[3.9] Storm Brand - Fast Mapper - Kicks Booties

Hello and welcome to a new guide from me.

3.9
The Build is still viable, we get enough damage without any uber sick items. Switched from Loreweave to Inpulsa.
Please import the new pastebin: https://pastebin.com/ybAXnxav

After I did a Sunder Guide (which still needs a bit a re-work after 3.5) and a nice colorful Skeleton Mages Guide, I am now presenting you my newest love "Storm Brand".

What is Storm Brand?
It's a new type of spell. You throw it on the ground and if an enemy is in range it plays Facehugger by jumping onto the enemy and hitting each with lightning damage and if applicable and in range up to 2 more enemies.

Now here comes the fun. If the Storm Brand killed someone it goes down on the ground and waits for the next victim or if they are already in range it jumps into the face of the next enemy.

You can see a small introduction and showcase with this build on this Video: https://youtu.be/0fDNsVWEUMM

New Showcase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnP9GXcWkRU

Pro:
- Very cheap to play
- Very fast map clearer
- Bore your partymembers because when they get there, everything is dead

Con:
- Ultra agressive screenshake on immortal mobs (For me it's fun as hell but party members cry a lot)
- No face tanking


(old)


As you can see, the gear is very affordable. A Sambar Scepter is best. Most fun with flat cold and flat lightning damage. Also some %-Lightning Damage and Crit Chance and Multi are great mods. If you are rich you can non-chaos damage as extra chaos damage on top of everything.

The chest has two options that I can think of. The first is a Loreweave for being more tanky or an Inpulsa for stronger shocks and with that more damage. It is totally up to you what you prefer. My preferation is the Loreweave.

As Amulet you will want to have Choir of the Storm. It gives us more lightning damage, more mana for MOM and creates Lightning Bolts on crits that smack the enemies even more. As we crit like 500 times a second the cooldown of 0.5 seconds for the Lightning Bolt is being permanently used.

The rest of the gear is just resistances and fancy mods.

You might want to have a Conductivity Curse on Hit on your Ring for a nice instant curse and big multiplier!

Which gear is mandatory you ask?
NOTHING! You can play all Rare and still melt. But Chest and Amulet really help a lot. I played on a Tabula until 85 or something already doing T15.

Possible other options:

Chest:
Carcass Jack: It increases the radius of where our Brand can hit and how hard and raises the damage and aoe of our Vaal Storm Call. (Yes it also increases the radius of VRF but the damage from that is uninteresting). On Paper a perfect rolled one does around 5% less damage than a medium rolled Loreweave but might be cheaper.


Gem Setup
All Gem Setups are in Order of importance!
Storm Brand: Storm Brand - Increased Critical Strikes - Concentrated Effect - Controlled Destruction - Faster Casting - Lightning Penetration

Eventhough the Crit Gem gives the least damage you might wanna add it asap as it will help you to shock you enemies and shatter them.

Vaal Storm Call: Vaal Storm Call - Less Duration - Added Lightning Damage - Controlled Destruction

Utility 1: Flame Dash - Faster Casting - Increased Duration - Vaal Righteous Fire

Utility 2: Ice Golem (Level 3) - Cast when Damage Taken (Level 1) - Increased Duration - Immortal Call (Level 3)

Weapon: Brand Recall - Empower - Arcane Surge (Level 6)

Shield: Decoy Totem - Multiple Totems - Faster Casting

Ring: Wrath


Bandits
Help Alira


Ascendancy
Hierophant
1. Sign of Purpose
2. Illuminated Devotion
3. Conviction of Power
4. Divine Guidance

Explanation: The only reason we use Sign of Purpose as first Ascendancy is easy: Faster Brand Recall. This is the most important skill in this build. Read more about it in the "How to Play" section.

Celestial Judgement and Punishment are the very LAST things to take to finalize your Build on Level 94.


Lab Enchants

Helmet: 12% Lightning Penetration
Gloves: Commandment of the Tempest

Bossing Options:
Boots: Damage Penetrates 10% of Enemy Elemental Resistances if you haven't Killed Recently

Boots: Adds 1 to 160 Lightning Damage if you haven't Killed Recently

Boots: Regenerate 2% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit Recently

Mapping/Delving:

Boots: Regenerate 2% of Life and Mana per second if you were Hit Recently

Boots: 16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently


Pantheon
Well, for me the Pantheon is always the same and still a pure thing of taste but this is my preferred setup:
Big God: Brine King - Because Stuns suck.
Small God: Gruthkul - Better Defense and slowed enemies

If you have any kind of anti stun use Lunaris for mapping and Solaris for bossing.


Leveling & Passive Tree

Level 1-12: Just take whatever you want. I like Lightning Tendrils or Freezing Pulse. Just put them into a +1 Wand and support with Onslaught and Added Lightning Damage.

Level 12 - Endgame: Play Storm Brand
You do not need to wait for anything. Just take it instantly and smash in whatever supports you can get until you have access to the needed supports.
Really, that's it. Storm Brand does everything.

How to make Leveling a breeze:
Tabula, Goldrim, Any Ring/Amulet with -Cost to Skills
You can use the Tabula unil you can afford a 6L Loreweave.

Tree importances:
1. Rush B! erm I mean rush Runebinder
2. Holy Dominion, Light of Divinity, Amplify
3. Rune Smith
4. Explosive Runes
5. Mind over Matter (Save up 4 Points and take them together. Not one by one)

Now you are all setup. If you struggle with life or stats just take some other nodes life earlier.

The Tree: https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/3.9.0/AAAABAUCAEGWMnFyDx0Ug_MI9FgxGnKfSCeDzxrvfBZvvOpqQxa_lfMRloSDySTQ9fDVL51sC2Qz7yGOZHSlwGZSU0VHsTYmlVXGfINYbSL0LJww-O-IuZPyHV3yDkiiAEmxidPVpicvmuAqE8MTBLM9X_ndhTKMNkyz42pZ85eVBUI26crycWnmfSsmRv7Xz5UuPmWP-uv1FvMHHn_GZp6X9Bo4gpsDmgQHg9tTja7_OtgkqsaKXyph4iY8_rMy0ZBVL9YRLXBS-tJtGYuMrv1FnevkHwKuEvk3U1KlZ1VLahtOruwuWisqC5_f96an-DbFwwm2-klR6-6TJw==


How to Play
If you take a look at the Video that I posted at the start of the guide you can see, that even if you play bad, because I forgot to use flasks and to take full advantage of the vaal skills, you can easily get through maps and savehouses (Even 83 ones).

First cast your 6 brands, now pop your flasks and go near enemies and use the brand recall. This gives the first jump a huge extra range for your brands and they will melt just everything they can find in range and offscreen. Just follow the loot sounds. Your flasks will refill much faster then you can use them, so keep them up.

If you happen to find a boss or the syndicate or just a nasty rare one you put up a decoy totem and run around like a scared little girl and resummon a new totem as soon as you can. Try to keep a distance between both totems because enemies are DUMB and switch from totem to totem and do tons less damage this way!
As soon as your first totem is alive you pop your Vaal Righteous Fire and INSTANTLY after you smack out your Vaal Storm Call. You will see how brutal they combine.

If you are going to delve, this char is great for it. Just cast your brands and recall asap while moving and when needed on encounters and keep your flasks up.


Forbidden Map Mods
Elemental Reflect

You can run everything else. On No Regen all you need is a mana flask or the Cinderswallow Urn.


Path of Building Stuff
https://pastebin.com/3eTu3ih4



They're both under effect of Vaal Righteous Fire.
If you're extremely cocky on a boss you could fire up normal Righteous Fire too and pump up to 650k DPS on Storm Brand but you'll go down in seconds.
Sadly I can't calculate Vaal Storm Call.


FAQ

1. Why not Witch? Everyone plays Witch!
In my opinion Witch is inferior to Templar just the increased Brand Recall itself is a huge reason to take the Templar. Also the MOM Bonus and Brand Boni are too good to ignore.

2. I am dying to the Syndicate a lot, help?
Remember you are no facetank and the brands work offscreen. Use the Decoy Totems, they help extremely with every hard fight. Have them seperated about half a screen away so they taunt one after another making the enemies switch between them and with that lessen their damage, while you cast new Brands from afar.

3. Uber Lab/Shaper/Elder/Uber Elder?
Shaper is definitely doable but do yourself a favor and get the helmet enchant before you do. Red Elder is also doable. I know a pal has downed Uber Elder with this build but it wasn't an easy fight. Uber Lab is no problem unless you know how traps work. You will not be able to fully farm the lab though unless it is only stuff like "Wait for stuff to activate" as your brands will recklessly destroy everything.

4. I got a question/suggestion! Can I spam you ingame?
Please don't. Use the forum and post a reply to this thread and PLEASE read the guide and at least the last 3 pages of the guide as most questions are being asked multiple times and you'll get your answer most likely a LOT faster then waiting for me to copy paste that answer for you.


I would offer Damage Numbers but sadly I do not know how to calculate Vaal Storm Call properly as PoB only shows a avg hit but not a DPS and just multiplying by cast time or the ingame info of 0.12 hits per second doesn't come near to what actually is happening.

But our Brands alone do 455k DPS (295k Boss) per Brand 910k together! when two are attached, without helm enchantment and 484k (324k Boss) with enchantment with my gear 986k together!

All gear except Amulet and Chest is self found or being bought for a few Chaos. If you invest in a better Sambar Scepter and some more damage mods on the ring you will easily ramp up more damage.

Hope you'll have as much fun as I do, as I think this will be my new main build!

Updates to the Guide. Last: 11.12.2019

11.12.2019 - Updated the Guide to 3.9 - We're still kickin'

26.12.2018 - Fixed an error in the PoB using the wrong level showing too few life/leech

29.12.2018 - New Pastebin with reworked setup for Brand Recall and VRF. Added a chest option.
TwitchTV: http://www.twitch.tv/akumanotsubasa
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AkumaNoTsubasa
Please use http://pobb.in for your guides instead of pastebin!
Last bumped on May 10, 2020, 3:10:18 PM
Trying this build atm, sitting at around 20k tooltip DPS with 3 power charges and AS on. I did go for a little more ES though: 4540 HP, 1641 ES, 1849(2155) unres mana. Very very satisfied with the result, this is the most fun I've had in a while :)
been thinking of the new support gem and guard skill for storm brand, and heiro for the mana shenanigans. do you think ivory tower & Low life would be strong? would be a bit different tree. trying to figure out what my starter is gonna be ^^
"
topperzz wrote:
been thinking of the new support gem and guard skill for storm brand, and heiro for the mana shenanigans. do you think ivory tower & Low life would be strong? would be a bit different tree. trying to figure out what my starter is gonna be ^^


Stormbrand might be my starter next league and probs switching to Inquisitor.
Can't say much about the switches on tree, gems and stuff but changes are going to happen soon™
TwitchTV: http://www.twitch.tv/akumanotsubasa
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AkumaNoTsubasa
Please use http://pobb.in for your guides instead of pastebin!
Hey guys, i dont know where to get 7k energy shield, could you help me to improve my gear? Thx and stay safe!!
"
ALFANDEGARIO wrote:
Hey guys, i dont know where to get 7k energy shield, could you help me to improve my gear? Thx and stay safe!!


Watcher's Eye, Cluster Jewels and more levels for the ES cluster on the upper left of the witch.
TwitchTV: http://www.twitch.tv/akumanotsubasa
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AkumaNoTsubasa
Please use http://pobb.in for your guides instead of pastebin!

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