Mathil's CoCSlam - It's exaclty what it sounds like.

This was my first time trying a COC build and I wanted to do something a bit different. Initially I started with Reave as my main attack but abandoned that around level 60 due to a combination of poor gear not procing COC with any reliability, but more so putting me way too close to danger all the time. I know earlier in this thread someone else asked about the viability of Reave and the answer was no, due to the same reasons as my personal experience.

A couple of things I've learnt along the way:

1. Leveling with this build is going to be tough as it's pretty gear dependent at low levels and dying all the time will slow down your progress. I leveled mostly with a Bladefall Trap set up using Deerstalker boots. Dead easy.

2. You're chance to crit in your character window really needs to be at least 40%. Any lower than that and you will struggle with reliable triggering of your spells. Raise your crit any way you can. This amulet can help a lot till you acquire better gear, crit nodes or Jewels:

3. Positioning can be a problem sometimes. On occasion I'm slapping away with my sceptre and there is just no crit happening. It actually appears as though the Ground Slam is missing enemies as they don't appear to take any damage, although with the low weapon damage it's hard to tell. Anyway, repositioning even just a little seems to help.

4. Attack speed is king. The faster you hit things the quicker they die, and the safer you will be. Particularly when you are still progressing your build and you aren't critting all the time so the cooldown for COC is not really an issue. You might stun enemies, although it's unlikely with Ground Slam as our damage here is pretty low.

5. If things don't die, you're going to be vulnerable so look at some form of mitigation. Flasks are a good option so get used to using them. I was fortunate enough to have a Lightning Coil drop for me already with 6 sockets and I'm a lot more sturdy than when I was relying solely on Evasion. I still need to be careful though, pot often, and occasionally run away.

My tree is very different due to my false start and I still have a lot of optimising to do yet. There's 7 points I'll be reclaiming shortly and redistributing elsewhere which will help.

Despite the fragile nature of leveling, I'm having a blast with the build. It's so rewarding when those spells are flying out from my sceptre :)

"

Pixie888 wrote:

Having a great time with this build as well, but similarly finding it very squishy. I mistakenly took assasin before berserker and now am having a really hard time finishing merc lab, izaro 3rd phase just dominates me even at level 84!... I think having the berserker leech would make all the difference.
I am running a couple of variants on mathil's build - i run dual curses with orb of storms and warlords/poachers and a blade vortex pcoc to get my power charges.... These differences might be part of my probs but i never could work out how mathil sustained blood rage...?

I have just saved up and purchased a vinktar vessel so will see how that helps with merc lab, but in the first instance, a couple of low level maps in and i feel even squishier! I haven't been using a "of grounding" flask as i asumed the extra lightning res would counter the extra damage taken from being shocked, but based on play so far, i definitely need to get some grounding on one of my flasks.
Its a great , fun build and am having a blast despite the brick wall in levelling i have now hit...

Edit - oops, just realised my obvious misunderstanding, just read the wiki to find out that shocked adds 50% increased damage from ALL sources. Had itmin my head it was just lightning damage so my bad.

i agree, same thing for me, assassin, and might not be the best choice without a change in the build. i NEVER had any problem with mana (without elreon jeweley) but i'm feeling really squishy.
only 4.3k HP on level 87.

it looks like we have to replace Etheral Knives by Life Leech in the 6L setup. i'll give this a try in the upcoming days. currently i'm using Warlord's Mark on the Curse-on-hit setup, it works fine, but the life leech is not enough against huge burst, so getting rid of EK might be the best solution (replacing it with life leech), will lose a little bit of the DPS, but get way better survivability

also i'm runnning this build in the new league and don't have the carcass jack yet,so i'm equipped with this in the meantime :



i was lucky to 6L the item in like 80 fusings.
and i'll re-color it to get the red gem instead of green for Life Leech.

however, i just leveled 87, and T9/T11 maps are a joke, except for reflect and bosses.
bosses, in any map above T6, are a little bit hard to kill due to the lack of critical hit chance on the ground slam it seems :(

PS : i leveld with EK/added-Fire/added-Cold/added-lightning until i had the "crit strike chance on melee" nodes at the left of the tree and the rats nest.

"

Aldora_the_Summoner wrote:

3. Positioning can be a problem sometimes. On occasion I'm slapping away with my sceptre and there is just no crit happening. It actually appears as though the Ground Slam is missing enemies as they don't appear to take any damage, although with the low weapon damage it's hard to tell. Anyway, repositioning even just a little seems to help.

i completely agree, sometimes you hit 10 times in a row, no crit happening. just whirl 1, hit again, and it crits immediately.

anyway, against bosses it's quite hard.

also, it seems the crit is happening way more often if you are "far" from the target.
i suppose it's some kind of bug/behavior of Ground Slam,or simply the fact that the "cone" of Ground Slam is small when you are close to the target, and gets larger after a few meters. so you have to find the right distance to have the best possible critical chance. i wonder if ground slam is the best skill for that build, any other idea ? (earthquakes etc ?)

for me, the closer i am to the target, the less crit chance i have.
it might just be a feeling, but.. i really have this impression

Hey Mathil and everyone!

I wanna ask a question here (haha).

Would Duelist / Slayer be viable for this build? Since i don't have any of my scion's left with 0 skill points spent :(

Thanks! :3

just an update on my progress for anyone still following the thread.
I managed to get a Lightning Coil and was lucky enough to 6-link it. Obviously, this has had a big impact on my survivability, but was still feeling a bit squishy... Getting the build from 87-89 was very painful with a lot of steps forward but a similar amount back (deaths!).
The single biggest improvement I have made to the build by far is the introduction of a lions roar granite flask - a very under-rated flask, at least with this build. Most people understandably don't like the knockback - but with this build I think it synergises extremely well by pushing back the monsters out of harms way, but straight into the path of our area skills - GC, EK and of course BF.
All of a sudden I have stopped dying and (so far) progressed from 89 to (nearly) 91 without incident.
For anyone struggling with defense, I highly recommend adding a Lions Roar to your flask bar!

I've tried cyclone Discharge CoC and a Barrage CoC character, but I think I like this one best. Mathil seems to have moved on, so I'll post a skill tree option for 8 ascendancy points:

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAABAQDBAwQEBwVCBx4IZw3RDkgPqw_EEGIRlhQgFHEVuBa_Gj4gbiLiJIsmlSoLKjgqTSycLR8tqDt8PV89_D8nQZZH4klRSshLV0yzUDBRTFJTVUtVxlhjWW1d8l8_X5hfsGCzYeJjQ2Sdah5qO2-ecFJ2rHcHd-J9W3_GggeDCYPbhFOExYcTidOMNozPj_qSfZUglS6WMpeVl_SYb5u1nKSio6Q5pjKocqxHrrOxW7GQt9a4yrmTvoDA48HzwwnDOsbYyFvKSs8yz37Q9dIh2XzbWdte3CPjhOXP6hjr9e8O7_3w1fGz8h3yL_JB9kj3Mvjr

I used 12 points to grab some duration nodes for Blade Vortex. It's a lot kinder to party member frame rates than Bladefall and works nearly as well. I swap out Blade Vortex Ethereal knives for bosses like Izaro. It has a little more range.

Later points will go to Scion start crit multi, Witch start spell damage, life, or Jewels. for me, 15% crit multi is worth about 12% spell damage.

Gear



It's self-found so they are not perfect. Chaos golem is on CwDT so I can reserve all my mana if I ever get 2 decent Elreon rings.

Oak - point- point

I'm clvl 88 now playing T10 maps easily.

So far I haven't felt a need for the additional offense from Carcass Jack or a 6th link. The build's main weakness is tough unique bosses. It does fine, but the damage isn't as good because the power charges sometimes fall off. CoDT PCoC/vortex is an option, but I like just using Vaal Lightning trap.

I still have Blood Rage in my links, but don't really use it. Vaal Lighting trap could go there if you went with a 6 link CoC. The Blood Rage Degen is a minor pain when you have Vaal Pact and you want to stop to spin a strong box or something, and I don't really need the extra damage or speed. If you are doing Gorge speed runs it may help a little. It's also useless the only time you could use it, against end-game bosses.

I rarely even notice reflect packs. The only time it has been an issue is with large, high HP packs in party play. Reflect maps can be done, but it is dangerous and slow so I avoid them.

Why not Sunder or Reave instead of Ground Slam?

is this build still viable in 2.4

"

ebolasoup wrote:

is this build still viable in 2.4

i'd like too know that too, looked very fun!!

Hey, new to PoE decided to give this build a shot before the next league. Anyway all of a sudden the tree isn't showing any passives for Scion or Shadow? What's happened? I've tried using a different browser thinking something got screwed up but no luck.

Please advice, thanks.