Passive tree: shadow starting area

I've been mulling this for a while, and the current iteration of the shadow's first two nodes - physical on the one side, elemental on the other - has been bugging me. I think I now know why.

With the other classes, it's possible to make an "archetypal", reasonably-optimal class build that uses both starting nodes (or in the case of the Scion, more than one). With the Shadow, the bonuses are, in effect, mutually exclusive: either you're going for physical damage, or not.

Great, so that's the criticism, but what's the suggestion?

I'm not 100% sure on this, still, but I think swapping out "physical damage" for "damage over time", and "elemental damage" for "global critical strike chance" would be both more thematic (what better skills for an assassin than poison and that One Good Stab?) and potentially synergistic - though I admit that not many Shadows would go for both, I suspect it'd still be more than presently do, and I think that would be a good change.

generally agree with point one, though many elemental conversion/extra builds would like both. that being said, i don't really see why this is a problem (anomalous though it might be)?

i also think dot sees less use than either of those.

Mostly, it bugs me because it's a good chunk of the first impression for the class, and it's just "damage". Plus a bit of life or energy shield, also in similar quantities. Nothing that even gives a hint of playstyle if (as in the case of most newbies) you're not really clear on what makes elemental damage different from physical damage.

And of course damage over time doesn't see much use now - there aren't that many skills applying it, after all, once you ignore ignite (Poison Arrow, Fire Trap, Desecrate, Viper Strike, Puncture I think is the exhaustive list), but also the few nodes that improve it are scattered and uninspiring for anyone who isn't using at least two kinds of it.

well technically most DoT effects scale based on original damage, as well as the damage type, so you don't need DoT-specific boosts to use it. but still a valid point. FYI, RF also counts as degen, and I think that there are a few others.

arguably, the class isn't supposed to hint a playstyle to you because classes aren't actually related to playstyle in PoE. on the other hand, it'd probably be more helpful to newbies if they *could* glance at a class, and see what they can do with it in a simple, easy-to-grasp manner.

On the other hand, looking at even just the main area of that tree makes it pretty clear that it's all about crit and status effects, and moving to the outer area shouts "daggers, mother****er" with options for claws or bows.

regardless, i dont think that DoT belongs as a first node, because ALL of the first nodes are very generally applicable. I'd grant the crit chance as one (likely the top) and suggest switching the bottom one to attack speed, as the first wheel has that in the subvein anyway, and ias is very well established as an acceptable (and good) first node.

Every physical build deals some elemental damage... unless you really skip Hatred, added fire, Heralds...

A better point is that most elemental spells don't give a flip about physical damage.

And so, I'd make the first node that is physical:

11% increased damage
.6% life regen

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Every physical build deals some elemental damage... unless you really skip Hatred, added fire, Heralds...

Yeah, but are they ever going to go for a half-power generic damage node?

I'd like there to be valid builds that pick both starting nodes, but also ones that avoid one or the other (e.g.: a minion witch will likely avoid the spell damage starting path, while the rarer-but-still-possible blood magic witch avoids the mana regen path; many witches take both).

I do acknowledge that damage-over-time as a replacement starting node is probably the weakest part of this suggestion.

I agree that the shadow area is lacking, however I do not like your suggestion for Damage over time, it seems a bit too niche.

I think first one should look at the *other* characters in the tree. Pretty much all of them have a defensive and an offensive path - some of them have a stronger focus on the offensives such as duelist/ranger. I

I think shadow could potentially follow a similar principle, but I don't quite know whether GGG wants certain aspects in that area of the tree or not. I still have an example of a pure offensive orientied shadow below though.

Some general ideas what to throw in there:
- Damage: Generic Inc Damage, then Physical/Elemental OR Spell/Melee (note: templaralready has this, feels a bit duplicate)
- Utility/Defense: Crit & Crit Multi, possibly Accuracy+Crit / Spell Crit
- Defense: Hybrid ES/Life nodes (best I think because shadow can go either way Life/ES/Hybrid and with the EB change I think it's a non issue), possibly Mana/Regen HP nodes (since lacking currently).
- Defense 2.0: ES/Eva & Life/Eva Paths
- Defense 3.0: Life+Global Defense and Block Path


My favorite so far:

Alternative focusing on the offensive aspects of shadow spreading the nodes out a bit more, so the "inc dmg" nodes are a bit more gated as well:

With your idea of adding the critical focus into one of the trees (though it might be a bit too good, since there's a *TON* of generic crit in the shadow area after that..:

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Every physical build deals some elemental damage... unless you really skip Hatred, added fire, Heralds...

A better point is that most elemental spells don't give a flip about physical damage.

I think your point is good, but keep even so with adding elemental damage bassed of physical, the relative effectiveness of elemental nodes is much worse though. Like if you use hatred, added fire, it adds around 75% elemental dmg based off your phyiscal (at lv20). Which means an elemental node roughly only has ~0.57% effectiveness compared to a physical counterpart with the same value. The only time you get the full strengh is actually doing 100% conversion to ele of physical.