Starchmage - STR Stacking Archmage

DPS: 1.06M
Life: 5.81K
Level: 90
Min budget

Overview

Starchmage - STR Stacking Archmage is a Path of Exile Champion build by whywouldichooseaname, made for the Scourge league (3.16). It is centered on Fireball and plays as a intelligence, projectile, spell, area archetype. In Path of Building it reaches 1.06M DPS with 5.81K life, 2.28K energy shield. Suited for: Mapping, Bossing. Key uniques include Shaper's Touch, Indigon, Aegis Aurora, Pledge of Hands, Essence Worm.

whywouldichooseaname's Notes

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Guard skill: Arcane Cloak is offensive, Immortal Call is defensive. If you get Jugg or maybe the Deflection node, End Charges should be easily supplied so IC's cost should be largely negligible. Archmage: Fireball used because of high damage effectiveness. Cast speed is bypassed via CWDT. AoE is unnecessary because this is a bossing setup (though adds might mess this up, but Fireball has a little AoE iirc). Discharge has the highest damage effectiveness and its threshold jewel (Endless Misery) changes its cooldown to CWDT's, but if the 60% less damage affects Archmage then Fireball is stronger, anyway. Also jewel slot cost. I'm still not 100% sure that added damage effectiveness even applies to Archmage. If it doesn't, then AoE and visuals are about the only real considerations (besides cooldowns or possible side-effects). Fireball's threshold jewel "Rolling Flames" may be noteworthy. Probably not. Could be quickly swapped for a better clearing skill if desired. Aura: Determination or Tempest Shield for surviving, or Wrath for damage I guess. Ascendancy: Can swap Undeniable for Unrelenting - trades ramp-up time and/or damage for even more survivability. Champion might also be usable, depending on how well life recoup deals with Boneshatter damage. Bonuses in Iron Reflexes use and easier access to block (may make Aegis Aurora best in slot, unless crits are scary enough). Bonus in Recoup not being Regen, unlike Jugg, so No Regen mods are less crippling. If you opt out of the CWDT half, then pretty much any ascendancy could probably work, to varying degrees. Anoint Primal Spirit or Prodigal Perfection Shield: Aegis Aurora is a cheap and good option, but a rare shield with reduced crit damage will bring them down to potentially 10% extra damage, which could really help minimize burst damage. Aegis does have more block chance, which the build lacks otherwise. Boots have no movement speed because I was imagining myself mostly facetanking the boss, holding Boneshatter on it, and watching fireballs spill out at it. Indigon will probably have to be replaced since I don't think the mana cost has a max.

Edit: I want to make it clear that this is not a finalized PoB. Things like the CWDT breakpoints, flasks, and resistances were things that I intended to polish when I had a character in-game to test with, but I never ended up making that character. Resistances can be filled in on gear where undesirable/open affixes end up, considering I doubt anyone will actually make the PoB gear 1:1. Flagellant flasks were an idea that I ended up disproving (for this build), but I had bigger issues to fix at the time. I have almost no experience in building, so I'd like to think that many of the build's issues could be fixed up by someone more experienced, if they wanted to do so.

PoB (has notes - not finalized, just providing it for an idea): https://pastebin.com/5Ptc6hNa

I haven't seen a build quite like this yet, so I thought I'd post it in case anyone's interested (or to be told it was tried and failed already). I had hoped to try it myself, but I just don't have the currency or time (I'm not even sure I have time to get my last 12 challenges). This was originally conceived as a bossing setup for a few reasons, but I think it could be adapted to mapping easily, maybe with just a weapon swap or gem swaps.

There are 2 independent ideas here:

Strength stacking: Get a bunch of Str and scale it with Iron Will and Shaper's Touch. Str now gives flat life, flat mana, % energy shield, and % spell damage. Iron Will getting on the tree was a blessing for this.

Cast When Damage Taken: Trigger CWDT by spamming either Forbidden Rite (plus Cast While Cycloning?) or Boneshatter (what I originally decided on, hence the bossing focus). Use life and mana recoup to manage the self-damage as well as recover mana quickly for further high-mana casts. Boneshatter is easier to manage the damage (especially as a Jugg), but is melee and needs Trauma stacks. Forbidden Rite wouldn't have to ramp up at all and doesn't need a target, but will need you to manage your chaos res (which has the benefit of you having chaos res).

I know some of the gear in the PoB is a little over the top, but I was trying to get an idea of the build's ceiling to decide if it was worth trying. I never really finished fine-tuning it, but I'm also not an experienced build maker, so I expect that there's a ton of room for improvement (which also makes me hopeful that it has real potential, mostly the strength stacking). I also know the CWDT archmage isn't entirely novel, but I wanted to work it in originally and I don't have time to pull it out of the PoB.