TL;TR 100% lightning to chaos with phantasmal spark and voltaxic rift, hierophant mana based build with archmage, 50-60% MoM, agnostic, lots of mana regen, lots of fun.

Pros: high eHP (8.7k), high life & mana regen, 100% chaos damage

Cons: prone to oneshots (low life pool), res hungry (cuz of uniques)

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I didn't play (vaal) valtaxic spark when it was popular (some time ago) so I decided to try to make one now that it isn't as powerful/viable (I'm smort).

First, phantasmal spark gives 40% lightning to chaos conversion, combined with Voltaxic rift you get 100% lightning to chaos conversion.

I wasn't sure how to scale damage so I went with the easier method, slapping on archmage support and getting lots of mana, also I like mana based builds. This allows for some minor double dipping with the Dark Ideation node.

The key is to balance mana regen to sustain continuous casting, either by reducing mana cost of skill and cast speed or getting more regen. Cloak of defiance and atziri's foible are the goto for mana builds, and a belt and watcher's eye with mana recovery rate are a big boost in regen. With hierophant ascendency and arcane capacitor (130% inc arcane surge effect), arcane surge in your gem link is great for damage and mana regen. I connected the tree to the witch start for 0.5% mana regen with pure talent (I use both normal and replica and connect to templar, witch and scion). You can also stack nodes like rot-resistant and mindfulness for more regen (not optimal though).

The only source of additional pierce is from voidwalker and the shattered divinity. I didn't noticed too much of a difference in clear speed with and without the piercing shots annoint so I dropped it for more mana.

To go crit, you'll need a bottled faith flask (cinderswallow urn with crit will work too).

For defences, the build has 59% MoM (not perfect watcher's) and agnostic. You can also get divine flesh but I don't have enough mana regen to comfortably take damage and cast. With agnostic, the build can sustain rf but you have to trade mana regen for damage (I found it was fine).

Unique gear: Voltaxic Rift, Cloak of Defiance, Atziri's Foible, Essence Worm, Voidwalker, Bottled Faith, Witchfire Brew, Pure Talent, Replica Pure Talent, Watcher's Eye (Clarity), Megalomaniac (Dark Ideation).

Non unique gear (mods in order of importance): mana, res, life

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My standard character (lvl91): https://pastebin.com/F5NtwHr9 (3.4M Sirus dps) - legacy items: 10% mana temple mod gloves, 30% mana recovery watcher's eye.

No legacy items, lvl80, slightly more affordable gear: https://pastebin.com/Stbe1YLt (2.8M Sirus dps)

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Any suggestions/improvements are welcomed! Hope someone else will enjoy this build like I am!