[3.2] Elementalist Impulse Bomber: The NEW Speedclear Glass Cannon [Shaper vid up! 2mDPS 6k Life]

All-Purpose POB
https://pastebin.com/S9EbFNgE
This is the base build for general purpose mapping and bossing. Our DPS set up on BF uses Hypothermia to proc explosions and we take all the conveniences of linked Heralds and 6L Insanity Shield Charge to tear through maps.
Clean 1mil Standard Boss DPS with no charges, no Vinktars. No strings attached.

Bossing POB
https://pastebin.com/Em3gZfny
This is the logical conclusion of our build's single target capabilities when you may choose to gear up to do end-game bosses. It boasts an additional 4 link for bossing and applying a buffed Ele Weakness while generating Power Charges. It also drops Herald of Ash and some utility gems on Heralds for Wrath. The build also swaps out mobility from the Insanity gloves for two socket Tombfists to amplify our personal DPS even further. These are all reasonable configurations with as close to proper in-combat DPS as possible without hard to sustain buffs.

Tanky High Life POB (6.5k 215%)
https://pastebin.com/0VneaYTM
You want life? Open this POB (and your wallet)! We drop two DPS clusters: Claws of the Pride and Heartseeker and the Alchemist utility cluster for the Duelist and Ranger start life nodes. Warning: Not have Alchemist will make you noticeably slower, you could just not take the Duelist start nodes and keep Alchemist, throw the leftover point into +30 Strength or something.

Headhunters and/or Inspired Learnings (1 or 2) POB
Stay tuned!

Current Gear and Account Link
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/vtxAishi/characters/character=RainbowMage

Let me know what videos you'd like to see!

Shaper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suS9ULsn4as
PoB with identical gear to video: https://pastebin.com/D4xWBxnA

Tier 16 149% IIQ Chimera 40% Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li3vtuIQ0aw

Tier 15 Bog TWINNED Boss Full Enrage 2:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_NRII9hBFM

Tier 10 Toxic Sewer 1:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2kAVObg_xs

Tier 9 Gorge 1:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNc96hqQUjI

Tier 8 Shaped Burial Chamber - NO WEAPON - Autobombing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAWtAm_vDUQ

Author's Note
My character has approached its final form: My helm is crafted, my gear feels complete, and I do not plan to level past 92. I will be testing variants of the build as time progresses but I am please to say that I have completed what I envisioned for my build.

TL;DR: Some math stuff. Shock effect scales Elementalist's 20% minimum Shock. 150% total Shock Effect = optimal for minimum 50% more damage Shock multiplier.

Shock is the Lightning elemental ailment which causes the enemy to take increased damage. This "increased damage taken" is essentially a more multiplier on total damage because there are so little sources of damage taken modifiers. The Shock multiplier ramps up to a total of 50% increased damage taken, but this is only possible if you deal a large portion of enemy life. For any shock that gives x% increased damage, the more dps will trend towards 1/(1-x). To spare you the math, this means that you need 2/3rds of the maximum shock to ramp up to the maximum 50% more damage cap. That's 6.66% of the target's max health per hit with only damage that accounts for Shock.

Looking at this we realize why people are so up in arms about ticking off that "Is Enemy Shocked?" checkbox in Path of Building. Elementalist on the other hand has a minimum of 20% Damage Taken via Shock from Beacon of Ruin. According to Mark_GGG from these exchange of comments, we come to understand that Shock Effect is applied additively to the minimum 20% Damage Taken as our new base Shock - which means we only need 150% Shock Effect to receive the full benefit of the true 50% more multiplier. The sources of Shock I suggest for this build are as follows, with this current build's selections emphasized:

Tree nodes
Arcing Blows 10%
Crackling Speed 10%
Elemental Focus Node 10%
Beacon of Ruin 20%
Breath of Lightning 35% (Nodes: 10%, 10%, 15%)

Gems
Static Strike 19%
Arc 29%
Unbound Ailments 30%
Shock Nova 39%

Equipment
Shaped Innervate Helm 8-20%
Inpulsa Shock Effect 25-40%
Stormcharger 15-25%

TL;DR: Herald of Ice adds a Shock enabling AoE on kill effect to make up for the fact Inpulsa cannot shock, allowing Inpusla to shock.

The core of the build revolves around using Inpulsa as a mechanism for clear then enhancing burning damage through means of Stormfire. In terms of isolating the effects of Heralds and how they work in tandem with the rest of the build we need to understand how Inpulsa and Proliferation work. The logic behind Inpulsa chains is as follows:

Shocked Mob Dies -> Inpulsa Explosion -> Kills other shocked mobs -> Inpulsa Explosions spread Shock -> More Shocked Mobs die -> More Explosions

Follow so far? Good. The issue with this chain is that this loop only happens once if the only elemental ailment that we have is facilitated by Lightning. Inpulsa itself cannot shock so the second wave of deaths will no longer spread the Shock ailment (the section in red). This is because your proliferated ailments cannot proliferate further on their own so there is a disconnect in (1) so what we do here is add Herald of Ice to enable these chains in (2):

(1) Shock -> Inpulsa -/> Shock -> Inpulsa
(2) Shock + Freeze -> Inpulsa + Herald of Ice Shatter -> Shock + Freeze -> Inpulsa + Herald of Ice

Herald of Ice Shatter Explosion is what carries the Shock ailment from pack to pack, the initial mob is shattered through out natural ailment and this chill/freeze spreads and daisy chains across packs cause on-hit explosions that act as a psuedo-proliferation. When we add Inpulsa to the mix we extend far beyond the initial range of proliferation to carry explosions across a pack. This effect is also how Herald of Thunder operates, you cannot shock the initial target, but you can freeze/shatter it, shocking the surrounding targets to chain off those. That is the reasoning behind the addition of Ice Bite to allow Herald of Thunder the ability to Freeze, Shatter, then Proliferate the shock off Herald of Ice.

(1) Herald of Thunder (Lightning Only) -/> Shock -> Inpulsa
(2) Herald of Thunder (+Ice) -> Chill/Freeze -> Herald of Ice Shatter -> Shock + Freeze -> Inpulsa

This effect can also be emulated with Call of the Brotherhood which is why it is my pre-80 recommendation before you can find the mana reserve for it in your Herald setup. An advantage of CotB is that it allows Inpulsa to chain by itself without the use of Ice Bite for initial cold ailments:

Shock -> Inpulsa w/ Conversion to Ice -> Chill/Freeze + Prolif -> Herald of Ice Shatter + Inpulsa Explosions -> Chill + Shock Proliferation -> More Explosions

Finally to add all of these shocks together, we use the interplay between Herald of Thunder and Ice to push Herald of Ash's damage as a result of the dozens of shocks ramping up Stormfire to insane levels. While Ignite (and by a similar extension, burning damage) is in a bad spot, the unique position Herald of Ash has is that it's Overkill damage, and a % of enemy's life as base damage on top of the more multipliers already present on the skill itself is incredible. For ~15% mana reserve it's hard to pass up the incredible consistency.

Inpulsa is the core of the build, we leverage the explosion effect of Inpulsa and its lightning base to trigger a daisy chain of ailments across a pack for a spectacle of explosions. Inpulsa itself is an excellent offensive chest piece. The life roll is acceptable, the % increased damage on recent shock is very strong (~15% total dps) and the shock effect is a 8%! more multiplier on Elementalist. The shock immunity is also very welcome defensively and opens up the use of Vinktars or Maligaro's Restraint.

A well rolled 5L Inpulsa may even give equivalent damage overall to a poorly rolled 6L Inpulsa. I heavily recommend prioritizing the stats on this item. In mods to look for, I would recommend: Explosion >>> Life > Shock Effect = Increased Damage.


Stormfire is the other core piece of the build. The key function of this unique introduced in 3.2 is that it allows our lightning damage to ignite. With the absence of Elemental Focus on links, most actions we take apply shocks which very, very quickly ramps burning damage. Burning from ignites may be in a poor state, but Herald of Ash burns off a percentage of overkill damage and applies more multipliers upon itself to give it very respectable damage. Inpulsa, Herald of Ice, and Herald of Thunder will also ignite and proliferate, providing a good safety net for clear.

Use this as a replacement for Stormfire before you hit level 80. If you use Call of the Brotherhood, you can drop Ice Bite on Herald of Thunder and you still get the big shatters/explosions while leveling. Your Inpulsa explosions will also do some massive cold damage for freezing.


This is our psuedo Tempest Binding which provides a plethora of buffs and effects for our clear triggers. Using Ice Bite, Innervate, and Increased Critical Strike Support provides layers upon layers of ailments for Herald of Ice to Shock, and Herald of Thunder to Freeze/Chill while providing two buffs for our personal DPS. Try your best to get the Level 20 Innervate mod + Shock effect first to support your Beacon of Ruin as the Inc Crit gem can support the base crit of the build until you round out your gear with the Shaped Base % Crit Mod. (If you somehow get a hold of Tempest Binding this league feel free to use it too)


The non-bomber aspect of the build is a very typical Elemental Claw/Foil Crit build that many of you are familiar with. The changes in this build come from Inpulsa, Stormfire, a well linked Shield Charge for damage, Auras, and Ascendencies. You may notice that I have both Phys and Ele based claws above, as long as you full convert or at least 90% convert with Winter Spirit + Physical to Lightning Support there is no issue. Scourge also increases the damage of your heralds so it's a good mid-game option. I am currently using an Abyss Jewel centric claw (Low flat ele, high Attack Speed/Crit Chance/Multi), look for more flat elemental damage on your claws if you're lower level/lack jewels.


Shield Charge is our clear skill trigger, having a beefy Shield Charge will allow us to kill a single mob with some help from our peripheral damage such as HoT and Lightning Bolt to get the explosions and stacking Stormfire. Because of this, gloves crafted with Essence of Insanity will directly influence our clear and damage capabilities. In general Faster Attack Elder Influence gloves are enough to provide an additional damage link to allow Shield Charge to clear smoothly.


The ever-popular Lycosidae is a huge boost to our single target damage but does come at a slightly heftier price. Esh's Mirror is also a great alternative because the flat lightning provided is applied to practically all of our damage across the board and will devastate mobs while clearing. The only issue is that the use of Esh's Mirror will drastically reduce our naturally low accuracy, so be warned. A good Vagan weapon can be used with Esh's Mirror.


Choir of the Storm is a handy amulet that will trigger off of Herald of Thunder's crits and kill shocked enemies allowing a loop for Herald of Thunder to continue indefinitely. The Lightning bolt is welcome for sniping an enemy to nuke a pack and the 75% increased Critical Strike Chance is a solid amount for our Herald's consistency in applying ailments. A build more focused on single target may a run of the mill Ele Crit DPS amulet or Yoke, which provides us with an easy 20% damage taken multiplier because of Claw's affinity for poison. Players unsatisfied withe the life total can elect for a high strength + life amulet.


No surprise here, speed clear + HH and even Inspired Learning(s) = optimal fun

Gear


Mapping Flasks

(1) May replace Vinktars for defensive flask of choice
(2) QS of Adrenline is swapped for a QS of Warding for cursed maps

Bossing Flasks

(1) Lion's Roar and Taste of Hate are important for Phys Base DPS
(2) Jade may be replaced for an alternate defensive flask of choice (Basalt, Taste of Hate)

Example Jewels (Current Build runs +/- 4)

Priority
ONE T2/1 Onslaught on Kill jewel
T3+ Life
Lightning to Claw Attacks/General Attacks
More Flat Elemental Damage of the other Elements
Attack Speed on Crit Recently
Global Critical Strike Multiplier

So you're cruising through some Beaches or saving up a little cash in Blood Aqueducts, making a few chaos here and there. After being a bit frugal with your savings. It's time for some upgrades, so how do you get the most bang for your buck without breaking your wallet? How do you scale your purchase goals alongside your income generation? Remember that the general rare gear with life and resists should usually be kept up to date! This includes Gloves, Boots, a ring, and the helm prior to your Innervate/Crit helm. My "milestone items" recommendation are as follows:

(T1-5) Entry-level Mapping: Get your core items!
4L/5L Inpulsa -> Call of the Brotherhood (or Berek's Grip for sustain?)
These are without a doubt the core of your build, with Stormfire at level 80, you want to have an Inpulsa and CotB by your high 60's to low 70's to begin taking advantage of your Ascendency. A well rolled 5L Inpulsa is often better than a Tabula in practically every way. With these two core items and a claw that isn't horrific you're ready to finish Acts. You may opt for picking Mastermind of Discord before Beacon of Ruin in Cruel Lab if you want an easier early game experience.[/b] This will mean you play more similarly to a Ele Crit Claw build (better bossing as well) until Uber Lab in exchange for lower clear speed.

(T6-9) Mid-game Mapping: Equip Stormfire at 80!
Innervate or Base Crit Helm -> Rare Claw + Better Abyss Jewels (-> Esh's Mirror, Choir of the Storm)
Now that the core of your build is established, it's time to supplement some items to help iron out the kinks while clearing. Ditching your Ornament of the East or equivalent leveling weapon and picking up a proper rare claw with some good flat ele abyss jewels (Lightning > Fire = Cold) will do wonders for your single target since you may notice at this point the clear is already excellent. We pick up either of the target mods on our helm - just one will do, as both tends to be expensive/rare (I recommend base crit for the sake of your mana reserve). Those wishing to push a bit harder on the clear or need a damage upgrade can use an Esh's Mirror + Choir of the Storm, although they tend to be expensive early league.

(T10-15) Late-game Mapping: Big Ticket Items!
Lycosidae -> Revisit Rare Gear (Life/Res) -> Assassin's Mark on Hit Ring (Optional) -> 6L Inpulsa
The first "big" purchase of this build is Lycosidae compared to the gumball upgrades you may have been doing previously with the exception of your Claw. You may find that bosses, especially the newer multi-phase bosses will give you a lot of trouble (See Desert Springs Map) so you will directly spike your damage with the addition of a Lycosidae. Afterwards, I heavily recommended to visit all of your rare equipment (One Ring, Gloves, Boots, Belt) to increase your life totals and defenses to combat these chunkier bosses. Your Innervate + Base Crit Helm can be bought now too. 6L Inpulsa will prepare you for the majority of content the game as to offer and all gearing post-6L Inpulsa is luxury.

(T16+) End-game Gearing
End Game Claw -> End Game Jewels -> Insanity Gloves + Headhunter
Not much handholding here, at this point you're either feeling out the build to completion and intimately familiar with what you need/want or you're pushing the build to the limit and deciding to do bosses for it. Your end-game jewels should have at least 40-50 flat elemental damage with a t2+ life roll and one of those damage rolls being lightning. Your end game claw must have a proper lightning roll, high attack speed, and at least crafted crit chance with the remainder of the mods being more flat ele, crit multi, or elemental damage with attacks. Insanity Gloves are the hallmark of luxury as you take your clear to its ultimate form with the Big Bad Belt.

Leveling section to be expanded upon later
Levels 1-45 (Acts 1 - 5 + Normal Lab)
Levels 46-53 (Acts 6 - Esh Mirror + Cruel Lab)
Levels 53-68 (End of Campaign + Merciless Lab)

Bandits: Alira or Kill All
I personally chose Kill All because it provides a few more points of life and +8% All Res is a good option if you wish via the Nullification node.

Normal Lab: Shaper of Desolation
This is unfortunately the weakest node of all four notables that we take, but it is a necessary evil as we path though to Beacon of Ruin. It is best you ignore the rotating buffs for your own sake.

Cruel Lab: Beacon of Ruin
This node is our powerhouse node mid-game. The Shock Effect is incredibly pronounced on more difficult to handle mods and the chill effect is nothing to sleep on. The proliferation is a key component to our clear and as well as providing a reasonable amount of safety due to the frequency we chill.

Merciless Lab: Pendulum of Destruction
While people tend to have a distaste for rotating buffs, when the AoE ticks over on Pendulum you notice a VERY sizable difference. This node ruins the spread of Molten Strike and renders the skill unusable in this build. Regardless, not much to say about this node since it's an intermediary node towards...

Uber Lab: Mastermind Discord
This is node that provides a fairly sizable amount of damage, for a Flat Elemental Damage stacking build, 25% penetration across the board is a major boon to our offensive capabilities. The mana reservation on the three Heralds allow us to finish the links on our Herald of Ice and Thunder while keeping Herald of Ash into the mix.

Lab Enchants
Helmet: To be honest I haven't found a need for any Helmet enchant in particular. There's many options, you can focus on single target, focus on clear, etc. It's important not to be picky since the helm can be difficult to get at times. Here's a small list:
- Blade Flurry Damage
- Herald of Ice Damage
- Herald of Thunder Damage
- Shield Charge Attack Speed/Damage
- Lightning/Ice Golem Buff Effect
- Blood Rage Attack Speed

Boots: Flat Lightning and Penetration are excellent bossing options, the latter being far rarer. Cold Damage when hit recently is universal for clear and damage. Attack Speed on kill and Movement Speed are both solely for clear.

Gloves: Chaining Damage (Blades) Reflection (Draws aggro) and Spite (Chilled Ground) are all useful utility but don't stress it.

Author's Note: This build is very much requires Uber Lab to unlock its full potential. It is unfortunate that we desire both end nodes but must path through two lackluster intermediary nodes to grab them. I have considered the reversing the order in which we take the ascendencies (First Mastermind, then Beacon) but I wanted to allow players to experience the entirety of the build before Uber and equipping Stormfire at level 80. While it may be more optimal to grab Mastermind first and use the 25% Penetration to level as an Ele Crit Claw build until Uber Lab on league start, I chose to recommend Beacon of Ruin first because it is more faithful to the build.

Shield Charge Set-up
Shield Charge - Faster Attacks - Elemental Damage with Attacks - Added Lightning
Optional changes: Blood Magic, Fortify, Insanity influenced gloves
(1) One concern I have is personally being greedy and not linking Fortify somewhere: it can go in either the Blade Flurry set-up or Shield Charge set up depending on your needs.

Single Target Set-up
Blade Flurry - Added Lightning - Conc Effect - Hypothermia - Ele Dmg w/ Attacks - Crit Dmg
(1) Practically any attack skill set up can be your single target of choice.
(2) Even Blade Flurry with Conc Effect feels great because you only need to isolate rares to kill or pop a single monster in a pack to nuke the screen.

Herald Set-up
Herald of Ice - Herald of Thunder - Increased Crit Strikes - Ice Bite
Optional: Base % Crit Shaper Helm, Innervate (Helm or Gem), PC on Crit, Empower 4
(1) If you have only a Base % Crit helmet, then I would suggest dropping Inc Crit for Innervate
(2) If you only an Innervate Helmet, then keep Inc Crit because you need the base crit.
(3) Empower 4 is appropriate for more reliance on autobombing

Supplementary Gem Setups
Herald of Ash - Enlighten
An Enlighten 3 may reduce the load all of the multipliers have on your mana reserve, otherwise, you can just throw Herald of Ash anywhere as we aren't dependent on any links for it, Stormfire is enough.

Vaal Haste/Grace - Increased Duration
Vaal Haste is disgusting on Shield Charge builds as it takes full advantage of both Movement and Attack Speed boosts.

Ancestral Protector - Ele Dmg w/ Attacks - Unbound Ailments
Ancestral Protector will provide maximized Shock Effect from Unbound Ailments and a large DPS boost from the Attack Speed buff. Maim is fine here if you have ~50% phys before you get Winter Spirit.

CWDT - Immortal Call - X - Y
Options: Tempest Shield, Ice Golem, Lightning Golem, Enfeeble, Blood Rage,
Some typical CWDT options. If you don't have an Assassin's Mark ring I recommend you put your curse here. If you run out of CWDT slots just put your Golem with your Herald of Ash in a 3L.
Something of note: Immortal Call to stop Blood rage procs Soul of Arakaali for 1.5x leech multiplier, can add Blood Rage directly but low QoL for mapping, you can also manually cast it. Not recommended because this is a VP build but it's strong.

Why Elementalist?
Elementalist's proliferation from Shaper of Desolation allow for consistent ailment-related effects to trigger and a heavily stacked ignite effect to clean out packs. With three Heralds used, Mastermind of Discord was a natural fit. The crux of the build revolves around Heralds and ailments, meaning Elementalist provides the best consistency for the clear. On the single target side, we leverage Shock Effect from Inpulsa perfectly with Beacon of Ruin's minimum Shock as well as a start closer to some Shock Effect nodes.

Is there any way to get more life?
Yes! I've added a new PoB for a higher life total build.

Claws of the Magpie/Top of Claw Wheel as Ele build?
It gives over 25% attack speed, definitely a great pickup regardless of damage base.

Would you use this as a league starter?
Sure! Easy to gear, Stormfires and Inpulsas are cheap, and the majority of your damage comes from some uniques. It's also amazing for low tier map farming.

I saw you have Rampage active, how?
I use a Dancing Dervish weapon swap while Herald of Thunder is active, just make sure you stay under 15 kills then switch back to your main weapon.

Uber Elder?
A major consideration is that this is not a bossing build: while there is some degree of bossing viability because you are ultimately playing Blade Flurry with very strong single target scaling from the Elementalist Ascendency, none of these are comfortable fights. I can do Uber Elder, Shaper, Uber Atziri, I can post videos of the fights, but ultimately this comes down to a high intimacy with the fights and player skill. I've done these fights dozens of times and I've spent the "tuition" to learn Shelder. The fight is doable but so is doing Atziri with CI+EB. I will not readily recommend people this build to try Shelder and burn multiple sets for even the slightest chance at almost clearing. I may record a video of myself doing Shelder for kicks some day but for the average person reading this guide Uber Atizri and Shaper are the upper limit.