Storm Brand Hierophant Templar Build Guide - Path of Exile 3.24

1. Build introduction
2. Build Mechanics
3. Ascendancy, Pantheon and Bandits
4. Gems
5. Leveling + Passive Skill tree
6. Items
7. FAQ
8. How to play
9. Optional Extras
10. Linklist

Build introduction

Hello and welcome to my Storm Brand guide! Storm Brand is one of two currently existing brands and they have a quite unique playstyle which are both very similar. With Storm Brand you set up small little thunderbolts on the ground that will jump into the face of the enemies and damage the enemy they are attached and to 2 additional enemies.As Storm Brand is a quite strong skill you can use it clearly as a league starter but you can also build it up to be an endgame clearer, which we will go into later in this guide. The start of the build is very cheap, as there are no expensive unique items we are forced to use.

Pros

• Cheap
• Strong
• Can clear all content

Cons

• no elemental reflect maps

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Build Mechanics

The skill has 2 timers on it. The first timer is the "Ground" timer and the second is the "Attached" timer. While it is attached the Attached-Timer will run and while being useless on the ground the Ground-Timer will run. This is important to understand if you want to fully understand how to handle this skill.Since recasting this skill is highly annoying, we are utilizing the skill "Brand Recall" which will fetch all brands you have active and pull them to you and add 1.2 seconds onto both timers and on top of this it gives the first jump after recalling a huge range bonus! If you have the skill gem maxed and supported with Empower and Enhance, this will enable you to almost clear a full map while only needing to cast your brands once.

Ascendancy, Pantheon and Bandits

We will use the Hierophant Ascendancy as we will be using the new Archmage which will scale our mana cost extremely but will also raise our damage massively.We will go for: Sign of Purpose -> Conviction of Power -> Divine Guidance ->Illuminated Devotion As we are going to crit a lot, we're choosing to help Alira. Pantheons are, as always, a personal choice and often depend on what you are doing, so there is no right or wrong here. But I mostly run with Lunaris and Shakari.

Gems

Our gem setups are the following:6 Link: Storm Brand - (awakened) added Lightning Damage - (awakened) Lightning Penetration - Archmage - Concentrated Effect - (awakened) Controlled Destruction 4 Link: Vaal Storm Call - (awakened) Elemental Focus - Concentrated Effect - Archmage 4 Link: Orb of Storms - Culling Strike - Summon Lightning Golem - Blind 3 Link: Flame Dash - Second Wind - Arcane Surge (9) 3 Link: Brand Recall - Empower - Enhance Please keep in mind to level Arcane Surge only to a level where a single Flame Dash activates it. The level of Empower and Enhance doesn't matter too much. It is totally fine to run them at level 3. Those give already a huge boost. Level 4 is of course the endgame version you want to have. The awakened versions of the gems are only optional endgame versions. You do not need them instantly.

Leveling + Passive Skill tree

As this build is extremely versatile with the tree, there is only a few things you have to do.

1. Rush to Runebinder
2. Rush to Runesmith and take Quick Recovery and Explosive Runes on the way

The rest of the tree is however you feel what you are missing. As you can play this build completely on rare items, you don't have any other things that require you to go to them. If you are dying a lot, take some defense things, if you are advanced, rush for damage first. Also remember that we now have Cluster Jewels. If you find really sick one, slam it in into the Jewel Socket to the right of Throat Seeker. Since you need some nodes, check Path of Building which nodes you can ditch. As the Cluster Jewels have almost 300 new nodes, it is sadly impossible to go through these.

Items

Get your gear quickly by buying POE Currency and Exalted Orbs

Our Items are easy. You wear almost only rare items with any combinations of the following mods:No

Shavronne's WrappingsSetup:

1. Life
2. Resists (Cap + 15%)
3. Flat Lightning Damage
4. % Lightning Damage
5. Mana

When you go deeper into the endgame you want a ring with 10 or more life per hit from your spells and Curse Enemies with Conductivity on hit (Level does not matter). On the second ring you want 0.4% of lightning damage leeched as life.

On your boots you want movement speed 30%+ and life regeneration and if you are very rich, you can also add "Tailwind" on your shopping list on your boots.

Shavronne's Wrappings Setup:

1. Energy Shield
2. Resists (Cap +15%)
3. Flat Lightning Damage
4. % Lightning Damage
5. Mana

For the rings you go for the same mods but instead of life per hit from your spells you are going for mana per hit from your spells.

FAQ

1. What Weapons? This is completely open to you. A lot of people like to ditch Flame Dash and use Whirling Blades, but I think that is a bad idea, at least for my playstyle. If you want to do this, you will have to go with daggers. If you want to get the most out of the spell damage, go for wands. If you want more elemental penetration go for Sambar Sceptres.
2. Dual Wield or Shield? This really depends on how well you play with the character. You can quite easily get enough damage for every boss in the game, so it is totally fine to go with one weapon and a spirit shield for easier Resists and some neat extra mods. Shield will of course give you the best way to get your char less deaths and makes it easier for you to try to get some chaos resistance too, which you need for sirus.

How to play

Since Archmage makes our skills extremely expensive, we're not just spamming our brands like you normally do, we cast 3 brands and start to Flame Dash our way through the map and spam Brand Recall as soon as everything is dead. If you have a Cinderswallow's Urn or/and Mana Gain on Hit you will easily re-cap your mana, so you can add more brands and speed up your clear speed.If you happen to find a rough Rare/Boss you drop your Orb of Storms onto the boss and put 2 Brands on the boss and then all you do is evade everything. Keep the duration of your brands in mind and try to count the active seconds of them, so you know when to recast them.When you see rare enemies or a boss just trigger your Vaal Storm Call and keep an eye on your mana as even your Vaal skill will cost mana due to Archmage!

Yes, that is all. Since the Brands stick to the enemy all by them self and automatically jump onto the next enemy, you have a lot of time stay out of bad areas and read boss fights better.

Optional Extras

As stated before, you don't need any unique items at all but these will make your life easier:

1. Shavronnes Wrappings This thing will enable you to go low life and use Pain Attunement for 30% MORE damage. If you do this, ditch the support gems for Brand Recall and use Blood Magic and Discipline. Do have Brand Recall not in a link, so have a 1 and 2 link on that said item and level Blood Magic only as far, that you still stay below 35% life or you won't be low life anymore.
2. Choir of the Storm This amulet will trigger a lightning bolt that comes out of the sky to hit the enemy for each crit you do. Has a cooldown of 0.5 seconds. It also increases your maximum mana, lightning damage and raises your crit depending on your lightning resistance.
3. Mark of the Shaper If you take this, keep in mind that your other ring has to be Crusader + Elder influenced which costs quite some money, especially since you want very specific mods in combination. So keep this as one of your very last edits in your build when you have quite some Exalted Orbs ready.
4. Skyforth These high end boots should only be on your list if you can keep your resistances up even though you have a Shavronnes Wrappings and Choir of the Storm equipped. These give you more mana and with that more damage and you're very stun immune as you have tons of mana.

For flasks we have some that can be interesting but keep in mind to have at least one Immune to Bleeding flask and one Freeze Immunity Flask. Flasks are very crucial for every build and should always be adopted to your own play style. Refer to Path of Building for the standard setup but these are a few very good flasks you can use.

1. Rumi's Concoction If you see yourself dying a lot, this can help you with block chance.
2. Bottled Faith Extremely expensive but awesome.
3. Atziri's Promise Leech and some Chaos Damage is always nice
4. Vessel of Vinktar (Penetration) Gives you a higher lightning penetration while it is active.
5. Wise Oak This is a nice flask if you manage to have all 3 resistances at the very same value. Else do not bother with it.
6. Cinderswallow Urn One of the best flasks in the game. Try to get it with crit on it. But regeneration is okay too. We mostly want it for the regeneration on kill as it is by percent and not flat. While in maps, delve or delirium you are pretty much immortal unless you get one-shotted.

Jewels

Jewels are very strong and we have one jewel that will boost us extremely and that is the Fevered Mind. This raises our mana costs by 50%, which also raises our damage thanks to Archmage and we can level Arcane Surge a bit higher thanks to this, and raises our damage, too.

The other jewels we would like to have are some Cluster Jewels. Most importantly we want Life or Energy Shield Cluster Jewels as Big and Small and Brand Jewel as Medium. There are quite some interesting mods but which of them are really interesting for you really depend on your current gear and their values, so it is sadly impossible, for this build, to determine "best" mods on them. Keep in mind you need Skill Points to allocate them. So take out whatever you need. If you have the right Life/ES Jewels, you will gain easily more from the cluster than from the tree, so the trade-off is totally acceptable.

Linklist

Pre-ShavronnesPath of Building: https://pastebin.com/tpzK5hwi

If you have the PoB Fork, you will have all special features pre-enteredSkill Tree only: http://poeurl.com/cQpQ

Shavronnes

Path of Building: https://pastebin.com/wNgFQh5r

Tree Only: http://poeurl.com/cQuH