[3.4] Trickster - Consecrated Path - SC/HC - ~500kdps - Theorycraft/WIP/Concept

3.5 changes Consecrated Path to no longer only use the main hand, as well as nerfing shaper 'added as' stat sticks. Basically what this does is bring down the max damage you can get on the build quite a bit, and severely harms the attack speed since we can no longer use prismatic eclipse in the off hand. Perhaps dual wielding Ahn's Might won't be too bad. It's also possible that the new main+off hand calculations won't cripple your damage when using a prismatic eclipse, but most likely not. I'll at least wait for the patch to declare the build dead, but dual wield Trickster is probably not even kind of worth it anymore.

This is mostly just a theorycraft and pob wankery post, but I am definitely going to be trying this build out. The guide is going to be pretty shoddy since it's my first 'guide'. I haven't the faintest how to link images, but maybe some day if this build actually works ok I'll redo things to be all fancy and helpful and device responsive.

Level 12 Tectonic Slam and Quicksilver with flat added standing in for Consecrated Path and Herald of Purity respectively until we get some actual numbers.

Initial Craft for posterity and reference:
https://pastebin.com/kmm7NuhJ

Current PoB:

https://pastebin.com/bGMCUt7V

That 500k is techincally shaper dps, although there's no way the build could sustain against shaper. With flasks and charges off the dps is more like 200k dps vs. Shaper. Which I mean, that might be doable but it'd be slow and dangerous. The build can hit 1kk dps against white mobs by going loreweave and adding elemental focus as the 6th gem, so I could technically call this a 1 million dps build. Instead I cut it halfway between the two click baits, vs. shaper but flasks and charges up. You can toggle things in the pob but just to leave more work for me in the future, the dps vs. a standard boss with charges and flasks up (more likely) is 755k. Budget flasks (atzi's + diamond) it's 575k. So if anything I might be underselling things a little, but without proper/realistic items, 500k seems like the best number to call it at the moment. All flasks, charges, and a gg stat stick puts us at 667k vs. Shaper.

Another thing to consider is replacing Elemental Focus with Maim or Ruthless for general mapping. If you do that you can potentially shock and freeze, about half the time (aka crit chance). Inc Crit Strikes would also be a possibility if you go this route. Without Ele Focus you will shock and freeze anything under about 1kk health. This might mean you can shock/freeze some bosses but by the time you get the damage to do that you'll be out of white maps and won't be doing that to bosses. However against white mobs shocking and freezing will be safer overall. The only problem here is then switching to both Conc and Ele focus when you want to boss, and you can't easily swap a six-link chest since swapping two gems every boss can be a bit of a hassle. It's something to consider and decide based on what you feel you need (rare/boss/unique damage vs. freezing most trash)

Consecrated Path is like Flicker Strike and Tectonic Slam had a baby, even though everyone knows Sulphur Flask is the father. They're going to raise him as their own anyways. Trickster synergizes quite well with Consecrated Path in a couple ways. Weave the Arcane makes it free and also increases Attack Speed when you use it. Harness the Void likes the fact that Consecrated Path does some base conversion, since it gives us Chaos damage from both the base physical and the final converted amount. So we stack a bunch of conversion and let the ascendancy do some work. Phys to Lightning both gives us more conversion and lets us do Phys reflect maps, although you'll just go pop if you try ele reflect so avoid that. There's probably a way to do straight Elementalist or Scion Trickster-Elementalist to avoid that but the damage is less from my brief attempt at finagling things. I've seen a few theory craft builds for those ascendancies that put out the magic million though.

The point of Trickster is to not spend any mana on CP/leap slam and thus be able to reserve all of your mana for Hatred, Herald of Ash and Herald of Purity. HoI might be a consideration for the shatter explosions, but HoT doesn't really benefit us at all. Harness the Void and Ghost Dance are nice extras as well.

There might be room for some other stuff I'm not really thinking of, but these should cover most everything. You're not using kaom's or BoR so you should have all the sockets you'll ever need.

Points or Alira. Alira I think is more damage and has nice resists which we might have some issues with depending on how you gear. The pob is made with points though because there's so many shinies to get on the tree.

We don't have to worry so much about firing squads this league so you can stick with Soul of the Brine King to keep from getting chain stunned. There might be a fancy trick with Arakaali and our CWDT-IC-BR setup, but we don't regen that much. There is a nice amount of leech though so maybe it would be nice. The minor trait is up to preference, but I like Shakira. We don't have a lot of chaos res, and what we do have comes from a flask.

Swift Killer > Weave the Arcane > Harness the Void > Ghost Dance

Weave the Arcane might be better to take first to zoom through leveling if you're having mana issues. Swift Killer is also zoom just less sustainable on bosses and we don't benefit from the power charges until we get more crit on the tree. Harness the Void is half the point of the build but doesn't help until you switch to Ahn's Might (around the same time you merc lab). Ghost Dance provides some nice defensive bonuses but isn't really important if you can't get Uber yet. You also lose them pretty much every time you get hit because we're not ES focused.

I don't think you can level this build with weapons. The tree doesn't really have much attack increase until much later, so the plan is to level as something like frostbolt, blade vortex or explosive trap. There should be enough straight physical damage on the tree for the later, and you can do a little bit of respeccing in the early tree (Elemental damage nodes from start, Elemental Focus the passive node) to carry you until 68 when you can grab an Ahn's Might and the Ranger Sword nodes (Brutal/Fatal Blade). Those nodes are really the only thing you should avoid until then, unless you want to try leveling as weapons. The build also only really goes in one direction so there's not much to say about pathing.

Innsbury Edge makes a decent main hander from 47 till you get ahn's might at 68. Equip a 3G Prismatic Eclipse in the off hand Leap Zoom through the later acts.