Dagger cast on crit - need advice

Thinking of making a CoC dagger shadow with following setup:

spectral throw + GMP + life leech + cast on critical strike + fireball + arctic breath

Auras : purity of elements + grace + low lvl clarity(??)

Passives:

790% crit chance from passives
50% from maligaros
60-75% from rats nest

along with a 10% crit dagger

~92% crit chance w/o power charges

getting following from passives:
32% spell dmg
24% projectile dmg
12% area dmg
29% attack speed
206% increased max life
+214 str
+313 int
+63 dex

Will this be a good build for doing all content. Or I can skip some crit/dmg nodes and beeline to vaal pact?? (7 points away from build)
Defenses are absoultely horrible. Acrobatics is only few points away, so it might be worthwhile considering that. Also, accuracy is really low :\

Please suggest any improvements..

Check out the Barrage wonder wanderer and Welder threads. They are full of useful info on Shadow with CoC and the builds are much better in terms of defenses. The Barrage build is for wands but can easily be adapted to spectral throw with some point allocations. The Welder is basically the same build but with the dagger CoC adaptation.

My 5 cents (currently leveling such a shadow):
- level as a melee dual striker, it's the fastest
- somewhere around Dominus Cruel it gets tough, if you are having issues, join groups to reach Merciless and there you can continue to join public groups, farm Ledge and get the level you need to make the transition to CoC
- if you want to sustain spectral throw's mana cost, you need a higher level clarity with blood magic on life. You can run purity + grace or hatred on mana and, in lategame, even three of them at the same time

i had already checked the barrage build and checked the other one just now.

The welder build looks good but looks weak defensively (no vaal pact or acrobatics).
Without VP, how do u handle reflect with such low life? I tried with a 20/20 life gem but it does not help.

And I definitely don't wanna have EK coz that way the other spell needs to be an elemental dmg one, and I will be weak to both forms of reflect, which reduces the no. of map mods that will be doable.

I guess my planned passive tree has too many crit nodes. Will drop some of them and get life nodes instead. What would u say is a good amount crit % from passives?

"

nightblade157 wrote:

The welder build looks good but looks weak defensively (no vaal pact or acrobatics).
Without VP, how do u handle reflect with such low life? I tried with a 20/20 life gem but it does not help.

Acrobatics+Phase acrob. is nice to have, I've have it on my last char, but they are too far away. Not worth 10+ nodes definitely. My build is an effectively archer build, you avoid melee, you dodge most of missiles manually if you think they can hurt you (like chaos cobras) via whirling blades. Most of archers you can simply tank and kill where they stand because of high DPS. I must admit that Berek's Grasp helped my gameplay in becoming more smooth and me become more tanky. Now I enter the room, pop health and granite flask and just tank all incoming melee and ranged mobs.

With reflect, you deal with it carefully, killing it off bit by bit, without crit weakness curse. It works, you just have to be careful. I've killed hundred of reflect mobs and they have not kill me ;)

My point is, build success is determined by triangle of damage, damage mitigation and mobility. If you can erradicate large mob groups in short time, you don't need to rely that much on dodge /acrobatics.

"

And I definitely don't wanna have EK coz that way the other spell needs to be an elemental dmg one, and I will be weak to both forms of reflect, which reduces the no. of map mods that will be doable.

Actually, having your damage dispersed between spell and physical will only protect you from reflect. If you are worried about spell damage loss from +ele damage nodes, don't be, EK has base damage so high that it would still be au pair with rest of your spells.

The welder is a bit squishy for my taste too. But you can combine welder + wander wanderer like this.

You just change some of the global critical nodes with more effective specialized dagger nodes, everything else is the same. It has vaal pact, decent armor and decent life.

Actually, today I played around with this build and tested it for spectral throw dagger. Here are the conclusions:

1. Spectral throw dagger:
The dagger nodes, being specialized, give a bit more crit chance and more damage for the same point investment. This looks good on paper. However, when you test it, you quickly realize two things:
a) it absolutely demolishes packs
b) it SUCKS against high-hitpoint single targets. Spectral throw has an internal limit - it can't hit the same target more than once per 0.3 seconds. That means you can't shotgun a single target - it's as if you have no greater multiple projectiles. As a result, the single target damage is abysmal. It was so bad I had to use double strike in a 4-linked item to be able to deal with single bosses.

2. Barrage wand:
Here, you have two options: linking barrage with chain or with greater multiple projectiles.
a) chain - you attack 4 times, each attack can hit up to 3 mobs, so it's essentially 4 x 3 = 12 hits against packs of 3 or more mobs. Again, it demolishes packs. You don't even have to move or think about positioning because chain has a HUGE range and the EK procs autoaim. Against a single target - well, not as bad as spectral throw, but again frustrating.

b) GMP - it works in a weird way with barrage. You don't fire 5 projectiles with each of the 4 attacks. Instead, you attack an additional 4 times for a total of 8. Against packs, it's not as good as chain but it still gets the job done pretty well. You have to think about positioning and move more but I actually like that. With chain it gets super boring. The sweet part is, it deals twice as much damage against single targets because you attack them 8 times instead of 4. I like this option the most. For me, that's the sweet spot - good balance between AOE and single target damage.

edit: about reflect - there's nothing to discuss here. You can either play very carefully, tiptoe around reflect mobs and pray to RNGesus, or get vaal pact + armor from Grace and Iron Will(if using EK) or max resists with purity (if using elemental dmg) and forget about it.

thanks so much for ur inputs

@Thorien_Kell ur welder guide is pretty impresive! I was hoping to get vaal pact so that might add some survivability. Also acrobatics is only 4 points away from ur tree so i might take that too.

@Bars really like the tree u suggested. Only thing i wud change is take acrobatics instead of IR. I found iron reflexes to be bad without unwavering stance + grace aura or good AR on gear. I plan to run a tabula rasa so my AR will be pretty bad, more so when I dual wield. And this way I can also skip the 2 nodes required for leather and steel, coz tabula rasa has no movement penalty.

How much extra crit does a second dagger add? And how much crit chance overall wud be okay for comfortably proccing the spells. The base block chance of dual wield is only 15%, so even with the 10% block node and other 2-4% nodes, my block will be less than 40%. On the other hand, I can get around 50% block with testudo and weapon artistry/precise interception.

And about the barrage vs ST, yeah I noted that ST sucks horribly against single targets. Does barrage proc multiple times on single target? In that case, I cud go barrage + chain + arc + EK OR barrage + GMP + fireball + ice spear/arctic breath (or what other spells wud be good?)

1. IR vs. acrobatics/elemental damage:

Yes, if you have IR, you also need grace. The nice thing about IR is, you can stack the bonuses from a jade and a granite flask and it gets really good. If you make them surgeons', you can spam them a lot. Also, endurance charges are a big deal. I'd even suggest getting the bonus endurance charge in Merciless. Most people seem to run with enduring cry on cast when damage taken but I prefer leveling it more and using it manually. With 4 endurance charges + IR + Unwavering Stance, Leather and Steel, Tetsudo and Vaal Pact you will feel pretty durable. Yes, keeping endurance charges up might be defined as "boring", but you can't have excellent offense and defense without some effort.

Something else - yes IR is gear-dependent. However, this build has access to only one good resist node. If you're dealing elemental damage, you'll want maxed resists and, if we assume you're using rat's nest and maligaro (which have no resists), you'll still end up needing pretty good resist rolls on the other pieces. Choosing acrobatics and going the elemental damage route is definitely viable, though. More a matter of personal taste and preference.

2. On crit chance and barrage

Barrage does proc multiple times on a single target, yes. If you have GMP and a decent crit chance, it's quite good actually. About how much %crit you need, well, at around 50 your hero can start functioning, from that point onward it's just about dealing more damage and being less RNG-reliant, the more - the better.

3. Spells of choice
I haven't played that much with elemental CoC, but from what I've tested Ice Spear is really nice cause it pierces and has an excellent crit chance. Freezing Pulse and Arctic Breath are also nice if you have a very high crit chance. If you have Voll's Protector, Cold Snap is another solid option. Arctic Breath really strains the video card, though. There are good fire spells too but I think cold + lightning is optimal - freeze and shock works great and the shock compensates for the lower damage as compared to EK. I'd go with Ice Spear / Storm Call.

4. CoC and hardware strain
Something else to consider - in endgame you'll want to join groups for mapping or your XP gain will be horrendous. Most elemental-type spells with CoC are a huge strain on the hardware and groups seriously dislike them.

5. Conclusion
Because of all this, I'm going the physical damage / armor route. Again - it's a matter of preference. With elemental damage you don't need tons of armor and the freeze/shock combo offers great utility so it has its plusses. It also looks really cool, EK is a bit underwhelming visually.

"

Bars wrote:

The welder is a bit squishy for my taste too. But you can combine welder + wander wanderer like this...

It's essentially same tree as mine without master of arena /armor /life nodes and with vaal pact.

My build actually works even without leech, but with berek's grip on you'r life is always full even on difficult contents. Only thing that can harm me are map bosses with nasty oneshot mechanics.

"

1. Spectral throw dagger:
The dagger nodes, being specialized, give a bit more crit chance and more damage for the same point investment. This looks good on paper. However, when you test it, you quickly realize two things:
a) it absolutely demolishes packs
b) it SUCKS against high-hitpoint single targets. Spectral throw has an internal limit - it can't hit the same target more than once per 0.3 seconds. That means you can't shotgun a single target - it's as if you have no greater multiple projectiles.

Most of bosses have some mobs around, they are seldom alone, but even when they are - once per 0.3 sec is more then enough, each crit launches two LMP shotgunned spells. It's for the most part can be 9 fireballs and 9 Ice spears per second, and half of those crit. Which caster can emulate that? Just stack attack speed + crit, you'll be fine. I melt bosses fast, I should put up video.

"

nightblade157 wrote:

thanks so much for ur inputs

@Thorien_Kell ur welder guide is pretty impresive! I was hoping to get vaal pact so that might add some survivability. Also acrobatics is only 4 points away from ur tree so i might take that too.

Check second video I've added today.

@Thorien_Kell - yes, your tree is highly similar. About spectral throw's single target DPS being bad - your hero is much better geared and high leveled. I guess at some point you can kill single targets pretty easily too. My observations are from the viewpoint of a lower level / less geared character. Actually, again from that viewpoint, until now I'm doing fine without vaal pact, grace + IR seem more than enough. We'll see what happens in the future.

@OP - some stuff i almost forgot:
- you asked about how much crit chance you need, well the more the better obviously, but level of your cast on crit gem and the spells you're using (be it EK or ice spear or whatever) are also extremely important. So, decide on a certain course and keep the gems you will use later on in your second set of weapons (with weaponswap) to level them.