[3.7] Storm Brand Elementalist. League Starter, Deathless Uber Elder.

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Of course I'll reserve final judgement until I see the patch notes, but this looks pretty bad for us. If storm brand is just getting another numerical nerf then some form of strom brand build will probably still be good, but that beacon of ruin nerf makes it likely that elementalist will no longer be the the best ascendancy choice.

So...maybe storm brand isn't nerfed much? Looks like the ascendancy isn't gonna work any more though. What do you think the best alternative is now?

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2513456

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Storm Brand
Now has a cast time of 0.75 seconds (from 0.65 seconds).
Now activates every 0.6 seconds while attached (from 0.5 seconds).
Now has 10% smaller base radius of area of effect for dealing damage.
Multiple Storm Brands can no longer 'shotgun' enemies with their overlapping areas of effect.
Now deals 3 to 8 lightning damage at gem level 1 (from 2 to 7), up to 92 to 277 lightning damage at gem level 20 (from 75 to 225).
Now does 80% more damage to the branded enemy at gem level 1, up to 130% more damage at gem level 20 (from 50% more at all gem levels).

This is fine, storm brand in some form will still be a good skill.

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Elementalist
Beacon of Ruin: No longer causes elemental ailments from your skills to spread to other nearby enemies. Shocks from your hits now always increase damage taken by 15% (from 20%).

This is not so good. Beacon of ruin has always been THE reason to go elementalist (unless you're a golemancer, I guess). Without buffs to other elementalist nodes to compensate, it is hard to argue for choosing elementalist over another caster ascendancy.

They also nerfed inpulsa a bit too, not that anybody ever used it without beacon of ruin anyway.

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mmogger wrote:

So...maybe storm brand isn't nerfed much? Looks like the ascendancy isn't gonna work any more though. What do you think the best alternative is now?

With wicked ward moved to the passive tree, trickster seems like an exciting way to take it. It will take some playing around with the tree to see what really looks best, once PoB gets updated.

Other options that come to mind are: assassin, inquisitor, scion.

I don't expect to be updating the guide to work for other classes though. I'll probably just let it die.

For my part, I'll be starting the league with a cyclone character (either slayer or berserker, will decide after PoB gets updated).

edit: Truthfully the elementalist version of the build will still function, fairly well. It won't have the inpulsa synergy anymore, but if you played without inpulsa it won't be all that much worse. Other ascendancies will outclass it in damage potential (assassin) or survivability (trickster) though.

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mia_poe wrote:

I think i will still try to play this.
At least as a League starter, should be fine for White+Yellow maps.
Probably fine in Reds too, but little slower.
Bosses most likely faster.

Maybe try/change/make something different later if it is underwhelming.

Oh, it will still do red maps, and still do uber elder. As you say bosses will likely be faster with the storm brand changes.

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Since Beacon of Ruin is not very good anymore:

The Elemental Equilibrium from the Golem does stacks with Mastermind of Discord, right?
Could that be somewhat strong/good?

Beacon of ruin will still be better than mastermind of discord, so the actual spec won't really change.

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Inpula also not very good for this anymore, right?
What to replace it with, maybe a Loreweave?

Inpulsa definitely took a big hit. It would probably still improve clearspeed, but no more full instant pop of packs.

Other options include loreweave, shroud of the lightless, cloak of defiance.

Since they removed the nodes behind mind over matter, the fact that cloak of defiance grants mind over matter actually matters now, since you don't need to path through it to get to that juicy mana.

With the nerfs I expect inpulsa will be cheap this league, so I'd probably at least test it out to see how good or bad it is without the proliferate.

Storm Brand lives on friends, have faith. As an endgame clearing skill it survives just about, as single target it gets stronger, and leveling gets stronger.

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Cloak of defiance is a strong defensive chest, though it may be difficulty to hit the 60/40 life/mana ratio required to take full advantage, with the big mana nodes behind MoM removed.

If you want a more offensively oriented chest, carcass jack is a good option.

I was afraid it would be an all around nerf but does not look so. As a new player I only played with 4link rare and got to level 87 / yellow maps but I get the sense from the thread that with the same gear I can pretty much do the same thing. I do not know what changes will be needed but I hoping magic will be able to figure it out and update the build by the time I reach 80 :) /pleaaaase

...some time later...

Then again, I updated PoB, rebuilt my tree, imported my current gear, and to my horror there is a huge dps loss compared to previous tree. Master of Discord instead of BoR is getting me closer to where I am now but still 20% down :(

Mastermind of discord shows better damage because PoB still doesn't know how to handle beacon of ruin. MoD also requires you to reserve mana for herald of thunder, losing you survivability. As long as you're going elementalist, the spec is still optimal. Elementalist itself just no longer is.

Here's my setup, with very minor changes. Still beacon of ruin, still inpulsa:
https://pastebin.com/QpqdMF5J

712k attached dps vs shaper/guardian (that will go up when the skill gem changes go into PoB)

Here it is swapped to mastermind, chest swapped to carcass jack, hypothermia replaced with elemental focus, cinderswallow replaced with regular silver flask, and 28% of mana reserved for Herald of Thunder (functional loss of 646 hitpoints):
https://pastebin.com/ErTKavbM

669k attached dps vs shaper/guardian.

Now my gear does have a lot of increased shock effect, even with nerfed inpulsa (85% gear, 10% tree). Without any increased shock effect on gear things do get somewhat less good for beacon of ruin. The Beacon of ruin setup drops to 645k DPS in that case. True that's very slightly lower than the MoD setup, but again that's WITHOUT herald of thunder, so you have functionally 646 more hitpoints.

Even decimated as it is, beacon of ruin is still the best node in elementalist. I suppose that speaks to how overpowered it was before the nerf, but since it was the only reason to go elementalist, it says as much about how underpowered the rest of the ascendancy is.

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TL;DR: you still go beacon of ruin.

The Beacon of Ruin nerf + the Inpulsa nerf ends up being a net damage loss of 8.6%. Not that huge.

The big thing you lose is the proliferation, which was a huge boon to clear speed. The attached damage multiplier should actually be raising the single target damage of the build. We should see that once the updated gem info is in PoB.

With proliferation gone, a class like assassin could probably squeeze more damage out of the skill, while having identical clear speed. Or trickster could squeeze more defense out, while again having identical clear speed. The only thing elementalist really does better than any other options is reflect immunity, but that's a pretty minor convenience, since you can just roll past reflect maps.

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ShermanDiablo wrote:

Storm Brand lives on friends, have faith. As an endgame clearing skill it survives just about, as single target it gets stronger, and leveling gets stronger.

Absolutely, the storm brand "nerf" is not that big of a deal. It is the elementalist nerf that is more problematic. There's not a very compelling reason to choose elementalist over other ascendancy options now.