[3.14] No BS Storm Brand Hierophant | Tanky | League Starter | Good DPS & Clear
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Significant Recent Edits
4/25/2021 - Added FAQ 4/15/2021 - Added the 3.14 update 3/28/2021 - Updated gems Section 3/5/2021 - Updated all gear to my end of league gear ~150Ex 3.15 Update I will not be playing PoE in the 3.15 league therefore this build will not be updated and I will not be answering questions in the comments. I pick up PoE again a future league I will update the build then. (provided it still works.) Welcome to my Strom Brand guide. This is a build I created in 3.13 in the hopes of doing all content after I burned out of 3.12 due to lack of survivability and repeated deaths. This build is an excellent all around league start build. With this build I have hit level 97 and done all boss related content solo and deathless (Excluding 'The Feared' which took me 4 portals). The only content I haven't been able to run is 100% Delirium 34% Beyond memes but with enough investment into an explody chest I'm sure you could. Finally this is only my second build guide and the first one I've put any real effort into. Please forgive any errors in the formatting.  About The Build
Pros/Cons
+Immune to elemental ailments +9k+ EHP + 3k Arcane cloak with ~70% uptime +2k Life recovery a second +HC Viable +League Start Viable +Straightforward to scale +New Player Friendly +Good Bossing ~20% Phys reduction ~Decent Clear -Hard to get 3k mana regen/sec -Not SSF Friendly has some core uniques -Can't do all Map mods, Ele Reflect and no Regen in particular -No HoGM shenanigans -The amount of mana regen we want can be annoying to get Clear 6/10 | Bossing 8/10 | Survivability 7/10 | Budget 7/10
PoB Links
You Will need the Path of Building Community Fork Cheap: https://pastebin.com/b5jQwwGK Expensive: https://pastebin.com/9azTXzMx Very Expensive: https://pastebin.com/sMt8Tx1X
Build Mechanics
Elemental Ailment Immunity Elemental ailments in PoE include Ignite, Scorch, Chill, Freeze, Brittle, Shock, and Sap. Being immune to Chill, Freeze, Sap, and Ignite Immunity is purely QoL Being immune to Brittle, Shock, and especially Scorch makes us much harder to 1 Shot This is Link to the PoE Wiki page on Ailments pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Ailment Storm Brand Storm Brand is my favorite skill in the game, It's also mechanically one of the best. How Storm Brand works in 6 Steps 1. You use the skill Placing a Brand on the ground. 2. The Brand will jump to an enemy in it's range dealing damage to that enemy and a few enemies around it. Storm Brand will deal extra damage to the enemy it is attached to. 3. You get to dodge attacks while your brands deal damage. 4.??? 5. Profit 6. Repeat With the Keystone "Rune Binder" we can have 2 Storm Brands active at once allowing us to double our DPS. unfortunately PoB does not calculate this so just remember that your damage is 2x whatever PoB says it is. Archmage Archmage will give us 6% of our Unreserved Mana as extra Added Flat Lightning Damage. in addition to adding a % of the mana cost of the skill as extra Added Flat Lightning Damage. TL;DR More Mana = Good Arcane Cloak We Bind Arcane Cloak to Left Click (Or whatever button you move with.) we can do this because Arcane Cloak is an Instant skill This means it does not interrupt your movement. Since we have it bound to your walk command it will activate on cooldown eating 60% of your current mana to give us ~3k EHP + ~420 Lightning damage to spells for up to 7 seconds every 10 seconds. Sigil of Power Sigil of Power places a circle on the ground. Every 400 mana we spend while standing in the circle give it a stage, the skill can have up to 4 stages. It can gain a max of 1 stage a second. Every stage the skill have will grant us a significant amount of Added Flat Lightning Damage while We are standing in the circle. In addition to this when at max stages Enemies will deal 20% Dess Damage to us while They are standing in the circle The Agnostic, Mind Over Matter & Elemental Overload These are the 3 keystones that are core to the build that I have yet to mention. Mind over Matter lets us take 30% (Although we scale this up to 50%) of the damage we take from our mana pool before out life pool. this doubles our EHP if we have enough mana. Elemental Overload Gives us 40% MORE damage if we have crit recently but stops us from scaling crit. You can try to scale crit if you want but I will be expensive. The Agnostic Eats 20% of our maximum mana per second to give us that much life regen. This is a very powerful defensive node with a very significant cost. I recommend having at least 1500 Mana regen a second before you spec into this. ideally you would want 3000.
Videos
--This first set of videos are done with 5Ex or less investment-- Mastermind Area Level 83 https://youtu.be/6qpWfkjYgdY 8 Second A8 Baran Kill https://youtu.be/3VWYdFRYcFE Simulacrum Waves 18-20 https://youtu.be/nMZw8imn79U Uber Elder https://youtu.be/xAm40AthFeU --Videos below this line are using wands this means they cost more than 5Ex in gear-- Face Tanking Shaper Slam https://youtu.be/4W9Z0eZTst8 Maven (Deathless) https://youtu.be/e_Iyei-EMxM Sirus A8 https://youtu.be/1y2UOTQL75Q Gems & Gear
Gems
6-Link This can be in your Staff if you are using one or your Body Amour Storm Brand Setup: Storm Brand - Swiftbrand - Controlled Destruction - Conc Effect - Archmage - Elemental Focus Other Core Links This is your Gloves, Helmet, Boots Arcane Cloak Setup: Arcane Cloak - Arcane Surge - Second Wind - if you have a 4th slot open add Increased Duration Curse Setup V1: Orb of Storms - Hextouch - Conductivity - Increased AoE You could remove increased AoE to put this into a 3 Link Curse Setup V2: Wave of Conviction - Conductivity - Increased Duration Area Control: Sigil of Power - Increased AoE - Second Wind - If you have a 4th slot open Void Sphere is good here Movement Setup: Flame Dash -Second Wind You could honestly just put Flame Dash in your area control setup in place of Increased AoE or Void Sphere Less core links CWDT Setup: Lv1 Cast When Damage Taken - Lv1 Wave of Conviction - Lv 3 Summon Lightning/Chaos Golem We use a lv 1 CWDT here because we want it activating as often as possible and gem level is pretty irrelevant for these two gems. Essence Worm: Wrath Aura Misc gems Vaal RF, Clarity, Brand Recall, Or Portal I like to put these in my wand with 'Trigger a socketed spell when you use a skill'
Gear
Weapon
This is an excellent Staff to get you started. It is not the highest DPS but you can get it super cheap even on Day 1 of the league. On top of that you can kind of just but it already 6-Linked for ~1 ex. The reason this is good is because our BiS Body amour is a Cloak of Defiance which is quite expensive to buy already 6-linked. Rare wands are BiS for us once we get a 6L Cloak of Defiance since we we get more damage and survivability from them. The 3 mandatory mods on these items are as follows. 15% Cast Speed or more 40% Mana Regen or more 50% Lightning Spell Damage or more Past That if you want to spend more to Min-Max some excellent mods are #% of Lightning/Non-Chaos as extra Chaos +1 level to all lightning spell skill gems #% Chance to Unnerve on Hit (Hunter) #% Lightning Pen / #% Lightning Pen + Added Flat Lightning Damage (Crusader) Conductivity on Hit with #% Increased effect (Crusader) Lightning Exposure on Hit (Crusader)
Helmet
This is my current helmet it's pretty close to the dream but it was quite expensive. You don't need somnthing like this to clear all content but if you want to min-max it will be a solid power boost. I payed ~25 Ex for this These are the helmets I was using before. The one on the left was 20C and the one on the right was 2Ex. Don't underestimate the mana regen mod early in the league when you don't have wands yet. The stat Priority on our helmet is: +# to Maximum Life Storm Brand lab enchant for 12% lightning pen Nearby Enemies have -#% to Lightning Res +# to Maximum Mana Mana Anything extra is just a bonus
Body Amour
Cloak of Defiance is absolutely Best in Slot no questions asked. It gives us Mana Regen, Flat Mana, 10% Extra Mind Over Matter, and Actual Mind Over Matter. It's important that we get MoM from here so we can use a timeless jewel on Mind Over Matter on our tree. You can also put a harvest enchant on it since we don't really care about ES or Evasion. Try to Aim for a Dex, Mana, Life, or Ele Res enchant.
Gloves & Boots
This is a super simple rare slot for us. All you need is decent Life, Mana, and Res. You should be able to get to red maps with less than 30c In either of these slots. If you want to upgrade them further Chaos res is always good. If you want to upgrade further getting Unnerve on hit on your gloves is quite nice and while I personally didn't Elusive + Tailwind boots would be great too. Our stat Priority here is: +# to Resistances +# to Maximum Life +#% Increased Movement Speed (On boots) +# to Maximum Mana
Amulet & Anoints
This is the Amulet we want to use it gives us Mana, Mana Regen, and reduced attribute cost. All very good for us. If you can't afford this early on just wait they tend to drop in price quick. In terms of Anoints we have a few options Mind Drinker Verdant Teal Teal If you need mana recovery while mapping 0.4% of Attack Damage Leeched as Mana 18% increased maximum Mana Recover 2% of Mana on Kill Runesmith Azure Crimson Silver Best DPS node 12% increased Cast Speed with Brand Skills You can Cast an additional Brand Enemies take 5% increased Damage for each of your Brands Attached to Battle Rouse Sepia Verdant Azure Super cheap for an early game amulet 10% of Damage taken gained as Mana over 4 seconds when Hit 15% increased maximum Mana +15 to maximum Mana Revelry Amber Violet Black Best mana node 10% increased Effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills on Enemies 15% increased maximum Mana +25 to maximum Mana Heart of the Warrior Violet Silver Golden Best Life node +10 to Strength +20 to maximum Life 10% increased maximum Life
Rings & Belt
This is another a very important part of the build, without it we can't use our Wrath Aura. They usually don't cost more than like 6c so just farm Chaos recipe until you can get it. These are the three rings I have used. The on the left was 9c early into the league the one in the middle was 50c. the one on the right was 18Ex All we're looking for on this slot are Ele Res, Life and mana stuff. This is a great spot to get mana regen before you upgrade to wands. If you want to upgrade this slot Atlas influences aren't that big, Although Baran Prefixes are decent but getting Dex without sacrificing anything allows us to free up a couple passive points. There is a Heist base that has +1 Suffix -1 Prefix. I imagine that could be quite good. Stat Priority is: +# to Resistances +# to Maximum Life #% increased Mana Regen +# to Maximum Mana +# to Dex There is also a cheap craft for 'Damage taken Recouped as Mana' if you have this from Un-Veiling it's quite good. This is the best I am using right now, it's nothing special just a Stygian Vise with Life, Mana, Ele Res.
Jewels
We like to use this timeless Jewel to give ourselves 3% More damage per power charge since we always have 4 power charges we get 12% more damage. You can make this convert Mind over Matter since we already have it in our Body Amour. Watcher's eyes can get VERY expensive the one linked here was only 30c try to get as many of these mods as you can afford. for endgame I recommend Mana Recovery rate and Lightning Pen, that should cost around 15ex. (15-20)% of Damage taken gained as Mana over 4 seconds when Hit while affected by Clarity (10-15)% increased Mana Recovery Rate while affected by Clarity (10-15)% chance to Recover 10% of Mana when you use a Skill while affected by Clarity (40-60)% increased Lightning Damage while affected by Wrath Damage Penetrates (10-15)% Lightning Resistance while affected by Wrath This is just our Abyss Jewel for our belt it's not that important. Just try to get 30+ life and whatever else you want. Mana and Ele Res are both good. Cluster Jewels are super important for Storm Brand try to get these as soon as you get some decent gear online This is the large cluster jewel I was using early into the league. Just make sure you get 8 added passive skills The best notables in order are: Scintillating Idea Supercharge Disorienting Display(This is a suffix so you can have it in addition to 2 prefixes) Storm Drinker Tempt the Storm Prismatic Heart These are the two Medium cluster jewels that I am using right now the Important notable on here is 'Brand Loyalty' the other Notable isn't as important because they are all good. For these make sure you get 4 or 5 added passive skills.
Flasks
These are the 5 flasks that I would Recommend using for the build. If you don't feel you need the Movement Speed, or Chaos res you could swap those flasks for the ones below. I often swap between Quartz and Basalt based on the content I am running. Also make sure you have at least 2 magic flasks at all times to put Warding and Staunching on. Before You Start
Leveling
Kill All Bandits Get Storm Brand after killing Merveil in Act 1. Don't use Archmage until you have enough mana and mana regen to do so. Remember to level 6 Storm Brands in offhand. Ascendancy order is: Arcane Blessing > Divine Guidance > Illuminated Devotion > Conviction of Power 44 Points
Spoiler
 93 Points
Spoiler
 114 Points if you somehow don't have cluster jewels at lv 91
Spoiler
Map-Mods
Ele reflect This is a big no-no you will instantly kill yourself. No Regen Surprisingly we can actually do this if we are 1. Very carful 2. Take Arcane Cloak off of left click 3. The map has no other scary Mods XYZ Curse Just make sure you have a Warding flask. Players have #% Less Recovery Just don't stack with too many Monster damage mods. Monster Damage Mods This is just any mod that makes the things in the map deal more damage to you. Don't stack too many of these, it will prevent you from leveling past the low 90's. Any other map mods are irrelevant and don't need to be considered
FAQ
Why do we have ES gear, doesn't 'The Agnostic' make our ES 0? We use ES gear because we use mainly blue skill gems and it's much easier to get blue sockets on ES gear. Additionally even if we did switch to Evasion or Amour we wouldn't see any increase in survivability because of how low our investment into those stats is. It says we blind enemies in PoB how? We get this on our large cluster jewel the mod is called 'Disorienting Display' Why don't we take 'Sign of Purpose'? Sign of Purpose doesn't really do anything for us. Brand recall is largely worthless in many storm brand builds now. The brand activation frequency is nice but it really can't compete with the defensive stats from having 4 endurance charges. Why do we take elemental overload, wouldn't this waste the power charges we get from our ascendancy? First things first here. You can skip ele overload and go crit if you want it will just be more expensive. Second we don't waste the power charges because of inner conviction they give us 12% MORE damage. Finally that ascendancy would be worth it for us even without the power charges, endurance charges are just such a nice defensive layer. Make Strom Brand great again. Last edited by THE_NAT on Jul 4, 2021, 3:41:29 PM Last bumped on Jul 15, 2021, 4:42:44 PM
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Thanks for this very concise guide. Will be trying it out! Looking forward to updates (min-maxing?)!
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" Hope the build goes well for you! I do plan on Min-Maxing the build to some extent. I actually upgraded the helmet I'm using today I also want to experiment with wands once I get a 6l Cloak of Defiance. but that will probably get quite expensive. Make Strom Brand great again. Last edited by THE_NAT on Jan 27, 2021, 3:43:56 AM
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Rerolling my character into this build, all seems good and enjoyable, also a question from me, shouldn't Skyforth be better than rare boots?
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" Skyforth is not better. The only benefit we get from Skyforth is 'Stun Threshold is based on 500% of your Mana instead of Life' That doesn't do much for us since as long as we have brine king we can't get stun-locked and if we do take a stun every now and then it doesn't actually matter that much because our Brands will continue dealing damage and kill whatever stunned us. You also lose out on a piece of rare gear which makes capping res much harder. Make Strom Brand great again.
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Build works great so far! Im just getting into it and havent gotten agnostic yet. I'm wondering what you're opinion on skipping agnostic with this build is? I feel like the life regen might not be worth losing your entire shield. Hoping to get your thoughts.
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" Short Answer: ES is fine if you have a way to invest into recharging it, although even then it's probably still worse. since you wouldn't be likely to hit 1000 Regen/sec. Long Answer: In PoE the main difference between ES and HP is that you can have more ES but HP is easier to recover. It's the same with this build. Yes you have more EHP if you don't take agnostic and perhaps that's better vs bosses if you are good at not getting hit. However we already have 11k EHP in situations where we aren't getting hit often an extra 1-2k won't do much for us since almost anything in the game that deals over 11k Damage in one hit also deals over 13k damage in one hit. It would also be really bad into packs where the fear isn't usually getting 1shot so much as being hit a lot quickly. Regen is a good way to counteract this since it means that were probably always close to full health so if something wants to kill us it has to do upwards of 7k in one hit. The biggest upside of not taking agnostic is actually that we don't need to cover the 1000+ mana regen/sec cost of using it; which can really screw you if you don't have enough mana regen for Agnostic + MoM + Casting a 700 mana spell. Hope this explained it well sorry if it was a bit rambley Make Strom Brand great again.
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Finally a tanky storm brand build. Taking damage from mana before life and with almost 1500 mana a second, I've tanked all maps so far and havnt died yet. Still got 9 more levels and 9 more passive yet to increase the mana regen. Thanks for the build =D
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Hello and thanks for the build!
I'm looking for ways to speed up the clear, how do you think would penance brand work here with 25% phys to light on tree and 25% more conversion on gloves plus alt quality swift brand for more attached duration? | |
" It's probably fine. I haven't played around much with Penance Brand, but I imagine that could work well. The build is mostly just scaling mana and throwing on a skill. Make Strom Brand great again.
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