Ball Lightning of Orbiting Archmage
3.25 – Day 13 – August 7, 2024
I transformed my 3.25 Arc Archmage league starter into this Ball Lightning of Orbiting Archmage by simply changing the main skill gem and a support gem (Slower Projectile Support) and my DPS felt like it tripled.
Since, I upgraded gear, gems and tweaked the talent tree to follow UberDan guide. Biggest change being swapping back from crit to Elemental Overload to get more passive points to invest in mana. He’s right, we’re a mana stacker after all, it felt better.
And defensively, changing Haste for Grace was also a great idea.
It allows me to get my last 2 stones and complete a T17.
My overall score ends up being pretty similar to the Arc Archmage because mapping is a bit more annoying, you have to blink in a middle of a pack and play melee. The screen is a bit more cluttered, and Archmage being pretty meta this league, upgrades get pretty expensive.
How doe this build compare to the others?
TLDR: Good DPS and defences to upgrade your league starter into but almost melee playstyle
Path Of Building with Gear and Gem Links
What I believe is reasonable to be ticked on:
- Endurance and power charges (ascendency), 20% shock, unnerve (glove implicit), 2 stages for sigil and frost shield, arcane cloak automated, 2 spells recently
Conditional buffs not ticked:
- Flasks, last stages of sigil and frost shield, more recent spells, 30% shock
Please visit this Google Sheet to see the main information and POB data I kept track of compared to the other builds.
Real Build Creators
Uber Dan video before league launch. His POB in the description has great notes and crafting advices.
Then I also check his league starter update video. POB in description, no notes but slight interesting changes.
Popular Builds on poeninja
I didn’t really checked poeninja while playing the build, I tried for once, to follow the build creator POB. It looks like most players do the same on poeninja.
My experience, my choices, my results, etc.
DEFENCES & RECOVERY
Defensive layers
-
- HEALTH POOL. Life, Mana, ES, Arcane Cloak when active.
- MITIGATION. Res, endurance charges, spell suppress
- AVOIDANCE. Grace
- RECOVERY. Mostly ES and life leech, Mana regen and recoup, Life flask
- AILMENTS. Elemental immunity with boots + Ancestral Vision, Corrupted blood immunity
- STUN. Brine King
- HEALTH POOL. Life, Mana, ES, Arcane Cloak when active.
HC viable?
Some can do it as you can see on poeninja. This defensive archetype is not the strongest but doable in the hands of a good player.
On the other side of this spectrum, I died 52 times doing all the bosses and using all my portals on T17. However, regular mapping felt pretty safe
DPS
5,5 millions on paper but it felt way better than Arc, I’m assuming the balls hit more than often than POB seems to say. It wasn’t good enough for T17 boss with my skill level as you need to jump around and play melee.
BOSSING
Normal pinnacle bosses – yes
The Feared – yes
Uber bosses – not tried but probably yes
T17 – yes but I needed all my portals
MAPPING
I would use Frostblink of Wintry Blast for clearing packs, only using the Ball Lightning for tanky rares. So it’s not too bad.
VISIBILITY
Not the worst but not great neither, I had a hard time to see ground effect with the Sigil of power, Frost shield, and all the balls.
SPEED
Average native movement speed but Frostblink of Wintry Blast is pretty fast.
DIFFICULTY
Pretty easy to put the build together. A bit more difficult to get optimal DPS as you need to target while putting yourself in the Sigil of power and frost shield.
Special interactions?
Nothing much. I had to keep in mind that I was archmage and I need mana on all my gear, make sure to have enough mana regen and the different mana mastery as per the guide.
One thing to note is the mastery “Hits have 25% chance to treat Enemy Monster Elemental Resistance values as inverted”. No curse wiht -res, no exposure, just this mastery and lightning penetration. Low investment and almost as good that dual curses + exposure.
Militant Faith is a bit annoying to find as you don’t want it to transform some of your crucial nodes while still keeping the reduce mana nod affix and of course Dominus.
BUDGET?
Cost?
It started pretty cheap but once I added spell suppress on gear, ailment immunity with expensive boots and Ancestral Vision, an explody flask (Oriath’s End) and 2 good wands, I reached a total of 76.1 div on day 13 of the league.
So that is pretty pricey!
Economy is ever changing so you should take this with a grain of salt. Early leagues might see sometimes way cheaper or way more expensive. Visit the Google Sheet below to see all items and gems cost.
League starter?
Not this expsensive version, but possible
SSF viable?
Not this version, but if you can find the transfigured gem, you can oan play a discounted version as the uniques are not mandatory.
FUN
DPS was fun but the playstyle reminded me a lot of Spectral helix which is not that fun. Yes, you don’t need to aim, bu you need to be in super close range. Then, the defence is good but not good enough on T17 boss for my limited abilities.
Levelling?
I didn’t level my character with this build. I levelled with Arc at lvl 12 (Rolling magma + Holy flame totem + Flame wall until then). I added Orb of storms as a secondary skill. I started using archmage support after lab 3 when I had enough of a mana pool and the 3rd ascendancy.
I think you can probably us the skill as soon as lvl 28 if you have the transfigured gem and use Archmage support after the 2nd or 3rd ascendancy depending on how much mana you have on your gear and passive tree.
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