Dominion's Hardcore Dual-Spark CI Witch - UPDATED for 1.0.1

Hi Murakai. What a great response! Many thanks, I'll read this all and see what I can learn from your experience and maybe post some follow up questions.

In general I've been hesitant to spend my high end currency until I'm up high enough to take advantage of better gear opportunities, but I guess I won't get there unless I'm alive to get it.

Questions incoming after I read your post in detail, thanks again.

lvl 75, runnung hot. i have absolutely no clue how you reach a) that obscene damage (i am at around 800 paper-dps with haste) AND energy shield (3300, mostly due to dual wand and (low ES) 5l-chest... i am afraid of going CI yet =)

edit: i have found that faster casting has the biggest impact on paper dps, followed by increased criticals (naturally), and then spell damage. since i see you wielding mostly spelldamage wand/shield i will try out that route (went down shadow tree instead of templar for +crit, +crit multiplier, spelldamage, faster cast and those tasty eva/ES/resist node).

current gear with probably some room to improve, especially on ES and spelldamage -



current tree



Does +quality generate that much more dps? (i started gcp-ing some of my gems, probably fork and chain will profit most). or was your gear more or less the game changer?

cheers and thanks in advance!

Is this amulet good for transitioning to a crit build or is it not even worth using?

Murakai -

I cannot read all your post links on my phone at work, but cannot wait to get home in the morning to read your links.

You and I are very similar in gear and levels so am delighted to see your very detailed explanation of Dominion's build.

Thank you.

"

ab_ wrote:

lvl 75, runnung hot. i have absolutely no clue how you reach a) that obscene damage (i am at around 800 paper-dps with haste) AND energy shield (3300, mostly due to dual wand and (low ES) 5l-chest... i am afraid of going CI yet =)

edit: i have found that faster casting has the biggest impact on paper dps, followed by increased criticals (naturally), and then spell damage. since i see you wielding mostly spelldamage wand/shield i will try out that route (went down shadow tree instead of templar for +crit, +crit multiplier, spelldamage, faster cast and those tasty eva/ES/resist node).

current gear with probably some room to improve, especially on ES and spelldamage -

Spoiler

current tree

Spoiler

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAAP0C4wVCB2MHpQ5IES8RUBGWE54UsBVQFecWvxbzF1AdFCY8J6ksnCynLR8vnTowO-FBlkNjSbJMLVcrWPVZ81orXfJmnme9bRlwUnDVcU1zU3OzdFV2EX4zfll_xoIQgh6H24hCjDaNGY9GmZqaz5uhncSiLqPypJGnCKcrrJius7b3tzG71sAawFTBtMHFwfPDbdDQ1U_a3d2M3nffsOAS4vfk7OaB62PsGPBr8h3z6vfX-tI=

Does +quality generate that much more dps? (i started gcp-ing some of my gems, probably fork and chain will profit most). or was your gear more or less the game changer?

cheers and thanks in advance!

Don't GCP gems from 0% quality. Instead buy 15+ quality ones and make them 20%.

Your passive tree looks like complete suicide, so I'll assume you are playing in softcore? I also see that you've forgotten to take Inner Force, which will help quite a lot with survivability.

I would really recommend getting a shield and speccing into the second body and soul node, getting CI and taking Inner Force and the energy shield nodes below it. Your gear isn't completly terrible so you should be at around 7k ES if you manage to get a decent shield.

thanks a lot mr renchak, for your insight. you are right, i overlooked inner force and plan on acquiring it later on. for now ci and (now) 3500 ES work in maps up to 69, flicker strikers can become dangerous only in packs. i plan on upgrading to a 500-600 ES chest which should boost me to well above 4500-5000.

also, since you mentioned survivability: ever since i took up dual totems on lvl 31 i didnt spec a single point into live nodes. dual totems and some good zombies, combined with really careful gameplay (i find it rather pleasant to play as if i were playing hardcore) and the only deaths came from playing drunk, playing while watching movies/talking to people etc and naturally, at least 5 lag spike deaths...

after puttinng lightning penetration into the spell totem i noticed the much heavier cast cost than with increased criticals. as of now, i am miles away from the killspeed of my dual EK witch, but with enough currency i will upgrade this toon further.

its fun to play in any case =)

@Spinley - I no longer use Chayula because I have a very large ES pool coupled with relatively high damage. Getting stunned is not especially dangerous for me, and the extra damage mods from the amulet scale well with my already high crit.

@Renchak - I would aim for at least 5K ES before beginning maps, 7.5k before moving up to higher level maps, and 9-10k before rebuilding for crit.

@Murakai - Windscream is not necessary until using a crit based build, the passive is perfectly fine for now.

@Antelopesalad - Sorry to hear that. I started mapping with less ES than that, granted I had previous experience with puncture in closed beta. Perhaps acquaint yourself with the mobs that can puncture so you can be ready to granite when they get close - additionally, I assume you are aware that puncture does 10x more damage while you are moving?

@SirLawliet - I am not familiar with the low life FP build. If it's just a generic FP build with pain attunement and righteous fire, the damage should be about equal - though dual totem DPS should be higher in a group given the shock stacks impacting party damage. It's possible to run IIQ/IIR with this build and a few adjustments. Sakujo ran a similar build for a while (he didn't acquire shavronne's yet so he couldn't fully adapt it), but it worked quite well.

@rsalty - If you're really getting as little loot as you suggest, you may just need to bite the bullet and solo it slower for now. It's difficult to pump DPS in that stage of the game.

@computertech82 - You're mistaken. Totem life is not influenced by your own.

@Murakai - I don't yet. I will be self-casting something with power charge on crit after the next patch

@Lucidinterval - if you're forced to use a green 6th link, culling strike is a good option.

@Winterfury - I believe I left a few points of margin for progression. You can easily add a 30str/dex node below CI or above inner force if necessary. These can be respecced when gear makes them obsolete. - You get Spell totem in cruel act 1, so it isn't quite as drawn out as you imply - you should level spark IMMEDIATELY - you want it as high as possible when you transition. - It requires only 1 link. You can cast the same totem twice.

@ab_ quality faster casting adds a lot of damage, the others are marginal.

@antelopesalad - It's decent, but you can probably find better by the time you get to that point.

Hi Dominion!

What would your build look like with 90 passive points for someone who isn't going Whispers of Doom?

My problem is that there is such a big gap before your two last builds (ES + Lightning Damage + 2x Curse transitioning into Crit builds with no curse) that I have no idea which passives take priority.

Any recommendations?

Thanks^^

"

Valentia wrote:

Hi Dominion!

What would your build look like with 90 passive points for someone who isn't going Whispers of Doom?

My problem is that there is such a big gap before your two last builds (ES + Lightning Damage + 2x Curse transitioning into Crit builds with no curse) that I have no idea which passives take priority.

Any recommendations?

Thanks^^

I would probably take whispers of doom in a 90 point build, but I'll give it a shot.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMAVysHY-aBwFRzUxFQu9Y74eL3pyuLem0ZwfPBxSy_hq4V19eG7BjDbaKjf8bfsIIQB6UC40myLJzBtOTsdhF-rx8CNsXYJKcIuJMMfRB_xp6PRtDQm6Fnve5vMtFFR7UEXcZG1-0g4XOLjN3zYG2dgOQiKU-Cm-w4OthN2Ix2HRT60maecU2az0NjtzFY9Z3EqZVwfU99gFbAGlnzWissp6PyrKon7fPdVmMFW548gW_a3X5Z

I just had a question about fork.

At level 17, it gives:
32% increased projectile damage
and
30% less projectile damage

So it should increase my tooltip damage, right?

However, when I unlink it from spark, my tooltip damage goes up. Could you explain this to me?