Level 96 Lightning Strike Champion^3.23

Notes

Overall Guidance:
Levelling to level 38 is a bit clunky as you really have to use Spectral Helix which is not the nicest feeling skill. As soon as you get Anger, flat damage on gear/weapons, multistrike and first lab you can switch to Lightning Strike
Either buy or use vall orbs on LS gems. The sooner we get a Vaal LS gem the better as this is a huge boost to both clear and ST
Levelling should be smooth from here
Add in blood rage for frenzy charges whenever you feel comfortable since it does use a lot of life early on

When you get the ignite 100% more damage mastery you need some fire damage on the build. Anger covers this. When you get the dual wield mastery you need to run one axe and one sword!
Keep ensuring your accuracy is higher than your life. The accuracy mastery should ensure you do not need to worry about this until maps

Two handed until act 3 when you pick up the dual wield nodes. Use fire or lightning craft on weapons/jewellery in act 3. I recommend Lightning as Anger + Lightning and the damage from Lightning Strike will guarantee Trinity Procs when you swap

After 1st Lab:
Drop War Banner 
Pick up Corrupting fever from act 2 and lifetap from act 1 and link together
Corrupting Fever needs to take 50%+ life. You can then use this to perma proc adrenaline
Once you get multistrike at level 38 and the +1 strike mastery you can switch to a melee skill of your choice (Smite, FB or VLS)

Act 6:
Pickup a wrath and added lightning from Nessa after clearing twilight strand and level in off hands. You will not have the INT to level them too high but we want to start  levelling them. Also level up volatility (act 2)
Respec  the leech/vaal strike nodes when you can then take the +1 projectile and mastery
Attributes and resistances are both a struggle on this build so do not worry if you cannot level gems up or have to be slightly below resistances. Aim for 55%+ resists and you should be fine. Crafting flat damage early is more important than
resistances as killing stuff quicker is a better form of defence in the campaign
Be on the lookout for Agate amulets at vendors as these can be good for boosting up STR + INT
Use 30 Int & Str nodes temporarily if needed
Pick up and start using conductivity curse

Act 7: Take Jade Flask as reward and then go back to Act 5 and take granite flask as avarius reward and use both. You should no longer need a mana flask
From here on in try and craft/ID a bleeding life flask as both bleed and corrupted blood becomes more prevenlent 

When you get ichimoniji's drop the mastery increased damage if wielding 2 different weapon types
When you take the reservation wheel run level 1 precision, Anger + Wrath (If you feel squishy or have a super low level wrath run grace or determination)

Getting Ichimonjis
When you get to level 50 start going to the rogue harbour every level and buy every demolition and lockpicking contact that comes in Wakanos inventory for chance orbs (ignore the ones for alchemies)
When you get to level 58 run all these contracts. You should then have 10c+ which will be easily enough to buy 2 x Ichimonjis. This should also give you vaal orbs to make a vaal lightning strike gem. I recommend making your own as 
if you buy one from trade it will likely be level 1 and this will seriously hurt your DPS

Act 9
You may start to feel squishy in Act 9 and beginning of Act 10 as we will not yet have much life or spell suppression or fortify. When you get the suppression nodes and fortify it will feel a LOT tankier. We will be adding in doube defensive auras,
but you will do this at level 78 when you get perseverance

This is point you NEED: 2 x Ichimonji and Vaal Lightning Strike to have a smooth progression into maps and mid tier maps. If you do not have the currency hit up some demolition heist contracts. You can buy these with chance orbs 
from the rogue harbour each time you level up. You can trade fusings for Chance Orbs if you run out. You can also use lockpicking contracts for all currency

Act 10
At this point you ideally want to be res capped with good suppression and 2k+ life. Do not worry about the lifepool we will be adding to this soon!This should see you through the next 2 labs. You can always juke Izaro and wait for your vaal charges before
committing to attacking

*** TIPs***
I recommend doing some low level heists (Demolition and lockpicking to pick up a few chaos  to buy Ichimonjis at level 58. Also use this to get gear to get res capped and get some  attritbutes if needed. It is better to spend an hour here than
struggle when you hit maps. 
You do not need to rush to do second lab as it does not give us anything until we unlock the third so feel free to do it just before killing Kitava. You can also use the labs to try and get some gems to sell for currency. If you feel too squishy you
wait until early maps but if you can I would recommend doing them in the campaign and if needed use heist or desecrated  chambers to level or gear up
SMITE TECH - As we are adding quite a lot of aura effect a smite linked to increased duration gives us around 20% more damage. Use ths one bosses and tough rares to give you a huge DPS Boost. This is important as makes a 5 link feel like
a 5 Link

MAPS
2k life+, Capped resistances, 3 x labs completed. Skillls as per POB. 
From here we are in no rush as we ideally want to be high 80s before we start pushing red maps
Do Atlas completion but do not rush!
Use loot filter "Smite Early Mapping" and look for armour & evasion bases & Jewellery. Use Essences on  these as and when you find them as the first order is to get life and resistances along with attributes sorted and on good bases.
We cannot really push past early yellow maps until we get a 5 link and persverance belt
We also want the following clusters:
- 8 passive large lightning cluster (We can alt craft this we just want Scintilating idea for more mana and  lightning penetration + any other mod) 1 mod jewel the notable will be at the back. I would try and buy this or Alt + Regal into 2 mods as it can cost
quite a few chaos to make. This mod is not make or break so you could just roll and 2 mod jewel and take 20% mana on the tree if you find that you need it
- 3 Passive Mana reservation jewel (This can probably be 2 passive). Again alt + regal this looking for Sublime form. This gives us resistances and grace reservation
You need these jewels and level 87+ before we can really start to push but we can farm essences in lower tier maps to make money
Pick up grace and determination from act 3 and level in off hands
Add Vitality to links to counter act blood rage. We will drop this later but will add back in much later on. Level this as far as you feel comfy on mana

Flasks: 
Get flasks crafted so you have evasion, armour and attack speed suffixes

How to craft gear:
You do not really need damage as this comes from auras and swords. We need to get life, resistances and Attributes and I would recommend doing the following:
- By 2 x two stone ring with fractured Resistance of T3+ (Different resistance each ring). Craft one with Shrieking essences of Spite and one with Shrieking essences of Rage.
This will give you a good chunk of STR + INT
- Get an Agate Amulet with all attributes +24 and preferably life and resists
- Buy fractured helmet, gloves with 1 x high resistance and roll with screaming essences of Greed until you get something decent. Attack speed or suppression are great but resists and Strength is also good
- Boots but a pair with fractured movement speed and roll with greed essences or fractured life and roll with zeal essences. Again looking for resists and STR
- Helmet buy with fractured resist and use spite essences for INT. Craft Life
- Buy 5 link chest and roll with resistance or life essences

Level 78 perseverance swap
Get Uber lab done. This can be after the swap as you will have much more defence. 
Cluster Jewels in play
5 Link
Auras: Determination + Grace + Wrath + very low precision + Defiance Banner (After Uber Lab)
Switch out Trinity (Run Added Lightning instead that you have been levelling up) Replace with awakened added lightning when this is cheap enough
Flask Rolled
Adrenaline working
Conductivity Curse

Now Farm for currency for corrupted 6 link: 4 x R, 1 x B, 1 x G. This should be quite cheap as is not really good colours for most attack builds
Vaal Lightning Strike - Added Lightning - Elemental Damage with Att - Inspiration - Multistrike - Volatility

Syndicate Crafts:
Unlocking mana cost of attacks on jewellery is important. This is easy enough to do you just need to unveil jewellery from Elreon. He starts in leadership position in research so if you come across him interrogate him to get him out of that position
so he turns up more often. When you have this on 1 ring you can drop the life as mana mastery. When you get a 6 link you will need it on on 2 rings or mana cost of attacks implicit on helmet (Searing Exarch Mod)
You need to get mana cost as low as you can as the final version of the budget starter has very little available mana

Physical damage taken as fire and lightning is also important. This is unveiled from Graviscous body armours. He does not start on the board so kick non important people out to try and force him in

Physical damage taken as fire on helmet is unveiled from Korrell helmets

Further DPS
The best way to get more damage is recraft your jewellery with essences of Torment for more flat lightning damage. This will add cost as you will still need to balance resists and attributes however it will add 4-5% more DPS per item
Annointing amulet will also give DPS. Divine judegement for a cheap annoint Arcing blows is the best and not mega expensive
If you do not mind pushing a lot of buttons you can run a level 20 smite linked to increased duration for a big lightning damage buff. You would probably drop a curse for this since it is probably too much setup. 
Getting a conductivity on hit ring would automate curses and make damage very good
You could get to 4 mil combined DPS with eater and exarch implicits just lesser:
- Boots: increased action speed
- Body Armour: Grace/Determ aura effect (whichever needs boosting) + non curse aura effect
- Gloves: Strike skills target 1 additional enemy + lightning exposure on hit
- Helmet: Mana Cost of Attacks + Phys taken as
- Corrupted Ichimonji with attack speed if cheap but watch out for accuracy!

BIG UPGRADE OPTIONS:
There are some items that will actually push the build to Uber Elder/Maven DPS, but could be too expensive to make it worthwhile:
Voice of the Storms Amulet gives insane damage to non crit lightning builds but is an upgraded breach item so may be expensive
Wrath Pen Watchers Eye but again could be way too much! Increased Lightning Damage Watcher's would be a very cheap alternative
3 Mod Cluster Jewel to free up points on the tree.

80-87 Level in yellow or lower  tier red maps. You need level 20 auras and quality on support gems to push the highest maps. This should happen naturally anyway as you will unlikely to be hitting T14 maps before level 87-88

Content Completed
Uber Elder 5 Portals super messy arena not enough DPS & I suck at the fight!
Maven Deathless but 9 mins
Formed 1 Death as did not see Phoneix charging up
Destructive play is fine
Boss rushing is fine
altar farming is fine
Only deaths have been in bossing or invitations and even then the build felt very tanky
Not a build to recommend as it does not really have the DPS to do 4 voidstones unless you know the fights!
****Full League start run done on fresh account and atlas cleared on 5 link and basic gear/clusters

The reason it is meant for mapping is you do really need Vaal Lightning Strike Charges to burst enemies down and DPS without it is very slow