[1.0.6] CI Crit Dagger Shadow (30k DPS Flicker Ninja) [OB video up!]

0.9.12t Patch Changes

"

Increased the values of all quality bonuses on gems by around +50%, with the exceptions of: critical strike chance (+33%), knockback (+0%), chill and freeze duration (+0%), leech speed (+0%), Firestorm delay reduction (+0%) and increases to area of effect (+0%).

Some changes to the gems I use

20q Lightning Strike now has 60% chance to pierce as compared to just 40 before (yeah!)

20q Flicker Strike now has 80% Increased Critical Chance as compared to 60% Increased Critical Chance before. That, together with some slight improvements in the other moderate quality gems I link it to has resulted in an increase again in Flicker's DPS.

Some changes in DPS values for my Character

Lightning Strike and Viper Strike saw mild improvements in DPS, around 200 each. (i didn't bother to update those screens)

Lighting Strike now has 60% chance to pierce, making this previously not so desirable skill more desirable now. (Hopefully it can compete with Ground Slam now!)

Most importantly, Flicker's DPS has been buffed back to 27206 as compared to 26270 before! (Hurray!) Overall, the reasons were because there was an additional +8 bonus to both minimum and maximum physical damage as well as a 1.4% increased overall crit chance for Flicker. The min/max phys dmg bonus doesn't seem like that much. Neither does the +1.4% increased crit chance. But somehow, I suppose because this build is oriented around Crit chance/damage and because of the massive Crit multiplier, it has in this case translated to +936 DPS. Not too shabby!

Note: Flicker's screen was updated. The others I didn't bother

Do things like pierce and accuracy factor into the displayed DPS of a skill? Or is the DPS number only if that skill hits?

"

spiritplx wrote:

Do things like pierce and accuracy factor into the displayed DPS of a skill? Or is the DPS number only if that skill hits?

Pierce doesn't factor into the displayed DPS of a skill. But everything else that affects the initial hit, such as accuracy, crit chance, crit damage multiplier, damage dealt all do factor into the DPS.

Got a beastly new dagger!


vs. my old one


Thanks Haivo for selling it to me!

DPS screens have subsequently been updated.
Finally broke 30k DPS now.

Changed Main Attack from Viper Strike to Double Strike

After a convo with Petrov I decided to experiment with Double Strike instead of Viper Strike and was pleasantly surprised!

Doing 15k DPS now with just a level 8 Double Strike instead of 10k previously with Viper.

Updated OP with this:

"

Double Strike. Best end-game skill when your base damage is high enough such that 2 x 70% of your base damage (level 1 gem) still yields higher damage than the extra damage provided by Elemental Hit and the extra chaos damage provided by Viper Strike. Better yet, the mana cost is so low as to be negligible in late game. Also, since double strike processes as 2 hits and the second hit will always be a crit if the first one is, it allows for shock-stacking and double charging of surgeon's flasks whenever you crit

Some benefits from using this skill in this build:
Because the second hit is always a crit if the first hit crits, that's a massive amount of damage dealt in effectively a single attack, especially since this build is based on crits.

Double crits = Shock stacking + double charging of Surgeon's flasks with effectively a single attack


Edit: also added more information/tips regarding early game gameplay as well as switching to CI after input from RaistlinM

Edit2: changed level 80 build to accommodate ranger's heartseeker node after Petrov's recommendation

I'd like to point out(unless im totally missing something) that the skill tree progression does not actually reflect the level you would need.

Example,

"

Invalesco wrote:

Skill Tree Progression


59 Points Approx Level 46, just before facing Ruthless Vaal Oversoul

I've been following the build, I have all quest passives. It looks like you would have to be lvl 51 to have that build. 5 levels higher then you estimate.(I am currently lvl 50)

With that said. I found following the build very difficult until I picked up summon zombies and Enfeeble. Even then I mainly stuck to hit-n-run with flicker/vs/whirl away. LS with LMP just eats up too much mana to use effectively w/o a good deal of mana leech.

Also, people should be mindful of over levling gems especially LS. When you refund those health nodes, you will likely lose 20 str. Which has forced me to use a str amulet.

I also feel like the build relies heavily on good rolls of equipment.

With that said, I still enjoy the build. I think once I can get my hands on

1. A better dagger with crit.
2. The right linked colors
3. gcp

Is when the build will really begins to shine. I also highly recommend that people wait until they can get both GR+CI + blood rage gem before switching to CI. Having only 2 of those is simply not worth it. (then again not having iir/iiq makes that difficult, you need gear to get gear...sigh)


ps i could really use some decent 50ish gear in default...lol

"

RaistlinM wrote:

I'd like to point out(unless im totally missing something) that the skill tree progression does not actually reflect the level you would need.

Example,

"

Invalesco wrote:

Skill Tree Progression


59 Points Approx Level 46, just before facing Ruthless Vaal Oversoul

I've been following the build, I have all quest passives. It looks like you would have to be lvl 51 to have that build. 5 levels higher then you estimate.(I am currently lvl 50)

With that said. I found following the build very difficult until I picked up summon zombies and Enfeeble. Even then I mainly stuck to hit-n-run with flicker/vs/whirl away. LS with LMP just eats up too much mana to use effectively w/o a good deal of mana leech.

Also, people should be mindful of over levling gems especially LS. When you refund those health nodes, you will likely lose 20 str. Which has forced me to use a str amulet.

I also feel like the build relies heavily on good rolls of equipment.

With that said, I still enjoy the build. I think once I can get my hands on

1. A better dagger with crit.
2. The right linked colors
3. gcp

Is when the build will really begins to shine. I also highly recommend that people wait until they can get both GR+CI + blood rage gem before switching to CI. Having only 2 of those is simply not worth it.


ps i could really use some decent 50ish gear in default...lol

thanks! i've just corrected the level allocations on the skill tree allocation points. However I calculated it to be level 48 not 51. Could it be that you missed the Unblocking the Western Forest quest in all 3 difficulties resulting in your missing out on 3 skill points?

and yes this build is admittedly difficult at the beginning. I probably should include more tips on early game gameplay. I usually use Temporal Chains and Skelly Totem myself. Have you tried skelly totem instead of zombies? It's always a must have for my shadow when I race in HC with this build.

Regarding LS, agreed very much on that.

Yes the CI part is a good point, I'll remember to include that in as well.

and regarding the gear in default, I've not been playing much myself recently coz of uni stuff hehe but if i do get my hands on some gear i'll let u know :) although I'm pretty sure you'll outlevel me by far too much by then!

Thanks for the input mate! :)

"

Invalesco wrote:

thanks! i've just corrected the level allocations on the skill tree allocation points. However I calculated it to be level 48 not 51. Could it be that you missed the Unblocking the Western Forest quest in all 3 difficulties resulting in your missing out on 3 skill points?

and yes this build is admittedly difficult at the beginning. I probably should include more tips on early game gameplay. I usually use Temporal Chains and Skelly Totem myself. Have you tried skelly totem instead of zombies? It's always a must have for my shadow when I race in HC with this build.


Thanks for the input mate! :)

Hmm I've checked and I've done all the previous quests. I'm guessing the different comes come me not having completed all of ruthless quests yet.

"

Invalesco wrote:

and yes this build is admittedly difficult at the beginning. I probably should include more tips on early game gameplay. I usually use Temporal Chains and Skelly Totem myself. Have you tried skelly totem instead of zombies? It's always a must have for my shadow when I race in HC with this build.

Hmm skelly totem? Im still a bit new, so I don't know what that is. I haven't found Temporal Chains, and it seems like the ones found are being kept or sold for very high price right now. Enfeeble has been decent though, so I haven't spammed global too much.

I still think viper strike is better at least early on. You can VS and kite, which saved my but plenty of times. I don't think it would have been possible for me to progress w/o this tactic. 2-3 vs and run way until ES recharges. I also very much enjoy vs one target, vs another, vs another, and keep mobile, it usually doesn't take more then 2 vs dots to kill a regular mob, this allows me to constantly be killing new targets. I'll still check out ds, but I guess I gotta level it now.

A bit of theory-craft: I wonder how well this will do in pvp. You won't be able to obtain frenzy charges(will you) unless you switch to frenzy-strike. That seems like a big dps decrease(no super flicker for one). Also anyone with enfeeble(especially hex master) can kill your crit chance, crit multi, and make the already mediocre accuracy even worse. Your thoughts on this?

"

RaistlinM wrote:

Hmm I've checked and I've done all the previous quests. I'm guessing the different comes come me not having completed all of ruthless quests yet.

Hmm skelly totem? Im still a bit new, so I don't know what that is. I haven't found Temporal Chains, and it seems like the ones found are being kept or sold for very high price right now. Enfeeble has been decent though, so I haven't spammed global too much.

I still think viper strike is better at least early on. You can VS and kite, which saved my but plenty of times. I don't think it would have been possible for me to progress w/o this tactic. 2-3 vs and run way until ES recharges. I also very much enjoy vs one target, vs another, vs another, and keep mobile, it usually doesn't take more then 2 vs dots to kill a regular mob, this allows me to constantly be killing new targets. I'll still check out ds, but I guess I gotta level it now.

A bit of theory-craft: I wonder how well this will do in pvp. You won't be able to obtain frenzy charges(will you) unless you switch to frenzy-strike. That seems like a big dps decrease(no super flicker for one). Also anyone with enfeeble(especially hex master) can kill your crit chance, crit multi, and make the already mediocre accuracy even worse. Your thoughts on this?

Ah that's probably it, coz I took into account all of Ruthless quest points.

Skelly totem is just Spell Totem linke with Summon skeletons. You should try it! It's pretty fun and is applicable for all situations, including vaal.

and yes VS is my favourite early game skill of all time as well!

Good point. I've actually given thought to all that as well. Frenzy was something I was considering as well, I might resort to that in PVP as it'll complement flicker and the +1 frenzy charge in this build.

I reckon we won't see that many pure evasion-based PvP characters because RT will counter those so those will be the minority we'll be up against. Most other build have negligible evasion rating so it shouldn't be a problem. Against pure evasion characters it could get pretty tricky, but I think it's all gonna boil down to how you play the character in PvP. Even with enfeeble, the accuracy wouldn't drop below 50% so you still have a chance to hit. As evasion based characters are usually HP-based, as long as you have a chance to hit, you can land Viper Strike charges which will still cause DoT. This build can certainly take damage so taking damage wouldn't be a problem.

It's probably all gonna boil down to reaction time and pvp skill.

Edit: in terms of accuracy only my dagger has accuracy at the moment. Headgear and gloves can have +accuracy mods as well so it'll be a good idea to stock up on those for PvP

A few questions.

Are you able to use the eye of chayula with only 1 hp?

What's a decent price for the eye and dream fragments?

How "overleveled" are you for most zones?

Merciless is very difficult for me. I feel like I either to need to overlevel to pass a zone or that I should turn on phase run and skip all the enemies. I might do the ladder since I kinda did the same in the other difficulties. I skipped through all the harder areas until I could got to the ledge in act 1, or Felshrine in act 2. At which point I would grind out a good 4-5 levels.