Tanky and affordable quill rain CoC! (Updated to 1.2.0)

Hi,

Have you tried your build on 1.2 yet? How is the nerf to CoC gem affected it?

Yes, I did get to respeccing this char.

I went with this tree:
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgIAm42v6wgu7YMZjgBe037veu4OVvqjivzFd9cj9vljZ6DdDTnUTZKNfRXwveaHdluvLOmQCm_ydvcF-T7PSn0hdk4qoJ8x-psmoaRRR4bOtkEppejW4dvnVMEzapNaGusU53Qk_dXtbWzAD7VIpcs2PdJN8-oGI52q7LC-pyoLH0FirGyMjAtuaXBSAx65fITZidMWv2VNJd9w1SaVFFIb-l3yYeJHfqQZDkhVSwHcY0OMNr6KeA1Yr-hmNuhGaT_8OlIIsQ48QqOfyxRx-Ov_sATkddA=
As predicted, I now have 87% chance to hit (according to tooltip) instead of 78%. That's over 24% more successful crits, which in itself already makes up for the nerf on the CoC gem.

Aside from that, I also specced into the Fending knockback nodes (instead of a few life nodes, it was just 5 points). It's such incredibly fun to see all those leapslamming mobs never reaching you. Fought Tor Olgosso, and he tried to leap to me but only jumped in place. It's hilarious.

Additionally, the life flask buffs are HUGE. They flat out doubled all the flask regens, and they added higher level flasks. My current ones heal for 1.8k over 3 seconds (refilling on every crit hit). Ask the closest RF char what his regen is, you'll hear similar numbers. I can't wait for crafting the new ones!

Overall this character might deal slightly less dps (since FB and AB also got nerfed for CoC chars) and has quite a bit less life (3.2k now instead of 3.9k :( ), but it feels even more fun to play.
Things I'll experiment with include:
-Dual curse and applying both Poacher's Mark and Assassin's Mark to packs. Free frenzy and power charges anyone? Not only that, poacher's mark will bring another half Thief's Torment life/mana gain, the life gain per second will simply be ridiculous xD
-Herald of ice (this build gets so many hits per second, this is going to be huge!).
-I had to spec into an additional +30 int node since the new tree is missing exactly 3 int (and my agate amulet is already at max implicit). Now, I could look for a good lapis amulet and get that point back, but I would actually rather get a corrupted amulet with +1 curse (although chance to avoid freeze, attackspeed or +1% all max res would be awesome too). If you have one please contact me!

Hi there,
build looks really fun and i just found a Tabula rasa and have a 5L quill rain from my old EA Marauder.
So i think i will give it a try.
Would it be possible to give key points while lvling, such as first that way for life, then armour and last crit or so??

Sorry for my bet english(isn't my first or second language).

Best regards
Asrael

PS: Your last skill tree link is brocken. Would be nice to repost it.

Leveling this build from lvl 1 is (obviously) not advisable. You should use some kind of leveling build (or use a free passive respec on one of your chars).

Once you hit ~lvl 60 or so, you should have a decent amount of crit, life and also armor/evasion. Keep in mind that crit is basically your chance to hit with your spells, and it scales your dps linearly if you disregard spell crit, so it's vital to have enough. The hard part will also be getting enough resists (and life) on gear. The recent change to life-based builds means that, without much investment you won't be as squishy, but it's even harder to get above 4k health (with this build).

I also updated the tree in the OP. Thanks for the reminder!

Thanks for you reply.

I play phys crit bow ranger. I do CoC from time to time just for the lulz and farming for wisdom scrolls and alt shard.

I tried tornado shot-GMP CoC recently and I felt like it proc more often than barrage-GMP. Not to mention the spell sometime goes 360.

Hm, I hadn't tried Tornado Shot.

I borrowed one from a friend and went into merc ledge. Conveniently, I found a skeletal shrine, which makes for a perfect testing scenario. I took some footage of shooting both Barrage and Tornado Shots at my feet while the skeletons swarm me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GKfCSx0PAc
(This wasn't the only test I did, but the skeletal shrine means you can have relatively constant testing situations, as opposed to running from pack to pack and sometimes critting more or less).

The problem with TS is that all projectiles hit at almost the same time, so because of the CoC cooldown you can only get very few procs per attack (read: during most of your attack cooldown, no projectiles are hitting stuff). This is partly an issue with the high projectile speed of quill rain. Barrage spreads out 8 initial hits over a much longer time, which is really beneficial here. For that reason, it's also much better against single targets.

There probably are some cases where Tornado Shot (especially paired with Chain) can proc more than Barrage, but that would be really special mob constellations. In my eyes, Barrage is the clear winner.

Firstly thanks for posting this build. It looks like a lot of fun. With the release of FM are there any other spells you would suggest running with coc? Discharge sounded cool because I happen to have a voll's devotion, but I don't have a 5l or 6l protector to use with it. And part of the appeal of the build to me is using a tabula haha.

I did acquire a Voll's Devotion recently, too, but the problem is that you need a way to stand in the middle of enemies. I was playing around pretty seriously with (Attack) - CoC - Lightning Warp - Discharge, but it's pretty underwhelming because if you shoot into a pack from further away and proc a crit, you discharge and then TP to the mobs you were targeting. You then have to wait for the next discharge, which maybe kills the pack.

I don't think a Quill Rain based build is appropriate for discharge. I did try it with my shadow and had decent success, but at that point it's just a completely different build.

"

MauranKilom wrote:

I did acquire a Voll's Devotion recently, too, but the problem is that you need a way to stand in the middle of enemies. I was playing around pretty seriously with (Attack) - CoC - Lightning Warp - Discharge, but it's pretty underwhelming because if you shoot into a pack from further away and proc a crit, you discharge and then TP to the mobs you were targeting. You then have to wait for the next discharge, which maybe kills the pack.

I don't think a Quill Rain based build is appropriate for discharge. I did try it with my shadow and had decent success, but at that point it's just a completely different build.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So for spells that DO work for a quill rain coc build... obviously fireball and arctic breath. Ice spear seems promising--anything else you have been fiddling with?

"

24Crayons wrote:

So for spells that DO work for a quill rain coc build... obviously fireball and arctic breath. Ice spear seems promising--anything else you have been fiddling with?

A whole bunch. I leveled a Raging Spirits gem to level 20, but they just deal pretty much no damage without investing into minion related stuff. Even if you cap them at 50.
I keep a spark with me for reflect packs, since it diffuses the damage way more than a series of GMP AB/FB and lets you regen through it (well, unless you run in the middle of the pack and melee spark them). Doesn't synergize too well with both Chain (it's a lower damage fork basically) and GMP (halved damage for 3->7 sparks is meh) either.

Ice Spear: I have one with me at all times. It doesn't have the "Oooomph" of fireballs and doesn't work as nicely in shotgunning stuff, but since I have increased cold damage in tree and Doryani's, it might well be worth it. Against cold resistant mobs you probably want FB, but yeah. Good point.

I didn't investigate much further into Storm Call or Firestorm (although you can get interesting things like this or this), they rely on the targets standing still quite a bit, don't double dip from GMP/Chain and (in the case of Firestorm) just a visual and acoustical mess.

Arc is usually a popular choice for CoC, but it doesn't benefit from GMP (since it's not a projectile) and +2 chains on a 6 target arc at the cost of 50% less damage isn't even remotely worth it, so it's pretty underwhelming, too.

EK is somewhat similar, but I didn't level one with me initially and my current one is just getting up to speed. GMP and Chain are both not the best supports for EK though either.

Cold Snap: You need power charges and thus (pretty much) a Voll's Protector. It's kind of decent, but it just has way lower base damage than FB/AB and also doesn't get anything out of GMP and Chain. Read: You can put Cold Snap in your CoC in this build, but then you should probably just play a proper Cold Snap CoC char, which will likely use a somewhat different build.

I didn't look into Ball Lightning too much. It got buffed since I tried it, however the huge increase to projectile speed from Quill Rain sort of works against Ball Lightning. It's also pretty bad as single target damage. I'll try it again though.

Frost Wall: Hilarious but... you know, it doesn't kill stuff.


The remaining minion stuff, curses, vall skills, other aoe spells like ice nova, shock nova (and storm call) are pretty useless for mostly very obvious reasons.



To anybody who's not aware of it, you can't cast Mines, Traps or Totems with CoC.