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

Is there a reason or possibility to successfully add and use knockback on double strike or maybe whirling blades for pvp? Or any other option like that?
Quite annoying thing is to run back and forwards in pvp because someone else is knocking you back and you cant faceroll them. I know this might not be a build for such actions but dual strike has a nice knockback and Id like to have something like that on my 1 hand. Feel free to suggest me any options.

I'd love to thank you for your good work. Not only for the build ( I guess I will modify it for myself anyway) but that "support text" around is great and I have learned a lot from that, also crafting guide job well done. Thank you, more guides like this about game mechanics :) Cheers nd Merry Christmas

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Angelolz wrote:

Some general info about my stats. I think my flicker is around 4.5k and my LS about 2k. I have 3 granite flasks on my bar, 4k ES and im at 75 resistances. My gear atm is not amazing but id imagine it will be similar or worse in OB depending on how lucky i get. My map clearing speed is also pretty average atm and i can only deal with easy mods.

My question relates to survivability. Do you use eye of chahula often? Sometimes in maps i barely get away when theres too much ranged and i get locked. I was thinking of either saving for that amulet or going for the arrow dodging passive in open beta while sacrificing some damage. But i would lose out on crit modifiers if using the amulet. Then again no stun might be way better seeing as some high density melee maps i also get stunlocked at times and have died multiple times when Whirling blading out because of desync. So id rather not risk using whirling in HC when open beta starts. So yeah trying to work out these kinks before 23 jan.

Chayula is my favoured ammy at all times because it makes the gameplay so smooth. if you're facing range and you get stunlocked, try to alter your playing style. Projectiles can miss if you're not in the same position all the time, so flicker to one of them, hit them, whirl away, lightning strike, etc. Make use of the fast attack speed style of shadow and keep on moving and they shouldn't be able to hit you as often.

Ya whirling blades can make desync worse so don't spam it too often. Arrow Dodging is fine, you can modify the build any way u want to! it's just a guide :)

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hellzer wrote:

Is there a reason or possibility to successfully add and use knockback on double strike or maybe whirling blades for pvp? Or any other option like that?
Quite annoying thing is to run back and forwards in pvp because someone else is knocking you back and you cant faceroll them. I know this might not be a build for such actions but dual strike has a nice knockback and Id like to have something like that on my 1 hand. Feel free to suggest me any options.

Yup sure go ahead! I haven't been using knockback coz I prefer to go for burst damage and just kill opponents quicker hehe.

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hadesed wrote:

I'd love to thank you for your good work. Not only for the build ( I guess I will modify it for myself anyway) but that "support text" around is great and I have learned a lot from that, also crafting guide job well done. Thank you, more guides like this about game mechanics :) Cheers nd Merry Christmas

Thanks mate, merry christmas to you too! :)

This could be a really dumb question. If every socket is linked in an item (like the chest invalesco uses), then they are ALL linked? (meaning what ever gems you have socketed benefit each other even if they arent directly next to it?

Yes, if faster attacks is in the upper left socket then it also applies to the skill gem in the sixth socket all the way down, as long as they are all linked and if the gems actually work together.

Is there any news about dagger/claw aoe? I hope the dagger/claw aoe skill is finished when open beta hits.

Hi Inva, thanks for the guide - really well written with consideration for early game unlike a lot of other guides. I've played this build 1-60 in HC with trading for other people's old items, but I have a few concerns regarding the viability of this build with only self-found items (since there will not be many good items in the market come first week of open beta.

Hopefully you can help with these:

- I have found the transition to CI very hard gear wise. The first time I played this build to lvl 47ish on HC and needed to transition to CI because the chaos snakes and ranged constructs in a2 were dealing too much damage to me too fast. I had no ES gear from lvling and had to trade for some subpar ones; I also didn't find any granite flasks by then and didn't trade for any. I died shortly after switching to CI without granite flasks because my gear had only ES and no eva/armor. On my 2nd try, I got to about the same lvl, and again didn't have self-found ES gear that were good enough. So this time i spend quite a bit more currency to trade for other people's old items with +20% quality and good mods, including a good dagger and also granite flask which I improved to 20% qual and altered to surgeon + good mod. With that I got through to lvl 60 on HC before i stopped playing and killed merc vaal on HC before I stopped playing that char. So the issue is, how do I deal with not having ES gear and possibly not having granite flasks?

- Second, on my first playthrough I had a 0% quality LS gem and found cleave to be a much better AOE ability (used cleave with 2 rapiers over LS until i went 1H and CI). I then got a 13% LS gem for my 2nd try for the innate pierce from quality and found LS to have an effect you advertised as a good AOE spell. Come open beta though, the LS gem we use for the build will not have quality (until one is found or bought much later). How dependent do you think the build is on a LS gem that has a high enough quality such that enough projectiles are piercing and thus making the aoe better?

- Third, Chris mentioned about CI being changed, how viable is this build without CI? I would think it would lose a lot of power since it is already a very glass-cannon build (without godly gear). Losing blood rage as a result of losing CI makes the damage output a lot weaker and the build may not be able to kill some mobs faster than the mobs kill you. Also losing blood rage makes flickerstrike a lot weaker due to the CD. Is this build viable without CI? I think a lightning templar build would be a lot more versatile without CI, agree?

Thanks for your time.

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Angelolz wrote:

Is there any news about dagger/claw aoe? I hope the dagger/claw aoe skill is finished when open beta hits.

I think Chris did an interview with Kripp the other day, you can check out petrov's summary of it! I think it's in the beta general discussion forum. I'm pretty sure they mentioned something about it there!

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Falkie wrote:

Hi Inva, thanks for the guide - really well written with consideration for early game unlike a lot of other guides. I've played this build 1-60 in HC with trading for other people's old items, but I have a few concerns regarding the viability of this build with only self-found items (since there will not be many good items in the market come first week of open beta.

Hopefully you can help with these:

- I have found the transition to CI very hard gear wise. The first time I played this build to lvl 47ish on HC and needed to transition to CI because the chaos snakes and ranged constructs in a2 were dealing too much damage to me too fast. I had no ES gear from lvling and had to trade for some subpar ones; I also didn't find any granite flasks by then and didn't trade for any. I died shortly after switching to CI without granite flasks because my gear had only ES and no eva/armor. On my 2nd try, I got to about the same lvl, and again didn't have self-found ES gear that were good enough. So this time i spend quite a bit more currency to trade for other people's old items with +20% quality and good mods, including a good dagger and also granite flask which I improved to 20% qual and altered to surgeon + good mod. With that I got through to lvl 60 on HC before i stopped playing and killed merc vaal on HC before I stopped playing that char. So the issue is, how do I deal with not having ES gear and possibly not having granite flasks?

You're welcome :)

And yes, this build is not the easiest to pull off in Hardcore, especially in a fresh economy. It is possible to pull off, but experience is needed. I agree that the transition period is crucial and kudos to you for managing to pull off the transition at level 47, especially when considering that the build is new to you.

The first crucial period when you have to make the decision is in ruthless act2 as you've already mentioned. Unfortunately, it's not always possible to have good gear by then, especially not in a fresh economy.

Out of 4 attempts in HC for a CI character, I only respecced once into CI in Ruthless. The other three were all in merciless, for the same reasons that you mentioned: the lack of gear.

All of the attempts were during one week races which were a zero economy situation, and in one of those races I was ranked 1 from level 40 onwards so there was no one to trade my gear from. In this situation, I resorted to crafting my own gear.

You need to start planning very early as to when you want to respec into CI. If you can't get enough decent ES gear by ruthless, start planning for a ruthless HP build and stack +Life items to get you through. It is possible to play a HP/ES build and get through ruthless vaal, but you'll have to be careful when you play that and not tank too many chaos mobs at once. Experience helps as well, and it's a good thing you're here in CB to beta test and gain experience for OB!

Granite flasks are thankfully easily found by mid level twentys so they should be easily tradeable by the time you need to respect into CI.

You did very well by getting to level 60 in HC on just your second try as a dagger shadow. Not many can do that so well done!

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- Second, on my first playthrough I had a 0% quality LS gem and found cleave to be a much better AOE ability (used cleave with 2 rapiers over LS until i went 1H and CI). I then got a 13% LS gem for my 2nd try for the innate pierce from quality and found LS to have an effect you advertised as a good AOE spell. Come open beta though, the LS gem we use for the build will not have quality (until one is found or bought much later). How dependent do you think the build is on a LS gem that has a high enough quality such that enough projectiles are piercing and thus making the aoe better?

Indeed, I tend to stick to cleave and swords early on as well when playing this build. With the advent of the Fork support gem, LS has gotten better early on as an AoE option. If you don't like fork and prefer LMP, just stick to using LS with the LMP and Pierce support, those will be more than decent enough early on :) not having a quality LS shouldn't be that much of an issue if you can get a pierce support linked with it.

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- Third, Chris mentioned about CI being changed, how viable is this build without CI? I would think it would lose a lot of power since it is already a very glass-cannon build (without godly gear). Losing blood rage as a result of losing CI makes the damage output a lot weaker and the build may not be able to kill some mobs faster than the mobs kill you. Also losing blood rage makes flickerstrike a lot weaker due to the CD. Is this build viable without CI? I think a lightning templar build would be a lot more versatile without CI, agree?

Thanks for your time.

Your concerns are valid and I'm sure every CI user out there is waiting eagerly for news on the supposed CI changes. I will be honest and admit that I do not know how viable this build will be when the CI changes come about. What I can assure you however is that I will still be sticking around when the CI changes do happen and I will be attempting to adapt the build accordingly. If CI is no longer viable, I'll change this build to a HP-based build instead, although I do hope that need wouldn't arise. Yes this build can be viable without CI, i've planned the HP version of it before, but I prefer CI because Melee CI is just that exotic and rare in HC such that to me it was the epitome of achievement being able to build a mele CI character in HC.

a lightning templar build would have very high survivability that is true, however in terms of movement, crit, attack speed etc, it will still lose out to a shadow build. and after having played the fast paceed shadow throughout my time in PoE so far, I find it difficult to give that all up for a slow paced character.

For now, let's just wait and see :)

Falkie, you're talking like if they're going to remove CI or Nerf it a lot. That wont happen. Too many aspects of the game and too many players rely on this keystone. Slightly changes might occur tho.
Blood rage + flicker strike? As far as I remember Chris said they did that on purpose to remove cooldown of flicker due to frenzy charges. And strangely, I saw only few players using flicker.

But if something bad would have happened. I would have to blame Invalesco for his "ridiculous amounts of damage" in his build who was used in BOTW14. lol :)

I'd just like to ask how the supposed CI changes will affect the build, in particular with Blood Rage.

Last night after the short downtime, Chris mentioned in game that they're potentially going to change CI so that chaos damage will drain your ES. I've only started playing again yesterday and don't have CI nor Blood Rage yet.

I'm also not a math person, but judging from the wiki, if you had around 5000 ES, a maxed out Blood Rage would drain 200 ES per second. That seems like a significant chunk to me and you'd need to constantly be fighting and leeching the ES back. If you had low ES and tried the build and ran out of mobs to kill, I think you would die or be at risk of dying when you find the next pack?

Well i hope that if they change CI they will clarify what they are changing before before OB hits.