[3.9] Mercur1al's Ball Lightning mine in ssf (hybrid 5k hp + 3k es)/ AL8 Sirus down

First of all, scion is a beautiful character, isn't she?

Here's my point of view for ascendant, compared with saboteur.
(Oops! I forget to say that, I play ascendant using saboteur + pathfinder.)

Compared with saboteur, if you play mine using ascendant, you will face these problems:
1, You will be lack of some mine throwing speed. That's the most important thing, but I choose to adjust passive tree to compensate that.

2, You will increase your mana reservation of mine skill. Pyromaniac from saboteur offer '20% reduced mana reservation of skills that throw mines', it helps a lot. But as I mentioned before, I choose to adjust passive tree to compensate that.

3, Pyromaniac from saboteur offer 'immune to ignite shock', it's good. But my build, I choose to get a totally immunity to elemental ailments! Yes, with some gear mod(mostly craft mod), and passive tree, it can be immune to all elemental ailments, ignite, chill, freeze, and shock.

Ok, let's tall about some advantages.
1, The saboteur of ascendant, offer '25% chance to blind on hit', this is still usable for mine, and I play ball lightning mine build, with a high frequency hit rate, so I can blind enemies almost all the time.

2, The pathfinder of ascendant, offer 'flask gain 3 charges every 3 seconds'. Although it's a nerfed-version compared with pathfinder(lack of increase flask gain), I think it's still useful for some boss fight, or even running map. I can use my flask more casually.

3, Ascendant have huge dexterity for this build, 60 dexterity, which will save some passive skill points, and offer extra passive skill points. So we can use these extra points to adjust passive tree, to compensate some mine throwing speed.

Now my character has 4999 hp and 2282 es, but if I have Gravicius craft, 'Gain (9–10)% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield', my es can be up to 3169. That's really nice for ssf. If I choose to play pure hp mine, I can only have around 6k hp, if I don't have Kaom's Heart. If I choose to play pure es, CI or LL, these two kinds need decent gears. So it's not a good league starter for ssf.

So I choose to play hybrid, hp combined with es. It's easy to have decent energy shield, just use a discipline aura. Yes, I give up using wrath aura or zealotry aura, because they take huge mana reservation. So it will lose some damage, but it will offer you some defense.

It's not useful if I just add some es to my character, I need to find some way to recover my es. For this, I choose the key stone 'Wicked Ward', which offer this:'energy shield recharge is not interrupted by damage if recharge began recently'. If my character loses energy shield, and doesn't get hit in 2 seconds, my energy shield will start to recharge, with a recharge rate about 700/s, that means, like a 700/s regeneration of energy shield, and this can last for 4s.

So playing with this build, when I get hit, I will run to a safe place asap, using flame dash or smoke mine, to trigger Wicked Ward. It's not a difficult thing, and one more thing, because I play mine build, I always keep distance with enemies.

That's why I choose hybrid.

Yes, arc mine has insane clean speed, but ball lightning has a higher damage.

I copy this from wiki:

"

Ball Lightning is a slow moving projectile, that strikes targets with bolts of lightning around itself. Lightning bolts strike targets every 150 milliseconds and each target cannot be hit more often than this. That restriction is shared between all balls fired on the same cast.

We should note these:
1, ball lightning hits every 0.15s.
2, no shotgun for ball lighning.

I use ball lightning mine to keep enemies being hit constantly. This skill deals decent damage. But if you have good gears, you can just use arc mine.

Because I play ssf, I don't have so much unique items.(maybe my tabula can be one unique item, XD)

Weapon, a good wand or sceptre, offer damage for my build.


Shield, a high life shield, offer some damage would be better.


Helmet, body armour, golves, these three gears need to craft mod 'chance to avoid elemental ailments'. But remember, you need a empty suffix on your gloves or helmet, but for your body armour, you need two empty prefixes.


Amulet with high hp and critical strike multiplier.


The rest, rings, boots, belt, all for compensate your life and resistance. Remember, try to add some chaos resistance if possible.


Flask

6l(body armour):
Ball lightning - Slow Projectiles - High-impact Mine - Swift Assembly - Inspiration - Lightning Penetration


3l weapon:
Flame dash - Faster Casting - Arcane Surge(lvl 7)

3l shield:
Wave of Conviction - Spell Totem - Multiple Totems
I use Wave of Conviction to apply lightning exposure to enemies, reducing their lightning resistance.

4 sockets helmet:
presicion(lvl 1), Bear Trap(lvl 1), Assassin Mark, Summon Stone Golem.
Bear trap can increase mine damage.

4l gloves:
Summon Skitterbots - Vaal Discipline - Clarity(lvl 1) - Enlighten
Aura links.

4l boots:
Cast When Damage Taken(lvl 12) - Steelskin(lvl 16) - Increase Duration - Smoke Mine
CWDT links. We need to cast smoke mine ourselves, just increase its duration.

Of course, you can open my character file, to check passive tree.
My character's name: Mercurial_NakamoriAkina

And here's my pob, lvl 92:
https://pastebin.com/47bWbZgS

Bandit:help Alira.

Pantheon
Major god:
Soul of Lunaris

Minor god:
Soul of Ryslatha(60% increased Life Recovery from Flasks used when on Low Life)
or
Soul of Abberath(Unaffected by Burning Ground)