[3.8] Ultra tanky Ball Lightning Guardian | CI 11-15k ES | 3-5m Shaper DPS

Huge buffs basically. More damage (about 20% or even more with the same eq), more es (about 700-800 for free), more armour, more mana regen

Currently streaming league of legends, but will probably play poe in the future as well

https://www.twitch.tv/carnarius_v2

Minotaur full run - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3PdS78ZMKQ
Chimera full run - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jD2kcCt50k
Uber elder - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpmpIvUnVmo

Build is not really complicated. We use few different mechanics to stack as much damage and tankiness as possible.

For damage, we go for low life with shavs and stack every damage aura possible (well, except for haste). That with some damage nodes on the tree will give us plenty of damage, with good gear even up to 4m shaper dps

For defence we try to stack a little bit of mana which will solve 2 problems at the same - give us a lot of es and mana regeneration. With 5k mana we will never have problems with it, which is great for a mage. Mana will also provide great amount of armour (memory vault helmet), that will solve physical damage problems completely and provide huge shield from molten shell. Also we have critical damage reduction and curse effectiveness reduction, both very useful additions. Nearby enemies cannot gain charges from guardian ascendancy is amazing for deep delving

For leech we have Light eater passive which gives us spell leech and 20% more recovery, we get another 20% from belt, so 40% more total recovery which is very powerful. Also we have a lot of regen thanks to Time of Need ascendancy passive

Self explanatory, weapon with as much cast speed, spell damage and lightning damage added to spells as you can find/craft. Budget options are doryani's catalyst or heartbreaker (with spell damage corruption), both solid options




Mandatory item, allows us to make it a low life build without worrying about chaos damage. You don't need a corruption, 5l shavs will be enough to clear all the content if your budget is very low




Crazy strong shield for low life builds and very cheap, allows us to run 3 high mana reservation cost auras and provides 37% to all res



Good old shaper's touch, very strong ES boost and it's easy to get corrupted ones. For lower budget buy +1 gems shaper's touch and use enlighten 3. For higher budget go for enlighten 4 and different corruption (+1 frenzy charges/+2 aura)



This belt is amazing. A lot of cast speed, cooldown recovery speed for molten shell and flame dash, 20% more recovery and summon that is actually pretty useful (immortal, it grants 20% more action speed buff, around 50% uptime). Cast speed corruption is probably the best



Just boots with movement speed, high es and resistances. You can also use greedtrap boots (16% quantity), but you will probably have to use purity of elements instead of purity of ice



Must have. Provides absolutely massive armour if you invest into mana, also very high es




Mark of the shaper is probably the highest dps ring you can get, also provides es. Second ring doesn't have to be good, just make sure you have maxed out resistances with it. After that whatever you can find, intelligence, strength, mana, flat es. Make sure it's elder base, otherwise mark of the shaper is not going to work



You pretty much have to get this amulet, stun immunity, very good es, 60% chaos res which allows you to completely ignore that stat, really good


Jewels:
Obviously watcher's eye is not necessary, but they are kinda cheap after massive es nerfs, so mana -> es clarity watcher's eye shouldn't be a problem. For higher budget try to get wrath lightning penetration/damage as well. Other than that, healthy mind (doesn't need to be corrupted) and rare jewels, look for these mods: lightning damage, cast speed, intelligence, strength, all attributes, %es

Quick explanation of flasks - since it's a pain in the ass to balance resistances, my strategy is to just make sure that i have more lightning resistance than fire and use vinktar's and wise oak at the same time. Otherwise i don't use wise oak, because it won't work with extra fire res from dying sun. So pretty much use dying sun + utility flasks all the time and then pop wise oak + vinktar's when you need more damage. Remember that vinktar's going to shock you, we don't have resistance for that (except for time of need)

Kill all, most definitely the best option

Solaris - crit protection and aoe dmg reduction
Yugul - cold damage reduction great for both uber elder and delve

My legion character, but updated for Blight league - https://pastebin.com/Qi0mem1e

NOTE - Take Crusader or Tranquility as your skill in amulet, whichever will provide more damage for you. For me they both provide about 11% more damage

NOTE - damage for ball lightning is much lower in PoB, ball lightning with slower projectiles and good amount of extra aoe hits enemies around 10 times, so you should multiply your damage by that amount (more or less). Extra damage from Arcane Capacitor node is not shown and that's a lot of extra damage