3.29 Lightning Conduit league starter^3.28

Notes

The notes in this guide are organized in sections with a blue header to make each section easy to find.
Yellow text is more detailed information for newer players which can be skipped.  The blue header
plus the level based layouts in this pob should be suffient for experienced players. 
Orange text is information which is critical to understand and should be read by everyone. 

Just an FYI for anyone who has never used the feature, on the skill tree page in pob there is a check
box at the bottom called compare, if you turn that on and pick select a 2nd skill tree, pob will show you
what is different between the two trees.

BUILD SUMMARY

This build guide is intended to be used as a league starter during the first week of a league.  It is not
intended as an optimal way to level this build later in a league, but it will do just fine for that as well.
This guide is also not intended to be a racing build, if you can get to maps in 3 hours you don't need
this guide.  I make my builds to be reasonably tanky and comfortable to play.  It isn't hard to make
this build do considerably more damage by going zhp, but I have no interst in making builds that way.

The build easily scales damage  to 4+ million with very little gear while also being reasonably tanky
on that level of gear.  Beyond the basic build, it is straight forward to scale damage beyond 15 
million dps via several unique jewels, a single cluster jewel, and a unique staff.

Lightning conduit is a 2 button build, you cast orb of storms and then hold down the lightning conduit
button until everything is dead. Both the player and some monsters must be within the orb of storms
for lighting conduit to do any damage.  You can replace orb of storms with storm brand for a more
defensive play style and/or for bossing, but orb of storms is much faster/easier to use since it does
not require any aiming and the area of effect is far larger.

When you cast lightning conduit it triggers orb of storms to hit all enemies within the orb of storms, 
applying a 65% shock (via Shaper of Storms).  The lightning conduit spell hits all shocked enemies
within a very large area (almost the entire screen), thus the combintion of orb of storms to apply 
shock and lightning conduit to consume the shocks for big damage.

The build is a reasonably fast mapper since the damage is pretty high even with very little gear and
every cast of lightning conduit hits all enemies within range.  It plays a lot like a melee build since you
have to move within range of the monsters, cast orb of storms, and then cast lightning conduit.
Generally one press of the lightning conduit spell is enough to kill most white/blue packs.  This guide
invests into a decent amount of defense early due to the nature of the build requiring you to be within
close range of enemies to do damage.  If you do not invest into defense, you will die constantly and
you will not have a good time.  I find most of my deaths with this build early on are due to playing too
aggressively, getting stunned, then getting overwhelmed.

Mana is often an issue with this build, it is very important to make sure that you have enough mana
regeneration and/or skill cost reduction to avoid running out of mana constantly.  This build relies
heavily on the Mystic Bulwark passive which gives you 1% mana regen per 1% spell block, so in this
case investing in defense gives you offense.  It is critical to invest in spell block early to provide mana 
regeneration. 

Attrubutes are also often an issue since the build requires 158 str, 68 dex, and eventually 293 int
for a Twilight Regalia body armour.  The benchcraft which gives 25 of two different attributes is
generally the easiest way to get the attributes you need, as the 50 attribute points is basically as
good as a t2 attribute roll on gear.  I often find myself having to take the 30 str or dex passive nodes
to meet attribute requirements until I get really good gear. 

Advice for how to play with lightning conduit

In general, you do not want to jump into the middle of a pack, cast orb of storms, and then cast
lightning conduit.  If you try to play this way, you will die constantly.  What you want to do is to move
within range of a pack, cast orb of storms towards the pack so that the monsters are on the edge
of orb of storms, and then start casting lightning conduit.  

With shock proliferation and the the  "beams split towards targets" ability of orb of storms, it will shock
monsters well outside of the orb of storms effect shown on screen.  Lighting conudit has a base range
over twice as large as orb of storms, so it hits basically the entire screen, but it only hits shocked
monsters.

Also keep in mind that monsters will move towards you, so once you have orb of storms in play, the
monsters just run towards you and die as you continue casting lightning conudit.

=======================================
LEVEL 2 to 28 - Rolling magma + holy flame totem
=======================================

When you get to town take rolling magma as your reward for killing Hillock.  Even with the nerfs to
rolling magma, I don't see any other realistic choice since the goal is to switch to firestorm at level
28.  Maybe you could take purifying flame and buy a rustic sash if the nerf to rolling magma damage
is really bad at low level.  I did a run with purifying flame and it was fine. Definitely worse than 
rolling magma, but it will get you there.  

Once you get past the Mud Flats zone you can return to town and take Flame Wall and Frostblink as 
your quest reward and then buy Holy Flame Totem from Nessa.  These are the skills you'll be using all 
he way until you reach level 28 and kill Gravicious in the Act 3 zone The Ebony Barracks.

Both Rolling Magma and Holy Flame Totem gain a lot of damage from passing through flamewall, so
against tanky monsters, bosses, etc it is vital to cast through a flamewall and to position a flamewall
between your totem and your target.

Once you kill Brutus, you can return to town and Tarklleigh will give you a quest reward.  You can take
combustion from him as you want two of them anyway.  Then you can go buy additional supports
from Nessa.  I recommend a 2nd combustion (for holy flame totem and rolling magma), clarity, vitality,
and flame dash to replace frostblink.  If you prefer frostblink just keep it.  Don't forget to enable 
clarity and vitality once you leave town. 

Help Alira for the +15% all elemental resistance

This build uses multiple uniques and even with purity of elements, resistance can be a problem early.
With good gear you can later come back and take the +1 passive point instead of the +15% all
elemental resistance, but that is unlikely to be possible until level 90+

Fire mastery choice

I recommend taking the regenerate life per fire resistance mastery node once you reach Heart of
Flame at the top of the passive tree.  The 100% increased damage against ignited enemies node is
also very strong, but I don't find that I need the damage by the time I reach the node, whereas if I craft
fire resistance on several pieces of equipment I get 75 to 100 life regen per second.  That much life
regen basically means even a low skill player such as myself rarely dies and can just mindlessly shield
charge through zones ignoring monsters to get through the early part of the campaign faster. 

Craft added spell fire damage on wand

When you find Dialla in the act 3 zone "Solaris Temple Level 2", just past her is the entrance to a room
named Eternal Laboratory.  This room contains a crafting bench recipe which allows you to craft added 
spell fire damage onto your wand.  This recipe massivly boosts your damage and you should use the
crafting bench to add this to your wand as soon as you get it (if possible).


=======================================
LEVEL 28
=======================================

28 Switch to Firestorm (or armageddon brand if you prefer, or both, whatever)

After killing Gravicious in the act 3 zone "The Ebony Barracks",  you can return to town and Marmoa
will give you a free Firestorm gem which is a massive upgrade over Rolling Magma.  The minimum level
to use Firestorm is level 28.  Mana will be significant issue with Firestorm until you complete your first
labrynth trial and add lightning golem.

You can also buy armageddon brand from the vendor.  I use armageddon brand + firestorm, speed
runners use armageddon brand + cremation/desecrate.  Use whatever you prefer, all of these fire spells
are really strong for the campaign.  I personally do not take the Runebinger keystone as I rely on 
Firestorm for single target, but this build guide paths directly by it so it only costs 1 passive point if you
want to take it.

You also need to buy a lightning conduit gem and keep it in an offhand weapon or a spare socket so
that when you are ready to switch to lighting conduit the gem is fully leveled.

First lab, take Liege of the Primordial

If the divine font gives you an option to add quality to a gem, you should use it to add quality to your
lightning conduit gem.  You did remember to buy a lightning conduit gem before doing lab right?  Getting
20 quality on lightning conduit gives 14.5% more damage. 

Take the Liege of the Primordial node to give +2 golems and make your golems automatically resummon
after they die.  The most important golem is the lightning golem as it gives you mana regeneration and
cast speed.  After that, stone golem and flame golem are both helpful.  Chaos golem isn't necessary 
early, but it is a helps a lot once you reach maps to give you free chaos resistance.  Using two unique
rings makes chaos res much harder to get during early progression.

=======================================
LEVEL 55
=======================================

Make sure to buy these gems after reaching act 6

You want to be leveling up Less Duration and Lightning Pentration in your offhand weapon/shield slots
as these can only be bought from Lilly at level 1.  If you didn't buy Lightning Conduit in act 3, you should
also go back and buy it now so that it is fully leveled for when you switch.  You also want to be able to
add quality to it from the divine font when you take  your 2nd ascandancy.

2nd lab, take Shaper of Storms, swap to lightning conduit 

If the divine font gives you an option to add quality to a gem, you should use it to add quality to your
lightning conduit gem.  Lightning conduit gains around 14.5% more damage from 20 quality.

By the time you complete your 2nd lab, using Faustus to respec your passive points will cost around 300
gold for each point.  Assuming you are following this guide, you have 12 passive points which you
have to change from fire to lighting, so make sure to have close to 4000 gold before doing your 2nd
lab.  You can use some of the free respec points you have gotten from quests, but imo those are
more valuable later when the gold cost to respec passive points gets much higher.

On the 2nd lab you take the Shaper of Storms ascendancy passive to give you guaranteed shocks.
Please read the shock & ailmet effect section below for a full explanation of how shock is utilized by
this build and how important it is.  Once you have shaper of storms you can now switch to using
lighting conduit + orb of storms.

After completing the 2nd lab you may be able to buy the two unique rings used by this build.  Generally
these are available for 1 to 3 chaos on day 1, but if you are very fast to level 55 they may not be
available or might be a bit more expensive.  I would not pay more than 3c for either as the build works
fine without them during the campaign and you can just self cast conductivity vs. tanky monsters as
needed.

buy Valako's Sign unique ring (very nice)

You can check trade when swapping to lightning conduit to see if a Valako's sign ring is available for
a few chaos.  Getting one of the life leech rings asap is very helpful as it provides a great source of
recovery and either ring (Valako's Sign or Berek's Grip) also gives you some extra damage.  Valako's
sign gives considerably more damage.  Berek's Grip gives a little bit of life, but imo the extra damage
is the better choice.

buy Honourhome helm (very nice)

Since this build guide uses the Honourhome helm all the way to level 80+, it makes sense to go ahead
and buy one now as they should be available for 1 chaos.  Honourhome isn't necessary early on as the
build has plenty of damage in the campaign without it, but if one is available and you don't need the 
resistances on your current helm it makes sense to go ahead and switch.  Honourhelm gives you around
30% more damage and now also has a 30 to 50% mana cost efficiency mod on it, so with Honourhome
you will have no problems with mana.

You can later switch to a 5 link body armour with the 5th link being Inspiration.  The only reason to make
this switch is if you get a good helmet.  From a damage perspective there is no real gain from a 5 link
body armour vs. the 4 link Honourhome, so rather than looking for a 5 link body armour you can instead 
just take any body armour with good stats regardless of links  You do still need at least 4 sockets, but
depending on what gems you put in the sockets you may not need links.

You want to get either BBBB or BBBR sockets on the helm.  Use cruelty if you have a red socket or 
lightning penetration if you have a blue.  Either is fine and you'll be limited on chromatics at this point
so just take whichever one you get or try to buy a BBBB helm if you are lucky enough to find one
that already has 4 sockets.

buy Mark of Submission unique ring (quality of life, highly recommened)

Using the Mark of Submission ring is not mandatory for the build, but I use it because it gives around
25% more damage, all of the time, without pressing a button.  Early on you need the extra socket and
always getting the extra damage from conductivity while mapping feels really good.  

Maybe in an end game version of this build you can switch to the Anathema ring since you don't need 
the extra damage while mapping and use Bane or a helmet with the crafted mod to trigger all spells on focus
to apply multiple curses by pressing 1 button.

With Purity of Elements and all of the resistances you get from the passive tree, you should fairly easiily
be able to max out your resistances even when using Mark of Submission.  This is already a 2 button build
with Orb of Storms + Lightning Conduit, so imo getting full damage uptime with the Conductivity curse
socketed in Mark of Submission is a big win.

Shock & non-damaging ailment effect

It is very important to generate 65% shocks to maximize damage with lightning conduit.  This build requires
the ascendancy passive Shaper of Storms to give guarnteed 25% shocks, an additional 160% shock effect
to create 65% shocks, and finally the +15% maximum shock lighting mastery to raise your maximum shock
from 50% to 65%.

Not only do you get 65% more damage from the shock itself, but when lighting conduit consumes the shock
it gets 16% more damage per 5% shock effect, or 208% more damage from a 65% shock.  Getting 20%
quality on lightning conduit gives you an additional 4% more damage per 5% shock.  Additional sources of
gem quality such as the Ashes of the Stars amulet are also very valuable for lightning conduit.

The 65% shock effect is generated from the guaranteed 25% shock from Shaper of Storms plus an
additional 160% increased shock/ailment effect from passives and the unbound ailments support gem on
the orb of storms spell.  The sources of shock/ailment effect useful for this build are listed here:

    50% from level 16 unbound ailments (54% @ level 20)
    50% from the Breath of Lightning passive
    10% from the small ascendancy passive node before Shaper of Storms

    30% from the Static Blows passive
    20% from the lightning ailmet effect passive before Static Blows
    20% from the ailment effect passive next to Divine Judgement
    30% from annoiting Ash, Frost, Storm
    40% from Overshock passive node on a lightning damage cluster jewel
	3% per 10 devotion via Militant Faith timeless jewel
	23-30% benchcraft amulet suffix (receipe found in maps)
	23-30% benchcraft boots suffix (receipe found in maps)

To get to 160%, you  need the 110% from the first 3 sources plus another 50%.  Initially this build
guide spends 4 pasive points on the tree to take Static Blows and the passive next to it.  Later on when
you are able to farm or buy a Teal, Violet, and Crimson oil, you can annoint Static Blows which frees up
those 4 passive points since you'll also have the 20% from the passive node next to Divine Judgement.

3rd lab, take shaper of flames

If the divine font gives you an option to add quality to a gem, you should use it to add quality to your
lighttning conduit gem.  Getting 20 quality on your lightning conduit gem gives you 14.5% more damage.
I recommend running the 3rd lab multiple times to get 20 quality before going to maps.

There are three good options for your 3rd lab on elementalist.  I strongly recommend shaper of flames
since it greatly improves your defense against physical damage and there aren't any other good options
for that.  This build has plenty of damage for early mapping without Mastermind of Discord and since you
don't have gloves to apply exposure automatically you'd only get the extra damage by casting Wave of
Conviction or Hydrosphere.

You could also stack armour and run determination + molten shell instead of purity of elements, but imo
the combination of shaper of flames for physical damage mitigation, purity of elements to become immune
to elemental ailments, and zealot's oath + life regen + energy shield gear is a better route for building early
defense.

Bastion of Elements is the 3rd good option, but I don't find myself dying to elemental damage anywhere
near as often as physical, thus my recommendation is for Shaper of Flames over Bastion of Elements.
Running purity of elements already protects you from ignite, shock, chill, and freeze and those are what
actually kill you most of the time.

=======================================
LEVEL 66 - 70
=======================================

Stop leveling arcane surge at level 12 until you get a 6 link

A level 20 arcane surge takes 400 mana to activate.  Since it only lasts 4 seconds you won't maintain 
good uptime unless you stop leveling the support gem.  Unless you have another source of activating
arcane surge (ie, support your movement skill with a level 1 arcane surge), you need to keep a close
eye on how much mana you spend per second vs. the level of arcane surge.  At level 90+ you should
be spending closer 160 to 180 mana per second and can then level arcane surge up to level 18 or 19.

Arcane surge level, activation cost, and spell damage:
	13		121		27%
	14		148		27%
	15		178		28%
	16		213		29%
	17		252		31%
	18		296		32%
	19		345		34%
	20		400		35%

Putting a higher level gem in pob might look good on the damage, but if arcane surge isn't active
that damage doesn't exist.  You cost to activate arcane surge shouldn't be more than 2x your
mana cost per second unless you only care about bossing or if you have some other method than
spending mana to activate it.

Get 20 quality on your lightning conduit gem for 14.5% more damage

Getting to 20 quality on the lightning conduit gem gives the build 14.5% more damage.  This should be
done asap.  I recommend doing several runs through merc lab to use the divine font at the end to
add quality to lightning conduit.  This can be done either right before or after finishing the campaign, but
before entering maps.  I do this before switching to the Agnerod West staff and I use storm brand
instead of orb of storms as I find it a lot safer to use vs. Izaro since he can still one shot you if you
aren't careful.

You should also have a frostblink gem in your stash or in your weapon swap just in case you get the
option in the divine font to transform a gem into the transfigured version to get a Frostblink of Wintry
Blast.

Swap to Agnerod West staff after campaign, the staff requires level 66

The +2 skill levels, 20% lightning penetration, and added lightning damage from the Agnerod West staff
gives better damage than you can reasonable get from a wand + shield setup early on day 1.  Even for
slowers players, it takes a very, very good wand/shield to be better than Agnerod West.  The 158 str
requirement may require you to take a +30 strength passive to get enough str to wield the staff.

You eventually want to make sure to have both a red and a blue socket on the Agnerod West staff so
that when you take the staff mastery you get 12% life and 12% mana.

If you are playing in a small private league or SSF, any of the 4 versions of the Agnerod staff will 
suffice (North, South, East, or West).  The West version is the best, but the others are still better than
any rare wand/shield setup you'll be able to get when first entering maps.  You can also play the build
using a rare staff or a wand/shield setup (with some changes to the passive tree).

Use lightning warp until you get frostblink of wintry blast

After buying the unique items and getting the build set up for mapping, you can check to see if there are
any frostblink of wintry blast gems for sale which you can afford.  The gem is generally cheap early on
day 1 and the price goes up to around 1 divine by the end of the weekend. 

If you can't afford a frostblink of wintry blast, lightning warp supported by less duration and swift affliction
works pretty well.  It can feel a bit clunky until you are used to it due to the delay between when you cast
it and when you move, but with good cast speed plus having the gems leveled up (less/reduced duration
matters a lot), lightning warp is a pretty good movement skill.

The delay between when you cast and when you warp depends heavily on your movement speed.  Using
a quicksilver flask and then using lightning warp will make it wrap much faster because the delay is based
on how long it would take you to walk directly to the destination.  On the other hand, if you are suffering
from effects which reduce your movement speed, lightning warp will feel terrible.  I recommened also
including frostblink assuming you have a socket available for it as a defensive ability and to use lightning
warp outside of combat.

Switch to new auras for mapping

Your aura setup will now be Purity of Elements, Wrath, and Flesh and Stone (in sand stance for the
damage reduction).  Not only does purity of elements make it easy to max your resistances, but the
elemental ailment immunities it gives greatly increase tankiness. Flesh and Stone is also very effective
on this build since you have a lot of area of effect and you'll typically be in close range of monsters due
to how orb of storms + lightning conduit works.

Use Honourhome Helm instead of trying to find a 5 link body armour

If you didn't buy an Honourhome helm earlier, you should buy it now.  Honourhome gives you as much
damage as a 5 link due to the +2 skill levels and the massive mana cost efficiency roll makes it very
easy to mana your mana costs.  With Purity of Elements there shouldn't be any issue with getting to
75% elemental resistances even with Honourhelm.

Get bleeding/corrupted blood immunity life flasks

Until you get bleed immunity via a corrupted Valako's Sign, you'll want to make sure you have at least
one flask which gives you bleeding / corrupted blood immunity.


=======================================
LEVEL 80
=======================================

Damage vs. defense

The way I have this build guide set up is that I take several choices to build more defense early
instead of offense.  The build has plenty of damage naturally due to how easy it is to scale 
Lightning Conduit.  The main issue the build has is that you have to get close to monsters to
do damage and if you don't have good defenses you will die a lot.

If you want more damage, you can take Mastermind of Discord and Heart of Destruction for your
ascendancy passives instead of Shaper of Flames and Bastion of Elements.  I do not recommend
doing that, but you are free to do what you want.  The anathema bossing setup does take both
of those, but for general mapping / farming / leveling I strongly recommend staying with the two
defensive ascendancy choices at least until you have built a substaintial amount of defenses via
endurance charages, max block, and a large energy shield pool.  In the non defensive version of
the level 96 setup, for example, I do swap to Mastermind of Discord from Bastion of  Elements.

Amulet annointment

Some time in the level 80 to 90 range, you'll want to annoint your amulet with Static Blows.  This 
allows you to deallocate the 4 passive points used to path to Static Blows and use them elsewhere.
The oils for this annoitment (teal + violet + crimson) are fairly cheap to buy or easy to farm via Blight.
This annointment is fairly mandatory to switch to the level 90 crit scaling version of this build as you'll
find yourself lacking enough passive points otherwise.

Replace Honourhome helm when you get a decent 6 link chest armour

Sometime in the level 80 to 90 range you will probably be able to buy a 6 link body armour with bad
stats.  You'll have to be careful with mana costs as losing the massive mana cost reduction from
Honourhelm while also going to a 6 link may require changes to your passive tree.

4th Lab, take Bastion of Elements

Until you get 2000+ energy shield,  4 endurance charges, and 16% physical taken as elemental 
(via eldrich implicits on your helmet and body armour), I recommend taking Bastion of Elements as
your 4th ascendency notable rather than Mastermind of Discord.  The buffs Lightning Conduit got
for 3.29 give plenty of damage to complete your atlas, void stones, and farm currency to buy the
gear you need to make the build very strong.  The real issue you tend to have early on is lack of 
defense, and you'll have a much better time playing the build if you aren't dying as often.

If you are feel like you do not need the defense, then feel free to take Mastermind of Discord for the
20 to 25%  extra damage it gives you (assuming you have a way to inflict exposure, either via Wave
of Conviction or a pair of gloves with an eldrich implict).

Gear priority #1: Gloves that give lightning exposure

Getting a pair of gloves with a high life roll (100+) and 3 good affixes (open suffix, 25% or higher
resistance rolls, good life regen, or 30+ strength/dexterity) is the first piece of gear you want to
spend a fair amount of currency on.  Once you have these gloves, you'll have to spend around 26
lesser eldrich ichor to get the "inflict -11% lightning exposure on hit" implicit.  Early league ichors cost
around 1 chaos each, so before spending that much currency on the gloves it makes sense to have
a pair of gloves that you'll be able to keep for a long time.

Once you have these gloves, you can consider switching to the Mastermind of Discord ascendancy
notable instead of Bastion of Elements, but as mentioned above I'd only recommened doing that 
once your have been able to invest in some other defensive layers.

Zealots Oath

Zealot's Oath is very important for increasing your defense.  This build uses life regen to restore
energy shield during progression rather than relying on energy shield leech.  Energy shield leech is
helpful, but it requires a lot of passive points and it is still worse than Zealots Oath if you aren't
heavily investing in energy shield gear to get 3000+ ES.

Zealots Oath is far more effective at restoring ES during combat with moderate amounts of ES.  This
build already gets almost 200 life regen from the stone golem.  If you get some extra life regen beyond
that, having 400 or 500 ES regen via Zealot's Oath makes ES a very valuable part of your defense
even with low amounts of ES.

With Zealot's Oath allocated, your only source of life is the life leech from Valako's sign and life flasks,
so bleed, poison, etc can kill you very quickly outside of combat if you aren't paying attention.  It is very
important to get at least one life flask which gives you bleed and corrupted blood immunity.

If you have Zealots Oath before doing your 4th lab, I do recommened deallocating it before attempting
the lab trails as all the traps which cause bleeding can kill you very quickly.

Storm brand instead of Orb of Storms (advice for bossing or defensive mapping)

Storm brand is a drop in replacement for orb of storms since it has the activation speed as lightning
conduit's cast speed, thus it will stay in sync while casting lightning conduit, applying shock to enemies
before each cast of lightning conudit.

Storm brand follows the boss around and continues to generate leech and power charages even when
you aren't casting lightning conduit.  The down side of it is that it shocks in a smaller area,  shocks
fewer enemies, and it only lasts for 6 seconds so you have to recast it.  You can also damage off screen
with storm brand since the center of lightning conduit is on your cursor, so if your storm brand is attached
and keeping enemies shocked off screen you can hit them from very far away.  On maps with very
challenging mods (especially on day 1), storm brand may allow you to clear a map that you would
fail using orb of storms.  In general it is slower to map with storm brand due to the smaller aoe, but there
are advantages which make it worthwhile to use in specific circumstances.  I almost always just use
orb of storms, but there are some bosses which make it difficutl to be near them so I keep a storm
brand gem in my inventory to switch to it when necessary.

Don't use spell echo to support lightning conduit

I see a fair number of people using spell echo to support lightning conduit on poe.ninja.  This does not
work with Orb of Storms.  The repeat cast of spell echo does not trigger orb of storms so it does zero
damage.  While pob may show a damage increase for using spell echo, in reality you are only doing
1/2 the damage that pob shows.  Spell echo also doesn't work when using storm brand as the timing
will no longer line up correctly.

=======================================
LEVEL 90
=======================================

Swapping to crit around level 90

I put together a pob where I swapped to crit using Duskdawn at level 80.  It does do around 30% more
damage than the level 80 setup in this pob, but imo it is not worth the time/effort to switch to crit until
closer to level 90.  It is better to spend your currency getting a pair of lightning exposure gloves and a
useable 6 link body armour before spending curreny to buy Duskdawn.
 
Sigil of Power

I recommend replacing cast on damage taken + steelskin with sigial of power + more duration once  you
have a decent life + energy shield pool.  Keeping steelskin is also fine.  I like to use sigil of power for
extra damage + defense in situations where I have time before boss phases or when I'm doing a 
mechanic which requires standing in a small area (breach, harvest, etc).

You want to keep the your Sigil of Power gem around level 10 so that it quickly gains stages.  The
required mana to gain each stage is roughly doubled for +10 levels which makes it take far too long
to reach max stages for the damage reduction SoP gives at stage 4.

Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion

If you don't use RF of Arcane Devotion, mana regen for the level 96/100 versions of this build is very
easy to manage even with the 25% higher mana cost from the 3.29 changes to Lightning Conduit.  I
really only use this gem while bossing anyway as I find my damage is already more than sufficient for
mapping without it and the visual effect of RF just adds a lot of clutter to the screen that I'd prefer to
go without.  I include this gem on the pob becuase it makes the numbers bigger and it absolutely
does work just fine, but I rarely turn the gem on myself.  The 32.5% more damage buff to Lightning
Conduit from 3.29 is larger than the 24% more damage from RFoAD and I wasn't using RF very often
before the 3.29 buffs, so now I may not even bother with it at all. 

RFoAD gives 24% more cast speed which is 24% more damage as long as you have enough mana
regen to handle the additional cast speed.  The degen is basically canceled out by the life regen
supplied by your stone golem.  With the higher mana costs from 3.29, to use RFoAD you'll have to
either spend additional passive points to take Deep Thoughts (which also increases the degen) or
you have to have a Militant Faith jewel which has both skill cost reduction and the 0.6 mana regen
mods. 

Duskdawn staff

Buying a Shade of Solaris wand and Light of Lunaris shield to create Duskdawn can allow you to switch
to crit scaling well below level 90, but these items are very rare drops and have limited availaibltiy 
early on day 1.  Buying both items will likely cost a total of around 40c and that currency is probably
better used elsewhere.  That said, switching to Duskdawn can greatly improve your defense (or offense)
because it frees up 6 passive points and allows you to almost max out block without giving up any
damage.

In the '90 Duskdawn' loadout I take the 'Shaper of Flames' ascendancy node and allocate points to
give the build 73 spell block / 75 attack block.  This greatly improves the tankiness of the build which
will make it much easier to level up without dying.  Switching to Duskdawn also means you lose the
large intelligence roll from the Agnerod West staff which may make it difficult to get enough INT to
be able to wear higher tier pure ES body armours.

Instead of taking Shaper of Flames you can keep Heart of Destruction for the 30% more damage vs.
unique monsters, but imo this build already has plenty of damage for early progression without the
extra 30% whereas taking Shaper of Flames will make you die less often.

Make sure to deallocate elemental overload

Elemental overload makes crits do no extra damage so if you don't remove this keystone when you
switch to the critical hit based version of this build you will do no damage.

Replace chaos golem with ice golem if you have enough chaos resistance

If your chaos resistance is pretty good without the chaos golem, you can replace it with an ice golem.
The ice golem gives 72% increased critical srike chance, which is around 6% more damage.  Ice goelm
does require more dex than the other golems, however, so you may not be able to level it up fully.

Automate + quality your flasks

As mentiioned elsewhere, you need to have at least 1 life flask which gives immunity to bleeding and
corrupted blood.  In addition to that, you'll want a diamond flask (crit chance), silver flask (onslaught),
quicksilver flask (movement speed), and a granite flask (armour).  On the utility flasks, getting a prefix
of gain 3 charges when hit, increased duration, or reduced cost is good.  For the suffixes, you want
one of each of these: % spell damage leeched as energy shield, % increased armour, % increased
critical strike chance, and % increased block and stun recovery.  Having more than one flask with
the same suffix is unhelpful since only one of them will count.  Other good suffixes for utility flasks
are % increased movement speed or % chance to avoid being stunned.

The % spell damage leeched as energy shield is an easy way to get some energy shield leech.  It
isn't active all the time, but during mapping it generally will be and the leech helps with your recovery
until you get energy shield leech via a cluster jewel or amulet annointment.
 
Automating flasks costs 5 instilling orbs + 5 glassblower's baubles in the crafting bench to craft the
"used when charges reach full" enchantment onto the flask.  While this isn't as good as manually
pressing the buttons to use flasks at the best time, hardly anyone does that outside of hardcore
gamers.  Just automate the flasks and they'll usually be up during combat.



=======================================
END GAME SCALING
=======================================

get a +3 lightning conduit Replica Dragonfang's flight or an Ashes of the Stars amulet

Either of these amulets gives this build around 30% more damage, so this is by far the biggest single
item damage upgrade to the build.  The +1 skill level and 30% quality from ashes of the stars is a little
better because the 30% quality benefits the golem buff effects. 

Getting a high roll on Replica Dragonfang's Flight for reduced gem/item attribute requirements can be
very helpful as meeting attribute requirements is a big issue for this build.
 
add Light of meaning for added lightning damage

The Light of Meaning jewel with 6% increased lightning damage per passive node in range is very good
in the jewel socket above the witch starting location.  This jewel gives somewhere in the range of 16%
to 20% more damage assuming that you are following this guide.

add Watcher's Eye jewel

Watcher's Eye has several good mods for the Wrath aura.  The lightning penetration mod and the
critical strike mod are the best ones, but increased lightning damage is also decent.  There is also a
very good purity of elements mod which gives 30% to 50% chaos resistance.  That mod solves your
chaos resistance and allows you to replace your chaos golem with an ice golem for 72% increased
critical strike chance (roughly the same as you get from the Wrath critical strike chance mod).

A good 2 mod WE jewel with lightning penetration and either critical strike chance or chaos resistance
gives this build around 15% more damage.  Getting a WE jewel which has two good Wrath mods will
be fairly expensive early league, but a WE which has lightning penetration and chaos resistance will
cost less because it is far less common for players to run both Wrath and Purity of Elements.

add Militant Faith timeless jewel with High Templar Dominus mod

Details on the Militant Faith jewel can be found here: 
https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Militant_Faith

Fubgun has a video on how to find a timeless jewel using pob:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kYy-s_B-ng

A Militant Faith timeless jewel with a "converted by High Templar Dominus" mod will transform any 
keystones within range into "Inner Conviction" which gives 3% more spell damage per power charge.
The level 96 passive tree uses Militant Faith to transform The Agnostic into Inner Conviction.

Militant faith always transforms all attribute nodes in range into nodes that just give 10 devotion.
This build already struggles with attributes, and in the level 96 passive tree Militant Faith will convert
3 strength nodes and 2 intelligence nodes, so make sure that you have extra str and int before buying
the jewel.

Militant faith also randomly transforms some notable passives within range into new notables.  You 
can use pob (see Fubgun video above) to find Militant Faith jewels which have specific nodes that
you are looking for or which do not transform any of the nodes that you want to use.

In addition to changing the keystone, Militant Faith has two additional mods which give benefits per
10 devotion. On the level 96 passive tree, Militant Faith gives 110 devotion.  The Militant Faith mods
which are useful for this build are as follows:
	4% increased elemental damage per 10 devotion
	1% reduced mana cost  per 10 devotion 
	regenerate 0.6 mana per 10 devotion
	3% increased effect of non-damaging ailments per 10 devotion
	2% to all elemental resistances per 10 devotion

With the 3.29 changes to increase the cost of spells, getting both the mana regen affix and the new
mana cost efficiency affix is probably mandatory if you plan to use Righetous Fire of Arcane
Devotion.  If you don't use RF, you can get by with only one of them and the other should be either
4% increased elemental damage or 3% increased effect of non-damaging ailments.

If you get a Militant Faith which gives increased effect of non-damaging ailments you do not have to
get the Overshock notable passive when you buy/craft a cluster jewel since the 30% effect of non-
damaging ailmets from Militant Faith plus the 20% from the passive node next to Divine Judgement
is already enough to give 160% ailment effect to generate 65% shocks.

Bleed immunity via a corrupted Valako's Sign ring

If you can make up for the loss of 30% lightning resistance, buying or crafting a corrupted Valako's Sign
ring which gives bleed immunity is a really nice defensive addition to the build.

Corrupted blood immunity via a corrupted jewel

Getting immunity to corrupted blood is another "nice to have".  If you use a Stygian Vise belt that gives
you an abyssal jewel socket.  You can add a get an abyssal jewel which gives corrupted blood immunity.
You also already have 1 jewel socket with a normal cobalt jewel for +3% spell block and extra life, so 
that jewel could be used for getting corrupted blood immunity as well.

add a source of Energy shield leech

This build needs to add energy shield leech in the end game version.  Here is a list of some easy ways
to do that ordered from best to worst:
		Stormdrinker notable in a lightning damage cluster jewel
		Annoint Light Eater or Ethereal feast
		Watcher's Eye with a leech ES while affected by wrath mod

Replace Agnerod West with Duskdawn

The Duskdawn staff frees up a large number of passive points while also allowing you to cap both attack
and spell block.  You probably won't see a Duskdawn for sale as the staff can only be created using a
vendor recipe and hardly anyone ever uses this staff.  From a damage perspective, the Duskdawn staff
is roughly equal to the Agnerod West staff, but it gives you 45 to 55% attack block which makes it very
easy to cap block while also freeing up all of the passive points from the templar area to be able to use
them in a cluster jewel setup plus allocating the power charge nodes at the top of the passive tree.

The recipe to create Duskdawn is to sell a Shade of Solaris wand, a Light of Lunaris shield, and one orb
of fusing to a vendor.  Both items must be uncorrupted. These items should generally be available for
under 20 chaos.  The wand is not used by any build so is very cheap, but the focus is used on occasion
and thus is more expensive.

Note that even if you get 100% chance to crit on lightning conduit, orb of storms will still trigger the
"60% critical strike multiplier if you've dealt a non critical strike recently" effect on Duskdawn.

add cluster jewel

Once you have Duskdawn, you can buy or craft an 8 passive lightning cluster jewel which has Storm
Drinker (gives you energy shield leech and 8% lightning penetration) and Overshock (40% effect of
lightning ailments). With Overshock or a Militant Faith jewel that gives ailment effect, you can replace
the Static Blows annointment on your amulet with Enigmatic Reach to cap spell block.

A simple way to craft the lighting damage cluster is to just buy an 8 passive lightning damage cluster
jewel and use harvest reforge lightning until you get a good jewel.  To roll both Overshock and Storm
Drinker takes somewhere around 80 attempts on average, but you'd have to just accept whatever other
random mods you get on the jewel.  If you get ailment effect via Militant Faith, it is very easy to get
Storm Drinker (around 7 attempts on average), so you can instead try to get better mods on the cluster
jewel.  Attributes in particular are very helpful for this build

Endurance charge generation

The "100% increased charge duration" charge mastery makes power, frenzy, and endurance charges
last for 20 seconds. Getting an implicit mod on your body armour which generates an endurance charge
every 15 seconds means that you'll always have endurance charges.  You'll also want some way to
get endurance charges quickly as otherwise you have to wait for 60 seconds to get to 4 charges.
You can use either an enduring cry gem which you need to use once per map or buy an Elixer of the
Unbroken Circle flask which you also use once per map.  The advantage the flask gives is that it works
outside of combat so you can just use it as soon as you enter a new area to give you full endurance
charges, whereas with enduring cry you have to use it near a pack of monsters or the pinnacle boss
you are about to fight to get the charges.

=================================
LEVEL 96
=================================

The level 96 layout is an example of what the build looks like once all of the above updates are completed.
I've mentioend it several times, but I'll again repeat, it can be pretty challenging to get the attributes need
for this build.  On the level 96 setup I have attributes everywhere and just barely manage to get the 
necessary attributes.  You can possible use an ice golem that isn't level 20 or not use it at all which would
lower your dex requirement down to 68 instead of 98.  

Getting a 10% reduced attribute requirements roll on Replican Dragonfang's Flight is also very helpful as
that is basically worth almost 50 attributes by itself.  You may find it necessary to spend one or more
passive points specifically to gain 30 str or 30 dex, or even spending 2 points to take Practical Application
for 20 str, 20 dex, and 13% to all elemental resistances.

=================================
LEVEL 96 (defensive for leveling)
=================================

I added in a setup for making the build a lot more tanky if you plan to try and push levels above the mid
90s where it becomes extremly painful to die.  While this setup gives up about 1/2 the damage it also gains
50% more max hit and ehp.  This setup still more than enough damage for clearing maps quickly.

The defensive setup replaces the Mastermind of Discord ascendancy passive with Bastion of Elements to
to give a huge defensive buff against elemental damage and drops some critical hit passive nodes to take
life recoup, and energy shield nodes.  The energy shield mastery which makes 30% of chaos damage not
bypass energy shield to greatly increase max hit vs. chaos.  The 30% of damage recouped as life helps
a lot to make sure your life pool always stays topped up even when you don't have leech from casting
lightning conduit.  It is very easy to die if you aren't paying attention due to the build not having any life
regen and relying only on leech to restore life.


=================================
LEVEL 100 with anathema ring for bossing
=================================

The four curses which are enabled via the anathema ring only apply when you actually push a button to
activate them.  For mapping those curses won't be active most of the time and neither will convergance.  
The 45 million damage shown with anathema really only applies to bossing.  For normal farming strategies
you are better off just staying with the mark of submission ring and conductivty which is applied without
having to press any buttons.  Without the curses and convergance active, the anathema version of the
build does less damage and is less tanky while mapping compared to the version which uses Mark of 
Submission.

The four curse setup is triggered using the crafting bench helmet mod which allows you to trigger
all of the spells in the helm when you press the focus button.  Once you have any skill that uses focus,
the focus skill will show up in your skill menu and you can then add it to your skill bar.  Make sure that
you have enough unreserved mana to cast all four curses at the same time, otherwise one or more of
them will not be triggered when you focus.  The increased mana reservation efficiency affix on
replica dragonfang's flight helps a lot with this, but you may also need to get a militant faith jewel which
has 1% reduced cost of skills per 10 devlotion to get the cost of the 4 curses below your unreserved mana.

You can use arcanist brand If you don't have enough mana to cover the cost of all 4 curses in your helmet
at once.  That does require you to give up one curse and arcanist brand also applies the curses slower.
the upside for arcanist brand is that you can cast it during boss immunity phases instead of having to use
the focus curses during combat.

The anathema version of the build switches the searching exarch implicit on the gloves from shock
proliferation to % chance to unnerve.  Unnerve gives the build a bit over 5% more damage, but it takes
multiple hits before the unnerve effect gets applied.  Unnerve is relatively useless for monsters which
die within a few hits.  Shock proliferation is a lot more valuable for mapping as it enables better shock
application on large groups of enemies outside of the orb of storms.

You can use anathema well before hitting level 100, I just did not want to create a lower level version
in this pob as people who do not know any better would see the high damage and switch to the build
thinking it is better becuase the damage number is big.  Anathema is really only good for bossing.

=================================
GG STAFF
=================================

I included an example staff in the equipment which you can select for the build.  A really good staff can
give 50 to 60% more damage vs. the Duskdawn staff.  I've no idea how to craft a staff with +5 skill 
levels, but in theory it is possible.  Probably start with a fractured +3 staff and go from there.  That said,
it is likely that you'll get better use out of your currency just buying a mageblood or starting a completely
diffrent build.  The mana regen roll (or benchcrafted mana regen) is necessary to give enough mana
regeneration to cover the higher cost due to skill levels and higher cast speed vs. Duskdawn.  

You also lose a lot of defense since Duskdawn has the +10 chance to block attack damage and that 
makes the block mastery to give 1% spell block per 5% attack block very efficient.  The attack block
on Duskdawn is the primary reason it is better for this build than the Agnerod West staff.