Freezing Pulse CoC with Molten Strike (now with video)

So I've been playing this character for most of the league, and am now pretty satisfied that the build is worth sharing with people.

As far as melee CoC is concerned, Molten Strike is far superior to any alternative because it produces so many individual hits that can proc casts, since the fireballs are asynchronous (they travel at different speeds, unlike the projectiles from Lightning Strike or Spectral Throw).

Beyond choosing Molten Strike, I've made some unusual choices in how to gear the character. I'll explain the reasoning further down.

Gear


Rationale
After playing a hard-hitting CoC ranger in the last league and being guaranteed to oneshot myself against ele ref anything, I wanted to make sure to focus on survivability and ref immunity. This focus guided my choices in the following ways:

1) Using a high crit life-on-hit claw instead of a dagger, as would be typical in a standard CoC setup. Because I'm generating tons of tiny hits all the time, my effective regen rate is quite high, even if I hit an unlucky streak and go a long time without proccing any casts.

2) Redundant mitigation. Instead of focusing on any one defensive approach, I diversified to ensure that each time I'm about to get hit, that hit has to go through multiple hit checks. With Grace and Tempest Shield, I've got 40% evade (before flasks), 53%/67% block(/spell block), and 40%/45% dodge(/spell dodge).

3) Taking Freezing Pulse over something like Flame Surge, which packs a lot more of a wallop, means that the damage I take from reflect is much easier to partially mitigate (since it comes in lots of little instances of damage) and doesn't trigger block animations (since all the individual hits blocked are quite small). Also, with Freezing Pulse's high base crit rate, most non-unique mobs are frozen when in melee range. Also also, because I'm running a death-of-a-thousand-pinpricks build, it benefits a lot from Herald of Ice.
Playstyle
The playstyle is pretty straightforward -- get into groups of mobs and MS at them until they're all dead, which tends to happen really quickly. The more mobs in the pack, the more procs you get (since each of the little balls has an aoe component, so it has lots of chances to proc); the closer they are to you, the faster they die (because Freezing Pulse shotguns with GMP/LMP).

While leveling, I used Lightning Warp + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark + Elemental Weakness with a Doedre's Damning. I've since had to switch it out for a resist ring*, so I now use Lightning Warp + Curse on Hit + Assassin's Mark for in-combat movement and Whirling Blades + Faster Attacks for general movement. Lightning Warp is great for in-combat movement because it can move you while you're still attacking -- that is, you can cast Warp into a group, then start swinging wherever you are, and you'll land with 2 of your free swings from Multistrike still in the queue. It also has a more predictable/reliable/useful aoe for purposes of Curse on Hit.

*"If you're hurting for resists, why not switch the Atziri's Step for a Rainbowstride?", you ask? Because I'm already very close to the cap for spell block -- I'd get more resists out of Rainbowstride, obviously, but I'd be trading 15% spell dodge for only 8% spell block.
Conclusion
The short of it is that I'm reflect immune, even in ele reflect maps, and can facetank anything that can't oneshot me (including, say, Palace Dom's lightning projectile stream). The big weaknesses are:

1) It requires a 6L (or 5L Voll's) to work properly, unless maybe you have a Romira's Banquet. I wore a Tabula Rasa for ages.

2) I'm lower on life than I'd like to be, so I'm vulnerable to occasional oneshots from some heavy hitters (say, Dom's lightning punch). In an ideal world, I'd be wearing a 6L Belly of the Beast or Lightning Coil to help mitigate this issue, but I can't afford them at the moment.


Video here. Defenses screenshot here.
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"And 'Do what thou willst' shall be the whole of the law." -- Aleister Crowley
"First, love; then, do what thou willst." -- St. Augustine
"Whatever is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Last edited by SinisterDexter on Sep 29, 2014, 6:28:02 AM
You should post a video as it looks pretty cool in action. What is your life though? I see why you get one shot occasionally. I think if you had more life you would never die :) If it was me I would probably drop True Striker and Harrier and go into the Ranger start area through Precise Interception for more hp/ev/block... And pick up those hp/ev nodes near acro. Something like this:

That's not a bad idea. I'm at 3200 life currently, so it's definitely the area where I need the most work.

Dropping the True Strike cluster would mean losing about 6.8% crit chance, though, which is a lot -- I'd be going from ~33% crit before charges to ~26%.

Your tree also drops a bunch of block from the Wall of Thorns cluster -- which means that you only gain 1% block by getting the Weapon Artistry cluster, which costs 2 more points to get. In your tree, you've dropped both the True Strike cluster and the Throatseeker cluster, which will be a huge dps loss since Freezing Pulse has such a high base crit rate.

I think it'd be worthwhile to drop some block in favor of life, but to get to the life nodes you have in mind, I'd also have to drop a bunch of crit and crit multiplier.

You're definitely right that I should think about optimizing my tree, though. It's been locked in for so long that I haven't even thought about it in ages.
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"And 'Do what thou willst' shall be the whole of the law." -- Aleister Crowley
"First, love; then, do what thou willst." -- St. Augustine
"Whatever is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
As I think about it more, this is the tree that comes to mind -- not as much life as your initial suggestion, but also less crit loss and a good improvement to overall block (with Lazhwar and Rathpith, I can drop the spell block nodes from the witch area and get general block nodes).

Will have to try it out, but I think it'll be an improvement. Anyone have any thoughts, before I burn all my Regrets?
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"And 'Do what thou willst' shall be the whole of the law." -- Aleister Crowley
"First, love; then, do what thou willst." -- St. Augustine
"Whatever is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Looks good to me, I would get Heart of Oak though at some point. Another thought... If you don't need the mana, Written in Blood is more life for 4 points than Heart and Soul and +10 strength and bonus ES. Not sure how often you take hits but maybe your ES will recharge in between. How is your accuracy? Seems like you have a lot of accuracy% nodes but not much base accuracy except from dexterity. Might be able to drop like Acuity or some claw accuracy if you had a ring or two with +300 accuracy. Anyway just some ideas...

PS. Quality up that shield :)
Updated with video, defenses screenshot, and updated tree.
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"And 'Do what thou willst' shall be the whole of the law." -- Aleister Crowley
"First, love; then, do what thou willst." -- St. Augustine
"Whatever is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Thanks for sharing the build, I have been planning a claw build for a witch. Using some kind of freeze mechanic seems to make it tanky.
I've made some changes since last posting in this thread, most notably that I switched to a dagger*, trading the life on hit for higher crit and the spell damage boost. Also some minor gear adjustments, dropped some life from my helm to switch to a Rat's Nest, etc. Overall, it continues to be both effective and tanky.

One other change I made was swapping the Increased Duration from my CWDT link for Warlord's Mark (Poacher's Mark would work too, depending on your slot colors and whether you have enough accuracy for consistent crit confirms), which has been really helpful in offsetting the loss of the claw's life on hit. As a result, I can comfortably facetank the Crematorium boss and Palace Dom (except for the lightning punch), and everything but the Flameblast on the Death and Taxes boss.

The downside to using a freeze mechanic is that it means you have to have your PCoC on your attack link. If I were running, say, Arc + Flame Surge, I'd be less tanky (and more vulnerable to reflect) but I'd be able to run a CWDT + Freezing Pulse + Ice Spear + PCoC link to maintain charges. Especially if I had Iron Reflexes instead of Acrobatics. Just something to consider.


*
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"And 'Do what thou willst' shall be the whole of the law." -- Aleister Crowley
"First, love; then, do what thou willst." -- St. Augustine
"Whatever is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Last edited by SinisterDexter on Oct 26, 2014, 6:10:34 AM

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