[2.1] STORM CALL TANK 40k DPS - Now with Video

Offense and Defense Stats (ingame Character Panel)
The offense mechanics are very simple because there are only 2 things.

• Storm Call
• Herald of Thunder

Storm Call
By using the Storm Call skill u set a sign on the ground which marks the position where your Bolt will hit after its inbuilt delay. Within this delay you should set as many signs as you can. When the delay of the first placed sign ends all bolts hit in very short time. If you stack the signs you can benefit from the shock bonus at a maximum value. When the enemy gets shocked from the first bolt all others will get the increased damage. If you spread the signs you reach a higher AoE.
Herald of Thunder
Herald of Thunder is a mana reserving self-buff. It adds lightning damage to your spells and attacks. Also if you kill a shocked enemy it starts to deal damage itself with some lightning bolts that strike around you. Those lightning bolts can also be used to benefit from on hit effects(see defensive mechanics).

Storm Call
Storm Call doesn't have a tooltip dps. It has tooltip avg. dmg. To calculate the dps we have to do one of the following:


please note that you also get damage bonus from shock and my controlled destruction gem isn't fully levelled.

Offense and Defense Stats (ingame Character Panel)
This Char uses a variety of defense mechanics:

• Lightning Coil
• Physical Damage Reduction
• Vaal Pact
• Cast when damage taken
• Herald of Thunder
• Dodge

Lightning Coil
The lightning Coil is a chest which converts 40%(non-legacy 30%) of my physical damage to lightning damage. That means 40% of my physical damage taken is reduced by my lightning resistance. Actually at 79% lightning resistance and with a legacy lightning coil i take 31.6%(non legacy: 23.7%) less damage from physical hits. The mechanic of the lightnng coil is supported by the effect of my Purity of Lightning.

Physical Damage Reduction
First I have to mention that this isn’t armour. I’m talking about flat percentage physical damage reduction. Currently I have 20% of this reduction. I get it from my 4 endurance Charges and my Chaos Golem. Each grants 4% additional physical damage reduction. I get my endurance Charges from my Warlord’s mark curse and the enduring cry skill.

Vaal Pact
Vaal Pact is a keystone passive in the skilltree that makes life leech apply instantly. With life leech(linked to Storm Call)and Warlord's Mark I can easily sustain my "mana" cost and also hit reflect mobs without dying instant.

Cast when damage taken
I’m using a fully levelled Cast when damage taken with my Chaos Golem and Immortal Call. When I taked a total of 3272 Immortal Call and my Chaos Golem are automatically cast. A Chaos Golem is a minion which grants me 4%additional physical damage reduction and also distracts the enemies. Immortal Call is a Spell that consumes my endurance Charges to make me immune to physical damage for a short time. When it consumes 4 endurance charges it lasts around 3-4 seconds. But notice that I already linked increased duration to it.

Herald of Thunder
I use Herald of Thunder to curse surrounding enemies. I linked curse on hit and 2 curses with it. Enfeeble and Warlords Mark. Warlords Mark grants me some life leech and also a chance to gain an endurance charge on kill which is pretty nice since it helps me to keep up my charges. Enfeeble reduces the enemies accuracy and crit chance and multiplier as well as it reduces their damage.

Dodge
I use the keystones Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics to get a flat chance to dodge attacks and Spells. I think its definetly worth to pass some ES/AR and Block.

The Problem
The problem is very simply. Currently i have ~6 Casts per second at ~100 Mana per Cast (with adds lightning damage instead of Blood Magic). Since i'm using Spell Echo this means i would have a mana cost of ~300 Mana per second. This is pretty hard to sustain.

My solution
First i wanted to stay with mana but it was not possible so i decided to use Blood Magic Gems. I put a BM to every Skill i use and basically it worked. I taked a Shipyard Map and the Boss fucked me up. It wasn't the Boss that almost killed me it was me. I wasn't able to leech enough from a single enemy to sustain. With the changes to leech and the higher damage of Storm Call i'm now able to sustain my life easily and also get back life from single enemies.
EDIT: You can also use Vaal Clarity for bosses to take full advantage of leech.

Please note this char was levelled before 2.1 Skilltree was introduced. So i don't have a levelling guide. I would be very happy if you're likely to tell me how you levelled this char and if it was easy or not.

Bandit Rewards:
Normal: Oak for +40life or Skill Point ► +40 max life is better until you reach ~lvl 95. Then an avg. 5% life node gets better.
Cruel: Skill Point or Alira for Cast Speed ►I recommend the Skill Point for more felxability
Mercilles: Skill Point or Oak for Endurance Charge ► I taked a skill point but maybe I’ll switch for the charge.



Jewels
I'm using only Rare Jewels. The perfect Rare Jewel:
Life
Cast Speed while using a staff / Cast Speed with lightning Spells
Spell Damage / Area Damage
Cast Speed / Attack and Cast Speed

My current Jewels:

Staff
Why using a staff? A staff gives us an additional link. Either lvl 30 Spell Echo with a Pledge of Hands or lvl 1 Blood Magic from a master craft. Currently I use a Pledge of Hands but I’ll also craft a +3 lightning Staff. I’m pretty sure that a +3 lightning Staff will boost my damage.

Chest: Lightning Coil

"

The lightning Coil is a chest which converts 40%(non-legacy 30%) of my physical damage to lightning damage. That means 40% of my physical damage taken is reduced by my lightning resistance. Actually at 79% lightning resistance that means that i get 31.6%(non-legacy 23.7%) less damage from physical hits.

Belt
I'm using a rare belt with high life and resistances. You can use Doryani's Invitation to get damage and leech instead if life.

Rings
On rings i would focus on life + cast speed. Then take resistances.

Amulet
On my Amulet i looked for needed attributes and cast speed. Besides those i would take Life and Spell damage.

Helmet
On my Helmet I have life, tri-res and a bit Energy shield. ES is used to get the right sockets. Evasion would be better

Boots
On my Boots I have 2 resistances, life and movement speed. The Base should be Evasion. Also i have dex on my boots.

Gloves
On my gloves I stacked life and resistances. The base should be Evasion or ES to get sockets.

In the following List I describe why I use those Gem Setups. To see how I linked my gems just check out my Character Panel.

• Storm Call
• Herald of Thunder
• Cast when Damage taken
• Lightning Warp

Storm Call
My Storm Call is linked to Spell Echo to get as many Casts as possible. To increase the damage of Storm call I use Controlled destruction and lightning Penetration.
But the most important link in my Storm Call Setup is Less Duration. It reduces the delay in which I have to cast as many storm calls as possible before all thunderbolts hit in a very short time and also it increases my survivability since I don’t have to tank for the full delay time. As 6th and 7th link I use Life Leech and Blood Magic. Leech for defense and BM to sustain.
Herald of Thunder
Herald of Thunder is linked to Curse on Hit and my 2 Curses. I decided to do so to take the maximum advantage out of the thunderbolts!
Cast when Damage taken
Cwdt is linked to increased duration, immortal call and chaos golem to buff my defenses.
Lightning Warp
Lightning warp needs its own 4L since I decided to make it very fast! It’s linked to faster casting, less duration and Blood Magic. I think I don’t have to explain why this makes lightning warp faster.
Auras and Enduring Cry
Just put Wrath, Purity of Lightning, enduring cry and maybe some Vaal Auras in any socket you have left.

T14 Shrine

Sweat and Heartblood
It was a very hard time to create a build with an absolutely not viable skill which hadn't good supports at the time I started making this Char. The char was basically broken but i didn't gave up and I noticed that its a skill with a huge potential. After some bigger patches (1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3) with cool new Items supports and general buff on spellcasters the build bekame more viable. As I got a pledge of hands to test from a guildmate I realized that it would fit perfectly in this build. From that Point i played a glasscanon till lvl 90. At lvl 90 i made very much changes along to patch 1.3. I used the skill reset to reroll the char as a tank. It taked some regrets after skilling but finally i have char that'll reach lvl 100 sometime. Now with patch 2.0 i had to change a few things. First i had to find a solution for the EB change. I tried to get enough mana regen to sustain but i failed hardly. Then i tacked a lot of regrets and decided to go for a Blood Magic Gem. I put the saved skill points into life damage and Aura nodes. Blood Magic worked well as i tested it on a shipyard map. It worked brilliant until i reached the boss. I saw my life is going down pretty fast. After some calculations i found out that my leech isn't enough to sutain when i attack only one enemy. After some discussion wit my guild mates i decided to test vaal clarity. And it was awesome! 10seconds for a boss is mostly enough time to kill him and so it was a very simple solution. Later i dropped out increased Area of Effect and started using lightning Penetration again. This change also affect my boss problem positive: I deal more damage so i get more leech. Vaal clarity isn't needed anymore but i still use it in difficult situations. Also i dropped out lightning arp and instead used Leap Slam with Fortify. First i thought it was a pretty good idea but over the time i noticed that it makes no sence to give up the "ranged safety" to get the "fortify safety" and so i switched back to lightning warp which is simply faster and also fits better to the main theme of the Char. Since Cwdt+EC+IC didn't work anymore i dropped out EC to selfcast it and started levelling cwdt and IC but after some time i decided to drop out IC completely because i had he feeling that its safer to always have the Charges up instead of being immune for short time and eventually stay there without charegs after this duration. But what to do with the Cwdt? or the free sockets i got?.I started a discussion with my guild mates again and i ddecided to put my Cwdt in my already exsisting 6L. It resulted in a Cwdt that Blinds enemies and summons Chaos Golem. It seems pretty stupid to take a 6L just to get 2 more buffs but it proofed to be good. After all that trouble i can finally say that i'm happy with my build as it is! After patch 2.1 i have to say that Storm Call is VERY Powerful now! It is easy to get damage and area for a good clearspeed even without crit. Also you can invest tons into Defense.

Special Thanks
In this hard time there were many people helping me with the Char.
Especially i want to thank in order of importance:

• Abyssopelagic
• Flinter87
• DrZark
• Atropus93
• Lord_of_Error
• Zamow

• 22.12.2015 17:00 Changed the designation “Pledge of Hands” to “Staff” | Reworked the sections: Offense and Defense Machanics. They now better fit their topics. Also reworked the Gem Setup section to be more general
• 21.12.2015 11:38 Updated "Jewel" section
• 18.12.2015 16:11 Updated the information within the "Defense Mechanics" and "Mana Management" sections. | Updated the Skill-Tree | Dropped out Arctic Armour for more life

• 11.12.2015 23:12 HUGE UPDATE!
  

[spoiler="Huge update Zeus 2.1.0"]

• completely reworked all informations in this Guide
• The Char is now tankier and deals more damage!

No. The mechanic of Storm Call is very complex and also to learn how the skill works will cost a lot of time, which beginners should spend in learning something about the general game mechanics. But i would recommend this build to every player who isn't new to the game because it makes much fun and isn't just one of those overpriced one-button builds. I'll promise if you haven't played storm call till now you'll be surprised about the way to play it correctly.

Maybe? I didn't test it in 2.1

not really. Builds like Arc, RF, Spectral throw and many others are much easier to play. With Storm Call you'll miss stuff like Auto-target and constant damage.

Not really. I personally have no lag problems.(except i'm recording) In my guild there are 2 players with even more worse computers who have some lags. Lags means that FPS drops to 14-15 when my bolts hit. It's no lag comparison with CoC Discharge or Mjölner. If its important to you: every public party was fine with my build till now.

For sure. Less Duration is what makes this char comfortable to play.

Example: one hit of 1000 physical damage

Lightning Coil:
1000 phys dmg splitted in 600 physical Dmg and 400 lightning damage.
600 physical reduced by AA: 405 dmg left. 400 light dmg reduced by resistance: 76 left.
Total 481 dmg left.

Cloak of Flame:
1000 phys dmg splitted in 800 physical Dmg and 200 fire damage.
800 physical reduced by AA: 605 left. 200 Fire dmg is reduced to 0 after resistance and AA.
Total 605 dmg left.