[1-2.0] CoC Sci/Sha/Ran/Due with Block - Song of Ice and Fire. Cheap. Fun. Nerfed
|
Latest update: Added a link to Visca's post on improvements to make in 2.0.
Build can be played as Scion, Shadow, Ranger and Duelist with minor differences.  Summary + Fast clear speed and some survivability (not great, mind you) + Cheap (if you don't use rat's nest and maligaro's in new leagues) - Weak against corrupted blood and to a lesser extent physical spells, lightning thorns and elemental reflect - Mess of ice and fire on the screen, not party-friendly GMP Spectral Throw procs lots of GMP Fireballs and Acric Breaths destroying everything. Mana is managable since ST is cheap and casts are free, but requires some attention in 2.0. Endgame defences are 75% block, spell block, evasion and 4k life.
Videos
Original dual-wielding build.
Springs (78) map (2.0.0, legacy Ungil's, almost no jewels) Necropolis (75) map (1.3.0, legacy Ungil's) (Author: kompaniet) Necropolis (75) map (1.2.4) (Author: kompaniet) Atziri run (1.2.2) (Author: Exiled_Wanderer) Plateau (75) map (1.2.0) (Author: kompaniet) Courtyard (78) map (1.1.0) Shrine (77) map using 1-3 chaos gear (1.1.0) Dominus runs (1.1.2) (no EE keystone) Merciless Dominus (1.0.5) (unfinished build) EB/MoM Shield variation (doesn't exist anymore). Atziri run (1.2.2) (with 6L) Atziri run (1.2.2) (with 5L, first attempt) Palace (78) (1.2.2) (171% -max, ele reflect, 1/2regen, temp chains, fire dmg + Ambush) What happens when you farm Piety for too long. 14 seconds, watch in fullscreen for better effect. 2.0 skill tree, first attempt. Suggestions welcome. Trees for other classes are similar: Shadow start - elemental damage nodes, Ranger - life/eva, Duelist - IAS and life/eva/ar. Check out Visca's post on improvements to make in 2.0. Knockback and mana on hit on jewels and more! 2.0 discussion starts on Page 104. The rest of the guide was written for 1.3 or earlier, but it is still more or less relevant.
Bandits
Normal - Oak
Cruel - Eramir (Kraityn if you want more IAS) Merciless - Eramir (Alira if you generate power charges; I don't think assassin's mark alone is enough to justify this)
Skill gems
ST (level 10) - GMP - CoC - Fireball (4L) - Arctic Breath (5L) - Life Leech (6L) (or Concentrated Effect).
Grace - Clarity (level depends on your mana pool) - Purity of Elements - Enlighten :( Whirling Blades (level 4) - Faster Attacks - Culling Strike - IIR (or IIQ or Fortify). Assassin's Mark - Faster Casting - (Blood Magic) or Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Assassin's Mark - (Enlighten) Ice Golem with minion survivability supports, may be on CwDT. CwDT (max level) - Enfeeble - Immortal Call - (Increased Duration) - may still be useful. Less max mana and aura nodes and less mana cost in 1.2 means you can use lower level Clarity than in 1.1 or don't use it at all. Gems in bold are core, the rest is up to you. Options include manual spell for reflect/thorns/corrupted blood, Searing Bond, Decoy Totem, Lightning Warp, Portal, ST-GMP(LMP) with PCoC and/or LGoH, Vaal ST or Cyclone CoC 4L, Vaal Haste and Grace, Herald of Thunder with Curse on Hit and many more. Life leech and Concentrated Effect are good 6th gems, but Arc, PCoC and eventually Knockback and different damaging spells are also among options. The core can be changed too, the only absolute must is CoC gem :) Primary targets for Quality on gems: ST, GMP, CoC. I prefer buying quality CoC before ST, because ST's level doesn't matter and quality level 1 is easier to buy. Frost Wall on CwDT protects both from monsters and from reflect and thorns blocking our own spells when we take reflected damage. You may see this in the beginning of Courtyard video. Remove it if you play in party.
Power charge on Critical vs Concentrated Effect (1.1)
Critical Mass node and Alira's merc bandit reward give us 5 power charges.
PCoC vs CE - 7% less DPS (see "DPS calculations" section for more detail) + 30% more spell procs with charges up (more consistent damage) + 30% AoE radius - 2 passive points, one with expensive respec - 110% mana multiplier (CE's 160% don't affect ST cost) - PCoC only adds dps when we have charges - Lose potential benefits of other ways of getting charges such as Conduit in party With 6 charges PCoC wins dps contest
Gear (text)
Good rares with life and resists are among options for any non-weapon slot. Cap resists, then get as much life as you can, then add crit chance, crit multi, accuracy, spell damage, IAS and IIR if possible. Below are unique options. Spell block is highly recommended.
Weapons. Dual Ungil's Gauches provide 55% block and 180% global crit. Buy +20 dex ones, physical damage doesn't matter. Rare daggers or Divinariuses are possible and boost damage a lot, but I prefer capped block. For build variation with a shield use a rare dagger, preferrably Vagan's. Shield. Rathpith Globe. Obviously, for shield variation only. Chest. 6th link adds signigicant amount of survivability or damage, therefore Tabula Rasa is very good. Of course, you may use "real" 6L armor or stick to a good unique or life/resist evasion 5L. Carcass Jack is good for both defense and offense, Voll's Protector and Infernal Mantle are offensive options, Belly of the Beast and Lightning Coil are defensive. Plus gem level corruption adds 10-15% dps. Helmet. I like Rat's Nest because it's a very strong crit helmet with nice bonuses, but in pure dps The Three Dragons are even better (or was better before Herald of Thunder added shock to everything). Goldrim is a leveling helmet, that can be later used as a swap for elemental weakness maps. Gloves. Maligaro's make gameplay smoother without significant increase in dps. Good, if you can afford them without sacrificing quality of items in other slots. Doedre's Tenure is a cheap alternative. Boots. Uniques to choose from are Rainbowstride (the best choice if you also use Stone of Lazhwar) and Atziri's Step (better with a rare amulet). Additional info. More numbers. Belt. Cold or fire Doryani's Invitation if you can live without extra life. Amulet. Stone of Lazhwar, possibly corrupted for spell block, curse or cold or fire leech. Rings. While you may use something like Gifts from Above, Thief's Torment or Berek's Grip, I believe rare rings are the way to go. We have to get life and resists somewhere, don't we? If you use EE, don't use any items with flat "adds x-y" fire or cold damage. While not absolutely terrible, it's dps loss.
Gear (item links)
Exiled_Wanderer's gear (Atziri video)
EB/MoM Shield Ranger gear (another Atziri video)
Cheap 1.0 gear (1-3 chaos each item; Shrine video)
Original 1.0 gear (Courtyard and Dominus runs videos)
Leveling
Start with whatever skill you like. Switch to Cast-on-Crit setup somewhere between level 31 and 75. Level CoC and spell gems even if you don't use them. In 1.2 I was leveling with tornado shot.
Don't rush to any notables and keystones, take nearby good nodes. The tree is easy to build, I don't think posting low level trees is necessary. At level 31 procs are rare, ST deals a big chunk of damage and shocks mobs. Later only spell damage matter. Buy Tabula Rasa if you can afford it. GGGBB 5-link if not (buy item with these colors or that can easily be chromed: Eva/ES is the easiest, Eva slightly more difficult). Starting with 4L is possible too, but it will be weaker, and you shouldn't get EE keystone while using 4L. 5th and 6th links add a lot. Use Doedre's Tenure. You can get perfect 4L for 1 chaos, and it's almost as good as Maligaro's, because cast speed doesn't affect our main skill. Goldrim is a helm you may use until level 55 (Rat's Nest). The Three Dragons in between if you are not short of currency. If procs are not reliable, get 4 power charges and maintain them with either PCoC on Tabula, Voll's protector or secondary 4L with PCoC. Consider getting flat Accuracy on rings and %accuracy nodes. You may use 15 implicit life on hit claw in one hand while leveling. Even 8 LoH helps sustain damage, greatly reducing danger, including lightning thorns and reflect.
Dealing with Map mods
Elemental reflect. If you have life leech and spell block, you may try running reflect map. If doesn't work, change main skill to ST-LMP-CoC-EK-whatever (I used faster proj + inc crit dmg). If you are using fixed color GGGBBB 6L, ST-CoC-EK-ICS-ICD-PCoC or same thing with cyclone should do. Get 4L CoC or manually cast spell for phys reflect aura. Slower, but still doable.
No regen / Half regen. Turn off Clarity and get surgeon's mana flask. Have to hit it regularly, but nothing difficult. Blood magic. No auras. Dangerous, but not much of a problem if you can cap resists. -Max resistances. Very dangerous. Well, it's true for 99% builds out there. Proceed more cautiously. Nothing more to say here. Elemental weakness. Swap gear to overcap resists. Humanoids. Dangerous because of Archmages with Lightning Thorns. This was a thing earlier, as of 1.2 it seems to be overnerfed, archmages hardly ever cast thorns. Vulnerability. Watch out corrupted blood, with this mod you won't have usual 2 seconds to drink your staunching.
DPS calculations (1.1)
Excel dps calculator for this build. Not too user-friendly, but it calculates :)
Download to edit. It doesn't take EE into consideration. Among other things it calculates two important values: 1. Chance for each attack to proc at least one spell. This is a measure of reliability. 2. Minimum dps assuming GMP ST hits only once and each GMP spell hits only once. Even single target dps is at least twice as high, but it's a good value to compare. With some arbitrary assumptions my - single-target ranged DPS is 8k, - single-target shotgun DPS is 40k, - pack DPS is 400k (disclaimer: arbitrary assumptions! :) ) Replacing Concentrated Effect with PCoC with 4 charges results in: - Chance to cast increased by 24.7% (42.1% -> 52.5%), - DPS decreased by 14.2% How different stats increase DPS for my tree and gear without curse: 1% Spell/Elemental/Projectile Damage - 0.56% [burst damage only] 1% Attack Speed - 0.52% [good, but increases mana consumption] 1% Spell or Global Crit Multiplier - 0.26% [burst damage only] 1% Global Crit Chance - 0.20% 1% Accuracy - 0.17% 10 Accuracy - 0.16% 1% Attack Crit Chance - 0.12% 1% Spell Crit Chance - 0.08% [burst damage only] Replacing my 45% Maligaro's with 50% Doedre's results in tiny 1.2% DPS reduction. 36% Maligaro's would lose. For Shadow start Maligaro's would still win. This depends a lot. My Spell Damage is low, therefore adding some matters. Put your own stats in calculator if you want to know what to upgrade.
Defence/offence screens (1.1)
Please note that Fireball damage on screenshot doesn't include Concentrated effect "more" multiplier.
  
Accomplishments
This build allowed me to get to level 78 maps in Domination playing mostly solo. It was max level and much more difficult back then.
Cig hit level 90 in Invasion (HC) with this build. Exiled_Wanderer killed Normal Atziri with this build. I died fighting Uber Atziri when she had 20% hp left (past all split phases) in Rampage... but that's not an accomplishment.
Outdated parts
1.3 Passive Skill Trees
EE DW Scion. Max block with legacy Ungil's, 59% with new ones. Similar tree was used in 1.3 Necropolis video.
DW Shadow. Can be transformed into EB/MoM. EB/MoM DW Ranger. Should be pretty good because ES isn't halved by Acrobatics anymore. Requires ES armor for endgame, Tabula Rasa is not enough. Good thing is EB/MoM here don't require much planning, you may play a build similar to Shadow's, and then easily switch to EB/MoM. This is a base, alter it to your liking.
1.2 Passive Skill Trees
Scion. Close to original build.
Shadow. Level 91, Atziri killed. Author: Exiled_Wanderer Ranger. Ranger life nodes are relatively good now. Duelist. Excellent life and crit chance. VP is meant to be used with LL gem in 6L. Author: ownyaah This is a base, alter it to your liking. Below are different variations. EB/MoM Shield Ranger. Level 89, Atziri killed. My Rampage build. Max spell block without max attack block. No dual-wielding. Much better survivability than the original build, reflect does nothing. Can be Shadow and Witch as well. Add 3 power charges if you can maintain them (2 in the tree and 1 from Alira). 1.2.0 trees lack Int and Str for gems. There are four +30 nodes and Primal Spirit node 2 points from Finesse. Either grab them or get stats from gear. DW Scion with more str/int. More attributes and easy access to Charisma aura cluster, less life. Author: Nobless The trees below are untested. EB/MoM Scion. Need more expensive gear. Author: Chundadragon Block Shadow. 41% block from the tree lets us replace 1 Ungil's Gauche with good CoC dagger. No Ballistic Mastery, lets hope 10% from Sniper is enough. Shield Ranger. No dual-wielding, 39% shield block from passives (max block with 36+ block shield or 32 + Tempest Shield or corrupted amulet) CI Witch. Need expensive ES chest. Viability unknown.
Important Notables and Keystones (1.2)
Elemental Equilibrium. We deal all 3 damage types: ST - lightning, spells - fire and cold. Fireball and arctic breath have the same projectile speed, therefore if both spells are triggered multiple times, fire and cold damage will alternate making every hit benefit from EE. EE effectively adds 50 to 200% MORE damage unless monster resist is more than 112%, and it is definitely worth 6 or so passive points. EE is not that good if you prefer close combat and shotgun a lot. 5-projectile shotgun damage is up to 20% lower with EE than without. EE is bad in party with Anger or Hatred aura. If you are going to do it often, spend these points elsewhere. If you choose something other than fireball and arctic breath, obviously, EE won't work well. That said, with FB+AB and suitable playstyle, EE works wonders, try EE map mod to see it. Ballistic Mastery. Believe me, 20% projectile speed makes a real difference for ST. Without Ballistics character feels more like melee with all dangers it implies, with Ballistics you melt monsters from safe distance, able to hit almost any spot on the screen. If you doubt it, try Karui Ward amulet and see how it changes gameplay. Introduction of Sniper notable in 1.2 slightly reduced Ballistics impact. Dervish and other block clusters. 75% block is a main defensive point of this build. While evasion and life nodes suffer from diminishing returns, the closer you are to max block, the more effective each 1% block is. Acrobatics. 40% dodge and 30% spell dodge with Phase Acrobatics. This adds a new layer of defense, and doesn't cost much since we are going full evasion. Ondar's Guile. This keystone is a main reason I like Evasion builds. If you evade 47.5% of melee attacks, which is easily achievable with grace and jade flask, Ondar's Guile makes you evade 95% of ranged attacks. This allows to completely disregard tentacle miscreations, corpse spitters, Piety ice form etc. Twin Terrors are straightforward, and don't need much explanation. Note that it only affects ST crit, not spell critical. Last edited by SunnyRay#1519 on Aug 14, 2015, 11:54:34 AM Last bumped on May 16, 2016, 11:37:48 AM
|
|
|
Already leveling up with this build and its really fun! :D
|
|
|
already tried this idea before, not worth it imo, cant compare with CoC discharge
|
|
|
Why not?
Discharge is powerful with 6L Voll's protector and Voll's Devotion. Is it as good in new leagues where Voll's Devotion doesn't drop? My passives are not meant for discharge, but it's still crit+ias+spell damage, and when I tried ST-GMP-PCoC-CoC-Discharge-ConcEffect in my Tabula it was very weak. Also, I like sound, visual effects and overall feeling of my build more. This is something to compare too xD |
|
|
I was using the same CoC build with barrage (wand and shield). I must say so far this build is superior.
Uptime is a lot higher even thou this crit chance is lower by 20%. Another thing is that with barrage character gets "stuck" for a whole duration of cast. Frame drops are also a lot lower. (or they optimized the game not sure). So far my main issue is low HP pool. i am at 2k at lvl 71. I am still missing some health nodes so when i hit 80 should be a bit higher. My gear is not the best atm but i can run low lvl maps with no problem. |
|
|
Hey man, this looks like a nice spec. I wouldn't have thought of conc effect with fireball/arctic looks solid.
I'm curious how you make money with this build actually... Getting to 78 maps takes currency :D |
|
|
Barrage is a whole different story. It scales better with Chain than GMP, don't benefit from dual-wield passives that are crucial for my spec etc.
Life rolls on boots, belt and jewelry are a must. Cap resists with Purity, then get as much life as you can. Stats like crit, spell damage and IIR are luxury. Also, 75% block is very effective, it's hard to get it with a wand. " Dunno, may be I got lucky. I prefer a version about my perfect map management skills, though :) I wasn't spending too much, using my map advisor spreadsheet. I won't ever get all that Shavronne's and Kaom's with my 50 or so IIR, but getting to 78 maps is not too hard. Being able to full-clear almost any map with any mods helps a lot. As a softcore player, I was killing every boss even if it meant a death or two. Also, I was selling maps I wasn't sure I can full-clear (Palaces) and low level maps. This plus forum shop with 1 chaos stuff and occasional exalted-worth drops was enough to roll maps and slowly upgrade gear. To clarify, I wasn't sustaining 78s, but going up and down between 73 and 78. |
|
|
You didnt skill on any DMG Buffs. Seems like this is a very expensive/gear depended Build? Correct me if iam wrong please. Oh and is this Build Tanky enaugh? Seems pretty squishy.
Last edited by mustia#0444 on Mar 12, 2014, 12:23:29 AM
|
|
|
To prove it doesn't require expensive gear I uploaded a video where I clear Shrine map using 1-3 chaos items. I used only 5 sockets in Tabula to represent that you can use the cheapest 5L.
I died once fighting Piety, what proves that you are not supposed to facetank lightning balls standing in lightning storm with this build and gear worth 10 chaos total. Also, I forgot Purity of Lightning. It's a ranged evasion crit build with 4k life (230%), max block and "immunity" to projectile attacks. It is not meant to facetank everything. Is it squishy? Depends on what you compare it with. Last edited by SunnyRay#1519 on Mar 12, 2014, 9:38:53 AM
|
|
|
So far I got up to 61 using your build and I must say it is amazing. I had no issues doing any quest or fighting any exile I have found. I am currently using Life gain on it as my 6 sockets on my CoC link.
Edit: With Life gain on hit Ele Reflect are not a treat. The real treat to this build is the new Corrupted blood mobs. Last edited by MrLightning#7418 on Mar 12, 2014, 11:27:53 AM
|
|
