[3.0]Spark Nova EB/MoM Hybrid. Level 100 HSC, 8k EHP

I wouldn't really recommend Doryanis Catalyst, use a spell dagger with attack speed and spell crit if you're not using Brightbeak. The damage isn't needed at all if you minmax the rest of your gear though, the resistance from Brightbeak is super useful for being able to cap chaos resistance. Note that with Brightbeak and good rolls on unique items you only need one lightning and two fire and cold resistance rolls on your rare gear, meaning you got space for 4 chaos resistance rolls or 3x chaos resist+1x cast speed (shield).
It takes some practice and fast reactions but it's definitely possible to use the Brightbeak speed with Headhunter, at least if it's not a map with a bad layout for Shield Charge, or a map with extreme density but the overall map density was nerfed with 3.0.

I think Esh's Mirror is only worth it for attack builds nowadays, as a spell build you lose %damage AND crit, potentially also cast speed. To offset a decent shield with 60-70 Spell damage, 90-100 crit and potential cast speed you would need an unreasonable average amount of kills with Esh's Mirror. Also the crit chance is very useful, I'm sitting between 52 and 53% on my character sheet which is pretty close to ideal, picking up too much crit chance is a common mistake but you don't really want to go lower than 50-60% + Diamond Flask.
The effectiveness of added damage is reduced to 70% on Spark and you already have more base damage than an elemental attack build from the skill base damage, so it's just monstrously less useful on most spell casters.

As for leveling I just leveled with Spark because I had some gear already from my previous Bow character. It's just easier with Firestorm. If you have some funds definitely use Berek's Grip from level 20 on, also get some other leveling gear such as tabula, caster weapons and most importantly resistances.

Btw I'm gonna rename the build since it apparently confuses people into thinking it's a Vaal Spark build, should have probably foreseen that lol.

hey, very interesting build, i didnt think spark/vaal spark would still be viable in 3.0.

i am tired of my wander and would love to play a fast, or rather the fastest, clearspeed spellcaster build this league. i initially decided upon dark pact but seeing this i am not so sure anymore.

what is your (unbiased if thats possible since this is your own guide) spellcaster build this league? budget is no an issue for me i just dont want to lvl to 85+ and then realize the build i am playing turns out to be too slow / there are faster ones out there.

Solid, safe and fun build to play. +1

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KinGGaiA wrote:

hey, very interesting build, i didnt think spark/vaal spark would still be viable in 3.0.

i am tired of my wander and would love to play a fast, or rather the fastest, clearspeed spellcaster build this league. i initially decided upon dark pact but seeing this i am not so sure anymore.

what is your (unbiased if thats possible since this is your own guide) spellcaster build this league? budget is no an issue for me i just dont want to lvl to 85+ and then realize the build i am playing turns out to be too slow / there are faster ones out there.

I think there are several solid choices at the moment.

Dark Pact: super strong as tanky non-crit build, not the best at clearing fast but very safe for hardcore players, no reflect is amazing too. Can also reach outrageous tooltip numbers as crit but I think other spells are more interesting for that.


Spark, Ethereal Knives: both are great for map clearing. Not sure which one has more potential. I might try something with ek+qotf Pathfinder and maybe Roth's Reach+Rigwald's Quills.


Magma Orb, Glacial Cascade: both AWESOME atm. Godly single target potential. Magma Orb has more range and can be used with Sire of Shards, Glacial Cascade is cold based and can shatter easily which is great.

Those certainly aren't the only viable spells though, just a few possibilities! If you only want clear speed I'd go for Ethereal Knives, Spark or Magma Orb.

hey thanks for the reply, ive already decided to try out your sparker build and am currently lvl 95. think i will go for 100 with it, i really really enjoy it.

one thing ive added to the build is Vaal Breach. i thought the gem is just a gimmick but it actually turns the build from having to skip bosses into "cant die at bosses". free HH buffs / endurance, power, frenzy charges, facetank ability due to perma AOE lifeleech, additional DPS from heralds on kill effects and most importantly, a solid 10-15 second of full DPS with flasks up.

it really elevated the build an entire tier for me because i really hate skipping bosses. with 20% quality its 4.5 ex but i have to say it was well worth it.

anyway, great build, i never played VS before so i cant compare it but i am certainly having a blast :)

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KinGGaiA wrote:

hey thanks for the reply, ive already decided to try out your sparker build and am currently lvl 95. think i will go for 100 with it, i really really enjoy it.

one thing ive added to the build is Vaal Breach. i thought the gem is just a gimmick but it actually turns the build from having to skip bosses into "cant die at bosses". free HH buffs / endurance, power, frenzy charges, facetank ability due to perma AOE lifeleech, additional DPS from heralds on kill effects and most importantly, a solid 10-15 second of full DPS with flasks up.

it really elevated the build an entire tier for me because i really hate skipping bosses. with 20% quality its 4.5 ex but i have to say it was well worth it.

anyway, great build, i never played VS before so i cant compare it but i am certainly having a blast :)

Hey using Vaal Breach is a great choice if you want to do hard map bosses solo, but probably only really high map bosses are worth doing because there are tons of maps in the current league thanks to Beachhead.
I wouldn't say I'm forced to skip bosses because I only did Racecourse anyway and as you can see on the video they die pretty quickly, you are just limited to maps where you can use a wall to shotgun the boss. It's the current meta to not kill bosses in a t11 map because the exp loss from entering the room was around 15-20% from what I found and I doubt the drops are worth it thanks to ridiculous trash loot from Biscos. Also less HH buffs because there are none in the boss room and the buff timer keeps ticking while you do the boss.


Overall duoing with a support is probably best if you want to do like t15. Pathfinder would be great for higher content, has good synergy with EE from supports too.
Spark does well in maps such as Abyss and few other ones, but from the videos I saw it's ineffective to do something like Guardian maps solo because the boss takes too long. Also the density in most t14-16 maps isn't great, particularly t16s.
To my knowledge Shaped Shore with full sextants and double beyond or something is still the best exp to date. There may be something with higher exp but ridiculous sextant or other cost, not sure.


BTW in my opinion boss exp should be more similar to Diablo II LoD. If you were going for max level the exp from Baal, Nihlathak and Diablo was extremely important and you would pick up these 3 every game in Baal runs (They just had really high base exp and their level also played a part).
It shouldn't be as extreme as in d2 but probably like 20-40% of all the other monsters in a map.

A quick question, I'm still somewhat new to the game and am learning about which uniques are best in combination with different builds, but are there any uniques other than Bisco's collar, leash, and headhunter that would suit this build effectively?

I guess I'm looking for something with real "stats" if that makes any sense.

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F1eshy wrote:

A quick question, I'm still somewhat new to the game and am learning about which uniques are best in combination with different builds, but are there any uniques other than Bisco's collar, leash, and headhunter that would suit this build effectively?

I guess I'm looking for something with real "stats" if that makes any sense.

Imo you got plenty unique you can use.
Gloves for example: Volkuur's Guidance, Voidbringer, Winds of Change, Maligaro's Virtuosity, Shaper's Touch and it's not all :)

For Gloves you CERTAINLY want those rare gloves with more attack speed and an additional attack speed roll if possible. Fingerless Silk Gloves implicit is awesome too. In addition to that there aren't a lot of great hybrid uniques.

Generally you want to use as few unique items as possible in most builds because they nearly always have lower defensive stats, otherwise you're likely going to end up at 4,5k health which just isn't really viable for not dying.

I chose to run Berek's Grip because the stat loss is pretty minimal and the leech is nice. The only unique where I lose a lot of stats (mostly life) is Call of the Brotherhood, but the freeze is just too good and you don't really want to use Added Cold support because of the Wrath Aura only increasing Lightning damage and Controlled Destruction being just straight up better.

Also I think it may be possible to improve the build a lot by replacing Faster Projectiles with Added Lightning and 1 Spark Jewel with a rare one, but you may need 1-3 Projectile Speed rolls on Jewels. Haven't really tested that yet but may do that next league or something. The relevant thing here is that you always want the max Spark range of 150 units. Actually may be interesting to use Added Cold instead of Lightning if you go that route and drop cotb for a GODLIKE Opal Ring, not sure. EDIT: tested that out and it doesn't seem to be worth it.

HC vible? thx