(Class Build) The High dispersed Tide

[Constentin Lévine]

This is a build around the interaction between Shared Nighmare, Time parasite, Current's Rush (high tide) and Frostfall (Dispersed Suffering and Shattering Head). Against groups of enemies, this character can clean the map, leaving survivors like the shadow of themself.

Classe : Ascendant (higher max focus)

Race : Elve

Stats : 

• Might : average
• Con : low
• Dex : average
• Per : high
• Int : high
• Res : low

Principales passives and abilities :

• Borrowed Instinct (+20acc (and def) to scoring crits)
• Time Parasite ( to speedly try to crit)
• Shared Nighmare (Biggest AoE to spells and High Tide and Shattering Head and Dispersed Suffering)
• Greater Focus (to enhance the Nighmare AoE)
• Hammering Thoughts (damages are dealed by weapon)
• Two Weapon Style (to reduce the recovery for Current's Rush)
• Lingering echoes and usual CC spells 

Equipement :

• Thaos' Headdress (Heaven's Cacophony is great too) (+1 int +5acc vs flanked, or +2int and avenging storm for High Tide, Dispersed Suffering and Shattered Head)

•  

  Mirrorback (safer at distance)

• Charm of Bones (+2int, very resistant minions)

•  

  Gloves of the Dungeon Warden (the build is around crit)

•  

  Ring of the Marksman (ranged) and Ring of Overseeing (AoE) Later, the Whispers from the Depths 
   
• Boots of the Stone (later, the Vithrack Silk Slippers can greatly make the difference for survivor enemies)
• Girdle of Mortal Protection (good and cheap)

• Gipon Prudensco (free move, buff to reflex and deflection)

 

Current's Rush (Main Hand) with upgrades and legendary, better with Mythic 

Frostfall (offhand) with Dispersed Suffering and Shattering Head

 

In combat, the principe is to casting Borrowed Instinct and other CC spells on the most resistant enemy ; during this time, attacking at ranged distance (so only with Current's Rush) other enemies to trigger the Ascension in the first time, and High Tide with relative AoE.

High tide can proc itself High Tide on crit, and when do a kill, proc Dispersed Suffering that can proc on crit Shattering Head, that can also proc Dispersed Suffering on kill. Because of the high AoE size (Shared Nighmare, int and ring) the 4 or 5m radius of these abilities are really big and concern a lot of enemies. This is because Dispersed Suffering proc on any weapon kill, and Shattering Head on Frostfall crit (Dispersed Suffering is a Frostfall attack).

Each kill mean +20% hostile effects duration (Dispersed Suffering), and an unique first crit can do many kill with this setup. If staying enemies are under the effect of Borrowed Instinct or Time Parasite, their durations can "explode" and by the way make growing the correspondant beneficail effect on the cipher. 

The Vithrack Silk Slippers, when reapplying a CC spell on enemies, do an adjustement of the duration of the affliction, but in reality when dispersed suffering proc nearby, the 20% is applied to the total duration (not current duration) so not only the duration of the spell itself but the totality of the casted spell (It is hard to be evident in english).

To illustrate this point, I made a screenshot at the tavern I try the build :

I cast only one time Secret Horror and Mental Binding before High Tide proc.

As you can see, there is many proc in the combat log, and the blood on the floor show the after-high-tide effect. 

Of course, there is many way to exploit Dispersed Suffering (Berserker on skellies with Grave Calling in main hand, Ranger with mortar or the Weyc's Wand in main hand, etc) but SC Cipher seem to me the most suitable classe to make a Current's Rush/Frostfall build, combining high speed, high accuracy, high AoE size for the high tide effect.

 

 

[thelee]

wow that's quite a build! i didn't know that dispersed suffering could interact with those cipher abilities. does enfeebled work the same way? e.g. you extend the enemy debuff and your own buff gets longer?

 

i'm also guessing that the math is busted - if dispersed suffering extends the duration of several effects, each extension extends your own buff individually instead of doing it once in total.

[Constentin Lévine]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

does enfeebled work the same way? e.g. you extend the enemy debuff and your own buff gets longer?

Absolutely, but enfeebled suffer from this duration since you need to wait this end to reapply it (and do a new +50% debuff). the +20% from Dispersed Suffering is instant.

1 hour ago, thelee said:

if dispersed suffering extends the duration of several effects, each extension extends your own buff individually instead of doing it once in total.

that is true for Time Parasite, other draining buffs are applied only on first enemy (if you try to cast Borrowed Instinct on another enemy when the buff is not over, only the enemy have the debuff but you dont get a second buff.)

Edited August 8, 2022 by Constentin Lévine

[Bosmer]

Have you checked how the aoe weapon effects  interact with belt of magrans chosen? I mean, you want many (weak) enemies, and maybe with the fire blights it might be even a strong build up against single-high-defense targets?

[dgray62]

This is incredible; thanks for sharing this build. Have you considered going with soul blade rather than ascendant? I believe that soul blades have the largest possible max focus, and could thus really expand the AOE size.

[Boeroer]

That interaction is cool.

I tried several combos with Current's Rush, but not with Frostfall. 

A SC Ranger with Twinned Shot + Driving Flight can also proc a High Tide chain on a group of enemies pretty reliably. Also works with Whirling Strikes. Of course: smaller AoE

A Monk with Enduring Dance and Razor's Edge + Duality:INT should also be a good candidate. Shooting with the scepter's modal even gives wounds.  

A Wizard can use both weapons' effect with their Phantom, too. 

So any combination of Ranger, Monk or Wizard could also be nice. 

Aloth's Armor provides more AoE size (+15%) and stacks with Ring of Overseeing (+10%) by the way. Also a pet like Loki (+15%) will help. There are even pets who have the party effect of embiggen AoEs a bit - something for Edér then? 

[thelee]

2 hours ago, dgray62 said:

ave you considered going with soul blade rather than ascendant? I believe that soul blades have the largest possible max focus, and could thus really expand the AOE size.

i think you have this reversed - soul blades are penalized on their max focus, and ascendants are boosted. i assumed that's why constantin picked ascendant, and not necessarily for the ascension effect.

[dgray62]

True. I neglected to mention that soul blades can have, by far, the highest max focus if you're willing to (ab)use SoF. If not, the ascendant would definitely be the best choice.

Edited August 9, 2022 by dgray62
Error correction

[Constentin Lévine]

3 hours ago, dgray62 said:

If not, the ascendent would definitely be the best choice.

Yes, this build doesnt require any babysitting priest to be efficient, and the max focus while ascended is 285, in other side it is 260 for Beguiler and less for Soul Blade. 

6 hours ago, Bosmer said:

how the aoe weapon effects  interact with belt of magrans chosen?

I didnt try but that is a good idea!

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Aloth's Armor provides more AoE size (+15%) and stacks with Ring of Overseeing (+10%) by the way. Also a pet like Loki (+15%) will help. There are even pets who have the party effect of embiggen AoEs a bit - something for Edér then? 

Every things that boost the AoE size is good for the build, but every items you mention are already used in my party (4/5 are casters) ; it is better with these items that is true.

I weared the Gipon Prudensco because of the 20%recovery malus, reflex and deflection bonus and the disengement immunity, to avoid any confrontation at melee range, but Aloth's armor is the more optimised clothe to AoE focused caster like this one.

[Constentin Lévine]

Other thing you can see on the screenshot I forgot to mention :

there are 2* Frightened and 2* Immobilized afflictions : Secret Horrors (active) and Echoing Horror (passive) seems to stack, as like Mental Binding (active) and High Tide (weapon). That mean 2* -10 defenses (-5 for deflection) to correspondant stats.

After all, that work in a same way with Inspirations's stacking rules.

@theleeI think that can be interesting to know!

[thelee]

6 hours ago, dgray62 said:

True. I neglected to mention that soul blades can have, by far, the highest max focus if you're willing to (ab)use SoF. If not, the ascendant would definitely be the best choice.

Ah I completely forgot about SoF!

[Boeroer]

Yes, Strand of Favor (or Cabalist's Gambeson) + Soulblade will get you the biggest AoE possible (with Shared Nightmare). No Priest involved. Only hefty cheese.   

[masterty66]

This build looks fun, nice job. I haven't played Poe in about a year so as I had played a lot of it and decided to take a break to do some other games but I think I'm gearing up to get back to it. Might give this a shot.

What's the combat flow look like on this? Sounds like you would cast Borrowed Instinct, then shoot stuff until you're max focus, then I guess get a few other effects active such as a Time Parasite or CC effects and then keep shooting again to trigger on kill effects which would then boost your buffs/debuffs? 

[Raven Darkholme]

This looks like a case for Alotta Aoe.

edit: i wonder if some cheese is possible here with dispersed suffering, lets say you cast time parasite on a bunch of barrels and then keep knocking down a ranger pet next to them?

Edited August 13, 2022 by Raven Darkholme

[dgray62]

After playing various Forbidden Fist multi classes over the past two years (using a mod that raises the lvl cap to 33, so you can eventually hit PL 9 with both classes), I thought I wanted to try playing a Ascendent/ranger MC using Current's Rush and Frostfall. The only thing is, I've never really played rangers before. It's clear that they have some amazing passives like Driving Flight and Survival of the Fittest that would be great with Current's Rush, as well as some essential actives like Marked for the Hunt, Hunter's Claw, Heartseeker and Concussive Tranquilizer. I guess Twinned Shot would be good too, when you can spare the bond points. I'm wondering if Accurate Wounding Shot is worth the two ability points, or if Stunning Shots is worth it, since it no longer actually stuns, as it did in POE1.

[thelee]

21 hours ago, dgray62 said:

I'm wondering if Accurate Wounding Shot is worth the two ability points, or if Stunning Shots is worth it

i'm pretty meh on wounding shot in general. I think it's mostly useful as melee ranger support. And even then, I would prefer Hunter's Claw until I'm maxed out on stacks (20, though you could cheese your way to more)

Stunning Shots doesn't stun like in PoE1, but interrupt is much better than in PoE1. I haven't played too many SC rangers, but all of them have happily taken stunning shots. good enough it might even make a case for putting a point into accurate wounding shot.

[dgray62]

Thanks @thelee. I think I'm going to skip Wounding Shot and the upgrade, but I will grab Stunning Shots. Seers have such high accuracy there's no need for accurate wounding shot, I think.