[2.5] Spectral Throw CI Raider

- Rapid generation of Power and Endurance Charges
- Surprisingly tanky
- CI - no need for life flasks
- Vaal Pact / Ghost Reaver
- Easy 7K ES, 3K Evasion, plus numerous other defenses

- Obtaining Green Sockets on high level ES chest is enormously difficult/expensive and not worth the currency.
- Needs an expensive Unique
- Needs an expensive 1h weapon
- Needs more damage
- Slow clearing
- Sucks up a lot of chromes!

This section solely relates to gear. For details about gems please see the Links section below.

Mandatory Items

Voll's Devotion - probably the most expensive part of this build
Romira's Banquet

These two items synergise perfectly together and work exceedingly well with Spectral Throw. Romira's ensures that each time you don't crit, you gain a Power Charge until inevitably you do Crit. As soon as you Crit you loose all your Power charges which immediately grants you up to three Endurance Charges. Thanks to Spectral Throw and the amount of projectiles we have on the screen continually striking enemies, we invariably have a constant cycle of Power and Endurance charges.

Additionally the increased Accuracy on Romira's is very helpful to us.

Beneficial Items

Abyssus

Normally I avoid this helmet like the plague due to the risk associated with the increased physical damage taken, however with this build and the constant Endurance Charges granting at least 12% physical damage reduction the risk becomes more manageable. Additionally, with Fortify constantly up we have an extra 20% reduction in damage so combined that's 32% reduction, which almost completely offsets the downside to this helm.

On the plus side, everything else here is great for our build. The flat physical damage makes a massive difference to our damage output. The increase to all attributes helps with our Strength and Intelligence needs for certain gems, and the Crit Multi adds a little extra to our Shield Charge damage which is nice.

I'm almost tempted to put this item into the Mandatory section, but if we can solve our damage output problem we could consider some alternatives.

All other Items

Weapon
Ideally you want a good rare dagger here with the lot:
- High physical damage, both flat and percentage
- High attack speed
- Crit chance
- Crit multi
- Accuracy would be perfect, but this is the last stat you need.

As an alternate Bino's will also work well in the build. Phys damage is good, Crit is exceptional. The Attack speed is not really where we want it and I don't know that the Poison really adds much to the build.

Shield
Anything with high ES. This build does however benefit from both Armour and Evasion so keep an eye open for good hybrid shields. The first priority though is ES. A couple of resists come in handy too as we're sacrificing two jewel slots

Body Armour
Ideally what you would want is a high pure ES however, if you go down this path make sure you also have a giant pile of Chromatic Orbs to increase your chances of rolling the colours you need. For a 5 link you need to roll 4 off colours and for a 6 link you'll be rolling 5 off colours. I burned through hundreds of the bloody things and still didn't get what I needed.

The smart/budget conscious player will instead opt for a hybrid EV/AS chest, typically a Carnal Armour with the highest ES available. Most of our gems in the chest are going to be green so I strongly advise against a pure or even hybrid Strength chest.

Gloves
You want pure ES here, as high as you can get to make up for the chest. Additionally, increased Attack Speed and Increased Accuracy are your other requirements. Resists are a nice bonus.

Boots
Pure ES again as per the gloves. Try and get as much resistance as possible here too. You really don't need Movement Speed here.

Belt
Rustic Sash is ideal as the increased Phys helps our build. Again look for lots of resistance and as a bonus, high ES and/or armour. Increased elemental damage with weapons is also a great bonus although anything to do with flasks is always nice.

Ring
Use this slot to make up for other shortfalls.
- Flat physical damage (a Steel Ring would be perfect for this)
- Accuracy
- Flat ES
- Resists

Flasks

Budget range:
Whatever usual flasks you would like to take care of the usual bleeding, freeze, shock etc. I highly recommend Surgeon's flasks because we crit often. Also for quality of life I use a Divine Mana flask for my remove bleeding affix. Some might consider this a waste of a flask slot but if you come across a large pack of Corrupted monsters, you have so many projectiles in the air at once you could drain a different flask and leave yourself dry, or rather, exsanguinated.

I'm also putting Atziri's Promise into this section. You should be able to pick up a reasonable roll for about 1c and it's a great quality of life benefit for boss fights, tanky blue mobs (I'm looking at you stone golems) and certain rares. You get two uses, extra damage and extra shield leech. Get one!

Wealthy range:
The usual toys go here - Vinktar and Taste of Hate.

What about....

Rat's Nest

Increased Attack Speed is great, and so is the increased Crit. Aside from that, I don't think it has enough else going for it.

Alpha's Howl

This has been my favourite CI helm of late. +2 Aura works wonders with Discipline and the 8% reduced Mana Reservation could allow us to squeeze in something else (perhaps Herald of Ice or Arctic Armour). Cannot be Frozen is also awesome, particularly as a mostly ES build as it free's up another flask slot.

Cospri's Will

There's a lot to like here for our build. It will be a breeze to get the socket colours we want, the extra curse would be a big DPS boost for us and the poison cursed enemies is even more damage. However, there is no ES here and this is an ES build. I would only consider this chest if we had an amazing ES helmet and even then, I don't know if it would be worth it.

Pure ES rare chest
If you can afford the chromes or buy one already with the right coloured sockets, then this is the superior option and will significantly increase your survivability!

Pure ES rare helm
The extra ES is certainly highly desirable but I would only choose this option if we can resolve the damage issue. Even then, I think I'd strongly consider Alpha's Howl first.

My Current Gear

6L (in order of importance)
Spectral Throw - Physical Projectile Attack Damage Support - Greater Multiple Projectiles Support - Life Leech - Added Chaos Damage - Faster Attacks

For Boss fights, substitute GMP with Slower Projectiles
Only do this if you have a 6 link though. With only a 5 link (that is, without Faster Attacks) your Spectral Throw will only reach about an arms length in front of your character. If you can handle being that close to a boss then go for it, but it's highly risky!

If you don't have a 6 link yet, then:
5L (in order of importance)
Spectral Throw - Physical Projectile Attack Damage Support - Greater Multiple Projectiles Support - Life Leech - Added Chaos Damage

You really need at least a 5 link.

4L
Cast When Damage Taken - Arctic Breath - Lesser Multiple Projectiles - Chain
(none of these are essential to the build. Feel free to substitute this group with anything else that you feel works for you or that you prefer to use)

4L
Blasphemy - Poacher's Mark - Discipline - Hatred
(Discipline and Hatred are here only because the gem slots are free. Only Blasphemy and Poacher's Mark need to be linked, the others gain nothing from being linked or unlinked. Currently we do not have enough mana to run Poachers Mark plus Discipline and Hatred so you need to choose one depending on whether you want more damage or more defence. Personally I prioritised Hatred because the build really needs the extra damage)

Update: I've just run a test and you can forgo Poachers Mark and instead run both Discipline and Hatred. We still generate Frenzy Charges thanks to our Ascendancy although it's a little slower to get going. But maintaining them seems find. The loss of reducing enemy evasion doesn't appear to be a big deal although the loss of 100% increased flasks charges from enemies could be a big impact on someone that has a drinking problem. Perhaps just manually cursing Poacher's Mark is a better approach after all?

4L
Cast When Damage Taken - Increased Duration - Vortex - Decoy Totem
(Decoy Totem is the only thing here I would say is essential. It's mandatory for Boss fights to distract them from you and is well worth the slot. CWDT does NOT work for summoning Totems so it's really just there to take advantage of the Increased Duration and whatever defensive spell you like. I've found Vortex to be very helpful in slowing enemies to stop them hitting you as frequently, or giving you time to back off to safety. You can of course use something else such as Temporal Chains, but I recommend Vortex)
This combo of gems is best placed in your helm, because you will easily roll the right coloured sockets. Don't try rolling 3 red sockets in ES boots or gloves, you'll just burn through Chromes for no good reason.

3L
Shield Charge - Fortify - Faster Attacks
Shield Charge is just better than Whirling Blades I'm finding. AoE is better for Proc'ing Fortify, plus the damage is quite good and when it crits can actually take out mobs by itself. Plus the stun chance is pretty good and allows us to kill before being killed.

3L
Tempest Shield - Ice Golem - whatever
(Only the first two are needed for the build, you can add anything you like in the last slot. I'm just using it to level gems right now. In fact, even Tempest Shield is not absolutely necessary, but the extra block chance is just another small layer of defence to help us. Ice Golem is necessary for the Crit Chance and the Accuracy, both of which we sorely need.)


Options
There's a lot of things to play around with here. Firstly, the build would be helped by either/both Vaal Discipline and Vaal Haste.
Aside from that, if you have a method to apply a second curse (say, through a corrupted item) you might want to look at another gem set up to auto-curse enemies rather than have two CWDT set ups. Either Projectile Weakness or Frostbite would be good here. I'd probably go with Frostbite because with Projectile Weakness you run the risk of your returning projectiles knocking back enemies toward you, probably when you want some distance.


Complete list of all Gems by colour

Green Dexterity Gems

Spectral Throw
Physical Projectile Attack Damage Support
Greater Multiple Projectiles Support
Lesser Multiple Projectiles
Chain
Hatred
Faster Attacks x 2
Slower Projectiles (substitute)
Ice Golem
Poachers Mark

Red Strength Gems

Life Leech
Decoy Totem
Fortify
Increased Duration (available only to Marauder and Duelist by Quest, plus Templar to buy from Clarissa)
Shield Charge (available only to Marauder by Quest, plus Templar and Duelist to buy from Nessa)
Cast When Damage Taken x 2

Blue Intelligence Gems

Added Chaos Damage (drop only, cannot be obtained by Quest or Vendor)
Vortex (available only to Templar by Quest, plus Witch, Shadow and Scion to buy from Clarissa)
Discipline (available only to Witch by Quest, plus Templar, Shadow and Scion to buy from Clarissa)
Blasphemy
Tempest Shield (not available as a Quest reward, available to everyone except Ranger to buy from Yeena)
Arctic Breath (not available as a Quest reward, available to Templar, Witch, Shadow and Scion to buy from Clarissa)

Energy from Within in the usual place for Life to ES conversion.
Any suitable rare. You're looking for the following:
Increased Attack Speed
Increased Damage (but not Area Damage. ST is both a Projectile and an Attack, but it is not AoE)
Increased Projectile Damage
Increased Critical Multiplier

I tried out Steel Spirit, but I just didn't find it superior to a reasonable rare gem.

Normal - Kill All
Cruel - Kraityn
Merciless - Optional according to play style. Oak if you want more Defense, Kraityn if you want more Offense, Kill all if you prefer the skill point. Don't choose Alira, the extra Power charge is not worth it.

Raider
1 - Way of the Poacher (damage)
2 - Quartz Infusion (defense)
3 - Avatar of the Slaughter (damage)
4 - Avatar of the Veil (defense)

All the things we want for this build. Everything for Frenzy is more damage and faster killing. The remaining defensive options augment our overall protection.

Here's a summary of our defenses:
- High ES with Ghost Reaver/Vaal Pact to replenish
- Fortify 20% damage reduction from incoming hits
- Small amount of armour from Abyssus
- 12% Phys reduction from 3 Endurance charges
- Moderate amount of Evasion from Chest, Shield and tree
- 6% chance to dodge
- Immune to Elemental Status Ailments while Phasing
- 10% chance to Dodge Spell Damage while Phasing
- Shield giving us a chance to block attacks, with an extra 7% block thanks to the tree and Tempest Shield.

Altogether, these have been working really well for me.