[2.1] Dariidar's CoC & Magma Orb KNOCKBACK!

+ cheap/easy to gear in new league (all you need is a Tabula Rasa!)
+ high clearspeed
+ unaffected by the “Shotgun nerf” of 2.0, adequate single target dps
+ tanky – 160% max life from tree + more from jewels, Acrobatics, Phase Acrobatics, 2 Purity auras, 100% Surgeon Flask uptime for insane evasion and resists
+ reflect safe
+ knocks back the majority of dangerous enemies
+ Option to spec into Righteous Fire

- hurts FPS on low-spec computers
- not popular in parties
- can't knock back a few large bosses (although those bosses are so huge, Magma Orb will usually hit them twice anyways)

endgame skilltree

If it is early in the league and you cannot find knockback jewels, use the Fending nodes instead. Aim for 20% total knockback chance from Jewels if under 2.05 attacks per second, or 27% knockback if over 2.05 attacks per second.

Bandits: Oak, kill all, Alira

If you prefer the high attack speed build, help Kraityn in Cruel. If you prefer the slow aps build, or are unsure, kill Kraityn in Cruel. For info on the high/low attack speed builds, see Required Stats & Mechanics sections.

Jewels are what make this build really sing. If you have 20% knockback from Jewels then you're set. (Disclaimer: you may need 27% knockback if your attack speed exceeds 2.05, see the Attack Speed & Mechanics section of this guide) If you can't afford these jewels (they're really cheap) then use the Fending cluster on the left side of the Duelist skilltree for a temporary alternative.

Also, if you have +2 mana gained on hit from a Jewel, your mana problems are solved.

Other useful stats are Life, Crit Chance, and Spell Damage.

DPS setup

4-link (while levelling):

5-link Voll's Protector (with Knockback jewels = 20% knockback, or 27% knockback if over 2.05 attacks/second)

6-link with Tabula Rasa (highly recommended over 5-link Voll's Protector):

6-link with Voll's Protector
I highly recommend saving your money and buying Tabula Rasa over 5-link Voll's. 6-link Voll's is the endgame, though.

Buffing
This will allow you to keep up Frenzy charges against single targets, and also resummons your Ice Golem & Blood Rage buff. It automates 3 buffs (Frenzy, blood rage, golem) into one!!


Auras
You may also use Grace aura or Arctic Armour in place of Purity of Lightning. These auras all help with defense, we have plenty of DPS and don't need DPS auras.

Movement
OR


Defense

This Warlord's Mark setup allows you to curse enemies who are dealing heavy damage to you. It also makes you safer against Reflect enemies: if a monster reflects damage at you, you auto-curse it and immediately begin to leech from it! Immortal Call prevents large burst damage from killing you.


Amazing compatibility with Acrobatics/Phase Acrobatics. I save this skill for bosses or for Thornflesh mobs.

Unfortunately, this build doesn't work until level 40 (when you can use the Cast on Critical Strike gem). Until then, you should level up using a combination of Fire Trap, Flame Totem, Freezing Pulse, and Fireball.

The latter 3 gems should all scale well with elemental AND projectile nodes on the skilltree, which are readily available at the Shadow start (highly recommended). Scion, Ranger, and Duelist will have a lot more trouble levelling up.

Level your other skillgems when they become available!! That means, grab a Magma Orb & Ball Lightning & Cast on Critical Strike gem when they are available through quests/vendors. Then, slot them somewhere into your weapons/armor. You don't have to use them yet; just keep them in your armor so that they'll have experience by the time you want to use them. You can use Weapon Swap and equip 2 crappy weapons there, then place your gems in those weapons in order to level them (even if you aren't using those weapons!)

Using the levelling skilltrees above, try to pick some Life nodes every few levels. I would alternate between grabbing crit/damage nodes and Life every 4 skillpoints or so.

Around level 40 you can buy an Ungil's Harmony, 2 Twyzels and, after grabbing the Twin Terrors cluster, start using CoC. (You can respec out of Twin Terrors later) Use Barrage – CoC – Arc – Firestorm if you only have a 4-link. Save all the rest of your currency so you can buy a Tabula Rasa. If you find wands with 10+ crit chance, upgrade, even if they have less spell damage!! Eventually, if you find a wand with over 12% crit chance, you may want to transition to 1 wand + shield, which is perfectly fine. Some of my levelling gear is pictured below:





You can start using this build's gem setup when you acquire a Tabula Rasa, and pick up the Fending nodes OR acquire 20% knockback from jewels. (Jewels can have 4-6% knockback total; a knockback jewel costs about 1 chaos.) The build also works on a 5-link but you may be heavily lacking in crit chance due to loss of Power Charge on Crit.

Knock back chance
recommended 20% knockback chance if below 2.05 aps, or 27% knockback chance if above 2.05 aps. See mechanics section of guide for explanation.

Critical Strike chance.
This build feels better when you hit the crit chance cap (95%). The more consistently you can crit, the more consistently you knock back and leech, and the less you will die. We can achieve crit cap easily with a high crit wand (11-12%+ crit), or if you're struggling to hit the crit cap, by using Dual Wield wands and using the Twin Terrors nodes in the skilltree.

Accuracy.
Accuracy is checked twice when rolling for a crit: the calculation is accuracy x accuracy x crit chance. For example, if you only have 85% accuracy, you are only critting 0.85 x 0.85 = 72.25% times as often as the crit chance listed on your character screen. So, accuracy is a very important stat to have on a few pieces of gear. I recommend at least +600 accuracy from gear.

INT on 3-4 pieces of gear
Wands require INT to use. Imbued Wands are strong endgame wands that only require 188 int. Omen wands are also a good choice at 200 INT requirement.

Attack speed.
When GMP Barrage attack speed surpasses a certain point, we cannot proc Cast on Crit from every single Barrage projectile; only every other one. This is called the attack speed breakpoint. If you surpass this breakpoint, projectiles from Barrage are spaced so closely together that you can only proc Cast on Crit once every other Barrage. Thus your average # of spells casted per GMP Barrage goes from 5.6 -> 3.4. Optimal DPS comes from an attack speed of <2.05 (by my testing, see page 2 of this thread) or from an attack speed of 3.2 - 4.1.

Therefore you may either opt to grab no attack speed gear/nodes, or you may choose to get very high attack speed gear/nodes. Try to stay out of the aps range of 2.05-3.2 if possible . Blood Rage and Frenzy charges can help you do this. If you can't stay out of that aps range, it's not the end of the world, you're just doing slightly suboptimal dps.

DO NOT GET PROJECTILE SPEED
Proj speed will make your Ball Lightning travel too far ahead of the Magma Orb, instead of arriving at the enemy at the same time. It will also make each Ball Lightning hit enemies less, which means less knockbacks generated. Overall you will have significantly less dps if you get projectile speed too high.

This build uses Cast on Critical Strike. We must trigger CoC with an attack: that attack is Barrage. Barrage + Greater Multiple Projectiles fires 8 wand projectiles with one cast. Chance to critical strike is checked every time Barrage is activated; if you deal a critical strike with one Barrage, all 8 of its projectiles will crit. Since all 8 of its projectiles will crit, you should have a chance to cast all of your CoC-linked spells 8 times per crit Barrage.

Magma Orb is a spell introduced in 2.0. It deals similar damage to Fireball, except it has 1% less crit chance and 20% less damage effectiveness. However, it has the ability to hit enemies twice; once with each bounce.



The radius of Magma Orb is 7.5 units (source: ZiggyD). The distance between 2 Magma Orb explosions is always 3 units. A CoC-triggered Magma Orb will target an enemy at the center of its explosion; in order for the enemy to be hit by the second explosion, the enemy will have to be knocked back a minimum of 7.5 units + 3 units = 10.5 units. The maximum distance an enemy can be knocked back, remaining in the second explosion, is 10.5 + 15 (diameter of second explosion) = 25.5 units.

In order to knock back the enemy, we will use Ball Lightning. This spell has a radius of 16 and moves at roughly 36 units per second. It is approximately the same speed as Magma Orb and they will arrive at the enemy at roughly the same time. Ball Lightning strikes all enemies around it every 200 ms. Let's assume that the average player character size is roughly 3 units. Ball Lightning's “coverage” of the enemy is 16 (radius of approaching ball) + 3 + 16 (radius of ball travelling away) = 35 units. If the ball moves at 36 units per second, the ball can strike an average-sized enemy roughly 5 times.

An average Barrage (8 hits) will cast 0.7 x 8 = 5.6 Ball Lightnings. Therefore a single average-size enemy will be hit by 5.6 x 5 Ball Lightning hits = 28 hits per average Barrage. With about 20% knockback from jewels, we would knock back an enemy 28 * .2 = 5.6 times on average. Add in the 5.6 Magma Orbs casted by Barrage and you knock back the average enemy about 6 times. Knockback distance is 4 units, so you would knock back an average enemy 6 * 4 = 24 units (which is between 10 and 25.5 units).

CoC has a cooldown for each spell linked to it, of 0.05 seconds. 2 different spells can still be cast simultaneously, but each spell has its own separate cooldown of 0.05s. It has been proven in previous threads (see Krippi's thread) that the optimal APS of Barrage is 2.2 attacks per second: if you exceed 2.2 attacks per second, then each Barrage projectile hits the enemy faster than 0.05 seconds apart, which means that you cannot trigger CoC 8 times per Barrage cast.

I believe that the breakpoint has changed in 2.0, and by my testing the new breakpoint is 2.05 aps instead of 2.2. If you are below the attack speed breakpoint of 2.05 aps, you can trigger CoC spells on every single GMP Barrage projectile. If you have higher aps, you can only proc CoC on every other projectile. This brings the average CoC procs down to ~3.4 spells per GMP Barrage. (This calculation was done with the help of a post by SFTruze. SEE SPREADSHEET HERE) With only 2/3 as many CoC casts per crit Barrage, you will need 50% more knockback chance and 50% more attack speed to make up for the lower amount of spell casts. Therefore, if you're planning to exceed 2.05 aps, you should aim for an aps of 3.23-4.1 and a knockback chance of 27%.

The math is a little more complicated than that. As the Ball Lightnings knock the enemy back, it extends Ball Lightning's “coverage” of the enemy, which may actually grant you even more knockbacks. However, knockbacks have a slight travel time, and because of that, these extra knockbacks do not really knock the enemy out of Magma Orb's second bounce – the extra knockbacks occur AFTER the second Magma Orb explosion has occurred. However, these extra knockbacks are extremely good for increasing Ball Lightning's DPS: therefore, roughly 20% knockback should increase the DPS of both Magma Orb AND Ball Lightning.

Furthermore, it may be prudent to slightly exceed the 25.5 unit knockback limit because of enemies that walk towards you, cancelling out the knockbacks that you already scored.

TL;DR a knockback % chance around 20% works best in practice, as you can see in my video. If your APS exceeds 2.05, you should consider getting ~27% knockback chance.

Required Gear:
-Tabula Rasa OR 5L Voll's OR 6L Voll's protector


This is the only gear you need! Tabula Rasa is the cheapest solution, and easier to use than 5L voll's protector. In a tabula rasa, you use the 5 main links and then use Power Charge on Critical as your 6th link. In a 6L voll's protector, use Life Leech as your 6th link instead of PCoC.

The rest of the gear:


Boots should be Atziri's Step or the Blood Dance. If you are going for the high attack speed version of the build, Blood Dance is not so great - Blood Rage and Frenzy charges would grant really high attack speed, so Blood Dance boots are somewhat unnecessary. However, if you're going for the low attack speed version of the build, Blood Dance is a great option.


Jewelry and Belt should have high resists. I like getting Flask Duration on the belt. I recommend a Heavy Belt so you can have Strength for your Purity of Fire. Also try to get Diamond Rings and crit chance on your amulet.



Helm and Gloves are good places to get more resists; I also used them for accuracy rolls. Remember that we want +500-600 extra accuracy from gear! Helm and gloves can also roll high Intelligence so keep your eye out for that. Other Helm/Glove options include Rat's Nest, Maligaro's Virtuosity, or Surgebinders. (Surgebinders actually give me more dps than Maligaro's at the moment!! If I can improve my spell crit%, that might change)

I definitely recommend using an evasion helm because they can attain higher evasion values than your gloves or boots. Gloves can be Armor/Evasion based, because that will make it easier to obtain 4 red sockets on a piece of gear (for your cast when damage taken gem setup).


The priority of stats on your wand should be:
-(local) Crit Chance
-Spell Damage
-Global Critical Strike Multiplier
-Adds x (elemental) damage to spells
-Critical Strike chance for Spells
High attack speed versions of the build (3+ aps) should opt for Imbued wands. Low attack speed versions (<2.05 aps) should opt for an Omen or Prophecy wand, and possibly use a shield (dual wielding multiplies your attack speed by 110%).

Surgeon Flasks are the bomb. Since we are critting nearly 100% of the time, these flasks will almost always be available. I recommend getting a belt with Flask Duration mod on it for extra benefit, although it's not mandatory.

Also, you should ALWAYS have a Seething or Bubbling life flask of Staunching or Heat in your setup.

I typically use these flasks:

This build may use Righteous Fire!! We acquire 3.6% life regeneration and +3 frenzy charges from the skilltree. Using the Shaper's Seed amulet and Blood Dance boots, we can achieve 11.6% life regeneration. Equip a Rise of the Phoenix, Purity of Fire, and Vitality Aura, and you will be able to run Righteous Fire as long as your Frenzy charges are up. Unfortunately it's tough to reach crit cap while running Righteous Fire, especially with the decreased droprate of Rat's Nest and Maligaro's Virtuosity – but it's still doable.

Blood Rage is a less expensive way to increase your DPS. It allows us to fully utilize those +3 frenzy charges from the skilltree. We only have 3.6% life regeneration while Blood Rage degenerates 4% of our life, so we will be losing some life every second. However, you can use Leo's mod – Reduced damage taken over time – on your shield in order to prevent losing life.

Vaal Pact is the endgame. It must be coupled with a Life Leech gem in a 6-link Voll's Protector. (Will not work with just a Tabula Rasa) Vaal Pact gives you extreme survivability. Once you have Vaal Pact, Righteous Fire is no longer an option - however, you can still use Frenzy charges via Blood Rage or the Blood Dance boots. My surgeon's hybrid flask keeps me topped up on Life despite blood rage degeneration, and topped up on mana despite voll's protector's mana downside.

Max Life = 4806

Defense (no buffs)

Defense (Jade flask of reflexes + resist flask)

Barrage stats (5 Frenzy charges, 5 power charges, Ice Golem, Blood Rage)

Buffed spell damage per cast(5 Frenzy charges, 5 power charges, Ice Golem)

(Ball Lightning hits 4-5 times per cast)

Why do you build your tree that way/ why do this instead of Shatter chuck lite?
Both Killmour and Terrornoid use Eldritch Battery to cast and rely heavily on Life Leech for their defences. They use Unwavering Stance and do not spec into Acrobatics. In 2.0, Leech values were nerfed across the board - Life Leech used to provide almost 10% leech, and now it provides 2% (although Vaal Pact was buffed). Life Leech was basically halved in effectiveness as a defense; I no longer prefer to use it as my core defense. Instead, I include Acrobatics and high evasion (over 14k evasion while flasked) in order to layer my defenses up. This build skips the flask effect nodes at Witch, but still has no problems with reflect. And as you can see, my dps is quite comparable since my build has taken extra projectile damage nodes in the Duelist tree.

Can I use Kinetic Blast instead of Barrage?
I do NOT recommend it. If you want reliable knock back, then you need Barrage: kinetic blast will fire a couple of projectiles all over the place while Barrage focuses a predictable number of projectiles in the same direction. Kinetic blast also suffers huge mana problems and is very weak against single targets.

Can I use other spells?
Sure! I encourage you to experiment, that's the fun of CoC. Glacial Cascade also benefits from knockbacks, but doesn't benefit from the projectile nodes on the skilltree. All other projectile spells are quite viable, but in my opinion not as good with Knockback jewels as BL + MO. I recommend Ethereal Knives if you have a nasty reflect map. For parties, Fireball and EK have proven to have very little effect on fps.

How do I calculate my DPS?
-Multiply Ball Lightning tool tip by 5 - this is your adjusted tooltip
-total spells cast = 5.6 per GMP Barrage if you're below breakpoint, or 3.4 per GMP Barrage if you're over breakpoint.
-multiply Ball Lightning's adjusted tooltip and Magma Orb tooltip by 5.6 or 3.4 casts per attack.
-Multiply the tooltip*casts/attack, by your attacks/second.
-Multiply that dps by your crit chance.
-Multiply the number you just got, by your accuracy, two times! (Now do you see why accuracy is important?)