[3.2] The Ethical™ CWC Tendrils/Arc/BL Shock Man

Disclaimer: This build is not meta. It is not gonna clear maps in 10 seconds. It does not have any IIR or IIQ. It will not kill uber elder in 2 seconds. It is played by a very lazy tired human and not a twitch guy going 3000mph slamming flasks constantly. You'd be better off with totems or poet's pen, but this build is certified Ethical™.



PoB: https://pastebin.com/PVuGd5zW

This was my character I made in Abyss, BEFORE the ascendancy changes in 3.2 that made Hierophant superpowered. The revamped lightning tendrils looked fun, and inpulsa's even more so, but why Hiero in 3.1? Because I wanted to make use of the fast cast speed of tendrils for Romira's Banquet with Conviction of Power for always having Immortal Call, and always wanted to make a self-cast Hierophant that didn't suck.

Since 3.2 I decided to beef it up, because bestiary was boring. The ascendancy changes made it pretty clear that this build would work a lot better not as a templar, but a JUGG or ElePhant Scion. As a JUGG it could skip romira's due to the end charge per second mechanic and stack crit for more damage, while as ElePhant it'd be able to shock endgame bosses and still get the extra MoM. But I stuck through and made what you see here.

Summary:
- 9K EHP topend, perma IC, leech without warlords, blind, hinder, 79% ele res, some spellblock
- Easy pack clear, pretty explosions
- Decent single target with gem swaps
- Not supersonic speed, not how I like to play anyway
- No shenanigans with anything that'll be obviously nerfed
- Non-crit self-cast non-rf non-dot non-shaper-statstick badge of honour
- Killed Shaper and Uber Atziri, have yet to try Uber Elder
- Ethical™

SKILLS:
Spoiler

MAIN SETUP:
Lightning Tendrils - Cast While Channelling - Arc/Ball Lightning/Shock Nova - Lightning Penetration - Controlled Destruction - Innvervate/Elemental Focus/Conc Effect

LT is there mainly to trigger Arc or BL at a faster speed while keeping the very nice ability to stop casting immediately, while casting fast enough to proc blind and hinder and your charge generation, also deals about 50K shaper DPS by itself but it's very little compared to BL.

Arc is your pack clear. The automatic targeting and long range is wonderful to play with and it doesn't really need the chain enchant when you have explosions. The built in shock chance and effect help too.

BL is what you swap in to kill bosses, but it only does so if you have the reduced proj speed enchant. You can't realistically use the slower proj support because there's no good green supports for Arc, you'd be stuck with added cold which doesn't work well cause you lose roughly 200% inc damage scaling. You could maybe use onslaught but it feels like a waste.

Shock Nova is your alternative until you can get a 45% BL helm, combined with conc effect instead of innverate/ele focus. It lacks range and doesn't deal as much damage, but it works up til you're doing guardians and ubers and whoever.

Light pen and cont dest explain themselves, but innverate and ele focus need some detail. Innervate is mainly for the shock chance to proc explosions and it only gives a portion less than added lightning when clearing, where you don't need much damage anyway. Against beefy boy bosses like guardians, you're not gonna get more than a 1%ish shock due to their giant life pools, so elefocus covers you well. Against regular map bosses you can get away with still using innervate with BL, but you can swap in added light if you really need the damage.

OTHER SETUPS:
Immortal Call lvl 12 - CWDT lvl 10 - Inc Duration - Blood Rage/Blade Vortex

Necessary. Personal choice on levels. Swap out blood rage for blade vortex on bosses without adds or no regen maps just for the extra hits to proc with. Used to use a self cast IC to trigger 30 second long higher level arcane surge but the gem slots needed for only a little bit extra damage wasn't worth it after 3.2.

Lightning Golem - Decoy Totem - Lightning Warp

Light golem for movement and some extra LT damage cause this build has little cast speed, as CWC ignores it. Decoy totem only lasts a couple seconds against bosses, but there's really nothing more useful for a 1-socket totem. Warp is to get over gaps.

Shield Charge - Fortify - Faster Attacks

Self explanatory.

Curse on Hit - Ball Lightning - CWDT - Conductivity/Warlord's Mark

Can't use mana on blasphemy, so gotta go the other route to be able to use high level curses. Conductivity is only for extra boss damage really, and with light pen at 40% you don't exactly need it, but it's still extra damage. Until you have another source of mana leech you can use warlords mark, which doesn't need to be levelled so you can swap CoH and BL for whatever else you want.

Orb of Storms - Culling Strike - Item Rarity - Duration

Just there for extra hits, a tiny bit extra damage and culling.

Wrath

In Essence Worm. 22% more damage is too useful to pass up.



GEAR:
Spoiler

You need the BL enchant and starkonja's is a regularly enchanted helm. Good life, attack speed, dexterity very handy as you need 103 to wear inpulsa and more for levelled dex gems. I used to use Mind of the Council for the (instant) mana recovery on shock, but after running uberlab for a week without hitting that BL enchant, I just bought this instead. Mind's mana recovery loses usefulness once you have a mana leech watcher's eye anyway. Eber's unification would be a good alternative to starkonja's but good luck enchanting it.


Without this, pack clear is slow and much less pretty.


Global blind is incredibly useful defensively, but cause this is a spell build, it's either this or dark seer and the latter is too much damage loss. Cheap buy back in Abyss, needs upgrading I know.


Mana regen enchant is very useful as it's scaled by inc% mana regen mods. Kaom's roots would be good and the gem slots aren't needed, but I like blind too much to


Puts your life leech to 0.7%, plenty of damage and has atk speed for charging.


When you have blind and IC, ele spells are all that's left to hurt you, so saffel's covers that up by a good amount.


Needed for Conviction of Power and Wrath. Belt is just res. Corruption on Romira's isn't a gamechanger but it's better than crit chance in a non-crit build.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jz1TjCphXE Needed res. Used to be a shaper 0.5% life leech amu before 3.2 added 0.5% spell leech to hiero.

JEWELS!!

Watcher's Eye with mana leech is VERY important if you want to stop using warlord's mark, and it isn't in high demand. Rest of the jewels are just extra life and mana, chaos res to bring me to ~0% and some extra damage. A hinder jewel isn't necessary, but it feels nice. ES regen helps avoid stuns a little bit, so long as you aren't taking any non-chaos DoT.


Pantheon:
Spoiler
Brine king in general. Chain stuns are too deadly.
I used to use arakaali for the life recovery, triggered by IC stopping blood rage, but chain stuns are simply too dangerous and I live fine without it.
Choose whatever minor you want, but I keep it on either shakari to help cover more bases, or ryslatha when endgame bossing/labbing.


Passive tree for non-PoB users.
Bandit was Alira for res when char was new, could swich to passives or other bandit as the mana regen and crit multi aren't useful to this character. Have not bothered so far cause I'm too lazy to upgrade gloves.

________________________________

I know this build isn't gamebreaking, but I wanted to share what I've been happily enjoying in Standard. Go ahead and be unethical if you want by making it as an ElePhant or JUGG, or just pulling out a poet's pen instead, but know that the spectre of shame will stay with you eternally.

Thanks for readin'
IGN: Asser, AssDelver, Assphobic, AnointedAss, BetrayedByMyAss, CrackedAss, FracturedAss, FulcrumedUpMyAss, ImpaledAss, IncursionOfTheAss, WarForTheAss, UnleashTheAss, ScreamingAsshole, SwampAssKing, Yui
Last edited by Wooser69 on Apr 24, 2018, 7:38:09 PM
Last bumped on Apr 24, 2018, 7:28:26 PM

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