2.6 - Shadow Assasin - Low life EK - 550k tooltip dps - Shaper easy deathless - facetank [VIDEO UP]

Reasons behind the build

Hi. I dont normally make build guides as I really dont know how to make a good visual guide. I feel its necessary to create a good EK guide as there currently arent any afaik. And EK has been some what labeled as a map clearer rather than a boss killer.

I was a bit frustrated with how experienced players failed to make EK work and also how some of them made videos on youtube on how it just doesnt work out for boss kills such as the guardians and shaper. I told my friend I would create a EK build within 2 days that killed shaper and thats how it all begun. My EK build kills shaper almost as easy as my previous 30ex howa build.

What you get:

Thanks to Archet for trying the build and making a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H9KFlO4pdQ






A build that clear maps faster than my previous 30ex howa ST build. And a build that clears all the content in the game without problems. The build is really fun and fast to play. The build can also be played in hardcore. We have 8k es, 550k tooltip with flasks and 290k dps without flasks. Im sitting at 8k es which feels really tanky and good. This is my favourite character of all time for me.

The build is rather cheap to play and is perfect for a mid league character.

Core items: Shavs (4l) Pledge of hands (6l) and a pressence of chayula amulet.

Estimated cost entire build: 15ex and 20ex with sins rebirth(not needed)

I killed shaper deathless with only atziri flask as extra dps and with hoi and haste as only dps auras at lvl 87. Its not a deathless run everytime but thats where skill and rng decides the result. Some times you just have to take a death to shaper while escaping zanas protective buble. And some times the vortex balls spawns at the worst times possible but even counting those factors in I rarely die more than 1-2 times during a run. I am rather experienced at the shaper fight but this is a face tank build and thats why i said its easy.


The tree

Bandits: passive, passive, power charge
Ascendancy: Deadly infusion and assasinate

https://www.pathofexile.com/fullscreen-passive-skill-tree/AAAABAYBAQMeBUIHHg5IDlwPqw_EEJIRDxEvEVARlhNxFe0WvxbzF7AZihqPGyUdFB1PH0EgbiL0IzYkiyY8KgsqOCsKLJwtHy-dMjI1uTt8QZZFfkcGSVFJsUqLS65Ms1AwUxBUvViuXEBca1yKXfJepV9qY0NqjGr6bAhsC20ZcFJ1_XvXfll_xoRIhG-ExY5kj0aP-pMnlS6Wi5cGm6GbtaEvoqOi2acrrJius7DYtUi2-rjKuZO8b76KwwnDOsNtxKLIFNAf0NDQ9dRC1bnXz9lb2YbbXtvn6QLrY-v174jv6_DV8YryHfLh9W_22vem99f5N_sJ (lvl 91 tree)

Jewels: (EK Nova, energy from within, and 2 jewels with some dps stats such as generic proj dmg, cast speed, crit multi, phys dmg etc.

Gems and items

6l Pledge of hands: EK(21) - faster casting - life leech - inc crit strikes - controlled destruction - added fire

4l shavs: enlighten(3) - haste - blasphemy - warlords mark (lightning golem)

4l boots: Lightning warp - rapid decay - faster casting - reduced duration

4l helm: blood magic - herald of ice - discipline - enlighten(3)
(Get projectile speed on your helm enchant as it increases the range of your projectiles)


We also run a orb of storm power charge on crit setup for bosses and a secondary weapon setup with brierot flag shield to generate 2 power charges when we press enduring cry. We do this before boss fights so we can enter the fights fully charged. We do some times swap during boss fights to generate charges (inside zanas protective buble etc.) But we mostly just place our orb of storms.

Pledge of hands gives us a free lvl 30 spell echo on top of the 150-160% inc spell dmg. Its BIS by far. Since EK is a spell we do need the life leech gem to leech. Its not possible to run this build without that gem and thats why pledge of hands is by far the BIS item for EK and any other spell as well. The only reason we use warlords mark is to leech mana. WL and any other curse is super bad vs bosses such as shaper (80% less effect) and it cant leech life at all. But luckily we dont need to leech much mana so it works for that. Whenever you fight a totem boss or a boss you cant leech from you need to pop the vaal clarity which we also have equipped into our setup. The builds feels very balanced and good and the only map mod we cant run is phys reflect.


Sorry for the bad layout of this build guide. My first time. Enjoy the currently best publicly known EK build for version 2.6 Cheers

A great guide need some video sir

"

RedStark wrote:

A great guide need some video sir

Thank you mister. I will try to make a video tomorrow and will hopefully upload a shaper kill and some generic map clearing by either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Interesting. Might try it out.

I have been testing out this build for a couple of hours now, and I must say I do like it a lot!

Current tree (lvl92) http://poeurl.com/bfe3

Profile https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/archet/characters (Sniffelim)

Current gear



The only thing that is bothering me a bit is the fact it's rather mana thirsty. I do have vaal clarity and warlordsmark, but feel i should have a bit more. Maybe get the leech enchant on boots?

Would appreciate if anyone could give me suggestions and advice on how to scale the build further.

Thanks for posting the guide.

Made a quick shaped strand video for anyone interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H9KFlO4pdQ


Edit: This is with a lvl19 EK, lower level gems and far from optimized gear.

"

Archet wrote:

Made a quick shaped strand video for anyone interested

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H9KFlO4pdQ


Edit: This is with a lvl19 EK, lower level gems and far from optimized gear.

Thanks a lot for making this video. As i dont usually make guides/videos this helped me out a lot as I was really not looking forward to making a video :D

Would be great if you did a shaper atempt as well. For shaper I change out one ring with a dream fragments ring to be immune to freeze and chill. I lose 1k es by doing this and im also not RES capped but since shaper only does cold dmg we are cold res capped and it just feels so much better. No stupid deaths because of freeze/chill. The miniboss before shaper part 3 can be a probelm if you dont have freeze immunity.

I think you should probably wait for a lvl 20 / 21 EK gem before you try doing shaper. As a tip for shaper I dont usually facetank the beam but i facetank the melee attacks.

In the mean time I hope you enjoy blasting the maps. You have the same playstyle as I do. Lightning Warp into packs and just clear everything in seconds :)

"

Archet wrote:

I have been testing out this build for a couple of hours now, and I must say I do like it a lot!

Current tree (lvl92) http://poeurl.com/bfe3

Profile https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/archet/characters (Sniffelim)

Current gear

The only thing that is bothering me a bit is the fact it's rather mana thirsty. I do have vaal clarity and warlordsmark, but feel i should have a bit more. Maybe get the leech enchant on boots?

Would appreciate if anyone could give me suggestions and advice on how to scale the build further.

Thanks for posting the guide.

Hey man, your gear looks pretty good tbh. I dont have mana issuses. I only use clarity vs leech immune mobs. I have 505 mana avaiable with 57 to max mana on my helm and it feels rather good. Its important to be in range for warlordsmark to do its leech. I did run the build with some different auras/curses where i reserved even more mana and it still felt good back then but this is the best setup and it will also make the build less mana thirsty. I have elemental penetration on my boots but since we dont do much ele dmg you could very well use leech on the boots as that would probably be alot better for qol.

10/10 would recommend this build, killed shaper afew times on it, deathless. pretty much facetank with flasks

dual VB would be significantly more damage than Pledge of Hands, provided you have a way to keep power charges up against all content, and then you also lose fortify on leap slam

still, just saying, this build can get a good bit more damage if you really want