STORM MAGE - LICH MINION WALKING SIMULATOR @animeprincess
Build Overview
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
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
Skeletal Storm Mage
Skeletal Cleric
Conductivity
Pain Offering
Convalescence
Skeletal Frost Mage
Bind Spectre
Sigil of Power
Blink























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
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
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