Lightning Spear is still one of the most popular and effective builds in the game, and if you're not already taking full advantage of it, you're likely missing out on a huge boost to your damage potential. Specifically, I'll be discussing the Herald Link, which can provide up to 70% more damage for your build - and I believe many of you are missing out on at least half of that potential.
If you're running a conventional Lightning Spear build, there's a powerful synergy between two support gems: Innervate and Ice Bite. These gems can dramatically enhance your damage output and provide you with extra utility that's often overlooked
POE 2 Currency. By the end of this guide, you'll understand how these gems work together, how to use them in your build, and why they're essential for maximizing your Lightning Spear damage in Path of Exile 2.
Let's break this down step by step.
The Power of the Herald Link
First, let's talk about why Heralds are such a vital part of your Lightning Spear build. Herald of Thunder is the default Herald for Lightning Spear builds because it naturally shocks enemies, which synergizes with the rest of your build. However, most players are only using Innervate in their Herald links, which is a solid choice, but there's so much more potential to unlock if you incorporate Ice Bite as well.
What Is Ice Bite and Innervate?
Innervate: This support gem provides a 35% increase to your damage when you're able to activate it. It works by granting a global damage increase for a short duration (around 5–8 seconds). The key here is that it makes your build significantly more powerful for a brief window, and it works particularly well with builds like Lightning Spear that already have good uptime on their skills.
Ice Bite: This support gem grants additional cold damage for your build and helps your abilities freeze enemies. This can seem counterintuitive when you're focusing on a lightning-based build, but the cold damage works in synergy with your Lightning Spear and Herald of Thunder abilities, offering a new layer of control and damage.
Enhancing Lightning Spear with Innervate and Ice Bite
Now that we understand what these gems do, let's dive into how to use them in a Lightning Spear build. When you link Innervate and Ice Bite into your Herald of Thunder, you're doing two critical things:
1.Damage Boost: You're giving your build an additional 70% gained as extra damage, with half of it being cold and the other half being lightning damage. This makes both your Lightning Spear and Herald of Thunder much more potent.
2.Freezing Enemies: By adding Ice Bite into the mix, you're making it possible for your Lightning Spear to freeze enemies, something you wouldn't normally get from a purely lightning-focused build. This gives you both offensive and defensive advantages since frozen enemies can't deal damage, and you're also getting the bonus cold damage.
3.Demonstration: Lightning Spear and Herald of Thunder
Let's walk through a quick showcase of how this synergy works. In this demonstration, I'm using Lightning Spear with all the best damage links. These include Perpetual Charge, Vault, Longot, Fork, and Deliberation. While these are not necessarily the absolute best links for every situation, they work well in this setup.
Next, I add Innervate to one of my links, sacrificing a 20% damage multiplier to gain the Innervate buff. With this, I get a 35% increase to all damage, which is significant. In my setup, I also have a high skill effect duration, which extends the uptime of Innervate to 8 seconds, ensuring that it's active nearly all the time during fights.
This is one of the key strengths of the build: the ability to have this buff active for long periods thanks to the shock uptime provided by Lightning Spear. As you can see in the video, Lightning Spear's shocking effect triggers frequently, ensuring that the Innervate buff is up almost constantly.Alternatives and Experimenting with Other Skills
If you're looking for ways to enhance your Lightning Spear build even further, there are some interesting options you can experiment with.
Storm Lance
One option is to incorporate Storm Lance into your build. This skill can also shock enemies, making it another excellent way to activate the Innervate buff. While Storm Lance doesn't have the same damage potential as Lightning Spear for clearing packs, it can still be useful for generating the Innervate effect, especially if you're looking for more flexibility with your skill setup.
Glacial Lance
Another viable option is to incorporate Glacial Lance. This skill is primarily cold-based and has great synergy with freeze mechanics. When used in combination with Lightning Spear, you can freeze enemies and make your build safer, while still benefiting from the Innervate and Ice Bite buffs. If you want to stack even more cold damage, this is a solid choice.
Herald of Thunder Links and Ice Bite
Now, let's dive into how to optimize your Herald of Thunder setup. Most players link Innervate into their Herald of Thunder for the extra damage boost. However, by incorporating Ice Bite and Cold Infusion, you can transform your build from a pure lightning-based build into a hybrid that also benefits from cold damage.
In this setup, Cold Infusion reduces your lightning damage but boosts your cold damage, while Glaciation increases your ability to freeze enemies. The real power of this setup comes from the synergy between Innervate and Ice Bite, which provide consistent buffs to your cold and lightning damage, allowing you to deal both high cold damage and lightning damage.
Finally, Embitter Support is an essential part of this setup. It modifies the 35% gain as extra lightning damage from Innervate, converting it to cold damage, allowing you to stack even more cold damage with your Herald of Thunder.
The Sacred Flame Shield and Higher Budget Setup
For players running a higher-budget setup, using the Sacred Flame Shield is a great way to further boost your damage. This shield provides a substantial increase to fire damage, which can be used in combination with Ember and Ice Bite to turn Herald of Thunder into a reliable source of cold damage. Additionally, this setup increases your ability to freeze enemies, making it much safer to clear content in the game.
The Sacred Flame Shield combined with Ice Bite, Innervate, and Cold Infusion creates an extremely potent Herald of Thunder link, giving you both massive damage boosts and the ability to freeze enemies reliably. This setup is ideal for players who are looking to push the limits of their build and achieve high-end performance in difficult content.
Twister Build Setup
Finally, for players running the Twister build, it's possible to use Herald of Ice instead of Herald of Thunder. While this setup doesn't rely on shocks, it works better for clear speed, as Herald of Ice can be magnified significantly with AoE support. Using Innervate and Ice Bite in combination with Herald of Ice can significantly improve your clear speed while still offering reliable freezing mechanics.
With this setup, you're able to freeze enemies while still benefiting from Innervate's damage boost, and the Ice Bite support ensures that you're maximizing your cold damage potential.
Conclusion
In summary, by incorporating Innervate, Ice Bite, and other synergies into your Herald of Thunder link, you can significantly boost your damage output in Lightning Spear builds
buy POE 2 Currency. Whether you're focusing on shocking enemies, freezing them, or both, these support gems and the Herald setup offer a variety of ways to enhance your build's power.
This guide provides a step-by-step approach to optimizing your Lightning Spear build with Heralds, and I hope it helps you unlock the full potential of your build. If you're already running Lightning Spear, make sure you're taking advantage of these synergies to increase your damage and survivability.
21.5.2025, 3:42
