[2.2] NeverSink's 20-Arrow Poison Animator - "The Venomancer" ☠ + Video Guide

I too would be grateful for a new update to this build. I love it so much.

For everyone asking for an updated guide for 2.5, the original post is mostly accurate.
I am currently levelling this build in Breach, it works exactly the same way as when I played it in Perandus.

Just a quick overview for anyone interested:

Scion-Ascendant: Necromancer/Deadeye.

Bandits: Oak, none, none.

I would advise against aiming for an Astramentis in this build. They used to be extremely cheap in prior leagues, but they are up near 100c currently on Breach. A good rare amulet can be picked up very cheaply, as we don't need any crit or crit multi rolls, or anything else which often makes them expensive. I picked this up for 3c, which gives me over 100 max life (after factoring in the str), int, res, and a spare crafting slot still to fill in what I need.

Skill tree:



Note that in 2.3, the Scion Deadeye was changed slightly.


So we lose 20% pierce, 20% proj speed, gain 15% chance to bleed on hit. Not sure how much damage this will do, but for what it's worth it probably synergises well with our increased damage over time nodes, increased skill effect duration (does this work on bleed?), and temp chains on hit, if you have it on your snakebites.

To make up 20% pierce you can make use of the drillneck implicit 10% (which normally goes to waste and/or is vaal'd off), as well as picking up a single 10% pierce node for one point (as shown in tree above). There is some projectile damage and speed in the "Sniper" node in Shadow area, if that is of interest.

Also something to look at is spending an additional 3 points to pick up the rest of the pierce nodes. This would give us:

+50% pierce
+16% increased projectile damage

Which would allow us to drop the pierce gem and maintain 100% pierce, therefore fitting slower projectiles into a 5-link. This would give us 10% more damage (pierce=19% more, slower proj.=29% more) at the cost of 49% less projectile speed. It may end up feeling too slow, as we lost proj speed from the Deadeye change as well.

Now that I look at it, I think I will stick to Pierce gem and save the points. This is only applicable to a 5L though, as a 6L will use both Pierce and slower projectiles gems. Just something to think about.

We also get an additional two ascendancy points to spend on the tree, which as a scion is not nearly as useful, however we can use them to pick up an additional two skill points to make up for the pierce node and one other.

Is Necro/Deadeye better than Necro/Assassin?

Necro/Slayer seems like it might be good too - gives you Culling which you could swap out something in your main skill setup.

Also gives 30% damage and Leech.

So it looks like this build will probably die off with the arrival of 3.0 after they get rid of the double dipping? Shame, I never had the time to try it. :(

Any word on if this build is well and truly dead with 3.0?