Velvet's elemental buzzsaw {crit} ~ Atziri deathless/map clearing 1.3 Updated!

On the topic of critical chance, because I saw in previous posts that you guys are not so close to the 95% cap. I will say what my numbers are and then explain them:

My normal attacks have at the moment 59.6% critical chance. Spectral throw has 72.3% chance with no power charges and 90.4% with 4 power charges (95% with 5). Let's see how the numbers add up.

First off, I am using an ambusher with base crit chance of 6.68. The local crit modifier (i.e. the 'Increased Critical Strike Chance' explicit mod of the weapon) is 35%, giving a total of 9.01%. Everything else will be multiplied with this number (that's just how it works).

The other crit modifiers that will apply are:
-> 435% from the skill tree (check it out in my original guide).
-> 126% from gear: 40% global from the Ambusher, 28% from the amulet and 58% total from the rings (30+28 in fact)
-> 141% from a lvl 18, no quality increased critical strikes gem
-> 200% (/250%) from 4(/5) power charges

And obviously, the numbers add up:

9.01 * (1 + 4.35 + 1.26) = 9.01 * 6.61 = 59.6
9.01 * (1 + 4.35 + 1.26 + 1.41) = 9.01 * 8.02 = 72.3
9.01 * (1 + 4.35 + 1.26 + 1.41 + 2) = 9.01 * 10.02 = 90.4
9.01 * (1 + 4.35 + 1.26 + 1.41 + 2.5) = 9.01 * 10.52 = 95

Honestly there is some rounding up involved but those are the end numbers that appear in the game. Also, these numbers justify why I dropped one power charge. At the moment I have 141% from my ICS gem and at 20/20 it will be 167% and final crit chance will be 92.7% with 4 power charges. Also, getting to 5 power charges and keeping them up is quite hard using AM from HoT.

So the conclusion is that I can't imagine where you guys are missing the crit chance. Obviously, at the right level everyone can grab the modifiers from the tree. Also, the power charges and ICS gem are a given. I guess the difference is made by the gear, and the most important aspect is the T1 local crit chance on the dagger. Apart from that, 86% from amulet and rings is not so much and can be overlooked if you take 1 extra power charge.

I hope this helped at least some people. Good luck out there!

PS: I am 99% sure that the numbers I posted are correct, but if anyone finds some flaws let me know. Also, if you want to know why the chances are calculated like that, just ask away.

Triple post WTF! -.-

Anyway, someone asked me to make a variation of the build that links blood magic to ST. This affects the build in the following ways:

No more mana problems:
(+) you can reserve a lot more of your mana pool (either leave 5% or so for minor casts like whirling blades OR reserve 100% of mana and link the casts to BM too).
(+) you don't need to take any max mana or mana regen from the skill tree.
(+) same for the gear.
(+) you don't have to use clarity on life. +500 life or so!

So overall, you gain some skill points with smart allocation and relax a bit your gear requirements. But there is the obvious drawback:

One less gem slot:
(-) you will probably have to sacrifice Increased Critical Strikes or Increased Critical Damage for Blood Magic gem. That hurts!
(-) crit chance and crit multi are quite hard to get from other places, albeit not impossible.

So this variation will probably have more life and be easier to build, but maybe a bit less DPS. Nevertheless he's the start of a skill tree:



It uses only 95 points since I wanted to highlight just the start of it. I am not quite sure how everything would balance out, but maybe some extra INT is needed. Also, some parts of the tree could be subject to change. All in all it is a good idea that is worth exploring!

Done some testing with a tabula, rest of gear untouched. As usual when you mess with science, I have now more questions than before.

My current 6th link is faster attacks, because without haste I felt too slow. With this setup I achieved a dps value very similar to 1.2 (less than 1k difference, HoT still 19/0). My crit chance is lower but maths don't lie (and yours are correct): your tree has 40% more crit but I have 6 PC, I don't have diamond rings but I'm using maligaro's. TLDR: the difference comes exclusively from the crit chance gem (ICS), which has the OP scaling the old crit multi gem did. So like I said, I've been checking things with my good old tabula. Now let's pretend I made a fancy table and pasted the image here:

6th link______deeps(LMP)_____crit chance
__ICS__________22400__________>95%
__FA___________26700__________83.3%

So the first thing that comes to my head is: have you tried FA? I may be wrong here but it looks like it's better than ICS. It's not like I have any issue to land crits with ~84% chance anyway. It's true your tree has more attack speed than mine, but we're talking about 11% attack speed, FA at 19/20 gives a massive 53%. Another way to put it: in 1.2 I had 4.3 aps; in 1.3 with FA 4.6 aps; in 1.3 without FA but with your attack speed nodes 3.6 aps. Since your gloves "are faster" than maligaro's I'm guessing you get to 3.7 or 3.8 even. I suppose it's mostly about getting used to it, but I feel somewhat slow without FA.

Next topic: power charges. You say you have 5, and plan to drop one for an endurance one. The main tree you've posted has 2 power charges though, then +1 from Alira and you should have 6. Have you done any last minute tweak? Another thing that's making me wonder is projectile speed. You don't take any node and you don't use the gem. Are you going with the default ST range?

And last but not least, HoT-AM (like you already said somewhere) is "meh" for getting charges. Range is short compared to my ST so often enough I lose them. I feel pushed to get sorrounded by mobs so at least some get cursed before I melt them, and even then it's a 39% chance of charge on kill vs the 69% on hit of PCOC, 20/20 gems in both cases. In other words I feel penalized for playing the way I consider "right", by killing things as fast and as further away from me as possible. Then you have the hexproof packs/maps. All in all I'd say this is the biggest nerf/downside for me. I might consider dropping FA for PCOC but then I think attack speed will be lacking.

That's it for now I think, China called saying they want their wall back.

this my gear and tree is http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgAAAx4DlgYjCGcMfQ5ID6sQfxGWFr8XLxg8GYoaOBqPHaofQSSLJLAmlScvKgsqOCzhNZI64TsoPC09D0GHQqNGcUcGUzVVS1XWV-Jd8mBDYeJjQ2TnZp5uPW-ecFJwVnDVdwd35Xy7feN-WX_GgKSCm4LHgwmHE4nTjDaQG5BVkzqaE5u1nKSiAKKjplepbqxmtUi18rc-uT69J8AawzrE9saexq7KSth22L3b1OFz4YjsOO0g8kXy4fPq9tr56PrS-wn-Cg==

Blood Magic can be really interesting option. Especially since it gives brand new scion opening, which starts with 4x8% projectile and not mana regen+max mana. Anyways i am gearing up a bit raising my crit up and up. Got yesterday this beauty:

@Sultangurde
Looks like a good piece. Did you craft the extra resistances yourself? Also, on the topic of BM we will have to explore and see. I think it is just as good as the mana variant (even better possibly!)

@King_Fedo
Comments on gear:
-> the dagger has no local crit modifier (6.68 will not cut it. You are literally missing out on up to 37% MORE damage). Also the attack speed is average (1.86 is decent, but 2.0 is much much better!). And again, I would take a dagger with T1 crit and T1 attack speed over one with T1 in fire + cold + lightning damage any day!
-> rings: not diamond and no WED. You are missing out on around 60% crit and 60% WED. That's something.
-> your heralds obviously need some leveling and you should get some quality on the gems that are missing it, but in time.

Comments on the skill tree:
-> since you are running Wrath + Anger + HoT + HoI on mana (I assume) you probably have too much mana reservation. What is your max mana and how much do you have left? You might be able to spare 4 or 5 points.
-> are you going for the Throat Seeker node in the top side? Maybe not the best choice, since you invest 5 points into 20 int and 36% crit multi. If you need the +30 DEX you can grab it from the left side of the tree. And if you insist on taking the crit multi you should rather take the +30% for 3 points near the scion start.

Hope this advice helps. I hope I wasn't too blunt but that's what I would change. Good luck to you and keep us updated!

Unfortunately all res was on it already. Still leveling up Elreon and hope i can remove it at level 7 and put something else. Yea BM option might be good with evasion variant (sentinel so close).

@Ark
I wanted to reply to everyone in one post, but it got too long and I said I might split it. Anyway, here are my thoughts:

Generating power charges using HoT-AM is not very reliable. It's pretty hard to keep a 99% uptime on 4 PC, let alone 6. And the more they are the harder it is to generate them in the first place. You can use tricks like Doedre's, but in the end this mechanism promotes a YOLO play-style where you rush from pack to pack and get up in their face so that they get hit by HoT and cursed. Not the biggest fan of that. BUT it is a worthy way to boost your DPS. No matter how you play there will be situations where mobs will run in your face. It's almost unavoidable. And if in the process you might get some power charges it's just fine. So my way is to consider the PC an occasional addition to the DPS rather than a permanent and mandatory one.
This is why I decided to cut down on max PC and leave it at 4. I took the 2 points from the left side (PC duration and max PC) and invested them into getting 'Sniper' for some proj dmg and range (range doesn't disgust me anymore since I don't insist on cursing every mob!). Also, the alira +1 PC was changed to oak's +1 end charge. Now I have 9 sec IC and the 4 PC are a bit more reasonable to keep up.

Faster attacks: sure it's great. You get higher DPS even though you increase the mana cost and reduce your reliable crit chance (cause I don't want to end up with 40% crit chance and have to grind half a map to get to 6 power charges and lose all of them anyway). Nevertheless, the numbers do not lie:

ICS (lvl 18, no Q): 29.326 -> 34.553 (72.3% -> 90.4% crit chance)
FA (lvl 21, 20 Q): 33.595 -> 40.438 (59.6% -> 77.6% crit chance)

On my armor using just 5 links (taking out LMP). Obviously there is some room for improvement in the ICS gem but even with a 20/20 one the DPS will not go way above 35K. So maybe FA is the way to go.

In any case, on my armor I would have again 4 off colors (GGGB instead of GGBB). Maybe it's worth it! And I bet for everyone who has evasion chest pieces it's better :)

I admit I was skeptical for it when 1.3 came out and I still was up until writing this reply. We will see if I can manage to implement it! Thanks for the tip anyway ;)

@Sultangurde
Interesting double post o.O
Anyway I have an Elreon lvl 8. I can help you craft/remove whatever you want.

"

SFXisMag1c wrote:

@Sultangurde
Interesting double post o.O
Anyway I have an Elreon lvl 8. I can help you craft/remove whatever you want.

I would appreciate help. Still need to think about last suffix. My options are:
1. +21-25% to Cold Resistance to cap only res that isnt 75% (69% cold atm, 62 if removed all res).
2. 25-34% increased Mana Regeneration rate
3. +121-150 to Accuracy Rating (88% to hit atm at 82 lvl).
4. 13-17% increased Rarity of Items found
5. +21-25 to Strength for some hp boost.

Hard choice :)