The Prince of Thunder and Lightning

Let not my appearances deceive you for I am of the race of elf and my years are many and yet my swiftness and cunning are as of a the spry fox. I have spent millennia studying with the masters of wind and sky for I am heir to the Lord of Storms. I have been called many names throughout the ages but I was always destined to be the Prince of Thunder and Lightning. There is no need to fear me for I am master of peace, never-the-less FEAR MY WRATH for the thunder is not heard until after the lightning has struck and that truly can be disorienting for many a foe.

The Build:

Prince of Light

Offensive: Chain Lightning
1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29

Defensive: Sonic Boom
2, 6, 10, 14, 18, 20, 26, 28, 30, 31, 34, 35, 37, 38

Misc: Darkness
4, 12, 22, 33, 36, 39

Ultimate: Static Discharge
8, 16, 24, 32, 40

Items:

*Note in a typical pub game it is often you will have to carry some a**hole who thinks all passives are the shiz niz, so though this item build may not be great for a clan match or a 1v1 it works wonders for power farming the key is to power farm those passive builds so they can be beasts.

Basic Mystic Gear
Glyph of power
axe
totemic glyph

Those should get you to duel 1 if you can get a cloak of magi as well for a boost in mana for duel. With chain lightning unless your teamates are complete goofs you should be able to win this duel with a bit of ease just remember to coral the other team in (try to maximize your chain dmg with order of hits).

Upgrade your ax and grab some boots and get your a** back out there and farm.

Upgrade Ax
Boots
Warrior Ring
Saints token
Upgrade Ax again

Duel time don't for get to kite coral and chain lightning now you should have enough mana to blow back any stawlkers with supersonic plus you have the added benefit of a very powerful attack kill your casters first you are most susceptible to them right now.

Mystic Gear
archmagus cloak
belt of magus god

Well this should get you started by duel 3 you should have over 300 dmg and your ally passives should be able to hold their own now you can decide the rest of your path as you will there are alot of options.

**Note chain lightning and static discharge make a great combo when farming summoning creep and hydras search out those spawns whenever you can hydras are bank!

***Yes I know restore mana would be pretty op here and is an excellent substitute for darkness, but I like how darkness gives you a bit more flexibility and simply is cooler, so there nay sayers!

getting boots after first duel... getting an axe early... on int... I am not sure it is possible to calmly and politely list all of the ways in which this item build is terrible.

I must ask though; how does static discharge work?strong? weak? imba?

I would say it's possibly a good choice to get a weapon some time after your first mid tier stat item but not before. The only exception would be staff as it generally acts like a stat buffer any how. However even that item ranks about 3rd on priorities at least for me anyhow. Static Charge seems pretty weak to me but that's only going on 2 games seeing it. I suppose it's balanced by it's low mana cost but a part of me feels dread curse is generally better at least for the first 3 ranks or so.

Strictly single target speaking; static storm is better damage (though a higher cooldown, and has a mana cost) Dread however DOES have an AoE to it; so it can also farm decently well if you round up creeps.

Any idea on a comparison for it, in terms of AoE? is it worth a cast on a creep spawn? While testing it, I found it was a little on the weak side for casting on a creep spawn; and buffed it a little.

Anyone who has had ample opportunity to test it; have balancing suggestions? Would a damage boost be a good idea? more bounces? lower CD? I would really rather not simply increase damage on it; but I am willing to. I like skills to be more interesting based on their "other" factors.

Did you read the note about it for pub games? I am pretty sure it would only be the item build for pub games if you have stupid passive teamates. The early ax is just so you can quickly eliminate immunes cause with prince of light and chain lightning immunes start stacking up all over the place as you dash from one area to the next.

Oh and static discharge I personally believe needs a shorter cooldown it feels extremely long. It sucks vs heros - badly - against creep you have to round them up hit them with static discharge and try to spread them back out so the each of the chains have a chance to move around. Works very nice against hydras the more targets the better. Also it is very nice in first rag quest. Suggestions may be to give it a little higher cast range I cast it while in attack range of prince of light and it did not hit target you have to actually charge in.

the cast range on it is 400,500,600,700,800 AoE around the prince. his attack range is what, 300?from his attack range, it will work. if an enemy is moving away, then you cast it and they move out of that 400 range; you are SoL. though all bolts can hit a single target. there is no need to spread enemy units out; 50 units can be standing on top of each other, and a chain light with a bounce of 50 will hit them all. each bolt has its own count; no single bolt will hit the same unit twice; but 8 bolts can each hit the same unit 8 times.

Lower CD sounds reasonable. Random; do you have a suggestion for it?

also, has anyone tried phase shift?

The problem is if a unit dies as another chain is going to hit it that chain just dies out. and doesn't get full bounce

I didn't even know there was new skills out.I will try to get on and do some testing once I get a break from work however I am pushing 50 hours again this week.

there are also random crashes; and gold from kills not being counter. the gold has been fixed; i am not positive what is causing the crash though...

I think lower/low cd would probably be the way to go. I used phase shift tonight I kind of like it, it seems like a fast cd hibernate that you can cancel. Maybe its duration could be a tad bit longer. Just seems weird using an ultimate to dodge projectiles and nukes and that other wise fatal last hit of doom. It's fun to wake up once in a while and try to develop fast reflexes to make efforts a waste of time, or face palm when you slightly misjudge/mistimed the situation and have egg on your face when you die ^_^.