Storm Mage Infernalist Build Guide

• The most important item to acquire is a Minion Sceptre with multiple modifiers that increase your Minion's damage, ideally on an Rattling Sceptre. That said, if you acquire a Minion Sceptre with multiple good modifiers on another base that is fine.
  Specifically, look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
  • +# to Level of All Minion Skills
  • #% Increased Spirit
  • Allies in Your Presence Deal #% Increased Damage
  • Allies in Your Presence Have #% Increased Cast Speed
  • Allies in Your Presence Have #% Increased Critical Hit Chance
  • Allies in Your Presence Have #% Increased Critical Damage Bonus

If you prefer more damage over using a shield for passive block chance, you can dual wield a Sceptre together with Trenchtimbre for 3 extra +# to Level of All Minion Skills.

• In the Helmet slot search for only high Energy Shield bases.
  Specifically, look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
  • +1-2 to Level of all Minion Skills
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • #% Increased Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Life
  • Attributes that you need to meet gem and gear requirements
  • % increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)

• In the Body Armour slot search for only high Energy Shield bases with the best one being Expert Altar Robe.
  Specifically, look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • #% Increased Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Energy Shield
  • +# To Spirit
  • +# To Maximum Life
  • Attributes that you need to meet gem and gear requirements

• For the Shield you want a high Energy Shield & Armour base.
  Specifically, look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
  • #% Increased Block Chance
  • +# To Maximum Life
  • +#% To All Maximum Elemental Resistances
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • Attributes that you need to meet gem and gear requirements

A cheap and very good unique to use early on is Oaksworn. You can later replace it with a very good rare one, but Oaksworn should be used for a long time since it gives you Spirit, Chaos Resistance and high block chance. You can get a corrupted Oaksworn with two socket slots to help deal with elemental resistances. There are other good corruptions such as a little extra Spirit and higher block chance from the shield.

Note: A shield provides a passive block chance to block both physical and spell attacks. This is a very strong defensive layer which is why a shield is favored over using a Focus that provides no block at all.

• In the Gloves slot search for only high Energy Shield bases.
  Specifically, look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • #% Increased Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Life
  • Attributes that you need to meet gem and gear requirements
  • #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)

• In the Boots slot search for only high Energy Shield bases.
  Specifically, look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:
  • +#% to Movement Speed
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • #% Increased Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Energy Shield
  • +# to Maximum Life
  • #% increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)

A decent and cheap unique you can use for bossing is Bones of Ullr, but you have no extra movement speed or resistances with these boots. This makes them less attractive to use for fast mapping.

• There is no specific Ring base that you must use, prioritize the modifiers below first of all.
  • +# To Maximum Life
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • Attributes that you need to meet gem and gear requirements
  • % increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)
  • +# To Maximum Mana

A very good unique ring is Ventor's Gamble if it has high rolls on all the modifiers, but the modifier values can vary a lot and can even be negative. Finding a very good one is difficult and buying one is very expensive.

Note: You can apply quality to your rings to increase either life or a specific resistance value with Catalysts such as Xoph's Catalyst, Tul's Catalyst, Esh's Catalyst and Flesh Catalyst.

• There is no specific Amulet base that you must use, prioritize the modifiers below first of all.
  • +1-3 to Level of all Minion Skills
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • +# To Spirit
  • #% Increased Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Energy Shield
  • +# To Maximum Life
  • Attributes that you need to meet gem and gear requirements
  • % increased Rarity of Items found (Luxury stat, do not prioritize)

There are a few different options to instill on your amulet, but the recommended ones are:

• Essence Infusion (Cheap notable that gives +10 Int & 40% Recharge rate)
• Flashy Deflection (Cheap notable with 12% increased block chance)
• Deadly Swarm (Increased damage for your Minions)
• Icebreaker (This notable should make you almost Freeze Immune with the amount of Energy Shield this build currently has)

• There is no specific Belt base that you must use, prioritize the modifiers below first of all.
  • +#% to Fire, Cold, Lightning and Chaos Resistance
  • +# To Maximum Life
  • Attributes that you need to meet gem and gear requirements
  • +# To Maximum Mana
  • +1 Charm Slot or +2 Charm Slots

A very good unique is Ingenuity, but it is very expensive and should only be considered when you have a lot of currency.

There are quite a few good modifiers for the build that you can find on Sapphire.

This build allocates 6 Jewel sockets which provide an excellent way to further customize your build.
Prioritize damage modifiers on your jewel, have at a minimum two of the damage modifiers listed below on each of your Sapphire jewels.
Specifically look out for the following stats on them in rough order of importance:

• Minions have +#% to all Elemental Resistances (See note below)
• Minions have #% Increased Attack and Cast Speed
• Minions deal #% Increased damage
• Minions have #% Increased Critical Damage Bonus
• Minions have #% Increased Critical Hit Chance
• % increased Maximum Energy Shield
• #% Faster start of Energy Shield Recharge
• #% Increased Energy Shield Recharge Rate

Note: You only need one jewel with Minions have +#% to all Elemental Resistances to make sure your Minions are capped at 83% elemental resistances.

Any of these mods are also good on a Time-Lost Sapphire that affects a lot of nodes in the vicinity.

A very good but expensive unique jewel is Against the Darkness with Spirit and Maximum Fire resistance. Spirit is the most important modifier, if the combination of both Spirit and Maximum Fire resistance costs to much get one without the Maximum Fire resistance.

You can swap to Skeletal Storm Mages after the Campaign, but make sure you change all your skill gems and supports to have the correct setup for this build. Make sure to get Sapphires with at least two damage rolls to scale their damage.

If you follow the build guide the attribute you need the most for your skills is Intelligence. Pick it on your passive tree while traveling though the highway nodes and this should be enough to use all of you skills. If you want to equip some equipment that requires small amounts of Strength or Dexterity respec some of the attribute points. Make sure to still keep enough to be able to use all of you abilities. Using items with very high Strength and Dexterity is not recommended.

Make sure your Elemental Resists are at 76% and around 60%+ Chaos resistance. Furthermore, make sure you have the appropriate bases equipped to gain as much Energy Shield as possible.

• Relic: 15% increased Mana Recovery from Flasks
• Venom Drought: 25% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• Cruel Relic: 15% increased Life Recovery from Flasks
• Cruel Venom Drought: +10% to Chaos Resistance

NOTE: These bonuses are minor, if you picked something different for the Venom Draught, don't worry too much!

Both flask options may be swapped for 30% increased Charm Charges gained after acquiring more Charm Slots. When you have 2-3 Charms for the build it is better to change both bonuses to 30% Increased Charm Charges gained.

If you have Skeletal Warriors from a Sceptre then the amount of gem sockets depend on the skill level from the Sceptre you are using.
The gem sockets for your Infernal Hound depend on your own level, at level 90 you get the last socket slot for it.

I have play tested using Doryani's Prototype combined with two Ventor's Gamble that had negative Lightning resistance.
I reached around -120% Lightning resistance and the damage was barely higher then when I had played without it. With Doryani's I had to take more defensive passive nodes in the skill tree to compensate for the lower defenses compared to what a rare body Armour with a lot of energy shield had. With a rare you can spend these passive points on more damage instead. With Doryani's you also take a lot more Lightning damage since you have no Lightning resistance. The Doryani setup had around 6k ES, while with a rare I reached around 11k ES, in my opinion it is not worth using a Doryani because you loose to much ES for little damage gain. You can min-max the negative Lightning resistance to be much lower than -120%, but this would cost a lot more than a setup without Doryani's Prototype.

One more issue to point out with Doryani's is that it requires you to be within a specific distance for the negative Lightning resistance debuff to apply to enemies. If you are fighting bosses and need to avoid big attacks you could be forced to move far away which means you never gain the benefit of the extra damage it provides. Same thing applies when you are doing maps and your Skeletal Storm Mages are attacking monsters that are far away.

Sigil of Power is a skill that can only be found on a Chiming Staff. The skill creates a blue circle on the ground that buffs you and your minions with more spell damage while standing inside it. The buff becomes more powerful the more mana you spend while standing in the circle. A good support gem for this skill is Magnified Effect to make the circle larger.

Since this build uses either a Sceptre and a shield or a Sceptre with Trenchtimbre, you need to place this staff in your second weapon set. It is only used to pre-buff your minions before a boss fight or a Simulacrum wave.
To get the most out of this buff and your curses, you need to utilize the second weapon set skill points to increase curse effect, spell duration and spell area of effect. The skill point allocations for your second weapon set can be seen in the "End game time-lost jewels" skill tree.

Here is a video of when the skill is cast before the start of a Simulacrum wave and here is another when it is cast before a pinnacle boss fight.

Note: The only modifier that is important on a Chiming Staff is "+# to level of all Spell Skills", this modifier increases the level of the Sigil of Power skill and your curse.