Lightning Conduit Elementalist^3.26

Notes

> MERCENARY <
We don't know exactly how Mercenaries will work out yet, so take this section with a grain of salt, but some suggested items for your Mercenary are:
- Perquil's Toe(By far the best value for money, lucky hits are huge on lightning builds like this)
- Doryani's Prototype(combined with -res on rings, might not work)
- Kaom's Binding(physical mitigation)

> PLAYSTYLE <
You place down your Orb of Storms, this shocks the entire screen.
Now you can cast Lightning Conduit while in the Orb of Storms to hit/kill all shocked enemies, this cast of Lightning Conduit triggers Orb of Storms again(automatically) which means you can cast Lightning Conduit again(or just hold it down).
If you have good enough gear to get suppress capped while using an Inpulsa's Broken Heart dead enemies will explode, making your clear even better.

For single target you pretty much do the same as when clearing, except you cast Sigil of Power(if you have an unset ring, else you don't even run this) and Conductivity beforehand.

> LEVELING <
When you have level 28(for Lightning Conduit) AND normal lab you can start using Lightning Conduit.
Your Area of Effect will be much smaller than in the endgame at this point, but single target should be great.
Mana is the only issue you have to solve, and to do that we take nodes on the tree and run Clarity.

To get to level 28 we use the tried and tested(albeit slightly slow and boring) Stormblast Mine + Orb of Storms combo.
Simply throw(and detonate) Stormblast Mines while standing in your Orb of Storms to kill enemies, on bosses you can prestack a big stack of Stormblast Mines to sometimes get them down in 1 go.

More advanced players willing to spend a bit more on respeccing their character can use Rolling Magma to get to level 28, this guide won't go into detail for that though, just know that it's fine if you prefer that.

> GOLEMS <
Because of Liege of the Primordial we can relatively reliably have golems up. While they will sometimes still die, they get resummoned automatically after 4 seconds.
We make sure we don't rely on the buffs these golems give too much, but this is what they provide when they're up with the baseline of 200% buff effect(we get this from the tree and quality on golem gems):
- 57% increased damage
- 60% increased area of effect
- 30% attack and cast speed
- 54 mana regenerated per second (we try not to rely on this too much, but if this golem dies we do degen some mana)
- 60% increased defenses(armour and evasion!)
- 330 life regenerated per second
- 15% of melee damage taken from golem before you(if this scales it's 45%, just not sure if it does)

Early on you can opt to use Chaos Golem over Stone Golem of Safeguarding, this will give you 51% chaos resistance when it's up, which can be nice but you don't really want to rely on this in the long term.

> GETTING 65% SHOCK <
With our baseline 25% shock from Shaper of Storms, we need 160% increased effect of shock to get to 65% shock. This is very important for our damage.
Some sources of increased shock effect, in order of how recommended they are to get to 160%:
- 10% from the small ascendancy node before Shaper of Storms
- 54% from Unbound Ailments(69% from the Awakened Version)
- 20% from the small node before Divine Judgement
- 30% from a craft on boots(40% if you use the veiled version)
- 30% from Ash, Frost and Storm annoint
- 25% from Inpulsa
- 15% from Hypnotic Eye Jewels
- 30% from a craft on amulet(40% if you use the veiled version)
- 50% from Breath of Lightning on the tree
- 50% from Static Blows on the tree

> EXPOSURE <
To enable Mastermind of Discord from Elementalist you need to apply Exposure. The easiest way to do this is to get it as a gloves implicit from Eater of Worlds Ichors.
If you don't have Eater of Worlds ichors yet you can replace Sigil of Power with Wave of Conviction(or use an unset ring).

> FAQ <
I can't color my chest, help!
If you can't get 5 off-colors, which can be pretty hard, you can use an Evasion/Energy Shield chest instead. Make sure you drop the Armour Mastery that gives you +1 max res though.
Alternatively you can replace on of your links with Cruelty. Preferably replace Arcane Surge, but only if you still have enough mana sustain afterwards.

How do I solve mana issues?
If your Lightning Golem is down, or if you don't have a reliable uptime of the mana regen from Mastermind of Discord yet, you can have mana issues.
Some ways to deal with this:
- Use Inspiration support
- Craft -mana cost on rings and/or amulet
- Don't use Stone Golem of Safeguarding and run 2 Lightning Golems instead
- Make sure Mastermind of Discord is up permanently by having Exposure on gloves(see > EXPOSURE <)
- Grab mana nodes on the tree
- Use a mana flask
- Very worst case: Grab Eldritch Battery on the tree

What's up with the Righteous Fire?
Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion gives 25% MORE cast speed since patch 3.26.
The degen of RF is usually based on life(so pretty hard to sustain), but for Arcane Devotion is based on mana, which is much easier to sustain.
If you don't have Arcane Devotion DO NOT run the normal RF, you'll just degen.

Can I use something other than Orb of Storms to trigger shock?
The only viable alternative imo is Storm Brand, this allows you to fight enemies from further away(which could be useful in Hardcore), but hits much less of the screen.
Links and tree for this setup are the same, just replace Orb of Storms with Storm Brand

Why is Convergence not ticked in PoB?
Ticking Convergence on non-ignite builds is padding imo.

Do I really need to use Dawnbreaker?
Nah, you can use another shield(with suppress) instead. This will lose you a good chunk of physical mitigation though.