[2.1] SC Tali - ZO Discharge Flicker Spectres - Because melee spectres are fun too!

PROS
-Works as intended around 90% of the time. The other 10% are when crematorium boss disintegrates all your minions and when enemies are too tanky.
-Many damage types: attack physical, attack cold and chaos, and spell cold (+fire/lightning if you want)
-Grapplers actually have decent damage stats compared to other spectres (i tried many others at various times to make sure pushing this build further was worth it).
-Chaotic scenes of flickering murder and exploding violence.
-You don't need to spend 100ex on Voll's Devotion.
-Great distraction for enemies, who literally cannot focus.
-Highly customizable spectre setup (varying degrees of fun/efficiency).
-You never actually need a 6L anything, but they're nice.
-Grapplers will often flicker-freeze goats and frogs in mid-air before they hit you.
-No loud unrelenting Revenant breathing sounds during chill time in hideout. Electrified punkheads instead.
-Fracture is mad fun.

CONS
-Didn't manage to make them discharge as good as i wanted to (i'm open to suggestions though).
-Your spectres require a certain amount of investment in tankiness or you'll have to respawn them very often, which nobody wants to do. That leaves you relatively squishy as you devote inventory and gem slots to your minions.
-Requires pretty specific gear, that you might have to craft yourself. That implies it's kinda expensive, based on your luck.
-Attributes are really hard to come by, especially Dexterity. Expect many skillpoint respecs along the way.
-Before they become ultratanky, you gotta use Convocation real quick when one of you Grapplers multistrikes alone into the horizon. Or he will die shortly after.
-Not for beginners.

This is the biggest damage multiplier in the build. It takes the armor slot though, so you will have to make up for it in other places, which quickly gets expensive. Note that unlike Revenant builds, melee spectres make full use of the Unholy Might mod, which is where the chaos damage part comes from.
In bossfights, you can force it with the talisman trick.

This is the most important piece for the build to work properly, because of the 10-link that includes Ice Bite ("only" 8 links useful in actual combat though). The Melee Splash corruption is also a dramatic improvement. This might be the hardest part to get in the build. Even harder than the amulet, since you have to prepare the sockets too. But bitterdream is cheap as fuck so it's still reasonable. You need Multistrike + Minion damage in there, that's pretty much non-negotiable.

I recently switched to this over a 300 ES helm with 90 res and 30 chaos res that costed me like 2.5 ex. Why? The synergy with Rathpith Globe, Necro Aegis and Fortified Legion is just that good. The key to minion immortality. Can still be improved with minion damage corruption.

Another hard piece in the setup, the +1 curse. The minion stats don't actually matter, what's 15% damage when you have 200%? I mean compared to sick resists, ES and rarity? Sadly all +1 curse amulets cost 1+ ex even with crappy stats so i'll upgrade this later. Yes i had to craft this one myself in the first place.

This is what makes the build progress into mid-high maps without requiring spctre-revival journeys after every boss.
Also, 50% extra Discharge bonus for the lulz.

Little eva & ES, Dex(!), solid res and a slot for crafted minion damage. This is most likely as good as i'm gonna get.

Just a gg belt, for much needed resistances. Alternatively, a Perandus Blazon will help with Dex, the quantity and flask stuff are just icing on the cake.


From the rings you need 1 slot and as much resistance (chaos included), ES and Dex as you can get. If you're rich, craft elreon %ES mod on an open prefix.

This is a flexible slot. +1 spectre isn't necessary on its own, the corruption is what really makes these precious. You can have a Windscream in there instead if you wanna run quad/penta curses.

My culling combo is as follows: drink Forbidden taste and Divination Distillate (in that order). This makes sure the Distillate lasts the full duration regardless of my mana. So i can keep running around dodging deadly shit instead of standing there trying to prevent my mana from filling up.
I usually lose enough hp (it works because it's chaos damage and goes through my ES) during the first sip of Distillate, to allow me to drink the second sip for a few seconds before HP fills up. This whole build has very low manacosts on everything except the Spactres so it's kind of necessary to make your runs worth it.
Also, Forbidden taste is a full HP heal incase of immediate R.I.P. danger.

The only belt in the game that gives any Dex, this can help you save skillpoints and acquire currency for quite a few levels.

That is the kind of stats you want on your amulet, sadly this one doesn't have +1 curse. So when i decided i needed my ring slot and Doedre's needed to go, i changed ammy.

The aura combo was used when i was trying hard to fit Haste in my setup. That era ended when i had to increased my ES to stop dying all the time, also the whole reservation process combined with clunky spectre revival (had to turn off 2 auras and then back on, every single time) was too much hassle.
On a side note, Blasphemy+tricurse in Victario's was fun for an amount of time that was very short. Like the blasphemy radius. And my life expectancy if i actually relied on it to curse most mobs.
The discharges were sick tho.

Albeit slowly, it did clear up to tier 14 maps. Didn't drop a T15 yet to check, but i'm pretty sure Ambrius is impossible.

TempChains/EleEqui map mods are free quantity.

Bosses to avoid like the plague: Crematorium. Probably Colosseum and Village Ruin too.

*Carnage Chieftains: So they seemed like the solution to generating charges (of the perfect type no less, Frenzy charges) without requiring kills, which means it enables discharge in bossfights.
The problems:
-Somehow dies faster than Grappler (it's also an early act 2 mob as opposed to late act 3, significant level difference).
-Echo makes cast animation play twice but only 1 charge is gained (wtf?).
-Takes a precious spectre slot.
-No reliable way to provoke the casting. I tried eveything from Blood Magic to Reduced Mana with some Minion Speed and Mana leech advantures along the way. Sometimes it would be casted only twice in a zone before it's cleared...


*6L Wideswing: That's a 7L with lvl 20 increased AoE from the otherwise useless weapon. RNGesus blessed me with one while i was just trying to 5L it for some tests.
The only real problem with this one is that it's 2H. That means you can't give your minions the block and spellblock from Rathpith+Skullhead combo. Other than that, it's the best clearing setup i've found.
Wideswing Inc AoE + Spectre + Minion Damage + Multistrike + Melee Splash + Ice Bite + Melee Phys/faster Attacks.
This is what i used for quite a few levels and i would still use it if my minions didn't need the spellblock. Note that the quality AoE bonus on Melee Splash seems to apply to the Discharge aswell for some reason. It's just wonderful.


*Maligaro's Lens + Heartbound Loop x2 is your choice for minion AoE if you can somehow fix their resistances. I tried to make it work but couldn't find the resists, both for them and for me. I had to choose where to get them from, and i decided Vis Mortis was more worth it than the rings.


*Maximum charge gain curse on hit setup: Ass mark, War mark, Poach mark, Enhance, CoH, spell. +1 tabula and Enhance increase curse quality, which in turn increase the charge chance.
You provide more than 50% chance to get each type of charge from each mob. That was my other sick discharges setup. Tabula made me too squishy so i had to switch.


*Pre-Rathpith, this is the best well-rounded unique shield you can Necro Aegis your minions with for survivability. Main difference is spellblock chance won't go up when you add Skullhead and jewels. Without those, the spellblock can be better than on a low roll Rathpith.


*TBA

-Currently working on the minion damage corrupt on Skullhead
-Tests with lvl3 empower and a more castery setup later on
-GG jewels - this is probably the biggest margin for improvement
-Upgrade my unset ring
-Upgrade my gloves
-GG +1 curse ammy - this is certainly the most expensive
-6L Vis mortis
-Corrupted Rathpith with chance to block spells, cast speed would be useful too if i get a caster setup working on a 3L. ...So that's an idea for you guys btw. Caster shield with cast speed corrupt + Bitterdream or other sceptre with faster casting corrupt and Echo+Minion Speed links, + Necro aegis, + 20/20 Generosity Haste in Victario should give sick cast speed to your minions. Is there a SRS caster spectre? Not sure it competes with 6L Pledge of hands but it's more customizable and hey we here for science right?