[3.7] Cospri CoC CI Trickster ~ Cold to Fire Chaos / 90-98%+ Melee & Spell Crit / 100% Hit / Tanky

Looks fun, I might try this one out later when I reach 40/40 with my allcontent ED trickster.
I'm looking for a fast mapper (not necessarely high single target, 1M is fine) that's also really tanky. I'll try and see what variations I can do be extremely durable (goal is depth 400+ 3mods+ auls and the like).

Thanks.

2000 chance orbs and scour and not even a single unique ring :(

Got this with just about 10 dense, really happy. Will get the +8 quality later.

Just wanted to say this build might be one of my favorite I've ever played. Super durable and crazy damage!

My current gear:


Used mostly the same items in the guide, except I switched out Light of Lunaris for Zeel's Amplifier. I think Zeel's is super strong for this build, solves a lot of the aoe issues (pretty much the main weakness of the build imo) and still has a lot of good stats. It also gives Zealot's Oath if you haven't been hit recently which synergizes with Trickster really well and saves a couple points on the tree.

Do you ever find being frozen (no freeze immunity) or running out of mana to be a problem? I notice i can't be too spammy with vortex while spinning.

What do you think about ethereal feast (near melding) or light eater (near unnatural calm) over heart of flame for a more defensive approach with more leech for HC players?

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I'm assuming POB doesn't calculate the brutal jewel. How do we calculate the effect? Just take our crit strike chance and multiply by 1.25? My sheet crit chance is only like 65% in PoB.

You need to manually create a Brutal Restraint jewel. My PoB should have one included, just add a line reading "25% More Melee Critical Strike Chance."

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htan564 wrote:

Really enjoyed this build! Just something want to point out: lvl3 enlighten + 4% reduced mana reserved node doesn’t really work. It will make your unreserved mana to be 1% because the reserve amount is calculated separately for each gem and rounding. Tested both in game and PoB. For a budget version, I have to use the head enchant for 15% reduced mana reserve.

You're right - with just one 4% reduced node, you have 1% mana (roughly 13 max mana) which should still be enough to use Cyclone without issues... but you can't cast Vortex (takes 28 mana) and leapslam/shield charge cost 13. As a budget alternative for QOL, you need a % reduction helm enchant, or pick up one more 4% node for 8% total reduction (for 3 skill points, under Zealot's Oath, you can grab 2x 4% nodes leading to Sovereignty). Actually, if you can spare the 4 skill points and just grab Sovereignty, you don't even need an Enlighten (I'd only consider this on a super low budget, since 4 skill points is a lot).

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Only minor gripe I have is mana sustain. If I hold cyclone for 15 seconds + I run out of mana, this has been an issue once during a boss fight. Any idea how to solve it? Was hoping OP could give me some pointers. The only solution I can think of is to get a low level cyclone so it will cost less, but would that solve the issue..

You should not be having any mana sustain issues whatsoever. Are you running ALIRA as bandit? This is very important since it's an extra 5 mana per second. My PoB shows 41.7 mana regen per second. Cyclone costs 4 mana per cost - so even at my 8.3 APS, that's 33.2 mana used per second. You should never run out unless you are also overspamming Vortex - on bosses you dont really need to spam it, just once every few seconds to drop one down. (Also note map modifiers may reduce your mana regen, so this may be a factor). If this still bothers you though, you'll note my boots are enchanted with 0.6% damage leeched as Life and Mana if you've killed recently. This is super QOL for maps with no regen/reduced regen, or in general, just always having infinite mana on trash.

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Used mostly the same items in the guide, except I switched out Light of Lunaris for Zeel's Amplifier. I think Zeel's is super strong for this build, solves a lot of the aoe issues (pretty much the main weakness of the build imo) and still has a lot of good stats.

Good call on Zeel's - you lose about 50K hit damage from main Ice Nova, but I agree that the extra AoE would make mapping even easier, this build already does a stupid amount of DPS. I did a lot of endgame bosses though so for stuff like UElder you rather have maximum single target. If I play this build again in a future league I'd probably have a weapon-swap for Cospri/Lunaris in one, and Cospri/Zeel in another, to easily switch as needed.

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Do you ever find being frozen (no freeze immunity) or running out of mana to be a problem? I notice i can't be too spammy with vortex while spinning.

What do you think about ethereal feast (near melding) or light eater (near unnatural calm) over heart of flame for a more defensive approach with more leech for HC players?

I run a Jade Flask of Heat, so freeze is not an issue. Not having full immunity isn't a problem at all. Even on a fight like Uber Elder - with him constantly throwing ice spears at me - I was absolutely fine, all kills were easily done deathless. In fact, I regularly farm UElder every league and this is one of my first builds that I was able to comfortably handle him WITHOUT a Kaom's Roots.

I was considering ethereal/light eater for more ES leech but the issue is this build is already so point-starved. Dropping Heart of Flame for some more leech is fine if you don't mind less DPS, but I found my leech to already be more than plentiful for all content - especially since you get most of your healing from the ES Gained on Hit watcher's eye. When you are hitting stuff 30-40+ times per second between cyclone, ice novas, vortex etc. you are restoring a lot of ES on hits - coupled with Cinderswallow, you are practically invincible on trash. Light Eater would provide roughly 200 extra ES/second which isn't bad but you lose about 10% total DPS from dropping Heart of Flame.

For HC, you might be better off just stacking more ES. IE: instead of a Unique shield, get a good crafted Rare shield with high ES and pick up one or two of the Shield Defense nodes like Arcane Guarding. For example, a 400 ES shield with Arcane Guarding (5 skill points, same as Heart of Flame) bumps my ES from 8000 to 9500... that's 1500 more ES, which is pretty ridiculous.

This looks amazing. Gonna run a few practice runs in SSF to see about a "league start" effect. My main was a cold snap / vortex CI trickster and I fell in love with the defense and single target. But lacked the clear needed for Legion. Went CoC nova assassin, and died too often in red maps. I have been trying to figure out all of the nuance and details to get a CoC nova CI trickster - and here it is!! Really looking forward to the build. thanks. My only real concern is auras. I get lost on the effectiveness between offense and defense, and the layers. Between the explosions of herald ice, the ES of discipline, Zealotry crits, Flesh and Stone to blind with effigon - (OR precision with a Pandemonuis amulet) - Lycosidae versus light of lunaris or zeels... aspect of spider has been recommended before - even using a Vertex with L4 enlighten I was squeezed. How would you prioritize auras / heralds early on without a watchers eye?

** EDIT - Elder pyre ring - only one exists for sale - with no price on the server right now - is 200 chance orbs a rediculously lucky number? Like hitting a 6L in under 50 fuses? Does anyone know the "chance orb" probability for a shaped or elder pyre roll? Also, does iLVL of the ring matter?

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Aldenier wrote:

I get lost on the effectiveness between offense and defense, and the layers. Between the explosions of herald ice, the ES of discipline, Zealotry crits, Flesh and Stone to blind with effigon - (OR precision with a Pandemonuis amulet) - Lycosidae versus light of lunaris or zeels... aspect of spider has been recommended before - even using a Vertex with L4 enlighten I was squeezed. How would you prioritize auras / heralds early on without a watchers eye?

** EDIT - Elder pyre ring - only one exists for sale - with no price on the server right now - is 200 chance orbs a rediculously lucky number? Like hitting a 6L in under 50 fuses? Does anyone know the "chance orb" probability for a shaped or elder pyre roll? Also, does iLVL of the ring matter?

My builds typically lean a bit heavier on the "defense" aspect than pure glass-cannons. I almost always farm T16 maps / Uber Elder / endgame bosses each league, so I enjoy a balanced build that won't randomly explode while doing red maps, but still dish out high enough DPS to farm guardians/bosses.

As you've experienced, CoC Assassins are the norm - and while a great build (i've played several variants), Trickster will typically be tankier just by the nature of the ascendancy.

Personally I would not use Lycosidae anymore for crit builds, since it's much easier to get 95%+ accuracy nowadays, or even 100% through Effigon. Lycosidae is such a weak shield, especially considering you can just roll a rare shield with high accuracy if necessary.

Regarding Auras, I would prioritize, in terms of defenses:

1) Flesh and Stone
Even without utilizing Effigon, the ability to have a 100% uptime BLIND aura is ridiculously potent, for such a minor mana reservation. Pandemonius is a good option but remember it requires you to hit something first, whereas F&S will guarantee anything getting near to you will be blinded, and often overlooked - it also reduces damage taken from ranged (so, nasty projectiles off-screen)

2) Discipline with ES on Hit Watcher's Eye
Without the Eye, don't bother with Discipline. The ES on hit is ridiculous sustain but without it, you are probably better off with something else

3) Zealotry / Hatred / Heralds
These are all damage-based and doesn't really matter which you go for without a Watcher's Eye. However, if I had to pick, i'd go with Zealotry just because it provides some added defense (although less damage than Hatred). Essentially it's 100% uptime of Consecrate on bosses/rares, alongside Zealot's Oath, provides roughly passive 500-600 ES regen per second - which is quite huge alongside regular leech.


Regarding Elder Pyre, most players who need one for a build probably craft it themselves, so there won't be many for sale. 200 chances is definitely on the low end. Some players have done bulk tests and average for a "Unique Ring" is roughly 400-500 chances. Nobody truly knows if certain rings are weighted more than others, in this case, there are 2 rings that Sapphire can roll into - Dream Fragments or Pyre. So if we assume 50/50 odds, you probably need an average of 800-1000 chances to grab one... but again, this is an AVERAGE. As such, it would not be uncommon to be on the higher-end of the average of 2000-3000 chances... likewise you may get it in 100.

Either way, note that the Elder Pyre is NOT mandatory, a regular Pyre alongside a decent rolled Opal ring will suffice fine.

To ANYONE trying this build. Annointed oils make the DEX a non issue - Teal, Crimson, and sepia give you "utmost swiftness" +40 dex and 8% dex. Also, early game you can annoint with 3 clear for 30 dex. Swiftness took me from 216 with alacrity on the effigon and "agility" in my tree - to 260 with both removed / respecced. I Chose to go CI on this build - and the layers of defense are insane. I will say - My AOE on the cyclone is very poor, and I struggle with league mechanic on blighted maps... I simply cannot cover the towers even on a tier 4 map in game.

Profile is aldenier, character is darqblight if anyone wants to check out CI. I have a red elder down. Died 4 times to the lightning guy (After my first death, the adds and room spam melted me) and also died to elder 3 times - had him at 10% and locked down but got unlucky where he kept spamming the "two circles" far away from anything I could hit and adds loaded up at the top of the screen while I had to hide at the bottom. *Someone with more experience would know the time window on jumping back to safety but I am relatively new to endgame content.

Great guide and build. Thanks!

Holy cow what a build! I ran it through blight to great effect, and it is PERFECT for me. I hit 96 for the first time ever and found a build I can play from league start to endgame without switching around.

I still struggle to understand the dynamics of the ways the build interacts to calculate damage. I was curious if you have ever done the math on dual cospris versus light of lunaris for bossing? Or when to load two frozen trails instead of just one. I didn't know how to "min max" the build effectively and I am hoping to squeeze more out of it next league.

A few line items that maybe help anyone reading through the guide and comments: I spent about 8EX trying to craft a shield better than lunaris, and it just never happened. Lunaris is BiS for the $$.

iLVL 84 Elder sadist garbs in blight league were less than 5c. (minimum iLVL 84 to roll for the 1.5 ATTACK crit% we need for cyclone to proc). I would perfect fossil until at least 28 quality. Then craft quality past 45% total and then 6L. I was hitting 6L under 200 jewelers and 500 fuses consistently. Then 2 socket fossil craft throwing dense fossils with serrated I hit some monster crafts. With the changes to elder and shaper drops this probably wont be the same starting price, but the value for these chests should be substantially more when you hit it right.