Crackling Lance Assassin Redux

Intro and PoB

Earlier this week we had a post here showcasing a crackling lance assassin. It inspired me to try the build myself, and I believe I have iterated on it incorporating some ideas stolen from various places. Here is the original post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PathOfExileBuilds/comments/1vi6734/crackling_lance_assassin_200m_dps_10k_es_max/

To start, my current PoB and a couple uber videos before getting into details. This is with no shock applied.

https://pobb.in/h_fxPw-vM25K

If seeing that ring immediately makes you groan, here I was earlier using a 1d ring and a 2c amulet.

https://pobb.in/5yht4ftF-UNN

Uber Exarch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iX2haP-6XGY

Full Uber Sirus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrPVbStmdFM

Differences from the Original

So what is different from the original? One of the big changes is that it is no longer CI, and that is so that we can utilize Righteous fire of Arcane Devotion for 25% more cast speed. In addition I am using Shimmeron instead of void battery, which is a more powerful unique. Both of these changes mean I need to deal with degens. As such, the original build's use of shavronnes revelation is out, as it stops regen.

Because shimmeron makes it trivial to cap crit, we are no long tied to overloaded intensity, which also means we are technically no longer tied to intensity or pinpoint. That means this becomes a somewhat flexible shell that you can slot any lightning spell into. For mapping, I can just replace crackling lance with arc and intensify with greater chain. The original post suggests crackling lance of branching for mapping purposes, but in my opinion that still makes for a somewhat subpar experience.

The use of shimmeron and RF of arcane devotion means we do need a reasonable amount of ES regen. With zealot's oath, life regen will be converted to ES regen, giving us options. For instance, the crafted 3% regen flask suffix is very good with mageblood. In addition I am getting regen from chest suffixes, a minion's vitality aura, and some passive tree nodes around the unnatural instinct. With enough ele res from other places, replacing the bismuth flask I currently have on with a topaz flask would also be a strong option.

The original build uses a crafted rare shaper shield, which definitely makes capping block easier. I believe the life on block is largely irrelevant, as with 14 power charges giving 42% instant leech in-combat recovery isn't remotely a problem. Instead we have a vestigal malachi's loop for much more power. More power charges, more spell damage, and with the vestigal bonus more crit multi.

Loop means the ralakesh boots are power charge and not frenzy charge, like in the original. So no more badge of the brotherhood for max frenzies. Ephemeral bond is an excellent cheap amulet for 2c, but if you want to go further you can use a crafted +1 power charge talisman, which is actually easier to craft than it looks. Alternatively, a +4 focused amulet is an option, though the base alone is much pricier than fully crafting a talisman.

For the helmet you could use a +1 power charge willclash, as it would be more damage and make capping spellblock trivial, but I didn't like how much ES you give up over a rare. Doubly so with the double ES from helmet mastery. If you wanted to make the dps number higher at the cost of some survivability, this would be an easy place to do it.

I stuck with the anethema and extra curse setup from the original build, as I think it is a strong way to go. For the other ring there are plenty of good affordable options including +1 PC corrupted le heup of all, tahwanuku's timing, or even a corrupted rare. Silly precursor's emblems are very nice, but certainly not a requirement.

The original post used a single specter, perfect spirit of fortune, which gives a free (lower power) wrath aura and the very strong aura of lucky damage with lightning. The lucky damage aura works very well with the new roiling tempest keystone on the tree. In addition to the perfect spirit of fortune, I also use perfect pain artist for free lower power zealotry and crit multi, and a perfect warlord for free lower power vitality and endurance charges. As in the original setup, I also have an automated convocation to drag them around.

Perfect forest tiger would be a dps boost over the perfect warlord, but I don't trust myself to not do something dumb when changing gear and accidentally leave him on the floor. Plus, the small vitality aura and endurance charges from perfect warlord are nice.

Specter setups like this are one of the reasons why looking at dps on ninja can be misleading. The autoimport doesn't pull in any specter information, so the top dps builds listed there are going to be the ones that are running their auras personally. Those builds are sacrificing passive points into reservation efficiency and often forgoing convenience auras which we can afford to run by offloading reservation work to minions.

Improvements to be Made

I still think there are good improvements to be done. In particular I find using the impossible escape to grab "As the Mountain" to be unsatisfying. Due to my using a talisman, I can't annoint. There is probably a puzzle that can be pieced together using a focused amulet and recrafting glove/helmet suffixes that would result in a better outcome. It might also involve another/different block related megalomaniac.

Conclusion

I believe this is actually a pretty strong generic power charge stacking shell for self-casting any lightning spell as assassin. The new ascendancy node with bifurcated crits is very strong, a huge amount of instant leech is great, and the new roiling tempest node is very strong with perfect spirit of fortune.