I decided to revisit the skill that really got me started on this content creation journey: Cobra Lash. A bit has changed since 3.17, and I have optimized things quite a bit. Cobra Lash is a skill that purports to be a crit/DoT gem... but critical strike damage over time is in a really bad place at the moment. However, Cobra Lash has a MUCH better way to scale its damage, built right into the gem.

Divergent Cobra Lash has the follow properties: additional chains, more damage per remaining chain, and increased damage per remaining chain. By leaning into chains (this build has 13), you can scale massive clear and fantastic single target at the same time. Because the first enemy hit will always have maximum "remaining chains," each additional chain provides more single target damage.

Combining the more damage per remaining chain with increased from the gem quality and increased from "follow through" medium cluster notables, and the total is 65% MORE and 1,066% increased damage from our chains. Hit based critical strike chaos damage isn't very popular these days, but it is one of my favorite archetypes.

With this many chains, life gain on hit becomes an infinite life pool. 13 chains per projectile, 5 projectiles. With sufficient enemies present and 54 life gained on hit, we can theoretically heal 3510 life per attack, and with 13 attacks per second, thats 45,630 life gained per second. Now, things die so you very rarely are hitting all projectiles with maximum chains, but this will give you an idea of how strong the recovery is (without leech). On a single target, this build recovers around 2900 life per second from leech and on hit (assuming double hit from VC.)

The addition of Vengeant Cascade allows Cobra Lash to hit twice, effectively doubling its damage. This build is awesome without VC, but with it, it reaches new heights. The rework of Natures Reprisal allows Deadeye to steal free Wither application. With 13 APS, max wither stacks is trivial to maintain.

Defensively, the build combines armour, 90% evasion, 41 block, spell suppress cap, elusive avoidance, phys taken as, and full elemental ailment immunity to create a deadeye that actually feels tanky! As with all evasion builds, you do get hit from time to time. However, with the amount of recovery this build has, you pretty much need to be 1-shot to die.

I love this skill so much, I could go on all day. I'll leave it at that, but let me know if you have questions/thoughts/improvements! Hope you all enjoy.

Cheers!

PoB: https://pobb.in/Zka-8W9MEfMS