[3.9] Gryph's CI Vortex + Coldsnap Trickster || Uber Elder+Everything Else

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bunnyoncrack wrote:

Are you leveling with something else or just the same setup? And how good is it for a fresh league?

edit: I have checked your PoB, what is up with those gloves (asenaths gentle)?
And do you maybe have a budget version of the PoB, because at league start atziris reflection and some of the other gear is nearly impossible to obtain.
And why do you have increased duration boots multimodded?

The gloves were for the blinding+explosions. Good for clearspeed and porcupines.

The increased duration boots were from my Legion Character to increase the duration of Vaal Cold Snap for the Legion Monoliths.

This build is excellent for league start because we don't really require any uniques to function well.
And everything else I'm pretty sure is outlined in the guide; including a "Vortex as a League Starter"

I just wanted to jump in here and thank Gryph for this awesome guide. I play SSF and so have none of the recommended final build items (I have a wand with heartstopping isolated but haven't been able to get the beast craft for the imprint). With Uber Elder becoming much more difficult to reach next season I decided to try the fight for the first time ever. It took me four portals before I learned to keep Shaper on the screen so that I could see his telegraphed attacks, but otherwise this build made uber-elder a cinch even with sub-par gear. All of the recommended uniques and items are fun to strive for, but don't let that turn you off the build. As Gryph has said repeatedly, they really are all optional (although the trigger socketed spell when you use a skill helps a LOT). The build works great just wearing whatever items you happen to find. Thanks again to Gryph for putting this guide together and for continuing to update it.

Decided to run Vortex + coldsnap occultist until i saw this guide. didn't realize trickster had DoT and energy shield ascendencies as well. It's probably been asked somewhere but how does the 2 classes compare?

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ericlala wrote:

Decided to run Vortex + coldsnap occultist until i saw this guide. didn't realize trickster had DoT and energy shield ascendencies as well. It's probably been asked somewhere but how does the 2 classes compare?

Was going to say "there's a section in the guide about this"

I forgot that I removed that after Occultist got nerfed in 3.7...

But basically, Trickster has better defenses in the form of natural Evasion Scaling:

Ghost Dance Recovery to ES based on your Evasion, some Spell Dodge, and massive bonuses to Evasion and Energy Shield from your Helmet and Chest.

Really nice QoL comes from Patient Reaper for ES and Mana Recovery on kill (and recovery rate). This is especially good for mapping.

The gear is a bit cheaper usually (EV/ES chests aren't going to be as expensive as pure ES pieces).

That said Occultist gets easy access to Freeze Immunity in the ascendancy and Profane Bloom explosions, which is nice for mapping. Occultist can also go Low life more effectively with Shavs if you want to go that route.

TL:DR

I still think Trickster is the more well rounded of the two and a better bosser because of the extra layers of defense that we get. Must have freeze immune flask or "dream fragment" boots.



Occultist can get more damage cheaper via Shavs and running auras on life, but lacks a lot of the defenses and QoL that make trickster really feel good.
Occ has profane bloom boom booms. (Both classes can use Obliteration wands for this effect as well)

What would be a good 3rd aura to use if I had a lvl 3 enlighten? In your gem setup it says enlighten - malevolence - discipline, which is even without enlighten still just 85% reservation. With the 2 reservation nodes on the tree I could easily use another 25% one, what should it be? aspect of the spider late game wise, but earlier?

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TrafficLi9HT wrote:

What would be a good 3rd aura to use if I had a lvl 3 enlighten? In your gem setup it says enlighten - malevolence - discipline, which is even without enlighten still just 85% reservation. With the 2 reservation nodes on the tree I could easily use another 25% one, what should it be? aspect of the spider late game wise, but earlier?

Aspect of the Spider. :D

Flesh and Stone is an option as well, but...We don't want to reserve 100% of our mana. You still need enough mana to cast your skills. Typically it is a struggle to get Aspect to fit and still have enough unreserved mana leftover without a level 4 enlighten. This can be circumvented by other sources of mana reservation though, so there's that. (Helm Enchants mainly)

Having a high base mana pool helps too.

Hi, I've never played CI build, so I'm wondering how one actually makes the switch? Guide says about 5k ES before you make the switch, is 5k ES easy to get while leveling through the campaign? How much Life + ES should I expect to have before I actually take the CI keystone? Are there starter ES values I should be trying to hit near the end of campaign and into white/yellow maps? How much regrets should I expect to spend to do the tree swap?

Thanks

Brief reply as I'm on my phone at present, but for what it's worth this build was my first time trying CI. I switched early into maps once I got Escape Artist (from Merciless lab) and bought a cheap and basic six-link Sadist Garb. I had a little over 5k ES with basic gear, and the switch couldn't have been smoother. I don't remember how many regrets were needed but it wasn't a lot, maybe 10-15? I found it to be a painless switch and a dream first time experience trying CI. I'm pretty sure that's due to many of the Trickster QoL advantages that Gryph has identified at several points.

Out of curiosity, Gryph, why do you consider Occultist easier to go LL?

This looks very interesting; I've only run Occultist Vortex builds.

BTW - you can put leveling trees in the PoB.

I'll give this a shot and see how it performs prior to the 3.9 launch. Thanks!

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Mooginator wrote:

This looks very interesting; I've only run Occultist Vortex builds.

BTW - you can put leveling trees in the PoB.

I'll give this a shot and see how it performs prior to the 3.9 launch. Thanks!

Nice, lemme know how it goes!

Also, there is a pastebin for a leveling tree setup in the "vortex as a league starter" section.