Level 96 LL Crit Ball Lightning of Orbiting Hierophant^3.27

Notes

Alkuroth's twink to hero, unleash mana stacker
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video:
https://youtu.be/X3q1I4Gjzpc
all ubers cleared on bridge 2 loadout (warning unfiltered livestream vod)
https://youtu.be/iaxD3zOKBDg
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Why?
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This guide is mostly if you are making a second character and are ready to be twinked out and have (smooth) progression all the way to ubers.
	- the leveling items are definitely overboard imo but it is fun to do stuff like this

- Whats the point of this mana stacking version? KBoC is so much stronger and synergistic with all the current in game mechanics.
	- It's mostly true. But some(alot) of people play poe to explore different builds, not just to be playing the best of the best. Archmage is one of the kings of this. Because.... You can plug in pretty much any spell you want with it!
	- Now you mostly just see arc and ball lightning in the video but I have been trying other skills. Lightning conduit of the heavens is pretty cool and I plan to try others out too once I build out the expensive true mana stacking variant.
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general notes
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- damage is front loaded for this build. so you look at the full dps and you say, hmm it's not that great. Well it's not a great measure for the feel of this build. In actual gameplay you are instant killing packs of mobs and instant phasing the boss. and then during the downtime your unleash stacks are back to full.
- i didn't use the grand spectrum jewels as early as I could of (campaign). you should use them when you have three jewel sockets. 
		- also the if you want to be tankier in the campaign use the ele res grand spectrums. they are the cheapest too
- ball lightning single target very good, mapping is clunky, especially in closed area maps (atrocious)
- arc good for mapping if you have enough damage
 - cast speed struggles (sorta)
so when you hit start getting a lot of unleashes you start wanting cast speed for quality of life. your character sits in place a bit too long to cast and can take some hits
	- though there is a way to spread out the animation with frostblink, so you can "move" your character while casting
 - use brine king pantheon until you are able to get 3x practiced caster notables
 - once you get to juiced mapping and bossing you really want the block notables, see megalo notes below
 - you could run rumis flask instead of double quicksilver for more mapping defense. the build doesn't have a lot of movespeed or cast speed so I prefer the 2 quicksilver
 - want more defenses? foulborn malachais with spell suppress per power charge + instinct + lucky suppress mastery = 93% spell suppress...
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Loadouts
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Level 1 - X - campaign loadouts
Bridge - use this one as a "bridge" between 63 and power charge stack. You will still need to respec a bunch of points. Also you need level 68 to equip the gear.
Power Charge Stack - "budget variant" this will take you into juiced mapping / early ubers
Power Charge Stack v2 - spend a good amount more currency to squeeze in 90 max fire res and righteous fire. more dps, and really good fire max hit lol
Bridge 2 - use this as a bridge between Power Charge Stacking and Actually Mana Stacking. Keep in mind this bridge is a big dps loss and big defense increase compared to Power Charge Setup
Mana / Lightning Resistance Stacker - 20x more expensive than power charge stacking, At least twice as tanky up to 10x. Just straight up way more defenses. 
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Power Charge Stack Loadout Overview
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I chose power charge stacking because it is "cheap" and powerful. if you wanted to go true mana stacker it is so much more expensive at the early levels.
	- it is not the classic "paper" power charge stacker. This one has pretty good defenses.
	- power charge stacking definitely hits a ceiling faster but imo is the way to go for entering maps / early uber content
	- every individual item should be under 1 divine in cost, with many under being under 10c
	- helm 10c, chest - 10c (unlinked), shield - 1c, boots - 25c, belt - 5c, amulet - 1c, wand - 25c, gloves - 20c, etc...


Skill Rotation:
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Mapping
	- closed maps I mostly use arc to shoot around corners. Open maps I use both arc and ball lightning. Single target use both. Also cast arcanist brand and try to position yourself inside the sigil of power / frost shield
Bossing (I use two ball lightnings)
	- cast arcanist brand periodically. wait for 8 seals on the two ball lightning setups before casting. frost blink to reposition
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Items - if anything seems too expensive leave a comment please
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Megalomaniac nodes order of priority
Veteran Defender / Other stats and res Notables - Only running one rare item and it is locked for suffix. So we need res and stats elsewhere.
Practiced Caster - want a combination of three of these from large clusters / megalo
Thaumophage - or other energy shield leech nodes - need one btwn megalos and large cluster
Enduring Ward / Powerful Ward - I use more enduring ward for mapping, and more powerful ward for bossing. If you are using willclash then you don't need powerful ward.
Seal Mender - faster unleash seals (more dps)
Other Block Nodes

"6 link" gloves
 - mostly you just want slower projectile and crit multi for spells, faster casting is nice
 - "expensive" you could go even further and craft these yourself with essence of horror (3.5% to base crit for socketed gems)

Timeless Jewel
 - ele res per devotion
 - Thoughts and Prayers Notables
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Map mods struggles (assuming you are running JUICED lots of map modifier effect)
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Regex I use (T16s)
"!teal|ur$|gen|f el|efe|s rec|o al|non|ever" "iz.*([4-9].|\d..)%" "m rar.*([4-9].|\d..)%" "y: r"

less recovery
	- es on kill, es on hit watchers eye
less block
	- sucks but doable
no regen
	- nope
reflect ele
	- you could run this with reflect ring + pantheon
reduced aura
	- if you are overcapped on res enough, this is fine. But if capped with purity of elements, is bad.
steal charges
	- annoying if we are running enduring ward notables, but doable
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End of Power Charge Stacking Loadout Overview
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Actually Mana Stacking Loadout Overview
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 - for the wand order of importance for socketed gem supported by
	- more spell dmg, lightning pen, inc crit strike, inc crit dmg,  faster casting

 - Indigon gameplay can be CLUNKY
	- you won't need that much damage in most content, so you can swap to mindspiral in these instances ~ 60% dps loss but +20% max hit
	- I cleared all ubers on bridge 2, honestly wasn't a fan of indigon. you need enough burst to insta phase or it feels bad. eventually you run out of lavingnia charges and CAUGHT

 - can use the overcapped lightning crit chance chest or cloak of defiance in these situations
	- bosses / content without chaos damage
	- coruscating elixir swap for amethyst

 - aura flexibility
	- you can use wrath / zealotry instead of purity of lightning / discipline. I wouldn't recommend swapping out purity of lightning though, BIG defense loss for small increase in damage.

 - Megalomaniac Nodes
	- think about what you want, what content you are doing, if you have a build this expensive you really should be thinking this way :)
	- enduring ward - attack block (mapping)
	- powerful ward - spell block (bosses / mapping)
	- storm drinker - energy shield leech of some sort
	- will shaper - best node for max es (defense)
	- scintilating idea - best node for damage and some defense
	- openness - best node for mana (damage / defense)
	- veteran defender - stats and resistance
	- explore other notables too! pls

- passive points
	- you can lose some of the large cluster small nodes if you do not have enough levels
	- you can also swap out those nodes for good megalo notables if you are able to find good megalo

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End of Actually Mana Stacking Loadout Overview
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End of Guide (Notes)
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Video Transcript:




It's called twink to zero because we use "twink" gear to level through the campaign very fast and smoothly. Then we equip more "twink" gear for mapping. Until we hit our endgame setup.


I tried to include a loadout every time there were notable gear or skill gem changes. So it should be REALLY easy to follow for everyone as long as you have some currency to buy the gear. 
And there are definitely some overly expensive pieces in here that you do not need! It's all optional leveling stuff. So don't feel pigeonholed into getting every piece of gear for these loadouts. Please. lol
You can league start mana stacker, easily, but I did not include loadouts for a league start scenario.

There are some pretty powerful items for any twink character in this pob, so definitely check it out if you level up a lot of characters every league.
Most notable IMO and not widely used are the jewels. Although that may be because they can be very expensive. But if you have the currency.
Unnatural instinct, light of meaning, and grand spectrums are extremely powerful for leveling and can carry you in early / mid maps as well. Grand spectrums in particular make solving elemental resistances trivial. Which means you don't have to swap gear around as much.



Using Bridges...
Bridge one transitions from end of campaign / early maps into end game mapping and some bosses
Then from bridge one to power charge stack which can clear some of the ubers (maybe all if you godgamer) and t17s
Bridge 2 is can be used in between power charge stack and mana / lightning res stack. Keep in mind this setup is still 300 - 400 divines. 10x the price of power charge stack.

Skill Rotation...


Notable stuff imo.
 - This is a stacking build. For those that don't know. Stacking is a particularly famous concept in PoE where we acquire a lot of one stat and get a lot of side benefits from that. In this PoB there are three main types of stacking, mana, power charges, and lightning resistance. The power charge and lightning resistance stacking are separate loadouts. And a bit later I will go over some of th  e items that enable each of these.
 - This is an unleash build. We have a cool new bloodline ascendency notable that gives +3 max unleashes and 5% more dmg per previous unleash. So grabbing most sources of +1 unleash we can get to +8. This enables some really nice burst damage.
 - This is an archmage build. Which is particularly fun because you can really plug any spell into the game and test it out. (Most of our base dmg is from the support). If you like some spells mechanics over another, once you hit a certain dmg breakpoint it's probably worth using just for the "feel"
 - It is very cheap to get the power charge stacking variant of this build going.

 
This is stuff that is new this league or that I think is less known tech.
Twink...
 - Rushing jewel slots and using grand spectrums for twink leveling. If you get 3 ele dmg grand spectrums that is 135% increased ele damg. Insane. And if you do ele res spectrums that is 63% to all elemental res. Its so flexible since you can mix and match. But they can get expensive. The ele res ones were dirt cheap when I bought.
 - Foxshade wild leather corrupted with increased dmg for twink leveling. You can six link and color with bench or tainted chromes depending on socket colors you need. This chest gives 1k evasion, 30% ms, and enemies hitting you dmg is unlucky. INSANE... You do need to be full life but during campaign that's pretty much always. Movement speed works in town too. feelsgoodman
 - Rushing to scion wheel and doing unnatural instinct + light of meaning combo for your dmg type. If you are pathing anywhere near here this is a MASSIVE dmg boost early 
General...
 - Max mana as max es: hierophant nodes, mindspiral, clarity watchers eye, militant faith notable. Just another easy way to get defense as a mana stacker
 - Capping block through megalomaniacs - I list some of the really juicy nodes in the pob notes section. But enduring ward / powerful ward both grant 10% block / spell block respectively. So it makes capping block really easy. I swap out some of my enduring wards for powerful depending on content, like uber bosses I prefer spell block over block. 
New stuff...
 - void battery 3% inc aoe per power charge (39% for us)
 - malachais loop 4% chance to suppress per power charge (42% from one item HOLY). Combine this with a suppress wheel and lucky mastery and you get ~93% suppress, softcore wet dream. Note I don't use this because I wanted the damage but it is an insane defense layer for such a small investment.
 - foulborn romira's banquet - super cheap +1 power charge rings, they have mana and crit mult too!
 - foulborn the blue dream, 3% crit mult per power charge!
 - Hardening Uulgraft, tender embrace, free endurance charge generation for low life builds (dont even have to get hit!)


I try not to talk to much in these videos after feedback. So I included a transcript that will have everything I say and more in the notes section of the PoB.