[3.22] Enki's Lightning Conduit Elementalist - a beginner-friendly Caster Build

The main mechanic in this build is shock. Lightning Conduit can only damage shocked enemies, but can't inflict this ailment itself. To get around that, we're using secondary skills together with Shaper of Storms and scale its effect to reliably apply the maximum shock value onto any target. With a mastery raising this value to 65%, it requires a total of 247% lightning ailment effect, which we get through our passives, gems and gear.

Instead of crit scaling, we're making use of Elemental Overload and the luck mechanic to counter the inherently large lightning damage range and make it more consistent. As a nice side effect, this also allows us to invest more into defenses that would otherwise be lacking.

Speaking of which, this build actually has two defensive setups for its different progression stages. We're starting out with armour scaling layered with a few damage reductions and Molten Shell.
The endgame build drops most of that in favor of more damage reductions instead, running three elemental flasks together with The Traitor for constant flask uptime.

Furthermore, the build is stun immune through Unwavering Stance. This is very important to avoid getting stunned out of our shock application skill, which could easily get us killed.
The endgame build is also immune to elemental ailments for added protection.

Last thing to mention is mana sustain. Instead of actually using mana, this build reserves all of it and uses Eldritch Battery for skill sustain. This requires having some energy shield on most gear, around 800+ energy shield feels good for endgame.

Main Skill

Lightning Conduit + Elemental Focus + Lightning Penetration + Energy Leech + Cruelty
+ Added Lightning Damage (6th Link)

Lightning Conduit is a lightning spell that can only damage shocked enemies in an area around our character. Hitting an enemy removes their shock ailment and adds a large damage multiplier for every 5% shock value removed. Additionally. this skill can't inflict shocks itself, not even with Shaper of Storms, so another spell is needed for fast shock reapplication.

Its support gems are pretty straightforward and simply just increase damage, while Energy Leech also helps with energy shield sustain to keep casting.


Shock Application Skill

Orb of Storms or Storm Brand + Unbound Ailments + Increased Area of Effect + Chain (Level 1)

There's two choices for shock application - Orb of Storms and Storm Brand. Neither is inherently better than the other, so just try them out and see which one feels better to you!

Both deal primarily lightning damage, which is important to gain the 25% more lightning ailment effect multiplier from Shaper of Storms. Unbound Ailments is used to gain a lot of lightning ailment effect, Increased Area of Effect and Chain increase effective range and coverage.

Chain should be kept at Level 1 for lower Dexterity requirements!


Reservation Skills

Enfeeble + Blasphemy / Arctic Armour / Vitality / Determination
For Endgame: Enfeeble + Blasphemy / Arctic Armour / Vitality / Wrath

All of these skills reserve some of our mana to grant buffs or debuffs. They don't need to be linked together to function, so you can just put them wherever you got space.

First skill is Enfeeble. This hex curse debuffs enemies and lowers their damage. Linking it to Blasphemy turns it into an aura that affects enemies in an AOE around our character.

Arctic Armour grants immunity to freeze, chills enemies that hit us and considerably lowers any physical and fire damage taken from hits while we stand still, such as while spam casting.

Vitality adds life regeneration for sustain. Unlike most other auras, it reserves a flat amount of mana that increases with gem levels. Keep yours at the highest level your mana allows!

The last aura depends on which progression stage you're at. The build starts out with using Determination to gain lots of armour for physical damage mitigation and Molten Shell.
The endgame build replaces this aura with Wrath to gain an additional damage multiplier.


Blessing

Divine Blessing + Zealotry + Increased Duration + Inspiration

Divine Blessing allows us to run another aura by turning it into a temporary buff. Our choice here is Zealotry for its damage multiplier and crit chance, which helps with Elemental Overload procs.
Increased Duration reduces the need to recast the Blessing as often, but also increases its cost. Inspiration is only used to reduce the Blessing cost, everything else has no effect here.


Guard Skill

Cast when Damage Taken (Level 10) + (Vaal) Molten Shell (Level 15)
For Endgame: Cast when Damage Taken + Immortal Call

Cast when Damage Taken casts linked spells upon accumulating enough damage taken from hits. Its trigger threshold and maximum trigger level for linked spells depend on CwDT's gem level.
This works well to automate Guard Skills to soak up damage bursts or follow up attacks.

Early on, this build uses Molten Shell to gain an additional layer of hit points based on armour. Vaal Molten Shell can also be used to get the regular skill and its Vaal version as panic button.
For a good proc ratio, keep CwDT at Level 10 and (Vaal) Molten Shell at Level 15!

The endgame build uses Immortal Call instead. This buff reduces all physical and elemental damage taken for a short duration. If the character has any active Endurance Charges, they get removed to grant additional physical damage reduction and buff duration.
Unlike before, CwDT and Immortal Call can be fully leveled!


Movement Skill

Lightning Warp + Less Duration

Lightning Warp allows us to move around quickly. It scales with cast and movement speed, and reducing its duration through sources such as Less Duration.

Make sure that these aren't linked to any other gems!


Debuff

Hydrosphere

Hydrosphere applies exposure to enemies within its AOE to reduce their lightning resistance together with Mastermind of Discord. It's only needed until you have exposure on hit gloves.

Before you do any content, make sure that your auras and reservation skills are activated and all active skills have "Always Attack without Moving" enabled!

The gameplay loop is simple. Warp around, shock enemies and kill them with Lightning Conduit.
If it's not too risky, you can even use Lightning Warp as shock applicator for faster clearspeed.

Usually you can keep up your utility flasks while clearing. With the endgame build you only have to activate them upon entering a new instance, don't forget about that!

Your Blessing should also be up at all times. Get more energy shield if that causes you issues.

If you use Vaal Molten Shell, always use your Granite + Basalt Flask first to maximize its effect!

For bosses and tankier enemies, place Hydrosphere underneath them (if still used), shock them, use your Blessing and then burst them down from a safe spot. If you use Orb of Storms you also need to stay within its AOE for faster shock reapplication!

If you need help with how to progress the acts, here's a walkthrough I've written for maxroll!
A few parts are probably outdated by now but it should still be helpful.

Passive Tree Progression
Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | Act 4 | Act 5 | Act 6 | Act 7 | Act 8 | Act 9 | Act 10

Ascendancy
Shaper of Storms (Normal) > Mastermind of Discord (Cruel) > Heart of Destruction (Merciless)

Bandits
Kill all for +2 Passive Points

Pantheon
Soul of Arakaali (Major) + Soul of Tukohama (Minor)

Gem Progression

Lightning Tendrils or Spark > Lightning Conduit
+ Arcane Surge (Level 1) > Elemental Focus
+ Added Lightning Damage
+ Lightning Penetration

Orb of Storms or Storm Brand
+ Overcharge > Increased Area of Effect
+ Unbound Ailments
+ Chain (Level 1)

Vitality lower its Level if you can't run all auras
Clarity > Determination swap after getting Eldritch Battery
Arctic Armour
Herald of Thunder throw out after getting Eldritch Battery

Frostblink > Flame Dash > Lightning Warp swap after getting Less Duration
+ Less Duration

Steelskin > Molten Shell (Level 15) after getting Determination
+ Cast when Damage Taken (Level 10)

Wave of Conviction > Hydrosphere

Enfeeble
+ Blasphemy after getting Sovereignty

Zealotry after getting Eldritch Battery
+ Divine Blessing
+ Inspiration

Flasks
Life Flask
Mana Flask > Granite Flask (Act 5)
Sulphur Flask (Act 7)
Quicksilver Flask (Act 1) > Basalt Flask (Act 10)
Quicksilver Flask (Act 2)

Add ..of the Lizard, ..of the Urchin and ..of the Conger with the Menagerie.

Notes
‣ It's recommended to switch to Lightning Conduit after finishing the first labyrinth.
‣ Use your secondary weapon slots to level 6x Lightning Conduit gems along with you.
‣ Focus mainly on Energy Shield gear. You'll want around 250 Energy Shield for Eldritch Battery, 400+ to use your Blessing. Crown of Thorns is a cheap unique that can help reaching this.
‣ Keep your Fire, Cold and Lightning Resistances capped at 75% from late Act 3 on.
‣ Use a Heavy Belt and Jade Amulet for early attribute requirements.
‣ Look out for Movement Speed on boots.
‣ If you can't find any good weapons early on, sell a wand + magic/rare rarity Chain Belt + Blacksmith's Whetstone to any vendor. This will give you a wand with Spell Damage.
‣ Use any Woe or Torment Essences you find on wands and add either Spell Damage, Cast Speed or Lightning Damage to Spells with your crafting bench.
‣ Basically, use your crafting bench to fix any shortcomings in your gear.

This setup is considerably weaker than the endgame build, but good enough to progress the atlas and farm currency and crafting materials (e.g. Essences) with minimal currency investment.

Here's the Passive Tree goal for this setup - It comes with a change to some early passives, which have lost their efficacy by now. To pull this off, put three points into the +10 Intelligence passives first, then remove the outdated passives.

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Follow the progression steps below in order unless you already have something from a later step.


Step 1: Basic Gear

Content gets a little harder now and you've just received another resistance penalty, so it's a good idea to bring up your gear to a new standard. This helps you survive maps and farm currency for the endgame build more efficiently.

The first thing to get is a 5L body armour. It needs to be an Armour + Energy Shield base for both easier coloring and to gain enough energy shield for Eldritch Battery. Around 150 ES is enough for this. Additionally, it can't have any life modifiers to make the 15% life mastery work.

Berek's Grip is an easy source of life leech for added survivability.

Get Armour + Energy Shield boots with 60+ Life, 20%+ Movement Speed and an open suffix to add 30% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments with the crafting bench.
Rare items can only have three suffixes, the trade site already marks them but you can check poedb if you're unsure.

Use the remaining slots to cap your Elemental Resistances at 75% with atleast 60+ Life on each piece (40+ on ring), getting some Chaos Resistance helps aswell. Your crafting bench can once again help with adding some of these modifiers.


Step 2: Instant Life Flask

An instant life flask is an important tool to survive and shouldn't be neglected!

Luckily it's not that difficult to craft. Farm any Level 60+ zone until you get a Divine Life Flask drop, ideally with some quality on it. This is the best flask base for instant healing.

Use an Orb of Scouring on it (if it's magic rarity), get it to 20% quality with Glassblower's Baubles and then get it back to magic rarity with an Orb of Transmutation. Now use Orbs of Alteration until you hit Instant Recovery when on Low Life, then add of Sealing with the Menagerie.

This results in a "panic button" flask that will instantly heal most of your life if used while you dropped below 50% life, and additionally grants immunity to Bleed and Corrupted Blood.


Step 3: Silver Flask

Get a Silver Flask to gain Onslaught for additional cast speed and mobility.

Craft it the same way as the flask above, but this time aim for Maximum Charges and add Immunity to Chill with the menagerie.

Your flask setup should now be a Divine Life, Sulphur, Silver, Granite and Basalt Flask.


Step 4: Weapons

Singularity is a great budget choice for this build, get two of them and you're set until endgame. However, it does require you to stay close enough to enemies for its Hinder aura to affect them.

Alternatively you can use wands or sceptres with +1 to Level of all Lightning Spell Skill Gems, 50%+ Spell or Lightning Damage and Cast Speed. If you go this route, keep in mind that you can't equip a wand and sceptre at the same time, so both need to be the same type of weapon.


Step 5: +1 Amulet

Most spells scale well by raising their gem level. The according modifier on amulets for this is
+1 to Level of all Lightning Skill Gems, get it together with 40+ Life and an open suffix to add 30% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments with the crafting bench.

Ideally get this on an Onyx, Turquoise, Citrine or Jade Amulet for Dexterity requirements.

Next, anoint your new amulet with Ash, Frost and Storm to gain some lightning ailment effect.


Step 6: Jewels

If you've followed all steps correctly, you should already have 247% lightning ailment effect now. If not, you can cap it with abyss jewels such as these.

After capping your shocks at 65%, fill the remaining jewel sockets with jewels like these.

The trade searches default to Ancestors SC, change them to your league if needed.


Step 7: Uber Lab

If you haven't done it yet, you can easily finish the Eternal Labyrinth (also called Uber Lab) now. Each attempt costs an Offering to the Goddess.

Take Bastion of Elements as your last ascendancy point upon completion to gain full elemental reflect immunity and Primal Aegis, an additional buffer towards elemental damage hits.


Step 8: Level 21 Lightning Conduit

While the limit for most gems is Level 20, it's possible to get them to Level 21 by using a Vaal Orb on an uncorrupted Level 20 gem among some other methods.

If you've followed the Act 1 to 10 Cheat Sheet, you should have 7x Lightning Conduit gems at Level 20 now, maybe even with 20% quality already. If not, finish them first as they can't be modified after being corrupted!

Once they're ready, corrupt all and pray for a Level 21 gem. If each of them failed, simply just buy a Level 21 Lightning Conduit with 20% quality at this point.


Step 9: 6L Body Armour & optional Gear Upgrades

By now you're probably in red maps already, so it's a good idea to get a 6L body armour to keep your damage up. If you can, get a Saintly Chainmail as it has the highest base energy shield.
All other requirements from before still apply, you can use Essences of Woe to craft it for now.

This is also the perfect time for a general gear checkup. If you still have any particularly weak pieces that didn't quite meet the requirements, replace them now for a couple chaos orbs each!

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With everything in place, your character should now be able to easily farm enough currency for the endgame build. Economies are hard to fully predict, but somewhere around 5 divine orbs should be safe enough to make the switch.

This is where the build really starts to shine! While the previous setup kept investment low enough to let you progress and accumulate more currency, it's time to invest that to gain a massive spike in build power and make your character ready for endgame encounters.

Here's the Passive Tree goal for this setup - It mostly expands into cluster jewels from here on.

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Follow the progression steps below in order unless you already have something from a later step.


Step 1: Cluster Jewels

Cluster jewels expand your passive tree and can only be socketed into large jewel sockets.

First jewel to get is a Large Cluster Jewel with Lightning Damage and 8 added Passives. Important here is Overshock, it also needs another notable (other than Scintillating Idea) to move Overshock to the front.

Doryani's Lesson can add life leech back, but it takes either another notable to move it to the front or two additional passive points to get it. You may also get life leech from other sources.

The other jewel needs to be a Small Cluster Jewel with Armour and 2 added Passives.
This one needs to have Enduring Composure, which gives you access to Endurance Charges for additional physical damage mitigation and a bigger Immortal Call effect.


Step 2: Annihilating Light & Traitor

This includes several steps that depend on each other and should be done at the same time!
It's important to do them in the listed order, otherwise you're making things harder for yourself!


The endgame build revolves around Annihilating Light. It simply triples your damage, but has an equally heavy downside: all Elemental Resistance modifiers that affect your character lose a large percentage of their value! Still, nothing beats it in terms of cost effectiveness.

If you worry about resistances reduction curses: they also get affected by the penalty!

To keep the downside as low as possible, don't get anything higher than a 62% reduced Elemental Resistances roll! A 6L isn't needed, having 6 sockets is enough to fit all gems.

Once you can, add Grants 1% increased Elemental Damage per 2% Quality with your horticrafting station to finalize the weapon.


Another core part of the endgame build is the Traitor keystone. It passively replenishes 4 flask charges every 5 seconds per empty flask slot, which can assure fully automated flasks with 100% uptime with the right setup.

The keystone is available through Brutal Restraint with ..of Balbala. Like all timeless jewels, it replaces all keystones and modifies passives and notables in its radius. Try out the sockets near The Agnostic and Hex Master to see which spot gives you better stats and allocate the Traitor.

While getting good stats on affected notables can get expensive, here's what you can look out for:



Flasks are next. This build uses a Ruby, Topaz and Sapphire Flask to gain massive damage reductions towards each element and lots of resistances to help with Annihilating Light.

Roll the Ruby and Topaz Flask for Maximum Charges, Increased Duration or 16%+ reduced Charges per use. One of them needs Increased Cast Speed during Effect, the other an open suffix to add Regenerate 3% of Life per second during Effect with your crafting bench. This is an unveil-only modifier gained by unveiling Cinderswallow Urns dropped from the Mastermind.

The Sapphire Flask needs to be Taste of Hate for additional physical damage mitigation. Therefore, only the Physical Damage from Hits taken as Cold Damage roll matters.

Make sure to upgrade all flasks to 20% quality! If you haven't rolled Increased Duration prefixes on your flasks, you can upgrade them to 26% quality by having Hillock as leader of the Research Safehouse. This pushes your flasks beyond 10s duration and with that get two Traitor ticks before their duration ends, and makes crafting your belt much easier.

All that's left to do now is adding Reused at the end of this Flask's effect with your crafting bench on each flask. Now you only need to use them once upon entering a new instance and the whole setup should keep them active until you switch instances!


Your belt finalizes the Traitor setup by giving it 100% uptime even during longer bossfights. The belt we're aiming for is probably too uncommon on the market, so it's better to craft it yourself. However, always check the market and compare prices to expected crafting costs on craftofexile before you buy anything!

There's two ways: the cheaper one starts with any belt with fractured 25%+ increased Flask Charges gained. With our triple flask setup, this makes Traitor grant 10 flask charges every 5s.

The more expensive option is starting with a Micro-Distillery Belt. This experimented base type buffs all flask effectd by 20%, which translates into free damage reduction among other things.
It's not likely to find it with the 25%+ increased Flask Charges gained fracture for a reasonable price, so you either need to prepare for a potentially expensive craft or accept that your flasks may not have 100% uptime in a few endgame bossfights.

No matter which option you choose, the crafting process is the same. Scour it, use Prismatic Catalysts until it's at 20% and then use Essences of Delirium to gain a a lot of chaos resistance.
Keep rolling until you hit 50+ Life and if you haven't done the flask quality trick mentioned earlier, also Flask Effect Duration. Either modifier can also be added with the crafting bench.


If you haven't gotten a 6L Saintly Chainmail earlier, get one with an item level of atleast 77 and no influence on it. The crafting process is pretty simple, use Dense + Jagged Fossils until you hit 200+ Energy Shield with 5%+ additional Physical Damage Reduction and an open prefix to add 6% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire & Lightning Damage, a modifier gained by unveiling body armours dropped by Gravicius Reborn.

This gives lots of needed physical damage mitigation & ES for Eldritch Battery and using Dense Fossils makes sure that no life modifiers that could ruin the 15% life mastery will roll.

Now finalize it by using Eldritch Currency to roll for +1% to all maximum Resistances and Wrath/Zealotry has increased Aura Effect implicits.


Your helmet, gloves and boots are your main items for capping resistances and are relatively easy to craft. But once again, always check the market first and compare to expected crafting costs!

The crafting process is mostly the same for each. Start with an Energy Shield base with any 40%+ Resistance fractured, then use Shrieking Essences (Hatred, Anger, Wrath) to craft.

For the helmet and gloves, do this until you hit a third 35%+ Resistance and 60+ Life with an open prefix, the boots need 60+ Life with 20%+ Movement Speed and an open suffix.

Use your crafting bench to add Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage to your helmet, Increased Damage during any Flask Effect on your gloves and 30% increased Effect of Non-Damaging Ailments on your boots.

Now use Eldritch Currency to finalize those items. The most important modifier to get is Lightning Exposure on Hit (Eater) on your gloves, this allows you to throw out Hydrosphere and makes your damage more consistent.

Next roll for Chance to avoid Shock (Exarch) and Chance to avoid Elemental Ailments (Eater) on your boots and bless them to 35% and 17% respectively.
Together with an Abyss Jewel with atleast 48% Chance to avoid being Shocked you're now immune to one of the most dangerous elemental ailments.

The remaining implicits aren't as important, you can work on them while playing the build. Finish your gloves with Chance to Unnerve (Exarch), then roll your helmet for Cast Speed (Exarch) and Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage (Eater).

If you got some time, you can also try farming Uber Lab for enchantments. The Adds 1 to 160 Lightning Damage if you haven't Killed Recently boot enchantment is relatively easy to get, look out for Lightning Conduit has 12% increased Cast Speed or 30% reduced Lightning Warp Duration while farming for it.


The last thing to get are rings. Ideally they should be Amethyst Rings, but other resistance bases are fine too. Get any Resistances needed to cap together with 40+ Life and Cast Speed.
If they have an open prefix and aren't influenced already, you can use Crusader's Exalts later and hope to hit Spell Damage or Adds Lightning Damage against Shocked Enemies.

Rings are also one of the three options to add life leech back to your character, either through the 0.2% of Elemental Damage Leeched as Life synthesis implicit or 0.2% of Lightning Damage Leeched as Life delve prefix.

Your character is now fully usable again! There's still a few weaknesses to work around with the coming steps, but you should already feel a huge increase of build power at this point.


Step 3: Pantheon Upgrades

These upgrades are done by capturing specific map bosses with Divine Vessels, you can check the required maps on your atlas.

The build continues to use Soul of Arakaali and Soul of Tukohama, simply just fully upgrade both of them. If you like to run Searing Exarch-influenced maps, you should also upgrade Soul of Abberath and use it for those maps.


Step 4: Corrupted Blood Immunity

Since your previous form of Corrupted Blood mitigation had to make place for the Traitor setup, it's recommended to get a jewel with Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you corruption. The other modifiers don't matter too much, get anything that synergizes with the build if possible (e.g. life, spell damage, cast speed).


Step 5: Voice of the Storm

Voice of the Storm is an awesome damage amulet for non-crit lightning casters with its luck and 50% Lightning Damage modifiers, which can even be raised to 60% through Turbulent Catalysts.

Ash, Frost and Storm is once again the anointment to use.


Step 6: Watcher's Eye

Getting a Watcher's Eye with the right modifiers adds lots of damage and sustain. It's also your last option to get life leech back into the build. Aim for atleast two of the following modifiers:



Step 7: Stormshroud

Stormshroud is probably the most expensive piece in this build, but is just too good to pass on. It applies Chance to avoid Shock to all elemental ailments, ideally making you fully immune.


Step 8: Awakened Gems

Awakened gems are stronger versions of their regular counterparts. They cap out at Level 5 and gain an additional effect upon reaching that point.

There's a few awakened gems for this build. Focus on each that's linked to Lightning Conduit first and keep the rest as optional upgrades.



Step 9: Alternate Quality Gems

Alternate quality gems can be obtained through certain Grand Heists and offer different quality effects than their base counterparts.

Once again there's a few choices for this build. Get yourself Anomalous Arctic Armour and Anomalous Enfeeble first, then keep the rest as optional upgrades.



Step 10: Optional High Budget Upgrades

The build is done at this point, but you can still keep throwing currency at it if you want to.

Aside from generic things like gem corruptions and better rolls on gear, the first thing you should consider is an 8pt Large Lightning Cluster Jewel with Overshock, Doryani's Lesson and a third notable (not Scintillating Idea) to get life leech into the endgame setup.

If you want to gain more effect from Anomalous Arctic Armour & Enfeeble, link a Level 4 Enhance to them. This will raise their reservation cost, you can counter that by crafting a body armour with Deafening Essences of Loathing. Start with an 8% additional Physical Damage Reduction fracture on an Armour + Energy Shield base to make the craft not too painful, then aim for the same things as on the previous body armour.

There's more potential upgrades such as an Impossible Escape with Imbalanced Guard to gain more maximum elemental resistances or even a Mageblood replacing the Traitor setup, but unless you plan to use these on other builds aswell, they're probably not worth farming for.

Tattoos are part of the current Trial of the Ancestors league. They can replace attributes granted by small passives and notables with new stats.

While not tied to character progression, I recommend to wait until your character is in endgame.
Feel free to replace everything beyond 155 strength, 98 dexterity and 159 intelligence to still meet all attribute requirements. The following tattoos are useful for this build:

Honoured Tattoo of the Oak - Use up to 10 of these on intelligence passives to gain 20% life.

Tattoo of the Tukohama Shaman - You can use 5-10 (if you get some strength on a jewel) to trade a little bit of life for lots of regeneration with the endgame setup.

Honoured Tattoo of the Wise - Gives an extra level to all Intelligence Gems, which translates into a huge damage gain. Spec into and replace Ancestral Knowledge for this tattoo.