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

Finally finished gearing up (almost cried of joy). Not much to add to my last post anyway, I'm more than happy with the survivability. My only death has been to 4-fps-necropolis-Merveil-of-doom so I think I'm going to skip that one until I have enough DPS to nuke her. On the other hand I did a double boss+turbo+damage Courtyard (level 74 map, Zana), and the jungle valley uberweaver even with -48% chaos resist not counting Atziri's Promise.



WED rolls need improvement but this will get me going for a long time. Things I'm considering are levelling up the CWDT some more, I don't feel it's good enough in its current level. I'll get 20Q's in the remote future for longer IC but obviously the ST gems will be my priority. For the curse I'm also considering a recycled 18/20 Elemental Weakness, seems to be stronger in "monsters have +% elemental resistance" maps.

About the maps topic, what mods are impossible to run? No regen/half regen/blood magic are the ones that come to my mind. Not sure about elemental reflect, never tried it since I got the life leech 6th link. Anything else?

@Ark20

Well done my friend you made some amazing progress! Your char really turned out very sharp and it is awesome that you are crushing maps!

When it comes to the gearing and gems: you can level CWDT to 10+ when you reach 4K life or so. It will still proc a lot. Also, I noticed that whirling blades is kept at lvl 1. I assume this is for mana purposes, although at lvl 20 it will still cost only 20 mana or so (therefore completely sustainable if you can spam ST). Also, quality on it gives more attack speed resulting in faster movement. For the long run I would at least lvl it 20 and use the GCP recipe to put Q20 on it.

When it comes to maps: You can run elemental reflect but at least on high end maps you have to be careful. Shoot 1-2 volleys and stop for a second etc. It just slows you down. Other mods that are annoying are temporal chains for obvious reasons (this applies to any build though) and enfeeble. Enfeeble is not as bad for other builds (say resolute technique), but on crit builds it lowers the DPS too much and the reliability of attacks also.

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SFXisMag1c wrote:

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dEus__ wrote:

Did you consider speccing into Thrill Killer instead of the Scion mana nodes? Would be interesting to see if it helps with mana sustainability.

It's not a bad idea and I am sure it would be very effective vs packs. But against a boss with no adds it wouldn't help much would it? So I would say it is an option but it would not solve all potential mana problems.

That's true. It's a shame that the Revelry keystone is at this awkward location on the tree. It's so unefficient for most of the builds.

About the mana sustainability, with the gear you see in my last post I've had no problem to sustain ST even with Vaal Haste on. Now my bricked haste is level 20 again I think I'm at the edge of sustainability with Vaal Haste, when my Clarity gets to 20 it might be fully spammable. I'll double check this now anyway, I haven't had much time to map after leveling Haste.

If we're talking about sustaining ST at lower levels/with incomplete gem setups a blood magic gem solves all problems. With this a life leech gem is obviously highly recommended, although it's already been said is always highly recommended.

Science edit: after 3-7 seconds of spamming ST with vaal haste the scion runs out of mana and thinks it's a good idea to try to melee the enemies (avoidable by holding shift while attacking). Shortly after she gets enough mana to spam for the rest of the vaal steroid. Tested with levels 18 and 20 Vaal Haste, no noticeable difference. Can't try with level 20 Clarity because I don't have any. Either way, I'd say it's "sustainable enough" for most things. Whatever gets caught in a stream of ST+vaal haste will literally insta-explode, and the mobs strong enough to survive (bosses) will probably force you to move sooner or later (giving you the second you need to refill the mana pool).

Here for some advice regarding Lightning Coil. Doing a map today and one dropped. Now i'm trying to decide if using the appropriate currency to 6s it, 5l or 6l and get the correct colors is worth the trouble.

My current chest piece is the Zodiac Leather.



Swapping out my Zodiac with the Lightning Coil, I lose 5% evasion and my lightning resist goes down to 50% meaning I'm going to have to spend more time/currency crafting/drops (self found player) getting lightning resist gear. I also lose about 70hp (but i'm still slightly above 4k). Now I still do have the Acrobatics passive, so the armor I gain is very minor.

My main question is do you think it is going to be a large enough upgrade against my current chest piece for when I do the Apex of Sacrifice. Currently lvl 91 and been waiting until I hit 92 to try out Apex. A couple weeks back I did get Saffell's Frame (chance orb ftw) and plan on using that specifically for Atziri. However, with Saffell's equipped and Lightning Coil my resistance get quite low (lightning 10%, fire 40%). I plan on using a couple ruby flasks against Atziri of course, so the fire resistance shouldn't be a big issue if I can dodge while my ruby flasks are down. However, what about that really low lightning resist, will that be a problem for Atziri? Or maybe if I use Lightning Coil I shouldn't use Saffell's Frame against Atziri?

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Drippyskippy wrote:

Here for some advice regarding Lightning Coil. Doing a map today and one dropped. Now i'm trying to decide if using the appropriate currency to 6s it, 5l or 6l and get the correct colors is worth the trouble.

My current chest piece is the Zodiac Leather.

Spoiler

Swapping out my Zodiac with the Lightning Coil, I lose 5% evasion and my lightning resist goes down to 50% meaning I'm going to have to spend more time/currency crafting/drops (self found player) getting lightning resist gear. I also lose about 70hp (but i'm still slightly above 4k). Now I still do have the Acrobatics passive, so the armor I gain is very minor.

My main question is do you think it is going to be a large enough upgrade against my current chest piece for when I do the Apex of Sacrifice. Currently lvl 91 and been waiting until I hit 92 to try out Apex. A couple weeks back I did get Saffell's Frame (chance orb ftw) and plan on using that specifically for Atziri. However, with Saffell's equipped and Lightning Coil my resistance get quite low (lightning 10%, fire 40%). I plan on using a couple ruby flasks against Atziri of course, so the fire resistance shouldn't be a big issue if I can dodge while my ruby flasks are down. However, what about that really low lightning resist, will that be a problem for Atziri? Or maybe if I use Lightning Coil I shouldn't use Saffell's Frame against Atziri?

Ok here is what I think. If you want to 6L anything it will cost you about 37.5 exalts on standard to do it reliably (through vorici). So if you want to link an armor yourself, it should be worth something by itself. Lightning Coil by itself cost... nothing. I don't even know what people ask for it, but you should be able to find some for 1 chaos. You should not spend almost 40 ex on something worth 1 chaos. If you want a 6L Lightning Coil you should rather buy a linked one from the start (you can find some for 20-25 exalts).

Also, as previously stated Lightning Coil is not an integral part of this build. It's optional. People have shown it works and it's great, but in my mind it does not matter what you chose as a chest piece. But if you can't cap your resits that is a problem.

About Saffel's frame: the main point of this is to raise your max resists (in particular to fire and lightning). You can see from the screenshots I took that I have 85+% fire/lightning resists and bump it up to 95+% with flask. So you need to cap your resists and even try to overcap them my friend! Unless you want to try to dodge everything. Your choice :)

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SFXisMag1c wrote:

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Drippyskippy wrote:

(...)

Ok here is what I think. If you want to 6L anything it will cost you about 37.5 exalts on standard to do it reliably (through vorici). So if you want to link an armor yourself, it should be worth something by itself. Lightning Coil by itself cost... nothing. I don't even know what people ask for it, but you should be able to find some for 1 chaos. You should not spend almost 40 ex on something worth 1 chaos. If you want a 6L Lightning Coil you should rather buy a linked one from the start (you can find some for 20-25 exalts).

Amen. I gave the last two Coils I found for free to guild mates, they were not going to sell for more than 1c. Also let me tell you it's sometimes easier to find a good deal on this kind of item in game than in poe.xyz/poe.trade.

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SFXisMag1c wrote:

Also, as previously stated Lightning Coil is not an integral part of this build. It's optional. People have shown it works and it's great, but in my mind it does not matter what you chose as a chest piece. But if you can't cap your resits that is a problem.

Amen too. As a Lightning Coil user with some experience with Atziri runs (although not with this build) I highly doubt it will be a big difference, I'm thinking specially about the trio. A Coil alone won't keep you alive in there, you need either a self cast, long duration Immortal Call or some really good dodging skills with enough DPS to minimize fight time. I use the Coil only to mitigate physical damage from "trash" mobs (and at this point, all mobs in maps up to level ~74). You still need to dodge hard hitting blues/rares/bosses because a Coil won't make you a tank, and you have to live with a finger in a "of grounding" flask because phys crits will shock you, keep this in mind too. Also, capping your resists (without Purity of Lightning, that will hurt your DPS too much IMO) will be painful. Your #1 priority is getting a 6L, all gems are extremely useful, and only get a Coil if you want a bit of physical mitigation for common mobs in maps.

On the Saffell topic I can only say a couple things. Yes, 10% LightRes vs Atziri is a big problem. Coil won't be important at all vs Atziri because she's mostly elemental (spears aside, easily tankable with an ok life pool). Saffell on the other side is a nice bonus, helps you get to ridiculous amounts of resistance to the point of not caring about her attacks. If you haven't already, watch the videos in the main post.

Thanks for the responses SFX and Ark. I figured that it wasn't going to be all that helpful against Apex bosses, but wasn't 100% sure. Seems both of you have agreed that it won't be worth investing the currency in it to use it. Guess I will stash it for now and maybe use it on a build in the future.

For the record, to complete/rectify some things I posted in this same page:

-With still the same gear I posted, with a level 20 Clarity ST is spammable endlessly during a Vaal Haste steroid. I can only imagine a couple situations in which this would be relevant, but still worth saying.

-Half regen maps are perfectly doable by turning off Haste.

On the mana sustain issue: as long as you have enough regen to sustain your ST without vaal haste, you're doing good! If you have enough mana for 2 casts (if ST costs 35 mana, you should have 70+) then you can sustain vaal haste for 4-5 sec, move 1 sec and finish. Or just hold shift while shooting. It's not a big deal.


Also, I have been experimenting with some gems:

1. I know it's common sense, but it turns out that GMP is more efficient than LMP at clearing maps, when you have enough DPS. With power charges, I have 20K+ DPS with GMP which is more than enough for most purposes (any pack dies in 1-2 volleys). It also works a bit better defensively because you will shoot everything than could shoot back at you, meaning you will freeze and stun more mobs, therefore be in less danger.

2. In many ST builds in the past, double strike was used as a secondary, single target attack. In my current setup I have no room for a 4L double strike, but in some situations I guess I could swap ST out. With double strike -> faster attacks -> leech -> WED -> crit multi -> pcoc I cap my DPS at 131K @.@ (with vaal haste and Atziri's promise on). I imagine it would be useful when fighting solo bosses that aren't that much of a threat face to face. I wouldn't encourage face tanking every boss just because the DPS is ridiculous. For example, I wouldn't do this vs Double Vaals (well you can avoid the hammer but still). It's just an idea you might like to play with :)