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

I started using this build and those are the items that I have and the dps is insane along with the lag lol. My question is how important is the knockback? could i avoid picking it up if i wanted to?

Yes. I just experimented with that build (it's just 5 regrets), and in the end the knockback is hilarious but not worth it.

The thing is, you now basically have to get knockback with the King of the Hill noteable, which kind of screws your ability to shotgun targets (you'll push them away quite a bit with every crit), so the idea behind the knockback was to just sing "can't touch this!" while locking the rares/bosses in place by knocking them against walls (which has the added benefit that AB and FB projectiles that barely miss the boss will explode on the wall and still deal damage with the explosion).

However, knockback on this build is pretty much the most desync-prone thing in the game after flicker strike. Plus, you could just get life nodes or other useful stuff instead.

That's why I specced out of the fending nodes like two days ago. Here's what I opted for instead:
Current tree

I will make a concerted effort to actually get some levels and not just bum around while blowing hard-earned XP on avoidable deaths. Next up will most likely be the flask/life nodes above Iron Reflexes. That is, when I feel like I'm done with the new challenges...

I wander if i can use this build with a winripper? Is the build still powerful with windripper??

Was looking for something to respec my ranger into after the reset, (Previous build was absolutely awful, couldn't kill anything and was squishy as all hell), Still need to get a few pieces of gear for the build, and some more levels (ranger was 60 when I rerolled), but this build is seeming really fun so far.

Take note guys, Zana loves to put double reflect on her map missions!
Always first check the map mods when you do a zana mission.

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KevinSandy wrote:

I wander if i can use this build with a winripper? Is the build still powerful with windripper??

It's different. This build's specialty is that you gain tons of life with quill rain + thief's torment. If you have a windripper, this probably isn't the best build for it.

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Kyratzes wrote:

Was looking for something to respec my ranger into after the reset, (Previous build was absolutely awful, couldn't kill anything and was squishy as all hell), Still need to get a few pieces of gear for the build, and some more levels (ranger was 60 when I rerolled), but this build is seeming really fun so far.

I'm glad you're enjoying it :)

elemental uqulibrium wouldbe nice on this build...

does this build actually profit from "heartseeker" node ?

Yes. Your spells can (and will) crit, crit multi scales your damage quite nicely.

I currently have 60% crit multi from the tree, my spells have 21%(AB)-25%(FB) crit chance (and spark only has ~17%). This means crit currently scales the damage of Fireball by 0.75 + 0.25*(1.5 + 0.6) = 1.275 as an average; if I got the heartseeker node the factor would be 1.3375. That's pretty much exactly 5% more damage (more = multiplicatively).

Crit multi scales pretty well for this kind of build, but those 5% are not big enough to prioritize them over other things like life (or crit chance: It scales both your CoC proc chance and your spell crit. And even for only the proc chance, if you have 40% crit chance on your attack, then you only need a 40% crit node to get 5% more (i.e. 2 percent points added) attack crit chance).


About that Elemental Equilibrium comment: EE probably is ok (at least it doesn't feel like a problem in EE maps), but I'm not sure how the spell hit order is. If you shoot 5 AB and FB projectiles at once, they'll all arrive at the mob in the same frame. Assuming all 5 hit the same mob, it most likely first does 5 AB hits and then 5 FB hits, for which EB would not help.

However, if you shoot into a pack and each mob only gets hit by one AB and FB projectile, it definitely helps a lot. You'll be alternating fire and cold damage like mad.

That said, the node is way too far away to even consider traveling there. It's definitely not worth it.

Recently nabbed a really nice Thief's Torment and it's really made things immensely more fun. Loving this build, again, thanks for posting it.

I was wondering if it would be worthwhile taking some elemental resistance nodes from the passive tree? I haven't gotten to the stage where I'm trying to roll resists on my items, but I imagine it might take a bit of the pressure off, particularly considering I'm using a pair of Maligaro's Virtuosity.

I'll also likely be skipping out on using Frenzy and Power Charges, I run with a friend and I've found it about as efficient to just shoot things without charges.

Yup, feel free to vary.

I'm not much of a friend of taking resists on the tree as a permanent solution (gear is just way better for it: You can get around 15% resists per passive point, so a single T1 resist roll will already make up for 3 passive points. Maligaro's crit is comparably cheap to replace in the tree).
However, the "Survivalist" notable is still pretty decent, since for 2 points you can get 33 resists, 36% evasion and +1 to maximum cold res. Mostly because of the latter it is probably not too bad to keep it.

I, too, was (and still am quite frequently) ignoring power and frenzy charges. However, they do dramatically increase clearspeed. One big pack cursed with Assassin's Mark gives me full power charges at once, so it's not really hard to get there or sustain it. The curse on hit solution is really nice in my eyes, but it is by no means a must, indeed.