[2.2] Acendant (Berserker/Deadeye) Staff sparker guide. High dps. Great surv

the main idea for this build is to take spark and use it with the pledge of hands judgement staff that has great synergy with spark one of the strongest lightning spells this season, making it pretty much 7-link weapon. We also use the deadeye and berserker ascendencies to greatly improve the build's offence. This allows us to take tons of life and defensive nods making for a super tanky character(hardcore viable) and keep dps as high as we like. but there is more to the build. The skill tree is flexible and eficient and it starts cheap. all you need is 10c to start this but the more you put into it the better it gets. with 2ex worth of gear you will tear thru maps. and it olnly gets better from there.

Aka 7 link spark. This is it, this is the most important item to start this build the rest is optional but here are some highly recommended items:
my offensive recommendation, great to keep frenzy charges and elemental overload up all the time it also allows us to drop blood rage and pick vaal pact.
this ring allows us to pick mind over matter in the tree and still have a ton of mana left for casting while having an aura(wrath or haste).

The great thing about this build is that you have a ton of options in the skill tree. im goin to talk about some key nodes that i feel are important for this to work.

Elemental overload: a great dps boost that you can keep pretty much 100% of the time. its like having yet another link in your weapon with a wooping 40% more spell damage.

Mind over matter: this node is in the way to elemental overload and thanks to the fact that we use essence worm ring to reserve an aura we are able to keep all our mana free to mitigate damage. this combined with the huge mana boost from the pledge of hands provides a MAYOR defensive boost for the price of one skill point.so we use it.

Acrobatics: another great defensive node. this one is optional but still highly recommended. it takes 3 skill points to get there you can get phase acrobatics too if you see fit.

Vaal pact: Instant life leech helps to deal with reflect and boosts survivability even more. we have leech from the berserker ascendant tree and from warlords mark to make it worth it. you can also use life leech linked to spark for even more recovery. Just dont pick it if you dont have the Victarios acuity because it is not a great fit to use with blood rage.

Other than that just pick the duration nodes, the sockets, as much life, spell, elemental, projectile damage or speed as you like. here is my planned build, you can follow it or change it to fit your play style.

with 35 points left:

with 8 points left:

here is the set up of gems that i recommend for the build

main spell
spark: Faster projectiles > Pierce > Controlled destruction > Lightning pen > Chose one: elemental focus, life leech, mana leech, aded lightning, faster casting.

this is our bread and butter and this spell scales really well in this build.

Other good setups

dps spike
Vaal spark: spell echo > pierce > Chose one: faster projectiles, controlled destruction, elemental focus

this is the boss melting combo. also kills anithing that is not a boss guaranteed.

movility
Leap slam: faster atacks > fortify > Blood rage or any solo gem that you might want like a golem

We take advantage of the fact that we use a staff to use a great movility gem paired with a great defensive gem that scales with duration. a great way to jump in to packs to unleash orb of storms too.

dps spike mitigation
Enduring cry: cast when damage taken > increased duration > vaal grace or haste or both in a 5 link

the staple CWDT set up.

curse
Warlords mark: Orb of storms > curse on hit > blind or other utility

Warlords mark does so much for this build! it keeps endurance charges for immortal call. it leeches life for Vaal pact and it maintains our mana so we can spam spark. we use it with orb of storms that is a great way to spread the curse continuously for up to 12 seconds with each cast.