[3.6] Immortal Blade Flurry Assassin - Face-tank All Content - [CAN BE DONE ON BUDGET!] - 1 MIL+ DPS
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Introduction
 _______ Updates 11/15/18 – Posted up the character build guide. 12/06/18 - Posted a gameplay clip so you can see the build in action. [UPDATE LOG] - With the 3.6 Synthesis league hitting, this build is still works. If anything, this build might have gotten better because they removed the minimum and maximum critical strike chance restrictions. This means we can get 100% crit chance now. The skilltrees were updated to the 3.6 skilltrees. _______ This is my second guide that I have officially submitted so far. This is not going to be like one of my twenty Flicker Strike (my favorite skill in the game) builds. I do enjoy other skills in this game as well and I had this specific build theory crafted in my mind. I finally gave it a go yesterday and cleared almost all of Path’s content starting at level 70. Imagine what the results could be once we get this character to higher levels and able to apply more skill points? The content already melts for respectable investment and even on a budget so just think about that thought. This is going to be a bit of a lengthy introduction and I would recommend you read a bit into it so you get the gist of the build. I take time writing my guides so if you have the time to spare to do some reading, it would be much appreciated. Feel free to skip the to the TL;DR section with just searching that (search for “T L ; D R” all together and without the quotation marks and you will skip directly to the guide and the TLDR section). Without further ado, I present to you, the face-tanking Immortal Blade Flurry Assassin. Though I mainly focus on only making Flicker Strike builds, the idea I had for this character could not be ignored. I was constantly theory crafting this in my head a few days ago. This character is using a Shadow with the Assassin ascendency which works wonders for this build. It mitigates and covers a lot of the gaps that other classes could not cover and outperforms them by miles. There are a lot of unique abilities that the Assassin ascendancy offers to us. This build mainly focuses on having 100% chance to hit along with dishing out massive critical strike attacks with Blade Flurry. By utilizing the unique shield Lycosidae (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Lycosidae), we ensure that our hits cannot be avoided. It has the mod “Your hits can’t be evaded” which ensures we never miss any of our attacks. Obviously, using this with an Assassin where we are relying on critical strike chance and an insane amount of critical strike multiplier, it just makes this build INSANE. Imagine dealing 1 million plus damage and knowing that the enemy has no way of avoiding it. Because we are guaranteed to never miss our attacks while having max critical strike chance which caps at 95% (this build naturally gets to the max cap of critical strike chance which is 95%), we are going to be dealing the highest amount of damage we can possibly deal a majority of the time. Not just this, but because the enemy cannot evade these attacks and we are nearly almost always performing critical strikes, we can abuse status ailments to further boost our damage. Performing a critical strike is what guarantees a status ailment to occur based on the element you hit the enemy with. Just getting a jewel or piece of equipment to deal even 1 damage of any element (fire, cold and/or lightning) allows us to potentially shock, chill, freeze and/or ignite. Think about it, insane, right? Now, why do I call it the Immortal Blade Flurry Assassin? Immortal because it uses the unique claw Bloodseeker (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Bloodseeker) which is one of the main stars of this build along with Lycosidae. Bloodseeker allows the damage we leech to be instantly applied to our character compared to the normal leech recovery which just gradually recovers our life. We are essentially being healed in chunks, rather than gradually. This makes it so you can face-tank enemies and bosses, assuming you do not get one shot but do not worry, we have ways to mitigate these chances with this build. The reason why we use Blade Flurry with this build is because it does a good amount of damage and it is an AoE (area of effect) melee skill which can hit multiple enemies that surround you. But the real big reason why I wanted to use Blade Flurry is because since it already does AoE, I do not need to waste a precious gem in my 6-link for my skill to splash (hit multiple enemies). By doing this, we can get another gem specifically to further improve our damage without having to worry about sacrificing some damage to ensure we do splash damage and have the ability to hit multiple enemies. Blade Flurry also does not cost much mana, and with how much we are going to be reserving our mana pool, this is critical. It is a channeling skill so the longer you channel it (holding down the button to use your Blade Flurry), the more mana that constantly depletes. This is mitigated by having mana leech which we naturally get for this build on the skill tree. Since we leech more mana than we use, we can sustain our Blade Flurry. Even with all of the gem links, Blade Flurry is only costing about 14 mana. All of the other items, equipment and uniques in this build are not required for this build and can be totally done with budget gear (rare gear). I already had all of the items I needed (the gear that I am currently using which are what I also use for this guide) minus 1 or 2 items which are items that had specific enchantments and/or corruptions for end game. The gear shown for this guide is what I currently use and by no means what you have to use. The only two real required items are Bloodseeker and Lycosidae. Everything else is just for min-maxing and quality of life. I originally built this on a budget to see if it still works, and yes, it does. Obviously with end game gear and min-maxing, this build becomes a totally new beast. With budget gear, you are obviously dishing way less damage compared to end game gear, but you are still dishing out massive amounts of damage with all of the same perks. TL;DR: Long story short, we are using a Shadow/Assassin and abusing Bloodseeker to instant leech and Lycosidae to ensure that our enemies cannot evade our attacks. Add on a Blade Flurry that has 95% critical strike chance and 300%+ critical strike multiplier, we are dealing insane amounts of damage. Insane damage with Bloodseeker means insane life leeched which is instantly recovered. We also tack on added cold, fire, and/or lightning damage on any piece(s) of our item(s) and we get guaranteed chill, freeze, ignite and shock ailments respectively. Critical strikes with any of these elements grants us these ailments and they all be applied at the same time which also boosts our damage even more. This build can be budgeted and the only real required uniques is Bloodseeker (1 chaos or less) and Lycosidae (30-40 chaos) which is extremely cheap for how much this shield benefits and does for this build. Feel free to use any other rares or unqiues for your other equipment. All of the other items/enchantments/corruptions will be based on your budget. Regardless, if you have the required uniques and follow the skill tree, you will still have an insanely solid character. You can change whatever you want to fit your needs. Pro's & Con's + Respectable clear speed + 6K+ Life by naturally following the skill tree and grabbing life on gear + Can be done on a budget also a possible league starter + Max critical strike chance at 95% (95% is the cap) and 300%+ critical strike multiplier + 100% hit chance ensuring you will never miss + Can do all content in the game + Thousands upon thousands of life which is instantly leeched + Consistent Power Charge generation and sustain + Face-tank all content + Immune to stun, chill, and freeze (other ailments do not bother us) + Multiple damage mitigations and evasions (6000+ life, 20%+ physical damage reduction, 40% attack dodge chance, 30% spell dodge chance, 20%+ block chance, 80% to all elemental resistances) + No Vaal Pact (which makes your life leech doubled but you cannot regenerate life) because of Bloodseeker (granting us instant life leech) which means we can regenerate life alongside instant leeching - Can be one shot if you do not have enough life and/or damage mitigation/preventions (Assassins are fairly squishy in general) - Items/corruptions/rolls for end game items can get expensive and/or are difficult to find - Getting life may be difficult depending on your items (can become squishy because of this which means you have a higher chance to being one shotted) - Need to use one level 2 and one level 4 Enlighten gem as a minimum requirement to have enough mana to use Blade Flurry (if you do not have enough currency for Enlighten gems, you will be forced to drop an aura or your curse setup which greatly drops your damage) - We reserve over 96% of our mana pool and this is with using two level 4 Enlighten gems (can still work without mana reservations, but you lose a large chunk of damage) Requirements Required Attributes
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Strength: 121 Dexterity: 155 Intelligence: 155 These are based off of if you are using level 20 gems. Do note, if you use skill gems over level 20, these requirements could slightly change and increase. This is more so for the min-maxing and players who have currency to use for level 21 gems and 20+ quality gems. Required Items/Uniques
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Needed so our life leech becomes instant. Needed so our hit chance becomes 100%. Enemies will not be able to evade our attacks. Alternatives?
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As mentioned before, this build only has two required uniques to make the build work. You can pretty much substitute all of the other items to whatever you want. Now, I would obviously recommend certain items and even the ones I am currently using (the unique items that I am currently using) for this build, but choose what works best for your budget. For example, we reserve a lot of our mana pool for a curse, aura and herald. If you do not have enough currency to purchase a level 2 and level 4 Enlighten gem as a minimum, you will have to drop one of your auras. In this case, you would drop the least damage boosting aura and that would be Wrath. This is totally your own choice. Just because I am using certain items does not mean that you have to use it. It is what I already had on hand and just fit perfectly with the build. The only real thing that I bought was the unique ring Dream Fragments (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Dream_Fragments) with the corruption giving it the implicit “Wrath has (15–20)% increased Aura Effect.” I had a few Dream Fragments already, but when I corrupted them, I did not get the corruptions that I wanted. I just ended up buying one with the corruption I needed. I was lucky to already have a Starkonja’s Head (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Starkonja%27s_Head) with a “40% increased Blade Flurry Damage” helm enchant from running uber labs and enchanting random helmets. It is your choice on how you want to take your character. As long as you follow the skill tree and recommendations, I think your character will turn out just fine. Gear This section is what I am currently using for my build. Your setup will most likely be different depending on how long you have been playing this league and your budget. I am not going to sit here and say you need these certain items, but I would recommend them to make your character more solid. I have a couple of personal quirks that I have for PoE such as I hate being chilled/frozen and because of that, I might grab a specific item to counter it (Dream Fragments) rather than using a flask slot to take care of it. I would rather use that flask slot for a flask to raise my damage. It is totally on your choice though. My Current Gear
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Main Hand/Weapon Slot #1
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The main weapon in the main hand weapon slot. Bloodseeker is one of the required uniques for this build to work. This item makes our life leech apply to us instantly instead of the gradual life recovery how leech usually works. Since we are dishing out such high amounts of damage, we are going to be gaining life back at an incredible rate. This makes it so we can face-tank and not having to worry about running out of life due to damage. Because we use this alongside Lycosidae, we are never missing our attacks so we are guaranteed to be leeching an insane amount of life every time we attack with Blade Flurry. Another nice thing about Bloodseeker is that it only has one mod that actually has a roll. This makes it so it is easier to get the roll we want for our Bloodseeker and not having to worry about making sure other mods on the item has good rolls like you would with other uniques. It only has the “(150-170)% increased Physical Damage” mod that we need to worry about. Obviously, get the best roll you can get. Be advised that the higher you search towards 170% increased physical damage, the more Bloodseeker will cost. A regular Bloodseeker costs a single chaos or less. This will depend strictly on your budget. Off Hand/Shield Slot #2
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The shield we use in our off hand (second weapon slot). Lycosidae is the other required unique that makes this build possible. This shield is easily one of the best if not the best shield in the game and especially so for specific builds. This shield has the mod “Your hits can't be Evaded.” This gives us 100% hit chance which means that we will never miss any of our attacks. Along with being an Assassin who relies on critical strikes and how critical strikes also work off of your accuracy, this shield ensures that we have our highest critical strike damage and never miss our attacks. Usually crit builds suffer because their accuracy is not good (under 90% and even as low as the 80% range at times) so they cannot make full use of their crit. This shield disregards this and makes everything related to crit and damage go our way. You could not ask for a better shield. Even if this shield only had that single mod alone with no other mods, I would still probably use it. By using this shield, we do not have to go to great lengths to get Resolute Technique (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Resolute_Technique) on the far left of the skill tree. It is not just about wasting skill points to get to the other side, but although Resolute Technique gives us the same “Your hits can’t be Evaded,” it also comes with the price with the mod “Never deal Critical Strikes.” We are obviously an Assassin whose sole purpose is to critical strike everything to oblivion. This is where other builds would suffer a massive damage drop for never being able to critical strike by grabbing this node, but this shield and being an Assassin ignores this completely. Honestly, just pick up the cheapest Lycosidae you can grab if you are on a budget, but if you want to spend a bit more, get the highest maximum life rolls you can get on it. Though we can sustain our face-tanking since we leech an absurd amount of life instantly, we are still susceptible to getting one shot. We have ways to mitigate and avoid damage, but getting the highest life pool we can get incase an enemy gets through all of those defenses is important. We want to get life wherever we can get it unless you want to use a certain unique where a life mod is not on it. A regular Lycosidae runs about 30 to 40 chaos. The better rolls you get, the more expensive it gets. If you are really rich, you can also get a corrupted one with the implicit “(4–6)% increased maximum Life” to scale our life a bit more. The more life we have, the less chance of getting one shotted. Body Armor Slot
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A classic Loreweave is always a solid choice for any build and frankly, it works amazing for this build. We get increased resistance cap, life, crit chance, attributes and all of that other good stuff. Loreweave has the stats that we want for our build. If you do decide to go the Loreweave route, I would prioritize in getting the best “Your Maximum Resistances are #%” roll which is 80%. After that, I would prioritize in life and then surprisingly, attributes. With this build and the skill tree, getting certain stats may prove difficult and what can make or break your required attributes is based on this armor as well. This is one of the uniques we use that actually gives us all to attributes. I personally needed 15 more strength for this build and the Loreweave filled that out perfectly. I would highly recommend a Loreweave, but if you cannot afford one, feel free to use a rare body armor. I would prioritize in life and then resistances for where you need them. A Belly of the Beast (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Belly_of_the_Beast) is also another good choice for a unique body armor. Pick what works best for your budget. Helmet Slot
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Starkonja is great for this build and a standard unique helmet that is found on a lot of builds. Since we are a Trickster where we naturally get a lot of dexterity and evasion, Starkonja boosts our evasion rating and grants us some pretty solid DPS because of its mods. It also gives us more crit chance which is important to raise our already high crit chance. We are using Unwavering Stance (we cannot be stunned but we cannot evade attacks), so you might think the evasion/dexterity goes out the window, but we also grab the Iron Reflexes node so all of evasion/dexterity gets converted to armor. This makes us tankier and allows us to make use of all of the evasion/dexterity that we have. For those looking for more DPS and end game, you can get an increased Blade Flurry damage helm enchant. You actually can find these pretty easily on poetrade since useful uniques are generally what people put enchantments on. Starkonja or a solid rare helmet with life, resists and increased Blade Flurry damage enchant are best in slot. Prioritize life and resists for your rare helmet if you go for a rare helmet. Gloves Slot
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These are probably the best in slot gloves you can get for this build, hands down. You are going to want to get a Tombfist with two abyssal sockets and this is key. If you cannot afford one with two abyssal sockets, one will still work, but you are just missing out on extra DPS. I would still recommend you use a Tombfist that only has 1 socket over a rare pair of gloves, but if you cannot afford a one socket one either, go the rare gloves route. Tombfist socketed with a murderous and a searching eye jewel gives us maim and intimidation which grants us even more DPS along with the increased attack speed mod that is already on the pair of gloves. You must make sure that you have at least 2 red sockets linked together! These gloves also give us a decent amount of life with its maximum percent life mod as well so that is a huge help for us in the life department. Try to get the best rolls you can for the increased life (6% is the best roll) and the increased attack speed (10% is the best roll) mods. Obviously it will get more expensive but base this on your budget. As usual, if you go the rare glove route, life+resists first. Boots Slot
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These are a pretty decent pair of boots I got from a single fossil craft. I ended up hitting some decent life mods with a few respectable resist rolls. I crafted cold resist on them to cap my resistances. The movement speed is a plus. I was missing some fire resistance so I crafted it for my open slot. The best in slot boots would be ones that prioritize in life, resistances and the movement speed. If you end up using all of the same uniques as I have for this current build, the boots are one of the few areas where you can really try to find the most life+resists you can get. The only other spots on this build to get this would be the belt and one of the ring slots. Best boot enchant would be “1 to 160 Lightning Damage if you haven’t Killed Recently.” Great for boss fights. Belt Slot
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A Stygian Vise with good life rolls and resists is always solid for any build. As mentioned earlier with the boots, this belt slot is another one of the three locations where we can focus on grabbing life+resists. A rare Stygian Vise with a high life roll and well spread out resistances is best in slot. If you can get an increased elemental attacks mod on it as well, even better. I would really focus on getting the highest life roll you can get on this before focusing on the resistances. You can get a nice 90+ flat life on it which scales very well with the life nodes we grab on the tree. Obviously, this depends on your budget. Do what works for you. For the abyss jewel, prioritize in life first, crit multi rolls, and then whatever other resistances/attributes you are missing. You can also get added physical, or added elemental damage for some extra DPS as well. This is the one I am currently using. Ring #1 Slot
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Dream Fragments? Seriously? Yes! Honestly, this is one of my favorite items in the game for two reasons. One: I hate being chilled and/or frozen. Two: This item makes us completely immune to chill and freeze. We all know how annoying being chilled and frozen can be and especially in some really specific situations. One of the worst ones is when opening a chest full of mobs. There are some other benefits with this ring for us as well. Rings can get some pretty cool corruptions for auras and guess what? We use Wrath for a serious boost of DPS in this build. A ring can get the corruption “Wrath has #% increased Aura Effect” implicit. This means that our already high DPS boosting aura can be upgraded even more. You might be thinking that this is going to cost you quite a bit of currency, but it is not as expensive as it looks. You can find one of these for 20-30 chaos if you really look. I bought mine for 22 chaos. Dream Fragment is originally about 1 chaos and with the corruption, it goes up to about 20 chaos which is not a bad deal at all for how much this boosts our character’s defense and DPS. Though this is not that expensive, If you cannot afford this ring, then a rare ring works perfect too. You can try to find a ring with the most life you can get along with resistances. Getting your resists capped will be a lot easier if you drop Dream Fragments for a regular rare ring. If you get a rare ring, prioritize life, resists, crit, added damage and any attributes you are missing. Ring #2 Slot
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This is the third slot where we can really focus on grabbing life, resists and added flat damage. I fossil crafted these myself and hit some pretty good rolls for this build specifically. I had an extra slot and threw in some added flat lightning damage for that DPS boost. As usual, focus on life, resists, added flat damage and any other stats/attributes that you are missing. Another choice here could be to use another ring with a corrupted increased Wrath aura effect implicit as well. A good choice to do this with would be a Le Heup of All Iron Ring (https://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Le_Heup_of_All). This a possible choice because it is cheap, and people are not really looking for this ring with that specific corruption. This makes it cheap and awesome for our build. This is also a very good choice if you already got most of your resistances capped. It only costs about 15-20 chaos as well which is very cheap for how much it benefits our build. This ring also offers us 10-30% increased damage, 10-30 to all attributes and 10-30% to all elemental resists. So we are getting damage and resists on one ring. Not too shabby, but I would still prioritize in getting a rare ring with life first. Your choice. Amulet Slot
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Let me get this straight, this is totally UNNEEDED for this build to function. This is more so a quality of life, for the richer folks and just because I already had this as a drop from another build. I was just thinking how I could elevate the damage of this build and this item sat in my stash which sparked the idea. Aul’s Uprising allows us to reserve Haste for no cost. This means we can run Haste for free and get all of the increased attack, cast and movement speed mods that boosts our movement speed and DPS. It also comes with added attributes, a decent flat life roll and its own unique mod, “Nearby Enemies Grant 25% increased Flask Charges.” This is insanely good for us because we are pretty much going to be face-tanking and close to mobs. We are going to be gaining flask charges like a madman. Now remember, this is strictly just because I had this item from before, you in no way have to have this item or run Haste to make the build run. It is strictly quality of life. A rare amulet with life, resists and crit multi will easily take you through the game just fine. Prioritize those stats in that order as usual if you grab a rare amulet. Jewels
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Now, these jewels are not required for the build, but man do they make a difference. These are the current jewels that I am using for this build and this is strictly end game min-maxing. At level 100, you will be having 7 jewel sockets if you follow the skill tree. Though they might not be required, if you can get even anything similar to these jewels I crafted, then it will boost your life and DPS GREATLY. The Watcher’s Eye is also not needed for the build, but I got this as a drop and used it on one of my other characters. Obviously it does wonders for the build and the rolls are extremely beefy, but you can just find another jewel to replace it. If you also notice, you might see that I am only using regular jewels and not abyss jewels. The reason being is because since we are an Assassin, we want to focus on crit as much as we can. Abyss jewels can only get one increased crit multi mod which is the standard “% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier.” Regular jewels, as you see can from the ones I crafted can have 3 different crit multi mods that are additive. % to Critical Strike Multiplier with One(or Two) Handed Melee Weapons, % to Global Critical Strike Multiplier and % to Melee Critical Strike Multiplier. This means we can get more of these crit mods on a jewel which means more DPS for us. It is even possible to get all three mods on a jewel, but this is extremely a slim chance. I do have a few triple crit multi jewels, but you really want to have a maximum life % roll for more survivability. Obviously these are some end game jewels, but since we have 7 jewel sockets, it gives us a lot of room to be flexible in case we need more attributes or resists to cover. Prioritize life and then crit multi mods. If you need attributes or resistances, I would prioritize that over the crit multi mods. Another important thing to note is that since we are performing critical strikes a majority of the time, if you do not have or are missing any elemental damage, try to get them on a jewel as added flat damage. This is best done with abyss jewels since they can add flat elemental (cold, fire and lightning) damage which we need so we can chill, freeze, ignite and shock for more damage. We sit at around 50% chance to inflict ailments so get some flat elemental damage on jewels if you do not have them anywhere else on your build. I already had elemental damage on other items so I did not need to get them on my jewels. You will most likely be different, depending. Flasks
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These are the current flasks that I am using for this character. As you can see, this is really just for pure DPS. I do not have any life flasks because we are already instant life leeching, and we have a decent positive life regeneration which out-regens our Blood Rage. The only real required flasks would be the first two flasks. We want a Silver Flask with Immunity/Remove Curses on use and Onslaught, and a Sulphur Flask with Immunity/Remove Bleeding on use and 40% increased damage. The Sulphur Flask also gives us Consecrated Ground so we are getting even more life regeneration. This is great for us because we are going to be face-tanking and close range to our enemies. This means we are consistently getting our Consecrated Ground usage by remaining stationary and standing on it. So these two flasks are protecting us defensively and also increasing our DPS. Fair trade, I say. One thing to note about these flasks is that I got the mod “20% chance to gain a Flask Charge when you deal a critical strike mod. This is helpful for us since we are nearly always performing critical hits. Even if it is only 20% of the time, that is good enough to be generating extra flask charges. You put this on top of Aul’s Uprising and it is even better since Aul’s Uprising grants us 25% increased flask charges from nearby enemies. This is really strong when we have “reduced flask charges gained” map mods and also when we are fighting bosses head on with no mobs to build our charges. The other three flasks are strictly for DPS and the most DPS we can get from flasks. Sin’s Rebirth does also give us immunity and removes burning on use. If you want to squeeze in a life and/or other utility flask, be my guest. For me personally, just running these 5 flasks has gotten me through everything just fine though. You just have to play carefully and you should be fine. Skill gems The current skill gem link setups that I use. There are some links that you can change to your liking, but this is what I currently use and it works perfect for me. Depending on what items you use will change your links. One important thing to note is that there is currently two Enlighten’s that I use for this build. If you decide to use this same exact build and setup, you need to have one Enlighten to be level 4 and the second Enlighten to be at least level 2 or higher. We run a curse aura, regular aura and a Herald. This reserves over 95% of our mana. If you cannot afford the Enlighten’s, then you will have to drop one of your mana reservation skills. Depending on your items, your DPS can be different for which aura you drop so that will be on you. This is why your gem links can change.
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6 Link - Main Attack – Blade Flurry Setup
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Blade Flurry > Hypothermia Support > Added Fire Damage Support > Melee Physical Damage Support > Concentrated Effect Support > Maim Support This is your Blade Flurry setup which will be socketed in your Body Armor. One nice thing is that you do not have to swap out any gems. With the current gear along with the skill tree, this is the most DPS gem link setup. If you only have a 5 link, then drop Maim Support. Concentrated Effect Support does shrink our AoE a bit, but the damage is much needed and we can afford to shave off a little bit of our AoE for that. 3 Link – Movement – Main Movement Setup
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Blood Magic > Whirling Blades > Faster Attacks Support This is your main movement setup, which utilizes Whirling Blades. Simple as that. Instant leech from Bloodseeker just makes Whirling Blades that much better as well. Whirling Blades is able to hit multiple targets and also pierces so you can get a quick instant heal if you need it. We need to use Blood Magic because we do not have enough mana to use it repeatedly. This is because of all of the mana we are reserving. I socket this setup in my Bloodseeker. Using Whirling Blades in shorter distances with your cursor is faster than using it by placing your cursor farther. Whirling Blades is also great at dodging things last minute because of how fast it bursts you in the direction you choose. For this kind of build, Whirling Blades allows us to get out of scary situations in a jiffy. This is more so before you can actually start face-tanking late game boss content. Later on you will just use Whirling Blades to get near the boss and face-tank them to oblivion. 3 Link – CWDT/Utility – Cast when Damaged Taken/Utility Setup
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Cast when Damage Taken Support (level 2) > Immortal Call (level 4) > Blood Rage (level 8) The standard CWDT setup but with Blood Rage. The main reason why we have Blood Rage linked along with our CWDT setup is because we utilize the Pantheon Major God: Soul of Arakaali. The other soul you capture under Arakaali is Arachnoxia which gives us 50% increased recovery rate if we stop taking damage over time. Blood Rage gets cast because of Cast when Damage Taken Support, and then Immortal Call gets cast which stops the life degen from Blood Rage. This means we get Arachnoxia’s buff which makes our leech and regeneration rate 50% more. You definitely need to utilize this. It makes it so we can sustain, survive and face-tank smoother. You also want to keep the gems at the levels I listed. You want this CWDT setup to pop as much as you can. You are going to be out regenerating your Blood Rage’s life degen so do not worry about that. I socket this setup in my Lycosidae. 4 Link – Auras – Aura/Utility Setup
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Vaal Haste/Haste > Enlighten (level 2 to 4) > Herald of Purity > Portal Now, even if you do not have Aul’s Uprising, you can still socket in a Vaal Haste cause you do not need to reserve any mana to use the Vaal version of the skill. If you are using Aul’s Uprising, congratulations, you can run Haste for free which means more DPS. Having it just as a Vaal skill is completely fine too though. Just remember the note with the Enlighten’s. As long as one of your Enlighten gems are at level 4, your other Enlighten can either be level 2, 3 or 4. Portal is just there because I hate carrying portal scrolls. Feel free to replace this with whatever you want. I socket this in my helmet. 4 Link – Curse/Aura – Blasphemy/Aura Setup
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Blasphemy > Wrath > Enlighten (level 2 to 4) > Punishment This is your aura/curse setup. Your Enlighten level here will depend if you already have an Enlighten at level 4 or not. As long as you have a level 4, your other Enlighten can be level 2, 3 or 4. Feel free to drop an aura or curse setup if you do not have the Enlighten’s available or if you are having trouble sustaining mana which should not be the case. This setup just gives us a huge DPS boost as well. I socket this in my boots. 2 Link – CWDT+Stone Golem – Cast when Damage Taken Setup #2
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Cast when Damage Taken Support > Summon Stone Golem | Murderous Eye Jewel | Searching Eye Jewel This build does not use Vaal Pact since we have instant life leech and respectable life regeneration. Summon Stone Golem just grants us even more life regeneration which gives even more survivability. We obviously do not have enough mana to cast it, so this is why we run it in a CWDT setup. We could technically cast Summon Stone Golem, but that is only if we used a lower level gem of it. We want the most life regen we can get so we keep it at level 20. This along with our Pantheon and life regeneration that we grab on the skill tree keeps us nice and healthy. We out regen our Blood Rage degen as well. Since we are using Tombfist, we are going to want to socket a Murderous Eye Jewel and Searching Eye Jewel so we get Maim and Intimidation on hit which boosts our DPS even further. If you cannot get a Tombfist with 2 abyssal sockets, feel free to just use a Searching Eye Jewel to at least get the Intimidation. Bandits
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Save Alira’s poor soul! She gives us more crit multiplier, resists and mana regen.
Passive Tree You can fully utilize this build at level 62 since that is the level when you can finally use Bloodseeker. I personally start my builds at level 70. I do not start my builds from the ground up, but I level my characters up to 70 or the minimum level before I can use all of my items and gear. The same situation here.
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Level 70 Level 100 I would focus on the level 70 tree if you are starting from the ground up. You may need to respec here and there depending on what items you use as you level up, as you might not have enough attributes to use them at the time. Do what you need to. The level 70 tree is how I personally progressed through the game and I did not respec even once. At level 62-70, you will start to see the real shine of the build. Intelligence is hard to come by as well so that is why we grab the +30 to Intelligence nodes. The level 100 skill tree is my end game build with my end-game crafted jewels. Extremely tanky and able to face-tank all of the content in the game. Ascendancies and Pantheons Ascendancies
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 1st Lab: Unstable Infusion 2nd Lab: Deadly Infusion 3rd Lab: Opportunistic 4th Lab: Ambush and Assassinate We first take Unstable Infusion and then Deadly Infusion right after. We want to generate Power Charges as early as we can as it boosts our DPS, and we are able to stack crit pretty early in the game. Having +1 to Power Charges earlier is helpful in that too. The more Power Charges we have, the higher critical strike chance we get. The next two labs are completely on your own choice. I personally grabbed Opportunistic before I grabbed Ambush and Assassinate. I wanted more survivability and to clear maps quicker in the second half of the game to end game. I do not see anything wrong with grabbing Ambush and Asssinate first either, though. It is just based on preference so do what you feel works best for you. Pantheons
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 Soul of Arakaali as your Major God. This is probably the best Major God we can choose for this build. It is not really as much for the reduced DoT damage we take, but for the capture soul mods that we want. You are going to want to unlock and capture Arachnoxia in Toxic Sewer Map (Tier 5 map) to get the added mod “50% increased Recovery of Life and Energy Shield if you've stopped taking Damage Over Time Recently.” With our CWDT setup, since Blood Rage pops and Immortal Call makes us stop taking DoT since it gives us 100% physical immunity when it goes off, we get the Arachnoxia buff which does wonders for us. This makes it so our leech rate becomes 50% increased which means our already disgusting instant leech is even more disgusting. Definitely a must have for our build. It allows us to leech at even a faster rate which then allows us to face-tank bosses a lot smoother. Capturing Shock and Horror is also pretty good for us as well, but prioritize in capturing Arachnoxia first, for sure. NOTE: Path of Building does not reflect these mods. You can add them as mods on items to see the effects though.  Soul of Tukohama as your Minor God. We are going to want to be taking Soul of Tukohama for our Minor God and this fits our build the best. First thing is that Soul of Tukohama grants us an additional 2% of physical damage reduction each second which caps off at 8%. Most notably, you have to be stationary in order to get this buff. This works in our favor because we use Blade Flurry makes us stand still. This puts us in a stationary state which means we get the max benefits from this Minor God. So what else is great about having 8% physical damage reduction? Having life generation on top of that which capturing Tahsin on Siege Map (Tier 10 map) grants us. I highly recommend also capturing Tahsin for this life regeneration mod. Tahsin grants us “While you are stationary, gain 0.5% of life regeneration per second and up to a maximum of 2%.” This makes sure that we can shrug off the life degen from Blood Rage and other DoT effects. Definitely a must have! We do not use Vaal Pact either so we can raise our life regeneration as much as we want. Playstyle Piloting this build is extremely easy since we are just a face-tanking beast. You just move to packs with regular movement and/or Whirling Blades and then proceed to hold down your button for Blade Flurry to slice and dice everything to oblivion. One thing to note is that since you become stationary while channeling Blade Flurry, you might need to move your cursor in the direction of where certain enemies are. If you are getting surrounded, make sure to move your cursor to anything that is living to get the best results. Heck, you can even just spin your cursor in circles if you get surrounded. Before you engage a mob or a boss, make sure to pop your flasks. If you are still early in a map, feel free to pop Vaal Haste, but make sure you have a Vaal Haste stored up for the boss fight. Media Here are some sample gameplay videos so you can see the build in action. Videos
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Conclusion At end game we are sitting at 6K+ life and dishing over a million damage which cannot be evaded and we leech life instantly… Sign-ups are this way! This build in general was very fun to theorize and actually put into reality. It did exactly as I thought it would and more. Do not be intimidated or shy away from trying the build because of my end game crafted jewels or the like. This build is still budget friendly and only needs Bloodseeker+Lycosidae to run. I honestly thought about making this my league starter for Betrayal, but deep down I am still an avid Flicker Strike player. Enjoy! Overview of Current Gear (all together)
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Path of Building/Pastebin Code
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https://pastebin.com/hC9VnDfM
This my second build guide that I have created and posted. Thanks for stopping by and giving the build a look. I always try to explain as much as I can and hopefully I was thorough enough for you. If you have any questions or concerns about the build, feel free to drop them here and I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thanks and stay strong, exiles! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu#6072 on Mar 12, 2019, 9:57:57 AM Last bumped on Mar 23, 2024, 2:36:38 PM
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ty for guide, will try it soon
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" Thanks, I appreciate it! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I know the guide is a bit long, but I just wanted to cover as many questions as I could. Have fun, exile! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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Hey man, thanks for the idea of using Licosidae! It works really well. I used to run a stat stick in the offhand, but not having access to 100% accuracy (like the Duelist has) was a big problem (misses = no leech!). So, I took a large drop in DPS (but gained HP and extra defence), and now I really do feel immortal! I just ran a no life / mana regen + temporal chains 110% vaaled T14 map (dig) and my build performed very well like this.
I'm using double strike instead of blade flurry (with some bleed nodes) and a lot of other different ideas (I don't have access to OP items like Aul's), but the principle is the same. 1.3mil dps and 7.7k HP so far (lvl 91 with direct access to life nodes). |
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" Yeah, Lycosidae is just straight up broken. I personally think it is one of the best shields in the game and especially so in certain builds. It also gives some flat life which is huge for a shield. Getting some extra flat life on any item is great for any life build. Since we have 100% hit, going Assassin for pure crit just made me think of this build right away. And they can ignore reflect as well so that works so much more for this build. Double Strike is also really solid too. I just don't use it for this build because I don't want to have to use Melee Splash to clear mobs since it only hits single targets. I mean, I could swap out gems, but I am too lazy for that. I want to have my set gear and go. Blade Flurry is already an AoE so I was able to just focus on grabbing gems that would increase my DPS. If I was a Duelist though, going for bleed and Double Strike would probably be the way to go. Aul's was something I had drop on my other account which I just traded over to my theory crafting account which is this one. It's really just a QoL and totally not needed for the build. It was just more so that I had the item and could fit it in the build. Gives us some huge boosts in DPS and especially that Haste stacks with Vaal Haste. :O Insane, for sure. Cheers, mate! *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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[EDITED]
[Accidentally quoted my post.] *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu#6072 on Dec 3, 2018, 2:30:31 PM
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Hello!
I am reviving an old character to use your build. Everything looks good except my crit chance. It's on at 25%, where can I get it up? |
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" As long as you follow the tree, you are going to be getting a decent amount of critical strike chance, naturally. With the Assassin's ascendancies, you are also get the full life/low life 100% increased critical strike chance to which will pretty much make you guarantee critical strikes on top of you having a good amount of crit already. If you followed the tree correctly, you shouldn't have that much problem getting your crit. One thing to note is to make sure you tick on your "Power Charges" usage on the configurations tab. You are going to basically always be at max power charges since the Assassin generates and maintains them 100% of the time as long as you are attacking. That might be why you might feel that your critical strike chance is low. If you got any other questions or concerns, let me now. Good luck, exile! Cheers. *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!*
[Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 |
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Thank you for the reply! Also, I don't think my DPS is where it should be. Is there a raw damage tooltip number I should be going for (Before buffs)?
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" Just using PoB should be good enough. Since we are always going to be maintaining our power charges, you can check off that box in the Configuration tab under "When in Combat." With our critical chance so high as well, hovering at a minimum of 50%, we are going to be shocking, chilling and igniting the enemies all the time. You can go ahead and also check those boxes in the "For Effective DPS" window. One thing to note is that you have to have elemental damage somewhere on your items. In my case, I have it as flat elemental damage on my jewels. Wrath also gives us lightning damage so we are dealing all of the elements. Since we crit while attacking with those elements, we also proc all of the ailments. If you are using the guide and use the listed items there as well such as Tombfist and socket it with murderous and searching eye jewels, you will also get maim and intimidation. You also can check those boxes off in the same place as well. Usually builds would not check the ailment boxes in the configurations tab, but this build is a build that focuses on crits and you are basically always going to be in this case so it is safe to check them. Also, for the Main Skill part, you can also change your Blade Flurry to release at 6 stages since most of the time you are just going to be face-tanking. *Want to try out some fun hipster builds? Check out my thread below!* [Build/Stream Thread] https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2246315 Last edited by Bakuhakubasugasu#6072 on Dec 3, 2018, 8:38:15 PM
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