Build help? - Shadow CI CoC Discharge

I haven't played in awhile, thought I'd try and make a build myself.

Lightning strike -> CoC -> Discharge

The idea is to spam lightning to build shock stacks while critting with power charged Discharge.

I've hit a wall though in terms of damage/survivability, I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but so far I'm stuck at farming Merciless Dried Lakes and have not tried to do maps yet because it's hard enough to clear Dried Lakes as it is.

Build

Current gear

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Cool build! Lots of fresh and interesting ideas in this one, some which work greatly, some which probably don't. Here's a few thoughts:

Power Charges:
Your power charge generation seems to be very inconsistent. A chance on crit and a low chance on hit makes using Malachai's Loop pretty dangerous because you could accidentally shock yourself. Not sure if that happens to you, i'll let you be the judge of that. Have you tried using the Romira's Banquet ring for a guaranteed charge on non-crit? This would allow you to get rid of Malachai's loop and use a good rare shield instead. But what you truly want as a Coc Discharge character is a 6-link Voll's Protector. But I can imagine that could be very expensive.

Skill Tree:
A bit messy, some things don't make sense to me.
-Arcing Blows only affects weapon damage, its bad for spell-based builds.
-You really don't need shock chance/duration if you are a crit based build
-Practical Application prevents stuns while casting. CoC doesn't count, so that is useless for you.
-Too much increased damage! Stacking too much increased damage is not beneficial because it sees massive diminishing returns! Those nodes are better spent on defenses or more crit!
-Block is not worth investing in unless you go hard.
-Why not go for a second curse? Instead of self-casting them, you could use Orb of Storms with Curse on Hit to apply multiple at the same time constantly while killing stuff.
-Ascendancy: I think you may have picked the wrong Ascendancy for what you are trying to do. Assassin/Elementalist/Occultist would probably be better picks!

Auras:
The aura's in your helmet are Discipline and Purity of Elements. Discipline is great, but normally you want to have enough resistances on your tree/gear to be capped so you can use some other reservation ability like blasphemy curses or heralds instead of Purity of Elements. Two good ones for you are Arctic Armour, Herald of Thunder or Enfeeble on Blasphemy support.

Also Reduced Mana support doesn't affect auras anymore, you will need a leveled Enlighten gem to reduce reservation now.

Main Skill
The main reason why your damage is not keeping up is because your discharge has no damage supports. Once you get a better source of Power Charges you can at least swap PCoC out for something better. Maybe Multistrike too. A damage support can often add bout 50% more damage, so 2 of them would more than double your damage output. You could also swap out Life Leech if you use Warlords Mark.

Curses:
I say get yourself a Curse on Hit setup, selfcasting curses was bad 5 years ago and it still is bad now. Use Orb of Storms + Curse on Hit + Curse 1 + Curse 2 (you really do want that second curse, believe me). Good Choices for curses are Enfeeble for more survivability, Warlords Mark for more Leech, Assassins Mark for more Crit or Conductivity for more damage.

Gear:
I don't know how much disposable wealth you have but your gear could use some upgrading. Uniques in every slot is not the way to go since you will need your resists/stats from somewhere. A good rare helmet with resistances would be a good first upgrade.
The right side ring is not great. Would be good to swap that one out for Romira's Banquet.
Any amulet base would be better than gold. A Citrine Amulet would help you with both str and dex requirements alowing you to free up some skilltree nodes. Get one with resists and energy shield and you should be sorted on that front.
Rainbowstrides are great for the cost and are hard to upgrade.
Gloves... I will leave this up to you but I myself would use rare gloves instead, the increased mana cost is brutal and it has no resistances.
A dagger with a higher base crit and attack speed would probably be better than just a Vagan's dagger.

One final thought; It is very hard to make a crit and es build work on a budget, and honestly I am not an expert on that front. Try the build Guide section on this forum for some more insights: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-forum/303

PS: How long has it been since you last played? Reduced mana hasn't affected reservation for over a year now, and shock stacks are also a thing of the past. Anyway, welcome back and I hope you enjoy your time!

Wow, thanks so much for the amazing reply!

I haven't played since Ambush (2014), so hearing about Reduced Mana and Shock changes are a big (and sad) surprise for me. I'll go back to the drawing board with the skill tree as well.

I do have a Voll's Protector in stash, but it's not yet 6L.


For dagger, I also have a Bino's, but I changed it out for a Vagan's due to having 28% accuracy. Should I stick with the Bino's?


What are your thoughts on this skill tree? Please let me know how else to improve it.

Thank you for all of the advice, I'm looking forward to improving my character!!

Yeah I would keep using the Vagan's Dagger for know, but if you can spare the currency you could Regal it (hoping for Crit or Attack Speed) and mastercraft Attack speed or Crit on it using Vagans crafting bench. That will improve the weapon alot!

Have you tried some other skills to proc CoC? Many people use Cyclone because it overlaps with the function of Discharge and doesn't require a support gem to be effective at it. Could also try Molten Strike or Spectral Throw! If you do the mission in the Library in act 3 you can buy any Quest Reward Skill Gem in the game from Siosa, great for experimenting!

If it were up to me I would use the Voll's Protector as soon as it got 5l, use Cyclone with CoC, Discharge, Increased Critical Strikes and a damage support such as Controlled Destruction, Elemental Focus or Concentrated Effect, depending on personal preference.

Skill tree is looking better, picking Assassin is a good choice. It will increase your damage output and make Crits more reliable.
Im not sure if this was an accident but taking Eldritch Battery with Chaos Innoculation will mean your health pool is 1 without any energy shield, so thats probably not such a good idea :P
Jewel nodes are often worth 2 skillpoints but 3 points is stretching it unless you have amazing jewels or your build depends on them.
You still have some shock chance and duration nodes at the top of the tree, the increased damage alone isn't really worth it.
Power Charge duration is kind of pointless because you are going to consume them for Discharge, might as well take 10 int instead.
Curse Duration is not really a valuable stat to have, spend an extra point and get that lovely 10% Curse Effect instead!

With these changes and some other minor ones your tree would start to look something like this.

This is around level 80 dependent on bandit rewards, very achievable for most builds. Any more nodes you get could be put towards Spell Crit Multiplier, Damage or Energy Shield!