D.Wands CI Crit Shadow (Chaining Power Siphon) - pre-OBT

Alice: Madness Returns


Power Siphon Scion 75

Dagger ST Scioin 80












Spoiler
Elem DS
ST Scion

Specialist Dagger ST Scion

Specialist Mace ST Scion - Some Critical, no power charge

Specialist Mace ST Scion - Less Mana Reserved, no Critical

previous attempts

Dagger ST OG Scion

33% Block OG Mace ST

Dagger ST Scion with Iron Reflex

33% Block + OG Dagger ST Scion

ST Mace Scion - Chaos Inoculation + Ondar's Guile

ST Mace Scion - Chaos Inoculation + Unwavering Stance + Iron Reflex

Flexible ST CI IR Scion LV 75 - 15 points to spend
1. 8 pts to US
2. 5 pts for Nightstalker Dagger Cluster
or 4 pts for Deadly Precision 1H Cluster
or 4 pts for Leather and Steel
or 4 pts for Depth Perception
or 3 pts for Haste
or 2 pts for 5% Reduced Mana
or 2 pts on top of US for iron grip
or 2 pts for Bloodthirst
or 2 pts for From the Shadows

ST Dagger
CI IR Mace ST Scion
50 ST Dagger Scion
60 ST Dagger Scion
65 ST Dagger Scion
70 ST Dagger Scion
75 ST Dagger Scion
80 ST Dagger Scion
85 ST Dagger Scion
90 ST/Reave Dagger Scion
90 ST Dagger Scion



Due to the upcoming Chaos Inoculation Change; this build might need some tweaks to be viable (mainly due to blood rage and lower ES).

new build: elemental wand physical wand build
This thread serves to give information and my personal opinion for new players, and also serve as a way for my own note-keeping. You will see quite a few comparison and personal opinion on many of the passive, gem, and items.

If you have any question, feel free to post.


This Level 73 Build Uses:
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Power Siphon-Increased Critical Strikes-Increased Critical Damage-Faster Attacks-Chain

-Critical Chance : 94.3% Main Hand, 74.5% Off Hand
-Dual Wielding = Insane Attack Speed Bonus
-Chaining Power Siphon = Obliterating Everything
-Fair Mana Cost + Very Fast Flask Refill
-Crit + Cold Damage = Frozen = No Corpse = Necros Being a Joke
-Ranged + CI + ES Recovery = Decent Enough Defense


First, for new players:
Here's a Draft Passive Tree you can follow. It is 56 points, and then you can decide what you want more.
-Bloodthirst at left of the tree or the center of tree for more critical.
-Catalyze area for more elemental damage.
-Fusillade if you want to get that 30% wand damage increase.
-Elder Wand if you want more physical wand damage.
-Wandslinger's Prowess for attack speed, also a 15% phy dmg node nearby.
-Arena Lord if you want even more physical damage.
-Deep Thoughts for mana, the witch starting area also have some.
-ES nodes are all around the tree, though you should have enough.
-Ghost Reaver isn't taken due to low ES leech rate, and you're ranged, so pretty easy to disengage and let the ES recover.
-If you cannot obtain a chain support gem, using a pierce gem is okay, see alternative build for more information.



Now, the details:
1. This build takes every opportunity at more crit chance, combined with wand's high base crit chance, I have 94.3% crit chance of mainhand, 75.4% for offhand; 90% of the monsters I killed crumbles and left no corpse. Also, critical damage multipliers are taken as much as possible to increase both the dps and more physical damage per hit (mana leech and stun).

2. This build also takes advantage of the attack speed nodes next to the shadow starting point, total of 30% ias nodes (a 6%, a 12%, and a 12% dual wield), and 10% more attack speed from being dual wield. I can do 3 attacks per second.

3. This build then takes Mind Drinker and lots of physical damage nodes for mana leech.
At 61 mana per cast, flask + mana leech (from chaining projectiles) are enough to keep mana from running out.

4. Some points are spent in elemental damage, projectile damage, critical damage, and more wand damage for better dps boost since physical dps boost is really low compared to elemental damage. Especially when I have wrath as aura and got quite a couple of light/fire/ice damage mods on equips. 4.6k dps with just aura; 7.3l dps with full charges; 67% chance to hit at level 73 (Since the high level compared to mobs, the miss chance is actually much lower and the dps is actually much higher).

5. Finally, with the CI and es equips I am able to reach 3.4k Energy Shield. This is enough to tank through quite a few hits from mobs. With my dps, I can finish mobs before they depleted my ES.

Equips
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Skills Break Down
Power Siphon:
Since I am lazy and didn't feel like switching between Elemental Hit and Power Siphon for greatest dps effect, I am simply using Power Siphon for its power charge granting ability. The critical gives a huge damage boost, the low mana cost let me use one extra support gem instead of mana leech, and it also have cool visual effect.

Increased Critical Strikes and Increased Critical Damage:
What more can I say, this build focuses on critical, and you should never miss out any opportunity to get more critical damage or critical chance.

Faster Attacks:
Dual Wield gives 10% more attack speed, plus Faster Attacks always gives the most dps boost among all support gem. Extremely crucial against high hp mobs and boss. A nice to have if you don't have time to aim and have to spray and pray.

Chain:
As per Electrospine and dragomob's request, I decided to give chain support gem a try. It is just truly amazing. I no longer need to line up mobs as when I had pierce, and the bouncing bolts are such a magnificent sight.
Due to the high cost multiplier and reduced damage, I will probably use a 4L equip for a non-chained Power Siphon against boss in the furture, or maybe even using elemental hit, linked with FA, ICS, and ICD.

Aura:
Discipline: Good es boost; important for tanking a nuke.

Wrath: Low mana cost but high bonus damage, plus I took arcing blow, why not get the extra lightning damage. Also nice to crit and shock enemy for extra damage boost.

Blood Rage:
Due to the nature of CI, blood rage's chaos damage is immune'd; therefore you get a free buff that grants frenzy charges upon killing an enemy. Each 5% increase in attack speed means about 250 dps boost.

Flasks:
4 Mana flasks for mana regen; 2 of them can also dispel
burning, one can dispel chill/freeze, and one gives additional ms for escape. One small life flask for the fast recharge chill/freeze dispel; since 4 flasks + other sources for mana is enough, and water elementals are so annoying.

Curses:
Critical weakness for extra damage against slow but bulky monsters (not sure about this, but I should reach 99.3%% crit with this curse); temporal chains for fast hitting and fast movement enemies that will down my energy shield really fast.

Totem:
Skeleton totem is the best distraction you can hope for. With totem at 1, and summon skeleton at 9, you can summon up to 5 skeletons, and 2 skeletons per cast. Great for flicker spiders. Added faster casting as the cast speed for this build is rather slow.

Summon:
Raise Spectre is a great way to provide additional resource, additional dps, and are used for tanking when unable to cast skeleton totem, such as a preemptive ambush situation.

Raise Zombie is used as an alternative for distraction at higher level, as totem and skeleton die rather quickly, so against mass flicker mob it's not tankable at all.

Traps:
Fire trap is used sometimes for the high explosion damage and DoT AoE, great against slow moving monster that clot in a group rather than in a line; or against low hp monsters that the explosion should 1HKO. Also, aginst the dreadful physical reflect mobs.

Bear trap is used occasionally for the elemental reflect mobs, and sometimes on boss.

Conversion is used a few times to convert rare monster, or distracting fast enemies for a short bit. Good for taking that "allies attack/move faster" rare monster out temporarily.



Alternative Build (Piercing Power Siphon)
Details

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This was what I have been using before switching chain with pierce support gem.
As title suggested, this build uses pierce for AoE capability.

Although not as strong in clearing mobs as chain support gem, this still gets the job done (requires running back and forth to line monster up).

Pros:
(1) Very Low mana cost, 33 mana per cast.
(2) More dps on lone target than chain; 7.6k dps (aura); 12.2k dps (full charges).
(3) One skill for all, good for boss and decent for mobs.
(4) Cheap and easily obtained quest reward gem.

Cons:
(1) 60% pierce chance is similar to 40% reduced damage on mobs.
(2) Requires lining up the mobs.
(3) Hard against flicker mobs without distraction.
(4) Lesser mob killing power overall compared to chain.

Pictures
Fully Charged




Without Charges






Several build decisions:
Fusillade vs Elder Wand
*Note: This comparison was Pierce Support Gem instead of Chain Support Gem, so the numbers are higher.
Used to have Elder Wand, but took Fusillade instead since those 24% elemental damage + 4% attack speed boost is already better than 82% physical increase, not mentioning I get much more damage once I get 5 power charges.
Current Build(image)7.6k dps non charged, 12.2k dps fully charged.

Elder Wand Build(image) 7.4k dps non charged, 10k dps fully charged.
Elder Wand build will leech more mana, but would still rely on mana flask; and there's no difference on performance after switching to Fusillade build.

Ghost Reaver vs Energy Recovery
In Closed Beta, CI gives 50% MORE ES, plus ES gear and Discipline, you get a huge amount of ES. The extra ES makes ES leech quite insignificant, even when you tear through mobs after mobs. And most important reason was that I usually gain my ES back through ES Recovery, since moving from one mob to another was sufficient enough time.

That being said, the new change to CI in upcoming OBT might completely change this build, as you will take chaos damage in ES instead of life and no innate 50% more (Blood Rage = unusable; chaos damage mobs = more damage; less ES = might not have enough to survive an encounter).

Mana Leech vs Flask
Mana is always an issue when you have many support gem linked to a skill. The cost can get really expansive, and many people uses mana leech gem to compensate, as it is the only source to leech mana from non-physical damage.

But I prefer a different approach. Using a low mana cost gem, such as power siphon, and mostly low mana multiplier support gem, such as increased critical damage and increased critical chance, I can keep my mana cost at a reasonable amount. And, with the help of my high critical chance, I can refill my flasks very fast, so I can get unlimited amount of mana as long as there are things to crit/kill. On boss it might be a bit mana consuming, but I have never been to a case where all four mana flasks are depleted and the boss is still not dead.

Faster Attacks vs More Damage per Hit
I have thought about this after using chain support gem. I do really high damage, and many time the mobs gets obliterated very quickly and my shots just hits dead corpses. But there are also times I found faster attacks helpful as my first hit might miss and mobs will be onto me. The ability to shoot a second attack before mobs start tearing you apart is very crucial for glass cannon build like this one. Therefore I am keeping faster attack for now, plus the ability to shoot projectiles 3 times per second is quite addicting.
Alice_of_Wraeclast - Dagger CI Witch
Alice_MadnessReturns - Molten Strike AoF witch
Flavour Build concept taken from Alice: Madness Returns
Last edited by wxyjac on Jul 21, 2015, 11:06:09 PM
Some items in this post are currently unavailable.
*BUMP

I was thinking of making a similar character, but instead of chaos inoc, going full evade. i have not tried, but with the recent skill reset i might respec my dagger shadow...

Anyone else have thought on this guys build?
full evade as of currently is not as good, because you still need to stack life; where as CI build you just need pure es.
Alice_of_Wraeclast - Dagger CI Witch
Alice_MadnessReturns - Molten Strike AoF witch
Flavour Build concept taken from Alice: Madness Returns
Last edited by wxyjac on Aug 1, 2012, 8:58:50 PM
Changelog:

Changed build toward much more elemental damage, and some crit chance with mana regen.

See OP previous edits for details.
Alice_of_Wraeclast - Dagger CI Witch
Alice_MadnessReturns - Molten Strike AoF witch
Flavour Build concept taken from Alice: Madness Returns
Last edited by wxyjac on Aug 1, 2012, 9:02:54 PM
Now, with the introduction of 0.9.11 passive tree, I have updated a new build.

See OP for more detail.
Alice_of_Wraeclast - Dagger CI Witch
Alice_MadnessReturns - Molten Strike AoF witch
Flavour Build concept taken from Alice: Madness Returns
LOVE it! I was just thinking of looking in to a wand shadow.

What's the benefit of dual-wands over a wand/shield? Is your survivability high enough (even with single target damage) to power through?
Would Pain Attunement be a good investment??
You have already cleared a path to it and as you have CI (1hp) Low on life i would assume???

Or since ur MAX Hp is 1 that does not count as low since you are 100%? (1/1)


"
Kelthien wrote:
LOVE it! I was just thinking of looking in to a wand shadow.

What's the benefit of dual-wands over a wand/shield? Is your survivability high enough (even with single target damage) to power through?


I picked dual wand because I don't want to wield shield. I get quite a bit of extra attack speed (12% from dual wield passive, and 10% more from just being dual wield); a little bit of physical damage (8% + 6% nodes). Shield would give you a lot more ES; but with my 3.5k es and constant 35% ms, I don't need any more es or block.



"
Forsight wrote:
Would Pain Attunement be a good investment??
You have already cleared a path to it and as you have CI (1hp) Low on life i would assume???

Or since ur MAX Hp is 1 that does not count as low since you are 100%? (1/1)

Nope. CI is always at full hp (hence the Shavronne's Pace for the constant 35% ms).
Alice_of_Wraeclast - Dagger CI Witch
Alice_MadnessReturns - Molten Strike AoF witch
Flavour Build concept taken from Alice: Madness Returns
"
Nope. CI is always at full hp (hence the Shavronne's Pace for the constant 35% ms).


Being a noob here but i dont see Shav's pace as a Passive? is it an item?
"
Forsight wrote:

Being a noob here but i dont see Shav's pace as a Passive? is it an item?


Yes, it's an unique boots, sorry for the late response.
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Alice_of_Wraeclast - Dagger CI Witch
Alice_MadnessReturns - Molten Strike AoF witch
Flavour Build concept taken from Alice: Madness Returns
Some items in this post are currently unavailable.

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