CI cast on crit hybrid dagger scion - [Invasion]

Who are you?

Hey guys, I am Ryder and welcome to my first guide! I've been playing path of exile on and off since closed beta. I've always been a huge fan of dagger builds and came up with this build on a whim after my first invasion character rip'd. This is one of the most fun and exciting builds I've played thus far and I needed to share it with the community.

Gameplay Videos:


How does this build work?

This is a chaos innoculation / ghost reaver build that uses spectral throw with cast on crit ice spear or fireball as the main source of damage. It also utilizes double strike for big physical damage. We focus on high physical damage / attack speed / and crit chance. We also opt for evasion / energy shield / and block as our main defences. The reason I wanted to go hybrid was to be able to make the most out of life leech (<3 blood rage) and mana leech, and not have a life leech gem as a requirement. As a CI build, we have no flasks to regen our es so we use our flasks to improve defenses while leeching plenty of es and mana to keep us topped off. Damage is primarily physical but our spells will be dealing tons of damage as well.

I would not recommend this build for beginners as the leveling process can be grueling and the end game requires excellent flask management

What level are you?

I'm currently level 83 in the invasion league and am progressing into higher 70+ maps (73 highest so far based on drops). I've been able to clear most content with relative ease with this build (aside from some of the insane invaders like rima etc, who I choose to stay away from). My gear is solid but by no means best in slot (perhaps aside for 1 or 2 uniques that I think are BIS for this build)

Skill Tree

As you will see, I head back almost to the beginning of the shadow tree, this build will play out almost virtually the same as a scion or a shadow.

Current:


Planned endgame (subject to change based on gear):


Pros and cons:

+ Excel in both melee and ranged combat
+ tons of damage (both ranged and single target)
+ insane AOE
+ able to do a variety of difficult maps including fractured / half and no regen
+ strong in solo or party play (conduit gives 5 power and 3 frenzy charges to party)
+ tons of crowd control if using ice spear - cast on crit
+ ability to switch up coc spell situationally(ice spear / fb / freezing pulse / storm call are all great options)
+ relatively safe to reflect (will discuss more in depth below)
+ excellent defenses
+ scales well into end game
+ near 100% flask up time
+ near 100% uptime on 5 power charges and 3 frenzy charge
+ strong block and evasion ratings
+ very mobile (1-2 surgeons quicksilvers to stay as slippery as possible)

- vulnerable to status ailments
- requires excellent flask management
- somewhat expensive to build (100% requires a 5L chest)
- difficult leveling especially in late cruel early merciless (before ci)
- requires a decent computer for stable fps (don't try this build on a microwave)

Tooltip dps and defenses



Leveling

This is probably the most difficult part of the build. You can really do whatever you want here and just start off by grabbing harrier/Sentinel and life nodes then heading up toward the shadow tree. Try not to steer to far off path though as you will then need some regret orbs to make the CI conversion.

I two hand ST'd with a shiversting/geoffri's/mightflay all the way up to 57 when i switched to ci. The end of this process will feel crappy and slow but the power spike after you switch and get your gear in order is amazing.

My pre-ci build looked something like this:


Your initial conversion to CI should look something like this:


Gear and links:

Most of these pieces were bought for less than 10 chaos. The chest cost ~15 chaos and was socketed and linked manually.

The ideal weapon is a high aps / crit chance dagger with good physical damage. Spell damage/spell crit/accuracy/leech/ele damage are all awesome bonuses.

You will need a 5 linked chest piece. Evasion/armor base is highly recommended as hitting gggbb in a pure es chest piece may be difficult.

You will defintely want significant energy shield on your chest/helm/and shield (at least initially). The main focus here is big evasion and energy shield, and maxing resists.

Maligaro and chayula are highly recommended but probably not 100% necessary. Diamond rings with accuracy are recommended to improve crit chance and chance to hit.



Flasks:

These are my main 5 flasks. All of your flasks should have surgeons mod. With such a high crit chance your flasks should be up near 100% of the time.



Situational Flasks



Quality gem priorities?

In a perfect world, we would have all of our gems at 20 quality, but for most of us, this isn't feasible. Our top priorities for quality gems are power charge on crit(10% or so will be fine) to ensure power charges are topped off at all times and blood rage for a few % additional life leech.

bandits

Normal: kill all is recommended however I opted for the 8 all resist for gear flexibility
Cruel: help kraitlyn for attack speed. More attacks = more crits = more spells
Merciless: help alira for an additional power charge = 50% crit chance

Ice spear vs Fireball?

As of late i've actually been leaning more toward fireball due to the raw damage, the burn damage combined with adders touch (dagger poison on crit) applies a nice dot effect as well. It does not have the CC benefit of ice spear however, although you can't get cc'd by dead targets ;P.

Freezing pulse / storm call / firestorm are additional gems I will test out once I've got leveled/quality versions ready.

This guide is subject to change as I'm still testing different things out and progressing. Thanks for reading and I hope you guys enjoyed. Ill be checking up here and will try to respond to any questions or comments. Any feedback is highly appreciated. I can be reached in game as well. IGN: RyderIcyKnives.

Added another vid + reserving space

Would it be possible running this build starting as 4 link and still do good without pcoc? or is it a big deal not having the 5 link even early mapping?