3.29 Storm burst totem league starter^3.28

Notes

This build guide is intended as a day 1 league starter.  It specifically avoids using any items which are not easily obtainable
from trade for a few chaos on the first day of a league for all loadouts of the build until the final version.  The only items 
required for the build are the Agnerod West staff (not useable until level 66) and the Algor Mortis gloves.  Both items are
readily available on trade for 1 to 3 chaos on day 1.

Both of these items aren't used until completing the campaign.  Once you are done with the campaign, you buy those two
items and the build will already have around 1 million dps for bossing or tanky monsters.  For normal mapping you should
still have over 500k dps without casting arcanist brand to trigger the conductivity curse and chillled ground for the extra
damage bonus from the Algor Mortis gloves.  The level 70 damage assumes only a 4 link and the two unique items.

By level 90, even with fairly mediocre gear, the build has over 6 million boss dps and 4 million map dps using a 6 link body
armour and still using the Agnerod West staff plus Algor Mortis gloves.  The level 90 version shown in this guide can easily
complete your atlas and get all 4 voidstones and can then be used to farm as much currency as needed for another build or
to push this one to 20 million+ dps.  This guide does not include a full mix-max version of the build with items like a
mageblood or using anathema ring to allow 4 curses against bosses.

The level 95 version of the build is very similiar to what I used to push to level 100 in 3.28.  I have two 6 links due to using
a staff, so I put storm burst in one and storm burst of repulsion in the other.  Storm burst of repulsion is really good for
content like breach or legion (I farmed many 5 ways legions with it)

Level 1 to 12

Getting to level 12 can be done in many different ways.  I recommend using holy flame totem and then any of rolling magma,
purifying flame, or orb of storms + stormblad mine.  Purifying flame has the same phsyical to elemental conversion as holy
flame totem, so it benefits the most from the 3 +10% physical damage passives taken near the templar starting area.  If you
use rolling magma or stormblast mines, you should take the +10% elemental damage nodes instead and you can switch to
the 10% physical + 10% minion damage nodes later once you allocate Spiritual Aid to make minion damage apply to you.
Spiritual Aid makes the 10% minion / 10% physical damage nodes into 20% damage nodes for storm burst, holy flame totem,
and purifying flame.

It doens't matter much which of the above spells you use to get to level 12, because once you reach Merveil's Caverns you
can return to town and Nessa will give you Absolution.  You then continue to use Absolution plus Holy Flame Totem until after
completing the first lab, at which point this guide switches to using Storm Burst totem plus Summon Raging Spirts. Absolution
should be supported by added lightning damage and added fire damage.  Mana is a bit of an issue, but the damage and ease
of use from Absolution is very good, making it easy to complete acts 2 and 3 before switching to storm burst after completing
your first lab trial.

After 1st lab (storm burst)

Take the Pursuit of Faith ascendancy passive to give you +1 totems and 100% totem duration + placement speed.  

Drop HFT and replace it with Storm Burst supported by Spell Totem and Physical to Lightning.  If you have a 4 link, the best 
supports are either Infused Channeling or Added Fire Damage if you have a red socket.  Having 3 blue sockets is required, 
but the 4th socket can be either red or blue.

Drop Absolution and replace it with Summon Raging Spirts, supported by minion speed, added lightning, and minon damage.
If you have a red socket,  you can use either melee splash to give you better clear or elemental damage with attacks for more
single target damage.  Once you get Unleash support (after killing Kaom and Daresso and talking to Dialla), the SRS minions
do more damage than the storm burst totems until you finish the 2nd lab.

You'll want to use the Elemental Weakness curse to boost your damage since it works for both Fire and Lightning Damage
and thus benefits both Storm Burst and Summon Raging Spirits (SRS).  Elemental Weakness and Flame Dash (or Frostblink)
can be supported by a level 1 arcane surge support gem to give you arcane surge.  The extra 20% cast speed and 30% mana
regen is pretty good.

Sigil of Power can also be used to boost SRS minions as well as Storm Burst in boss fights by summining the sigil underneath
the boss.  All minions as well as other players who are within the sigil benefit from it.  SRS is very good at killing bosses 
since you can cast sigil of power and then summon all 20 SRS minions while waiting on the boss invulnerability phases to end.
The sigil of power gem is available as a reward from Oyun in act 4 after killing Voll and entering the mines.

After 2nd lab

Take Arcane Blessing after the 2nd lab as it provides a 32% more damage boost for storm burst along with mana regen and
cast speed.  After completing the 2nd lab Storm Burst starts to outscale SRS faily quickly.  The SRS minions are still useful 
to cast them and keep moving as well as for pre stacking boss fights, but most of your damage will be coming from the totems.

After 3rd lab

Take Ritual of Awakening as your 3rd ascendancy passive.  No changes to the build here.  You can do the 3rd lab before or
after killing Kitiva to complete the campaign.  You'll want to repeat the merc lab multiple times to use the Divine Font at the
end of the lab to add quality to the storm burst totem gem.  Getting to 20 quality gives storm burst 25% more damage against
bosses and tanky rares.  You have to get to 20 quality to gain any benefit as that raises the base  duration of the storm burst
orbs from 1.2 seconds to 1.6 seconds, thus they get one full extra hit (going from 4 hits to 5 per orb for 25% more damage). 
That damage, however, is delayed so doesn't help much with map clear, but it is very useful for tanky monsters.

After campaign

Buy the two uniques needed for the level 70 version of the build.  The Algor Mortis gloves and the Agnerod West staff.  You
can also buy any of the other 3 version of Agnerod (East, North, or South) as they are perfectly useable, but the West
version is significantly better since it gives you +lightning damage to spells.  You can also buy an Honourhome helm to use
for your 4 link storm burst totems.  The +2 skill levels and flat spell lightning damage honourhome gives is almost as good as
a 5th link for storm burst.  This helm is a great leveling item and you can usually buy one very early in the campaign and just
use it until you get a 6 link for storm burst.  The damage is already so good with storm burst during the campaign that I don't
bother, but the option is there if you want it.

The SRS minions can now finally be retired and replaced with a 4 link of Wave of Conviction + spell totem + multiple totem +
over shock.  The WoC totem gives you -15% lightning exposure plus big shocks due to Overcharge.  This also gives you two
extra totems for your Ritual of Awakening ascendancy passive (+10% more damage, 1% mana regen, and 2% life regen).

You now get rid of all the auras you were using except for Wrath supported by Eternal Blessing.  You want no mana
reservation to benefit from Mind over Matter as well as Arcane Cloak.

Since you are swapping from wand + shield to a staff, you have to retire shield charge and replace it with leap slam.  If you 
have the sockets, it is helpful to support leap slam with both faster attacks and momentum.  My 2nd highest priority after the 
campaign is to replace leap slam + flame dash (or frostblink) with the frostblink of winterly blast gem.  This gem is relatively
cheap early league due to everyone running labs and wanting to get quick currency for gear, but the price goes up massively
a few days into the league as the only people still running lab at that point are doing it only for profit.

Your skill rotation will now be to summon WoC totems (one button summons 2x totems due to multiple totem support), followed
by 3x storm burst totems.  

Against tanky monsters you also cast the arcanist brand which will apply the Conduction curse plus cast creeping frost 
(or creeping frost of floes is better) to create chilled ground.  The chilled ground activates the "enemies in your chilling areas 
take 25 to 35% increased lightning damage" from the Algor Mortis gloves.  Note that this is a separate damage multiplier
category combined with shock, so 35% increased lightning damage + 30% shock means a monster will take 65% more damage.
Thus, between Conductivity and the Algor Mortis gloves effect, casting the Arcanist brand will give you roughly 60% more
damage when needed.

In some situations, Sigil of Power can be a substantial damage boost as well.  Typically I'll use it when farming content like
breach hives or fortress where you just stand in the middle and wait for monsters to attack you.  It is also great vs. some 
bosses which make you stand around and wait to attack them, so you might as well give yourself some extra damage while
waiting on them.

If you followed the PoB you have 11 passives to respec before switching to the level 70 mapping build.  You can use gold to
respec if you want, but I recommened using gold to gamble for better gear and to just use the free respec points from the
campaign.  Here is the list of the 11 respec passives for the level 70 tree:
  * 3 points on the Enduring Bond wheel
  * 3 points on the spiritual command wheel
  * 2 of the 5% life nodes on the purity of flesh wheel
  * 2 int travel nodes leading to the purity of flesh wheel
  * 1 point for the 12% reservation efficiency node on the arcane capacitor wheel

The respec to switch to the Agnerod staff can be done at level 66 since that is the minimum level required to use the staff,
but I recommend just finishing the campaign using a wand + shield and then farming merc lab to get 20 quality on storm burst
before switching to the staff.  Shield charge is faster than leap slam and the build has plenty of damage without the staff.
If you do switch early,  you can just not take some of the staff block nodes and then take them as you level up.  You might
struggle to get the 158 strength if you didn't plan for it and be forced to take the 30 strength Might node or the 20 str/dex
Practical Application node.  I usually solve strength between a heavy belt and a citrine amulet plus either getting a strength
affix on one of them or crafting strength.

After taking all the passives shown on the level 70 tree, spend 1 point to take the lightning mastery node in the Crackling Speed
wheel to make increased mana apply to shock effect, then spend 2 points to take Deep Thoughts.  After that your remaining 
points will be spent pathing down to the Potency of Will duration wheel and then down to Dynamo for more mana + duration for
Arcane Cloak, plus Iron Will and life nodes.

Storm Burst of Repulsion

You can replace Storm Burst with the transfigured Storm Burst of Repulsion for better clear while mapping.  The SBoR gem
is also fine for boss damage, but requires you to keep summoning new totems to trigger the secondary effect on the gem
which causes the orbs to explode for 75% of their remaining damage.  If you do not keep summining new totems, the single
target damage for SBoR is pretty bad.  Tthe normal SB gem is better overall for bossing since you don't need to keep
summing new totems, but unless you are fighting pinnacle bosses it isn't worth the trouble to switch to normal SB if you are
mapping with SBoR.

You can also use multiple totem support with SBoR so that you don't need to summon the Wave of Conviction totems 
during normal mapping to maintain 5 totems.  It also more efficient in terms of the number of times you have to press the
buttons to clear the screen even though you do give up some damage.  Once your damage sufficient it just makes sense to
switch to SBoR due to the better clear / faster mapping.  I used the "95 mapping" setup in this pob fo farm legion and breach
on my way to level 100 last league and it was really good for that.

Timeclasp ring

If you use a Timeclasp ring, you need to get one with a minimum of 15% increased skill duration, assuming that you are
using the passive tree as shown in this guide and do not have any additional sources of skill effect duration.  More duration
than 15% does almost nothing for the build, so you instead want to get as much cast speed and recoup as possible on a
Timeclasp with 15% or higher skill duration.

Corrupting a Timeclasp ring to give you ignite immuity completes the immunity from the ignite, shock, and freeze change that
the Replica Reckless defense give to enemies, so I'd recommend trying to buy one with the ignite immunity corruption or to
buy many timeclasp rings to try and craft one yourselv by using a vaal orb on them.

Scaling damage further

Getting an amulet with +1 lightning skill level is another straight foward way to get more damage.  The Ashes of the Stars
amulet pushes the duration of SB very high and thus gives a lot of damage in PoB, but in actual use the extra duration
isn't very useful since you don't want to be standing around for 6 seconds before that damage even shows up.  It works
pretty well, but imo Ashes of the Stars is mostly a PoB special to claim the build is doing a lot of damage but in actual
usage the damage isn't really there most of the time.  The extra duration from ashes of the stars does show up if you
spam summon totems to trigger the "75% of remaning duration" explosions, but I don't like that play style.

Get a level 21 storm burst or storm burst of repulsion gem with 20 quality.

If you have really good life/mana regen, it may be worthwhile to use Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion.  This gives you 
24% more damage, but comes at the cost of losing 25 to 50% of your recovery.  I've used this for mapping and it generally
feels fine, but can occasially result in death.  If you can significantly increase your max fire resistance it will remove most of
the negatives of using this gem.  It is really good with mageblood if you have that level of currency.

Replace Agnerod West staff

The Agenrod West staff works great for this build, but a rare staff with +4 to lightning or physical spells and a high cast 
speed roll is a huge improvement.  If you can buy or craft a staff with a fractured +3 or +4 to spells prefix, you can then use
deafening essence of misery to guarantee a 44 to 49% cast speed roll.  With 10 to 20 essenses you should be able to create
a staff with 4 very strong mods on it and then benchcraft one more mod such as the 10% chance to deal double damage mod.

How does storm burst scale damage?

If you already know the details of how storm burst works or you don't care, you can skip down to the next section.  Storm burst
is a channeling skill which relies heavily on doing multiple hits over a duration.  Every cast you summon an orb which does some
amount of damage, then every 0.4 seconds that you continue to channel that orb does damage again.  As you continue
channeling the skill, you summon more and more orbs and every orb keeps doing damage every 0.4 seconds until the orb's
duration expires.  A 0 quality storm burst gem has a duration of 1.2 seconds.  This means that each orb will do damage a total of
4 times (once when cast and then 3 more times) without any additional skill duration.  A 20 quality gem adds .4 seconds to the
duration, pushing the base duration of the gem to 1.6 seconds so each orb will do damage 5 times, thus a 20 quality gem does
25% more damage, but it takes 1.6 seconds to ramp up to full dps. 

Thus, if you have +100% duration you are basically doubling the total damage that storm burst does.  The down side to this,
however, is that storm burst takes a while to ramp up to the full damage, especially if you are relying very heavily on scaling skill
duration.  With the More Duration support along with the two skill duration mastery wheels near the Scion starting location in the
center of the passive tree, it is easy to scale storm burst duration by over 300%, pushing the storm burst orb duration to over
4.8 seconds, meaning that each orb will hit 13 times instead of 5 times by default.

While hitting 13 times per cast (as long as you keep channeling) is a fantastic damage multiplier, that isn't optimal for clearing
maps as you don't want to wait around for several seconds to start doing damage.  In my opinion, the excessive reliance on
using skill duration to pad DPS causes the build to feel disappointing to many people because they see a build that claims to do
12 million DPS, but it certainly does not feel like it does 12m DPS. The 12m DPS is real, but the issue is that it takes 4.8
seconds for a totem to ramp up to that 12m DPS number.  So this is fantastic for killing bosses or for doing content that involves
standing in a circle, but it isn't great for mapping due to the damage ramp time.

The Ashes of the Stars amulet gives all gems +30% quality, thus further pushing the SB orb duration out to nealry 7 seconds.  I
just don't see the point in that and I strongly disagree with anyone who claims this amulet is good for a Storm Burst build.  The
only way this amulet gives you useful damage is if you just resummon the totems to cause the orbs to explode for 75% of 
their remaining damage.  This is certainly viable, but you are giving up all of the damage you supposadly gained if you do this.
Instead you could just have cast speed, life, attributes, critical damage (if playing a crit based version), etc on your amulet and
only give up 5 to 10% of  your PoB damage without pushing your SB orb duration out to ridiculous levels.