[3.12] Storm Brand Elementalist || Low Budget Starter || New Player Leveling Guide

Path of Building (PoB for short) is a community-run tool for planning out builds in Path of Exile. It is extremely useful and I recommend downloading it here: https://github.com/PathOfBuildingCommunity/PathOfBuilding/releases

You can then import this build into PoB using this pastebin link: https://pastebin.com/yUJ6jh4R
In the bottom left of the "Tree" view you can use that drop down menu to see the progression of the skill tree over the course of the story. I've done my best to include screenshots of the passive tree in this guide but I still think PoB is a useful reference to have.

Coming S O O N

-This is when you start to take crit nodes on the passive tree and spec out of Elemental Overload. The timing on this varies a bit based on your gear,but the passive trees I've included give an indication of when this should happen.
-Once you drop Elemental Overload, there are two changes to your gems to make. The first is that you swap Zealotry for Wrath, and the Second is that you swap Added Lightning Damage for Inspiration. Since you've completed all ten Acts you can buy every skill gem you need from Lilly Roth in Oriath.
-I run my third lab around level 70. The node you want to take is Mastermind of Discord. This is where the build really starts to kick into gear.
-Once you take Mastermind of Discord, add Herald of Ice and Precision to your gem setup. Herald of Ice adds cold damage, which allows us to freeze and chill when we crit. Furthermore, when frozen enemies are killed, they shatter. Shatter can help us avoid a lot of annoying on death effects; combine this with freezes and chills and you have a nice new layer of defense on your build. Keep Precision at level 1, since you only use it to get a little bit of extra crit chance.
-Finally, take Liege of the Primordial for your fourth lab. This lets you stack extra golems for a lot of nice buffs.

For your Major God, take Soul of the Brine King. Your Minor God is pretty much up to you; I find that any of the ones with physical damage reduction are great choices but some of the others can be useful as well.

This build can run any map mod! Something to note is that Paragon of Calamity lets you run maps with the "monsters reflect X% of elemental damage" modifier. However, there are a few to watch out for since they can be more trouble than they're worth:

Players cannot regenerate life, energy shield, or mana: Make sure you have a mana flask and watch your step. I usually just reroll this mod since it's kind of a buzzkill.
Players are cursed with X: Any of these curse mods are annoying, but the particularly bad ones are Vulnerability and Temporal Chains. They are runnable but be careful.
Players have Elemental Equilibrium: This tanks your damage super hard. I usually reroll it but it's still doable.
Monsters have +% elemental resistances: Another huge hit to your DPS, especially in higher tier maps.

These mods can cause a lot of trouble when they show up together or with other dangerous mods. While it's all doable for this build, I do recommend rerolling these mods when they show up.

Here is the setup you want to build towards with your gear. I've listed the links in order of importance, that is, if you only have a four-link body armour instead of a six-link body armour only use the first four gems of that link.

-Storm Brand - Swiftbrand - Energy Shield Leech - Inspiration - Controlled Destruction - Concentrated Effect
-Herald of Thunder / Herald of Ice / Wrath / Precision (lvl 1)
-Wave of Conviction (lvl 1) - Curse on Hit - Conductivity
This is for single target damage. Both WoC and Conductivity increase the amount of lightning damage taken by the enemy and it makes an enormous difference.
-Chaos Golem - Ice Golem - Lightning Golem - Life Leech
Life Leech lets the golems leech some of their damage as life. This is mostly some QoL for you so you don't have to recast your golems as much. Minion Life Support is also a good option as an alternative.
-Flame Dash - Faster Casting - Arcane Surge (lvl 7)
-Cast When Damage Taken (lvl 3) - Immortal Call (lvl 5) - Tempest Shield (lvl 8) - Increased Duration
Cast When Damage Taken (or CWDT) is a cool gem that triggers linked spells when you take a certain amount of damage. The level of the spells it can trigger as well as the damage threshold increase as the gem levels up. This means you need to find a balance for making sure the triggered spells are of a high enough level to be useful but the damage threshold is low enough that it triggers reliably. I find that keeping CWDT at level 3 works well for this build. Note that Tempest Shield is a lightning spell skill gem and is affected by the modifiers to gem level on your wand and/or shield. So if you have +1 gem levels on your wand keep tempest shield at level 7 instead of level 8 otherwise it won't be triggered.

Here are the passive trees showing all quest points allocated (at level 62 for me), then at levels 70, 80 and 90.

While unique items are not required for this build, there are a few to keep in mind:
Atziri's Promise, Amethyst Flask: This is a nice damage boost that comes with some life leech and extra chaos resistance. You want to have the maximum roll (15%) on the elemental damage modifier.
The Wise Oak, Bismuth Flask: This provides a little extra damage mitigation but more importantly grants a large amount of damage penetration. Make sure your lightning resistance is higher than your fire and cold resistances and look for the max roll (15%) on the damage penetration modifier.
Skin of the Loyal, Simple Robe: If you end up with the currency and want to really start putting out damage, this is the best body armour for this build. If you go this route get one with 4 blue and 2 red sockets and swap Controlled Destruction for Empower.

Here's the actual gear I used when putting together this guide. I leveled the character SSF up to level 80 using only gear I found or crafted along the way. I then migrated the character over to trade league and threw some nice gear on it and ran it up to level 86 before Harvest ended. I've linked both sets of gear below.