TbXie's Archmage Ball Lightning of Orbiting Hierophant Build Guide (PoE Settlers of Kalguur 3.25)

August 18th, 2024, 13:44

Introduction & Expectations

I expected this skill to perform a lot better than it is in your guide. Why is this?

Because it is impossible to cater to everyone, I choose to not overcomplicate things. As a rule of thumb, this means you get to be confident you can obtain your two first Voidstones, an otherwise full Atlas completion & have a great mapping experience in T16 maps with moderates amounts of juice.
This implies you will most likely be looking for some help, or further investments to obtain your last two Voidstones. This is due to the fact that fighting these bosses on acceptable amounts of gear requires an enormous amount of game knowledge, fight practice & mechanical skill. Trying to compare your playing experience to those who’ve done nothing but play for years, tends to lead to dissapointment.

Therefore, take your time & appreciate the fact that some content can be harder for you, and the characters powerlevels you’ve managed to acquire, than for others. There’s no shame in this.

Disclaimer

I am currently playing the new Challenge League and a lot of things have been added of which no mention can be found in this guide?

While I would very much like to give you all the ins and outs of the new powercreep in the new Challenge League, it saddens me to let you know that no Early access is given out and we thus have no more information than anyone else when updating our build guides before the new patches. We try our utmost to make sure everything is as close to perfect as we can, but cannot forecast which special mechanics / interactions might exist in new Leagues. If something of tremendous power is teased or announced beforehand, you can find specific League specific remarks in the section on the GEAR PAGE

What to Expect

🔸 T16 Maps ✔️
🔸 T16 Maps w/ a few Atlas Mechanics or some scarabs ✔️
🔸 Pinnacle bosses when playing well ✔️
🔸 T17 Maps ❗
🔸 Uber Content ❗
🔸 Uber Content when investing well beyond the guide ❗

Ball Lightning of Orbiting

The gem you’re using in this build is Ball Lightning of Orbiting which was brought to my attention by someone who really wanted to play something that resembled Hammerdin, from back in D2. Now, while it’s not the exact same, it has somewhat of that same good old feel to it!
The skill will cast, as it implies, orbiting balls of lightning around which will keep hitting the boss until their orbiting circle is completed. This means you will be hitting bosses at an insanely fast pace which enables some fun interactions & mechanics we’ve used here.

Playstyle

This build plays like a spellcaster, but a bit of a special one at that. Because your skill creates orbiting balls around you, you will mostly be playing a melee caster. Therefore, there is an emphasis on sturdiness in this build and you shouldn’t be neglecting those defensive nodes & affixes on gear. Because of the high amount of cast speed & the Frostblink of Wintry Blast skill moving around will be super smooth & fun though, kind of like a good old Teleport.

Build Assessment

Pros & Cons

➕ Nostalgic to the Many, Refreshing to the Few
➕ Gets an absolutely insane amount of recovery
➕ Really sturdy

➖ Its clear speed is a tad lackluster
➖ The playstyle is definitely not for everyone
➖ Has a small steep jump in progression somewhere around midgame

Viability in Numbers

🔸 Ease of Transitioning: ★★★★★
🔸 New Player Friendliness: ★★★★☆
🔸 Playstyle: ★★☆☆☆
🔸 Ease of Gearing: ★★★☆☆
🔸 Easily Executable: ★★★★☆

Map Modifiers to Avoid

While certain combinations of modifiers are generally just bad, such as for example a couple of damage modifiers combined with Critical Strike Multiplier, these are things you are supposed to get a feel for yourself and test out. Just make sure not to combine too much crazy things together. Modifiers the build cannot run are listed here.

❗No Life/Mana Regeneration
❗Elemental Damage Reflect
❗Cannot Leech

Damage & Defenses

Mechanics

This build leverages the Archmage Support by stacking tremendous amounts of Mana. Therefore, it gets most of its damage scaling that way and gets to (ab)use other mechanics to provide safety. This is done through a combination of Mind over Matter, which makes your Mana a source of Defense combined with tremendous amounts of constant Energy Shield & Life Overleech. This means your Leech doesn’t stop and affects both your Energy Shield & Life therefore making it impossible to die unless you’re not hitting something or getting oneshot. Because you have the Energy Shield, Life & Mana Health Pool though, dying to one-shots is really hard.

Scaling & Layers

This build layers a lot of conditional mitigation to mostly avoid getting hit for relevant damage. These layers are combinations of following attempts to avoid taking relevant hits:

🔸Absurdly high HP Pool
🔸Four Endurance Charges
🔸Capped Spell Suppression
🔸Absurds amounts of Leech
🔸Overleech & Damage Conversion to maximize this

Build Resources

Leveling the Build

Leaguestarter or Transitioning

This build has the Leaguestarer tag. This means we will be holding your hand right from the get go until you reach the pinnacle of your power and finish the guide. In order to maximize your experience, please make sure to follow the Path of Building leveling sections accordingly. We will be providing multiple skill trees & gem sets to ease your progress to endgame maps.

*You can find the Path of Building link on the Path of Building page.