how the f*** to sustain boss fights/single target as shadow?

Life leech is nerfed to shit single target (especially if you are playing with any elemental hybrid skill) and there is no life regen on my tree.

currently I'm use leech, energy shield and specced into pots/flask charges gained/flask duration and eventually want to spec into crit once I get a crit weapon and roll some surgeons flasks to sustain me in 1v1 combat. but that will be pretty hard to pull off and take a while/great gear

I can't think of anything else for the right hand side of the tree in this new expansion (outside of some nifty uniques I don't know about yet.) that's why everyone on the ladder is just playing fucking marauder/left side of the tree life regen. it's the only decent 1v1 sustain there is + then they get to play with blood rage. or they're playing flame totem/some skill that just carries itself (EA)


against tanky/hard hitting bosses once I run out of flask charges man all I can do is run around till ES regens, or port to fill pots.

it feels like shit..

it was so retarded trying to kill merci oak even (merci fucking oak..god damn wtf) although he doesn't hit hard he's just so tanky and you can't port to refill flasks cause he resets. It felt so retarded to move one step, hit him move, hit him for like 5 minutes I just wanted to close the game I was so fucked off at the horrible sustain capability I have

I'm playing 2hander Lightning strike, I do pretty mean damage and I am range, but I am playing tempest so a good majoirty of my passives will be invested into hp/defense

long 1v1 fights just feel so fucking horrible.

thoughts / help appreciated

thanks

yeah, so how the fuck do they expect the right hand side of the tree to sustain in 1v1 combat. the left hand side looks so op now with its huge hp pools and massive amounts of life regen...it's honestly bullshit.

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Z_Fighters wrote:

yeah, so how the fuck do they expect the right hand side of the tree to sustain in 1v1 combat. the left hand side looks so op now with its huge hp pools and massive amounts of life regen...it's honestly bullshit.

Claws. I guess.

Indeed, they should add some Life on hit effects to the right side of the tree to compensate the lack of regen and large HP pools.

so you are ci 2h lightning strike in act2 merciless? thats sort of what Im getting from your post?


edit: ok checked ur build, it looks like life based 2H mace shadow lightning strike? and the reason u have no regen is because you took vaal pact, you actually do have life regen in your tree from the ranger start. you have ghost reaver but from what I can tell you have 168 energy shield total on your gear? Are you thinking like hybrid life + es with a 2h mace shadow lightning strike? It seems like an odd build, Im not sure you can judge a whole class or side of the tree based on how this is working.


Honestly all my melee Rangers on the right run blood rage, you just take the duelist life regen. Right side or left side, imo both are pretty bad unless you are at least going to duelist if not going all the way from right to left or left to right. I dont think shadow is a very good melee class, you want the shadow tree but you dont actually want to start shadow, hes good for other things, shit for melee. I feel like you want to be a ranger and use a claw or dagger, path to the shadow area and the duelist area, forget es, ghost reaver, vaal pact, all that stuff. Thats how you are going to make effective use of that side of the tree for life based melee. If you were using an loh claw with a proper physical melee skill with blood drinker and vitality void specced along with a lot of good physical melee nodes I dont think youd be having the same problems sustaining life on single target.

I'm playing LS as pure range ability hence only projectile nodes. and I have 1% life regen from heart of oak what is not even noticable so I took vaal pact which makes life leech a ton more powerful as it wont suffer from the leech per second new mechanics, problem is there's just not enough of it.

yes I am going life/es hybrid atm 3.2khp and 700 es with discipline. using ghost reaver to sustain my ES to prevent chunk burst damage one shotting me also I am specced into pot's for my HP pool. I made the decision to go Life/es hybrid as it was the only way I could see my self getting a decent effective hp pool I want at least 7k and knew i'd not achieve much more then 5k hp from going into duelist (it was either duelist life pool or scion, duelist was more powerful per point investment), so that is why I didn't go further into duelist. I am just staring to spec into ES and have a lot more to get.

yeah my build is a bit odd, wanted to try something ...odd as it was the only reason I was going to play PoE again. my dps is carried from a 2hander. LS 150% base damage is huge dps with a 2hander and LS allows me to use multi strike for a range attack which greatly takes care of attack speed and the draw back of using a 2hander, they are generally slow. I have much more dps then I would as a duel wield melee with any skill - with the amount of talent point investment into dps that I have (not sure about caster though tbh )

I have no problem sustaining a 5L of mana and abyssal cry.
against packs of mobs I can leech all day.

1v1 fights just feel shit

but I'm talking about the fundamental mechanics, which is all the same for the right side of the tree.

single target sustain..is really difficult to pull off. especially with the right hand side of the tree defenses been so much weaker

You are an AoE spec. Don't be surprised 1v1 fights feel bad. Just as a 2H DS'er wouldn't complain about his AoE clear speed...

On the plus side, portal scrolls are steadily appreciating in value :)

well I have a LS setup for aoe and single target, again LS has a 150%+ base damage modifier which is huge esp with a 2hander and couple LS with some crit it is actually very decent single target.

I am not melee bro, I am playing range. also the shadow/ranger area is really good now for lightning strike due to the huge amount of projectile nodes and perks.

I am pretty much a LA ranger but I'm playing with a 2hander which has FAR more dps than any bow and lightning strike which scales better than most bow skills + gets the perk of using multi-strike for huge amounts of AS..

again, I am not melee. I know shadow is not good at toe to toe combat (AS MELEE) and I never made this guy with that intention.