Forward:

This league I wanted to innovate within the cast-on-crit (CoC) archetype by crafting a "league start-able" and scalable build. League start friendliness required diverging from conventional CoC standards, such as cyclone and spell-crit. Below is a synopsis of the configuration I used, and I hope it provides someone inspiration for innovation.

If you just want to see circles, here you go: Poison Reap Vortex - Day 4

Disclaimers:

• This build is a 'poe.ninja sleeper' as the site does not account for the relevant configs.

• I tried to maintain realistic configs on any pob posted, but things slip through.

• I focus on the league start and first few days of this build, as it is what feels relevant to the objective of this post. The current, end-game iteration of the build uses quite a few outrageous items.

• This build is unique to me, but may not be unique to the space.

The Attack Set-up:

The minimum requirements for CoC are simply an attack skill that hits, crits, and has good trigger uptime.

The configuration I settled on used:

• Rage Vortex of Beserking (RV) + Ambush + Diamond Flask

• Blood Rage scaling

• 'Hits cannot be evaded' sword or two accuracy clusters w/ masteries

RV was the obvious choice as ragestorm snapshots the Ambush exert, has a high hit rate from the '250% more frequency' line, and has uptime dependent on rage sustain. Varying Blood Rage's lvl and quality allowed for fine tuning of the attack speed to reach the CoC breakpoints.

Obviously a unique weapon/shield or crafted weapon with 'hits cannot be evaded' solves hit chance. Otherwise, using two accuracy clusters with the masteries '+acc per level' and 'more accuracy at close range' provided 100% hit chance.

Rage Sustain:

There are certainly many ways to generate rage for higher uptime on RV. I settled on the following combo, for reasons I'll touch on later:

• Rotblood Promise w/ Temporal Chains (TC) toggling

• Chains of Emancipation (CoE)

Toggling TC off while under 25 rage triggers CoE's rage gain. In hideout, I could get RV to be up for ~40s. In reality, I would often have to re-Ambush + RV as I would miss the rage trigger.

I did see that heiros have been using the new Mana-rage helmet on a similar set-up with great success.

The Spell Set-up:

All spells benefit from being cast quickly in a CoC set-up, both crit or non-crit. However, with the removal of the 'mana reduction flask craft' I didn't want to figure out mana costs. Thus, I settled on:

• Reap on Pathfinder leveraging Master Surgeon

Poison was the obvious league start scaling vector as Reap is a phys hit and blood charges provide a 'more damage' multiplier. Humerously, this was the first time Cruelty was the right choice. Pathfinder also allowed for easy poison damage scaling early and classic Pathfinder defenses.

Was it League start-able?

Unrealized to me at the time, Rotblood Promise is a Ritual unique and CoE is a Heist-quest unique. I had just looked at poe.ninja prices and saw they were cheap in 3.23.

I'm in the boat of people who recognize that the build you level with through the campaign is not necessarily your league start build. So for me, it was league start friendly as I could get it running on Day 2. I leveled with poisonous concoction and transitioned the moment I got both the ring and belt. I made a poe.ninja account on Day 3.

Here are the pobs for my pre-league template plan and a Day 3 poe.ninja pull:

• Template: https://pobb.in/mHwYwSNqJvmr

• Day 3 PoB: https://pobb.in/JCe7X5HBfpTx

• Poe.ninja link: Day 3

The build let me get all four voidstones and dip into T17 within week 1. I primarily farmed guardian rotations and did meta-crafting during this time. This helped me fund a few weapon crafts and some outrageously priced gear.

Scaling:

After my league start goals, there were obvious scaling vectors for this build:

1. Poison

2. new Unholy Might

3. Woke Spell Cascade (easy overlaps at 1.0-2.4 m)

4. CDR Breakpoints

5. Spell Crit

6. Low Life

In regards to CDR Breakpoints, I used three sources:

• Balance of Terror (20-25% CDR if you've cast TC)

• Woke CoC (I didn't pay attention to the CoC DD meta... I wasn't prepared for the prices)

• eldritch implicit on boots (5%) until using the '+3 to crit gems' mastery

Coincidentally, triggering TC activates the Balance of Terror. This was a happy accident.

Where are we now?

While not the focus of this post, the following is my current iteration of the build:

• Week 6 PoB w/ some FAQs in notes: https://pobb.in/u90Gde8aFvdU

• Uber Cortex w/ slams: Reap Vortex

• you can view Bog_Boy on poe.ninja if you want to see progression.

Note: Blood Rage is tuned for having onslaught and 50 rage. I have corrected automating Immortal Call. There are many improvements still to be made to the current build. Currently, I'm just pushing the dps number to see where it can get, but will probably reel it back soon.

Conclusion:

Path of Exile has a number of archetypes that people say must be played a certain way. Pre-league I asked a few streamers and their communities if they had any advice for the spell choice in a 'CoC Build with 100% melee crit and negligible spell-crit.' Consistently, the answer was "don't." However, shoutout to Jungroan for his consistent pursual of something different, as his build videos motivated me to look at things differently.

Hopefully this post gets someone excited to find a different way to league start and scale CoC, CwC, or innovate on any of the other archetypes in the game. I already have a few different ideas in mind for next league...

What atypical approaches have you taken in the game? Do you also recognize PoB as the real game, and PoE as the simulation?

TL;DR: spin-to-win adjacent