TL;DR

First league in poe2, first self-made build, Chronomancer CI Ball Lightning Cast on Elemental Ailment Arc + Living Bomb, ~1 mirror worth gear

Links

Some highlights from full videos below

Full Grand Expedition T16 +7 mods

Full gear and map - T16, 70% eff, 200% deli, 7 mods, 100% eff node mod

https://pobb.in/HY-g1AkJTBDR (I have no idea how to add sinister jewels in pob, so assume +18% dmg from both)

Intro

This is my first league in poe2 - steam tells 400 hours, but actually less since I would be afk ingame often. Have ~2k hours in poe1. Had a blast this league obviously - 98 lvl, all content doable and cleared. A lot of things clicked - gameplay, visuals, spell animations, boss fights, old monsters and npcs from poe1, crafting, etc.

I've decided to do things differently from what I did in poe1:

1. started the league and game unprepared - although I saw some posts about poe2, but I did no research, no guides

2. NOT following a build - embrace the unknown and learn mechanics myself

3. I chose sorceress since I like magic and Arc in poe1 was the first spell that I really liked. I felt chronomancer appeal and "freshness" right away, so went with that. Also, I like the concept of elemental hit, so when I learned there is a Trinity gem, I focused on getting it and stick with all 3 elements

There are ~~probably~~ definitely some similar builds, but hey, it's mine, I didn't copy anyone, it works, which is ~~surprising~~ awesome, so here I am, sharing it with everyone, hope you'll enjoy!

Build

This is my first build showcase, take it easy :)

Now, this gear is around 0.5-1 mirror I think - I saved a bit here and there, crafted jewels (following a guide there, not gonna lie), got an amulet pretty early and cheap (around 100div I think), got Rite of Passage as a drop, etc.

BUT it was definitely working, although a bit worse around 1k div ago. Headhunter was my second purchase, and it is all sorts of broken :)

Main mechanics

Powered by Verisium gives Verisium infusions - Infused Ball Lightning leaves ignited ground - tons of ignite procs on enemies - every tick(!) of ignited ground contributes to Cast on Elemental Ailment - Arc clears + magnified shocks - Living Bomb leaves Fire Infusions - go to 2

MAYBE ignited ground from BL not supposed to reapply ignite since I tried Flame Wall, for example, and it did nothing close for CoEA..

Offence

• BL + double CoEA (second from amulet)

• Sigil of Power in second weapon set

• Blasphemy + Elemental Weakness

• Trinity (supported mainly through Arc, Ball Lightning and runes for 36% extra damage as Cold and Fire in a wand, which gives somewhat reasonable fluctuation in the main element of hit)

• Elemental Conflux

• Charge Regulation + Thaumaturgical Dynamism enchant on helm (power charges for 26% more crit chance)

• Frost bomb for Exposure

• Lightning Warp mainly for fun, a bit of movement and some infusions. It can be changed to another aura like Power Siphon for better infusion generation, but I lack spirit for that

• 53% shock

Defense

I hated dying in poe1, so I decided to avoid that as much as I could here. Surpisingly, it really helped with one portal change. I'm using:

• chronomancer nodes -30% damage taken and Temporal Rift (reverts your life, es, mana to values 4 sec before)

• CI

• 6,5k ES

• Blasphemy Temp Chains with some decent curse magnitudes (71% slow on white mobs)

• Purity of Fire from rare sceptre with 50% less ignite and freeze duration

  • also Her declaration gem (-10% damage dealt) - not that necessary tbh

• Elemental Archon node (+20%) + Rite of passage Stag procs overfills max resists, so it's possible to drop some more resists on items

Pros

• -30% dmg taken and temporal chains is a pretty big deal for surviving

• One cast of BL gives around 4 seconds of constant COEA triggers (5-10 per second on rares/bosses, didn't bother counting), which brings gameplay a bit closer to totems/minions

  • also helps with slow-appearing mobs (expedition, delirium, breach, etc)

• No need for cast speed; instead rely on trigger spells

• Temporal Rift solves ES recharge and mana regen (see cons)

  • Also, it weirdly is a good movement ability - whether you run in a dead end or when headhunter shroud walker mod teleports you in a pack/death effects - just tp back

• Arc with extra projectiles looks amazing (obv. subjective)

Cons

• "Yo-yo" gameplay may feel a bit clunky - Temporal Rift, while it saves you, adds backtracking

• "no mana" is all you are going to hear even with 100%+ mana cost efficiency

• Slow (i guess?), can be diminished by mageblood instead of hh

• No visual clarity

• Can cause extra lags (you can see latency spikes in videos)

Outro

I've grown tired of optimizing it, so build definitely still has problems.

One glaring problem I couldn't defeat is mana issues - while having 40% less cost + 118% mana cost efficiency (25% in tree, 25% gem, 15% helm rune, 29% * 2 rings) a 1400 manapool just evaporates. Maybe switch to Eldritch battery / more focus on mana on gear, but I've decided to live with that.

Also, I've tried to use ward-based spells in the second CoEA (Bitter Dead / Grim Pillars), but that costs around 400 ES on my chest piece, which translates to roughly -1500 ES pool and requires switching one aura to Remnants of Kalguur. Also, Bitter Dead does nothing on bosses, and Grim Pillars are clunky as hell to walk through, but I had some fun with it, exploding pillars sounds and looks amazing :)

Anyway, I appreciate your time and feedback, stay sane!