[3.2] Spark Elementalist

This is my second character this league after getting my starting character to level 90 and making some decent currency along the way. I decided to make a new character I have a soft spot for lightning skills and I wanted to try out the 3.2 Elementalist ascendancy changes.

POB link here:
https://pastebin.com/aq9mGt2z

or see my character profile here:
https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/Slappy_Cheese/characters?characterName=Spark_haha

TLDR POB numbers: At my current lvl (85):
Around 180K Dmg against regular mobs using spark (in a 5L)
Around 205K dmg against Map bosses using Lightning Tendrils (in a pseudo 5 L)

Here's a couple of videos I made as I level up through maps hopefully it demonstrates how the build plays out:

Estuary (T9): https://youtu.be/kc9el-1Gby0 Here you can see thanks to our decent single target damage I can face tank map boss by leaning on leech + flasks and pretty much instantly blow through his alternative form phases.

Arena (T9): https://youtu.be/KEyABN2lly0 This map is a little rippy because ranged boss does Chaos damage with caustic arrow. I try to focus my damage on her but she runs all over the place leading me on a wild goose chase - this demonstrates disadvantage of Tendrils for single target absolutely rubbish for mobile bosses that like to move all over the place and kite you.


Ascendancy choices were:

4 points to Mastermind of discord (Increased pen while herald is effecting you)
4 points to Beacon of ruin (always shock for 20% increase damage)


I'm using following unique items - which I'd say are more or less required for the build to function:

Berek's Grip


Call of the Brotherhood


Inpulsa's Broken Heart


As well as 3 unique Gems which I'm unsure how to link too:

2 X Spark Threshold Jewel and 1 X Poacher Aim (this is a concession so Spark can pierce - for faster map clear)


My Inpulsa's is only a 5L at the moment. I have a second one in my stash I have been throwing fusings at for a few days trying to 6L but no luck so far. This item is by far best in slot for many many lightning builds. If you wanted to go Zoom Zoom and sacrifice some damage you could probably run Queen of the Forest instead but might be hard to get colors you need.

Berek's let you leech life and mana from Shocked/Frozen enemies. Call of the Brotherhood converts 40% of lightning damage to cold for us. I'm still not 100% sure how Beacon of Ruin works with 100% increased chance to shock frozen enemies I think it just means more likely to shock for a high value now if target is frozen. This is a crit build so our base shock is pretty decent anyway.

I have run these two rings in combination in a few different builds in the past they synergize really well with each other.

Thanks to Beacon of ruin we are shocking everything. Inpulsa's ramps this shock up and explodes everything speeding up clear. Herald of Ice is in the mix as well so chains of exploding and shattering enemies are constantly popping off all over the place - which feels great.


The next most important item is a Shaped weapon to run Lightning Tendrils in for Single Target. Don't try to kill map bosses with spark - just trust me it won't work.

This is what I'm using:


Good amount of damage and allows us to run a pseudo 5L for Tendrils. Power charge generation is great allows me to skip running a power charge on crit setup. The downside is it is a wand which means you have to use lightning warp which sucks. It really really sucks as a movement skill. I'm very very tempted to buy a new weapon and run Blasphemy + Assassin's mark for power charges just so I can used a decent movement skill like Shield Charge.

Here are my Gem Links currently:

Helmet:
Increased Duration, Immortal Call, Cast When Damage Taken, Lightning Golem

Pretty standard Cast When Damage taken Setup, I'm at about 74% chance to crit if you feel like you are not criting enough you can run ice golem instead.

Chest:
Spark. Controlled Destruction, Added Lightning, Spell Echo, Increased Crits

6th link will probably be Increased Crit Damage (depends if I can ever get fusings to stick and 6B color my Inpulsa's afterwards)

Boots:
Lightning Warp, Faster Casting, Less Duration, Swift Affliction
Even 4 linked it is horrible see my mini rant above. If my wand wasn't so good I'd be using shield charge already.

Shield:
Herald of Ice, Herald of Lightning, Innervate

Heralds are really good with new ascendancy changes and this is convenient way to proc innervate buff while clearing maps

Wand:
Lightning Tendrils, Lightning Pen, Conc Effect
(Also gets controlled destruction and increased crit srikes from item)

This is my single target spell can be a bit spooky standing so close to bosses - you need to be aware of their animations and move out of the way when they wind up for a big swing. I played Blight character for a while which is a similiar skill mechanically awkward at first but you get the hang of it after a while. That said lightning warp does not help here cuts down margin of error for dodging attacks somewhat.

Boots:
Decoy Totem

and 3 flexible slots

Currently I'm running Vaal grace and Blasphemy warlord's mark a lot of the time I don't use warlord's but it does help if you are running can't regen life or mana map mods (and this league rerolling maps is a real pain).

I am probably going to spec into Mind Over Matter in the next few levels as I feel like the extra mitigation will help with high tier maps in this case I'll probably switch to orb of storms curse on hit setup. Not sure if I'll stick to warlord's maybe Assasin's mark maybe enfeeble.

Other thing I'm considering is switching to a scepter or similar and running shield charge (I really hate lightning warp this much). If this is the case I will likely loose my easy power charge generation so will switch to power charge on crit orb of storms or similar.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them.

Doraylis scepter has spell leach, a solid choice.
there is a node that gives power charges on kills, not sure if that will help. It's near the witch zone and we use a Intuitive leap socket gem to get that node without heavy investment

as an elementalist with your shock, blade vortex will basically pwn (cuz it hits so much)
a pledge of hands staff 4 link in X should nuke any Kiting bosses ( Physical to Lightning, maybe some stormchargers boots, any Physical to Elemental conversion

Doriyani's could work but this build already 1 shots most trash mobs so it is probably overkill and you'd need to weapon swap for single target. I think it is more convenient just to run shaper weapon with 2 to 3 pseudo support gems for your single target skill. Shaped Dagger is probably best bet for crit build as it can roll decent multi.

Blade Vortex is good but shares same disadvantage as lightning tendrils you need to stand close to target to hit it - which brings with it all the same problems tendrils has.

For me the biggest issue is when you need to stand close to map bosses to apply dmg you want some form of additional mitigation (i.e leech, block, mind over matter, dodge or some combo of the these). Otherwise it can get pretty rippy when burst damage pops up.

I've stopped playing this build after I hit lvl 88 on it. For low level content I think this spark build is fine I can pretty comfortably run a shaped t11 over and over again on it. (I'm running shaped underground sea this league) and spark clears very very fast, but trying to push higher content with this build - stuff like red map guardians t13+ bosses etc hits some problems and I feel needs a passive tree rework to pickup some additional mitigation.

Back in the old days you had vaal pact for instant leech which made stuff like vortex and tendrils really good as a single target ability. Nowadays I'm starting to arrive at conclusion that without vaal pact spell leech alone isn't good enough to avoid rippy content. I've tried playing around with both MoM and Acrobatics on various characters still not sure what best choice is (situational in my opinion). If I was reworking this Spark build and wanted to push into higher content I'd probably try to focus on pathing to acrobatics + evasion nodes as i'm already in shadow part of tree for all the crit related stuff.

Another thing to consider is Poet's Pen. When I made this spark build I hadn't tried out Poet's pen now after making a Poet's pen character I think for most elemental skills you'd be hard pressed to do better self casting then you can with a poet's pen setup. You can push out similar dps in a 3 link poet's pen setup as you can with a six link. A Poet's pen is 20C compared to 6L inpulsa's which will set you back multiple ex something to consider.

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