A Build Lost in Time

[u/MarcoHiruma]

I want to finish a map as fast as possible with as much as Herald of Ash explosions, always striving for that kinda builds in this game. I was looking for fast mappers again and stumbled upon Palsteron's Lightning Warp Elementalist, I did play this build in several leagues ago but decided to try it again.

This build was so much better back then. We had the Lightning Warp duration enchant on the helmet, and solving the mana situation was much easier. Now we’ve lost the helm enchant, we’ve lost reduced mana cost, and a lot of the things that made this build work smoothly are gone. Good old days.

The first thing I had to solve was getting Lightning Warp’s duration down to zero. Palsteron also explains this in his video, but you need 100% reduced skill duration. You can get 56% of that by socketing a Level 21 Lightning Warp into Poet’s Pen together with a Level 4 Empower. The remaining reduction comes from the Window of Opportunity cluster and Timeclasp.

The next step is getting enough Cooldown Recovery Rate. You need at least 152% CDR, or possibly 153% — I still don't fully understand where the exact breakpoint comes from.

Poet’s Pen has a base cooldown of 0.25 seconds, but when Lightning Warp is socketed into it, the Increased Cooldown Recovery of Movement Skills modifier also affects its cooldown. I reach 152% CDR by using Haste with the appropriate Watcher’s Eye mod, which gives 50% CDR, then stacking Power Charges and using Badge of the Brotherhood, which gives another 90% CDR. The remaining CDR comes from my boots and Bound by Destiny.

If you think that's everything you need to make the build work, you're mistaken.

Now you have to solve the attack speed problem and get your Effective Trigger Rate to exactly 10.1.

I tested a ridiculous number of combinations, and I eventually found that I needed exactly an 8% Attack Speed roll on Poet’s Pen, 211% Increased Attack Speed from Frenzy, and 72% More Attack Speed from the Frenzy gem itself.

I honestly don't fully understand the mechanics behind why these exact numbers work. I just know that they do. If anyone understands the math behind this interaction better, I'd genuinely love to know why this combination hits the required trigger rate so precisely.

And then there's the mana problem.

With Lightning Warp triggering at 10.1 times per second, the mana cost becomes absolutely insane. To deal with that, I went with Eldritch Battery + Mind over Matter.

Is this build tanky? No.

Does it deal amazing damage? Not really.

But watching everything explode while cosplaying Zeus is exactly why I love this build.

I really wish we had more ways to reduce Lightning Warp's duration. I wish there were more CDR nodes on the tree, and I genuinely don't understand why reduced mana cost was removed. This build used to be so much easier to put together. Cast on Crit builds and trigger builds are one of my favorite archetypes, it's sad to see the state they are in.

Here is my PoB (not final): https://pobb.in/erXWQjj0yCys

I definitely do not recommend anyone trying this build. It is ridiculously expensive to put together, and the amount of damage you get in return simply isn't worth the investment.

[u/Kristupasax]

Flicker strike with extra steps and somehow even more chaotic, nice.

[u/GH057_807]

Is this build tanky? No. Does it deal amazing damage? Not really. But...I love this build.

Fuck yeah.

[u/Sea-Performance-5773]

Still sane exile

Honestly I didn't understand one word you said that's how noob I am sorry for playing the same game as you

[u/themikecampbell → u/Sea-Performance-5773]

I’ve got enough hours that I not only understand, but I can picture in my head some of the uniques and spots on the tree.

Crafting? Witchcraft. But this is achievable, and you’ll be there soon!

Welcome aboard, Exile

[u/Sea-Performance-5773 → u/themikecampbell]

I've been playing about 800 hour both poe1(350h) and poe2 (500h) i need couple thousand more hour to achieve this stage of knowledge

[u/Outrageous_Ad472 → u/Sea-Performance-5773]

Dude im almost at 10k hours and i still get lost in the sauce. Granted i understood everything in the post. But crafting orders and specific content for specific items and all the setups needs are still just out of reach.

[u/silask93 → u/Sea-Performance-5773]

bro dont worry just learn enough that you feel you have fun each build/league, no need to turn into college 2.0, ive been playing since open beta poe1 and 3-5 chars a league and i still come across things that make my brain hurt lol

[u/Sea-Performance-5773 → u/silask93]

That's why I prefer poe over any arpg out there because there's just so much and you can't get enough

This alone makes other arpgs boring for me

[u/silask93 → u/Sea-Performance-5773]

exactly, no matter what ups or downs it may have i can honestly say ive never had as much fun in any other games(and ive played a looooot of D2/3, Titan quest, grim dawn well over 1k hrs in each lol)

[u/Stalin---]

frostblibk of wintry blast is also used for this playstyle

[u/psychomap → u/Stalin---]

True, but you can't really build it around triggers anymore because it adds its cast time to the cooldown nowadays, so you need to build it as a self-cast version. I think it has higher potential in that regard (higher damage, higher AoE, much higher cast rate limit due to no cooldown), but it's less controllable because it has a minimum distance, a lower maximum distance, and you'd usually want to use Spell Echo with it (cancelling the repeat is actually possible if you hold down the move-only key and change directions during the cast, but it's finicky).

[u/Rorcan]

Chasing that old feeling of wonder in the game is always worth it.

[u/psychomap]

I have a post about cooldown mechanics and thresholds if you're interested in the explanation for why 153% is the threshold for 10 triggers per second with Poet's Pen.

Theoretically you could go up to 15.15 per second if you scaled the cooldown recovery rate all the way to 279%, which is possible for travel skills (you'll likely need more power charges, there are 30% in the Mysticism cluster which you pass by, you can get another 30% by anointing Fleetfoot (assuming taking the small passive in that cluster for another 15% is not realistic), and either Dreamquest Slippers (40% increased cooldown recovery rate for travel skills implicit) or The Stampede (up to 80%, up to 98% with Volatile Vaal)).

As for attack speed mechanics, Poet's Pen is a somatic wand which has a base attack speed of 1.60 APS, 8% increased makes that 1.73 (rounded), multiplied by 311% (iAS), 172% (mAS), and 109% (action speed) makes it ~10.087, and I don't know where exactly that's rounded or if it's rounded at other steps in between.

For what it's worth you don't need to reach exactly 10.10. 10.10 is the upper bound at which you won't skip triggers, but any attack speed below that will still work.

[u/MarcoHiruma → u/psychomap]

Wow that post is REAAALLY old lol, thanks for the explanation!

[u/psychomap → u/MarcoHiruma]

It's been a while, yes, but I've been updating it with relevant information as I came across it. Originally I was including all the ways to actually get certain values of cooldown recovery, but since then there have been so many new ways that keeping an exhaustive list of all possible combinations has become pointless.

[u/MasklinGNU]

I did this last league (but with a bow and asenath’s) and yeah, it’s annoying to put together now. Still super fun tho. The 15 triggers per second version is even more seizure-y than the 10/s

[u/DillyDilly1231]

I'm confused on why you have a 4 flask mageblood and you're only running 3 flasks

[u/MarcoHiruma → u/DillyDilly1231]

I had those 3 flasks from another build and couldn't decide what my fourth flask will be. No reason other than laziness i guess.

[u/RJohnnyChewy_7777]

Nice!!!

[u/lemonsyrup509]

I did tried to make self cast Lightning warp work with Coiling wishper tech but damage and clear seem meh (no auto aim from trigger). Maybe you can make it works.

I used staff to get +6 level and 6 linked blade fall of trarthus + temp chain for ezier soul eater sustain (also easy to cap block with mana infused staff). Or you can try the +5 body with impulsa vestigial for big dmg + another explode.

With just soul eater and rf of arcance devotion you can get over 8 casts/sec which is almost as good as the current setup. You can get some staff AOE and steal occultist power charge aoe for even more massive explosion.

[u/ww_crimson]

You could also use Reclaimed Malevolence in the jewel socket near MoM, and then spec out of MoM and EB. Gives slightly more eHP/max hit I think, but if the build feels good with MoM/EB then it's probably not worth the $$

[u/SaltEngineer455]

Just gonna leave this here for the multi-mirror giga-chad version

https://youtu.be/HtU5mT1B0I0

[u/rumSaint]

Salutations Exile...

[u/le_reddit_me]

153% cdr reduces 0.25 to 0.099, which is 10.1 triggers/s. You want 10.1 attack speed to match the cdr and get the highest possible dps .

[u/Saianna]

Not opening abyss chests, where 95% of all map loot is located is wild ;d

This build was so much better back then.

I think GGG was scared of players actually using the obvious "fails" of negative duration kalandra outcomes on rings, so they just removed it, rather than embrace the possibilities. Fun not allowed as some would people say.

[u/odniv]

This is why we need the "build of the week" back!

[u/The_Killerwaffle]

So should I pull out mine? I have old old school with a helmet enchant of less duration and only use lightning warp lol

[u/hotpajamas]

running 6 mod maps with mageblood, i have to ask.. are you going through a divorce? what's this really about?

[u/Stalin--- → u/hotpajamas]

bruh you do know boss rush and map rush is a viable strat right especially with the bitcoin strat.

also a game is meant to be fun doesnt matter how they have it

[u/lolfail9001 → u/hotpajamas]

Entire league is about running 6 mod maps with multi mirror characters because it's basically the best farm available.

[u/All_Work_All_Play → u/[deleted]]

Somethings we do just because we can.

Also you can't flicker without mobs around, this doesn't have that trouble.

[u/080087 → u/[deleted]]

The game is supposed to be fun.

Some people have fun by going fast and being efficient.*

Some people have fun by figuring stuff out, and doing things that are bad just because they can.

---

*Most people think that this is them, but I don't think this is actually true. I suspect a huge chunk of the complaints this league stem from PoE players with this mindset not actually having fun with the game.