To coc or not to coc - that is the question

From Q&A part 1:

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Chris wrote:

Any spoilers/further hints about the CoC change Chris hinted at? :)

The primary motivation of changing how Cast on Crit works is performance. As you know, it causes vast quantities of spells to trigger, and can bring graphics cards to their knees. While we're working on improving performance in many ways, we're never going to be able to make Cast on Crit run at full speed as long as it works like this. There are also balance concerns with the gem in its current form, so we're probably going to make some big changes to how it functions. Our goal is for it to still be a powerful option, though.

According to that i wouldn't be too much worried about the futur of CoC :)
Go for it for sure !

They're just gonna nerf proc rate which is like 70% now to something like 50%. Still decent. Don't worry about it.

if they nerf it badly then now is the time to enjoy it while you can. If they don't nerf it badly then it doesn't matter either way.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

They're just gonna nerf proc rate which is like 70% now to something like 50%. Still decent. Don't worry about it.

They did that before and it isn't a major change to the gem function, my bet is on introducing a 'one cast per skill use' rule with 100% chance. Of course, not because I have any insight to the way they think over there, it's something I would do and just because I would enjoy, as a certain 80s action hero would put it, to "Crush my enemies, see them driven before me and hear the lamentations of their women".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UTBlatoJXA&list=PLEeySHzFZgduI1ma8WR21xSsCStvZTYrJ&index=15

Kidding, I'd do it because it would be almost perfectly balanced against CoMK that way and I think trigger setups should be a niche.

Well I for one don't think COC is OP. It's decent but plenty of self cast/self attack are competitive these days. Basically ppl who think it OP live in the past so nerf like that would wreck it.

Why would you settle for a half ass cast (with fewer elemental boosts since you have to invest in crit, accuracy or use low dps vegans) when you can cast a real spell just as fast with full support no accuracy and use a real weapon?

Why would you do anything other than poison bladefall trappers then?

Not saying it's OP when compared to truly broken shit but I've played CoMK a lot and the difference between the two is so big it isn't even funny. Ideally, triggered spells should be a supplement to your attack, which is the case with CoMK builds that have to do good damage with both attacks and spells while CoC is just a caster that uses attack speed.

That said, attack/spell setups are awkward, as your selection of supports that work on both is fairly limited and your damage support choice is often suboptimal. Also, the additional dealbreaker is that a 6L trigger setup with main skill, trigger + spell and three suboptimal damage supports needs to compete with a full set of five optimized supports. So, simple number comparison says that the spell needs to do enough damage to account for two lost supports + inferior choices on three remaining ones + harder passive damage scaling. That's a tall order and the reason CoMK was never exactly popular.

What would you say if CoMK and CoC also got detached from your attack skill?

well I enjoy classic builds.

Every league i try to make a really nice really quick FP crit witch or something ;)

When it comes to coc, I always find that they are so squishy and generally class cannon in nature.

I respect my lvl 71 shadow (again) to coc bow and well, apart from not leeching any life or mana for some reason its pretty much a glass cannon as usual.

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Personally I don't enjoy "No archetype" builds, and coc is one of them.
What you do when playing coc is stacking broken mechanics and different spells.

I'd rather play boring caster, bowman, or axeman.

Something like that, and a warrior-mage is also an archetype of sorts, an archetype that CoMK plays straight. CoC always felt more like an exploit that somehow remained in the game.

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Miazga wrote:

When it comes to coc, I always find that they are so squishy and generally class cannon in nature.

I think that could apply to any build. I'm up to Lv 97 with my own homebrew Pathfinder CoC build and it is anything but squishy...but that's because I had to keep layering my defenses to survive all of the mapping required for getting higher levels. I don't do poison or discharge either.

I'm concerned about the upcoming changes to CoC...but at the same time I'd welcome it to not slow my screen down. Even with my new beastly gaming machine it will still lock things up occasionally and I avoid certain spells as they really slow things down. And it makes party play crappy for others, but since I play solo 95% of the time (100% when grinding) that's not a big concern for me.

But I've had a few deaths and many recent close calls due to the strain it puts on my graphics card (which is a decent, modern one). Shrines in particular will always lock up my screen for a bit and RIPing at my level is hours of work down the drain, which sucks.

So I'm going to remain positive and hope the balance/nerf isn't too horrible. I am curious about what they are going to do exactly...from the last State of Exile poscast it sounds like balancing Discharge with CoC and performance issues are their main concerns...but again, we'll see.