[4k Delve] Storm Burst Transcendence Chieftain, currently rank 2 on ladder

TLDR: https://pobb.in/wtRYHX-kpMjc

4k Aul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQx4zYvgOK4

Hi, Rudy here back with another delve build. This character is on my friend Muir's profile. The above clip is a 4k beyond node which is arguably the hardest node type in delve right now.

The build was initially heavily inspired by this post. The pob boasts over 200m burst boss dps. Unfortunately when we made some changes to the pob to make it more suitable for delve and removed some fluff, it ended up at about 90m sustained dps at 3x-reap overlaps. Which is still good, but not superb when it comes to deep delve.

First thing we realized was that we needed a LOT more recovery. After paying Reap's 1400 life cost/sec and RF's 400 degen, we're barely left with 800 net regen in the original version. For it to facetank delve mobs we needed a lot more. So we added upto 80% life recoup (from rings, jewels and relic), which worked OK for a bit. Later we added 18 life gained on hit from a crusader ring, that made it much better in crowded delve nodes. But we still needed more recovery to facetank single targets and sparse nodes (eg. Gehennix, Smugglers). Final reap pob at medium budget (about 2 wks ago, at depth 2k): https://pobb.in/V85UcTnewNGg with about 54m dps.

Enter Storm Burst. At first glance, storm burst deals about 50% less damage than a 3-overlap reap. However:

• Reap has to waste a lot of time frequently repositioning itself to get 3x overlaps, and on fast melee mobs (eg. melee Smugglers, Aul, azurite widows) you simply cannot get 3x and instead have to settle for 2x overlaps. In contrast, Storm Burst is a much more relaxed and lazy playstyle, with higher dmg uptime.
• Reap hits a single target 20 times a sec at 3-overlaps, which gives 360 life gained on hit/sec. Storm Burst hits a single target 150 times a sec, which is 2700 lgoh/sec. If there are 10 mobs thats 27k lgoh/sec! The importance of this cannot be overstated.
• Reap incurs 1400 life cost/sec. Storm Burst's mana cost can be more easily managed (flask suffix, inspiration, ring prefix) and also helps in powering up Sigil of Power.
• Storm Burst's damage scales linearly with skill effect duration. It costs pts but if you pick up both duration wheels on the tree you're now doing 65% more dmg compared to no duration wheels. We're at the 3.6s breakpoint (breakpoints are at multiples of 0.4s). As a byproduct, the duration scaling also gives a lot of QoL: for Blessing, Sigil, Vaal Lightning Trap, Arcane Surge and Phase Run.
• Storm Burst's individual hits are small compared to Reap, and so they inflict small scorch/brittle/saps. But on releasing the channel, it actually does big individual hits comparable to reap.
• Reap has no good dmg prefixes on jewels. Storm Burst has access to 18% crit multi prefix on jewels cause its a lightning skill. 4 of those and it adds up.

So this is the current PoB: https://pobb.in/wtRYHX-kpMjc with about 177m dps.

Defense layers:

• Loreweave for 78 all res
• 100% phys taken as ele
• Transcendence w 100k armor + eternal damnation for 39%. For those unaware, these two stack additively to a max of 90% dmg reduction
• Elemental flasks: 2x mageblood flasks + 1x taste of hate
• Nature's Patience for 10% less dmg taken
• Sigil of Power, for 14% dmg debuff on enemies (extra value from transcendence)
• 5-10% Sap on enemies (extra value from transcendence)
• HoP minions sometimes taunting targets for another 10% dmg debuff
• Ailment immune, curse immune, poison immune

Recovery:

• 18 life gain on hit with spells, which amounts to 10s of thousands of life/sec with Storm Burst
• 62% life recoup

Other notable tech:

• Vaal Lightning Trap which shocks for a guranteed 43% even through Secrets of Suffering. It has 3 charges and each charge lasts for 8.3s, so thats 25s of uptime.
• -80 fire dmg taken ring: Since we take fire dmg from all dmg types, it is pretty strong in delve when youre getting hit 10-30 times a sec.
• Precision watchers eye mod for full uptime on Taste of Hate, since if it drops we take like 8x dmg from phys hits.