gloves have 20% increased Area of Effect
Skills from your Boots Leech 2% of Damage as Life

I'm planning on using a single target skill socketed in the helmet for the penetration and a multiple target skill in the gloves for the AoE.

Now HoT will be socketed on the Boots for the Life Leech. Since HoT with Curse on Hit only requires 3 links, I'm used to socketing it in the main had or off-hand. However, now that I'm socketing it on the boots to make it leech life for me, I can explore possibilities with a 4th socket.

Ideas that came to my mind so far are:

Added Lightning Damage: has a mana multiplier of 130% (translates into 32% from 25% reservation) and increases the damage dealt by HoT significantly, as it has a Damage Effectiveness of 120%. Means I'll deal more damage with it and then leech more life as well.

Blind: has no mana multiplier so doesn't change my mana reservation plan, and helps avoid some damage by making enemies less likely to hit me.

Increased Duration: has a mana multiplier of 140% (translates into 35% from 25% reservation) and will make the on kill effect of HoT last longer, increasing uptime and thus cursing more enemies, leeching more life and dealing damage more often.

I'm leaning towards Added Lightning Damage but was wondering if anyone has an even better idea or would like to throw their thoughts about this.

could always throw another leech gem there cuz why not xD Culling strike is also a pretty good idea which I used for some time. It increases the damage of the strikes, so you leech more, and it also helps kill bosses and rares. Added lightning isnt a half bad idea either, as the lightning part has a 120% damage effectiveness.

"

Rowanbladex wrote:

could always throw another leech gem there cuz why not xD Culling strike is also a pretty good idea which I used for some time. It increases the damage of the strikes, so you leech more, and it also helps kill bosses and rares. Added lightning isnt a half bad idea either, as the lightning part has a 120% damage effectiveness.

I do like the culling strike idea... the gem has a small multiplier of 110%, which modifies the reservation of HoT only by 2% (goes to 27%), which is something I do have to keep in mind as this is a MoM build. It provides a bit more damage for a bit more leech and adds the utility of culling things. I'll really consider that too, thank you!

Does anyone know which supports work and which don't work in a herald of thunder chain? I tried putting a poison support in there but I don't think it's working. Monsters are not turning green when I hit them. Curse on hit, conductivity, and innervate supports are all working though.

poison is based on phys and chaos damage, HoT does neither. Maybe if you also link added chaos damage? But it wouldn't be worth links spent.

You're right, I tried an added chaos in the chain along with the poison support and the monsters started turning green when I attacked. But the damage is pretty minimal since I wasn't building for chaos.

Depending on where you are on the tree, grabbing Whispers of Doom or gearing for +1 curse and putting another curse in there would be nice.

Given that it's a MoM build, depending on how you are for mana, a mana leach gem would also work as it would effectively be a second form of life leach with another 20% per second cap, though I'm not sure if you're going to be hurting that much for mana being a Heirophant.

Iron Will could be a thing dependant on your strength and as a bonus, there's no mana multiplier.

I'm a Trickster in this character, not doing MoM. Whispers of Doom is too far away for me. Culling Strike is good for the build I have. I'm using Lightning Strike so I have mostly physical and elemental passives.