In Path of Exile 2 (POE2), the Elementalist’s Storm Build often incorporates a mix of lightning, cold, and fire skills rather than focusing on a single element, This approach is designed to maximize versatility, synergy, and overall effectiveness in both clearing maps and defeating bosses. Below are the key reasons why this strategy is employed:
1. Synergy Between Elemental Skills in Elementalist’s Storm Build
The Elementalist’s Storm Build leverages the Elemental Storm mechanic, which triggers storms based on the type of elemental damage dealt. By using a mix of lightning, cold, and fire skills, you can create multiple overlapping storms that deal continuous damage and apply various elemental ailments (e.g., shock, freeze, ignite). This synergy enhances both area-of-effect (AoE) clear speed and single-target damage.
- Lightning Skills: Provide high burst damage and shock effects, which increase the damage enemies take.
- Cold Skills: Offer crowd control through freezing and chilling, making enemies easier to manage.
- Fire Skills: Add damage-over-time (DoT) effects like ignite, which can spread to multiple enemies and deal sustained damage.
2. Maximizing Critical Strike Potential for Elementalist’s Storm Build
The build relies heavily on critical strikes to trigger Elemental Storms. By using skills from all three elements, you increase the chances of landing critical hits, which in turn spawn more storms. This creates a feedback loop where critical hits from one element can trigger storms that benefit from the others, amplifying overall damage output.
3. Exploiting Elemental Exposure and Resistance Reduction
The Elementalist’s Scouring Winds ascendancy node enhances the effectiveness of Exposure ailments, which reduce enemy resistances. By using skills from multiple elements, you can apply different types of exposure (e.g., lightning, cold, fire), further weakening enemies and increasing the damage they take from all sources. This is particularly effective against bosses with high elemental resistances.
4. Flexibility in Playstyle
Mixing elements allows for greater adaptability in different scenarios:
- Mapping: Lightning and fire skills excel at clearing large groups of enemies quickly, while cold skills provide crowd control to manage dangerous packs.
- Boss Fights: Cold skills can freeze bosses temporarily, while lightning and fire skills deliver high burst damage. This combination ensures you can handle both adds and the boss simultaneously.
5. Synergy with Support Gems and Passives
The build uses support gems like Spell Echo, Controlled Destruction, and Penetration Gems (e.g., Lightning Penetration, Cold Penetration) to enhance the effectiveness of all elemental skills. Additionally, passive skills and ascendancy nodes like Tempest Caller and Rain Dancer further amplify the damage and utility of mixed-element spells.
6. Elemental Storms and Overlapping Damage
The Elemental Storm skill spawns storms based on the elemental type of your critical hits. By using a mix of elements, you can create overlapping storms that deal massive damage in a concentrated area. For example, a lightning storm can shock enemies, while a cold storm freezes them, and a fire storm ignites them. This layered damage approach is highly effective in both clearing maps and defeating tough bosses.
7. Defensive Benefits for Elementalist’s Storm Build
Cold skills provide crowd control by freezing or chilling enemies, reducing the number of threats you face. Lightning skills can shock enemies, slowing their actions, while fire skills can ignite them, dealing damage over time. This combination not only increases your offensive capabilities but also enhances your survivability by limiting enemy mobility and damage output.
Using a mix of lightning, cold, and fire skills in the Elementalist’s Storm Build in POE2 creates a dynamic and versatile playstyle that maximizes damage, crowd control, and survivability. By leveraging the synergies between different elements, you can dominate both mapping and boss fights, making this approach a powerful and flexible choice in Path of Exile 2 (POE2). For more details on skill rotations and gear recommendations, check the full build guides.