Build Showcase: Manastorm KB / Power Siphon Ballistas.

Hello Reddit.

Since I just wrapped up my 38 challenges, I figured I would post my build for the community as it was quite enjoyable experience all around. Feel free to ask any question about the build and I’m happy to answer.

 

Build Premise: Build is centered around Manastorm, which is a shield that sacrifices 100% of your current mana when you cast a spell. For each point of mana sacrificed, you add flat lightning damage equal to the sacrificed amount for 4 seconds. I then use Ballista Totems for clear (Kinetic Blast) or boss (Power Siphon).

 

Pros:

• Great clear. Not quite S tier assassin autobomber, but the clear was fast and satisfying.

• Great boss burst damage. This was the only reason I was able to do the feared.

• Can be started at a low budget (core uniques are not expensive outside of 6L Cloak of Defiance). I cleared all content outside of the feared for 10-15ex. I did have to get awakened gems + bottled faith in order to burst down the feared fast enough though.

 

Cons:

• Mediocre defenses. POB has about 40k EHP. DPS is the best defense, right?

• Chaos Damage: Since the build is hybrid ES / HP, all chaos damage bypasses your ES making it very painful.

 

Some notes:

• Since Manastorm wants a spell to be cast every 4 seconds, I use a 23 quality Steelskin, linked with Enhance, and one 3% cooldown reduction jewel. These 3 items lead to steelskin being up after 3.993 seconds. I just put it on left click and manastorm would always be up.

• Why no Arcane cloak? 2 reasons:

  1. The uptime + cooldown is very long, so I would need to weave in multiple spells to keep up manastorm
  2. When you cast arcane cloak, it consumes 64% of your mana for 14% damage. Which means that only 36% of your mana will be sacrificed for Manastorms 25% damage. It ends up being a loss on damage and awkward to keep up.

• Build can run all map mods EXCEPT no regen. Reflect is still doable even without awakened gems, but you will need to replace your totems often.

• This build has mega shocks. I was shocking elder for atleast 30%, sometimes as big as 40%.

• I ran this build during expedition as Agnostic, but found it to be extremely squishy. As I was perusing poe ninja, I happen to find someone this league running Manastorm Ballistas and used his character as a starting point. His character didn't stay on poe ninja but for a few days and I lost the character name, so wherever you are, thanks my man for the idea of the revival!

 

Overall, fun build, very satisfying clear, very good boss dps. Here are relevant links:

• 10-15ex POB (assuming forbidden jewels stay under 80c): https://pastebin.com/18xzNAYZ

• Feared POB: https://pastebin.com/Yu4q5F02

• T16 clear + Drox video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCGQ7TwSzjU