[thejeff]

What build can change that? An Astral pretender can only be in one place at a time. There aren't cheap Astral mage summons you can bootstrap into. Death gets you into spectres, which is probably your best bet. With only 1 S mage you're not going to have gems to abuse anyway.

One astral mage, even a powerful one, doesn't solve the problem. This build leverages strengths, and not the obvious ones, instead of trying to cover that weakness.

I'm not sure AoG really changes the lightning situation much, except possibly with Wrathful Skies or Shimmering fields. And those are army killers even without a lightning vulnerability. Thugs on their own don't need AoG, Iron Will will suffice.