So hipster take on a hipster skill lets go
TLDR weird take on stormbind, still playing stormbind though. Using a level 1 stormbind gem and abusing +added damage from other sources makes a lot of sense in some contexts (not comparing to indigon though). pobs and a proof of concept vid (low investment) at the bottom.
DISCLAIMERS -
WHAT THIS POST IS
WHAT THIS POST IS NOT:
Background
It used to be used in conjunction with Voidbringers//mana stacking setups (not archmage, but similar). However since voidbringer's bizarre nerf (lets discuss this another day!), almost every mana cost ramping setup is unplayable - the only exception being indigon which is more of an endgame setup that has no progression towards (I've never played stormbind-Indigon so no further comment), and forces a comparison with generically every other indigon build.
Outside of Indigon, there are other approaches; using totems to lay the runes, however this leaves you on a 5 link, and still ~1.5 button build. Using base mana costs leaves you with a painfully slow build up, probably requiring something like 5 seconds to lay a field and pop every mob pack pretty much. Finally we are left with scaling purely cast speed and supporting mana stacking, clunky, but the only real way to play the skill outside of indigon - but is a clunky 2 button non-instant channeling skill x2 setup, and requires absurd amount of cast speed + mana, with mana especially not being in a good state currently (auras, Agnostic, recovery, defences, etc)
But what if we used a level 1 gem instead...?
Stormbind has interesting scaling: there is no benefit to levelling the gem in terms of; damage effectiveness, hits/ailments multiplier, area of effect... a level 1 and level 30 gem is identical except for mana cost and base lightning damage. Powering the runes has a higher mana cost as we level the gem... but if scaling mana is so rough, we could use a level 1 gem - to minimise the mana needed to power the runes and benefit from all the scaling that remains constant.
Furthermore this level 1 gem has very powerful scaling mechanics. It has high capacity for aoe overlap with 90% base aoe at full ramp + player aoe scaling: its possible to relatively easily get to a 9x9 grid , where all 9 runes hit the central target, this can go higher (15ish) with more scaling, but at relatively costly aoe investment. There is a hit/ailment multiplier of 300% more damage, which remains constant. In a world where we can discard the mana cost & cast speed investment, getting scaling into these effects will boost skyrocket the damage..
Benefits in summary of level 1 gem
Gem links specifically
The Numbers
A level 1 gem x 3 improvements costs 15 mana total. A level 21 gem x 3 improvements costs 75 mana total. So its 1/5th the mana required. If you look at ~9+ runes, this same ratio becomes 135 vs 675 mana. The 675 requires a specialised character - no normal character has that mana lying around, and would take a lot of cast speed to dump out that much mana. 135 however is pretty much inline with what most characters have available, a touch high perhaps. Furthermore if, as a regular spellcaster, we scaled +gem levels this gets even higher, a level 26 for example would push it to 30 per, or 820 mana total. Furthermore as mentioned, scaling gem levels has zero benefits to other factors, like aoe of effectiveness - all it does is raise the base skill gem damage and increase the mana costs.
The mana cost required to charge the runes is based on the stormbind host's gem (i.e the damage gem), however there using a high level gem to power the runes is fine. So a level 20+ Runeblast (subskill of the stormbind gem), in a separate 4 link, can dump mana out depending on their cast speed, at a high rate because of the higher skill gem. For my ssf character (medium investment about 90% cast speed + faster casting [=140 total], this is ~370 mana/s, which in fact is higher than I need. If we needed to do 675+ mana though, I would need to channel for an extra second, and/or have much more scaling into cast speed and mana
So in summary we are comparing adding flat damage to level 1 and blasting runes - to the 5x slower (or same speed at much higher opportunity cost) blasting runes of a high level gem. Intuitively we should be able to see that at some level of added flat damage, the speed of a level 1 gem is going to outweigh a high level gem. As seen below, at around 130 flat added damage the level 1 gem becomes more effective, in terms of cast/detonate rune cycling over time.
||level 1 gem (uses 5x cast speed multiplier) avg hit|level 20 gem (uses 1x cast speed multiplier) avg hit| :-:|:-:|:-:| |Added flat = 0|71.5|888| |Added flat = 100|857|988| |Added flat = 200|1357|1088| |Added flat = 1000|5357|1888|
Graph if you prefer, orange is the level 1 gem
This is assuming the 5x mana cost reduction to charge the runes correlates to a 5x increased cast/detonate cycle. While in some cases this is fair, in many other cases it is not - the difference will be corroded by various efficiencies and build optimisations. There are naturally other variables in play...
Indigon uses very different scaling and is not compared against.
As a rough guesstimate, a real number would be between 2-5x multiplier. The real question is, is the opportunity cost of scaling mana and cast speed justified vs the opportunity of utilising Battlemage setups & lvl 1 gem??. Honestly i think in a post voidbringer nerf and not using Indigon, the battlemage setup is superior (not to say its necessarily worth playing, but as a comparison).
Scaling damage
Three options. Ignite, hits, and poison. First, can discard ignite, because the aoe overlap does not benefit ignites, and that is the majority of our scaling. Hits and poison is what my theorycraft points me towards.
Poison I am drawn to, because it solves 2 issues - firstly Plaguebearer + profane bloom offsets the the lack of clearing, and carries that aspect (especially if Occultist). However it requires that the added flat is phys/chaos, which is difficult to come by, especially as this setup really wants to be on Occultist (difficult to get battlemage). There is a strong case for Poison Inquis.
Hit based gives more flexibility, but trades on the clear speed (no plaguebearer + profane bloom). Added flat especially from battlemage weapons is much more cheaply accessible, i.e triple flat weapons vs single flat chaos, or expensive phys weapons.
other sources like added to spells, added damage gems, etc.
Itemisation
The obvious for poison is Echoforge, giving a ton of flat chaos, combining with battlemage. This would be BIS (i imagine, surely!) for poison, then combined with the Cadigan's Crown, or played on Inquis
Disintegrator for Occultist poison is BIS (surely!). This is not that much worse than Echoforge, and provides the battlemage inbuilt. furthermore with some elder rings/amulet, gives goo damage for extra chaos. Staff + aoe scaling has some natural synergy too. The Nycta's Lantern is a possible progression towards, I assume is 1c day 1 in trade, and provides a good amount of phys, and is a reasonably accessible unique in SSF, being ~t4.
Also possibly a rare item (for poison), using the temple mod, or similar, would be good mid-budget option (2-10 div). for example. a regular chaos damage/chaos dot/cast speed is also good. Some cast speed, i.e profane wand, is nice, but you don't need that much.
Voltaxic Rift is great, need battlemage from another source again. Very similar but can run a quiver, another contender for BIS. (thats how BIS works yeh... you name a bunch of different items xd)
Various other flat sources, again battlemage. One way or another, I think battlemage will be the best setup due to how desperately this setup needs base damage (it gears more like an attack build in that sense).
Playing Inquisitor provides a ton of flexibility, as can use the battlemage with anything. This lets you do so many options - pure phys (crit impale), trinity, pure elemental (i.e phys> cold convert with hatred scaling), even Energy Blade and doing lightning again despite discarding the base gem levels and using that alternative source, pretty whack (i'm thinking of rolling this next league ! :))
Occultist in comparison (or assassin/etc) is much more limited options, because using only specific battlemage options or med-high budget rares.
Pros/Cons/Summary
Pro
CONS
Subjective thoughts, some rambling (no important info here)
This build is super fun, I'm such a fan of it. Firstly i've tried maybe 3x stormbind builds, and all of them i've quit in around the 80s, I don't mind the weirdness and badness oif them, but they've never clicked with me. This one I want to play more, and league start either next league or the events depending where they are.
It has a really interesting (SLOW AF) progression curve, that I've never really felt elsewhere. You go from 100 added flat to 150, and your damage goes through the roof relatively. Having such good aspiration scaling options feels really good, like eventually i could get a disintegrator etc, and my damage would quadruple or something. but also without that stuff it still does t16s relatively cleanly, which gives you a lot of confidence in your ability to scale towards those stretch goals.
High castspeed builds just always feel really nice, and this makes use of it really well. Finally being able to juice AOE scaling, effecting profane bloom, plague bearer, your main skill overlap, and void sphere makes for such a satisfying mapper.
There is a ton of 'skill expression' with profane bloom, void sphere and plague bearer. This is what makes it really replyable. Moving small mobs onto a rare, or Unique, and pops them all with the on death effects is a subtle thing that makes you multiply your clear speed by so much. Only having to do stormbind for half a map and using plaguebearer for all the bullshit - proxy shields, random spawns, breachlord etc - makes it so much more pleasant as you have options and a toolkit available and not just a sitting duck when the difficulty ramps up suddenly.
This sort of still expression/gameplay loop is what I really look for in poe builds - there's so many that are just spam this button and run around and hope. This has a really high cap, that makes it engaging and replayable. But then having a lot of 'relaxed clear' with the PB+PB (profane bloom + plague bearer, how has anyone missed this weird coincidence lol) that you don't need to be 100% effort all the time, makes it more long term relaxing/playable etc.
POBS
I've set the configs up, to be pretty much accurate (obviously wither and etc will vary, but i've erred on the side of underrepresenting damage.) Some setups include Punishment, so as enemy goes below half the damage goes up substantially. Also Plague Bearer does a lot.
These are more just to show a couple key uniques, and basic tree outline. They are not optimised nor highly detailed. Skills/curses/auras are optional extras and not prescriptive
To ballpark DPS
Live character (SSFSC, 'proof run', fresh start. NOT OPTIMISED ) // https://pastebin.com/jA3PGG0V
Endgame trade setup, only rough outline. This is just plugging in a bunch of ideas - a battlemage weapon (Echoforge or disintegrator) is going to be pretty much BIS. OPTIONALLY Badge + power charge stacking + Maven belt is an idea, and should get to around 15 overlaps instead of the 9, can go higher. Otherwise its more of a blank slate POB //// https://pastebin.com/UrtrX3Vh
references for aoe overlap,(numbers in comments)... can't confirm accuracy, but is probably about right. Could 'easily' test it with golden rule, low damage and seeing how many poison stacks you get.
Video
https://youtu.be/IwMtqNnKouU
3 minute partial map + conqueror kill.
This is a low investment, fresh start SSF. Pretty much just a 6link + life/res gear, everything self farmed on that build. Think of it as a proof of concept rather than a wow this build is great. Same character as the SSF pob
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Stormbind
Infused Channelling
Arcane Surge
Faster CastingStormbind
Void Manipulation
Chance to Poison
Added Chaos Damage
Hypothermia
Cruelty
Plague Bearer
Void Sphere
Increased Area of Effect
Temporal Chains
Blasphemy
Flame Dash
Punishment
Despair
Herald of Agony
Clarity
Shield Charge
Unbound Ailments
Summon Skitterbots
Faster Attacks
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