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PoE 2 Build

STORM MAGE - LICH MINION WALKING SIMULATOR @animeprincess

0.2 DotH
presentationWitch
presentationLich
End Game
Creator
Updated on May 12, 2025
May 12, 2025

Build Overview

Storm Mages are my favorite minion build of 0.2.0 because they are quick at clearing maps, and are an easy zero-button walking sim playstyle. We kill monsters as soon as they show up on the screen, which makes it very safe to level with. And with even decent amounts of investment, it can chunk bosses.

Strengths and Weaknesses

  • Easy to play
  • Fast mapping
  • Zero button playstyle
  • Strong Bosser
  • Very Tanky (10k+ energy shield)
  • Chaos based damage. (Energy shield inherently takes double damage from chaos. Get chaos resistance to counters this. Ritual mechanic has alot of chaos explosions, so its dangerous)
  • Simulacrum. (This can be hard but I will have a deepdive video on my channel shortly to go over specific build adjustments to make it easier)

Build Variants

I have included TWO different skill gem variants.

The default setup is how I would recommend starting off when on lower budgets. When investment and DPS start to ramp up, the High Damage Variant adds in a support storm mage so we can further increase our main storm mages damage! Use the build variant tabs to change to the higher damage setup.

Equipment

item
2
item
4
item
1
item
7
item
6
item
4
item
3
item
8
item
9
item
10
item
Equipment Priority
0
Helmet
Kamasan Tiara
1
Main Hand
Omen Sceptre
2
Off Hand
Sunsplinter
3
Left Ring
Ventor's Gamble
4
Right Ring
Ventor's Gamble
5
Amulet
Solar Amulet
6
Body
Vile Robe
7
Gloves
Embroidered Gloves
8
Belt
Heavy Belt
9
Boots
Bound Sandals

OFFHAND WEAPON OPTIONS:

Sunsplinter is one of two options for a unique offhand. It needs to have +3 to lightning skill gems (the range is 1-3). The upside of this option is max res, 20% block, and +3 instead of +2. Double check when buying Sunsplinter that you are being given one with +3 on Lightning Skills. Soul Core of Zantipi helps with the Dex requirement of this shield.

Trenchtimbre is an alternative, and it needs to have +2 to lightning skill gems (the range is 1-2). The upside of this would be we can put in spirit soul cores (two if you have corrupted 2 sockets), and it also lets us use the movement skill Leap Slam, for faster mapping.

The Third option is a rare shield. For the rare shield you want to get high block chance (40% or more) and ideally fill out some res or other stats you need. You need to spec the passive Wide Barrier on the far left of the tree in order to get full advantage of this option.


AMULET ANOINT OPTIONS:

Fleshcrafting: defensive for minions

Quick Response: defensive for our own character *NOTE: We actually get double value from Quick Response. We can have a tiny bit of life missing, and its impossible to get that back because of our ascendancy node Eternal Life. Therefore we get an insane amount of ES recharge start.

Right Hand of Darkness offensive for minions


GENERAL STAT PRIORITY FOR PREFIXES:

1) % energy shield paired with flat energy shield

we are at the end of the day an energy shield based character, and having these 2 ES prefixes combined is how we reach monumental levels of energy shield

2) flat life

flat life is important because our mana regeneration rate is based on the amount of flat life we have. Do note that you can scale the mana regen using the % mana regen stat found on gear suffixes as well as on the passive tree, so we do not have to fully rely on life.

3) flat mana

our few spells cost a decent chunk of mana, so it would not hurt to have a slightly larger mana pool if we can get a prefix or two for mana. keep in mind scaling life also scales mana regen, so either of these stats are going to help.

SPECIFIC GEAR PREFIXES TO LOOK OUT FOR:

1) body armor: 50-61 spirit

2) amulet: 40-50 spirit


GENERAL STAT PRIORITY FOR SUFFIXES:

1) cap resistances

75% ele resist is a must, and try and get 75% chaos res as possible because our weakness is naturally going to be chaos damage (es takes double damage from chaos)

2) attributes

we will need some amount of attributes on our gear if using Sunsplinter shield. either dex or int and use the passive tree pathing nodes to fill in the gaps

3) % mana regeneration

some amount of mana regen will go a long way. it enables us to spam a spell in order to max 56% more damage out of Sigil of Power

SPECIFIC GEAR PREFIXES TO LOOK OUT FOR:

helmet: +2 to minion skill gems

amulet: +2-3 to minion skill gems


SCEPTRE STAT PRIO:

HIGH: +4 minion levels

HIGH: % spirit

HIGH: Allies in your Presence have #% increased Cast Speed

MEDIUM: #% increased Spirit, +# to maximum Mana (hybrid modifier)

MEDIUM: Allies in your Presence deal #% increased Damage

OPTIONAL: #% increased Presence Area of Effect

OPTIONAL: Allies in your Presence have #% increased Critical Hit Chance

OPTIONAL: Allies in your Presence have #% increased Critical Damage Bonus

(Note: see an example of an ideal sceptre in the Equipment. Realistically we can't get every single one of these stats)




Skill Gems

Support Gem Requirements:

Str 15

Dex 25

Int 75

Expand all
1

Skeletal Storm Mage

Skeletal Storm Mage
supportfastercastplayer
supportfeedingfrenzyplayer
supportminionmasteryplayer
supportmusterplayer
supportlightningpenetrationplayer
2

Skeletal Cleric

Skeletal Cleric
supportsacrificiallambplayer
supportlastgaspplayer
supportcooldownreductionplayer
3

Conductivity

Conductivity
supportfocusedcurseplayer
supportcurseeffectplayer
supportinspirationplayer
4

Pain Offering

Pain Offering
supportmeatshieldplayer
supportablationplayer
5

Convalescence

Convalescence
6

Skeletal Frost Mage

Skeletal Frost Mage
supportcommandment
supportbiddingplayer
supportspellechoplayer
supportcoldmasteryplayer
supportcoldpenetrationplayer
7

Bind Spectre

Bind Spectre
supportblindplayer
supportmaimplayer
supportcullingstrikeplayer
8

Sigil of Power

Sigil of Power
supportincreasedareaofeffectplayer
moredurationsupportplayer
9

Blink

Blink
Gem Priority
+23

MAIN MINIONS:

1.


Skeletal Storm Mage: This is your main damage dealer and what we dump our spirit into. We do NOT need a support storm mage, because we use Conductivity and Lightning Penetration which will bring most bosses to near 0 res, and pen doesn't help to bring res into the negatives so its just a waste of a minion. I like to let me main storm mages shock, hence no Ele focus support here. Allowing them to shock guarantees perfect uptime on shock.

2.

Skeletal Cleric We use two of these minions. We need more than 1 because one of them will be dying in boss fights to our Pain Offering. If you have a Rattling Sceptre base, you can kill the Skeletal Warrior's instead. It's up to you if you keep two clerics or drop it down to one. Two will improve survivability.

3.

Spectre: {0} We use a Terracotta Soldier to buff our storm mage's Muster by 7%. This spectre only costs 10 spirit and is found in act 2 The Lost City. Use only 1.


OPTIONAL MINIONS:

1.

Skeletal Storm Mage SUPPORT MINION. If you have high damage on your character, you can opt to run a 2nd gem setup on another Storm Mage, in order to get even MORE damage. You can find this setup in the alternate build variant tab. What changes, is we remove Lightning Penetration from our main Skeletal Storm Mage and replace it with Elemental Focus. Now we can only shock with this second support storm mage (you only summon 1 of them). The support storm mage has these things: Conduction, Lightning Exposure, Strip Away, Lightning Mastery. In order to make sure this is effective, fight difficult map bosses and check their HP bar to make sure they are being shocked as well as getting the lightning exposure debuff. If you are not able to consistently apply these debuffs, it will be best to use only the main Storm Mage setup.

2.

Skeletal Frost Mage's add a button press with their active Frost Bomb. This is good value damage but we are lazy minion players so this is entirely optional lol. You use this as a nuke button for bosses but honestly its not very important and it might even get you killed. If used, use 1, or 2 max. 2 will give you more frost bomb cooldowns.


SPELL GEM NOTES:

Despite saying this is a 0-button build, I have included some buttons here. They can be used sparingly in maps when you need a 'damage steroid' for a particularly hard encounter. They should probably always be used for map bosses.

Conductivity: You have the option to leave this at level 9 to lower the mana cost, if necessary. It won't be too much of a loss in damage, and its VERY Important to keep our mana above 35% or else we lose the bonus damage from Necromantic Conduit ascendancy node.

Pain Offering will always kill a cleric due to the Sacrificial Lamb support attached to it. This will be a massive damage amp.

Sigil of Power gives by default 14% more damage to all the minions inside of it. I will explain how to use this in detail in the attached video guide. It's kind of complicated to set this up because it involves a weapon swap. When its setup you will just tap this button before tapping Conductivity and that will setup your bossing spell combo. You will finish the combo off by pressing Pain Offering

Convalescence is a button that instantly starts our energy shield recharge. This is a panic button for dangerous situations. I will also explain how to set this up properly in the attached video guide. Right now it is bugged in our favor, and is free of spirit cost if setup properly.

Blink is entirely optional. If you use this use it with the weapon swap. I mostly use it to backtrack after the map is cleared. I do not press this regularly.

Leap Slam can be used if you are using Trenchtimbre in your offhand. This is a great movement skill option.

Passive Tree

main:
123
123
set 1:
20
20
set 2:
20
20

WEAPON SWAP SETUPS:

The pink nodes are weapon swap 1. They are purely damage nodes.

The green nodes are weapon swap 2. They are important. They are used to drastically increase the duration and area of effect of Sigil of Power, which we get from equipping a Chiming Staff with level 18 Sigil of Power in the weapon implicit. If you choose to not do this, the build will feel alot worse and will do less damage, since you will have to cast sigil more often which wastes time.


ASCENDANCY NOTES:

1. Necromantic Conduit

Necromantic Conduit is a damage buff, which synergizes with the 'Right Hand of Darkness' notable passive skill, in order to dramatically amplify our minions damage. This powerful upside comes with the downside of 5% max mana loss per second. We can grab a bit of mana regen on the tree to help maintain our mana, and will likely have to rely on a mana pot until our 2nd ascendancy point.

2. Soulless Form

Soulless form has been made better with the recent change to Necro Conduit that now affects max mana instead of current mana. We will have an easier time with the mana penalty of necromantic conduit by scaling our life values. This node changes our base mana to be equal to a % of our total life, which results in us having ALOT more base mana. This in turn will mean % mana regen on the tree is much more effective. You will never have mana problems with this allocated. This is great news because of the mana drain from the previous point.

3. Eternal Life

On April 10th, there was a patch where ES was massively nerfed and bleeds go through ES. Thankfully this node protects us from this nerf, and is now a mandatory pickup (used to be optional). We can also think of this node as 15% dmg reduction because of the 10% on Soulless Form and 5% on the tree.

4. Crystalline Phylactery

This equates to essentially 2 jewel slots, and a good amount of ES on the travel point.


LEVELING PROGRESSION:

This is an endgame guide. If you want to see progression, please look up my leaguestarter guide found here:

[0.2] LICH Minions Leaguestarter @animeprincess - PoE 2 Witch Build Guide

Atlas Tree

HOW TO RUN THE TOWERS

We want two towers or more overlapping. We should a 6 mod map in order to unlock 3 tablet slots.


HOW TO ROLL MAPS

I would search all my maps for an existing rarity roll, and then exalt to fill up the prefixes with more good stuff. Our build is very strong so we can handle bad suffixes, but there is no reason to add them after the prefixes are full.

mandatory map mod: ~50% increased rarity or better

bad map mods: % increased gold, recovery rate of energy shield


HOW TO CHOOSE TABLETS

I like to run 1 expedition, 1 breach, 1 boss tablet. for the boss tablet make sure the implicit has the full 4 bosses

good prefix: increased rarity found in maps

suffixes: this is less important than the prefixes.


This is in essence 90% of what I am doing and will result in good drops. you can ask me in twitch chat if you want me to go into more detail about something specific about juicing.




How it Plays

Current bugs

Sometimes the Skeletal Storm Mage will be casting arc and it will not quite reach the target. this is a bug and you will have to reposition the mages with Direct Minions command in this case. It doesn't happen all the time but be mindful of this and keep an eye out.


Why is my life not coming back?

This is because of Eternal Life ascendancy node. If you want to fix your life in your hideout, you can temporary equip Visage of Ayah in order to completely remove your energy shield, which will let you Ultimate Life Flask up to full.

Video Guide

Table of Contents

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