Spellblade Lighting Aura Theory Craft

Hi everyone! I’m looking for some feedback on this build I’ve been working on. I haven’t run up a spellblade since I first started the game and didn’t understand defenses enough for it to not die. So this is my latest idea that is mainly focused on getting a ridiculous amount of lighting auras up. Could use some thoughts on if it will work. And yes I realize the gear is probably gonna take a while, so imagine the legendary slots are instead rares. Except for the sword/armor/relic can probably be run as uniques.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: This is a combination of @Heavy and @Llama8 suggestions. So as Heavy pointed out, it’s more of a hybrid aura build.

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If you’re taking the Crackling Aura passive, you don’t need to take the Lightning Ward node in Flame Ward though you then lose the damage conversion effect for Flame Ward’s fire damage. You may also wish to take the Lingering Embers node in Flame Reave for a lot more Fire Aura procs & I think the Rhythm of Fire buff affects Fire Auras proc’d by Flame Reave (you then take 1 point in Versatility to allow Mana Strike/Firebrand to build up Rhythm of Fire “stacks”).

I’d also move some points into Shattered Aegis (for a significant increase to the DR you get) & you could take some points in Flame Drinker (ward/sec per Fire Aura) & Blades of Fires (% melee elemental damage per Fire Aura).

You also may find it nicer to try & get attack speed on your legendary weapon since it’s a two-hander. I’d also try & get +Flame Reave on the chest as well. Exsanguinous is also a good chest for a ward-based character (& you’ll want more Int as well to help with ward retention). And TBH, Alluvion just isn’t a particularly good sword.

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Ok great I’ll look into those and see if I can’t move some points around.

As for the chest, I mainly chose that one due to the 15% DR. I’ve never played a low-life/ward build effectively so exsanguinous makes me nervous.

I was thinking of just running strand of souls to boost ward gen/retention but I don’t currently have one. Is there a better sword I should be using? Or should I just find a good exault base and craft one? I could just run that searing pride staff? I was also considering swapping that siphon of anguish for another stardial.

Currently not on my desktop but a couple of quick thought when skipping over some items.

I am not sure why you call this a “Lightning Aura” build, but if you really wanna embrace that theme you can do substantial changes.

You could also fully embrace the Fire Aura theme and neglect melee dmg for the most part, this way you could redistribut a vast majority of passive points.

I would try getting crit on your weapon (and then on your gear), obviously changing Wing Guards then and incorperate at least 2 or 3 adorned idols with "chance to gain fire aura on crit) and “chance to get lightning aegis when hit”, this will give you a couple more fire auras and some decent DR from LA.

Alternatively (or evne on top of that) you could spec into Mana Strike’s Critical Rejuvination, giving it 40% base crit, but no crit multi.
In Fire Aura’s case, you want to crit in conjunction with those above mentioned idols, but you do not care for the crit multiplier anyway.

Rune Sap in Mana Strike can also be incredibly strong, when you jump into a huge pack of small monsters and jsut use Mana Strike to boost your spell damage significantly.

You might want to use 1H + Catalyst/Shield (Or DW with 1H Axe + Sword). Crescent Axe has decent base lightning dmg and more importantly lightning pen (which would affect Fire Aura).

Fire Aura’s Skill Spec Tree can give Fire Aura 15% more global dmg, while giving you one additional fire aura on activation. (Fure Aura + Eye Of Flames).

With this approach you also would want to focus more on Ward Retentio nand Intelligence.

I am also not sure why you equipped so many uniques (probably because you have them in your stash?)
You can get a lot more value out of crafted items and don’t need do craft all those legendaries.
Ward Trial is an excellent Item with a huge amount of base dodge, but if you use that, you should get 1 or 2 %inc. dodge (of the Fox) affixes.

But with a rare crafted belt, you would probably be better off, because Ward Trial is etremely good against many small enemies, which will all melt iwthin 1 or 2 ticks of Fire Aura.
Either way, you should get Ailment Cleanse on your belt, because for ward builds you can use your potions just for cleansing.
Strand Of Souls is definitely a good choice here too, which is pretty easily target farmable, jsut try getting ailment cleanse on it.

I put 3x frailty in the planner, but you only need one decent T3-4 affix on any of those slots.
I also left out all resistances, because they are interchangeable anyway.
Since you wanna run both armour blessings you might also want to get one or two mroe armour affix in there somewhere.

One thing, that is weird about Fire Aura builds, that generate a lot of their stacks from critting and Surge Dormant Engery Stacks is, that they kinda suck for low-difficulty content, when stuff dies too fast.

This build really start going off, one enemies survive a few hits, because that’s when you can upkeep 15-20 fire auras consitently.

Keep in mind, this is a substantially changed Fire Aura build and if you prefer doing some more burst dmg bith acutal melee dmg you can stay more true to your original build.
With my variant you defintiely want to stack Int and Ward Retention as much as possible as well.

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Just threw all this together huh? Legend.

I went past this affix because of the 1 second cooldown. Felt having the area up by 100% would be more useful. But again, haven’t played anything like this before.

I like the loots… and legendaries lol.

I was trying for a hybrid approach, but I’m not really sure which would be better for pushing content. My original theory was get high attack speed, which would proc a lot of auras, and generate a bunch of ward on hit. But again, I’m not really sure how to go about building ward builds. Really appreciate the reply, maybe I’ll try out both and see how they run. Yours is definitely easier to set up and I’m assuming could get massive ward.

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Unfortunately the 1s cooldown on the on crit idols makes it somewhat less useful.

Yeah my main appraoch with passive distribution and int/ward retention would generate a lot more ward.

If you try both you have to see what works better for you. Gathering gear for both and just slightly altering passives and gear should be not a big deal.

That’s what I do a lot on builds that I have no experience with, just test out all the possibilities.

Yes, but still having 1 or 2 of those idols can be really good, if you have a close too 100% crit skill (like mana strike), because you still would keep the 1 sec on cooldown (almost) all the time.

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