[3.15]Archmage Ball Lightning Hierophant, will it work in Expedition?

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faraddox wrote:
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witcheredd wrote:
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faraddox wrote:
317%

mostly from PoH. Its main inc AoE source now

Pre-PoH stage will be much difficult

I don't think PoH is a problem. The Pact (9/9) drops at The Quay (act 8), Pier (t2), Port (t5) so should appear early on trade.
25 radius without PoH and unnatural instinct. PoH makes it 30, and jewel makes it 31, almost 32 (still looking for 4% to get 32).


hey man, you seem to be very well into the thematic. i just came to this post by searching for bl updates. i played a different build of it https://pastebin.com/xZXxkgZC
it would be awesome if you could provide me the loss of dmg i would get to the new aoe changes. thanks allot if you'll find the time
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Oquiz wrote:
hey man, you seem to be very well into the thematic. i just came to this post by searching for bl updates. i played a different build of it https://pastebin.com/xZXxkgZC
it would be awesome if you could provide me the loss of dmg i would get to the new aoe changes. thanks allot if you'll find the time

Aoe shouldn't affect mines so much as this hiero build in terms of damage. With 18 base your BL aoe will be 21, you lost only 1-2 hits. Looks like most of damage loss will come from flat damage nerf for you :)
How bad did the patchnotes affect this build?
Like up to what content could I expect to play with it or something like is the fast A8 sirus kill advertised at the frontpage still viable for heist?
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Sibru wrote:
How bad did the patchnotes affect this build?
Like up to what content could I expect to play with it or something like is the fast A8 sirus kill advertised at the frontpage still viable for heist?
The top-end damage is reduced by 20% AND the base AoE radius of BL is reduced by 18% (4 radius).

The AoE needed to reach 13 max hits per BL with slower projectiles was 32.

Needless to say, except for folks who play on Standard who can still take Sanctuary of Thought if they have a legacy 100% mana cost Fevered Mind, this is a pretty huge nerf.

Not only are most basically doing 20% less damage, but it's going to probably cost 7-10 more passives just to get that 4 AoE radius back (Enigmatic Reach + Blast Radius + Arcane Expanse).

So basically we'll be going from comfortably getting 12-13 hits per BL to around 9-10.... on top of a 20% damage nerf.

On top of this, they nerf'd the hell out of Projectile Weakness, too. It is now called Sniper's Mark, and can only be applied to ONE (Yes, ONE) target at a time. And it's going from 54% increased projectile damage to only 40% increased projectile damage. So a 26% nerf to it's debuff + only applying to one single target at a time. The only decent news for this is that it now applies fully to bosses. So while before it was ~22% increased projectile damage to a boss, it will now be +40%.


However.... On top of even all this, they also moved Whispers of Doom across the tree and it's no longer accessible with small Thread of Hope in the NW socket, which means unless you use some other means of getting an additional curse (hex/mark), you're probably down a curse now, too.

Many of us used Assassins Mark on hit on a ring + Projectile Weakness + Conductivity (lvl 5 awakened curse on hit + thread of hope to get whispers of doom). But now, you can only have EITHER Assassins Mark or Sniper's Mark. Can't have both.

Doing Wave of Conviction (totem) + Conductivity + Elemental Weakness + Lightning Pen +was simply overkill on the lightning exposure/resist debuff. Which is why Projectile Weakness was so nice. And then Assassins Mark was great for those of us shooting for crit, plus having it "on hit" on a ring synergized perfectly with Cursed Concoction wheel. It REALLY helped with mana issues and was a great DPS boost, plus of course, power charge generation.


They really hurt this build, IMO. I'm guessing it's about a 40-50% overall reduction in damage for map clearing and about 25-30% reduction for bossing.
this bild has a chance for SSF or HC SSF? without unique items?
Some good alt quality gem options. Cast speed on BL, damage gained as mana on arcane cloak stood out to me. Also inc buff on golem, inc effect of wrath, maybe a few others.
Ball Lightning alternate quality: Projectiles have 10% chance to be Supercharged
Supercharged Projectiles have 50% more Area of effect and deal 50% more Damage
Last edited by faraddox on Sep 17, 2020, 3:50:53 AM
in the pob it says inquisitor but on the first page its still hiero. or was this part not updated yet
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SkylerOG wrote:
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Sibru wrote:
How bad did the patchnotes affect this build?
Like up to what content could I expect to play with it or something like is the fast A8 sirus kill advertised at the frontpage still viable for heist?
The top-end damage is reduced by 20% AND the base AoE radius of BL is reduced by 18% (4 radius).

The AoE needed to reach 13 max hits per BL with slower projectiles was 32.

Needless to say, except for folks who play on Standard who can still take Sanctuary of Thought if they have a legacy 100% mana cost Fevered Mind, this is a pretty huge nerf.

Not only are most basically doing 20% less damage, but it's going to probably cost 7-10 more passives just to get that 4 AoE radius back (Enigmatic Reach + Blast Radius + Arcane Expanse).

So basically we'll be going from comfortably getting 12-13 hits per BL to around 9-10.... on top of a 20% damage nerf.

On top of this, they nerf'd the hell out of Projectile Weakness, too. It is now called Sniper's Mark, and can only be applied to ONE (Yes, ONE) target at a time. And it's going from 54% increased projectile damage to only 40% increased projectile damage. So a 26% nerf to it's debuff + only applying to one single target at a time. The only decent news for this is that it now applies fully to bosses. So while before it was ~22% increased projectile damage to a boss, it will now be +40%.


However.... On top of even all this, they also moved Whispers of Doom across the tree and it's no longer accessible with small Thread of Hope in the NW socket, which means unless you use some other means of getting an additional curse (hex/mark), you're probably down a curse now, too.

Many of us used Assassins Mark on hit on a ring + Projectile Weakness + Conductivity (lvl 5 awakened curse on hit + thread of hope to get whispers of doom). But now, you can only have EITHER Assassins Mark or Sniper's Mark. Can't have both.

Doing Wave of Conviction (totem) + Conductivity + Elemental Weakness + Lightning Pen +was simply overkill on the lightning exposure/resist debuff. Which is why Projectile Weakness was so nice. And then Assassins Mark was great for those of us shooting for crit, plus having it "on hit" on a ring synergized perfectly with Cursed Concoction wheel. It REALLY helped with mana issues and was a great DPS boost, plus of course, power charge generation.


They really hurt this build, IMO. I'm guessing it's about a 40-50% overall reduction in damage for map clearing and about 25-30% reduction for bossing.


The 20% damage nerf *is* the AoE nerf, the damage nerf itself affects us to no degree. The Projectile Weakness/Sniper's Mark nerf is actually a buff for the build, as you noted with the removal of curse resistance on bosses. Assassin's Mark is unfortunate but can be recouped in other ways including Righteous Fire alternate quality now buffing us further and just getting any other source of +1 curse. More relevant as a nerf is actually the Watcher's Eye changes as we lose a bunch of recovery which translates to less life regen and less mana all at once.
Last edited by Tojozomi on Sep 17, 2020, 1:22:16 PM
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The 20% damage nerf *is* the AoE nerf, the damage nerf itself affects us to no degree. The Projectile Weakness/Sniper's Mark nerf is actually a buff for the build, as you noted with the removal of curse resistance on bosses. Assassin's Mark is unfortunate but can be recouped in other ways including Righteous Fire alternate quality now buffing us further and just self casting it with any other source of +1 curse. More relevant as a nerf is actually the Watcher's Eye changes as we lose a bunch of recovery which translates to less life regen and less mana all at once.

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Ball Lightning
Now has a base radius of 18 (from 22).
Now deals 3 to 48 lightning damage at gem level 1 (from 3 to 57), up to 22 to 426 lightning damage at gem level 20 (from 28 to 533).

No, it's a 20% damage nerf AND a reduction of 4 radius.

That's WAY MORE than just 20% overall, that's over a 40% damage reduction.

Why the hell wouldn't the flat damage reduction affect us?? Of course it does. Go put a level 11 Added Lightning Damage support gem on your PoB and that's about the difference in flat damage.

So people who got to 32 radius who were able to then get 13 hits are now at about 10 hits max per BL, unless they invest into more AoE. Which again, unless you can take Sanctuary of Thought, probably isn't going to be available. Most people will already be taking Enigmatic Reach, Blast Radius, and Arcane Expanse just to reach around 28-30 AoE.


There's a misconception that everyone has 3 more AoE because PoB shows it with Pledge of Hands/Greater Spell Echo, but that's an error in PoB. PoB mistakenly averages out the +150% AoE for the 3rd echo across all 4 BL's, and that's clearly not the case.

So the 1st BL is going have much less AoE than what PoB says. The 2nd BL/1st echo will be slightly less. The 3rd BL/2nd echo will be slightly more. And the 4th BL/3rd echo will be a fair amount more than what PoB shows as static AoE per BL.


Needless to say, half of your BL's from each cast aren't going to hit near as many times as you think. Especially the first BL of every cast.

If you want 13 hits on every BL, you need to manually go into PoB and add a "38% reduced Area of Effect" line to your Pledge of Hands (150%/4).

By the way, PoB does this with the +105% damage too. Which means you also need to add a "26% less Spell Damage" line to your PoH, too, to get a more accurate average hit per BL.
Last edited by SkylerOG on Sep 17, 2020, 1:36:10 PM

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