[3.10] Low Life CoC Phys Spellslinger (EK+Bladefall+Blade Blast) 20M+ Shaper DPS

Pros
- More survivability due to having more EHP, self-cast high leveled Steelskin on a low cooldown (36.1% uptime if you bind it to LMB) and Fortify from Shield Charge. Also being an ES character allows us to use an ES gain on hit Watcher's Eye which is insanely powerful. I got hit multiple times by Sirus 8 in my video and survived, did multiple deathless T16 100% Delirious AL8 juiced maps and Simulacrum runs with no issue.

- More damage assuming your wand is good. Added flat physical damage is really powerful even though the damage effectiveness of Blade Blast is 60% because of Awakened Brutality. Also "% chance to deal Double Damage while Focussed" is so strong (Focus cooldown is reduced by CDR).

Cons
- More starting investment needed (endgame investment is roughly the same cost but with a higher ceiling). The Poet's Pen variant can pretty much do all content as well.

- More punishing, no instant life flask.

- No explode mechanics so porcupines are the most lethal enemies to deal with. But if you have currency, solves that problem.

Spellslinger is a gem that triggers spells that are linked to it when you fire your wand at the cost of mana reservation. The flat damage of the wand is added to the spells (damage effectiveness is taken into account). By triggering Bladefall and Ethereal Knives using Spellslinger and a CoC setup triggering another Bladefall, we leave a lot of lingering blades on the ground. One more Spellslinger setup is used to detonate these lingering blades using Blade Blast. The same enemy can be hit by multiple explosions detonated by Blade Blast as long as they are within the AoE.

https://pastebin.com/GU4DHed2

Use with the PoB Community Fork.

https://youtu.be/utUGADMP9Gk Deathless 3 minute Sirus 8

https://youtu.be/5ht2Nf1_hYw Deathless Simulacrum waves 18-20

Recording Delirious maps and Simulacrum kinda kills my fps which sucks, couple that with the severe lag that the Singapore realm has been experiencing lately and you get videos of absolutely no substance so there's limited footage for now, but I've done rare T16 100% Delirious maps with AL8 deathless with a decent clear speed if you want to take my word for it.

Skip this part if you are not interested in the calculations. I do not claim that this is accurate, but from my ingame testing it seems to be working as I have calculated.

TL;DR Fully buffed, press C and check your Frenzy's Attacks per Second and make sure it is at 3.03 (2.75 with Tailwind) while having at least 33% CDR from your belt and boots and a level 4 Awakened CoC.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/fh8bnh/spellslinger_cooldown_thresholds_and_all_other/

The above Reddit thread shows the thresholds for various amounts of CDR you have with regards to CoC and Spellslinger.

What isn't described there however is how Barrage (or any projectile skill linked to Barrage support) functions. As confirmed by Bex and Mark, Barrage spends 40% of its attack time on wind-up animation and 60% firing the projectiles. This means that if your 6 projectile Barrage ApS is 1.0, you spend 0.4s bringing your wand up and 0.6s firing the 6 projectiles. From this we can calculate that projectiles are effectively being fired at the rate of 10.0 ApS despite only having 1.0 ApS. Therefore, if you fire 6 projectiles, the projectile fire rate to ApS ratio is 10:1.

For our build, it is important to find a CDR threshold with ApS equivalents for both Spellslinger and CoC that have a common multiple to optimize output of all the setups. That happens to be at 52% CDR - Spellslinger ApS equivalent will be 3.03 and CoC ApS equivalent will be 10.1/20.2/30.3. However, the main distinction between Spellslinger and CoC is that Spellslinger does not need to take into account projectile hit rate as spells are triggered upon attack, so raw ApS is all you need to hit. CoC on the other hand is a different story, as you need to crit to trigger the spells. However, as shown above, the projectile fire rate to ApS ratio with 6 projectile Barrage is 10:1. Therefore, the CoC ApS equivalent which is actually really just projectile hit rate equivalent of 30.3 ApS with a 3.03 ApS Barrage setup. Therefore, the optimal ApS for this build is 3.03.

Relevant math for this: 3.03 ApS with 6 projectile Barrage -> you fire 18.18 projectiles in 1 second, but only 0.6s is spent firing that 18.18 projectiles with Barrage. Therefore, projectiles are effectively being fired at the rate of 30.3 ApS.

Obviously this would change for different number of projectiles fired but with my setup I have 6 projectiles (Frenzy gives 1, Barrage Support gives 3, Dying Sun gives 2). These calculations are also assuming 100% accuracy and crit which this setup has.

Also this is accurate with flasks being active. Expect DPS loss without Dying Sun active.

As PoB doesn't really show DPS for builds like this, I decided to do some manual calculations.

Note that PoB doesn't take into account the extra 20% chance to deal Double Damage with Critical Strikes from the Medium Cluster Jewel notable Pressure Points. Bladefall's damage is also very inaccurate as the "6% less Damage per Volley" and "20% reduced Critical Strike Chance per Volley" modifiers aren't taken into account so I will only take into account Blade Blast's damage for this (it's the main source of DPS anyway).

From PoB:
ApS: 3.03
Blade Blast Average Damage: 130,827

EK has 12 projectiles and leaves 1 lingering blade every 6 projectiles (trigger penalty). Per attack we get 2 blades. Every second we get 6.

Bladefall has 30 volleys (due to Awakened Spell Cascade "repeating" casts 4 times and helm enchant granting 1 more volley per cast, pause my Sirus videos and count how many there are on the ground as I precast before he's targetable) and leaves 1 lingering blade every 2 volleys (trigger penalty). Per attack we get 15 blades from the Spellslinger setup and another 15 from the CoC setup (potentially 30 from the CoC setup if EK and Bladefall don't kill the targets and Frenzy continues to hit a target; CoC cooldown is 99 ms and we hit every 33 ms per projectile with 6 projectiles so 2 triggers). Every second we get up to 135 (45 from Spellslinger and 90 from CoC).

In total:
Blade Blast: 130,827 x 141 = 18,446,607 DPS

We're getting 18M DPS from Blade Blast alone not taking into account Bladefall and EK, and this is assuming the detonation AoEs from the lingering blades spread are all hitting the boss (which is not too unrealistic if you have Awakened Spell Cascade, EK and Bladefall all with 0% quality so the spread is smaller). When Bladefall and EK are taken into account, the total DPS is easily more than 20M+ (I'd estimate it to be around 27-28M). If I had a mirror tier wand and 3 mod Watcher's Eye I'm pretty sure it would be possible to kill phase 2 Sirus before he teleports.

Monster armour was changed recently. The average T17 monster now has 16161 armour. Using the armour formula found on the wiki, the average hit from Blade Blast is reduced by 1.22%. Sirus has 100% increased armour, and so he reduces the hit by 2.41%.

This means to maximise damage output on bosses and Sirus who have no additional map mods, the total you want to get from the mod "Enemies have -X% to Total Physical Damage Reduction against your Hits" is at least 3% as Physical Damage Reduction cannot be negative unlike resistances. This mod is found on the tree, corrupted jewels and as a Hunter belt mod.

However, this build has a total of 47% as monster mods and map mods often increase their Physical Damage Reduction by at least 40%. This is relevant for content that includes such mods like Simulacrum, delving and incursions, so try to get as much as you can (it's essentially Physical Penetration).

As mentioned earlier, you want bare minimum of 33% CDR on boots + belt. This coupled with a level 4 Awakened CoC and level 20 Spellslinger will give you 52% CDR on both setups. Going over 52% is no issue as the server only refreshes every 33ms, and there's no way we can reduce the trigger cooldowns by more than 33ms with a mere 2-10% at that threshold.

Crown of the Inward Eye is not needed, but it's a nice damage boost for any low life build. The rest of the uniques are necessary.

For your wand, prioritize +1 level to Phys spell gems (go for at least 50% Spell damage instead if you already have a level 21 Blade Blast as the radius doesn't increase) followed by flat and % increased Phys damage. High roll Attack Speed is not necessary as it's not too difficult to hit 3.03 ApS. In fact, I think Demon's Horn might be the best base wand for this setup. If you have an extra mod space, craft "X% chance to deal Double Damage while Focussed".

Try your best to get Accuracy on both rings and gloves. It is pretty important to get 100% chance to hit despite Spellslinger not requiring it.

Helmet enchant should always be +1 additional Bladefall volley.

If you have extra currency, you can use an Awakener's Orb on a Hunter belt with "Enemies have -X% to Total Physical Damage Reduction against your Hits" and a Shaper/Crusader belt with tier 1 CDR to make a belt like mine.

"Non-Channelling Skills have -X to Total Mana Cost" is also very important as there's no mana sustain in this build. It can be either a mod or a craft, if you get it as a mod then you can craft "Shocks nearby Enemies for 4 seconds when you Focus" which is an insane DPS boost.

This build also has high attribute requirements (159 Strength and Dexterity if you use level 21 gems), so remember to get some on rings.

The Shaper mod "Socketed Spells have +X% to Critical Strike Multiplier" is really powerful for Blade Blast. Strongly suggest buying a pair of gloves with it. Another Shaper mod that is extremely powerful is "#% Global chance to Blind Enemies on hit/Socketed Gems are supported by Level # Blind", it makes you extremely hard to kill, strongly recommend it.

Dying Sun for extra AoE and Frenzy/EK proj.

Bottled Faith not needed, you can replace it with a CoH Ass Mark ring.

Wand: Precision-Shield Charge-Fortify

If you don't have enough mana to reserve a level 21 Precision, just use a lower leveled one.

Prism Guardian: Pride Vaal Discipline Haste

Shavronne's Wrappings: Frenzy-Awakened CoC-Bladefall-Awakened Spell Cascade-Conc Effect-Barrage Support

Use Conc Effect over Controlled Destruction or Frenzy's mana cost will be too high.

Helm: Spellslinger-EK-Bladefall-Awakened Spell Cascade

EK is more total DPS than supporting Bladefall with Conc Effect because unlike Poet's Pen, Frenzy triggers both spells in 1 attack. This helps produce more blades for Blade Blast which is the main source of damage.

Gloves: Spellslinger-Blade Burst-Awakened Brutality-Awakened Inc AoE

Boots: Dash-Steelskin-Second-Wind-Arcane Surge

Leave Arcane Surge at level 5. If you can't afford to support Dash and Steelskin with Arcane Surge due to having too little unreserved mana, replace this with Vaal RF.

None of the curses are needed. War Banner is not worth it for its reservation.

Q: Is this build possible with other Ascendancies?
A: Yes but capping crit will probably be significantly harder so I don't recommend it. Assassin also happens to scale the best for crit and CoC, I don't see a reason to go other Ascendancies other than this.

Q: Is this build HC/SSF viable?
A: No.