Electrical burn based character

[Skeleton Mage]

I have looked over the mastery's and found dream offers the highest bonus to electral burn, I'm thinking sellecting a second mastery for the additional strength for maximum efffect.

What I would like to know is if there are any items I should be looking for and if possible what are the attribue requirment for them ?

I know about the stonebinders cuffs that are a rare drop from gorgons (+skills) & also the visor of the shadowlord from hades or his treasure room (ether epic or legendary difficulty).

Normal Stonebinders 72 Str / 127 Dex
Epic Stonebinders 160 Str / 194 Dex (Estimate, unable to find numbers)
Legendary Stonebinders 320 Str / 385 Dex

Visor of the Shadodlord 493 Strength

[Nathiri]

Epic SBC are 120/297

There's a whole bunch of items in the changelog that give bonuses to electtical burn, take a look there.

[Jet Uppercut]

Revenant Crown and Plate give +All Skills as well, it drops from the Gilded Skellies in Act II but farming them is a real pain compared to Stonebinder's, even with xmax.
http://www.tq-db.net./equipment/revenant-crown-3-legendary
http://www.tq-db.net./equipment/revenant-plate-3-legendary

[Val]

In my unprofessional opinion, going after Stonebinders and Revenant would severely cripple the build. Basically dream caster likes high INT, so every excess point into STR & DEX is a waste. Ignore STR, keep DEX high enough to equip caster armors, everything else into INT.

[Ponxha]

Electrical burn damage is augmented via INT (and % on items), I doubt it's a great idea for a STR based character so I'll just consider a INT char. IT introduced some nice legendary alternatives (all Int + a few dex needed) to fit a Dream mastery: Demonskin Walkers (+1 skills, % elem dmg), Crown of Dockma'Ar (+1 skills, % elem dmg), Vestment of the Overlord (+2 skills, %dmg). Also as trinket: Amulet of Morpheus (+3 skills Dream, +43% elec burn), maybe some other I didn't check.
And some artefacts also give you + skill in a specific mastery. And probably whatever weapon you chose can have a + skill on it (for instance Sakur-Aba for +1 Dream, +% elec burn)

[Skeleton Mage]

Originally posted by Ponxha:

Electrical burn damage is augmented via INT (and % on items), I doubt it's a great idea for a STR based character so I'll just consider a INT char. IT introduced some nice legendary alternatives (all Int + a few dex needed) to fit a Dream mastery: Demonskin Walkers (+1 skills, % elem dmg), Crown of Dockma'Ar (+1 skills, % elem dmg), Vestment of the Overlord (+2 skills, %dmg). Also as trinket: Amulet of Morpheus (+3 skills Dream, +43% elec burn), maybe some other I didn't check.
And some artefacts also give you + skill in a specific mastery. And probably whatever weapon you chose can have a + skill on it (for instance Sakur-Aba for +1 Dream, +% elec burn)

Interesting...

If my infomation is correct +% elemental damage does not increase electrical burn damage making demonskin walkers & Crown of Dockma'Ar less useful, +% damage increases all damage types making the Vestment of the Overlord useful, Amulet of Morpheus with +3 dream skills & +% electrical burn damage would be very useful. Artifacts when completed give a fairly random aditional bonus like relics & charms making them useful but somewhat unreliable sources of electrical burn damage. Never came across a Sakur-Aba but then again I am not fond of grinding if I can help it.

I was thinking of using the extra strength & dexterity is the same way it was used in the 'pwning with spirit' guide I read awhile ago - It wanted high strength / dexterity / intelligence for gear requirements and less so for damage. I was thinking of doing something similar - two of the items I think would be useful require ether high strength or high dexterity (visor of the shadowlord & stonebinders cuffs).

My Plan is:
1) All quest reward points into health [in progress]
2) Rush dream mastery and put all points into dexterity (130 ish, dream gives zero dexterity, Covers most of the legendary mage dex requirements) [done]
3) Put all points into intelligence while selecting skills & leveling [in progress]

At intelligence 500 ish pick one of the following:
4a) Select a mastery that gives additional strength and switch to even strength & dexterity to increase gear choices
4b) Select a mage mastery and continue pumping intelligence and make a close range glass cannon

[UndeadUnbug]

In anniversary edition elemental damage boosts all elemental DOTs. Static charge from storm mastery also increases electric burn. Im playing prophet halfway epic and distort reality + sqall still oneshots most of monster packs.

[Skeleton Mage]

Good to know, thanks.

Edit: I did read through the change notes before playing but obviously I have overlooks a few things

[Val]

I was thinking of using the extra strength & dexterity is the same way it was used in the 'pwning with spirit' guide I read awhile ago - It wanted high strength / dexterity / intelligence for gear requirements and less so for damage. I was thinking of doing something similar - two of the items I think would be useful require ether high strength or high dexterity (visor of the shadowlord & stonebinders cuffs).

Bad comparison. "Pwning with spirit" did primaliry %reduction to health damage which does not scale with any stat.

I'm building a prophet too.

[Skeleton Mage]

Prophet (dream+storm) appears to be the ideal electrical burn caster then...

So based on how I have spent my points I will have a bit more dexterity than needed for caster gear and putting evey non quest reward into intelligence should provide the greatest benefit.

Now we will see if the RNG is feeling generous with drops - it has been so far with +x.x health regen & +% health regen items as I have over 40 health regen per second currently with this character...

Thanks for all the assistance.

[Iceberg]

Strength?? No, int
Go Storm

[Gummiel]

this kinda make me want to try out a eletrical caster prophet as well, though got a few qeustions:
1. Does psionic touch (or weapon attack skills in general) work with the basic staff attacks or only with melee/bows?
2. What about the dmg part of Storm Nimbus does that work on spells as well or only for weapon attacks(and if only weapon attacks again does that also count for the staff weapon attacks?)

[Skeleton Mage]

Psionic touch works for all weapon attacks - bow, spear, sword, mace, staff.
Not 100% on storm nimbus however.

damit, ninja'd in my own post.

[Val]

Originally posted by Enso Gummiel:

this kinda make me want to try out a eletrical caster prophet as well, though got a few qeustions:
1. Does psionic touch (or weapon attack skills in general) work with the basic staff attacks or only with melee/bows?
2. What about the dmg part of Storm Nimbus does that work on spells as well or only for weapon attacks(and if only weapon attacks again does that also count for the staff weapon attacks?)

1. It does, but it's a garbage. Electrical burn from different skills does not stack, only the strongest will apply. And Psionic Burn is the weakest source of electrical burn.
2. Storm Nimbus only affects your weapon attacks, but Static Charge does affect your dream spells.

[Ponxha]

I'm playing Prophet as well. The best source for electrical burn is Distort Reality with Temporal Rift, but you have to be in melee range so it's risky. The dream pet can tank for you before you go into the mobs.
At lower levels in Normal, Trance of Wrath will take care of everything, just run through everything except bosses, but with a decent staff (with lightning damage) it's still easy.

Most items I mentionned earlier are in Epic/Legendary difficulty, and Act 4, so not too surprising if you didn't see them (I haven't either for now, just chest/helm in epic). I didn't check how defense would be with those but that's also to take into consideration if you play close range prophet.
I'm no expert on it though, just going through the game as prophet and what I gathered so far.

[Val]

Originally posted by Ponxha:

The best source for electrical burn is Distort Reality with Temporal Rift, but you have to be in melee range so it's risky.

Wrong. It was like this before, but now Distortion Wave does more EB damage than Distort Reality, although the margin of difference is just about 5%.