[2.0]Klino's 79% Pierce Kinetic Blast CoC

Hello and Welcome to the guide for my 79% pierce Kinetic Blast CoC build!

Do you enjoy fast clearspeed and spending tens of thousands of Chromatics to get the right colours? Then this might just be the build for you. This is my approach to a CoC wander that makes use of the unique chest Lioneye's Vision to get a 7L Cast on Crit setup with 79% pierce. Please keep in mind that this guide is still a work in progress, I will be adding a more affordable version of the build which only uses 5 offcolours when I find the time.



Pros

- extremely high clearspeed thanks to 3 spells and 79% pierce
- 16k+ armour, 14k+ evasion (with flasks up)
- 100% flask uptime
- 95% crit Kinetic Blast
- can do most map mods
- reflect proof
- easy Atziri

Cons

- hard on the GPU
- expensive (2.4k chromes for 5 offcolours, 53.7k chromes for 6 offcolours on average)
- wouldn't recommend for hc without modifications to the tree

Stats

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Defence without flasks:



Defence with flasks:



Offence with 7 Power Charges, Bloodrage and 3 Frenzy Charges:





Videos

Spoiler

Waterways clear (easy mods)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km_VYhObxTw

Courtyard clear (98% added fire damage, crit + crit multi)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeNcxMLdp9s

Sloppy Atziri Run:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv3tn3tScI0



Tree

Spoiler

My current Tree at lvl 92:

http://poeurl.com/zx4ak7P

Notes: It's always possible to get more life in the scion life wheel, I'm currently feeling reasonably safe with 4.4k life, also one of my jewels doesn't have a life roll yet. If I decide to level up some more I will put the points either in life or spend three points for another jewel slot.


My Gear at Level 92

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Flasks:



Jewels:

Still trying to get jewels with es on hit, life and damage/attack speed, didn't get lucky with the exalts.






Build Explanation

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The centre piece of the build: Lioneye's Vision

The core item of this build is a 6L Lioneye's Vision with 4 blue and 2 green sockets. This is not an easy item to get because it's a high strength base (160) which means it's extremely difficult to roll said colours. In numbers this means it takes an average of 53.761 Chromatic Orbs using Vorici's "1G2B" method or 152.566 Chromatics without Vorici. I got very lucky and hit the desired result in about 150 Chromatics when I was trying to get 5 offcolours for a physical wander build. I will discuss a more affordable version of the build that only requires 5 offcolours which can be achieved with the use of about 2.400 Chromatics on average (not done yet).
So why use this chest over something like Voll's Protector? Voll's Protector is the go to choice for Cast on Crit builds, since it grants a power charge whenever you deal a critical strike. However as a drawback it offers almost no defensive stats. Lioneye's vision on the other hand offers up to 100 life and 1500 armour but we could get that on any old rare. What makes this chest so amazing is "Socketed Gems are Supported by level 15 Pierce". This means we effectively get a 7-Link for our Cast on Crit setup. Although usually not worth a gem slot, Pierce is an excellent support Gem for our main attack Kinetic Blast and the linked projectile spells. KB benefits massively from pierce because whenever the projectile pierces an enemy it explodes and the secondary explosions can all trigger Cast on Crit. The projectile spells do not show the same behaviour. They only explode when they DON'T pierce or when they hit an obstacle. This means going for 100% pierce is suboptimal because we want some of the projectiles to explode inside a pack of mobs. With my current setup I reach 79% pierce (54% from the chest, another 15% from the unique jewel Poacher's Aim). With piercing spells we can however hit more than one pack of monsters with a single volley of spells which increases our clearspeed. This allows for a playstyle where you shoot once, pop a quicksilver and follow the barrage of projectiles wrecking everything in their path.

Offence

Offensively this build is very well equipped, especially the AoE damage is insane. Most mobs don't stand a chance against the power of three spells with GMP cast simultaneously multiple times a second. The main attack setup is Kinetic Blast - Cast on Crit - GMP - Pierce - Arctic Breath - Fireball - Ice Spear. I've tried a lot of different spells and came to the conclusion that these work best. All three are projectiles that benefit from Pierce, GMP and projectile damage nodes. Ice Spear's first form has a natural 100% chance to pierce already, the second form however benefits fully. So the playstyle against groups of monsters is pretty simple: right click, everything dies, run to the next pack. With seven Power Charges up I'm crit capped with Kinetic Blast and Ice Spear, Fireball and Arctic Breath are at 84% and 70% crit respectively (before Assassin's Mark). In addition to the Power Charges I also run Bloodrage for attack speed and Frenzy Charges. For most maps I run Vaal Haste, which has close to 100% uptime depending on mob density even without the use of Chill of Corruption.
Kinetic Blast naturally struggles against single targets unless there is a wall behind the boss. If there is a wall the overlapping secondary explosions all proc Cast on Crit and you're golden. Even after the removal of shotgunning the damage is more than enough to kill most map bosses in seconds. For cases where there is no wall to abuse we need a single target setup. I use Barrage linked to Glacial Cascade, Freezing Pulse and Power Charge on Critical in gloves with a "Socketed Gems are Supported by level 12 Cast on Crit" corruption. If you don't have access to these gloves a simple 4L with Barrage - GC - PCoC - CoC is also possible albeit much weaker.

Defences aka dealing with physical damage and reflect

This build utilizes several defensive concepts, while not exactly tanky by HC standards it's still pretty tanky for a CoC build. A certain level of gear is required to get away with as little life on the tree as I'm using but you can always take more life nodes from the scion life wheel. Unlike most other CoC builds I do not take Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics. Acrobatics is a great Keystone but has the severe drawback of 50% less armour and energy shield as well as 30% less chance to block. Because Lioneye's Vision already provides us with 1.5k armour it would be a waste to cut that in half and also lower the effect of Granite Flasks. It also cuts our mana pool in half and there are very few slots from which we can get ES in the first place.
Instead of going for Acrobatics I chose to make use of Flasks with the Surgeon's prefix to boost the already existing defences. With the witch flask nodes and the armour and evasion from gear I reach 16k armour and 14k evasion when I pop a Surgeon's Granite Flask of Iron Skin and a Surgeon's Jade Flask of Reflexes. These flasks have 100% uptime because I crit all the time. The third defensive flask I use is Taste of Hate because it's absolutely broken. With the slightly overtuned physical damage in maps these days this seems way safer than an evasion + dodge approach. Instead of Taste of Hate any Surgeon's Sapphire Flask will do.
Besides armour, evasion and 22% block, life leech with Vaal Pact is important to stay alive. I do not use a life leech gem (for obvious reasons), instead I specced into Whispers of Doom to get an additional curse. This allows me to curse Monsters with Assassin's Mark and Warlord's Mark. Warlord's Mark grants 2% life leech as well as endurance charges on kill. To apply the curse I use a lvl 1 Cast when Damage taken with lvl 5 Warlord's Mark and lvl 3 Immortal Call. A lvl 3 Immortal Call has a very short duration, so don't expect any miracles but it has saved me from rapid successive hits several times. I use a lvl 1 CwDT to make sure that it procs as often as possible and especially as soon as I take damage from reflect.
Even though reflect was nerfed in 2.0 it's still dangerous when you deal a lot of damage. Without precautions this build easily oneshots itself to a single reflect rare. To counter this I use Purity of Ice and Purity of Fire and aim for close to 100% uptime on my Sapphire Flask. With the flask nodes this brings me up to 92% cold resist and makes reflect rares a non issue. Reflect maps are a bit more tricky. While it's possible to do them I would advise to roll over ele reflect. You definitely need to switch to a Saffell's Frame and bring a Surgeon's Sapphire and Surgeon's Ruby flask for 96% cold and fire resistance at all times.
For harder maps I usually swap Vaal Haste for Vaal Grace to get another layer of defence with 34% dodge and spell dodge.
Last but not least one of the biggest defensive boosts for this build is the use of Arctic Breath and Ice Spear. Most mobs will be frozen if they don't die immediately, Arctic Breath leaves a trail of chilled ground which slows all enemies caught in the area of effect.

Mana Sustain and Auras

I reserve 100% of my mana with Herald of Thunder, Herald of Ice, Purity of Fire and Purity of Ice. This leaves no mana to actually use for attacks, which is why I have specced into Eldritch Battery and use three jewels with 2-3 Energy Shield gained for each enemy hit. I have around 220 ES which is enough to sustain KB's mana cost of 38 against groups of monsters or Barrage's 9 mana cost against single targets.
To be able to run two Heralds and two Purities, I have the Purities linked to a level 3 Enlighten and make use of the Sovereignty Aura cluster which gives another 14% reduced mana reservation. This means a mana reservation of 28% for each of the Purities and 22% for each of the Heralds for a combined 100%. It's possible to ditch Enlighten and Purity of Fire for Arctic Armour which would only require 12% reduced mana from the tree for 97% reservation (you would still have to spend the four points for Sovereignty though, Charisma costs the same but only gives 6% aura effectiveness instead of 10%).

Power Charge Generation

Because I do not use Voll's Protector I rely on Assassin's Mark to generate Power Charges. I use a 4L Curse on Hit setup where both heralds are linked to CoH + Assassin's Mark, this assures 100% charge uptime after the first few mobs. Assassin's Mark also provides additional crit chance and crit damage, which further boosts the damage output. Against bosses I use Power Charge on Critical in my single target setup.

Map Mods

The build can do most map mods but some are more comfortable than others.
As I mentioned above, ele reflect maps are doable but dangerous. Besides that the most dangerous mod is -max resists, make sure to keep your resistance flasks up. The combination of -max and ele reflect is not possible for this build, especially in higher maps where you can get -15 max and 18% ele reflect you will oneshot yourself on the first pack. Bloodmagic is doable in theory but it's extremely rare and not worth doing imo. I'm not overcapped on resists so for ele weakness maps I have to switch to another shield with more resists or sub in a Purity of Elements. No regen maps don't affect this build at all. While many crit builds struggle with Enfeeble maps I haven't run into any problems. For curse immune maps simply swap one of the spells for PCoC and you're good to go, you have to be careful against reflect though because there is no leech from Warlord's Mark. This means maps with ele reflect + curse immune are not recommended.


Gem Setup

Spoiler


Chest: Kinetic Blast - GMP - Cast on Crit - Arctic Breath - Fireball - Ice Spear - (Pierce)

Helmet: Blood Rage - Vaal Haste/Grace - Increased Duration - Ice Golem

Gloves: Barrage - Cast on Crit (Corruption) - PCoC - Glacial Cascade - Freezing Pulse

Boots: Herald of Ice - Herald of Thunder - Curse on Hit - Assassin's Mark

Weapon: Purity of Ice - Purity of Fire - Enlighten

Shield: Cast when Damage Taken (lvl 1) - Warlord's Mark (lvl 5) - Immortal Call (lvl 3)


Gear Progression

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Coming soon


Bandits

Spoiler

Normal: Oak
Cruel: Skill point
Merciless: Alira


5 offcolour Version

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Coming soon


Atziri

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I didn't make this character with Atziri in mind but the build can do it pretty easily. As I mentioned above Kinetic Blast has some issues when it comes to single target. We can however circumvent this problem by switching out some gems to get a 6L single target setup (pierce doesn't do anything for single target). For the bosses we simply put the Barrage setup into the chest and the KB setup into the gloves:

Single Target:

Barrage - PCoC - CoC - Glacial Cascade - Freezing Pulse - Arctic Breath - (Pierce)

Instead of Arctic Breath you can use pretty much any spell you like, for example Ball Lightning.

AoE:

KB - CoC - Fireball - Ice Spear/Arctic Breath

The damage is still more than enough to comfortably clear the trash.

Equipment and Flasks:

For Vaals and Trio you can use the regular gear and flasks

We don't have spell dodge so I would recommend to switch to Saffell's Frame for the Atziri fight to get at least some spell block and additional max resists.
For flasks you want to use a Surgeon's Ruby Flask and a Surgeon's Topaz Flask instead of your Sapphire and Granite. You can also use a Rumi's or a second Health Flask instead of your Jade Flask. Atziri reflects curses, so ideally one of the flasks should have the 'of Warding' suffix for permanent curse immunity. I didn't have one of these flasks for the video so I simply got rid of the curses.

The Bosses:

Double Vaals

Really easy fight, they shouldn't give you much trouble. You should be able to kill them pretty quickly so you can simply kill them one by one. If you want to be on the safe side bring one of them close to death, then kill the second one and continue to finish the first one.

Trio

Kill order is Titty Bitch - Double Striker - Cycloner.

Again, they should die pretty quickly. Make sure to keep your flasks up and and avoid the chaos degen on the ground.

Atziri

Switch to Saffell's Frame and your Ruby, Topaz and Rumi's. Remember to get rid of your curses if you don't have a curse immunity flask. You don't need Purity of Ice in this fight but switching to Purity of Lightning would require some recolouring and to be honest isn't really necessary.
If you have done Atziri before and know the mechanics the fight should be pretty simple: Dodge the double Flameblasts and Stormcalls and burst her down. I was able to tank the single Flameblasts with 96% fire res but it can be sketchy at times.
Once she enters split phase make sure your flasks are up and avoid the mirror. You will die instantly if you attack the mirror.
If she goes into the healing phase use your AoE setup to kill the adds.



Feedback/improvements welcome!
Last edited by klinolol on Sep 24, 2015, 10:40:08 AM
*reserved*
Probability of getting 6 off on your chest = 1 in ~54k.....

Good Luck!
IGN - Customs
#1 Duelist Season 4
I'm ashamed to admit but, I saw your video and copied the skill tree, but adapted it to a witch, I'm running a 3 blue 1 red 2 green lioneyes, but in the red area I've put iron will, I just don't have enough currency to try for a 2/4 armor.

Thanks for sharing this build though, I'm having a lot of fun
You really shouldn't say the build has 16k armor if it needs flasks up for that to be true.
Cast on Crit too much fun.
"
You really shouldn't say the build has 16k armor if it needs flasks up for that to be true.


Crit builds get 100% flask uptime due to Surgeon's prefix on flasks. A note of that would be ok I guess. Most the community is used to and aware of this while looking at crit build stats by now I think,so no biggie. Nice Build,and gl on repeating those colors on that armor!!
Last edited by MidWest on Sep 10, 2015, 9:37:35 PM
I would drop the Templar powercharge (50%critchancefor 3points meh) and get the Shadow frenzy charge + a life node or 3 lifenodes or 3x crit multi which is better in my opinion. The rest seems legit
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi-NL9JevOxF-6W3n-a7o-w

My Youtube channel with builds, unique and mechanic discussions etc
hi I see you using barrage/glacial cascade in the YouTube video but you did not have them on skill bar how did you manage to cast them I am new to the game so I am just wondering how that was possible thanks also I manage to get 4 blue sockets/1 green what gem is best to miss out on for now till I can afford to get it correct thanks great build I am trying to follow it :)
Last edited by Pachacuti on Sep 11, 2015, 2:44:29 AM
"
Pachacuti wrote:
hi I see you using barrage/glacial cascade in the YouTube video but you did not have them on skill bar how did you manage to cast them I am new to the game so I am just wondering how that was possible thanks great build I am trying to follow it :)


His barrage skill is on his middle mouse button (at least in the first video), so top middle slot. The trick with the Cast on Crit gem is that you only have the Attack Skill (barrage) on your skillbar. You use it, then every time it crits, the linked Spells (glacial cascade, and I believe fireball) are automatically fired in the direction that you're looking - a.k.a huge spell fireworks extravaganza!
Ah thanks a lot so I guess I need those gloves then :)
Last edited by Pachacuti on Sep 11, 2015, 2:46:23 AM

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