[3.0] The Azure Knight (Flurry/Frost Blades/Multi-class/Budget/Crit/Life/Conversion) Shaper/Uber

Hi,

first of all thanks for the credits in the leveling section of your guide :)

Acrobatics sounds like a good addition to the build. With the free Phase Acrobatics on The Perfect Form it goes up to ~40% evade / ~12% block / 30 % dodge attacks / 30% dodge spells. I'm a bit worried about the loss of physical damage reduction though. According to PoB it's only 4% (I have 8% atm) but with Abyssus I'm afraid this could make a difference between an almost OS hit and an OS hit. I usually don't really like to rely on RNGs when it comes to survivability.

I want to try this change but I'd like to have your opinion first.

You mean the loss of armour? Personally, I'm an unbeliever when it comes to armour. Back in Breach, when I was playing poison Scourge necromancer, I've tried high armour version (Grace+Iron Reflexes), but in the end I didn't notice almost any difference at all in survivability against end game bosses.

In total, we get almost 5k armour with the flask active. I'm gonna ignore "physical damage reduction" stat on the left side in Path of Building and go by the Damage Taken tab on the right side in "Calc" section as it is more reliable (it includes Fortify and AA, for example).

Let's select 4k incoming physical damage, then numbers look like this:
Basalt, Lion's, AA, Fortify, Endurance charges:
- No Acro: 0.89 damage taken (3560 out of 4000)
- Acro: 0.96 (3840, only 280 damage more)

No Basalt, Lion's (it has 2 uses compared to Basalt), AA, Fortify, EC:
- No Acro: 1.1 (4400)
- Acro: 1.17 (4680, 280 more)

No flasks, AA, Fortify, EC:
- No Acro: 1.23 (4920)
- Acro: 1.24 (4960, 40 more)

No flasks, AA, Fortify, no EC:
- No Acro: 1.4 (5600)
- Acro: 1.42 (5680, 80 more)

So, against bigger hits, difference isn't that noticeable. I mean, when your flasks are active, you are quite protected from the damage anyway, and with Acrobatics you will take slightly more damage but still be fine. Without Lion's Roar, difference is almost non-existent. There is also Taste of Hate that could be added here, making the final damage taken with all buffs and flasks to be:
- No Acro: 0.72 (2880)
- Acro: 0.79 (3160, again 280 more)

Minotaur, for example, will never, ever hit you for 4k raw physical damage (before modifiers) with his normal hits. If it crits, maybe, but you will still survive it, Acro or not, as long as you have your EC up.
However, his burrow attack deals around 7.5k raw physical damage, meaning that with all buffs and flasks on (ToH included), you will still take 5925 damage without Acro. With Acro, this goes up to 6225 damage. More then likely it will one shot you anyway, with or without buffs, if you roll some damage mods on the map, so Acrobatics lowering your armour makes no difference in this case, but chance to dodge this 7.5k attack does make a difference :)
Remember this is a chance to dodge on top of evasion, further buffed by Blind. Ofc against trash mobs you won't have Blind, but trash doesn't pose much problem as long as you are attacking.

Added Ascendant version with appropriate link to its thread, stat section and pastebin in its own thread. Imo, it is the best version so far with 3.0 Ascendant buffs, having great dps and survivability thanks to added Dodge and reflect protection (or amazing leech with Berserker Ascendancy, also improving survivability against reflect).

Please note that none of the other pastebins have the new tree pathing (we get Acrobatics now), and I've still selected "Shock" in fully buffed setup to get real comparison between different ascendancies. Anyway, pretty much every melee build uses Shock option in their pastebins, even if they don't have enough damage to shock any of the end-game bosses, so I'll also leave it on, but you have been warned :)

I would put "hipster build" under cons instead of pros

I wouldn't say it is a con, some people like the fluff and the build does a good job keeping up with the top ascendancy picks thanks to its own benefits. That is, if you talk about Occultist choice, if you roll with Raider/Shadow/Scion/Berserker it isn't hipster anymore, since a lot of people play Ele Conversion Flurry with those.

Thanks a lot for the numbers ! I will respec to Acrobatics and give a try :) I know I'm not that lucky when it comes to RNG but yeah the loss of armor is minimal (and we don't have much anyway) but that 30% dodge on top of evasion sounds cool.

Have a question, im currently on a witch and im questioning what ascendy do i get since i dont udnerstand whats its in the guide

With a Witch you have to choose Occultist
Below is the part of the guide you have to follow

Ascendancy:
Without particular order:
- Profane Bloom: 10% more damage, also a great clear speed boost.
- Forbidden Power: Free Power charge generation - very important on a budget crit build.
- Malediction: A little bit of extra chaos damage. More importantly, allows us to use one more curse, either offensive (Assassin's Mark, Frostbite) or a defensive one (Enfeeble, Warlord's mark, Temporal Chains etc.).

He could also use Necromancer (lowest dps option but quite good survivability with block) or Elementalist (time based or trigger based buffs, so either unreliable or a bit clunky, but also has good dps).
I have removed Elementalist version quite early, as there wasn't much interest in it (same as with Duelist option).

Thanks iktose for replying early, personally I'd recommend Occultist as well :) Ascendancy points as above.

Added Phoenix/Chimera video and shared my current (still shitty) 3.0 equip in the second post.