Unusual CoC Cold Snap build (now with videos)

I was always under the impression that Chain doesn't increase CoC chance, since that is rolled per cast. And that people stopped using Lightning Arrow because LMP/GMP also hits things simultaneously due to the nature of the skill. This seems to conflict in-game, though.

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Panini_aux_olives wrote:

Hey, just found that on skill feedback forum:

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/22693/page/17#p8144218

I already heard about it but didn't have any devt confirmation, so here's one.

So actually, The benefit of LA/GMP/Chain is to provide more chance to CoC through more hits but you will only get one spell cast per arrow, as the 3 other are instantaneous and thus under CoC cooldown.

This is really weird and is not how I've experienced it. There's an easy way to test, but I'm abroad right now and my connection won't support it, so here's the science: Link LA + CoC + Storm Call, shoot it into packs without pierce chance and see if you ever get more than one Storm Call beacon per shot.

I've compared LA + GMP + Chain to SA + GMP + Chain this way and feel like I get substantially more casts with the former, but I didn't think to test it without the extra supports. If anyone does this, let me know how it turns out.

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feyith wrote:

I was always under the impression that Chain doesn't increase CoC chance, since that is rolled per cast.

My understanding is that crit is rolled per cast, but CoC is rolled per non-simultaneous hit... so Chain effectively increases your chance to proc CoC by increasing the number of hits. Though, given CoC's high proc chance in the upper levels, it may matter less.

It's probably just the homing missile nature of Lightning Arrow then. Even though Split Arrow saves you a gem slot, not all of SA's arrows are likely to hit something, whereas LA with GMP will more consistently hit the max number of things, which may explain the higher proc rate, despite the built-in bonus hits not counting.

Ooh! Don't tell Chris! :P

Nice to have my intuition confirmed. Thanks for doing the science :).

Regarding the tree, after the initial points in Ranger area do you go for the Critical boost from Lethality, the Acrobatics cluster or move straight to the Witch area?

Also what Bandits rewards work best in Cruel/Merciless?

I definitely got Lethality before the Witch stuff or the Acrobatics; I picked up the Acrobatics cluster fairly late, once I was already in Act 3 Merciless, because it wasn't crucial until then. The first priority for me had to be crit chance, because the rest of the build breaks without it.

The stuff from the Witch area is, in principle, skippable -- the increased area is super helpful, but not necessary, and the damage stuff is just nice. I'm pretty sure I killed all the bandits in Merciless (having found that 5 power charges was enough), but you could skip the Witch part of the tree and help Alira to keep the 5 power charges and trade the area and damage stuff for more survivability (and/or those extra 16% spell damage nodes out of the Shadow area).

I don't remember what I did with the bandits in Cruel. Either I killed them all, or I helped Kraityn for the attack speed. Either one should be fine.

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Tested with LA/CoC/Summon Skeletons, and I can indeed summon 4 skeletons instead of 2.

I tested it, and i couldn't reproduce this result in any way. Just take summon ragin spirit (limit of 50 => ideal) and look at the number of spirit you generate every attack on the top left => never get more than one at a time with this combination (tested like 50 times to be sure). And anyway i think LA was clearly one of the main target of the nerf to COC. Do you think the dev would not have tested their nerf even one time?

With other conf you reach 50 easily :)

Also, i just want to say that i am not a fan of putting too much support gem in general on COC, as it allow you to launch as many spell at the same time as you put in the setup, putting too spell of equal strengh in it will thus multiply yout dmg output by 2, when even Conc. effect is only 70% more, and not 100%.

So mathematically attack_skill/COC/spell/spell is better than attack_skill/COC/spell/conc. effect (unless attack_skill benefit also from conc_effect, i am not sure about LA on that point).

But attack_skill/COC/spell/spell/spell might be less good than attack_skill/COC/spell/spell/conc. effect if both spell benefit for conc.