In Path of Exile 3.21 Crucible League, the Lightning Coil unique body armor quickly became one of the most popular pieces of gear in the game. 

You can really begin to see this change properly when you compare this league compared to the last league 3.20 Sanctum. Through the comparison, it is not difficult to find that not only the popularity of Lightning Coil has greatly increased, but it is also applicable to all leagues.

POE 3.19 Change

Lighting Coil was buffed recently the modifier, which grants a percentage of physical damage from hits taken as lightning damage was increased from 30% to 50%. This is a huge change and overall a giant amount of damage shift gained from a single piece of gear.

But the interesting thing about this change is that it happened in 3.19 Kalandra League and it wasn’t until Crucible League that this item really caught on in popularity. 

So, what happened here? 

It’s often the case that these sorts of improvements to items do take a while to actually garner attention. But in the case of Lightning Coil, the popularity shift actually happened largely because of another change.

Pathfinder Rework 

That was the rework of the Pathfinder ascendancy.

Now, unlike the Saboteur rework, these changes quickly made Pathfinder when one of the strongest if not the strongest ascendancy in the game right now. And the play rate of the class skyrocketed.

In the Softcore Trade League, the popularity of Pathfinder tripled from Sanctum to Crucible, and it’s just about doubled in every other league.

Flask Setup 

Pathfinder’s ability to consistently have a Ruby Topaz and Sapphire Flask acted all the time makes for a relatively low investment combination with the Lightning Coil to provide great defense against all elemental damage and physical damage from hits at the same time.

The lightning resistance granted by the permanent Topaz Flask makes out gearing the huge amount of negative lightning resistance on the Lightning Coil unique body armor. It is much easier, as well. 

With just the Lightning Coil equipped, half of all of the physical damage that you take from hits will be mitigated by your lightning resistance and then further still by the less damage taken modifier on the Topaz Flask itself. 

Also Read: Everything You Need To Know About Creating Poison Soulrend Build In POE 3.21!

Taste Of Hate 

Pathfinder can then invest into a Taste of Hate unique flask whenever they’re able to afford it to replace the normal Sapphire Flask.

And with just these two uniques along with some flask effects and perhaps an Eater of Worlds Helmet Implicit for some additional physical damage shift the character can pretty much ignore physical damage hits since the large majority of that damage will now be taken as elemental damage instead. 

These builds no longer need to use Determination, which is a huge deal considering how impactful auras are. They could even continue to invest into this kind of setup deep into the endgame and eventually reach 100% or close to 100% of physical damage from Hits Taken’s elemental damage instead. 

You can really begin to see how popular this combination mechanics has been in the Crucible League with 89% of builds using the Lightning Coil being Pathfinder and of those builds 86% are also using Taste of Hate.

But the popularity of Lightning Coil has more to do with the lack of competition that this item has for the magnitude of damage shift that it provides.  

Alternatives

The closest option is the Cloak of Flame, which is somewhat comparable it provides 40% of physical damage taken as fire damage. And this item is not specific to hits. So, it also worked for things like Bleeding, which is actually quite strong and it also provides a large amount of resistance rather than the negative resistance that the Lightning Coil has. 

But realistically, the Pathfinder doesn’t really need to gear much for resistance due to the flask setup. And the rest of the modifiers on Cloak of Flame are quite weak in comparison. It lacks any kind of life. The base provides a tiny amount of Energy Shield compared to the very respectable amount of armour renovation that you gain on the Lightning Coil. 

This is not as favorable of an option, with only 0.8% of players using the Cloak of Flame compared to the 7% using Lightning Coil in Softcore Trade Crucible. And after that, the options start to become a lot less comparable and unveiled gravitious armor. Thus, the Betrayal mode that can have up to 18% physical damage shift and an Essence or a Conqueror Influence body armor can have up to 15%.

With these options providing much lower amounts of damage shift, you’ll then need to start sacrificing more gear slots to pursue this kind of defense things, like the shield slot for example with the Dawnbreaker.

Conclusion

I do think it’s quite an interesting time for defenses in Path of Exile. We now have a lot of very strong options for the body armor slot. And each item has their own strengths and weaknesses. I really like that they cover a lot of ground in terms of different defense types and different synergies that can be paired with them and just a general preference towards specific ascendencies or different sides of the passive tree.

I’m not sure what the future will bring for the Lightning Coil or POE Items like the Fourth Vow. Whether these receive some sort of nerfs or if they continue to introduce other interesting competing options, only time will tell. 

But, in general, I do think it’s an interesting time. There is a lot of options that you have when it comes to gearing your defenses in Path of Exile right now. And that’s a big difference compared to what it used to be even six leagues went.

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