Staff Knockbacker: Maximum knockback with hegemony's era (GS / SS)

Parties hate him! (Joke - i dont party)

Build idea is to use the most of Hegemony's Era. It has certain properties:
- Power charge on knockback
- Additional power charge
- Its a Staff, so we can get "Knockback on crit"
- 1.3: Endurance charge on crit, woot!

So the basic build idea is to get as many knockbacks as possible, by critting as
most as possible. Therefore I get all the power charges on the tree and some crit nodes, netting me 94.5% chance to crit (with crit gem).

As chance to get a critical hit is "chance to hit x chance to hit x critical hit chance", it is necessary to get as much accuracy as possible. I'm currently at 94% accuracy.

Currently capped crit at 94.5%:

"

0.94 * 0.94 * 0.95 = 0.75 = 83%

Gear:


Passive 1.3:



Groundslam Option

Auras:
- Herald of Ash
- Haste

6L Skill:
- Ground Slam
- Melee Physical Damage
- Increased Critical Damage
- Multistrike
- Faster Attacks
- Critical Strike chance (old: Additional Accuracy)


5L Skill:
- Herald of Ash
- Reduced Mana
- Elemental Proliferation
- Increased Burning Damage
- Increased Quantity / Increased area of effect

A big amount of killing power comes from the Herald of Ash, as the 2h
weapons have big overkill damage. The 5L allows to run Increased Quantity.
Its basically a free IIQ gem on the main attack!

DPS:
With charges, around 40k

Life leech:
4% of around 40k DPS is 1600, which should be enough (4,5k * 0.2 = 900 HP/s)


Static Strike Option

Auras:
- Lightning Resist
- Herald of Thunder
- Herald of Ash

6L Skill:
- Static Strike
- Melee Physical Damage
- Increased Critical Damage
- Multistrike
- Faster Attacks
- Critical Strike chance

5L Skill:
- Herald of Thunder
- Blind
- Reduced Mana
- Lightning penetration
- Leech

Static Strike is pretty cool. But not as save as GS, and clearspeed is also lower.


Gearing
Helmet: Accuracy
Rings: Accuracy
Amulet: Accuracy, Critical hit damage
Gloves: Accuracy

Either on ring or gloves some leech. Dont bother with increased critical strike
multiplier on rings, max. 20% is too low. Amulets can have more than 60. Better to
take increased attack speed, but that's expensive.


For defenses, acrobatics is more than enough (together with high HP. ATM 4,7k).


Will upload screenshots and videos later. maybe.

Yes, this will not kill whole screen in an instant. Its more a fun build. Pretty survivable with 4,6k HP, and lots of stuns and knockbacks. Melee can't get near me. To get the charges at the start, i use Assassins mark. But after that i'm too lazy to use it, and it slows me down.

Update 1:
Offensive no charges:


Offensive charges:


Defensive:



Update 2:
Doing a lot of maps, never died. Soon level 86 (from level 83). GS is fun.

Update 3:
Died once to a strongbox.

Current gear:


Update 4:
I forgot - with Carcass Jack and increased AoE gem (instead of accuracy), i really clear whole screens at a time.

Update 5:
Updated for 1.3

I'm not sold on the accuracy gem.

You are already stacking up 1100 accuracy on your gear which should get you to 90%+ chance to hit easily.
And this number will only ever drop in your stat sheet, but not in real gameplay, as monsters do not level past 80.

I'd rather use Added Fire Damage or Concentrated Effect.


About your tree:
I'm working on a very similar tree, but instead of the outer highway, I take the inner one.
Click me
Same skill point cost, but this allows me to grab the mana/life nodes at witch "for free", and the %mana should do roughly the same as Eldritch Battery, but I gain additional life.
Also there's now two +30 dex nodes along the way, that can be beneficial while levelling.


Remaining points will go into the last staff cluster and more life: Click me

Hey there fellow staff user!

Yes the "inner way" is a bit more efficient. I re-used a dominating-blow tree, and didnt had enough regrets to spare to spec out of eldrich battery. But its useful, as 50% regen maps are no problem. Anyway we'll see what the skill tree reset in december brings, i heard templar get reworked.

Accuracy gem is underrated imho. Yes added fire gives more DPS and overkill damage, but not more crit, and therefore no knockback. Concentrated effect will increase DPS, but decrease clearing time, i'd rather have increased AoE. But maybe with HoA its not so bad... experiments need to be done!

Yeah, it's a bit close to the tree rework to do theoretical debates on it. ;)

I hope for more useful staff nodes, while there's currently a lot of crit, there's not too much actual damage to get multiplied. And the attack speed is horrible.

I'd like to see more block nodes for staff, similar to dualwield. Currently in my case its much, much better to just spec Acrobatics for 8 points (40% dodge, 30% spell dodge) than to spend 11 points for some awful 19% additional block.

And imho the start of templar sucks. It's hard to take useful nodes to "get out". But the nice nodes are there, like increased AoE.

"

siliconlife wrote:

Currently in my case its much, much better to just spec Acrobatics for 8 points (40% dodge, 30% spell dodge) than to spend 11 points for some awful 19% additional block.

I'd not treat it as an "or" decision.
I simply take both.

~30% block and 40% dodge leads to evading 58% of hits, 5000 life are now 7900 effective hp.
Acro alone will only let you evade 40%, so 5000 life equal 7000 effective hp.

+900 effective life doesn't sound too bad to me, as I also get some damage for the skillpoints.

I'd like to take more block nodes, but if i had the choice, i'd take more life instead, pushing from 4,6 to like 5k.

What i really want is to run blood rage - but sadly, only 1% life regen available. Even with 50% chaos resi (!), this will not cut it :-(

Wishlist:
Either:

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Carcass_Jack
+ More AoE
+ More DPS
- Less res (trippel res)

or

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Daresso%27s_Defiance
+ More defense (not really needed)
+ Bit more dps
- Less res (trippel res)

Can't really decide between those two. But i think more AoE is better QoL.


and

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Atziri%27s_Step
+ More spell dodge
- Less res (trippel res)

And especially:
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Snakebite
+ More Accuracy
+ More Attack speed
+ Poison
- Less HP
- Needs blood rage - dont have enough life regen for it :-(

4 frenzy charges would buff it pretty good, without being annyoing short duration.

"

siliconlife wrote:

Can't really decide between those two. But i think more AoE is better QoL.

Only theoretical, as the tree will be redesigned soon, but...

...if you take the inner highway at witch as suggested above, you can get 16% AoE, 12% AoE Damage for 3 skillpoints.
That's almost a Carcass Jack without wearing a Carcass Jack.
So just eat some regrets. ;)

That's my new 110 point target tree:
Click me
(it's for cyclone, but that shouldn't matter here)

I think i might even do the change to your tree without wasting one regret. Need careful planning though.

Anyway, taking the witch AoE nodes does not exclude using Carcass Jack. I want both ;-)

Too bad cyclone is eating so much mana it needs a blood magic gem - it would be a well suited skill.