[3.24] 🗡The Nightblade🗡 Unholy Might : 100% phys converted to chaos

New league announcement is coming next tuesday. Some say that after 3.6 for casters and 3.7 for melee, 3.8 will be for range builds, with a rework of the Raider.
So, this build may not see as many buffs as in 3.7. There are even suspicions of a nerf on Impale. Whether it will be true or not, I have begun to rework the skill tree, with less emphasis on Impale and much more on the nodes on the right side, with Silent Steps for instance. The goal is to feel even more Assassin : dodge, evade, phase and kill fast.

Impale gives us the possibility to ramp up dmg, with max DPS reached on the sixth hit. But it's not that useful against mobs, since you don't need that many hits to kill them. So, I'm testing the removal of Impale nodes on the tree, in favor of other offensive nodes like the channelling clusters. This way, you get more dmg on each hit, so farming become faster and smoother. Even though the bosses may take slightly longer to kill, as our max DPS is reduced.
But that seems worth to me.

Here is a demo of these changes so far in my new video :
#17 : T16 - Dancing with Chimera

Hope you like it :)

Ofc, I'll post more infos when we know about 3.8, including a new PoB link.

Ok fellow players, put on your black pajamas and sharpen your daggers : 3.8 "contains significant revamps for the Saboteur, Assassin and Necromancer classes" !

I think this build be efficient in 3.8.
With BF + Pulverise support and multiple totems, we can already build a kind of mini tower defense ^^
Also, Legions are large groups of small mobs, while the Blight seems to send huge mobs on a smaller objective, the pump you protect with towers. And hitting a few hard mobs is precisely what BF excels at !

As the rework for the Assassin goes, we will enjoy an Elusive Ascendancy for more evasion (we don't know the details yet) and more emphasis on Poison. Maybe the time to test Herald of Agony and more poison supports for BF.
The new unique amulet for Frenzy and Power charges looks cool.

I'll try to do new videos in Std for testing the Timeless Jewels and some in League to help Sister Cassia with our dear green channelled blasts !

While waiting for more infos about 3.8, I have made a new video.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to survive in Wraeclast. See how with this furious and badass best of blade flurry :
#18 : Blade Fury !

If you watch only one video to see this build in action, this is the one.

Enjoy :)

Congrats to fellow player mgxPq07U, who has made his into the ladder -see his page on poe.ninja : https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds/char/mgxPq07U/HarvestmoonLegion?i=0&search=class%3DAssassin%26skill%3DBlade-Flurry%26sort%3Ddps

Congrats for reaching level 98. You've actually pushed the build farther than me, as I am level 94 (trying to reach 95 but it's tedious !)

New build version for 3.8 : The Invisible Killer

3.7 was all about physical damage and Impale. It has been a huge buff for us. The build I have devised was intended to use all these new mechanics, making us 60% Assassin and (at least) 40% Duelist -with a bit of Rage added to the mix !
The DPS was awesome, soaring to more than 10M DPS with all buffs.
That's the magic of PoE that you are not limited to an archetype, and you can use all mechanisms that seems to belong to other Ascendancies (Impale is very Champion, Rage is Berseker etc.)

With 3.8, Assassin Ascendancy is getting a rework and, says GGG, « The Poison Assassin, once the most dominant play style in Path of Exile, is returning (almost) to its glory days! »
(Oh, GGG, how I love when you say « almost »! )

We will still be able to Impale our enemies and go full Rage, but before that we will learn to move, hide and stab for the darkness.
We will become masters of stealth and kill our opponents before they even know what's coming to them.
Let's take the first steps on the way of the shadow...



First, we use Aspect of the Cat.
This is a powerful aura which gives two alternating buffs, Cat's Agility and Cat's Stealth.
When you are under Stealth, you have 50% reduced visibility to enemies.
If you get Phase Run at the same time, you gain another 50% reduced visibility, meaning you aure invisible !

Invisibility does not mean 100% evade chance, though.

* The Aspect can be found on the Farrul's helmet, but at the expense of our dear Starkonja.

The best option is to get the Aspect on the boots or a ring, where there is no required unique.
I have crafted this ring with Aspect and Warlord's Mark :

* Phasing sources include :
- From The Shadows node on the tree : 4% chance on kill
- Quartz flask, with 10% chance to dodge spells and attacks

For the flask, get the Experimenter duration mod or "25% inc effect/33% less duration" Alchemist prefix, which will grant you 12% attack and spell dodge.

- Farrul's Fur body armour : you get phasing while under Stealth and go up to your max number of power and frenzy charges when you gain Stealth. An amazing QoL, for which you'd need to pay a huge price : expect 30ex+ for a 6-link in STD.
- Haste + Watcher's Eye : gives perma-phasing at the cost of 50% mana reserved and a loss of DPS.

I have removed Pride aura to make room for the Aspect, and I'm adding :
- Herald of Ice for farming. Excellent way to instant freeze/shatter enemies, especially the Porcupines
- Herald of Purity for bossing.
On the BF setup :
- Ice Bite to generate Frenzy charges (since I have chosen Warlord Mark on the ring). Replace with Vile Toxins or Impale for bosses.

I have removed the Impale nodes from the tree and taken :
- Crystal Skin : 5% reduced elem dmg taken.
- Silent Steps : 5% reduced dmg taken from blinded enemies + blind immunity. With the Sand Stance, nearby enemies are always blinded.

We could also get Bloodletting (5% reduced dmg taken from bleeding enemies) but it's a bit far off the tree and we can't reliably bleed enemies.
On the tree, I'll probably get Phase Acrobatics too (30% spell dodge), but that could also be dmg or life nodes.

Ofc, we are going to use the new Elusive buff, which "grants 40% increased movement speed as well as 20% attack and spell dodge".
We will also take the Ascendancy node that will buff Elusive (waiting for infos next week).

Then, we'll get the new Nightblade support, which "grants base critical strike chance, and supported skills will also grant Elusive on Critical Hit. Elusive granted by attacks supported by Nightblade also grants Critical Multiplier to Nightblade supported skills, and because the multiplier is part of Elusive, it scales with Elusive Effect, granting over +100% to Critical Strike Multiplier at level 20 when first applied". - see here

It doesn't get any more Assassin than this !

*

In the first message, you will always find the 3.7 Impale version of the build, but I will highlight the new 3.8 Invisible version.

I'm still making tests for the new version of the build.

I made a mistake in previous message : Phase buff itself does not grant 50% reduced visibility to enemies. Only Phase Run does grant it while active.

So you need Cat's Stealth + Phase Run to get 100% invisibility.
I have just tested it and it works : when you have both, mobs simply don't attack you.

So what I have done is this : removed CwDT from Phase Run. Now I manually trigger it and raise it to level 20 (same for Cold Snap while I am at it).

I have tried in a map with "enemies have 90% chance to avoid elem ailment", meaning Ice Bite is useless : I can't freeze them so I can't get Frenzy charges to increase Phase Run duration.
Even in this worst-case scenario, Phase Run can still make you invisible for a split-second, giving you the time the rush into a pack and blast them with the short buff. Even better against rares, ofc.

My skill bar :



(Inc Duration is linked to Phase Run and Cold Snap)

On Twitter and Reddit, Natalia_GGG has teased numerous content for 3.8, including the reworked Necromancer, Saboteur and Raider ascendancies. We are still waiting for Assassin, so let's hope she has kept the best for last !
I am sure Elusive will be a huge asset for our defense. I reserve my final judgement about the new Poison crit mechanics. Let's hope for the best.

Our reworked Ascendancy has just been revealed !



And it delivers the goods on time, just like a Uber-Assassin delivery man which throws you a steel-teethed poisoned pizza then back-stabs you with the butcher knife from Bino's Kitchen and disappears in a cloud of smoke laughing maniacally.

*

The new Elusive buff grants "40% increased movement speed as well as 20% attack and spell dodge".
With the Mistwalker node granting 25% inc effect of Elusive, these bonuses become : 50% movespeed and 25% atk and spell dodge.

On top of that, while Elusive, we take no extra dmg from crit while elusive, have 20% inc atk and cast speed and take 8% reduced damage !
So this node is simply amazing.
(Also, notice how the node is far from the other, like it's... elusive !)

The Elusive buff decays over time and has several ways of being refreshed, by using some of the new skills like Withering Steps.
We will still have to see exactly how to get the most uptime for it.

My advice for the Ascendancy :
1) Mistwalker, if only for the movespeed bonus early on, which is a huge asset to run through the acts.
2) Unstable Infusion, for the constant power charge generation and +1 max Power charge.

Then, for the Merciless and Eternal Lab, it depends if you want to go Poison or not.
If yes, 3) Noxious Strike and 4) Toxic Delivery.

If no, 3) Ambush and Assassinate and 4) Deadly Infusion

Opportunistic is a very situational node : take it instead of Deadly Infusion if you intend to fight/farm Shaper (then you get 20% more dmg) and Uber Elder (10% reduced dmg taken).

My personal choice will be the Poison way, as I just like chaos dmg. I don't expect a lot of DoT dmg from the Poison itself (it seems that Pathfinder will still be better at that), but as before, poison gives nice secondary bonuses : regen, crit chance and 20% phys as extra chaos.
But I still need to test the new poison skills, while BF remains our main attack.

With the end of Legion, I've been able to test the Timeless Jewels in STD.

By socketing the Brutal Restraint near Acrobatics, I have tested Dance with Death. I've made some endgame maps and Delve 350+ and I haven't noticed a huge difference in DPS. That's probably some more dmg, but all in all, I'm not sure it is that useful for us.

Best option IMO remains to find a good Brutal Restraint and socket it right from Shadow, where there are plenty of notables available. This is the more balanced option. And I think this game is all about balance.



- Glorious Vanity is too random to be reliable.
- Elegant Hubris can give huge notables but you lose a lot of small nodes.
- Militant Faith does not seem very adequate for our build either. It's rather spell-oriented.
- Lethal Pride is more armour/fire/burning/totems, so less chances to get smth interesting for us.
-

Thank you so much for the detailed guide. I am excited to use this for the start of 3.8! First time doing a BF build.