[2.4 Assassin] Viper Strike Build Fast, Fun and Cheap to Start [Video Guide]

Just finished my first map (a corrupted tropical island) and, while i've slightly deviated from your build, i held up pretty damn well.

Instead of Death's Hand, i went with a Bino's + claw combo (Bino's in off-hand slot for the poison spread), plus added a few increased poison nodes on the tree. Being lvl 67, its not a massive amount of damage, but its enough for me to swipe a pack of mobs and move on (clear speed is decent, with plenty of damage nodes to go).

All in all, a very sturdy, reliable build so far. Easily my favourite melee toon ive done.



Havent taken most of the crit nodes yet, so it will be interesting to see the dps boost when i do.

Cheers for an awesome build idea :)

hi thanks for posting how it when for you while lvling normally i have only my own experience. Again glad you liked the build and thank you for the praise. Gl and enjoy !

Mate add lvling trees to the build :))

ok :)

Hi, i'm a new player, i play poe since maybe 3week now :)

i play in hardcore and your build feel realy safe ( its my first melee build )

i'm actualy a4 cruel (lvl54), and each boss was rly easy atm :)

my gear is full rare with all resistance max life and evasion, i play with a dagger and shield rare aswell


thanks its a rly fun build :)

hi glad you like the build! gl in hard core stay safe :)

playing this game since a few days, ridiculously fun, although in the "mid-range" of leveling, that means during cruel and up to like A2 merc, I felt REAAAAAAAALLY squishy, simply because my damage was so much through the roof, I didn't care about both res AND hp, I had 800 life at malachai normal and I think about 1500 or so at cruel? that is not a whole lot :D . Even now ("finished" A4 merc, aka got the skillpoint at level 62, running maps since then) with about 3k life and capped res I feel a bit squishy sometimes. e.g. Pit map (at lvl 64), endboss room, I died once (because I was too slow with my flasks), then I ran back and the room was FULL of mobs. I don't know how many, maybe 100? maybe even more? but it was fun times. you need quick as hell reflexes on your flasks. I have one anti bleed with more but slower restore over longer time, one instant and one +resistance during effect and 100% more recovery at low hp, and I never pressed flasks so frequently in a fight than there. But it was so fun, it is ridiculous.

Oh and I made one change, I am no longer using enduring cry directly (because I am lazy as fuck). I dropped herald of ash and replaced it with Blasphemy Warlord's Mark. So much more smooth to play.

Damage is still quite high. around 10k with all charges. @lvl65 with a lvl 42 claw. 0.15 attackspeed, it is so fun. I can only imagine what it will be like with a lvl 60+ weapon with decent pDPS. And with a 5L. or a 6L. :D

Current Gear:

btw, have you thought about a possible ascendency class? I'm thinking to still play it as a shadow and take assassin, but since I am leveling in a group most likely, I have my doubts that "ambush" will be useful a lot. Also we will have a dedicated culler, so Assassinate will be useless also.

So I am thinking I go Unstable Infusion, which might even open up other possibilities for the offhand, (although the death's hand is also used for unholy might, not just for PC generation), and deadly infusion (which will shoot the crit chance through the roof). and then I'll just add Toxic delivery for even more DoT damagea and even more 10% physical as extra chaos dmg.

Hi glad you are liking the build! Yea I have thought about the ascendancy classes and i think i am going to make the shadow assassin and make a ranger version of the build with the raider class it will take some testing to see what the differences between the two builds will be. For assassin i am thinking about taking Toxic Delivery, Unstable infusion and Deadly Infusion should be A LOT more dmg so changes to the skill tree too.

glad to see that this is a build which the creator will continue in 2.2 already. =)

Also, just saw your third edit, the jewels stack? you can have multiple ones? jeez.
I am already at 0.14 APS, this is going ridiculous. XD

definitely my starting build in 2.2. I tested several build ideas I had so far, but this is just nuts. nothing even compares to the fun I had with this build while leveling. and endgame is even more nuts. I started mapping at 62. rushed through T4 maps with 67. like "let's yolo alch that map and just run it". no other build could do that.