[3.11] CoC Ball Lightning Assassin - 20M+ Shaper DPS/10k ES/fortify - League Starter Guide Included

I rolled a version of this build in endless delve with the meme CoC starter unique weapon and thought I'd share my gear here. Ended up rank 21 assassin at depth 700, started to get one shotted a bit too much since I couldn't get fortify or much more life. Was around 5.5k life + 1.5k es with zealotry + discipline + precision, or 5k life + 1k es with zealotry + wrath + precision (enlighten level 3 with reduced mana reservation nodes instead of life nodes).

I was able to get 2 life on hit shaper rings and a shaper cooldown recovery belt, so was at 7.5aps and had basically infinite life recovery in packs.

The Zeel's Amplifier shield definitely carried in terms of DPS, the increased AoE helped a ton. Single target damage was pretty bad, so I had to refresh my AoE/regen on mobs down random delve pathways during certain tricky nodes. Still, if I had managed to get a 6L, I would have considered just running fortify support for the extra survivability.

Getting accuracy and dex was annoying, but fossil crafting helms with pristine + serrated helped. Was at 100% hit chance and only had to take one 30 dex node on the tree to get slower projectiles and precision dex requirements. Crit chance was easy to hit with the 12% crit base starter unique.

Unwavering stance was pretty necessary to not get stunned, I couldn't hit the stun avoid boot enchant with enchanted fossils. I decided to try to link evasion/ES chests instead of a vaal regalia because getting 3 green + 1 red socket on an ES base is basically impossible without crafting bench, otherwise I could get quite a bit more ES.

Overall really fun! I've only gone to depth ~400 on the CI version in trade leagues, so it was cool too see how far I could push a version of the build on delve without sulphite requirements.

https://pastebin.com/CQAHbrDv
What shall I do to upgrade my dps? Ofc levels, im gonna replace my es ring with mark of the elder and want to get higher ES body armour, how can I upgrade my dmg ?

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Aciuffka wrote:

https://pastebin.com/CQAHbrDv
What shall I do to upgrade my dps? Ofc levels, im gonna replace my es ring with mark of the elder and want to get higher ES body armour, how can I upgrade my dmg ?

I see you've already hit level 82 and have some of the upgrades in place already (crystal belt, mark of the shaper). Put imbued catalysts on your mark of the shaper.

Getting a sceptre with hits can't be evaded should be a priority over better ES on armor - because you'll be able to run a shield with ES on it to make up the difference. Shield also can have nice mods like spell/lighting % damage, +1 lightning gems, spell block, etc.

Running inspiration instead of increased critical strikes is also a DPS boost. This usually requires a bottled faith, or + flat crit to attacks on hunter or elder armor, or + flat crit to attacks corrupt on algor mortis.

If you can get at least 14% cooldown recovery, getting more attack speed is straight up more damage. You probably want this on shaper/crusader ES boots since your crusader crystal belt already looks pretty good. You'll have to divine the cooldown recovery roll to either 14% or 15%. +1 to minimum frenzy charges craft on amulet or ring is also great as long as you aren't attacking too fast and have the free craft slot.

Your flask setup is pretty bad. No reason to be running a life flask, and you have 2 quartz flasks. Once you have cooldown recovery you should definitely run a silver flask. Rumi's is another good choice (synergizes with arcane swiftness, too). Even an evasion (jade flask with % increased evasion suffix) or armor (granite flask with % increased armor suffix) would give extra survivability. Rumi's + getting the % armor suffix on another flask is decent too. Get curse immunity on one of your flasks please. You can drop ignite immunity if you run out of suffixes, definitely keep freeze immune and try to keep shock immune if you can.

Go for a large lightning cluster jewel when you have enough skill points. Most 3-notable combos will be good, for example storm drinker + widespread destruction + one other. You can take the divine judgment or doom cast wheels in the meantime for some extra spell crit/damage. I personally like the arcane guarding wheel if you are investing in block and have an ES shield.

The chaos golem on cwdt is kinda useless imo, I'd rather put increased duration support for immortal call. You have an open slot you should put vaal righteous fire in (do NOT use regular righteous fire). You can pop this for a temporary 28% MORE damage boost. Experiment with when you pop vaal RF - you lose 30% of your ES but it should regen basically immediately, you can definitely kill yourself by accident so make sure you don't pop it right before a boss windup or something. I personally like to pop vaal RF and vaal discipline at the same time to make sure I regen as quickly as possible.

Good luck!

Hi there! I decided to give this build a go, since never played CoC before (but I've been playing poe for a lot of years). The thing is, that Im still at the spellslinger phase (level 41 currently), and I cannot reservate the mana needed for arc (4l), ball lightning (4l) and wave of conviction (3l). I havent seen anything related to mana reservation at the POB, so I dont understand how to be able to trigger the three abilities with my frenzy. Hope you're doing great, thanks in advance!

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Falafas wrote:

Hi there! I decided to give this build a go, since never played CoC before (but I've been playing poe for a lot of years). The thing is, that Im still at the spellslinger phase (level 41 currently), and I cannot reservate the mana needed for arc (4l), ball lightning (4l) and wave of conviction (3l). I havent seen anything related to mana reservation at the POB, so I dont understand how to be able to trigger the three abilities with my frenzy. Hope you're doing great, thanks in advance!

Spellslinger got nerfed since the guide was posted (reserves more mana). The cooldown recovery is also wonky, so I wouldn't recommend it anymore. If you stay spellslinger, drop wave of conviction and put it on cast when damage taken. I prefer to self cast arc or ball lightning instead of spellslinger since the nerf. Orb of storms + arc or orb of storms + ball lightning is also a decent leveling setup. You can take some cast speed nodes instead of spell crit nodes to make it feel smoother.

Hi. So I play this build on and off, in leagues and in standard. I absolutely love it for various things (lag proof in 100% deli, facetanking cortex/shaper/elder/bosses and many other things) and by now I've managed to get a bit of decent gear between the leagues and STD. I am looking for some options on improvement, here is my PoB:

https://pastebin.com/yfJG2WC6

I am actively trying to incorporate Master of Fear into the build to take advantage of the belt enchant, if this will happen I should be able to change middle cluster entirely (will get hex breaker and overlord on megalomaniac), but getting said megalomaniac in Heist to transfer over is an absolute PITA and on STD they are just priced borderline stupid. Boot and Glove enchant are low hanging apples, but I will one day snap and run the lab couple times, what should I go for?
I think I am on right attack speed BP, but would appreciate if someone could double check. Please ignore the shield in PoB, I have changed it with the one I had on my Ice Nova CoC, I think random frenzy charges from the shield mod were causing some AS inconsistencies, and now I gained couple leveles on my Precision.

Also, what alt qual gems are worth considering for that build? I think I can still get a couple in Heist, still got some resources left

Thank you very much in advance.

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N4rk0tyk wrote:

here is my PoB:

https://pastebin.com/yfJG2WC6

I am actively trying to incorporate Master of Fear into the build to take advantage of the belt enchant, if this will happen I should be able to change middle cluster entirely (will get hex breaker and overlord on megalomaniac), but getting said megalomaniac in Heist to transfer over is an absolute PITA and on STD they are just priced borderline stupid. Boot and Glove enchant are low hanging apples, but I will one day snap and run the lab couple times, what should I go for?
I think I am on right attack speed BP, but would appreciate if someone could double check. Please ignore the shield in PoB, I have changed it with the one I had on my Ice Nova CoC, I think random frenzy charges from the shield mod were causing some AS inconsistencies, and now I gained couple leveles on my Precision.

Also, what alt qual gems are worth considering for that build? I think I can still get a couple in Heist, still got some resources left

Thank you very much in advance.

Algor Mortis will be more damage than your current gloves (chilled enemies taking increased damage is better than increased damage against chilled enemies), if you can fix resists.

You're missing a power charge node on the left side of the tree.

Attack speed looks too high (you only have CDR from awakened CoC, so you want your APS to be under 7.57). If you drop Retribution and the other attack speed node next to it, you'll be close (being over APS by a tiny bit isn't TERRIBLE, you will lose a few procs occasionally).

If your CWDT blade blast procs, you will unnerve enemies, so your belt enchant isn't useless.

Divergent ball lightning is more damage if you get it level 21 (I see one on heist softcore online for 10ex). I never tried for any other alt qual gems.

Boot enchants - the stun avoid one is nice for clearing, lightning damage/ele pen if you haven't killed recently is ok for bossing. For gloves, I prefer to use corrupted algor mortis with a nice implicit than going for an enchant. Your crit chance is kinda low without bottled faith active, so maybe +crit to attacks. The sceptre is really nice but unfortunate it doesn't have crit chance on it.

I like to use increased duration support on immortal call instead of cwdt chaos golem. You should try out vaal righteous fire (28% more damage for bursts).

Thank you so much for your input!

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Algor Mortis will be more damage than your current gloves (chilled enemies taking increased damage is better than increased damage against chilled enemies), if you can fix resists.

I have a +1 gems pair, but It did not felt like more damage, I do enjoy culling strike on those gloves, that is pretty much the one reason I have them besides high ES. I am over capped on resistances even without gloves at all, so no issues to play around with both. I could perhaps get couple more levels on precision with Enlighten being 5 in +1 algors

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You're missing a power charge node on the left side of the tree.

I actually used the 2 points to get Snowstorm on my large cluster, PoB says it is moaaarrr damage (10% lightning as extra cold vs chilled+ 12% increased lightning from small node), I will experiment though.

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Attack speed looks too high (you only have CDR from awakened CoC, so you want your APS to be under 7.57). If you drop Retribution and the other attack speed node next to it, you'll be close (being over APS by a tiny bit isn't TERRIBLE, you will lose a few procs occasionally).

OK, I will double and triple check in game fully buffed in maps. If I can drop it I might actually go back on the tree to Holy dominion, that would be 5 points I could spend on something else easily

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If your CWDT blade blast procs, you will unnerve enemies, so your belt enchant isn't useless.

Aha! I totally missed unnerve from blade blast (I didn't even checked off unnerve in PoB). Hm, this can potentially save me some currency, Master of Fear looks more reliable in terms of uptime though.

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Divergent ball lightning is more damage if you get it level 21 (I see one on heist softcore online for 10ex). I never tried for any other alt qual gems.

10 ex is certainly within budget, especially that these gems will skyrocket in std after merge. Gonna buy it later.

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Your crit chance is kinda low without bottled faith active, so maybe +crit to attacks. The sceptre is really nice but unfortunate it doesn't have crit chance on it.

Hm, thanks for pointing it out. I will see what I can do in that department. I don't feel like I am missing crits per say, but it might be just an illusion and pretty much permanent uptime on flasks even on bosses because of WE mod. Certainly worth to investigate.

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I like to use increased duration support on immortal call instead of cwdt chaos golem. You should try out vaal righteous fire (28% more damage for bursts).

Longer uptime = longer cooldown, I had some issues on my BV in Heist because of that. I extended the IC by quite a bit via alt qual CWDT and Increased duration, and started to experiance 3 seconds gaps on coverage, this did not felt grate. I will definietely give Vaal RF a try, this build is packing a punch, but more is well, more.

Really appreciate your time and answers, gives me a lot to think about and work on. I moved the setup to lower level char (so I can level it up to 100 safely because this build simply does not die in normal mapping/bossing) but might move it back after reading your input :)

Cheers

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N4rk0tyk wrote:

I have a +1 gems pair, but It did not felt like more damage.

Hard to tell I guess, and culling is nice. Also depends how you're playing and making sure your always applying vortexes and keeping the bosses within them. The sap effect on algor mortis can also be a defensive layer.

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I actually used the 2 points to get Snowstorm on my large cluster, PoB says it is moaaarrr damage (10% lightning as extra cold vs chilled+ 12% increased lightning from small node), I will experiment though.

I think a power charge node is worth some ES nodes at least (melding wheel is pretty weak). Plus you help out your attack crit for proccing CoC. Could drop that whole wheel and grab some extra 6% ES nodes + power charge.

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OK, I will double and triple check in game fully buffed in maps. If I can drop it I might actually go back on the tree to Holy dominion, that would be 5 points I could spend on something else easily

Oops, your PoB said 8.5aps for cyclone and I unchecked tailwind and it still said 8.5aps, but you had "crit recently" checked and it automatically includes tailwind with that. You're correct, your APS should be right around 7.56, which is good.

p.s. for PoB you usually want to make sure you check enemy is a boss in configuration (shaper or sirus). Since your DPS mostly matters for bosses, and certain things could be more or less effective against bosses (e.g. ele pen).

https://pastebin.com/Q4bJ6sLb
So I did some upgrades, poured like 30 ex in the build got 14% cdr and enough AS for it, sitting on 8k es but my damage doesnt feel really great, my pob is like 50k avg damage and feels kinda clumsy, what can I upgrade? I know about bottled faith and awakened curse on hit but the flask is currently out of my reach and I dont think 2 curses will help a lot with dmg. Looking forward for help <3 But yea I really like that build very good tank haha