[2.0] Scion Bow Hexer - CoC Ice Spear +Arctic Breath + 6 Curses!

Oct 31 , 2015 - added damage estimate after using some of the online calculators for CoC builds
Oct 30 , 2015 - added section header images, got jewel links working, cleaning up guide + add more info for clarity.
Oct 29 , 2015 - more videos, also updated my quiver which better represents the ideal one to use+updated EHP+stats.
Oct 27 , 2015 - added videos using 6L Chain+GMP+Ice Shot+IceSpear+Arctic Breath+CoC
Oct 26 , 2015 - was missing a passive point from a quest (derp!), updated passive tree at 86, taking a bow crit+atk speed node that is in range of the intuitive leap jewel socketed southwest of acrobatics.
Oct 25 , 2015 - more videos added
Oct 24 , 2015
+now level 86, passive tree changes: +1 frenzy charge, +50crit from nodes, -1power charge ,+Acc +atkSpeed,-18 power charge duration, removed potency of will, +life and life on kill nodes now taken (Hired Killer).
+More videos.
+More details on playstyle and mechanics, added defensive stats

Oct 22 , 2015- now level 85, updated passive tree.
Oct 21 , 2015- Several more videos added.
Oct 20 , 2015- changed passive tree at level 82 to use the templar area after switching to doedre circlet. +1 more power and endurance charge, life+ chaos resist.
Also uploaded more map videos showing coc ice spear and arctic breath together - working on map pool to do higher maps for more videos.

Oct 17 , 2015- rewrote guide for 6 curse+CoC build.
Oct 2 , 2015- 1st revision

Videos
Chain Variant Videos:
6L: Chain + GMP + (Ice Shot/Barrage) + Ice Spear + Arctic Breath + CoC
(max coverage+pack suppression, best for certain bosses,creates mjolner tier lag if your pc is weak)

* Museum - Barrage+Chain - Bosses - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-7h9FLEm5w
* Villa - Barrage+Chain - Boss - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d8EexKGhB0
* Catacombs - Barrage+Chain - Boss - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZvg6FF-rp0
* Quarry - Barrage+Chain - Boss - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3ZFW0tiBO0
* Pit - Ice Shot+Chain - Boss - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mQUf_6tKIU
* Desert - Ice Shot+Chain - Mirage of Bones x2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjoJ8iqD84c

Ice Shot Variant Videos:
(good coverage for large packs, less laggy than using chain)
6L: WED+GMP+Ice Shot+IceSpear+Arctic Breath+CoC

* Pier - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaSMB5hj0rk
* Strand - Rampage+Beyond - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPTEoFrUOlo
* Phantasmagoria - Thraxia w/Onslaught - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek5JPUOkVjc
* Underground River - Boss+Tzteosh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gVQH0YiI4
* Shore - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh0XaiunPVA
* Ghetto - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQnFbX0Wpk0
* Spider Forest - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4WtOZ6SvYY
* Mud Geyser - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8kL-3ntaBo
* Mountain Ledge ,@ lv76 - 1M League + Beyond Mods + 677 Rampage Chain - Ice Shot w/ CoC Ice Spear only
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30U-WrcarrI

Barrage Variant Videos:
(narrow firing cone due to barrage, better single target, allows for facetanking some bosses easier)
6L: WED+GMP+Barrage+IceSpear+Arctic Breath+CoC

* Pit + Onslaught + Double Boss + Ba'meth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddjH_RmwCr0
* El'Abin Bloodeater+Redblade pack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bziqr-CDHXY
* Dry Peninsula https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayWjTiFANVk
* Beyond Ephij+Curse immune rares+ monsters from Strongbox in dried lake all at once - crazy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Cbh3lVDeM

Passive Tree
Current Build @level 86 - 5 Power / 4 Frenzy / 4 endurance charges

Previous trees during leveling :

build @level 85 - 6 Power / 3 Frenzy / 4 endurance charges

build at lv 82 - 6 Power / 3 Frenzy / 4 endurance charges

build at lv 76 - 5 Power / 3 Frenzy / 3 endurance charges

optimizing the passive tree @level 86:
now level 86, passive tree changes: +1 frenzy charge, +50crit from nodes, -1power charge.
This change helps cases when you arent at max frenzy charges since we now have more base crit% instead of 6 power charges.
The jewel socket below survivalist node near acrobatics now sockets a 3rd intuitive leap jewel to get the following nodes with our passive point limitations:
+Fervor for the +1 frenzy charge node
+Acuity for some needed accuracy, atk speed (and the dex to meet our bow requirement)
and keep the previously allocated Herbalism which is important for flasks and also +% life.
+Added all +%life and life on kill nodes in the Hired Killer section.

Explanation of the passive tree @level 85:
*Pathing focuses now on the templar area after obtaining a 2nd intuitive leap jewel to get an endurance+power charge, resistances, life nodes, elemental damage, and freeze/shock chance.
This change allows me to spec out of the elemental resistance nodes south of the scion start area.
I also adjust my pathing to phase acrobatics through the survival resist nodes to cap resistances on the east end of the tree.

*The elemental damage nodes at the shadow area are no longer taken due to the very large damage bonus given by Doedre's Scorn Circlet. This lets us focus on life+power+endurance charge nodes and rework the passive tree significantly. This change however puts much more pressure on the build to cap resistances since the Doedre helmet has none at all.

*The Jewel socket that was south of the scion start area is still used and now moved to the one up in the witch area near whispers of doom which nets us extra elemental damage as well.

*The build barely meets the dexterity requirement for the windripper with 3points to spare, so pathing on the right side can be a bit tricky when you customize the nodes taken.

------------------------
*this build at earlier levels was using alpha's howl, +charisma when I needed to use purity of elements to cap resistances. At later levels or depending on gear, you can drop these and path to the purity of flesh life+chaos resist area like I have done in my level 82 passive tree version listed above.
The thrill kill and soul siphon nodes for mana on kill were used at earlier levels to help with mana sustain instead of trying to use clarity (and elreon jewelry wasnt an option).
At higher levels I found that I could live without them and so I used those points elsewhere.

Normal - Oak for +40 life
Cruel - Kill All for passive point
Merciless - Alira for +1 Power Charge

Jewels
This build uses a total of 7 jewel sockets.

Static Electricity - - placed in the socket near Vaal Pact. The best jewel option for best non-CoC dps during leveling until high levels. A rare jewel that gives life/resists or crit/ele damage is a good option is good for higher levels (80+).

Tri+Dual Resists + Life - These will help you cap resists and potentially save you passive points south of the scion start area and other places, and even allow you to drop purity of elements depending on your gear and run different auras.

Cold Damage / Spell Damage / Damage / Freeze Chance / Critical - these type of jewel bonuses are good if you roll them and have taken care of capping resists.

My Current 7 socketed Jewels:



Intuitive Leap - The 1st Intuitive Leap saves you pathing thru stat nodes and wasting a point on curse cast speed to get to Skittering Runes, netting us a savings of 1 point. This jewel socketing here also allows you to get Potency of Will without the point cost to path to it if you want that.

The 2nd Intuitive Leap jewel goes in the templar area to get us several useful nodes in the area.

The 3rd Intuitive Leap jewel gets used around level 85 ( under survivalist near acrobatics) to stretch the limits of which nodes I can get (more crit chance, life, +1 frenzy charge, atkspeed and accuracy).

Herald of thunder to spread the 6th curse+blind everything, Arctic Armor for damage mitigation and ground ice, purity of elements to cap/overcap resists as needed depending on gear/map mods.

Blink Arrow

In addition to our quicksilver flask, curses, chilling, freezing, and blinding the enemy, Blink Arrow is a must have for any bow build.

Flame Dash

Due to the amount of crazy positional damage from tempests, as well as storm call spam+slow auras from beyond bosses, I found this to be a solid addition to the build to escape death and re-position myself in some very intense fights.
When an enemy is chilled with your attacks and slowed with temporal chains, I use flame dash to evade incoming melee attacks by flame dashing thru the target to place myself behind them. I can't live without this skill, its fun and powerful once you get the hang of using it to instantly reposition yourself nearby instead of simply running where you want to go.


Immortal Call

Every build needs this, and it gives us something to spend our endurance charges on for extra duration.

Molten Shell

I currently use this in a cast when stunned 2-link separate from the cast when damage taken immortal call 2-link. A 2nd immortal call also works since its using a different trigger gem. but I personally like to know when i'm getting stunned (which tends to mean im getting in over my head tanking) so seeing molten shell popping up on occasion tends to make me play more defensive at that moment.

Split Arrow
Our primary skill for applying 4+1 curses

Split Arrow was chosen because of its low skill cost and large fan area shaped coverage at the cost of only 1 skill socket. Its mana cost is basically free since its only linked with 4 curses+curse on hit, so make sure you tag everything with this skill before you start spamming your CoC trigger attack (barrage/ice shot). Use a tabula, or a cheap corrupted 6L with some resist+life and the right colors.

Item that applies your 5th curse - Gloves!
Ideal Gloves:
Endgame gloves will be corrupted rare gloves that give you life+resists at a minimum. Whether you get temporal chains, elemental weakness or assassin's mark when you Vaal Orb your gloves, the resulting corruption will influence what other 4 curses get linked with split arrow.
For leveling and a cheap budget option, Asenath's Gentle Touch gloves will apply temporal chains on hit with any skill you use.

Applied by Herald of Thunder with Curse on Hit, Blind+Curse in a 4Link. Ideally in the doedre helmet, otherwise your boots or gloves.

Current Gear
For a 1M temp league, the hardest thing was to get the +1 curse amulet and a good 6L elemental bow. I was using a tabula all the way to 75 and thanks to the corrupting tempests I located a dual resist 6L for under 1ex. a 5L bow will also work in a pinch, just drop the added lightning damage gem.

Required gear to get 6 curses is the +1 amulet, 2 doedre rings and the windscream boots along with whispers of doom far up in the witch area of the passive tree.
Ungil's Harmony Amulet in my opinion is the perfect amulet to get a +1 curse corruption on since its a significant boost to crit rate chance , has a modest amount of life, a good chunk of stun recovery, and its dirt cheap and somewhat common to get ahold of to spam vaal orbs on. If you can get and afford another amulet with global crit chance, life, resists,etc, then by all means go for it.

Due to the gearing spec on this to get 6 curses, one challenge is easily capping your resists since your helmet, quiver, belt, and body are the only items that are somewhat flexible.
Capping resists is more easily done with purity of elements and a couple jewels with dual/tri resists and taking the resist nodes south of the scion start.
If you want to be more ambitious in your gearing to help you deal extra damage, trying to get great damage rolls on jewels+gear along with multi resists will start to inflate the cost of the build.

Bow : Windripper. High APS, elemental damage, good critical chance, free IIQ/IIR when enemies slain with freeze/shock.

Helm : I was previously using an alpha's howl, but the best damage enhancing option is Doedre's Scorn Circlet which lets you take less elemental damage nodes, allowing you to focus on resist/life or other utility passive nodes. With 6 curses on an enemy this helm is giving you 120% increased damage + 20% increased elemental damage.

Body Armor : Ideally i'd want a lightning coil or belly of the beast, or like my last version I used queen of the forest since it had a good mix of evasion, resists and +life.

Belt : Chaos+elemental resists, life, weapon elemental damage, flask recovery. I opted for trires that had as much chaos resist as possible over max life to have well rounded resistance defense.

Quiver :Global Crit Chance, life, resists, +accuracy

Gloves : life, resists, atk speed, also needs corruption with temporal chains, elemental weakness or assassin's mark.

Rings : to have 6 curse we have to use doedre rings, but we can vaal them for a nice corruption bonus.

Boots : to have 6 curse we have to use windscream, get a max resist roll of these. Note the coloring can be tricky for blue/green socket, depending on how you arrange your skill gems. If you get an extra pair (not hard to do since they arent very popular), you can try to vaal them for an extra charge or other bonus.

Gear as of Oct 28, 2015:




Notes on Gems+Links
*Go for +quality on your curse on hit, cast on crit, and temporal chains gem before any others.
See the gear itself for the links.

**The red+blue 2-link I use in my helm for cast when stunned+molten shell could be swapped for a purity aura if you need the resists+a warcry gem in the red socket. Or you could use vaal utility gems or whatever you prefer.

*** Ideally the gems+links in my gloves and helm should be swapped so the enfeeble gets the doedre helm +level bonus, but I dont have access to a high enough leveled master+currency to recolor a vaal'd item.

Flasks
These are the current 5 I use most often:


Even though we take an armor penalty due to acrobatics, a granite flask is more than worth it with a surgeons+evasion mod on it, its easily replenished, keep calm and carry on shooting! :)
The hybrid flask paired with a staunching mod is extremely strong and addresses corrupting blood, damage to the mana pool from MoM, or prolonged fights with curse immune rares/beyond bosses that tax our mana pool further.
Thirdly, a quicksilver flask for increased mobility+escape.

*Taste of Hate, Divination distillate or other fancy flasks can easily fit into this build since it has a nice amount of healing and mana recovery due to leech from all the curses and on-hit/kill bonuses.

Dealing Damage:

*After using a few CoC calculators, the best damage estimate I can give is in the neighborhood of 65k+ dps minimum *before* damage bonuses from curses and before the +120% elemental damage bonus from the Doedre circlet per-curse.
With 2.87 APS and 8 projectile barrage gives 22.96 projectiles that can trigger CoC per second per spell in the link.
With 5 projectiles from GMP, then chain, that gives 15 'hits' into a pack per CoC trigger per spell.

This build manages to survive firing at 2 reflect rares together having the chain'd CoC projectiles bounce back and forth - if it specced into anymore damage it would rip. I've killed myself on the lightning thorns Arc chick in promenade, so be careful if you do that map.


Primary Damage Skill option #1 + CoC Trigger - Ice Shot

I originally tried Lightning Arrow in this build, but found through playtesting that Ice Shot was a better choice.
Ice Shot makes the build far more defensive, it is highly effective at suppressing packs through freezing and chilling, the spreading of ground ice, and its area coverage is superior due to the build's pierce chance and cone area explosion applied behind each target hit. Also when you kill a frozen enemy you get the IIQ bonus if you're using a windripper.

Primary Damage Skill option #2 + CoC Trigger - Barrage

This sacrifices some of the ease of supressing large packs with GMP+Ice Shot and gives us instead 8 barrage projectiles in a more focused line of attack that we must more dilligently aim at our targets.
This has a far superior pure DPS option against a single boss type foe, it will seem a bit streaky if you havent built up to max power charges, but once you are it allows you to get up close and barrage a boss in the face and leverage the pseudo shotgunning still present in the linked CoC Arctic Breath skill gem.

Cast on Critical Skill - Ice Spear

Since we have a good projectile speed bonus with this build, I chose Ice Spear as my cast on critical triggered gem since it applies great coverage+distance to offscreen additional targets since it always pierces and continues onward hitting additional targets with a high crit chance.
Crit chance on tooltip with max power charges is about 70+%, but doesnt factor in the bonus you get from assassin's mark.

Cast on Critical Skill - Arctic Breath

I originally had my 6th link as extra elemental damage, but I tried arctic breath out and the resulting ground ice and explosion effect covering the entire screen is amazing for clear speed+safety, making everything chilled/frozen/dead.

Other CoC skills I tried that were less effective:
***I tried Ball Lightning, the projectiles are too slow compared to our normal shots so the clear speed and flow of the build wasnt that great.

***I tried Cold Snap but found it did not improve the clear speed, it also triggers constantly before you are over 3 power charges so your critical chance is spiky and feels off. It also doesnt leverage the maximum power charge capacity of this build which is 6 power charges to ensure more consistent critical rate so we want to stay at max charges all the time.

Q: Why GMP and not LMP?
I tried using Lesser Multiple projectiles instead of Greater for higher single target tooltip dps, but GMP works better in practice since your preceding split shot fan coverge (and curse application) is roughly equal area.
This means that your follow up ice shot volleys with gmp and subsequent crit volley of ice spears ends up clearing much faster. You also get much higher returns on your leech/mana+life on it versus large packs to keep you healed up.

2992 Hp , 277 Es , 469 unreserved mana = 3738 EHP
+75/76/75 Elemental Resists
+44% Chaos Resist
40% Dodge
30% Spell Dodge
13% Evade
1967 Armor with flask
+66% Stun Recovery
30% Stun Avoidance
39.4 Mana Regen per second
80.8 Life Regen per second
55.4 ES Regen per second

*Initiating combat and 'powering up'
When we first enter a map or area we start with 0 power/frenzy/endurance charges, so the first opening attack with your first pack is always Split Shot with its linked curses, enemies slain with our curses will build up our power/frenzy/endurance charges.
It is also important to preemptively use your granite flask right when you engage a pack, open a strongbox or fight a boss. In general granite flasks imo should be used this way on any character, you will crit often enough that you can be constantly riding the effect of a granite flask while fighting and this combined with 6 curses and blind on targets give you a ton of tankyness.

*Charge sustaining
It is important to occasionally alternate split shot with your main coc trigger attack (gmp ice shot/barrage) to make sure some number of enemies are slain with the curses that have a chance to grant power/endurance/frenzy charges. A huge amount of defensiveness comes from 6 curses+blind on targets so it is important to not spam just your CoC trigger attack to maintain your defensive advantage from cursing as well.

*Handling curse immune
Enemies such as Ba'meth (Beyond Boss) are curse immune and are very difficult, but are best handled at point blank range to get overlapping damage with CoC'd arctic breath.

*Handling Corrupted blood enemies/packs:
It is extremely easy to get 20 stacks of corrupted blood if you use barrage which sounds really scary, but if you are weaving in split shot to apply curses, your on-hit leech life gain will counter this enough that you have plenty of time to react and flask away the swirling cloud of corrupted blood stacks on yourself.
For the rare worse case scenario of a monster that is curse immune and has corrupting blood, i instead flame dash through it 3x to deal a good amount of fire damage and ignite it. That along with the golem will usually take care of the issue, or you can flask through it with normal attacks.

*Notes on Facetanking bosses: this works very well if you can apply curses due to the leech+life+mana on hit.
I still use blink arrow to give the boss another target, as well as flame dash to cut through the boss to place myself behind it and repeat this process. This is a lot different than most bow builds which prefer to keep at range and offscreen kill. Most of the beyond bosses+warband leaders I fight at point blank range in this style because in practice the fight is over much sooner.

Mind over Matter, and its potential weakness against some boss enemies:
One thing to be aware of when you engage in close range/facetank style of combat is that since we are using Mind over Matter, too much severe damage will empty our mana pool which we still need a little bit of to keep attacking and get mana on hit+leech. This is normally not an issue except for the beyond boss Ba'meth which is curse immune so we have no way to mana leech from him directly. To defeat him I close to point blank range and barrage CoC him down and use 2 hybrid flasks. Sometimes I have to opt for a more drawn out long distance type of combat engagement.

I used a storm cloud bow all the way until i could equip a windripper.
As for the passive tree, I pathed immediately through harrier towards the ranger/shadow area and filled out the elemental damage area and went from there. I also used a ranged attack totem with rain of arrows.

You could play dual totem since you need to path west+north up that direction anyways for whispers of doom.

Physical reflect - the amount of phys damage this build does is so tiny since it is elemental focused makes this mod safe to run.

Elemental reflect - single rares in a non reflect map map? YES. As a map mod? NO.
Even though the build doesnt focus on critical multiplier and we leech, firing into a huge pack with barrage+chain linked will probably kill you, so just skip this map mod.

Curse Immune - everything about this build leverages curses, so skip this one obviously.

Cursed - This build is able to run 'cursed with' mods, such as enfeebled or elemental weakness.

Desecrated / Burning / Chilled ground - the amount of leech from curses and the passive regen the build has makes the damaging ground effects not an issue. I personally hate chilled ground the most of the 3, and would rather run a map with burning or desecrated ground.