[2.2] [HC] Malibu's CoC - Let's Get Physical [Best Build Ever? Click(bait) to find out!]

Would love to to see an updated tree and leveling guide as well. Plus, the cons and pros of going CI rather than Low Life.

Still no update :(

I theorycrafted a lot around with this build and these are my conclusion:

Dps wise the best ascendancy/gem combinations are Shadow Assassin (with the old 6L combination) and Scion Assassin/Berserker (surprisingly the best gem combination is with Increased Critical Strikes as 6th Link). Both are pretty much identical in terms of damage, the Shadow gets the Critmulti bonus from power charges, while the Scion gets the 10% more damage. I'd give the Scion a slight edge, since you don't need any attributes at all on your gear at all (except for the dex on maligaros and the strength on doryanis), which makes getting good gear much easier. It's also much better on a 5L, since you don't miss out on life leech.

Other things i tested as 6th Link on Scion (Shadow kinda always needs Lifeleech):

Increased Critical Damage: ended up pretty disappointing, on paper, crit multi is awesome for this build, but if you use this one instead of Increased Critical Strikes, you have to pick up Dagger Crit Nodes on the passive tree to get to 95% and you lose over 20% crit chance on all your spells, which loses much more damage than the crit multi would give you.

Glacial Cascade: At first i was pretty excited to use Glacial Cascade as a 3rd spell, but it still loses out to a better supported Bladefall/EK. If you have trouble getting green links on Shav's, replacing EK with Glacial Cascade works pretty well too. In general, 2 well supported spells just seem to be better than 3.

If you have any other ideas on skill combinations that i might have missed, let me know.


Now for auras, I'm a big fan of grabbing the reserved mana cluster below Vaal Pact. -12% reserved mana and 6% effect for 4 points allows you to get much more out of your auras, it adds up to -16% with the other cluster. This allows you to use for example:

Enlighten - Herald of Ice - Hatred - Discipline on CI build or even better on lowlife:
Bloodmagic (21) - Discipline - Herald of Ash + Enlighten - Herald of Ice - Hatred - Arctic Armor (alternatively purity of elements if needed or herald of thunder for potential shocks)

In case you have Skyforths, instead of Arctic Armor, you can even get Blasphemy with Warlords Mark and Assassins Mark by grabbing the +1 curse for 4 points or get a +1 amulet, so you don't need to selfcast bladevortex anymore and can add Vaal Discipline instead.

Tree for Scion:


Tree for Shadow:


For CI just drop Pain attunement and either the ES on the left side, the agi jewel on the right side, or whatever you feel like can be left out.

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mromcy wrote:

Would love to to see an updated tree and leveling guide as well. Plus, the cons and pros of going CI rather than Low Life.

Pros of CI: More energy shield (the nodes behind it on the passive tree, can get a higher energyshield chest than shavs), completely immune to chaos, therefore taking less damage in some situations.
Pros of Lowlife: 30% MORE damage from pain attunement, which really is a lot since it's more and not increased, more auras, since you can reserve life as well, making it a bit more flexible, but mainly damage.

Leveling is pretty straight forward tbh, since this build only starts getting interesting once you respec, since below ~level 60, you wont have enough crit for cast on crit, and it will be too low of a level to proc often enough. So just level with either self cast bladevortex or bladefall with auras of choice (for me usually herald of ice + clarity for leveling).


Hope this was overall helpful to someone and if you have any ideas/suggestions/questions, let me know.

If I go shadow for low life version without "life leech" gem,is the 0.2% phy leeching on belt enough?

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bptjp001 wrote:

If I go shadow for low life version without "life leech" gem,is the 0.2% phy leeching on belt enough?

No, 0,2% won't be enough for sure. You get more leech from warlords mark, but then curse immune maps and bosses will be a problem. If you go shadow, your 6th link really should be lifeleech. I used to play a shadow on standard on a 5L without lifeleech, and while it kinda works, it ends up being annoying quite a lot. You're also much less safe, since you can't heal right up as quickly after taking a hit and reflect will kill you.

In the end, if you can't afford a 6L, then either skip controlled destruction or skip lifeleech and run Warlords mark with Blasphemy to make sure you really always have it up.

I've been running Dualcurse Heretic's Veil with Warlords and Assassins mark lately and switched to a lvl 1 cast when damage taken + Bladevortex + PC on Crit setup, to make sure i don't run out of power charges in Boss fights. It's been a great quality of life improvement, since you dont have to selfcast anything other than cyclone and the 2 vaal skills anymore. That together with Discipline, Hatred and Herald of Ice feels really strong. To also fit in Herald of Fire will need Skyforths though. :/

Hey guys, I watched the videos attached to this guide and quickly fell in love with the build concept. I am a little concerned about the amount of investment required to reach end game with this build. It is by far the most expensive build I have looked at trying: my two highest level characters are 86 and 84 with about 1.5 ex investment a piece.

My main questions are: is it better to get the "right" chest or the 6l? Would it be better for me to buy a 5l Atziri's Splendour to maintain my mana or buy a more budget rare 6l? And when focusing on the dagger, is it generally more efficient to try crafting one myself or buy a completely crafted one? I am also torn between going for CI or low life. I feel like CI would be cheaper in general and slightly tankier which is nice. For reference, I am playing softcore Perandus with about 10 ex in liquid currency and 2 ex in sellable items. Any Help and advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you.

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PoniesAndDaggers wrote:

My main questions are: is it better to get the "right" chest or the 6l? Would it be better for me to buy a 5l Atziri's Splendour to maintain my mana or buy a more budget rare 6l? And when focusing on the dagger, is it generally more efficient to try crafting one myself or buy a completely crafted one? I am also torn between going for CI or low life. I feel like CI would be cheaper in general and slightly tankier which is nice. For reference, I am playing softcore Perandus with about 10 ex in liquid currency and 2 ex in sellable items. Any Help and advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you.

A 5 link usually does fine, you can just leave out controlled destruction until you get it 6-linked. The main cost of the chests in perandus are just the 6 links, so I'd definitely go for the chest first. Also the price difference between lowlife and CI isn't really that big, especcially if you want to go splendor for CI. I used to play the CI version on standard and now tried lowlife on perandus and gotta say, it's a ton more fun imo, since you are much more flexible (for example run curses as blasphemy and switch to a cwdt-bladevortex-pc on crit setup for curseimmune/bosses, which makes it so you dont have to stop to cast anymore at all). With your budget i think getting a 5L shav's should be absolutely possible (roll vorici 2G and if you only hit 3 green, instead of 4, you can just substitute EK with Glacial Cascade for a while). Depends a bit on what class you're playing as well. If you pick scion, you need 4G2B (or 3G3B if you use cascade for a while), while with shadow you need 4G1R1B, which will become really expensive on a shav's.

For the dagger: I'd just get a vagan dagger (skean, maybe poignard) with ele damage to spells and craft crit yourself and once you can afford it, multimod it yourself. 6-linking the chest should take priority over this though, it's just a nice little extra (especcially the attackspeed).

Other gear doesn't have to be that expensive: I highly recommend the Eye of Chayula Amulet as well as Lori's lantern if you go lowlife, which are both around a chaos. Chayula gives stun immunity, which is really important imo. While cyclone makes you immune to stuns, it gets stuck on small things rather easily and if you get stuck in the middle of a pack, they can just stunlock you and you helplessly watch your char die (or are fast enough to log out). Lori's lantern is great for lowlife imo, since you get +8% movespeed, which helps with clearspeed and the unlucky roll for enemy attacks is a pretty big additional mitigation, especcially for preventing high damage rolls.

Other than that, helmet/boots/shield don't have to be amazing at first, I'd look for them in the ~20c range: helmet: ~300+ ES, maybe 350 if you can get one cheap; shield: 400+ ES, Boots: 30% Movespeed + 150+ES.


So i think your priority should be:

Helmet/Boots/Shield (~1 ex together)
Vagan dagger with ele damage + crafted crit (~30c, depending on how high the ele damage to spells is)
Doriyani's belt (5-20c depending on rolls)
Maligaros (5-10c depending on rolls)
Eye of Chayula Amulet (1c), Lori's Lantern if lowlife (1c), 2nd ring (both in case of CI) to fill out any missing resistances, preferably a diamond base (can get more expensive though), with es + a free prefix to craft %ES. Attackspeed would be a nice bonus, but usually then it really gets expensive. At first i wouldn't waste too much on rings, maybe ~30c for both together.
Flasks: Silver, Basalt, Rumis, Quicksilver, Atziris promis (1 with vs. freeze, one vs. bleed). Substitute Basalt with Taste of Hate after you get your 6L.

Assuming a 10 ex budget, that leaves you with ~7.5ex for chest. A quick look at poe trade shows shav's 5L/6s for ~3 ex and Sacrificial Garb for ~2 ex. 6L would be 12ex and 10ex respectively, so there's not that big of a difference. Keep in mind that getting a 4G shav's on average takes ~900 chromes (another 1.5 ex), 3G much less.

In the end the choice is yours, getting started with CI with a good 5L would be ~4.5 ex, for lowlife ~6-7 ex, which would both be in your budget. The next big upgrade would be a 6L either way, which would be a little out of your current budget in either case (not by too much though).

Once you get the 6L it's just about perfecting stuff (multimodding dagger, maybe get heretics veil if lowlife for dual curse setup, upgrade shield, crafting %ES on the ring, etc. Final step would be skyforths ofc :P).

I personally rolled scion this season and definitely think it's the best option (also the cheapest to get started, since you can skip lifeleech gem), as low-life and am currently sitting on ~8k ES with the added defence of Lori's and the option of switching in enfeeble if something feels like it will hit hard. Haven't died ever since I switched to Eye of Chayula, while doing stuff like Twinned Village Ruin with crazy mods, so i think especcially for softcore Lowlife is safe enough and just gives you much more flexibility in how you want to build your char, that's why i prefer it.

Hope that was kinda helpful and i didn't repeat myself too much. :P

Wow, that was a wealth of information there! You make a very compelling argument to going low life. Still sounds very intimidating but very exciting. The free damage and many auras seem really fun. So I guess in my excitement, I already made my first mistake. I kinda already bought a pre-crafted dagger due to that fact it was half the price of any dagger with those mods. That ran me about 4 ex. I've taken a look at 5 linked shavs and I can pick one up for 3 ex and leave plenty of spare change for my other items as you have mentioned.

My biggest concern is this: how do I upgrade to a 6l after buying the 5l? It almost seems like I should save up until I can afford the 6l outright. Would it just be a matter of waiting till I have a massive stack of fusings and praying to the RNG gods? Would I lose much currency by taking the intermediary step of buying the 5l as opposed to the 6l? Thanks so much again, you have been very helpful!

Edit: Perhaps I'll try flipping that dagger for a decent profit to try and scrape that 6l in and just use a cheap dagger like you suggested.

On the idea of low life build: I've never even thought of ever making a low life build in my life, so I'm not exactly sure how it works. I just try to reserve as much life as possible through auras attached to BM and then once I get shav's just play as if I had CI?

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PoniesAndDaggers wrote:

My biggest concern is this: how do I upgrade to a 6l after buying the 5l? It almost seems like I should save up until I can afford the 6l outright. Would it just be a matter of waiting till I have a massive stack of fusings and praying to the RNG gods? Would I lose much currency by taking the intermediary step of buying the 5l as opposed to the 6l?

I personally 6-linked it manually. On average it should take ~1k fuses, which is probably around the 10 ex difference you have on poe.trade). The advantage is that you only have to roll the colors once, the disadvantage is, that it's possible to just get straight up unlucky and have to spend more than if you would have paid for it. Choice is really up to you. Since you can't afford a 6L atm, I would go for the 5L and then, once you saved up enough currency, either buy a 6L and sell the 5L, or invest in fuses and try your luck yourself.

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PoniesAndDaggers wrote:

On the idea of low life build: I've never even thought of ever making a low life build in my life, so I'm not exactly sure how it works. I just try to reserve as much life as possible through auras attached to BM and then once I get shav's just play as if I had CI?

Yes, exactly, it allows you to have room for 1-2 more auras. Also the pain attunement gives you 30% more damage (which is really big), when you have less than 30% life (which you always have, since the life is reserved).

At the beginning I would just run Hatred with blood magic, and discipline, herald of ice and blasphemy with warlords mark on mana as usual.

Skill tree for that would look something like this (lvl 70 ish):


If you mind the small light radius, grab arcane vision, i still don't use it though, since with Lori's and especcially the curses as aura, it didn't really feel necessary. Lab is a pain with it, but you can just disable hatred for that and run with full life.

And gem setup:

Cyclone - CoC - Bladefall - EK (or Glacial Casc if you don't have 4G) - Incr. Crit (lifeleech instead if shadow)
Whirling Blades - Faster Attacks - Fortify
Blood magic - Hatred - Vaal Discipline
Discipline - Herald of Ice - Blasphemy - Warlords Mark
CwDT (i have lvl 7)- Immortal Call (cwdt lvl + 2) - Increased Duration - Vaal Haste (20)
CwDT (lvl 1) - Blade Vortex (lvl 1-8, to get power charges) - Powercharge on Crit - Tempest Shield (lvl 7)

Definitely level an enlighten and assassins mark in swap weapons though.

Alternatively, if you don't want to rely on the cwdt setup (+ the 10% change to get a pc on crit on enemies with full hp from the ascendancy), but instead selfcast one bladevortex every couple of seconds, you can use Bladevortex - Powercharge on Crit - Curse on Hit - Warlords Mark and substitute Blasphemy/Warlords Mark with Enlighten/Herald of Ash

Much later when you have your 6L, you can invest in Heretics Veil and dual curse. With a lvl 21 Bloodmagic (or by grabbing the - 4% reserved mana close to the scion start for 2 points and use a lvl 19-20 bloodmagic), you can run Discipline and Herald of Ice on blood magic and put Enlighten - Hatred - Warlords Mark - Assassins Mark in your helmet.

Tree would look somewhat like this (lvl 90ish):



A cool thing about using scion for that is also, that with a 35 strenght Doryani's belt (which you can easily get with blessed orbs) and the stats from the passive tree you get 113 strenght, which is exactly as much as you need for lvl 21 bloodmagic, increased duration, etc. Only Warlords Mark would need more, but that doesn't matter too much. Same for dexterity, with passives and Maligaros with >24 dexterity, you get 159 dex, which is exactly what the lvl 21 gems need, so you don't have to worry about attributes at all. I just love when things line up perfectly ^^

Thank you so much for all of your detailed advice! I don't know how to thank you. You've made forming this build so much easier for me. I've just hit Merciless and decided to change from spell caster to CoC, and wow I can already tell why CoC is so overly popular. It clears so insanely fast. And this is even on a 4l xD. I went ahead and bought a 5l Shavs, and a bunch of low-end other gear slots that I can swap into at lvl 62.

The problems I have I believe will be solved at lvl 62 when I can wear Shavs and the other gear. I am incredibly fragile, but my ES should jump by at least 2x when I can wear that gear. My leach is really unnoticeable, however once I can have another aura I can use Blasphemy warlords mark, and a second phys spell If I can get 4G will help a ton to. Actually crit chance on whirlwind is a bit of a problem, but I haven't quite specced into power charges yet. from 0-3 charges is a huge increase in procs, so im sure going from 3-7 will solve that problem entirely. So far absolutely loving the build! Thank you!

Edit: able to wear my big boy gear now. I spin. Things die. Constant full ES. It's insane!