TriKster's Dragonsong CoC Marksman Build Guide (0.8.5)

Rogue
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Dexterity Stacking Cinder Strike cast on crit Dragonfire Marksman focused on Elemental/Cold Dmg.

Requires the newly added Bow Dragonsong (0.8.5) & Mourningfrost Boots for Dragonsongs‘ proc Damage scaling

Added Spell Damage from Boots by stacking Dexterity applies at 900% effectivness!

A-Tier Marksman Build. All Endgame Content viable (T4 Bosses & Empowered Corruption Farming). Fast Monolith Pusher. Tanky Marksman Build. Satisfying VFX & Burst DMG.

Build Guide and Gameplay Footage: (Please watch the video first and use the written Build Guide for more detailed information later)

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Easy Leveling

  • High DPS/Burst Dmg early on

  • Very tanky for a Marksman with close combat playstyle

  • No Mana issues

  • SSF friendly (even though Uniques are required, but they are common drops)

  • Requires no endgame gear to perform well

  • Very satisfying playstyle and VFX

Cons

  • Close Combat Playstyle because of the small cone from the proc (risky for a Marksman)

  • Requires Unique Items to work

  • Requires good positioning for best dmg output

  • Min-Maxing is time consuming and difficult because of Dex stacking (Cold/Phys Res balancing)

  • Performance and FPS drops because of the Dragonfire proc

FAQ

Dragonsong vs. Reign of Winter

The big advantage for Dragonsong is that Dragonfire procs from Crits and not on Bow Hit like with Reign of Winter. Therefore you have way more build freedom and can use a big arsenal of skills from Marksman to proc Dragonfire. The disadvantage is that you have to play close combat for high dmg because of the small cone. Reign of Winter you could play on range which is a saver playstyle, but this Dragonsong Build has way better survivability due to some mechanics with Cinder Strike/Arrowguard/Throne of Ambition we can abuse.

3-4LP Uniques? Do i really need this?

NO! I just added those 4LP Uniques to my endgame gear planner to give you an overview of the best possible mods to craft on.

Can this be done with only fire damage or are the boots the only way to scale it efficiently?

Dragonfire has 180 base fire dmg, which is quite alot. But dont forget that only added spell dmg will get the 900% effectiveness. So you can get up to 17 added spell fire dmg from the bow itself=153 fire dmg+180base fire dmg=333 fire dmg Lets pretend we have 80 dexterity, that means we have 720 added cold dmg, making it 1053 flat dmg. The majority will come from the boots (cold dmg). I have to test endgame without the boots, but i think you would miss alot of potential not playing with mourningfrost. Thats why i really recommend to play with increased elemental dmg for this bow.

Is Kelthan Blasting Agent (Unique) good for this build??

I would rather use a high LP Kelthan for Amarathy’s Decoy Bomber Build, since his build relies more on this item.
My build is more around Cold dmg and doing as many crits as possible. So only the Fire Penetration will do a bit more dmg on my CoC version.

Why A-Tier?

For a Marksman Build, Dragonsong could be S-Tier aswell. I still think that Shadow HoA is more powerful due to the gameplay mechanic. It allows a dodge based class like Marksman to stay at range and not get hit by enemies. Dragonsong allows you to deal dmg quicker and makes Monolith farming way more comfortable. But Shadow HoA is imo the real Marksman playstyle.

How to Survive

Offense is your best defense. Go all in with the playstyle and facetank enemies. You have crazy amounts of attacks/procs per second. Use all the passives/relic for Life on Hit/Crit. Your health bar is always up, we don’t use bow leech or any other leech sources. Together with high dodge from Cinder Strike, additional Armour from Shurikens/Throne of Ambition/Arrowguard and almost 100% Glancing Blow we have a really tanky Marksman Build.

Build Mechanics & Gameplay

Skill Rotation

Hold left click and Cinder Strike to stutter step. Use Shift and Smoke Bomb to position yourself for additional Shuriken procs. Use Multishot only on high hp enemies/Bosses for huge burst dmg.

The Build focuses around stacking Dexterity and the crazy 900% effectiveness for every point of Flat added Spell Dmg with Mourningfrost Boots. Cinder Strike is there to provide the good amount of Crits and procs. It also provides us with high amounts of increased elemental dmg and dodge. Critical Vulnerability is one of the best stats together with attackspeed. You reach 100% crit chance within a second.

Gameplay Tips

It’s not a very mechanical build. But good positioning is key for higher dmg output. Always try to aim for a group of enemies to make the cone attack more efficient. Do that by using Shift and Smoke Bomb (Backflip). Otherwise you just perma stutterstep while attacking with Cinder Strike to keep your dodge up.

Stat Priority

Offense

  • Bow Attack Speed (most important stat for both dmg and survivabilty)

  • Dexterity (obvious choice to stack Flat Spell Dmg from Mourningfrost)

  • Critical Vulnerability (the best node on Marksman tree to reach 100% crit on enemies easily)

  • Crit Multiplier

  • Cold Dmg (Fire dmg is not our main dmg source even though Cinder Strike only has Phys/Fire dmg, all the dmg comes from Flat Cold Spell from Boots)

  • Elemental Dmg (to boost your build globally from all dmg sources, probably a better choice than Cold dmg)

Defense

  • Health (2k+)

  • Dodge (we get high dodge while attacking with CS)

  • Endurance (try to cap it at 60%)

  • Crit Avoidance (100%)

  • All capped Resistances

  • You can reach 100% Glancing Blow

  • Insane amount of Life on Hit/Crit from sources like Sapping Strikes/Draining Arrows/Perfect Aim (Passives) & Ancient Coins (Relic)

  • Don’t underestimate Stun Chance with this Build. You can almost perma lock enemies with all the procs

No Mana Regeneration needed. Don’t focus on Bow Dmg, focus only on the Dragonsong proc.

Try to get Chill on Bow or Quiver (Legendary) and Frailty on Relic.

Attack Speed is the most important stat!

Leveling

(I explained the skill & passive leveling progress in the video)
You can start right away leveling this build once you unlock Cinder Strike at level 7. I would recommend to keep the Bow ready at level 36. It will make your leveling progress way faster, Cinder Strike alone will not provide you that much amount of dmg as the bow does.

Passive leveling order:
Rogue
8/8 Swift Assassin
8/8 Steady Hand
4/4 Sapping Strikes

Marksman
8/8 Draining Arrows
1/8 Focus Fire
1/5 Assassin’s Quiver
10/10 Wound Maker
8/8 Focus Fire
3/6 Arrow Storm
4/5 Sharpshooter
1/10 Covering Fire
1/5 Barrage of Pain
4/5 Heightened Senses
5/5 Death From Afar
5/5 Perfect Aim

That’s how i recommend you to level up. After spending those points you can choose whatever you need next. More single target dmg, go for +4 multishot arrows, more dodge go with Concentration/Meditation/Reflection, more general dmg go Cloak of Shadows in Bladedancer tree. Its really up to you and you can’t do anything wrong here.

Updates

Changelog

  • 0.8.5 Build Guide Release (03/28/2022)

Dammitt’s Gear Planner

My level 90 setup in the video:

(IMPORTANT NOTE BECAUSE OF SOME CONFUSION):
You don’t need 3-4 LP Uniques!!! I just added those to the endgame build planner to give you an overview of the best mods

This is the recommended Level 100 Planner. Please read through the Gear, Uniques & Legendaries, Idols & Blessings section for further information. The Build Planner is made for casual players to make gearing and resistance issues because of Mourningfrost Boots easier. For the veterans, please check the recommendations and gear alternatives down below.

Skills

Cinder Strike

  • Burning Dagger & Firebreathing (additional Crits and procs (we sustain the 7 Mana cost with 4 points into Sapping Strikes)

  • Eagerness (increased attack speed->fast way to apply crit vuln->more procs)

  • Oil Coating (High increased elemental dmg once converted with Elemental Vulnerability)

  • Combustible (30% Fire Pen for the proc)

  • Elusive (High base dodge rating and fire resistance while attacking with CS)

Shift

  • Swift Recovery, Momentum & Shadowslip (Mana, Movement Speed & Invulnerabilty)

  • Sleight of Hand (to proc Shurikens after using Shift->Armour & more crits for proc)

  • Elusive (For a good amount of dodge after using Shift)

  • Breathing Techique & Rebound (for survivability)

Smoke Bomb

  • Lingering Fumes (full duration)

  • Moonlight Bomb (abusing 1 Silver Shroud stack, the other one comes from Marksman tree)

  • Thick Smoke (1 Slow stack)

  • Rapid Concealment (Dusk Shroud frequency)

  • Shadow Hunter (only 1 point to perma blind with bow attacks)

  • Escape Tactics (Backflip - I use it for positioning/another movement skill)

Shurikens

  • Blade Shield/Floating Blades/Bladed Armor (Armour setup and Shurikes around you)

  • Ethereal Blades (100% pierce to keep them up)

  • Jagged Edges (higher base crit for more procs)

Multishot

  • Bodkin Points (100% Armour Shred)

  • Readied Arrows (Autoproc while using CS)

  • Piercing Shots (pierce, more chances to hit enemies->more procs)

  • No Easy Way Out/The Maj’elkan Grasp (Slow chance scaling with Dex)

  • Large Quiver/Giant Slayer (more arrows and the chance to hit an enemy with all of them in close range->Huge dmg boost when all arrows crit and proc)

Important Note:

You don’t need Shurikens on your skillbar since its an autoproc from Shift. Use Decoy as a panic button for a simple taunt on enemies

Alternative Skills for Multishot are Umbral Blades (more hits procced with Shift & Smoke Bomb if used with Shadows), Detonating Arrow (self cast for decent burst dmg, you can also stay at range if you are not tanky enough), Hail of Arrows (for Dusk Shrouds while inside of HoA Area) or Dark Quiver (for Frenzy, Dusk Shrouds & Kill Threshold with CS)

Passives

Rogue

  • Swift Assassin 8/8 (Bow Attack Speed)

  • Steady Hand 8/8 (Health & Dex)

  • Evasion 5/5 (Dodge Rating)

  • Agility 5/5 (Dmg per Movement Speed/Haste)

  • Dodge and Parry 5/5 (GB and Dodge)

  • Sapping Strikes (4/4) (Mana Gain to sustain Cinder Strike & Health Gain)

Blade Dancer

  • Cloak of Shadows 8/8 (GB and Dex)

Marksman

  • Draining Arrows 8/8 (Bow Attack Speed & Health Gain)

  • Focus Fire 8/8 (Dex & Dodge Rating debuff)

  • Wound Maker 10/10 (Crit Vulnerability)

  • Heightened Senses 5/5 (Crit Avoidance, we reach 100% CA with Empowered Blessing)

  • Meditation 6/8 (Dodge Rating)

  • Reflection 5/5 (Increased Dodge Rating & Movement Speed)

  • Arrow Storm 6/6 (Bow Attack Speed)

  • Covering Fire 1/10 (Abusing another Silver Shroud)

  • Master Archer 2/2 (Additional Arrows to Multishot)

  • Sharpshooter 4/5 (to unlock Death from Afar)

  • Death from Afar 5/5 (Armour Shred & Stun)

  • Barrage of Pain 1/5 (we don’t need more Crit Chance)

  • Perfect Aim 5/5 (Global Critical Strike Multiplier)

Gear

Bow: Dragonsong (required)

Quiver: Arrowguard (recommended) or Light Quiver (Attack Speed)

Helmet: Umbral Visage (Critical Strike Multiplier) (recommended) or Outcast Hat (Increased Bow Attack Speed)

Body Armour: Brigandine Armour (Physical Resistance) (recommended) or Crimson Garb (Increased Dodge Rating)

Belt: Bronze Belt (Armour)

Gloves: Crusader Gauntlets (Void Resistance) (recommended) or Engraved Gauntles (Endurance)

Boots: Mourningfrost (required)

Amulet: Bone Amulet (Resistances) (recommended) or Aurora’s Time Glass

Rings: Gold Ring (Elemental Resistance) (recommended) or Silver Ring (Movement Speed)

Relic: Ancient Coins (Critical Strike Chance & Health Gain on Crit) (recommended) or Jade Dice (Dodge Rating)

Uniques & Legendaries

Dragonsong (required)

Try to get high rolls on Chance to Cast Dragon Fire on Crit, Critical Strike Chance with Fire Skills and increased Attack and Cast Speed with Fire Skills.

Stats you want with Legendary Potential:

Bow Attack Speed>Critical Strike Multiplier>Chance to Chill>Chance to Shred Armour

Mourningfrost (required)

Try to get high rolls on Movement Speed.

Stats you want with Legendary Potential:

Movement Speed>Dexterity>Hybrid Health>Increased Dodge Rating

Arrowguard (recommended)

Try to get the highest Glancing Blow roll.

Stats you want with Legendary Potential:

Bow Attack Speed>Dexterity>Resistances or Chill/Shred Chance

Throne of Ambition (recommended)
You can farm the idol in the Stolen Lance Monolith Timeline. It’s a rare drop, so it might take some runs to get it. Not a mandatory item, but very strong addition to the build. I recommend you to farm it in Normal Monolith.

Aurora’s Time Glass (recommended for Arena)

Try to get high Endurance and Attack Speed rolls

Stats you want with Legendary Potential:

Critical Strike Multiplier>Cold Penetration>Increased Dodge Rating>Health

Idols

1x Throne of Ambition (Unique Idol)

4x Large Idols (1x3)

Prefix: Increased Health (3-9%)

Suffix: Elemental Resistance (5-13%)

1x Adorned Majasan Idol (2x2)

Prefix: Increased Bow Attack Speed (7-20%)

Suffix: Dodge Rating if Hit Recently (48-114)

Blessings

The Black Sun Timeline

  • Critical Strike Multiplier (recommended), Dodge or Health

Ending the Storm Timeline

  • Lightning Resistance (recommended) or Increased Cold Damage (for DPS)

Reign of Dragons Timeline

  • Crit Avoidance (recommended) or All Res

The Age of Winter Timeline

  • Physical Resistance (recommended), Cold Resistance or Chance to Shred Cold (for DPS)

Spirits of Fire Timeline

  • Endurance (recommended), Dodge Rating or Armour

Please feel free to ask any questions about this build.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the build!

Special Thanks to @LizardIRL for the BowMage inspiration & @FoE for some theorycrafting/talks/ideas.

Check out @McFluffin’s alternative build version on youtube here.

Are you interested in more builds?

Check out my Shadow HoA Marksman Build Guide here.

6 Likes
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(post deleted by author)

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Okie dokie then…

Pretty good build… Level 90 Marksman easily handling lv 100 Empowered Monos with less than the recommended gear/stats - e.g. health (only 1k), crit chance, dexterity and wrong blessings and without the unique idol…

Fun & Fairly easy skill rotation and attack speed is by far the best stat…

Directional play can take some getting used to, especially with mobs that jump over you or if you let yourself get surrounded…

Wouldnt attempt Julra or pushing corruption until I get the right blessings and some decent improvement in health/items… Some mono bosses are touch and go with the low health, but you can do it…

One thing… Those Shadow Idols that you have in the build planner… Are they “made up ideals”? Reason I ask is that I have about 60+ of those idols and not a single one has increased health and/or elemental resistance… Have used the vigourous stout idols of life instead…

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Yes, i’m also currently at lvl 90 optimizing my gear a bit more for the video build guide to showcase everything. Sitting at 1.8k Health, 70Dex currently getting my last emp blessings.

The build is extremely powerful with dmg. I tried Arena, its tough to play but you can reach 300+ if played abit more carefully, died at around 220 with my first run.
You can definitely push this build into 300+ corruption aswell.
The Dungeon Bosses are tough but its possible. I have alot of practice with MM.

About the Idols, i can confirm that those Idols are extremely rare. I have those idols with only the health as prefix or ele res as suffix, but havent found 1 yet with both mods. 1x2 or 2x1 idols do the job to get your health/res up for sure.

I will link my character once i upload the video to get you guys more insight. Casual players will love to see that all the high endgame content is possible with mediocre gear.

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Hey Honey! :heart:
Great build with a lot of individual options people can make.

I try to understand the scaling of Dragonsong proc. What’s the very best way to scale it?

So it has Fire and Spell tag. I asume it has a certain base fire damage I can scale with increased fire. Theres no other way to add flat damage to it than the boots, right? They convert dex into flat cold damage, that applies at 900%. So I understand the general concept. What I ask myself is: At what point (how much flat cold damage I have to add) is scaling cold damage better than scaling fire?

Do we know what the base fire damage of the proc is? Isn’t it the case that as long as “base fire damage > added cold damage” that it is better to scale fire? (I mean solely in regard to opportunity cost - so when we have to choose either to scale fire or cold) We also have sources of fire res shred. So wouldn’t it be better to stick with fire and just take the bonus damage from boots at the mentioned 900% effectiveness?

I’ll defenitely try the multishot shotgun version. Sounds fun. Currently I’m experimenting with Shift with creating Shadows and proccing Shadow Cascade. When you proc Cascade with shift you can ignore the weapon restriction of the base skill. I specced SC into throwing daggers and crit chance. Its proccing the bow proc reliably, but I haven’t had the chance to compare it with multishot. Also with this setup you want to shift through and into enemies which makes it more of a suicidal playstyle. And you want to have enemies in front of you after shift so you actually hit something with the proc :grin:.

Cheers! :kissing_heart:

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If you’re using Cinder Strike, the simplest way is to take the Elemental Vulnerability node that converts Oil Coating’s % fire damage buff to % elemental. Assuming you’re taking 5 points there (25% increased elemental damage per stack) & have 15-20 stacks that’ll give you 375% - 500% increased elemental damage buffing the Cinder Strike hits as well the fire & cold parts of the proc. After that you might as well take any % cold damage affixes that you can get rather than % fire or % elemental since the boots would add 864 (96 * 900%) flat cold damage to the proc which is a massive amount of flat damage & would be most of your damage on bosses I’d expect.

Given the bow “only” adds up to 17 fire damage to spells (= 153 flat fire damage for the proc), if you’ve got more than 17 dex, the proc will be more cold than fire. But you’d also be doing fire damage with your Cinder Strike so you’d need to guesstimate how much of the total damage is coming from the proc compared to Cinder Strike.

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Thx buddy.
I just added the Video Build Guide. I messed up the audio quality abit, so sorry about that.
Also talked about it in the video. The save way is definitely to go increased elemental dmg to both boost CS and Dragonfire dmg. The lower average roll we get from Elemental Dmg compared to Fire/Cold dmg is not that big, the rest is all in on Dex & Crit Multi.

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I liked all of your easily achievable gear (in the build planner) as well. That was a nice touch.

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I wanted to ask if you ever made or dabbled in any void marksmen with the Nightbringer. quiver?

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I’m always interested in new ideas.
I will not copy the build, but take inspiration from it to try to create one. And if I fail to create something good but like the playstyle, I may copy it.

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I still have my Nightbringer MM. Even though i like the quivers concept, there are some stats that are bothering me. Enemies you blind cannot crit is a dangerous and also an unnecessary stat since 100%crit avoidance is super easy to reach with every MM build. Especially when you go crit you always go for Heightened Senses node for bow crit multi. If you dont focus on 100% CA and rely on the quiver its really dangerous against enemies that are faster than you. Bow Void dmg is a cool stat, but there is no 100% physical to void conversion node for Multishot that im missing, it would make dmg scaling alot better for all the high lvl base physical dmg bows. Also the implicit with increased dmg over time is weird. The slow is good for Multi since it as some synergies. And going low life you will miss some important and strong defensive stats like increased dodge or hybrid/increased health.

That was my goal with Dragon CoC. To give players alternative skills so that they can build around their own desired playstyle. I dont like when people are copying builds without even knowing how the build works. I also dont like that it seems like the trend of the arpg community is to chase meta builds.
I really like your Real Hero builds, because you only want to give inspiration. If someone tells you that your builds are crap, dont listen to it. I enjoy reading through new builds rather then seeing 90% of the playerbase playing the exact same builds.

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ditto… @Shtrak

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Don’t get me wrong, I definitely thought it was a bit odd plus the lack of void in marksman which is why I never bothered to try and make a build around it. I figure you were one of the people to ask about it though. Hopefully they add some unique stuff like this in the future, I don’t know about you but a void marksman sounds badass. I’m also not opposed to a necrotic one.

This is a personal attack

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I agree. And maybe i find a way to make a good build around it and let you know.

:joy: :kissing_heart:

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Just to introduce a variant.

If you change the 5 Points in Cinderstrike,
Throw out Multishot for Decoy (max Damage specc)
and add in Kelthan Blasting Agent - Unique Oil Vial - Relic - Last Epoch Item Database (lastepochtools.com)

You end with basicly the same specc but with a real NUKE on a ~5 Second cooldown. Decoy still oneshots echo objectives at 120 Corruption :wink:

I dont say that this is BETTER an in any way (you give up decoy as a CC tool!) but it is for sure great fun to see that huge Booms go off … and it synergies perfectly with the rest of the build. Even the throwing speed on the bow really helps…

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That’s clearly not true, you can’t honestly think I’m 10% of the player base?

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No, you’re in the part of the player base with gates all around, sippy cups, safety scissors, non-toxic glue and a chaperone.

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[quote=“EggBagel, post:13, topic:48352”]

What am I supposed to respond? :honeybee:

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With a correctly formatted post? :wink:

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You could always take this chance to profess your undying love for me?

I take back what I said before about a chaperone after seeing that message, we would need chaperones to watch chaperones but who watches the watchers? A llama cannot be trusted.

1 Like