[3.7] The CoCster, A Trickster Cospri's Malice Build (All content viable)

Didn't you read the intro? It feels so good! With the melee rework for animation canceling and Cyclone getting changed to a channeling skill, spinning to win has never felt better. You're functionally stun, freeze, and chill immune, you pour out the DPS, and you get to make those juicy crunching sounds that everyone loves from ice crits. Plus balls!

Uber Elder - https://youtu.be/Cz-4_8GJWFE
Shaper - https://youtu.be/4IZjY-lLR4c
Various other chumps - https://youtu.be/L_vTgnipa8U

This is a fairly standard Cospri's Malice CoC build, with some notable differences I'll get to in a second. Basically, we want to crit a lot and attack really fast to proc as many Frostbolts and Ice Novas as possible. Cyclone gives us stun immunity, as well as being able to move while attacking, which is why it's the go-to skill for these types of builds. As long as you're spinning, you're winning.

First off, our ascendancy. Most Cospri's Malice builds go Assassin to maximize crit, and while Assassin is a whole lotta deeps, it also (in my opinion) is squishier than a two week old banana. Instead, we go Trickster to take advantage of the Ghost Shroud line, which provides us with a significant amount of evasion, spell dodge, and energy shield. Oh, and we also get a buttload of attack speed, which means we don't have to focus on it on the tree.

Second, with the new accuracy changes allowing 100% hit chance, we're not locked into Lycosidae as our shield, which allows us to explore other options. Options like Light of Lunaris, which gives us a massive amount of crit multiplier, especially if we couple it with the new Legion Jewel keystone Glancing Blows, which doubles our block chance at the cost of taking 50% damage of blocked hits. Since we utilize primarily evasion+blind and spell dodge as our defenses, what seems like a downside is actually an upside, since hits rarely get through anyways, allowing us to mitigate the spike damage that normally kills evasion type characters.

Third, because we're stacking accuracy, using Oskarm's for our gloves is pretty much a no-brainer, due to the Assassin's Mark on hit as well as increased crit chance per 200 accuracy rating. Best of all, in the current pure-phys Impale meta, all of these items are pretty cheap! (for now)

Mainly uniques, which is both an upside and a downside. The upside is, they'll usually be available. The downside is, if the meta shifts, Cospri's Malice and Light of Lunaris will potentially become expensive again (like, exalts level expensive), upping the price to start the build considerably.

In order to get the build started, you're going to want these three core uniques.



Tempered Mind goes in the jewel slot immediately above Witch, because with the addition of the new Utmost Intellect cluster, that's 700 flat accuracy alone just from those three nodes, which frankly is kind of ridiculous, but hey, it's there so we're gonna use it.

For defense, we want the following, listed in the order you'll probably acquire them.



Dream Fragments gives us freeze and chill immunity (remember, you gotta spin to win), Perfect Form gives us a hefty chunk of ES along with 30% Spell Dodge from Phase Acrobatics, and Atziri's Step gives us another 16% Spell Dodge as well as nice life and movespeed (try to get the enchantment "Increased Spell dodge if you've been hit by a Spell recently").

Eventually you'll also want to pick up a Starkonja's Hood and an Oskarm's as well (an Ice Nova damage enchantment on the Starkonja's is nice, but not required).



These provide a solid mix of offense and defense, and as a bonus continue to give us more evasion, which is our primary defensive mechanism.

Of the final three spots, your ring and belt are going to have to cover resists, so they'll probably cost 5-15 chaos each depending on rolls (my current belt cost an exalt, but that's because I've made enough to upgrade from the starter one I was using). Try to pick up a flat mana roll on your ring to run a higher level Precision.



Your neck is where things get pricey.



Pandemonius is, hands down, best in slot for this build, but it's also priced accordingly (usually at least 2-3ex depending on how early in the league you want it). Since you're unlikely to get one right off the bat, go for a rare neck with life, crit multi, and some resist help to make up if your ring and belt are lacking.

You'll also want to grab a Frozen Trail when you hit Act 5 for free LMP on your Frostbolts.



For my Watcher's Eye, I currently have one that prevents Blind from affecting me while I have Precision (because those Maraketh Legion mobs sure do love to blind), and elemental penetration with crits while I have Zealotry. Honestly, this is entirely up to your personal preferences and what you're willing to spend. For full DPS, a Hatred +crit and penetration plus an offensive Zealotry or Precision mod is likely the best (and priciest choice), but there's no real wrong answer here. Just try to find two mods that fit the auras you're running to start out, and then upgrade when you get the funds.

For your Timeless Jewel you want a Lethal Pride of Kiloava. Socket that to the left of the Shadow start and Pain Attunement turns into Glancing Blows, along with giving you enough Strength to run max Life Leech. It also gives you a fun interaction between Glancing Blows and Light of Lunaris - yes, doubling your block from 35% to 70% also adds 35% crit multi to Light of Lunaris, as well as 35% spell damage from the Arcane Swiftness shield block notable between Witch and Shadow. Seems ok.

Nah, it's pretty tame. If you've played the Divine Ire "Can't Touch This" build by KooperT (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2459778) you'll note that it's very similar to the tree there. That's because it's a good tree, bront.

Site skill tree (shows Timeless Jewel) -
PoB - https://pastebin.com/RCF1NRHR

When leveling you want to build out the skeleton of the tree first, then pick up damage nodes if you feel your damage is low, life nodes if you feel you're too squishy. I generally grab a Poet's Pen to level with, or you can just go Divine Ire/Storm Brand/your favorite leveling skill etc.

For Bandits help Alira for the resists and crit multi.

Cospri's Malice will socket Frostbolt/Ice Nova/Life Leech. Make sure Frostbolt is socketed above Ice Nova so it triggers first (though generally you'll be attacking so fast it doesn't make much difference).

In your chest you'll socket Cyclone/Increased Crits/Cast on Crit/Ice Nova/Hypothermia. Since I don't have a 6l I haven't tested the optimal sixth gem yet but it'll probably be Cold Penetration for Shaper/Uber Elder, and Increased AoE for general map clearing. As you can see from the videos, I'm clearing everything on a 5l anyways, so getting that sixth spot is more of a luxury than anything.

If you don't have Pandemonius yet, use Hatred/Blood and Sand/Flesh and Stone/Precision as your auras. The blind from Flesh and Stone in Sand stance is incredibly good when combined with evasion, and the other two give you damage.

Once you do get Pandemonius, you'll want to acquire an Enlighten gem so you can run Hatred/Zealotry/Precision. With a level 2 Enlighten you can run a level 1 or 2 Precision, depending on your +mana on ring, with a level 3 Enlighten you can run an 11 or 12 Precision, and a level 4 Enlighten will allow you to run a level 20/21 Precision. I got incredibly lucky and had a level 4 Enlighten drop from a Legion mob, but a level 3 is fine as well.

With the Perfect Form, we get Arctic Armor for free, so go ahead and link Bonechill to that for added damage when you spin over the top of bosses. I use Whirling Blades/Faster Attacks/Fortify in my Light of Lunaris, but you can use Leap Slam if you want - it's just a matter of preference. I also like having Dash somewhere in my build as a gap closer/quick reposition.

Ghost Dance -> Escape Artist -> Swift Killer

For uberlab, I chose Weave the Arcane for increased attack speed along with no mana cost for my Cyclone, but since we use EB you could probably take Harness the Void instead if you wanted. Just note that this might make your mana pool too small to run a higher rank Precision since it's based on flat cost. Totally up to you.

Ehhhh, kind of but not really. Your primary defense is killing everything that gets close to you before it can hit you, but you don't really have the life pool to take multiple big hits. Thankfully, as long as you follow the best rule of defense in PoE (don't stand in one place), you shouldn't take more than a hit every two-three seconds, which is plenty of time to leech back to full. I wouldn't really recommend this build for hardcore though, as there's always the chance a oneshot will sneak through, particularly some of the Legion rares in t16s with nasty auras/mods. That being said, I'm level 95 and would comfortably be 96 if I didn't have a habit of doing incredibly stupid things just to see if they can be done (spoiler: they generally can't).

Basically, don't stop spinning if there are enemies nearby, and don't directly backtrack into projectiles/slams.

You and me both, friend. You and me both. Maybe my next one will be Frostblink Totems!