3.23 Storm Burst Offering Necromancer - So many balls!

Hello! I'm a long time PoE player, and one of several channeling skill fans. Every league I try to create a new build using temporary league mechanics, if the league allows it. When I saw the offering effect charms this league, I knew this would be a great chance to play a unique Necromancer spell caster. However, this late into the league I'm sure the concept of offering stacking isn't anything new. Hopefully my approach can be enjoyable for someone.

I will update this post with a few map and bossing gameplay videos soon! And finish adding additional thoughts.

Why should you play this build?
For the fun of trying something unique and silly.

Skill Tree:
https://pobb.in/rZdx_K94YzBc
My character: WTB_StormBurstMTX

Offering Scaling:
Minion Offense Mastery: 20% increased effect of Offerings.

We're stacking these sources of offering effect and using the Leash of Oblation.


Triggering Offerings:
A wand with the veiled trigger mod, ideally the 4 second CD one, would work fine here. Flesh, Bone and Spirit Offerings can easily be triggered this way. However, for this build I'm using:

The Queen's Hunger: Will randomly trigger one of the three offerings. Because we can't control which gets cast, stacking skill effect duration until offerings reach 15 seconds duration comfortably sustains all offerings. Socketing an Increased Duration Support effects the offerings granted by the chest and helps us reach that goal.

Storm Burst:
actually scales a portion of its damage with duration! And with this patch (3.23) Storm Burst received 0.4 flat duration with 20% quality. For every 0.4 remaining duration of an orb, explosion damage increases by 75%. This does mean we get no value in damage for any extra duration increase beyond a duration divisible by 0.4 (0.4, 0.8, 1.2,...). However, it really doesn't matter for min-maxing. Just get the duration of your offerings to feel good, and your Storm Burst will follow!

Defensive Options:
Block. We are capped thanks to Bone Offering! Aegis Aurora, or any energy shield/life gain on block shields feel fantastic here.
Armour. Determination and flasks give us the bulk of our armour.
Physical damage reduction. We can get a few increases with endurance charges from spectres (or Ralakesh's Impatience if you do a charge stacker) and Chaos Golem.
Leech. There are a lot of options to scale leech, grab a source from That Which was Taken, Atziri's Promise, passive tree, a Watcher's Eye, etc.
Regen. Vitality, Stone Golem, and Consecrated Ground are great options.
Stuns. are a channeling skill's worst enemy. Getting a stun avoidance or ignore chance is very important. You can get a few sources from Practical Application and Conjured Barrier on the passive tree, The Queen's Hunger veiled mod, and various cluster jewels (channel medium clusters are great).
Spectres.

Ascendancy:
We're playing Necromancer!
Commander of Darkness: Great overall node and point value.
Mistress of Sacrifice: The reason we're playing Necromancer!
Plaguebringer: We consume a lot of corpses, so these buffs are almost always active.
Corpse Pact: Decent cast speed increase and free chilled + shock.


And that's basically the skeleton of the build. Everything below here will be additional details and ideas for alternative options. There are so many ways to play this triple offering scaling and Storm Burst. Because of that I encourage people to experiment instead of completely copying the build! You might find another option to be better in defenses or damage, or that its cheaper.

Gems
Six Link Explained


Damage Scaling Options:

This is actually one of the builds of all time!

reserved, just in case

Decided to give this build a shot since I was bored of my typical ranger playstyle.
It's a very fun build, though I wouldn't see myself using this as a league starter, though possibly transition into it.

Made a couple of changes that really improved QoL

- Swapped out ICS for Infused Channeling, it gives phys damage taken reduction and since you're using Elemental Focus, I dont feel the ICS is worth it. It also resulted in quite a bit more damage I've felt.
- I'm using Perfect Forest Warrior and Perfect Warlord as spectres. The permanent Onslaught and Culling Strike plus the free Vitality aura and endurance charges put a lot less strain on your healthpool while keeping Pain Attunement active.
(Probably won't work in 3.24)
- I'm not too big a fan of the Coruscating Elixir with the chances at random chaos damage and not enough flask regen to ensure permanent uptime. So I swapped the trigger to 'Use when you become Poisoned. Just have to watch out for degen zones.
(Will probably swap it back once I get a flask jewel)

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Tessae escribió:

Decided to give this build a shot since I was bored of my typical ranger playstyle.
It's a very fun build, though I wouldn't see myself using this as a league starter, though possibly transition into it.

Made a couple of changes that really improved QoL

- Swapped out ICS for Infused Channeling, it gives phys damage taken reduction and since you're using Elemental Focus, I dont feel the ICS is worth it. It also resulted in quite a bit more damage I've felt.
- I'm using Perfect Forest Warrior and Perfect Warlord as spectres. The permanent Onslaught and Culling Strike plus the free Vitality aura and endurance charges put a lot less strain on your healthpool while keeping Pain Attunement active.
(Probably won't work in 3.24)
- I'm not too big a fan of the Coruscating Elixir with the chances at random chaos damage and not enough flask regen to ensure permanent uptime. So I swapped the trigger to 'Use when you become Poisoned. Just have to watch out for degen zones.
(Will probably swap it back once I get a flask jewel)

Love the changes you tried! Infused Channeling does look nice, I'll give it a try later. Perfect Warlord is incredible and I've been using it a lot lately, but the Perfect Forest Warrior is something I haven't given a chance yet, will definitely look into it!

So a couple things that I've tweaked and re-tweaked.

- Anointing Cleansed Thoughts is a good idea on paper at the start, but the Golden Oil isn't worth it when it's actually about the same price as buying a Balbala Brutal Restraint which gives you 100% uptime on Coruscating Elixir meaning you're chaos immune.
I swapped my anointment to Death Attunement for the extra spectre.
I am going to assume that the Affliction spectres wont be making it into the main game, so I would go Carnage Chief/Host Chief and then either Solar Guard or Primal Rhex Matriarch.

- Since you are purely reliant on ES regen to become unkillable, I would suggest either pathing to Light Eater (takes 7 points) or swap your Impossible Escape to the Lethe Shade version and taking Ethereal Feast node (Light Eater is preferable). I've found that you do not need the extra duration from Exceptional Performance.

- With Coruscating Elixir 100% up, I dropped Infused Channeling and went back to the crit setup. Still not sure about using (Awakened) Ele Focus. Temporarily dropped ICS for Energy Leech till I can get leech on the tree set up.
Currently running: SB - Inc Dur - ICD - Leech - Trinity - Aw Ele Focus (Could be swapped for ICS for pinnacle/guardians)

- Still experimenting with different spectre setups. Sadly found out that Judgemental Spirit's Offering skills do not work on you. Ideally I'd run Perfect Naval Officer in that 3rd slot, but it's super expensive.
Might try the Frozen + Fiery Cannibal combination (just regular versions, perfect aren't needed)