PoE 3.25 Lightning Strike Warden: SSF Functional and Endgame Strategies

The Lightning Strike Warden build excels in semi-SSF situations, showcasing functional gameplay and gear adaptability.

### Optimizing Lightning Strike Warden Build for End-Game Success
* ⚔️  A level 92 player shares insights on successfully running end-game content with a **Lightning Strike Warden build** in a small private league with **limited resources**.
* 🛡️  Swapping **Purity of Elements for Determination** is recommended once a decent shield like Dawnbreaker is acquired, providing both **armor and elemental/fizz damage reduction**.
* 🔮  Lethal Pride mods such as **endurance charge on kill, rage on hit, intimidate, and double damage** are highlighted as **top choices** for the build.
* 🗡️  Recommendations for claw DPS baseline are provided, suggesting **250-300 DPS for early maps** and **350+ for later content**, with preferred mods including **high elemental damage, attack speed, crit chance, and crit multi**.
* 🏛️  Anoint suggestions include **Disciple of the Unyielding**, **Synaps Aot**, **Claws of the Falcon**, and **Battle Trance**, based on specific build needs like **endurance charge generation**, **shield bonuses**, **accuracy**, and **rage management**.
* 🧪  Experimentation with new additions like **Nature's Concoction** and **Tincture Mastery** is encouraged, with the latter providing a **quality of life improvement** despite some skepticism.
* 🔒  Defensive options like **Avatar of the Wilds** and **Wind Dancer** are recommended for **additional survivability**, with the latter requiring further exploration to determine **optimal breakpoints**.
* 🎯  The build's **overall performance** is praised, with the creator inviting feedback and questions to **continuously improve and support the community**.

the lightning strike Warden is still performing super well. I'm level 92, and yesterday I did my EA xar. I've been playing in a little group found private League. We only have about four or five active players, so my gear is pretty garbage, and yet we were still able to comfortably do Ether xar deathless. I have a 350 - well, actually a 400 - EDPS claw, but I did EA xar on a 350 EDPS claw. A lot of people in chat are actually better geared than I am, further ahead in that progression. So, this shows that the build is functional in a semi SSF and probably also SSF situation. But I've been getting a lot of the same questions, and in today's video, we're going to be answering those. So, let's go down the list, and this will be provided in the PO and in the spreadsheet - all these questions and the answers to them, and the PO will be updated with some of the changes. First question: when do we swap from Purity of Elements into

determination. I'm currently using grace determination, herald of ice, and precision. We use this hermin once we get a decent shield, and a decent Shield. Dawn breaker is an excellent option. You can get one of these very cheap. It's got a fat chunk of armor, and also Elemental and Fizz taken as fire. This is super nice defensively. So you can pop in a dawn breaker, and then also Al try to make sure that you upgrade your soul of the brine King to at least have a 100% chance to avoid being frozen. You can do this by putting a Divine vessel in the map device, and then running Coral Ruins map, completing that, then right-clicking the Divine vessel. This will mean that you at least cannot be Frozen. As for shock and ignite early on, it's just something that you're going to have to deal with. Hopefully, out Leach it. It might kill you here and there, but I think having higher phys mitigation is more important than the 100% chance to avoid shock and ignite, and other

ailments ancestral vision and storm Shrout fairly pricey. This league so getting that perfect chance to avoid all Elemental ailments is a bit tricky. There are some things on the tree we could pick up. So this wheel over here gives us 20% chance to avoid Elemental ailments. We can also go down here to Crystal skin if we grab 10 20 and 20. This is another 30%. So this is 50% chance to avoid Elemental ailments. You can also get an ear implicit on your boots which is CH to void Elemental ailments. And then we can look and see you can get another 30% from a chest or a shield with another Cher void Elemental ailments. Something like this could also work. So you could grab this the boot implicit and then those Wheels on the tree and it should get you ailment immune. But it is a fairly steep cost to grab Crystal skin. But that is a cheaper option than going the storm shroud route. Otherwise just do what I'm doing which is getting your soul of the Brian King and then being

okay with sometimes getting ignited and shocked. It might kill you, but probably not as often as a big fsmax hit. Then next we have, which are the best mods on Lethal Pride. The mods you have one thing to look out for. Number one is going to be endurance charge on kill. Endurance Chargers are big this league. Then rage on hit is also excellent. Intimidate is a very nice mod, and double damage. All of those are really good for our build. So, endurance charge and kill, double damage, rage, intimidate. As for the placement, some people have asked, can we place it down here or does it have to be up here by Ghost Dance? If you want to go Wind Dancer, then you cannot place it here as this will change this into a different Keystone. But if you're not going Wind Dancer, then you absolutely can put it down here. Otherwise, if you do go in dancer, put it up here. But let's continue. As for the belt, which belts are we going to use? Micro Distillery. It's still a

pretty good option for sure, but we can also go for a Stygian Vise. Stygian Vise lets us use an Abyssal Jewel, which can get a lot of damage. We can get a chance to gain phasing, attack speed, life. Also, if you're using Storm Shroud, you can get a chance to avoid being shocked on your little Abyssal Jewel. As for Perseverance, this is a really great belt that I used last League. You get a lot of damage if you have enough armor and evasion, but one of the big benefits from this is that you have Onslaught during boss fights. Onslaught while you are fortified, and it grants you a chance to gain fortify on kill. And with the implicit form out chest, which I still do not have, you can get pretty much permanent Onslaught uptime while bossing. So, Perseverance is a good option. It does stretch your attributes pretty thin. You're going to struggle with your resistances and strength and dexterity. But if you can fit it in and you got a decent chunk of armor and evasion, then

you can use that as for this mod on this armor armor during Soul game prevention. I really like this. I still really like this, especially if you're using perseverance. It's a nice damage and defensive boost, so don't forget to use this. You can also just go for percent life or chance to avoid Elemental ailments on your chest, and then some survivability options. Firstly, Dawn breaker. Just so good, very cheap, tons of armor. Like I said, you can swap to a rare Shield later on if you want. You can get ones with resistances, attack speed, chance to deal double damage. All of those are excellent. And then some automated strategies that you can employ in your build. So one that's been really good is automate linked with steel skin. You can use this early on. It grants us a little Shield that absorbs a smallish amount of damage. This is super nice. However, you can also use cast when damage taken Immortal coal if you do have endurance charge generation, which I'll get it into Immortal coal with cast and damage taken.

is an excellent option. However, make sure that you also have endurance charge generation on buses. So, I've been using this ring over here, which is chance to gain an endurance charge and kill. Great for mapping. I'm not getting endurance charges while bossing. However, if you have a decent chunk of armor, about 22,000 plus, if you're sitting at about 25,000 armor or 30,000, definitely use molten shell with cast and damage taken. This make sure that it is your armor, your 100% uptime armor, not your armor when you're everything is down like you don't have your armor during Soul game prevention flask is up. Soul game prevention, like at this point, I'm sitting at about with my flask up 14,000 armor. This, I wouldn't swap into molten shell because seal skin would just be better for now. But if you do scale a lot more armor, M shell is really good. As for our links, so I have actually swapped some of my gems. I'm using lightning strike, night Blade Trinity, multi strike. These are all the

same and then my sixth link is returning projectile support. This is super good for Cleo, also really good for damage, but previously I had Elemental damage with attacks or volatility. I actually reached out to palon. I looked at his Pub and I was like, Hey man, why aren't you using volatility? Like it's really good for Trinity, it's also more damage. And he made a really good point. He said volatility is great if you're using WTH aura, and the only way we were getting wrath was with the dark marionet, which I don't think we're going to end up using. I haven't even got one yet. Everyone said they just aren't that nice. So he said added lightning damage or added cold damage is a much better alternative. So for your fifth link, try added lightning damage or added cold damage. Just make sure that if you go added lightning damage, you aren't breaking your Trinity. Remember, you can check the top left to make sure that that circle is being filled completely. And then once you get awakened added cold damage

awaken added lightning damage. Awaken added lightning damage level five will increase the level of your lightning strike by one, which is huge. But you can go for awaken added cold damage too. The only downside, again, with awaken added lightning damage is it might cause your lightning strike to not proc the Trinity as easily. But yeah, volatility out, increased Elemental damage with attacks support out. Rather use added cold or added lightning later on once we get the leader of the pack wheel again and then grab this reservation and this reservation and then the implicit on our helmet, 7% increased Mana reservation efficiency of skills. We can use Arctic armor. I'm not quite there yet. I think Arctic armor is probably going to be the best bet. Also inflicting chill, which makes your taming deal more damage. I haven't tested Sand and Stone or blood and Sand or the other one that I was thinking about. I'm just going to commit to Arctic armor. I will test the other one. If you have tried blood is it blood and Sand, do let me know in the comments.

if it feels really good, but I'm a little bit suspicious of it, so Arctic armor. This will also grant you freeze immunity. So if you have that and you haven't upgraded your Brine King yet, that's fine. You will have your freeze immunity. Now let's talk about some endurance charge generation. There are a lot of ways to get it, and it will make a big difference to your build. So the first way is like I have. I have this unveiled chance to gain endurance charge on kill. This you can bench onto your gear. This only comes from the unveil. You can bench on minimum endurance charges, but you can't get the chance to gain an endurance charge on kill. And again, this also doesn't give you endurance charges while bossing. So one option, another option. A lot of people have been saying is to anoint Disciple of the Unyielding. This gives you a chance to gain an endurance charge on kill and also minimum endurance charges. Super super nice all round bit of damage, bit of defense, mostly for

mapping so disciple of the unyielding as an anoint. A lot of people have been saying they've been taking that. And then there is, of course, enduring composure, and another one some people have suggested is to get smashing strikes. 10% chance to gain an endurance charge on melee Critical Strike. Now this would work for bossing if you crit with the melee portion of your attack, which we are doing when we're doing bossing. So this might be a better one if you're doing a lot of bossy type stuff, whereas disciple of the unyielding is going to be a better anoint for if you're primarily mapping. As for dark marionettes, these, yeah, apparently they suck. Still haven't tried it, but what are we going to fill in those sockets? And I did some exploring, some Ying of tech from other streamers, and I think I really like what palon had over here. So he filled his gems with adding a small level one Clarity with his Precision arrogance.

setup. So, this is just a tiny bit of Mana regen. However, this also grants us another little 8% increased damage for each Aura affecting you. And that tiny bit of regen is just nice passive regen. The other socket we can use over here, which is use lifp with whirling blades. This is mostly for cannot regen maps and after you finish looting. If you don't have a lot of passive Mana regen, it feels very annoying when you are trying to loot and you just run out of Mana. Someone else also suggested Venom that you can link whirling blades with rage support. This grants you just a little bit of extra rage when you whirling blade through enemy. And I mean we're trying to fill up our sockets. It is actually more, it's actually better than I thought when I tested it yesterday. So, you could use rage support. And then I think we have one more socket. I will put it in the PO once I've figured out exactly what we're going to do. But I think this is probably

going to be the call LIF typ rage, and then also the clarity. I think that fills up the sockets, so that's what we're going to use instead of the dark marionet. We don't get rough anymore. Very sad, but we have so much damage that it's actually fine now. Some people wanted guidelines on what kind of claw you need, like a baseline DPS on your claw. So early Maps, I would say probably about 250 to 300 DPS. That can be just total DPS, not just edps. Later maps, I mean, I killed E xar. I was doing 26 maps with a 350 edps claw, which if you're playing trade league, is probably like a 1C or some item that your friend found that they'll just give to you for free. Complete rubbish. I was excited when I got a claw with chaos resistance. That's kind of the point where we're at with our progression. So early Maps, 200-250-300 should do you fine. Later Maps, yeah, 350 plus, but obviously try to get that.

as high as possible. A lot of people have been running around with like 500, 600, even 700 EDPS claws. And this is when your damage just goes through the roof. Mods you want on your claws: just high elemental damage lightning, cold, fire as your prefixes, and then suffixes attack speed crit chance and crit multi. The best bases that we're looking for: number one is going to be the Imperial claw, but early on don't worry about the base, just check that DPS number. You can do it with Awakened POE Trade CTRL D and I can see my DPS. So this one is 494, but the EDPS is 410, so just check that early on, don't worry about the base much later on, the base does matter a bit more. As for the anoint, a lot of people have tons of different options. I asked everyone in chat what they were using yesterday. First thing is Static Blows. This is in the name, it blows. We don't want to use this anymore. We're not using Oath of Springs, so this

is not really a great option for us anymore. So what do we use instead? And this is where everyone's suggestions came in. So, Disciple of the Unyielding at the bottom of the tree is one that I mentioned already for endurance charge generation, just to tank up a little bit. Another one that I really like, suggested by a few people, Synaps Aot, was first retaliation attack skills. Grant 20% increased damage while holding a shield, which we are also 8% increased attack speed while holding a shield, and 60% increased defenses from equipped Shield. Dawnbreaker has a lot of armor, especially if it's rolled very well, so 6% increase defenses from it is a nice, nice chunk of armor. So I might go with this, especially since I already have a mapping endurance charge generation. Now there's a few others up top. We have Claws of the Falcon. This is if you are struggling with your accuracy, you can grab this. Also gives you a very nice chunk of crit multi so if you're really

struggling to get that accuracy caps. Tri Clause of the Falcon now over on the left side of the tree if you do have rage generation. Battle trance is very nice because that'll push your max rage from 30 up to 40, which is 10% more damage. I think this is a very nice option too. And then another one is arcing blows. Now when you get your lethal pride and you place it over here, if your lethal Pride hits a really good mod on arcing blows like let's say double damage or endurance charge and kill, you can anoint arcing blows. We have so much penetration that this damage is less significant than what it was before, but arcing blows, if your lethal pride is hitting a good mod, then you could pop that on right now. What I'm testing is Nature's concoction. This is really, really good flask sustain. However, I think we need to build around this because it says Faction to active users gain two charges when you hit an enemy with a melee weapon no more than once every second. Now that is like

said very good flask generation. The downside is that our current tincture setup is that we only really have our tinctures active for a few seconds out of every 10c cycle, so we're not getting the full benefit out of this. However, there is a way that maybe, and I'll explore this later on, a way that we could have our tincture uptime longer and make less use of enduring of fusion to get the uptime, and then this could be really, really, really good. I want to get it so it feels like we have a free Mage blood in our build. So, you could take this if you want, but I think one of the other options are probably going to be better for the time being. Now, this tincture Mastery, a few people have said this tincture Mastery, the first things man bur imply to you have no effect. They say this is pointless, don't take it, it's not good. And then I tried it and I did not really like it. My character kept ooing, she kept saying not enough Mana.

enough mana, and I noticed that the moment I put this back on, she stopped. So, you can sustain your Mana bone Stacks without this, but I felt like the quality of life that you're getting just from this one point is worth it. However, you can test it, remove it, see what you think, but I tested it, I didn't like it, so I decided to put it back. Avatar of the Wilds, if you haven't done your Uber lab, make sure you do it as soon as possible. This is so busted, it's so, so strong, especially against bosses, finally against Pinnacle bosses that are slowed by 50%, makes them a lot easier. Al, if you're doing content like Abyss or other scary content, maybe even sanctum, I want to test sanum soon, this is just it freezes everything, everything gets frozen. These two points are just a massive defensive player. A lot of people say that the warden has no defensive nodes, well here it is right over here. It just so happens is this one also gives

us 80% more Elemental damage, so yep, get your avatar. It is so sick. As for Wind Dancer, I must explore to figure out exactly what the break point to put this in is. The problem with it is if you're not evading enough and you're getting hit, well, it's actually a bit of an ehp loss. So I haven't had time to find that exact point. I would like to be able to say, you know, when you have a 75% chance to evade and you know 15,000 armor, then you can pop it in. I just haven't had the time to fully explore that. It was much easier to get really high value out of this last league, but with the Nerf pseo termination and Grace, that loss of flat armor and evasion is actually more significant than expected. Just, it's harder to get a high amount of armor and evasion, so don't spec this in too early, especially if your evasion and armor aren't too high yet. That's going to be it for this video.

if you have any more questions, leave it in the comments. Join streams, join the Discord. I am a person with a job. I'm trying my best to keep up, but if you're looking for more instant feedback and updates, join the Discords, join the streams. I can't put out a video every day, unfortunately, and especially if you are struggling, hop in, ask for a hand. We still have some helpful people. When I have time, I do look at posts. I can't look at everyone's posts, but I'm hoping that the people who I do help pay it forward and then help other people facing similar issues. So that's it. Build kicks ass. I hope you've been enjoying it. If you haven't, well, let's look at your post, see what you did wrong so we can fix it. Have a wonderful day. Catch you later. Stay safe. Catch you on stream. Bye-bye. Bye.

Lightning Strike Warden Day 5 Update: Defences, Damage, QoL | PoE 3.25

Lolcohol

The Success of Lightning Strike Warden Build

The build has proven to be effective even with low-quality gear in a small group setting, demonstrating its functionality in semi-SSF situations.

The video addresses important questions about when to swap from Purity of Elements to determination and the best mods on Lethal Pride, providing valuable insights for players.

It also offers options for dealing with elemental ailments and discusses the choice of belts for the build, catering to the needs of different playstyles.

Optimizing Gear and Strategies for Your Build

Consider using a Stygian Vise for the potential damage boost and additional bonuses like phasing and life.

Perseverance can provide a significant damage increase and valuable buffs such as Onslaught and fortify generation.

When it comes to chest armor, prioritize defensive options like life and Elemental ailment avoidance, or consider Dawnbreaker for its affordability and armor bonuses.

Automate your defense with steel skin or cast when damage taken Immortal Call, and ensure endurance charge generation for maximum effectiveness.

Experiment with gem swaps like using added lightning or cold damage based on your build's needs, and prioritize maintaining the Trinity buff while optimizing your links.

Optimizing Build Skills and Gear for Endurance Charge Generation

Using Awakened Added Lightning Damage can significantly increase the level of Lightning Strike, but it may affect the proc of Trinity.

Consider using Awakened Added Cold Damage instead.

Arctic Armor is a reliable choice for inflicting chill and gaining freeze immunity, especially before upgrading Brine King.

Endurance charges can be generated through various methods such as unveiling gear, anointing Disciple of the Unyielding, or using Smashing Strikes for bossing.

When filling in sockets, consider adding a low-level Clarity with Precision and Arrogance, as demonstrated by Palon.

Tips for Socket Usage and Claw Selection in Path of Exile

Passive Mana regen and increased damage from auras are important for socket usage.

Whirling Blades with LIFP is useful for regen in cannot regen maps and looting.

Consider using Rage support with Whirling Blades for extra rage and filling up sockets.

For claw selection, aim for 250-300 DPS in early maps and 350+ DPS in later maps, focusing on high elemental damage and specific mods like attack speed and crit chance.

The Imperial claw is the top base to look for, and anoint options include Static Blows and Oath of Springs.

Alternative Options for Character Build Improvement

Suggestions for improving endurance charge generation and shield usage have been made, with a specific focus on the Disciple of the Unyielding and Synaps Aot skills.

Other options such as Claws of the Falcon, Battle Trance, and Arcing Blows are also recommended based on individual struggles and character needs.

The potential of Nature's Concoction for flask sustain is discussed, with the idea of prolonging tincture uptime for maximum benefit.

The mixed reviews of Tincture Mastery are also highlighted, emphasizing the need for personal testing and evaluation.

Tips for Optimizing Your Character Build in Path of Exile

Consider using the Avatar of the Wilds for strong defensive capabilities and increased Elemental damage, especially effective against bosses.

Be cautious with Wind Dancer, as its effectiveness depends on your evasion and armor levels, which may be harder to stack due to recent nerfs.

Joining streams and Discord communities can provide additional help and support for optimizing your build and addressing any struggles.