Please Help with my Stormweaver Spark MoM EB CI build, noob to PoE

I can't figure out why I'm so squishy, now that I switched to CI. Could someone help point me in the right direction. What should I focus on as far as changes to my build. I was dying less prior to going CI. Now, I can't even tell how I die sometimes, in T14/T15 maps. Was doing way better before. I've got 1000ex and 13 divines in my inventory, so not a whole lot of upgrades that are attainable for me right now. At this point, feel like I want to ditch CI altogether.

I followed Actually Affordable Stormweaver Spark Build Guide from Mobalytics.

Doing 72k damage on Spark, have some mana problems sometimes, i've got couple mana on kill jewels to help. But as far as getting hit, soooo squishy.

https://bashify.io/i/FHuS3L

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At this point, feel like I want to ditch CI altogether.

I'm no expert by any means, but I've never run CI with EB/MoM and as long as you can get some resists, I'm not convinced it brings enough to the party to justify the cost personally. I think everyone takes it for granted but it doesn't seem like I'm dying to Chaos Damage any more often than any other type, and taking CI would drop my max-hits in every other category significantly.

I run EB/MoM on their own and while I wouldn't say I feel invincible exactly, I definitely wouldn't say I'm "squishy" either; I have ~5.6k mana and ~1.5k hp. I've got 1250 mana regen base, 200 on kill, and run Mana Remnants on top. On and off I've tried running Font of Mana on my Orb of Storms but not convinced it's worth the socket.

For reference I'm about to ding 94; I can reliably clear T16+2s with max-difficulty bosses, have downed arbiter 3 times and xesht twice. Not sure I'm ready for Simulacrum just yet but I don't think it's entirely out of reach...

Thank you for the input. Helps me feel a little better that CI isn't end all/be all. Did you incorporate Chaos resists into your build then? I may consider just working on that, as I currently have 0. But again, I die way less than when I put on CI anyway, so it's a moot point.

I'm gonna try the breachstone boss for the first time, see where i'm at, I guess.

I don't prioritize Chaos Resist, but I definitely include it on my search filters and try to get some where I can. I've had as high as 45%, but I'm only running 15% now.

You have 3.8k ES with EB? I taught gaze only gave about 1500ish ES

Most your stuff looks pretty good and your mana is high enough to drop gaze cept mana regen is low, I'd recommend spending 3-4 div on an Ingenuity (~60%) and getting new rings that prioritize high mana 200+ with good mana regen 50%+, you'll prolly need 1 with cold res since you'll lose cold res from your belt (remember a 60% ingenuity will make a 25% cold res ring give you 40% cold res)

Drop gaze get a +2/+3 proj/all spell skill ammy maybe with mana.

I see spirit on your chest but no spirit anywhere else for Cast on Shock? if you wanna use Cast on Shock I'd recommend +2 ammy with spirit maybe mana if possible.

Also If you like it you can change your chest piece since faster start of es will no longer be useful, if you got enough mana regen from rings you can skip the implicit and get as high ES as or you can try and get implicit mana regen but that can increase the cost a fair bit for a good one.

oh and are you dying to lightning dmg?
if you get hit for 10k Lightning dmg you take 3.1k dmg, if you cap Lightning res you'd only take 2.5k dmg that extra 6% is a big difference.
Change your boot socket to lightning res rune (sockets in gloves, boots and focus give very little bonuses to def/dps you can easily use em to cap res)

I also started a guide with more info in https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3725168

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Thank you for the input. Helps me feel a little better that CI isn't end all/be all.

I'm still "going strong" without CI or any of the ES-granting a lot of people include to supplement EB.

https://maxroll.gg/poe2/pob/kwgbq0dk

T18s w/ max boss difficulty are pretty much a gimme now unless they combine Ailment Threshold & Elemental Resistance with a big health boost, but I have enough 16s now to just avoid those.

I'm 8/8 Breach and 4/8 Arbiter, though my last Arbiter kill took ~8s so I'm confident I would have no trouble with additional kills - I've just had dogbutt luck w/ Citadel placement and haven't felt compelled to fork over the exalts for extra Faded fragments.

Again, no argument this is superior to the ES approach in any sense, but I do enjoy bucking the trend a bit and sticking with this goofy build for as long as I have.

PoB estimates of effective health and DPS against fully-shocked L84 pinnacle boss: https://i.imgur.com/u3V84Mg.png

Can't necessarily say that I'm against removing CI. You are forced to make some hard decisions with gear affixes by trying to find chaos res, but its your character.

On the dps-side of things, I can agree with what is posted above, and add my $.02. Try changing the annointment on your amulet. Lightning Rod is probably the best (and most expensive), and Wild Storm is a good alternative. Slightly less expensive, but still worth it.

If you can't afford a +spell amulet to replace gaze, +projectile amulets are a budget option.

edit: also finding breach rings would be better ring choices too. Even without Ingenuity belt, breach rings can do 50% modifiers instead of just 20%

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You are forced to make some hard decisions with gear affixes by trying to find chaos res, but its your character.

I'm just not seeing this play out the way everyone keeps insisting it should.

I'm running 10% Chaos Resist at the moment and I definitely don't feel like the absence of it has been a contributing factor to any of the relatively few deaths I've suffered in the last couple months. I'm either dying to one-shot pinnacle boss mechanics (like everyone else), or I'm running maps with dangerous ailment synergies that end up freezing or stun-locking me at a bad time which again I'm not getting out of there with CI either.

Without ES to take double damage from Chaos, it's just another element to me - and it's one that seems to occur less frequently, and often in the form of DoTs which I can basically ignore because they're never strong enough to overwhelm my ~1700 mana regen.

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Kerchunk#7797 wrote:

I'm just not seeing this play out the way everyone keeps insisting it should.

for mid-tier builds or middle tier progress its not so bad. It also depends a lot on if you're playing with Mind over Matter and/or Eldritch Battery.

Chaos damage falls into a lot of little categories and aoes on the ground and sometimes its not always visible. CI just makes the game a little bit easier when watching your feet.


as for finding the chaos res - well that just comes down to space on gear. Chaos Resistance is a suffix. Our other desirable suffixes are:

-Fire Res
-Lightning Res
-Cold Res
-Int

On focus and jewelry, we also have:

-Cast speed
-skill/projectile levels
-All Res
-Spell crit chance
-Spell crit dmg


lastly, for some tweaking we have minor perks:

-reduced duration of ailments
-rarity
-mana regen

Again, build your character how you want, but you have a limited number of spaces to fit the above suffixes in on your gear and then you want to add chaos res on top of it. By all means, you're free to run around with 10% chaos res. It's not uncommon. But if you skip on CI, you're going to want up to 75% chaos res. It will make a huge difference, even if it deals double damage to ES.

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for mid-tier builds or middle tier progress its not so bad.

I mean, like I said I'm clearing T18s under 400% semi-afk at this point; I'm 8/8 on Arbiter & Xesht and 4/8 for Simulacrum. Not sure I would personally classify that as "mid-tier," but I'll grant it probably qualifies as such for some folks.

Still I feel pretty strongly the rhetoric around CI being "mandatory" seems overblown to me and largely a carryover from PoE1 where Chaos damage just hit differently.

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It also depends a lot on if you're playing with Mind over Matter and/or Eldritch Battery.

Oh, well yeah of course - that's the alternative I'm suggesting. I run EB + MoM without CI. With a ~15d build I've got 1.6k health and a smidge over 6k mana with ~1.6k regen.

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Chaos damage falls into a lot of little categories and aoes on the ground and sometimes its not always visible. CI just makes the game a little bit easier when watching your feet.

So this is what I'm saying. I just don't feel it at all. Your ES is taking double damage from Chaos, but my Mana is not. My Mana is recharging constantly while I'm walking over those ground effects, unlike your ES which will not recharge as long as you're in the effect. As it is, neither Poison nor ground effects seem to register to me at all and neither have contributed to any of my recent deaths.

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Again, build your character how you want, but you have a limited number of spaces to fit the above suffixes in on your gear and then you want to add chaos res on top of it.

You obviously seem convinced that you know all there is to know about this and that's fine - your character is yours as mine is mine. I'm just telling you that my experience in the game is not reflective of comments like yours.

Not only do I not feel overly compelled to invest affix slots in Chaos Resist, but I also feel like I might have more freedom than you in my passive tree because ES and ES% are irrelevant - every node you have assigned to ES is one I can invest in Mana which doubles as a damage scalar for me (or regen leading to the aforementioned ability to ignore damage over time).

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even if it deals double damage to ES.

It deals double damage AND stops it from regenerating is what I think you're ignoring. Mana is regenerating constantly, 1.6-1.8k per second every second no matter how much damage I'm taking. Add that up over the course of a map or boss fight compared to how often your ES is recharging and I think you will start to see where I'm coming from.

If you have 7600 ES and are taking 3.2k DPS (ES/s) from Chaos, you're going to die in ~2 seconds. With the same Effect, I will be taking 1.6k DPS and regenerating slightly more than that. I can go AFK and pee and I'll be full health and mana when I get back...

Also, if it wasn't obvious this also means my Mana flask doubles as a health/shield flask -- my Melting Maelstrom gives me 7x instant full heals of almost 6k "health" and there's nothing comparable for ES -- and I still have 10 charges of my health flask left over if ever get around to needing it (I don't).

Like again man I'm not saying my approach is superior - I'm just saying it's not nearly as inferior as people seem to think. CI just doesn't seem like a "must have" the way it was in PoE1.