[2.6] [SC/HC] Shrapnel Shot Assassin - The Cold Archer King [High damage and clear speed]

Hello guys (sorry my english),

I've always found it interesting that Shrapnel Shot's mechanics create a cone in front of the attack, causing double damage (100% more) if the enemy is hit by the arrow and the cone. But I still did not find this interesting enough to test. For my luck in patch 2.6 GGG launches Collateral Damage threshold jewel, which causes the cone to double damage and gain area effect, totaling 200% more damage to the cone and 50% increased area effect (if you use 2). So I did a preview in the Path of Building and I decided to test the build and I'm here to show some results.

Goal with this build:
- Easy to play.
- High damage (shotgun effect).
- High clear speed.
- One shot packs.
- Relatively low budget (5L).
- Defense based on Dodge (50% attacks and 40% spells) and a bit of evasion with Arctic Armour.

Play style
Use Blood Rage and simply run around the map cleaning up a lot (take care because that this build you use Vaal Pact). Be careful with this style of game in hardcore, be more careful.

Why Shrapnel Shot?
Collateral Damage (200% more damage and 50% increased area effect), pierce inherent, cone damage (big area, 86% increased area effect with Q20% gem and passive tree), no need to use any LESS gem preserving its original multiplier and main skill to trash and bosses, no swap gems.

Videos

Ascendancy
Assassin. King of the damage.

Make your way in order to Ambush > Assassinate > Unstable Fusion > Deadly Infusion.

Damage
I did some screenshots as I went along, showing the damage:
Vaal act 2, normal (using Storm Cloud):

Malachai act 4, normal (using Storm Cloud):

Vaal act 2, cruel (using a rare bow):

Malachai act 4, cruel (using the same rare bow):

Vaal act 2, merciless (using the same rare bow):

Damage level 82 (using Lioneye's Glare):

Theoretically using Path of Building:
5L, level 19 gems no quality, 3 Frenzy charges, 6 power charges at level 91 against trash mobs:

Level 91 against bosses with Projectile Weakness and Sulphur Flask (with Primeval Force effect):

Multiply all these values by 3 if you use Collateral Damage and the enemy is in the cone area. For all this damage, I am not counting Hrimburn's ignite damage, nor the possibility of applying shock to enemies by the physical to lightning conversion of Shrapnel Shot or Herald of Ash and Ice on kill effect.

Be very careful with rare enemies with reflective aura, the damage done is very strong and you can die, I died 1 time. Do not use the cone damage to kill, just the arrow.

In general, you can perma freeze on all bosses (non immune), but take care.

Passive Tree
Level 91

Full Build

Unique items
Mandatory uniques:

Optional uniques:
Using the items listed below depends on your elemental resistances capped.

My gear current

Jewels
Rare jewels with life > projectile damage (affect all damage types and double dips with ignite) > generic damage (affect all damage types and double dips with ignite) > cold damage

Bandits
Oak, kill, Alira.

Links
5L: Shrapnel Shot + Faster Attacks + Added Cold + Weapon Elemental Damage + Cold Penetration

6L: + Critical Damage or Added Lightning

The other 4L, 5L or 6L: I dont know. :P

4L: Arctic Armour + Projectile Weakness + Blink Arrow + Faster Attacks.

4L: Stone Golem + Blood Rage + Herald of Ice + Herald of Ash

4L: CwdT (Level 1) + Immortal Call + Increased Duration + Arctic Breath or Enfeeble

Reserved.

Hi m8,one question?
Collateral damage jewel work if you have at least 40 dexterity in radius???
Are you sure you have double damage,because you have 30 dexterity in radius on each jewel????

"

Dejan_killer wrote:

Hi m8,one question?
Collateral damage jewel work if you have at least 40 dexterity in radius???
Are you sure you have double damage,because you have 30 dexterity in radius on each jewel????

Yes, no more need allocate points, as long as the points are in radius, only to threshold jewels.

http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Threshold_jewel

2.6.0: Unique Threshold Jewels that applied to specific skills have had their attribute requirements reduced to 40, from 50. They also no longer require those attributes to be allocated.

Updates on this build.
I'm level 90 and the build is particularly strong, very strong, I usually get close to strong enemies (bosses, exiles, unique monsters, etc.) and I get perma freeze every one of them causing high damage, except when I'm on a map with enfeeble + elemental resistance. Only enfeeble I still can freeze, but for a short time, same elemental resistance. The worth map is chance to avoid elemental status ailments, you almost dont have shatter and freeze.

But Shrapnel Shot has some issues. Shrapnel Shot has Collateral Damage, very good jewel, but the recent changes in AoE did not make the SS cone as big as I'd imagined (I thought I could get at least half a screen). To cause double damage you have to stay close to the cone area touching the enemy. The area is not so small, but it is enough to make you very vulnerable if the enemy resists their cold damage. This is a big problem when you are on a difficult map and if you get too close to the bosses you may die, so Shrapnel Shot is pretty bad in these situations where you have to hit the target at a distance and can not cause up to 3 times more damage.

Because this I had trouble with some bosses in particular. Brutus in the Hallowed Ground, High Gardens with damage + resistance mods, Excavation and Death and Taxes last fase.

Because this I am thinking of converting the build to a Tornado Shot elemental, I probably will not be able to perma freeze any more strong enemies but I will have more security and good damage at a distance.

But it's certainly a very good skill that you can play quietly up to the red maps. In the red maps using Shrapnel Shot and its damage cone is very risky depending on the mods maps.

I converted the build to a Tornado Shot and it worked out well, I even killed Abaxoth on a T10 map. But for single target in fact Tornado Shot deals less damage than Shrapnel Shot and SS clear speed is greater than Tornado Shot.

I did not give up SS, the skill is very good with these new threshold gems. But I need to think of ways to make it more efficient, this problem I was having with some bosses needs to be bypassed. I'll think of new solutions. Maybe using Point Blank can help or solve this, I did not want to use this but it could be a solution.

edit: If you just want a build to farm Shaped Strand this build is perfect. The problems related to it that I am trying solve is to farm red maps with complicated mods.