(Updated!) [1.2] EE Ball Lightning/Ice Spear Build with AA/MoM (Cloak of Defiance)
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Overview
This build uses Ice Spear as a main skill with Ball Lightning to proc Elemental Equilibrium for the -50% Cold Resist. With a 5L Ice Spear this should give a large amount of extra DPS. For defense we use Arctic Armour and Cloak of Defiance with a large mana pool/regen from increased mana/mana regen passives and Eldritch Battery. There are a couple minor variations on this general idea I'll point out below. Passive Skill Tree
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There are 2 variations on the skill tree, a crit and a cold damage variation. Crit damage is nice with Ice Spear because of the 600% increased crit damage on the second form. It also has the added benefit of getting an extra 50% damage from Shock when Ball Lightning crits. With the cold damage variation you get the added benefit of additional freeze/chill durations and 2% additional cold penetration.
Crit Variation Passives Cold Damage Variation Passives Skills
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Ice Spear (5-6L)
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Skill 1 - Ice Spear
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This is our main skill! Quality on this is nice for the projectile speed.
Skill 2 - Spell Echo
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This is important to make sure that we're casting quickly. With Spell Echo and the cast speed from gear/passives you should be casting close to 3 times per second.
Skill 3 - Lesser Multiple Projectiles
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We need to be able to hit more targets for faster clear speed. Additionally, Ice Spear can shotgun, so this works great against Rare mobs and bosses.
Skill 4 - Cold Penetration
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This is important for mobs with very high cold resist. Otherwise, it's just extra damage.
Skill 5/6 (Option 1) - Added Cold Damage
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If you are running the Cold Damage variation passives then this is a nice boost to your overall damage. This can also work with the crit variation as well for added damage.
Skill 5/6 (Option 2) - Increased Critical Damage
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If you are running the critical variation passives then this can be a nice boost to your DPS.
Skill 5/6 (Option 3) - Power Charge on Critical
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This can be good for keeping up Power Charges if you are going for crit which can be a nice boost. This is my personal least favorite option, but others have tried it and liked it.
Skill 5/6 (Option 4) - Life Leech
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If you do not have cold leech on your gear and you are having any troubles with life then you might consider using Life Leech as a 5th link. Personally I have no problem with just using flasks/life regen to keep myself alive with AA/Cloak of Defiance, but this might be preferable for Hardcore.
Ball Lightning (4L)
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There are actually a couple variations for Ball Lightning.
Self Cast (Variation 1) The main advantages to this variation are that you have more control over your Ball Lightnings and Ball Lightning will also add some additional DPS.
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Skill 1 - Ball Lightning
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Used to proc EE mostly. Re-cast this as often as necessary, usually about every 4 Ice Spears. With this variation we also use Ball Lightning for some secondary DPS, though it's far less than Ice Spear.
Skill 2 - Increased Area of Effect
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The main purpose of Ball Lightning is to keep EE up, so we need as much area coverage on this as possible.
Skill 3 - Slower Projectiles
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With Slower Projectiles we can hit the same enemy more times, allowing for more Ice Spears before we have to re-cast Ball Lightning. The downside is that this disappears a little earlier and takes a little longer to get to enemies further away, but this isn't usually much of a problem.
Skill 4 - Knockback
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The main purpose of this gem is to keep enemies in the Ball Lightning longer. When they get pushed back you might be able to get off additional casts of Ice Spear before needing to re-cast Ball Lightning. Additionally, this has the added benefits of keeping you safer since it's harder for enemies to get to you (this combined with freeze/chill is great) and also pushing enemies into range of Ice Spear's second form for more crits.
Spell Totem (Variation 2) Using a Spell Totem will free you up to cast more Ice Spears with potentially greater DPS, but this variation has a couple of drawbacks. First of all, the totems are susceptible to being destroyed, especially by enemies with lots of AoE, in which case you have to constantly re-cast the totem anyway. The other disadvantages are that Ball Lightning DPS will be very low and you will have less control over which mobs get hit with EE.
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Skill 1 - Ball Lightning
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Used to proc EE mostly. Drop a totem near you and attack where it shoots. One strategy is to drop the totem behind you so it's a little safer and will cast towards the enemies in front of you. Damage from Ball Lightning is negligible with this variation.
Skill 2 - Spell Totem
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Turns it into a Spell Totem so the totem can spam your Ball Lightnings, freeing you up to spam more Ice Spears.
Skill 3 - Greater Multiple Projectiles
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We want the Ball Lightnings to cover as much of an area as possible so we can just keep spamming Ice Spears everywhere.
Skill 4 - Increased Area of Effect
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Just as above... this helps keep more of the area covered.
Self Cast Cursing (Variation 3, Untested) I have yet to test this variation, but the general idea is to use Ball Lightning with Curse on Hit so Ball Lightning has a dual purpose. This variation has less AoE than the others so you may need to re-cast more often. Additionally, if someone else in your party is running curses they may overwrite yours, negating the big bonus of this variation.
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Skill 1 - Ball Lightning
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Used to proc EE and curse enemies. Re-cast this as often as necessary.
Skill 2 - Slower Projectiles
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With Slower Projectiles we can hit the same enemy more times, allowing for more Ice Spears before we have to re-cast Ball Lightning. The downside is that this disappears a little earlier and takes a little longer to get to enemies further away, but this isn't usually much of a problem.
Skill 3 - Curse on Hit
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Used to proc a curse with Ball Lightning. This was buffed recently to curse 100% of the time so we can have 100% up time on curses.
Skill 4 (Option 1) - Frostbite
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This will increase damage and give more chance to freeze. A solid option all around.
Skill 4 (Option 2) - Projectile Weakness
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This has a lot of utility in addition to some extra damage. There is the knockback chance, which can keep enemies further away, and put them in range of Ice Spear phase 2. The pierce chance will allow Ice Spear phase 2 to pierce, increasing your potential to hit larger areas of enemies per cast.
Arctic Armour (1L)
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This is one of our main defense skills. Keep this leveled up as high as your mana can support while leveling. Late game with Cloak of Defiance you should easily be able to run this at level 20. If you can support it and you can find an item with +gem levels then run AA in there for the extra mitigation. Don't forget to turn it back on after every map transition!
Auras (3L)
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Skill 1 - Reduced Mana
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To reduce aura reservation, obviously.
Skill 2 - Clarity
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We need Clarity to keep our mana regen up for AA and MoM. Keep this leveled up as much as you can.
Skill 3 - Purity of Ice
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This will help with elemental reflect as it will give an additional 3% maximum cold resist. If you are at 75% cold resist without this on then you don't necessarily need to run it all the time, but I would recommend keeping it on anyway just in case you happen on an elemental reflect rare without realizing it. You should have plenty of mana available even with it on
Cast When Damage Taken
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Skill 1 - Cast When Damage Taken
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Keep this at a low level (typically 1-4) so that it procs frequently. You can mess around with the level to see which works best for you.
Skill 2 - Enduring Cry
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This keeps up endurance charges for some extra physical resist and longer duration Immortal Call.
Skill 3 - Immortal Call
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Who doesn't love some physical damage immunity? Great for burst enemies that have a lot of quick hits.
Skill 4 (Option 1) - Increased Duration
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This is nice for extending the length of Immortal Call. Not necessary, but nice if you want to go more defensive.
Skill 4 (Option 2) - Molten Shell
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This gives a little bit of extra armour when it goes off, but probably won't make a huge difference. One of the nice things about this, though, is that it will proc EE when it explodes giving you a little more up time on EE.
Utility Skills
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Frostbite
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This is a good curse to have available just in case. I generally only use it on cold resist mobs or on Rare/boss mobs to speed things up some.
Lightning Warp
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This is nice for getting around quickly. Optionally, link it to Faster Casting and/or Reduced Duration for even quicker movement.
Equipment
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The only absolutely required equipment for this build is Cloak of Defiance for the 40% MoM. For the rest of the armour/accessories you want to look for Armour/Energy shield equipment with life, resists, and mana/mana regen. Look for cast speed/spell damage on amulets. For weapons you'll want a wand/shield setup with Spell Damage and Cast Speed mainly, then mana/mana regen, life, or resists.
Current Equipment
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Last edited by Svenn on Sep 24, 2014, 9:58:15 AM
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I like the idea of Ball Lightning + Ice Spear and EE. I've been playing around with a build myself. Here are my thoughts, but keep in mind that I'm building it for Rampage so I'm prioritising DPS.
First, I would use different supports with Ice Spear: Ice Spear - LMP - Life Leech - Cold Pen - Faster Casting / PCoC / Crit Damage As far as I'm aware, Spell Echo is not as good when trying to freeze-lock because if you don't crit with the first cast, the echoed cast will also not crit. So, faster casting / PCoC would give more consistent crits. (PCoC has the added benefit of raising the crit chance of Ball Lightning, so you will get some shocks to help Ice Spear decimate even more effectively. It sounds like Ball Lightning will have 5% base crit in 1.2.) I'm not sure why you would ever take Added Cold Damage over Cold Penetration for Ice Spear. Without the ability to cut through cold resistance, tanky mobs with cold res in higher level maps will take forever to kill, especially if they're curse immune. Edit: I'm researching this further, and Added Cold gives Ice Spear (1.2 numbers) about 30% more base damage. But Cold Pen is so valuable because it always reduces the enemy's max resistance, whereas EE alone reduces resistances by 50% but doesn't necessarily reduce max res (correct me if I'm wrong). E.g. 1: monster has 150 cold res, capped at 75. Hit with Ball Lightning, 150 - 50 (EE) = 100, still capped at 75. Thus, Ice Spear (with no penetration) will go up against 75 cold resist. E.g. 2: monster has 150 cold res, capped at 75. Hit with Ball Lightning, 150 - 50 (EE) = 100, still capped at 75. Ice Spear (with lvl 20 cold pen) will cut through max res by 35, so 75-35 = 40 cold resist against Ice Spear. Even against trash mobs with lower resists, the combination of EE and Cold pen pushing it into negative resists would presumably still be better than Added Cold, but I don't know how to figure this out. I could be wrong about this, but I'm basing all the info on the wiki page on Penetration. In my experience, Discipline is not great for EB MoM builds. You need to invest in a lot of aura nodes just for the reservation to break even, and all it adds is some mana regen. I think it's best to simply run Clarity and Purity of Ice (to help with +max res for reflect, now that max res on tree is nerfed) on reduced mana and not take any aura nodes. That should leave you with a large mana pool and enough mana regen. You could also add in Tempest Shield later if you build up enough wealth to add some Spell Block uniques. Also, I'd avoid taking cold-specific nodes on the tree, since it won't benefit Ball Lightning, and any extra damage on it will help. With these changes in mind, you can cut your tree down to 85 without the aura nodes. Then you can add in life (not that you really need more), mana regen, increased AoE (for Ball Lightning), crit chance/damage, flat spell/elemental damage, etc. Of course if you still needed some reduced mana reservation you could take Sovereignty, but I would avoid spending the 4 points to get to the Charisma cluster. Hideout of the Week S01E04 thread: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1088847 Last edited by Vultighjime on Aug 18, 2014, 11:51:59 PM
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So you are not the first person to mention dropping the aura stuff. I have never run EB/MoM/AA before, but I thought Discipline was a large part of the Mana pool? I don't know what the numbers are like in terms of max mana and mana regen. If it's good enough without the auras, that would be nice...
As for Cold Penetration... that was what I had initially. I started putting this build together before we had the info on 1.2, and Ice Spear did far less damage so Added Cold Damage was something like a 50-70% increase in damage. Now it's less of a deal because of the increased base damage so I'll probably saw Cold Penetration back in. Would make Cold Resist maps much easier for sure. I'm definitely keeping most of the cold nodes because they have extra chance to freeze and extra freeze/chill duration. Ball Lightning is mostly there to proc EE. Also, with the new crafting stuff I might be able to craft cold damage leeched as life onto a piece or two in which case I'd consider dropping the Life Leech gem for more damage too. Maybe I could have both Added Cold Damage AND Cold Penetration. | |
" You'll be fine without Discipline. I tried to make Discpline + EB/MoM/AA work for a long time because I really wanted to use the Discipline bubble mtx :P if you don't invest enough passives, you won't break even and end up losing a lot of mana for mitigation. Even if you do break even with enough passives, you lose out on space for other auras. My current Fireball EB/MoM/AA Witch has something like 1.3k mana unreserved, using Clarity and Tempest Shield, and that's with a pretty minimal investment in mana passives, and 0 (!) energy shield % passives. I just have mana on most gear. Thanks to the new tree, it's easier to pick up mana % and energy shield %, and I'll start running Purity of Fire. Edit: my current Witch can't run higher than I think level 16 AA, but I think that's due to my lack of mana / ES passives, and only 100% mana regen on the tree. Either way, I'd consider running Discpline a last resort. " Fair enough... the buff to Ice Spear is fairly huge! " Honestly, with the crit chance on Ice Spear, would you need the extra freeze chance? I guess the freeze duration would help. Personally, I would rather increase the damage on Ball Lightning for longer shocks, which will then give 50% more Ice Spear damage, which will result in longer freezes anyway. Not to mention that a stronger Ball Lightning would increase your overall clear speed too. " I'd be extremely pleased if that's a possibility with the crafting. Has there been any mention of ele leech in the bench crafting system? Hideout of the Week S01E04 thread: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1088847 Last edited by Vultighjime on Aug 19, 2014, 1:54:56 AM
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" http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/User:Chuanhsing/CraftingBench Assuming nothing has changed... Under Master 3: 1% of Fire Damage Leeched as Life 4x Chaos Orb 1% of Cold Damage Leeched as Life 4x Chaos Orb 1% of Lightning Damage Leeched as Life 4x Chaos Orb Last edited by Svenn on Aug 19, 2014, 10:04:02 AM
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" Wow... that's a total game changer! Although we don't know yet if we can craft those mods on any items. In the Catarina trailer it shows crafting a helmet, and on the Catarina wiki page it speculates that she only crafts helmets. But on the MMORPG Catarina reveal, it says daily quest rewards go 'towards unlocking more crafting items. For Catarina, it's all about spell casting items (wands, staves, etc.)'. So it sounds like she can craft caster weapons, and we've seen she can craft helmets, which implies we can get elemental leech on most slots, or perhaps any. It would make sense because you would need ele leech on all slots to match the leech on a LL gem (roughly). More on the topic of this build, it occurred to me that Ball Lightning might have problems hitting far away targets, meaning it would be harder to take advantage of the 2nd form Ice Spear. Because Ball Lightning needs Slower Proj to stay on the mobs for long enough, but then it reduces its maximum range, so you can't hit anyone at the edge of the screen. There are a few solutions I've thought of. 1) Try to make it work without Slower Proj. With enough cast speed and AoE bonuses, it might still be possible to hit mobs enough times with IS while BL is on them. If this works well enough, it'd also open up another gem slot for BL DPS, or let you use it in a 3L if needed. 2) Have 1 BL with Slower Proj, and a second setup without it. The slower BL would be used most of the time, while the second setup can hit enemies further away. This obviously isn't ideal because of the amount of gem slots for not much gain. 3) Have a self-cast BL, then a totem that can hit enemies while you spam IS from a distance. This would be a pretty good option imo, as it means you could also use Blind on the totem to help with mobs and bosses with scary attacks. Flame Totem would probably be best, but BL might match it because Flame Totem has a .2 second cast duration, which I'm guessing means it hits every 200ms, same as BL, and BL would have the shock potential while FT burn is useless. However I'd still personally use a self-cast BL since it's much more fun (imo) than having to set up totems all the time, and just use the totem in harder situations. What do you think? Hideout of the Week S01E04 thread: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1088847 Last edited by Vultighjime on Aug 19, 2014, 8:11:44 PM
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I was watching a video of Ball Lightning with Slower Projectiles and it still goes to near the edge of the screen, although now that I think about it that may have been a level 1 Slower Projectiles. With Increased AoE I don't think it'll really be that much of an issue. If it's a problem I'd probably just drop the Slower Projectiles and put some more damage or something on it. I suppose I could always link it to Spell Totem and just let that spam Ball Lightnings while I spam Ice Spear... I'll have to mess with that.
Also, I think I have a build I might like better. It's 100 points but it has more life, more mana, more mana regen, more elemental damage (and slightly less cold), more spell damage, and more cast speed at the cost of aura nodes, a few dex/str points, and the freeze/chill duration. https://poebuilder.com/character/AAAAAgMAvYJXK_6z6QLfim0ZakPAVAj0vOofxy2LK3iCEN-wHNwNjWwLIvTbC4IeiELBxX_GSVHw1QcelS5VxoPbOlgXVEwtFLCsmDbpFm8kqhEPYeImlVVLy71QQi1HjDZfKnRV34QC_uNqEZYqU2KVsnC0DJMnB2MigZ6hVkqOPCycFr9Eq1Wuj6ZG113GtQThc-0gBVuLjGBt3fODOJ2AogAUTfAfAnEEsxps5CKYrSj6V8kNfOq6U1JFnZrg6-756ILHRUcy0biTnwE= Last edited by Svenn on Aug 20, 2014, 12:25:40 AM
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So I had wanted to do this Build as well and tested LMP ball lightning to shock and provide curses. The biggest problem I encountered was that the ball lightnings were slower than the ice spears meaning I was trying to apply damage to un-shocked and un-cursed mobs. I also looked a Cold Snap or glacial cascade as a single target but am not sure of thier effectiveness.
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" Did you happen to try using Spell Totem with Ball Lightning so the totem could spam Ball Lightning while you tossed Ice Spears? Last edited by Svenn on Aug 20, 2014, 11:04:42 AM
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No I selfcast the ball lightning as it was in a 4 link boots - Ball lightning+Cast on hit+LMP+curse.
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