Assassin CoC Guide for Beginners

Contents:
1. Video
2. Intro
3. CoC Mechanics
4. Absolute Minimum Budget Setup
5. Budget Setup
6. Recommended Starting Setup
7. Upgraded with Cluster Jewel Setup
8. Endgame Setup


1. Video

Below is a link to recent Sirus kill with my CoC character.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ni1ZtWs-RU
Start of 4th phase is around 2:00.


2. Intro

Hey guys,

I'm creating this guide so that I can share all of the mistakes I've made while trying to create a CoC character, and all the new things that I'm still learning everyday. Hopefully I can divert new players from having to go through same growing-pains as I did.

When I first tried to create a CoC build couple season ago, I ran into the same issue that so many of us encounter. I had relatively great clear speed, but I was having trouble killing bosses.

On my first attempt at this build, I started with about 5 ex worth of gears.
I knew that the build won't be that strong, but I thought that it should be able to clear normal/white T16 maps, at least.
I thought I was doing fairly well until I reached the boss arena.
The life bar on boss was moving so slow that I thought it wasn't moving at all.

So I put in another 10 ex, then another 10 ex.
Each time the character became slightly stronger, but it wasn't at all close to what I had expected after 20 ex investment.

Turns out it is very true what the experts say.
You NEED to put currency in this build to make it work.
Not 20~30 ex, more likely 50~100 ex.
If you can only make 20~30 ex max for the full duration of your season play, CoC may not the right build for you.

But if you still want to give it a go, I'll do my best to inform you on how you can maximize your investment!


3. Mechanics

In short, we NEED to acquire 3 things:
1. 100% crit chance
2. 100% hit chance
3. Appropriate attack rate with cyclone

Appropriate attack rate with cyclone is going to need some extra explanation.

Cast on Critical Strike Support(CoC) gem needs to be linked with an attack skill gem and a spell skill gem.
When attack skill gem(Cyclone) hits a target and scores a critical hit, CoC gem will automatically cast the linked spell gem(Ice Nova)
This action has 0.15s internal cooldown.
We don't see it in the gem description, but it is there.

So, to maximize DPS, we'll want cyclone to hit the target as soon as CoC gem is ready to cast the linked spell again.
That's why we need to sync cyclone attack rate with cooldown speed of CoC gem.

Now, there are couple things in the game that can increase the recovery speed of skill cooldown time.
1. Shaper influence belt 10~20% Increased Cooldown Recovery(CDR)
2. Shaper influence boots 10~15%
3. Awakened CoC gem 10~22%

So, just with 3 items mentioned above, we can reach between 0~57% CDR.
But the game only cares about 2 numbers.
14% and 52%
If you are between 0~13%, game treats as if you have 0%
If you are between 14~51%, game treats as if you have 0%
If you are at 52% or above, game treats as if you have 52%

At 0% CDR your CoC cooldown is 0.15s
At 14% CDR your CoC cooldown is 0.13s
At 52% CDR your CoC cooldown is 0.10s

At 0% CDR your cyclone attack rate needs to be close to, but must be BELOW 6.06
At 14% CDR your cyclone attack rate needs to be close to, but must be BELOW 7.57
At 52% CDR your cyclone attack rate needs to be close to, but must be BELOW 10.10

To summarize,
0~13% CDR // <=6.06 cyclone attack rate // CoC cooldown is 0.15s
14~51% CDR // <=7.57 cyclone attack rate // CoC cooldown is 0.13s
>=52% CDR // <=10.10 cyclone attack rate // CoC cooldown is 0.10s

Did you notice anything weird?
I certainly didn't until someone pointed it out to me.
When CoC cooldown is 0.15s, it should theoretically cast Ice Nova 6.66/sec for maximum DPS.
But the suggested cyclone attack rate is limited at 6.06/sec.
This is because there are multiple factors that affect how our game client interacts with game server.
Dedicated expert gamers have tested various attack rate at each CDR breakpoints and found 6.06/7.57/10.1 to be most reliable numbers after inspecting the game frame by frame.

So, what will happen if your attack rate is slightly ABOVE the suggested numbers?
For example, if you have 14% CDR and your attack rate is 7.6:
You score a crit with 1st cyclone hit, CoC gem casts Inc Nova.
CoC gem starts it's internal cooldown.
Cyclone scores 2nd crit before CoC gem is ready to fire, nothing happens.
CoC gem becomes ready to cast just after the 2nd hit with cyclone.
Cyclone scores 3rd crit, CoC casts Inc Nova, CoC gem cooldown starts
Cyclone scores 4th crit, CoC gem is not ready yet, nothing happens.

In short, Ice nova will only be casted every other cyclone hit and you'll lose about 50% DPS with Ice Nova.

Whew... That was quite long.
Thank you for keeping up with me thus far.
Please let me know if you guys have any suggestion on how to condense the information above.

Next up,
100% crit chance and 100% hit chance is quite straight forward.
CoC only triggers on crit.
Crit can only occur when you successfully land a hit.

But why go for 100% crit/hit chance?
Why not 95% or even 90% crit/hit chance?
Because reaching 100% crit/hit chance is most cost-efficient offensive/defensive investment you can make.

Now that the fundamentals are covered, let's move onto fun and controversial stuff!

4. Absolute Minimum Budget Setup

CoC build cost lots of currency.
Lots, and lots of currency.
Many people say you need at least 50 ~ 100 ex to start, depending on the market.
This is absolutely true.
Yet, there are people, myself among them, who'll try to run this build with much less investment.

Some of us just don't have as much time to play to accumulate that much currency, or have the experience and knowledge of the game to generate that much currency with the efficiency of expert players.



For those people, I'd like to recommend following setup.
https://pastebin.com/pWpUca6S



If you aren't familiar with PoB, we'll need to work on that first.
There are many great resources on YouTube, and learning just the basics of the program is enough to get started!
I prefer using community fork PoB, because it is much easier to use.

First of all,
This build will struggle on bosses.
There is no getting around that fact.
Yes, you can kill white/normal T16 map bosses, but it'll take you some time.
I tried some test runs and found that I had to use 2 full duration of Atziri's Promise flask before the boss died.
So roughly ~10 seconds for boss fights.
10 seconds doesn't sound like it's that long, but it'll FEEL like 30~40 seconds in game.

Absolute Minimum Budget Setup is pretty much the bare-bone version of the build.
All of the items combined, except Cospri's Malice, should be under 2 ex.

I've set the focus on establishing the fundamentals (crit/hit/attack rate) with cheap/easily available items, that can be upgraded without affecting items in other slots.


I don't see many players use this gem, but it is pretty great.
You'll use 3 of these at first, and change them out to 3 of

after you acquire +crit% chance from other gear slot upgrades.

That's 75% crit chance or 45% spell damage per jewel.
Considering these things only cost 2~3c each, they are not bad at all.

Cyclone hits multiple targets and hit them very fast.
So corrupted blood will kill you when you don't pay attention.
I would suggest that you buy any cheap jewel with "corrupted blood cannot be inflicted on you" mod.
Stats on that jewel doesn't matter.
We only need corrupted blood immunity.

Also, you can guy any Frozen Trail jewel.
The added projectile damage doesn't matter as much as the "frostbolt fires 2 additional projectiles" mod.
If you read Ice Nova's gem description, it says "can expand from up to 2 frostbolt projectiles"
When CoC casts Ice Nova without any frostbolt present on your screen, 1x Ice Nova will be casted where your character is standing.
When CoC casts Ice Nova with 3x frostbolts flying towards your target, 2x Ice Nova will be casted where your frostbolts are at.
So when frostbolts are present, you'll be doing 2x DPS with Ice Nova and hitting targets further away from you.
Many people use this jewel without know exactly why this is important in cyclone/ice nova CoC setup.

One of common mistakes I see when helping new CoC players, is that they use Added Cold Damage Support gem when their crit chance is no where near 100%.
Before your crit chance is 100%, Critical Strike Support gem will provide more DPS boost than any other support gems, including awakened support gems.

One last thing to note,
When you are shopping for a Cospri, try to find one with 12% increased attack speed.
12% IAS works well with 7.57 and 10.1 attack rate setup if you follow my guide, so you won't have to buy more than one.


5. Budget Setup

!!!IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!
The combined cost of three upgraded items for this build will be around 15~30 ex.
Huge jump from Absolute Minimum Budget Setup, I know.
And this is where most players give up.
Because even after 15~30 ex investment, you won't see much difference.
Your DPS will increase by 100%, but because your starting DPS was so low, the upgraded performance will be quite disappointing.

Some builds, especially league starter builds, can reach their maximum potential even with 15~30 ex investment.
CoC build will seem more inefficient in terms of investment-to-performance ratio by comparison to a league starter build you've been playing until now.
But trust me, CoC build will start picking up once you start investing more.

https://pastebin.com/0tnsZYkX

There are 3 major changes from Absolute Minimum Budget Setup.
1. Bottled Faith with >= 1.9% to crit against enemies on consecrated ground
2. Watcher's Eye with >= 1.7% to crit while affected by hatred
3. Carcass Jack

Bottled Faith will allow you to swap out Increased Critical Strike Support gem with Added Cold Damage Support gem.
Watcher's Eye jewel will allow you to swap out increased crit chance Grand Spectrum jewels with increased spell damage Grand Spectrum jewels.
Carcass Jack will add more life, DPS, and quality of life by increasing the area of cyclone and Ice Nova.

6. Recommended Starting Setup

https://pastebin.com/Nc7V95LT

For this upgrade, we're adding:
1. Pandemonius with Heart of Ice anointment
2. Master of Fear/Wish for Death medium cluster jewel w/ 5 passives
3. Level 5 Awakened CoC gem
4. 15% CDR boots
5. Cinderswallow flask
6. Corrupted blood jewel with added fire damage to be used with Cinderswallow

All of the items listed above will cost about 15~20 ex.

This is the 52% CDR setup.
The reason why I'll recommend this as a starting setup is because you can start dishing out respectable DPS from here on.

Going from 14% CDR to 52% CDR will add about 30% DPS.
The curse medium cluster jewel will also add ton of DPS
The unnerved status ailment will increase damage taken by the enemy by 10%
Culling strike will have similar effect to increasing your DPS by another 10%
Cinderswallow flask with added fire damage from jewel will add another 10%
Pandemonius with Heart of Ice anointment will add another 20%
All of the upgrades combined will have add about +100% DPS

I've personally have killed AW8 Sirus with this setup.
It wasn't quick, but it was doable.

By this point, you won't have much problem running any rare maps.
Depending on your playstyle and luck, you should be able to spawn Sirus every 30 min ~ 1 hour.
Sirus will eventually drops items of value so it's safe to say that it's smooth sailing from here on out.


7. Upgraded with Cluster Jewel Setup

The reason why we transition into cluster jewel so late, is because this build is passive point starved.
We'll have to either give up so valuable nodes to transition into cluster jewel setup.
While other setups were designed for character level 93, I would suggest cluster jewel transition once you reach level 96~97.

https://pastebin.com/wmXJjNhN


8. Endgame Setup

Too tired... will continue later

"

ywhuh86 wrote:

Contents:

5. Budget Setup
https://pastebin.com/0tnsZYkX

There are 3 major changes from Absolute Minimum Budget Setup.
1. Bottled Faith with >= 1.9% to crit against enemies on consecrated ground
2. Watcher's Eye with >= 1.7% to crit while affected by hatred
3. Carcass Jack

Bottled Faith will allow you to swap out Increased Critical Strike Support gem with Added Cold Damage Support gem.
Watcher's Eye jewel will allow you to swap out increased crit chance Grand Spectrum jewels with increased spell damage Grand Spectrum jewels.
Carcass Jack will add more life, DPS, and quality of life by increasing the area of cyclone and Ice Nova.

~same damage with 2ex budget
https://pastebin.com/zFASsA17

"

Ismail69 wrote:

"

ywhuh86 wrote:

Contents:

5. Budget Setup
https://pastebin.com/0tnsZYkX

There are 3 major changes from Absolute Minimum Budget Setup.
1. Bottled Faith with >= 1.9% to crit against enemies on consecrated ground
2. Watcher's Eye with >= 1.7% to crit while affected by hatred
3. Carcass Jack

Bottled Faith will allow you to swap out Increased Critical Strike Support gem with Added Cold Damage Support gem.
Watcher's Eye jewel will allow you to swap out increased crit chance Grand Spectrum jewels with increased spell damage Grand Spectrum jewels.
Carcass Jack will add more life, DPS, and quality of life by increasing the area of cyclone and Ice Nova.

~same damage with 2ex budget
https://pastebin.com/zFASsA17

Looks good!

But, I feel like you've missed the point I was trying to make.

My intent was to help people fully understand the mechanics of the build, so that they can eventually achieve highest efficiency with their investment on their own.

You've done a wonderful job on adding 2 ex investment on top of my "absolute minimum budget" setup. It still needs some important fine-tuning, like CDR/attack rate sync, but it's mostly well thought out.

That's exactly what I want to see with more of new CoC players.
I didn't want to propose a build that people will mindlessly follow.
I would like to think that the builds that I've proposed are like "foundations"

1st foundation was, cospri, 6-link, correct hit/crit/attack rate.
2nd foundation would be achieving correct hit/crit/attack rate EFFECTIVELY.
For example, increased critical strike support gem could be swapped with another support gem that can provide over 40% MORE damage if you can still reach 100% crit by other means (Watcher's Eye and/or Bottled Faith).

Again, you've done a wonderful job with 2 ex investment.
But imagine how much more return you'll see when you invest same amount of money on next-tier foundation with Watcher's Eye/Bottled Faith.

I thought my intention with the setup suggestions would be obvious.
Apparently it wasn't, and that's my fault.

Thank you, Ismail69, for reading the guide and helping me realize what improvements I can make.

We won't know whether this build is still going to be viable next season, at least until the next season patch note is announced.
If CoC doesn't get hit with nerf hammer, I'll keep this post updated with early-game suggestions and upgrade paths.

"

ywhuh86 wrote:

It still needs some important fine-tuning, like CDR/attack rate sync, but it's mostly well thought out.

yes I missed 4 points
65% antistun on boots
14% cdr on boots
Attack speed on cospri/passives/jewel
Didn't optimize the passives tree

"

ywhuh86 wrote:

But, I feel like you've missed the point I was trying to make.

I figured it out, I just don't like the idea itself
U just add big expensive items into build in the right order, right?
But, I feel like you missed what I was trying to show.
death=lose currency
slow farm=lose currency
cant do guard/sirus/leag mechanic=lose currency
ignoring intermediate items=weak build
farming big items with weak build = lose corruncy

"

ywhuh86 wrote:

1st foundation was, cospri, 6-link, correct hit/crit/attack rate.
2nd foundation would be achieving correct hit/crit/attack rate EFFECTIVELY.
For example, increased critical strike support gem could be swapped with another support gem that can provide over 40% MORE damage if you can still reach 100% crit by other means (Watcher's Eye and/or Bottled Faith).

My 1st Pob can killing guadrs (with a lot of deaths/skill)
My 2nd Pob can kill everethyng
I think these goals are more correct, especially for beginners.
Second Pob: https://pastebin.com/Ws0jACRA
Total cost around ~15 ex