[3.5] CheeQu's CoC Ice Nova Assassin - Up to 7m Shaper DPS + Amazing Clearspeed [In-Depth Guide]

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Sizleke wrote:

Is this worth for me to buy a multicrafted rapier for 8 exe ?

bought this for 7ex had this one that gave me 3k more damage can sell for 4ex

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travisiscool wrote:

How important is the "Shocks nearby enemies for 2/3/4 seconds when you Focus" I have

but I'm looking for upgrades now and I'm just curious how important that shock is vs cold damage + crit multi on a ring. Thanks

Did i miss something in the build? We have focus?

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Picklepickle0 wrote:

Did i miss something in the build? We have focus?

Apparently. Check gearing part under Rare Items.

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SauMaris wrote:

Killed Red Elder just now. It was easy, if not counting that I died just because I wasn't aware at the beginning of the fight mechanic.

Enjoying the build so far.

Red Elder deathless on a second try. Even got an eye. Nothing special, but it's mine :)

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dragnmith1 wrote:

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Sizleke wrote:

Is this worth for me to buy a multicrafted rapier for 8 exe ?

bought this for 7ex had this one that gave me 3k more damage

can sell for 4ex

No thxs i want that ele pen

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Sizleke wrote:

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Cronewz wrote:

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Sizleke wrote:

Is this worth for me to buy a multicrafted rapier for 8 exe ?

3 ex craft + to do those pen affix alone can be pain in the ass (need it to trade much). If you are lucky enough - about 4 ex total, for most cases 5-6 ex is fair price. 8 ex is a bit high, but if u have much of currency - not that crucial.

We need a delve fossil to do that craft for the ele pen no ? I havent play since bestiary so fossil's and delve arent my things lol , i doesnt have so much currency

As i know items with this affix can drop from legion mobs and from Atzoatl boss. Fossils can give ya 10% cold pen only.

Hello guys, can you give me some hints on how to improve my build? thanks

https://pastebin.com/iAbdcD7s

I saved up the currency, I want to upgrade the build. Need more damage, more survival. What to upgrade next? Budget 20-30ex.

My gear:

Hello guys.

Already wield a Cospri in main hand, and I'm torn between these two for my off hand.




What do you think would yield higher dps ?

I thought I wanted to post my build and some notes/thoughts, especially for the newer players who want to try this (amazing) build, but are confused about a few key issues. This is based on my own experience and feel of the character working through this build for the past 3 leagues, but not through any maths or real knowledge about the game. I also very closely follow the original build guide as it is currently, and will refer back to it frequently.

In Betrayal league, I stopped somwhere between Stage 1: The Core and Stage 2: The Overpowered. Killed Shaper, couldn't kill Uber Elder.

In Synthesis league, due to a lucky drop of a double Anger Watcher's Eye from my first Red Elder, I was able to fund the Unnatural Instinct + 2 MOTM version. This felt amazing, with the extra movement speed, and I was eventually able to take Uber Elder down (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2285205/page/334#p21892244).

In Legion league, I now have a completed Life-based Occultist version, as I had already played Assassin for the past 2 leagues, and wanted to try something different.

Current Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/qb3VtnmG (n.b. the 2nd 'Frozen Trail' between the Mind Over Matter and Elemental Equilibrium nodes is actually the Militant Faith Timeless Jewel as linked, further discussion below).

I started off intending to do a completely different build (ES/Bane), but decided (too late) that this was the wrong time to start on an ES based character given the recent nerfs (I have never played ES before), but this was a good learning experience about what ES is/isn't.

I then took inspiration from this (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2310546/page/1) and reworked into an ES based version of CoC Ice Nova. However, there were a lot of issues with this - my ES was still too low (extremely squishy) and getting higher amounts of ES was too expensive for very little gain; I had a terrible time managing attribute requirements/resistances, and couldn't make any meaningful upgrades (e.g. Pandemonius, 14% CDR) due to this restriction.

I eventually decided to change back to a life based version, as close as possible to the original version as I could, and this was the best decision ever. During this league, I have tried all of:
-Lycosidae vs no Lycosidae (instead, using a different shield to get more ES/attributes/resistances and attack speed), with the new Precision Gem
-Dual wield Cospri's vs Lycosidae
-Unnatural Instinct + MOTMx2 vs regular
-Militant Faith Timeless Jewel
-Ring with 'Shock nearby enemies for 4 seconds when you Focus' (I never actually got around to getting this in the past 2 leagues)

Here are my thoughts on these issues.

Attack Speed and CDR
This part is for players new to this build, but is crucial to this build. Any changes to your build that you make has to respect this point, otherwise you may have loss of DPS without even knowing it. Essentially, as per original post, and this link (https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/aasx40/cyclone_coc_discharge_proc_rate_investigation/), you wanted a Cyclone Attacks per Second of 3.0 or slightly less without any CDR, OR an Attacks per Second of 3.75 or slightly less (between 3.7 - 3.75) with at least 14% increased CDR.

However, due to Legion's Cyclone changes, the ApS numbers have just automatically doubled. So, ApS of 6.0 without CDR, or between 7.4 - 7.5 ApS with CDR. My current ApS is 7.41. I can't offer proof or maths to back this up, but upon the feel of the character compared to previously, this works.

The way you achieve this is via different combinations of Increased Attack Speed on Cospri's (I have at least 3 Cospri's with different IAS values from 9 - 14 to fiddle around with), the Coordination node (this is vital, if you wanna use the 14% CDR), potentially a jewel with 8% increased attack speed with swords, and potentially increased attack speed from a shield (if you choose not to use Lycosidae).

Also note, the ApS in the in game display can sometimes slightly differ from the ApS in PoB. This caused a lot of headaches (especially when the PoB numbers slightly exceeded the breakpoint), but I eventually decided to just go with in-game values for my sanity.

Lycosidae vs no Lycosidae
I was fiddling around with this when I was still ES based, as I needed more ES and attributes and was trying to get more attack speed via the shield. Without Lycosidae, my Main Hand Chance to Hit was sitting at about 87% (with Precision gem). (Lycosidae gives 100% chance to hit, obviously).

Conclusion: Much worse without Lycosidae. This was fine for trash monsters, but when it came to single target bosses, I was not hitting enough to crit, and this resulted in massive losses of DPS. Now, I don't know if this is just because I am an Occultist, and if you were an Assassin with a much higher crit chance, whether this can be mitigated?

Dual wield vs no dual wield
With the amount of people posting their dual wield builds, I felt I actually had to try this. I only went as far as dual wielding Cospri's, and never tried a crafted sword version.

I faced a number of problems with this:

First was the Lycosidae problem as above. I was not hitting enough and had massive losses in DPS.

Second was the fact that there isn't any hard maths to follow in regards to how much display ApS is now needed, and whether CDR was needed or not. Furthermore I did not understand how APS worked with dual wield, given that each sword is supposed to give you an attack speed that is local to the sword, but dual wielding also gives you overall more attack speed, and I didn't know how this factored into display APS.

Then you have the issue about whether each Cospri's had it's own cooldown or not.

Conclusion: Did not work for me. My Frostbolts were casting for even less than a regular 7 ApS version (even though there is one video here that shows the person having 3xtimes the amount of Frostbolts with this version), and I was not critting enough. I am not sure if the few recent posts here reporting that they are not doing enough damage to bosses with the dual wield version is due to this issue.

I quickly swapped back to the Lycosidae version with 14% CDR after the above.

Unnatural Instinct + 2xMOTM
Unnatural Instinct is so much cheaper this league compared to last league (2-3ex vs 11+ex), and there is a reason for this. Three of the nodes just below where Unnatural Instinct is supposed to sit were changed from Critical Strike Multiplier nodes to Global Accuracy nodes.

I tried this and found that I had less health (because your whole tree needs to change), less Crit Multi, but more movement speed. The caveat is that my Occultist version needs more passive points elsewhere that isn't required by the Assassin, and this probably explains the health loss, but the damage loss did not feel worth it.

Unfortunately, I did not test whether the 3 Global Accuracy nodes were enough to offset the lack of Lycosidae as I was so disappointed with this that I swapped away from it immediately.

Conclusion: If the Global Accuracy nodes are enough to offset the lack of Lycosidae, which then allows for dual wield, then perhaps this could be worth it, assuming maths is worked out. However, for a plebian like me, not worth it.

Militant Faith Timeless Jewel (High Templar Dominus)
I tried this based on the suggestion of one of the posters (who was explaining the dual wield version) here, and found it to be amazing (to the point that I sacrificed a few health nodes to get it). Socketed between the Mind over Matter and Elemental Equilibrium nodes, it changes both those nodes into Inner Conviction nodes, each of which gives 3% "more" (not increased) spell damage per Power Charge.

(n.b.: https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Stat#more_vs_increased)

Further more, I was able to shore up my resistances with one of the mods on the jewel, and also got the Increased Area Damage mod with it as well.

Now, this may only be worthwhile because I'm playing an Occultist and have 7 max Power Charges (I don't know how many an Assassin gets up to), and the Spell Damage nodes at the start of the Witch tree also contributes to the Devotion levels that the jewel needs.

Conclusion: I loved this, and this allowed me to feel that my DPS was on par with my previous Assassin with Unnatural Instinct and MOTM. Unfortunately, no numbers to back this up. Shoring up my resistance was also vital, because this brings us to the next point.

Ring with 'Shock nearby enemies for 4 seconds when you Focus'
Because I was able to cover my resistance elsewhere, I was able to get the appropriate Elder ring with the space to get this mod.

(For those that are unclear, this mod gives you an additional Focus ability on your toolbar that you can use).

This, again, felt like a massive significant upgrade in damage to my character.

Original poster states that Shock gives 20% more (not increased damage), however I can't find any specific site/information that backs this up.

Conclusion: Very worth it, but no specific hard evidence to back this up.

This was the point after which I took down Uber Elder.

Other stuff to note
1) I am still using a Precision Gem for the increased crit chance, given that I am not an Assassin. There was always one empty gem slot in this build (if you follow the original build) that you could do anything you wanted with.

2) The 6th slot in your chest was also another optional slot. Last season,I ran Fortify in the 6th link because of ease of play and still had more than enough damage. This season I'm using Power Charge on Crit for the increased crit chance, increased ease to get Power Charges (especially when fighting bosses), and more damage per Power Charges. Haven't tried comparing this to Concentrated Effect.

Final thoughts
I hope this helps, at least for the entry-level people who want to get into this build.

Also, given that I love this build so much, being able to play it on a Witch was also very fun and satisfying. Try Bronn's Lithe Skin for a skin transfer onto Loreweave for a good look :)