[2.1] Dual Apep's Chaos Crit - Stapling Chaos to a Level 1 Spell (Draft Spark Totem tree up)

@eizieiz93

Got to admit, what you are building is so far afield of what I have been working on, that's it's a bit hard for me to judge. Non-crit, elemental-based, HC, EB/ZO, lvl 20 Spark is pretty radically different and you could likely get better assistance from people who have been looking at working toward the same goal. That said, here are some general comments:

Going that close to the duration nodes and not taking them is just not correct. The biggest drawback of the tree I am working with is that I cannot get them alongside all the chaos damage I want.

I think Faith and Steel is solid for 2 points.

It might be be better to dip into the Marauder start for more life than take things like Profane Chemistry and Heart and Soul. Or else take 3 sets of 2 points for jewels and get life that way.

You also might consider a strategy that includes shield defense nodes. It strikes me that scaling a Lioneye's Remorse, for example, would give you a huge pile of armor if you were to take the Templar nodes, Marauder nodes, and Command of Steel. This would be a bit different direction, but it looked like an option. If you were to give up on EB/ZO, you might even look at moving the Witch nodes down into Duelist for more life, block, and shield defense and pick up projectile nodes.

Curses are quite strong right now as well. A totem user has time to apply them better than most. An extra curse via Whispers of Doom and scaling effectiveness with Skittering Runes might be another different direction to go. One more curse via an item and you could go without some of the damage nodes and do just fine. Scaling things like Temp Chains is especially good with curse effectiveness.


If you'd like to stick with the original idea, you could try to wrangle this tree. The damage is just not there for what I am trying to accomplish, but it might be more viable as a starting point for a HC tree:
http://exiletools.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYAA-4FtQZwBqAPqxZvFr8c3B0UHb4i4iLqJIsk_SaVKPoqEypNKlswcTIBM4c1kjbFOkI64T8nQYdDNkWdR-JJE0rIS1dLeE3jTp9OrlFHUUxS7FNSVUtY5VltWitfmF-wYeJh62KsZIRmnmqMbIxuqm-ecFJ3B3n2elN6f31bgseDCYPzhMWFMocTidOJ4Iw2jb-OZI8aj0aTH5rgmyabtZyknaqi2aPypDmmV6cIrEeuErDYsTayGbTFtfK2-rc-uJPA48LswzrIFMpKzzLPetQj2CTYvd2o42rmWOdU6Nbr7vGz8kX1b_em-b356PrS_gr-j__e

This looks cool, what about bandits and item stat priorities?

Skill gems? 6L required? What would you 5L?

Your passive tree uses 126/123...so I'm assuming you took kill/kill/kill for bandits. However, could you provide maybe a 100pt build as getting to 80 is a bit more realistic than 100?

Are you leveling with EK?

"

broseidon07 wrote:

This looks cool, what about bandits and item stat priorities?

Skill gems? 6L required? What would you 5L?

Your passive tree uses 126/123...so I'm assuming you took kill/kill/kill for bandits. However, could you provide maybe a 100pt build as getting to 80 is a bit more realistic than 100?

Are you leveling with EK?

Do you want the guy to play for you as well? Just schedule an appointment and he can come to your house and hold your mouse-hand for you.

Here was my slapdash response on reddit to the same questions:

Some of the planning is a little hard because we don't know everything about the gems yet.
Life - Point - Power (I think. Frenzy is possible, but making them is challenging and I may not be able to afford the 2 in the tree. I'm strapped enough for points that the 6% cast speed is not sounding great.)
Level 1 Spark-Totem-Added Chaos-Poison-VM-[Controlled Destruction/Duration/crit damage?] in that order, I think. Duration might be better than VM, but depends on the numbers.
I am still in the process of cutting points. I think the frenzy charges are going to have to go. The rest will depend on the final numbers of which damage nodes are best to cut.
Make power charges with Level 1 Power Siphon-GMP-Chain-Rairity (you don't deal damage). Leveling with EK (or one of the other physical spells, fun dependent). I'll be pathing through Shadow a bit differently at the beginning to make better use of physical nodes.
It is not really possible to talk about this build in less than endgame terms due to the placement of the necessary keystones.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/3w9vrg/what_is_your_hipster_build_for_21/

Seriously though, if anyone has any ideas on how to cut this tree down to size, I'm all ears. It's like asking me which of the litter of kittens I'd like to keep. Nooo! I love them all. We can all live in harmony; I don't have to let any of them go, right? RIGHT?

I've added a non-crit draft. It gets a ton of duration and almost all the chaos damage possible for maximum poison use. Life is a ton easier to get. We'll see what damage looks like once the support gem numbers are known.

http://exiletools.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYAA-4FtQZwBqAPqxZvFr8c3B0UHb4i4iSLJpUo-ioTKk0qWzBxM4c1kjY9OkI6WDrhPydBh0M2RZ1HBkfiSRNJUUrIS3hN406fUUxSr1LsU1JVS1XGWOVZbVorWlJcQF-YX7Bh4mKsZIRmnmf8aoxsCGyMbWxuqnWeefZ6f3vDfVuCx4PbhMWFMofLieCNv48aj0aP-pMfmuCboZu1naqi2aPypDmmV6cIp5uomqxHrJiw2LTFtUi18rc-uJO7TcLswzrIFMpKzxXPMtDQ1CPYvdvn3V_dqONq5ljr7vDV8YryRfVv99f5vfno-tL-Cv6P

Leveling as a physical spellcaster is going very well. The new spells are neat. I'm using mostly EK, with Bear Trap and Blade Vortex in certain situations. I will remove one from the link and add poison once I get through Master of Force and then take the poison nodes.

Current tree:
https://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAwYABbUHHg5IES8RlhXtFr8mlSsKMHE2PTpCSVFLeFS9VUtcQF3yYeJirGqMbIx1_YRvjb-P-pUuloudqqLZsNi0xbVIwuzIFNQj1ELdqOtj8NX1bw==?accountName=SirDragos&characterName=The_Agent_of_Chaos

You get the Poison support gem from the Archives in Normal, so don't skip it.

I lucked out like a boss and got this from the unique Cannibal in the Coast:

Needless to say, it has been smooth sailing through Normal.

So i threw together a small proof of concept on an old scion to see it work. I'm not overjoyed with the outcome, but it is a level 68 with lowish level gems (level 7 added chaos being the most important to be level 20). I think it has potential and i also want to fit in the unique jewel that gives %chaos damage per intel allocated in a radius. right now clearing tier 6-7 maps with relative ease.

Main links: 5L
Magma Orb - Spell Echo - Added Chaos - Controlled Destruction - Void Manipulation

Tree: (level 68 without completing some act4 content)


Gear:


Auras:

@lDantonl
How can you not use the Poison support and take Fatal Toxins and Method to the Madness? It is pretty much the best possible thing you can be doing. My build does more poison damage than regular damage, and all I did to get it was prioritize chaos damage over other types in the tree and take three nodes. I am not even taking any DoT nodes. The chaos damage double dips by boosting the initial damage and boosting the resulting poison too.


I've been working with the numbers for my crit and non-crit variants of the dual Apep'Spoisoner (Spark Totem Poisoner?) The non-crit numbers just look worse I think, even when you factor in duration and projectile speed. However, it is possible that area saturation from high duration will be powerful, especially with knockback. It is a bit hard to figure out what effect duration and projectile speed have on the build in general; I think I'll just have to play around with it to see.

The link is pretty clearly Spark-Totem-Chaos-Poison-Void Manipulation (Swap CD for VM in non-crit)
with the 6th link being between Duration, Faster Cast, Projectile Speed, or Controlled Destruction. CD has the best damage boost and is probably better than Faster Cast (or Crit Damage, which is worse than FC), but the initial deployment of sparks could be vital, so FC might feel better. Faster Projectiles is probably better than Duration, as it gives a cast speed and projectile damage boost on top of the speed and it is only slightly less effective than Duration at projectile distance travelled (duration*speed) and it is tons cheaper.

With an average Rain of Splinters and Eldritch Knowledge, I am getting about 8K dps for a single projectile with an additional 5K per projectile hit from poison (over 2 seconds). This means that for enemies that are standing near one totem and getting hit only once per cast, they are taking just short of 20K dps from chaos damage and poison only. This is damage for just the 5L using 20/20 gems (1/20 for spark) with some of the damage gear that I had from the old character. This does not include the other 5 bouncing/piercing projectiles, the second (or even 3rd) totem, curses, frenzy charges, warcries, ANY offensive reserved skills, and some of the gear. The non-crit damage is like 7.5K total dps, but the projectiles are more than twice as effective between duration and projectile speed and the tree is much more flexible and defensive.

On a 5L with the 2 Apep's penalties, the totem costs 35 (crit) or 38 (non-crit) mana.
A 6L crit totem that uses Faster Projectiles will cost 40 mana.

Okay, so the announcement thread today has some choice bits that make Poison somehow EVEN BETTER: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1511833
Most of this is confirming stuff I've been gushing about for days, but some of it is just straight-up better than I even thought.

"

Do increased skill effect duration nodes and support gems increase poison duration?

Yes, they do.

I thought this only worked for Viper Strike. This means that the Poison gem grants poison to the skill and the skill treats it as a scalable duration. With a skill like Spark as the delivery system, getting huge double use out of duration nodes is just crazy. (Testing on reddit confirms the support gem does not work with poison support gem; this makes sense, as supports are not supposed to work on other supports.)

"

If Poison is linked to a Projectile attack does "increased projectile damage" also increase poison damage?

In this case, the Projectile Damage will also increase the Poison damage, meaning the bonus will apply twice if the poison is applied by a projectile.

I thought projectile was a source scale like attack, not a type scale like chaos. This is crazy too, as it means that projectile double-dips like poison does, so hunting down projectile damage in the tree is just as good. The Ranger start now becomes just as effective as the Shadow start for a poison build. The damage is seriously too good.

If I was not in the middle of grad school finals, I would have more time to actually try this out!!!

I'm asking that GGG move this thread to the Shadow forum, as unless unrevealed Ascendancies change things, Shadow/Assassin is certainly correct among the current options. The Witch start that used to be one of the best chaos damage scales in the tree is now almost strictly worse than both Shadow and Ranger.

I've updated the non-crit tree. The revelations concerning the duration nodes' interaction with poison and the projectile damage working as well as chaos (if not better) have vastly improved the tree. The crit tree did not change.