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. Light Eater gets replaced by Surge of Vigor as life leech is harder to get in this setup.
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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.
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!
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 rolling
Reused at the end of this Flask's effect with
Instilling Orbs 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 30%+ 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 30%+ 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.
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.
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: 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 4: 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 Ralakesh for DoT mitigation, 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 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: 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.
The boots you've crafted earlier already provide a total of 52% Chance to avoid Shock, the remaining 48% can be gained through an abyss jewel. If you've already taken Overshock, you should be able to drop one of the lightning ailment effect jewels for this and still shock for 65%.
Step 7: Watcher's Eye
Getting a
Watcher's Eye with the right modifiers is a big buff to your damage and survivability.
The life recovery modifier is important, get it together with any listed damage modifier.
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, then get Awakened Blasphemy 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.
