[2.6] Hardcore CI Crittle Sparks - Legacy ability for a Legacy league!

Hello Tristan,

Your priority for level 21 gems are:

1.) Spark
2.) Herald of Thunder
3.) Lightning Penetration (x2 for vaal spark)
4.) Pierce
5.) Increased Critical Strike Chance (x2 for vaal spark)
6.) Increased Critical Strike Multiplier
7.) Spell Echo (x2 for vaal spark)

For Quality, pretty much anything you can get. I'm not normally concerned about quality since it's pretty easy to get your hands on 20q gems in trading, and in SSF you can't control it that well. But if you're at the point in SSF that your cutting gems, it should~ be spell echo > spark > everything else in the primary 6l > herald of thunder > everything else.

This is a strong and enjoyable build. I have spent roughly 30c on this build. I am still at level 78 farming Dried Lake, but it clears quite well (100m exp/HR)
Curious what will happen once I get to map +t10 with that low-budget gear.
Voidbringer, Rainbowstride and Doryani's Invitation are decent uniques if one doesn't have that much money for good rares.

"

Tuadh wrote:

This is a strong and enjoyable build. I have spent roughly 30c on this build. I am still at level 78 farming Dried Lake, but it clears quite well (100m exp/HR)
Curious what will happen once I get to map +t10 with that low-budget gear.
Voidbringer, Rainbowstride and Doryani's Invitation are decent uniques if one doesn't have that much money for good rares.

Sorry, I was away on vacation for a couple weeks. If you try pushing maps with lower quality gear most of what you're going to find is survivability issues. Currently you should still be able to do it as long as you invest in a good chest, but with the ES nerfs coming the survivability will be a lot harder without good gear.

So feel free to push maps, the damage will be enough (though certainly not as fast as good investment), just play a bit safer.

I just wanted to quickly update with some news and information from my experience on the beta.

First off: Changes to CI
The changes to CI are, for lack of a more fitting word, brutal. While working around the build trying to make the CI aspect still viable, it kind of felt like pulling at strings. The heavy ES nerfs, CI nerfs, and life buffs made me a bit iffy about continuing to take the CI route, but we were still kind of forced into it along the path to pick up pierce

New: Pierce Support
In the latest beta release, the pierce support gem has been changed to provide "pierces [x] additional targets", which means the pierce is already guaranteed by the support gem.


This means we no longer need to reach for the pierce nodes, and consequently our most efficient routing no longer takes us near CI.

Before I make a final claim, I'm going to wait out these pierce support changes. I don't quite fully understand them - as it makes the pierce wheel quite underwhelming as getting reliable pierce from the tree is quite hard, and the support just guarantees it without any tree investment. It seems a little powerful for a number of builds, so I expect it to be nerfed, or the pierce wheel to be buffed.

Though if the changes continue to stick, unfortunately it means this CI version of the build will be dead, though I hate to say it. I had a lot of fun with this build.

With that said, I believe a new life version of this build will still certainly be viable. However it would mean a different ascendancy and tree routing, no longer qualifying as a build variation, but a completely different build. The life oriented build would likely offer much higher damage, but lower survivability against oneshots.

I hope many of you enjoyed this build along with me, and I might pop in with the new spark build after the ES-ocalypse.

(I hope Rangers are proud of themselves with their CI abuse from all their free ascendancy damage.)