[3.6] CoCPact - CoC Dark Pact Assassin - 35 casts/s - 5M Shaper DPS

29th March
* Added "cookie cutter" version

18th March
* Added melee variant with Lancing Steel
* Added Pantheon and Bandits sections
* Optimized flask setup

17th March
* Replaced Herald of Agony with Arctic Armour
* Added alternative gear to PoB
* Added Delve Depth 69 video

16th March
* Replaced Gloomfang amulet for Warped Timepiece
* Added back Warlord's Mark and removed Assasin's Mark
* Replaced War Banner with Dread Banner

15th March
* Removed ES/life hybrid version
* Changed life version to contain a lot of leech and Cherrubin's chest

14th March
* Changed item base that allows us to do 42 Dark Pact procs/second instead of only 36
* Slightly changed PoB tree to go to 3.5 AS and increase crit chance a bit for more consistent mapping
* Changed PoB tree back to 3.7 AS and increase crit and hit chance even more
* Added optional Herald of Ash replacement for Herald of Agony (works pretty well)

13th March
* Started reworking the guide for bow version

12th Jan
* Updated the build with more expensive variation
* Increased DPS in default variation by 300k
* Dropped 14% Stygian Wise for regular belt, because the Stygian is apparently legacy
* Swapped Ice Golem with Chaos Golem for budget version

11th Jan
* Added "preview" GIF (even though it is not showing anything interesting, but still, its fancy!)
* Removed Mind Over Matter and all relevant mana + mana reservation nodes
* Optimized AS a bit for 7 proc Cyclone with 14% reduction belt
* Optimized crit chance (now it's ~90% without Diamond flask, 99,7 with the flask)
* Thanks to free spots on tree DPS per Dark Pact proc is now increased by ~18k (so that is 18k * 4 * 7 = 504k total DPS increase)
(some AS to reach optimal AS for 7 proc Cyclone with 14% reduction belt)
* Took Alchemist node on tree for more QoL
* Optimized flask setup

10th Jan
* Updated guide with alternative more expensive gear (Atziri's Acuity)
* Created the guide

Blood Aqueduct lvl 65 Assasin 4l Dark Pact:

Important! This was recorded on my current low level Synthesis character in Blood Aqueduct, my crit chance was very low as well so I was not always 1 shotting packs. Also PoE is running pretty poorly on my PC so recording is not very high quality as well, sorry :/

https://streamable.com/kzfe4

Lvl 75 Delve Depth 28:

https://streamable.com/4cpsm

Lvl 78 Ancient City:

https://streamable.com/g50kg

Lvl 79 Beach:

https://streamable.com/1iwxu

Lvl 84 Delve Depth 69:

https://streamable.com/hj5ln

Lvl 86 Sunken City Boss

https://streamable.com/7envo

Because Cast on Crit is awesome! And Chaos spells are awesome! And when you combine Cast on Crit and Dark Pact you get CoCPact, and isn't that just awesome name?

But for real, this build is simply FUN. And it scales really really well. With enough currency invested you can put your DPS through the roof (every extra Dark Pact chain is +1.2M DPS, so basically just 1 good corruption on e.g quiver is free 1M DPS for the build, and then more chains you get the better). You can invest very little currency and still have respectable DPS (at least 1-2M+ with low budget for sure), or you can invest a lot more currency (most of it will be just perfect bow tbh) and go over 11M DPS.

Another reason why I wanted to build something like this is because it's very easy on GPU and my PC is potato (and also I am playing on Linux what is not helping at all).

This is my first own semi-decent build guide for PoE so be gentle, any tips for improvements are very appreciated.

So, let's start with fun stuff first: theory.

We are using 7 linked Dark Pact to Blast Rain Cast on Crit (e.g every crit from Blast Rain will "try" to trigger supported Dark Pact, the try part is important, we will get to this later).

Why Blast Rain? Every cast of Blast Rain sends 2 waves of attacks, effectivelly doubling our proc rate. "Hey, but every explosion hits multiple times, so that is even more procs, right?". NO. Cast on Crit support has internal cooldown of 150ms, so that means that maximum CoC procs we can do per second is 1000 / 150, what is ~6.6.

We reduce this cooldown with 14% increased cooldown recovery to 129ms (because cooldown recovery works with CoC) and then we are able to get 7.7 procs/second. For this we need at least 3.5 effective crit rate per second. This means that you need to multiply your attack rate by 100 / effective crit chance. If this number is above 3.5 you are golden.

And now, why Dark Pact? Because Dark Pact can SHOTGUN! What does that mean? That means that instead of getting additive boost by casting some spell often, we get exponential one. Because Dark Pact can chain between skeletons and it's super easy to get up to 5-6 chains, each extra CoC proc/second means another 6 Dark Pact casts, what is insane boost. And Dark Pact base damage is quite insane as well and scales really high from Skeleton HP, what is super easy to scale as well. And with nodes like Spiritual Aid and Spiritual Army and some big minion HP boosts being coupled also with big minion damage and as boosts, we can make full use of everything.

This beast (maybe AS base will be better, like Thicket Bow):



Order of importance is:
1. Supported by lvl 20 CoC
2. Increased AS + 20% chance to deal double damage
3. Skills chain +1 times
4. +% Global Critical Strike Multiplier
5. +1 lvl to socketed gems

◈ 6100 HP + 240 ES
◈ Acrobatics and Phase Acrobatics (40% attack dodge chance and 30% spell dodge chance)
◈ 6500 Eva (40% chance to evade)
◈ Arctic Armour (13% less physical damage, 12% less fire damage, chill, 30% action speed reduction)
◈ Dread Banner (less accuracy for enemies)
◈ Overcapped elemental resists
◈ Over 2k leech rate
◈ Chaos Damage - we do not need to care about reflect
◈ Blood Rage + Immortal Call + Soul of Arakaali massive regen
◈ Permanently on consecrated ground

◈ 35 DARK PACT/SECOND SPAM!
◈ Self-cast skeletons for bosses for giant DPS boost and auto-cast Skeletons in CoC setup for fast mapping

◈ Still Assasin, so can be vulnerable to one-shots, even though we build really a lot of resists and damage mitigation
◈ Hexproof and no leech maps force us to play a lot safer (but still doable)

Ignore all levels below, they are from my current account. Empower should be ideally lvl 4, Vaal Summon Skeletons lvl 21, CWDT setup as is (except inc duration should be 20), Arcane Surge lvl 5.

Main Skill (7 link from bow)

for mapping
for single target



Make sure Summon Skeletons is socketed before Dark Pact to avoid casting Dark Pact without summoned skeletons.

Single Target (Skeletons)



CWDT



Make sure that Blood Rage is socketed before Immortal Call so we can proc Soul of Arakaali

Movement + Boosts



We use Phase Run to trigger Arcane Surge and Vaal Righteous Fire for massive DPS boost on bosses.

Auras + Golem

Pantheon is focused on gaining as much benefits from Blood Rage and Immortal Call as possible and reducing damage over time.

Major
Soul of Arakaali

Minor
Soul of Ralakesh

Kill all 3 bandits for extra 2 passive points.

◈ Use anything till lvl 4
◈ At lvl 4 switch to Contagion
◈ At lvl 12 switch to Toxic Rain + Lesser Poison + Void Manipulation socketed in some bow with decent AS
◈ At lvl 16 start using also Herald Of Agony and Herald of Ash
◈ At lvl 18 socket Faster Attacks to Toxic Rain setup (and some random stuff that works with HoA, Minion Damage/Minion Speed is very nice)

Start on first 5 chaos nodes (2 straight and then upper circle above AS nodes) in Shadow tree (you will respect them later to those AS nodes). Then simply follow the tree. Take all closest Shadow stuff and then try to rush for Spiritual Aid picking up minion stuff as described in PoB on the way (Spiritual Aid is simply too OP for this build).

Pick Noxious Strike ascendancy in Assasin ASAP (this will nicely boost your crit for future and also increase your poison chance by a lot for your Herald).

Keep using Toxic Rain and HoA until like lvl 45-50, and if at this point you have enough crit try to buy 5 or 6 linked bow (6 linked is really reccomended otherwise you will have to drop Increased Crit Strikes what hurts a lot early without enough crit) and socket inside everything except Void Manipulation and Concentrated Effect. Just keep Summon Skeleton socketed inside during leveling you don't even need to take it out (maybe at harder bosses, or if you really want to kill bosses faster).

For gearing your priorities are:

1. Life
2. Resists
3. Minion boosts (Minion life, minion levels, minion damage)
4. Attack Speed/Crit (based on what are you missing)
5. Evasion