As I stated in my title the Crackling Energy build is more geared towards endgame when you can unlock your paragon boards after the Starting Board. There are better leveling builds before this point. Here is what the build looks like.
Stats
- Intelligence = Main Stat and focus heavily on this
- Willpower = Get this to 270
- Dexterity = Get this to 270
- Strength = Ignore this stat as a Sorc
Skills
- Basic Skill = Arc Lash (1 point) → Enhanced Arc Lash → Flickering Arc Lash
- Core Skill = Chain Lightning (5 points) → Enhanced Chain Lightning → Destructive Chain Lightning
- Defensive Skill 1 = Flame Shield (1 point) → Enhanced Flame Shield → Shimmering Flame Shield
- Defensive Skill 2 = Teleport (1 point) → Enhanced Teleport → Mystical Teleport (Can use Shimmering Teleport if you need surviival)
- Defensive Skill 3 = Glass Cannon (3 points)
- Conjuration Skill = Lightning Spear (5 points) → Enhanced Lightning Spear → Summoned Lightning Spear
- Mastery Skill 1 = Ball Lightning (1 point) → Enhanced Ball Lightning → Wizard’s Ball Lightning
- Mastery Skill 2 = Static Discharge (3 points) → Shocking Impact (3 points) & Invigorating Conduit (3 points)
- Ultimate Skill 1 = Unstable Currents → Prime Unstable Currents → Supreme Unstable Currents
- Ultimate Skill 2 = Coursing Currents (3 points) → Conduction (3 points) & Electrocution (3 points) → Convulsions (3 points)
- Key Passives = Overflowing Energy
Gear
Focus on bonuses that give Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, Movement Speed, and the various damage types as % damage to maximize the multiplication effect. For weapon the Emerald is better for damage but the Skull is better for survival when grinding the higher levels and not boss hunting. I would go Emerald if you can take advantage of Vulnerable damage and Skull is the option where you can’t take advantage of this.
- Weapon socket = Emerald and/or Skull (Highest tier gem you can get). Maybe Ruby as another alternate.
- Armor sockets = Ruby and/or Emerald (Highest tier gem you can get)
- Amulet = Diamond (Highest tier gem you can get)
- Rings = Skull (Highest tier gem you can get)
Paragon Boards
- Starter Board = Go for the next board quickly
- Ceaseless Conduit Board = Should be first board unlocked and focus Crackling Energy damage
- Static Surge = Focus damage to Stunned enemies
- Elemental Summoner = Focus on Control Impaired Duration Reduction
This is a platform for the build I am using and can be customized a bit. However, This is what I feel is a very viable build once acquiring the right type of gear. I can somewhat handle wt4 enemies with trash gear but following this setup.
I really don’t see much use out of crackling energy. At base it has a 3% chance to go off with some skills being a higher chance.
Overpower is the same way, but has some abilities give an automatic overpower in certain intervals like blood surge’s every 6th cast.
I understand your view but I can keep it up for the duration of the fight. I posted this as a decent option other than an ice build. It isn’t for everyone but a fun build.
How do you keep a steady flow of crackling energy going?
I was looking at it last night, since I made a new sorc to be a lightning build, but the game doesn’t tell you jack about how the game or your class is played. I had to look off line to read up on crackling energy.
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It is a combination of each skill bonus. Early game one struggles with keeping it up. However, When you get close to capping out your skill points it becomes more consistent. The build gets better damage wise with the paragon board setup I mentioned. For example you get a 93.5% bonus to Crackling Energy DMG from one board alone. Then there is Stun DMG as well from another board. I am in World Tier 4 with this build and when I entered this world tier the mobs were 12 levels higher that my Sorc. I could get killed in a few hits but was to be expected with my level difference. I don’t have the gear I want yet so my character isn’t as strong as she could be.
Even tho i would love to see crackling Energy being viable i have to Say that as it is right now Is not worth It. Damage wise It scale poorly. I’m currently at lv 92 playing a CE-Cl build i’v maxed out the crackling glyph board and got some crackling Energy damage bonus as roll on Gear i’m at like 300+% damage on CE and most High Number i saw It crit was around 50k with the mob being vulnarable and Frozen(consider i got even 6 point into the passive for damage against Frozen/chilled enemy) it’s infortunate but It Is such a bad joke. Also correct me if i’m wrong but in your build you have no way to apply vulnerability wich Is… kinda of a problem alredy. It Will work eventually for doing open world content but not more than that
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Yeah my Sorc has males alot of crackling energy and I have it all amped up in my gear and Paragon board, so it really has become a powerful part of my build. I’m set so it increases mana and also does hella damage so it’s a win-win.
It’s trash the CD on its garbage. Ce would have been okay if you didn’t have to pick it up. You need massive amounts of mobs for the CD passive to be worth it. I’ve tried multiple times with that build and it’s trash. The lighting got nerfed for no reason.
It got nerfed because streamers like Asmongold, cried non-stop about the Sorc, and their alternative motive was to get the barb buffed by making the sorc seem like an OP monster in the beta at level 25 compared to the “weak” barb.
its nice to see some build variety, I can see CE builds can be used for speed farming on low low keys or normal dungeons. but doing high level keys without freeze or vulnerability is not possible at current game state.
This build is good until you start doing the latter content later in the wt4 stuff. The only build that carries to the very end is a specific Blizzard build. Hopefully more builds become truly viable but the Crackling Energy build carries through most of the content but once you start getting to the very high Nightmare dungeons this falls off hard.
I feel like the main problem with the lightning build is the mana shortages, crackling energy solves this, its very easy to proc, i only put a couple skill points into it, and i find its all over place, solved my mana issues for my chain lightning build and freed up more space for offensive aspects on my gear,
shocking impact, conduction, and convulsions are not that great end game. you need the points for other things and stuns get DR’d out so fast they are wasted points. if you dump all of those points into ice blades and the passive that gives you a barrier when using a CD you can get vulnerability procs as well as increased cooldown reduction, my CR is so massive that I always have a 100% hit point barrier or more out at all times from the passive.
as far as anyone who is saying they aren’t getting enough CE procs, it’s because any proper build needs to synergize with aspects, you need the aspect that makes you have a 40% increased crit chance above 100 mana, throw it on an amulet for 60% increased crit chance. now your chain lightning above 100 mana has a 100% chance to crit. It does mega damage and now is basically guaranteed multiple CE procs per cast. further synergize the build by going the aspect that gives you mana when popping a CD and CE now works.
it is important to note that when you pick up a ball of CE it instantly procs damage, that means if you run over 10 CE balls in .5 seconds via dodge or teleport and CE does 50k damage a hit and you hit 6 enemies with CE, then CE just did 600kdps.
it’s important to pay attention to total damage output instead of damage output per hit. I’m currently level 76 doing millions of damage per second because of the massive amount of chain lightning, lightning spears and CE hits that go out per second all independant of each other. my Cooldown reduction from crackling energy is so great that in big fights I can cast unstable currents at a 100% uptime.
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This would be a lot more viable if Ceaseless Conduit legendary node actually worked. I found out after spending all those paragon points getting to it that it is broken. I got no extra crackling energy damage (should be at nearly 300% damage but it didn’t change at all) nor does it ever go off without consuming a charge (supposed to be a 25% chance to not consume a charge.) I think once they fix that and it works as it says then this could be a god-tier build.
As far as CE not showing up often enough - chain lightning + lots of critical chance = lots of crackling energy (I use elixirs on nightmare dungeons to get about 26% critical chance which has almost constant CE spawning.)
Great reply!
At level 84 I use CL, CE, UC and LS passive. I don’t use arc lash, I use Spark and have a huge amount of added attack speed (30 for basic and another 29 for crit with core skill) and high crit hit, sorry I don’t know the exact number b/c I’m at work right now. I stun the heck out of almost everything on the map in Helltides and NM dungeons from passives and stun aspect. I’ve finally got an ancestral Raiment 821 item power or armor can’t remember which and an over 800 ancestral Temerity. Haven’t had a chance yet to use either of these but hope to soon.
Using teleport and dodge to pick up CE greatly increases my damage and fills my mana up. Normally there’s so much CE that I end avoiding it when the fight ends so I can port to town, sell or salvage stuff and then return to get fully charged up for the next fight.
This is my favorite character and she’s almost pure lightning because I use ice armor for emergency situations like getting stunned by multiple Gorgers until teleport is recharged. I’m considering dropping ice armor but might not.